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Episode 134: Ajit Nawalkha is an entrepreneur, business coach, founder of Evercoach author of The Book of Coaching and a co-founder of Mindvalley – one of the biggest publishers in personal development space. Having found his way from a middle-class family in India to top stages of personal growth and business conferences, he learnt it is possible to create the abundant reality we want. Today he is getting ready to share the strategies that helped him build numerous multiple million-dollar businesses in his upcoming book “Live Big”.
You can find his book on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/2DNFYFo
Transcript:
You’re listening to Episode 134 of The Art of Living big. Hey everybody, welcome to the show today. I have a special guest today. His name is a jet. No welcome. He is an entrepreneur. He’s a business coach. And he’s the founder of ever coach. He’s also a co founder in mind Valley. So you may have heard of ever coach or heard of mind Valley, I talk a lot on the show about when I started to meditate years ago, I used an app and still use an app called Ivana. And that was made by mind Valley. So
just to kind of put
some of the pieces together here. He wrote a book called The Book of coaching, but we’re going to be talking about his new book that’s coming out. Mind Valley is actually one of the biggest publishers in personal development space. So if you haven’t looked into that there’s they have so many good classes and so much great content for you there.
But the cool story, really, I think about a jet is that he has found his way from a middle class family in India, to the top stages of personal growth in business conferences. He he he learned that it’s possible to create this abundant reality that we want. And today, he’s getting ready to share some of the strategies that helped him build numerous multimillion dollar businesses in an upcoming book that he has called, are you ready? It’s called Live big, right? I know, I got very excited.
So I really love this guy. You’re gonna really like this interview. He’s just got a lot to say. And he’s really fascinating in the way that he thinks so. Yeah, so I hope you enjoy it. Let’s go to the show. Welcome to the art of living big. I’m your host, Betsy Pake. And this podcast is designed to share interviews and new ideas to help you redefine what could be possible for your life. Now, let’s go live big.
So thank you for coming on the show.
Absolutely bet. Yeah, I’m excited.
Yeah, so I have read a little bit of the book, I got a little bit of a pre
copy of it. I don’t know if you knew that. I asked.
Because we don’t get for what we don’t ask for a jet.
That’s absolutely true. But the person doesn’t know what you want. Yeah.
So anyway, it’s, it’s really great. Tell me a little bit about this book and, and sort of how it came to be?
Well, it’s long time and making in a way because like, like you mentioned, briefly, I come from a middle class family in a small town, in Jaipur in India, that’s where I grew up, I grew up in a household of about 23 other individuals. And what that causes is, of course, you get to see not a lot of abundance in context of space, or wealth and so forth it so early on in life, I knew that I had to be abundant.
And the journey started when certain mentors of mine gave me a different direction than what life or I taught life should look like, you know, if you’re growing up in India, it’s usually you become a doctor, or engineer or an accountant. And if none of those, then you’re probably useless, or at least that’s how it’s projected to be. And that was my track, I was to become an engineer, until I got directed by this mentor who suggested I could choose to be where I want it to be.
And that changed the course of my life because then I actually chose to not be an engineer that was the first surgeon but that led me to other coincidences, chance meetings, mentors, coaches, so forth, that were introduced me to a voluntary organization Lead me on to become a really really young founder of a company which would not be successful, but then go on to become an intern in a company like mine Valley about a decade ago and said many multi million dollar companies after that building small companies and so forth.
But in the process what had happened so all this along what I learned was that I could be abundant in context of wealth but what I had lost and in the past 10 years or so of my career, even before mine Valley was my affinity and affection towards myself affinity and affection towards life about relationships, building friendships, building, community building, you know, like our total life like health, wellness, well being everything and so they were all there in my life, but I never really fully lived it I got to a point where I was a very stressed out arrogant, not a nice person in many ways, nice person in some ways, but not nice person in many ways.
And it came to a point where I didn’t like myself. And I had to go through that journey, which is I think, was kind of like a rebirth in a way where it was almost like I had to figure out how do I how do I recreate myself but live a life that is not just great from the outside in but great from the inside out? One says, beautiful to look at it from the outside.
Yeah. And I think a lot of people come to that point in their life, right, where they’re going along and they’re doing things and maybe they’re doing the things they were supposed to do. And all of a sudden, they get to an age or something happens. And they go, Wait a second, I’m not being true to myself, and my path and how I’m really supposed to live my life. And so when that happened, and that manifested for you, what were the what, what were the changes that you made? Like, what did you do first? How did that even begin to be a process where you started to shift?
So the first was the realization, I think that’s always the first step is you realizing that there’s something’s wrong, there’s something that’s not or doesn’t sound correct? doesn’t feel right. And that’s that’s how I started the journey. I didn’t feel right about my life. At that point, I didn’t feel right about what was happening. And that allowed me to question everything that was around me, it allowed me to question about my partner at the time, it allowed me to question what is it that I even want?
I’ve always been a very intentional person, I’ve been somebody who says, This is what I want to create in life. And then I go out and do it. Organic action towards it, right? So So I said, Hey, listen, I’m be living a reactive life. I’ve been living a life where I know what would make me look good, is what I ended up doing. Again, again, again, I was really, really successful, a really young age, I became really successful, really engaged. And so I mean, career wise.
And then just as realities that sank in said, you could be career wise, successful, but what about everything else? What about your health? What about your relationships? How are you happy every morning, irrespective if you didn’t have your work, you know, that type of thing. So I was really purposeful in context of work, but not in everything else. And so that realization kind of struck me, which got me to start to question each of the areas of my life and start to really evaluate where I am and where I want to go. Yeah,
your success. I think so many times we attached success to like being abundant with our careers, right? Or that leading up to louder and having money. So now, how would you define success? Does it look different to you, because you’re still highly successful in terms of your career?
So absolutely.
For me, that’s what living big means. It means living life on your own terms, but living a full life, not compromising, not saying, oh, because I have to work I sorry, if I want to make money and must work 10 hour days, if I want to have that car and have that watch or whatever that is your fantasy or have that holiday for all I care, you need to do this or that.
And I don’t think that’s true, necessarily, at this point, not at this stage of our lives. It is it was at a point where we were factory workers and such where Yes, you got paid if you worked eight hours days, but even then the people who were really living bag had a different conversation that they were having with themselves and with the world around them and they interacted with the world differently. And I don’t think it is that difficult. I think what we have done is we have almost held that, that as if it is a secret to living bag and giving everybody else the the education system that simply talks about work hard and make money. It’s more about the flow.
Is it more about flow now instead of hustle, would you say?
I don’t think it was ever about hustle. It was it was it was the day the show. And again, I might go a little bit different in context of the conversation that is hair. But think about it like how we are designed to study how schooling system works, how our goal works, is is is insane and absolutely counterproductive, right?
We we set ourselves to goals. And this is this is just one of the examples. We set ourselves to goals which are either semester wise, because that’s how school works, or utilize force way of setting goals. Because you always are going to set a goal that either you have overestimated yourself or underestimated yourself, you wouldn’t be able to create a goal that actually makes sense. We set out goals that you could get in three years to push ourselves on the pressure of getting it this year, and then get disappointed be get drunk and not feel happy and not feel fulfilled because we couldn’t measure up to an expectation that honestly wasn’t even ours.
Because who says you have to meet a particular goal, right? We get influenced by the external reality what the world says starts to define our goals. And of course it makes you unhappy because you never went out and wrote your own goal. You never really tried to figure out what your goal even should be. Right and that’s that’s really what creates that reality which is also so career focused. Because guess what, we get validation for. We have validation as human beings because we have the right car or the right setup or the right house or right address right Whatever that is, right. But it is about validation versus living a full big life, right.
And that’s my invitation, as well about the book. And that’s my invitation to the world is to say, you really don’t have to choose anymore. You can have all the validation if that’s your experience. And that’s what you want to have nothing wrong with that, if that gives you fulfillment and joy. But I would like to question that, but we’ll do that some other time.
But at the same point of time, you don’t have to limit yourself and only have that one thing or think about, oh, I must sacrifice my entire life. So I can have the right house. That’s just not that just is not needed anymore. It was needed at a point that point has passed. This is the new world is the new reality, the new tools, the new systems, new ways to think about things. And we have further developed many different strategies. And and that’s what we need to think about. You know,
one of the things that I when I talk about living big, I say that living big to me, is different in different times of my life. So there are times where living big to me is just getting everybody to sit down at the table together and have dinner like that’s living big, right? And other times, it’s like, being able to speak in front of a group of 200 people that feels like living back. When you think about living big, how would you define it? What would you say?
So living big is for me is the ability to make a choice. And to be able to say I can choose to be whatever I choose to be today and this moment, this year, this month, this quarter, these 10 years, whatever that is that I want to choose to, I have the choice I can make that choice, I can have that experience the way I want to have that experience.
That’s what loving big is for me. And that in today’s time and I think going further means having the choice in every area of my life, it doesn’t only mean having that choice in the place the destination that I poked for, for my holidays, it means everything. That is the choice that I think is the truest definition of of Lunenburg, at least from my perspective having Yeah,
I like that a lot. I like that a lot having the ability to make the choice. Yeah. When when your book is really kind of divided into three sections. Can you kind of describe those sections? so people know? And they’ll be able to find it like on Amazon? Am I right?
All the bookstores Amazon. Yeah, whatever, whatever Barnes and Nobles, all the tools, you’ll have your local place. It’s available everywhere, your local bookstore all everywhere, basically. But so that three three major sections and their meaning moja magic, which is basically in there 25 different principles that revolve around that.
But what really I focus on and that brings the clarity off the freedom that we talked about just a minute ago is meaning is that’s to restart the idea and the discussion of figured out Hey, what is it that even it even means? Right? What does it even mean living back? What does it even mean? Or what are the elements that really comprise of living a full life living a big life living a life that is full of purpose and passion and, and and and practicality so you can actually really live it fully?
Instead of tying yourself down to saying, Oh, I’m living my passion, so I must not I must work my ass off or something like that. Right? So that’s, that’s kind of the first part which is called meaning. The second part is called Mojo. Mojo is about managing yourself as an entrepreneur, which is the centerpiece and unfortunately, very few books and programs talk about, we mostly focus on specially as entrepreneurs, we focus on the outside, okay, here’s the strategy. Here’s the five part system.
Here’s how you manage your team. Here’s how you do marketing. But you forget about the most critical piece about it for an entrepreneur, which is the entrepreneur. I mean, yeah, forget about ourselves, we forget that the business works or doesn’t work, because we showed up the right way, or we didn’t show up the right way. And that’s what is the discussion that we will need to have in Mojo. And lastly is magic. Magic is where magic is created. This is where everything comes together.
And it gives you the tools and considerations to make when you’re going out in the world and creating the magic that you create in the world. How does it come through? What what to think about what are the insights from other perspectives for you to actually go out and go oh, okay, that’s, that’s, that’s cool. I want to I want that right. And I want to have bad perspective. Oh, that’s how I think about my team. Or that’s how I think about my my ecosystem that generates revenue.
This is how I think about my product. This is how I think about my company culture. All of those things are discussed in the in the area of magic because that’s where the magic of business really begins. That’s where the magic of you being a solo entrepreneur to creating a business of new reality where you can really manage it the way you want. You can create to the whatever size you want to create if you want to big businesses, small businesses.
Matter, that magic portion is what allows you to be able to create that while creating a big life. So it’s, it’s really neatly flows into saying, hey, firstly, what you got to do is really figured out what’s the meaning of everything that you’re doing? What’s the meaning what’s the output that you want of this work in a way, then go ahead and figure yourself out in a really, really cool way. And then finally have the perspective of really clearly magic out there in the world.
And one of the things I really like about the book is that it flows, so you could read it that way. Or you could just pick up any chapter, which is what I really liked about it, you know, sort of open your intuition and go, what do I need to hear today, and each chapter at the end, you go, Okay, wait a second, like, I’ve got something to think about. Now. It’s not I don’t have to go on to the next chapter, I have stuff to think about now, which is something I really appreciated about the book and like the lot,
so So one thing that i and this comes as, as an entrepreneur, and as somebody who reads a lot, myself is what I’ve realized, is the best books are not the books that give me the ABC steps. Because usually, as an entrepreneur, I never followed the ABC steps. I mean, when was the last time you wrote a book and copied exactly what the person told you into your reality, never.
And that never works. If you did, you would see soon enough that it has to be made more for you. Because we are all so different, that we create the reality that would fit our structure that would fit what we need. Now. So I wanted to write something that more than saying, Hey, here’s step one, through five, I wanted to give entrepreneurs what they really need, I trust every entrepreneur to be outrageously smart, and very dedicated to creating what they want to create.
And that’s my perspective, too. And for professionals as well. They’re very smart species generally, right. And we also are very hardworking and dedicated. That’s why we are reading books and creating all these different amazing things out in the world. So I trust that for the entrepreneur. And I say, if I can shift perspective, if I can give the right insight, if I can present an argument, that’s all an entrepreneur needs, and then they go out and create whatever they got to create in the world.
And that’s what this book does. This book is an argument for you, it’s an argument in support of you, it’s a perspective shift in support of you. It’s, it’s an insight in support of you, for you to be able to intuitively open and go, Hey, I feel like I need to answer some questions around how I’m approaching my team. Well, intuitively, hopefully, that chapter is going to open up and just call the home team or the chapter which, which says, or let them go, which you may or may not have read as yet, as of now, but these are chapter, these chapters that addressed the idea of how to approach the team that will last your last lifetime, right?
Without you feeling the stress of managing a team and so forth. And these are just some of the chapters that are getting discussed there, which will ideally bring a perspective shift. And what we’ve done is just to add on to that, because sometimes, as much as we shift the perspective, I didn’t want to leave an entrepreneur just Okay, now shift to the perspective.
Now what, what we did is we said, okay, we will present some real case studies, some real tools and strategies, if you want to look at certain live examples to see how to bring it to reality. And we have added added that in the membership area that you get as a part of the book.
So as you get the book, you flip to the pages, you’ll find a secret link that allows you to go to a website, and actually read the real case studies implementing those ideas, you get to actually see some of the practical exercises that you can do to actually get the output in a very different way, or actually read through some of the clear strategies for you to create time, freedom for yourself, or strategies like that. But we actually go out and do that, as well as a follow up to the book. So firstly, the book is an invitation.
It’s like a desk side coach that you just always have my other side, and you flip over to a page. And hopefully, it’ll give you the right insight at the right time. And at the same point of time, of course, this book also comes with a fault with the follow up program for you to actually take some of these ideas and learn more about how these case studies were built and how you can take that back to your company, if you choose to have it that way.
Yeah, I like that. It’s like a little interactive.
Yes, it is
visions. visions book, code of the extraordinary mind had that sort of back end system. And it made the whole book a whole lot more impactful, right, because you were able to like interact with it. One thing I want to point out before we finish up is that if somebody’s listening and they’re not an entrepreneur, this book is still really good if you work for a company or you manage your home, right so the strategies in there can really be helpful for teams whether your team is like a group of kids or your team is a company you work at or your own company so I really think that a lot of the the stories and chapters in there are impactful no matter what your what your job is.
Absolutely no It’s very, very useful. You’re could be a professional, you could be working in any work environment, even your home management, it might be that some chapters you won’t be able to relate if you’re just managing home just because they’re written in different contexts. But But your intuition your
your interest.
Exactly. That’s exactly that is so true.
For everyone, yeah.
Well, I have loved having you on. Thank you so much, Jeff, for coming on the show. I feel like someday I will be at a mind Valley event. And we will sit down and chat a little further and have you back on the show. So thank you. Absolutely. Love to be back. All right. Thank you. Thanks for listening to today’s show. You can find a Jets book on Amazon.
I’ll also put a link to it in the show notes. So it’s easy for you to find. If you liked this episode, or you liked any of the episodes, be sure to share it with your friends. It makes me jump up and kick my heels together. So thank you so much for all that you guys do to to listen and share and give feedback on the show. I really appreciate it. So I’ll see you next week. And as always, here’s a little message from my husband.
That’s it.
