S2: Episode 16: Monisha Bajaj, Founder of Ruam Chuay in Bangkok and Business Strategy Execution Consultant

"Deconstruct what we've been taught and build back up with the skills and perceptions we need." 

Monisha lives in Bangkok, Thailand where she founded Ruam Chuay, a not for profit which assists people of all ages and genders in understanding what can be done about violence and sexual violence in relationships. Monisha also works with business owners who are on the cusp of moving from strategy to operational execution. There are many synergies between these two roles.
 
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Thank you Jann Danyluk, Career Resilience.

Transcript

  | 00:04 | Hello and welcome to season two of Career Resilience, where we talk with people about their career path and their career journey and maybe we can all learn from each other. My name is Jann Danyluk and I'm a human resource resources consultant in London, Ontario, Canada. I work with Ford Keast LLP, providing human resources advice and counsel to my business clients. I also support people through individual one on one coaching in helping with career development.
 | 00:32 | I hope you will enjoy our series where we talk with ordinary, extraordinary people. We get to hear about interesting journeys. We get to talk with people about failures, successes, advice and counsel to us as we develop our own careers. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk with these people, and I hope you will enjoy listening to us. And now for some logistics, please subscribe on YouTube. Or if you're a listener, please follow me wherever you get your podcast.
 | 01:00 | And if you have a chance, I hope you'll visit my website, Careerresilience.com. Welcome. Welcome to Career Resilience, Monisha Bajaj. Thank you so much for having me. It's nice to be here. Well, it is so great to talk with you across the world.
 | 01:27 | So we'll get into where you are, but today we're going to be talking about your career, which I feel you might not feel, but I feel Manisha is completely split into. I want to chat about that and maybe how you see your career as entwined. So we'll get into that. Let's start with where you are and where you live. Where are you? I am in Bangkok right now, so I'm in Thailand. That's in Southeast Asia.
 | 01:57 | This is actually where I was born and brought up. I typically when people hear my voice, though, they're like, you kind of sound American. And that's because I did live in California for a few years. And so now my Home base is Bangkok. But typically I split my year between Bangkok and Berlin. Berlin? Why Berlin? I started out and we'll probably get into it somewhere.
 | 02:25 | But after I left the US, I started doing the location independent, sometimes referred to as digital Nomad life. And I found that I was traveling really fast when I first started, like hopping from country to country really quickly. And then I realized a more sustainable way to do it would be to find two home bases or that I could anchor myself in and then travel from there. So that's kind of how that happened. It felt like a nice and central and artsy place to be Berlin.
 | 02:55 | And then Bangkok is I'm a city person. So I like that you are a city person and you live in a very big city and you've been born in a very big city. And I can tell you that personally probably the biggest city. Well, I lived in Toronto, Canada, for a while, so that's a few million people. But other than that, really maybe 300, 400,000. And I think from where you live. That's a neighborhood. Yeah. We're quite densely populated here.
 | 03:25 | Yeah. So is there a lot of high rise living? Yeah, in Bangkok there's a lot of high rise buildings, and they keep getting taller and taller. Like, the building that I grew up in is twelve stories. And it used to be the tallest building in the street way back when it was built. And now it's the shortest building in the street. So do you live in an apartment type? Yeah, I live, yeah. Most people in the center of the city will live in an apartment.
 | 03:54 | There's a few houses around different nooks and crannies, but very much apartment living. Okay, got it. How do you think living in a big city has shaped you in particular? I like that question. I think living in a city just gives you so much more, at least in these types of cities. So Bangkok is very international. It's a much transited location. There's lots of travelers, lots of expats, lots of different diaspora communities.
 | 04:22 | I'm a member of a diaspora community, and I went to an international school, so I think there was an international field built into city life. At least that's something that I like. And then on a more practical note, I love being able to walk everywhere. And so that's a really nice thing as well, to be able to access things and walk everywhere and get a variety of experiences in that, too. You said you're a member of a Diazpara. So there is like, I'm Thai Indian, so I was born in Thailand.
 | 04:54 | I have Thai passport, Thai nationality, but my ethnicity is Indian. So my family has been jogging, but we've been here for generations. So everyone is Thai, but we're several generations in here, and there is a community of Thai Indians as well. Let's chat about education first, just so we can get some context here. Tell me about your educational background. So I grew up, as I said, in Bangkok, and I went to an international school here. As is customary for international students, we typically look abroad for our further education for University.
 | 05:27 | And I ended up going to the University of Southern California. I think that's where my accent was shaped when I was there and I studied. I had this I know you mentioned in the opening, like, I have a very split career, and I feel like that interdisciplinary is probably the way to even describe my education. So I had a communications major, a minor in music industry, and then a certification in cybersecurity.
 | 05:55 | So I was in the communications and journalism school, the music school, and the engineering school. And so I had a very mixed degree as well. And that was something that for a while I thought, oh, man, this is like I feel like that generalist that doesn't know how to put this all together. But then I realized there's actually, like, the deeper and deeper you get into it, and then you learn there are so many connections that I made across each field that I studied, and I started to see themes emerge across them.
 | 06:26 | And then I was like, okay, cool. I can actually see different areas that I want to apply this to. And so I think it kind of gave me a different lens. Instead of going with a very clear like, here's my discipline, here's my next step on the career ladder. I had to decide, what problems do I want to solve in the world and how can I apply my skills to that problem? And so that's kind of how it all starts to come together for me. So I see that in terms of as you came out, but as you were going in, what did you have in mind as I was going in when I applied to University?
 | 07:03 | I'm remembering back now, it's been a while, but when I applied to University, I definitely applied to a bunch of different programs across different schools. And I was like, this will help me sort of narrow it depending on where I got into. One of the reasons I chose the University of Southern California was because I knew it would give me flexibility to explore a couple of different things. It came down to a University in Japan and then the University of Southern California.
 | 07:30 | For me, when I was deciding and the flexibility that USC gave me to be like, okay, you can come in as this. You can explore different things, and then you can kind of figure it out was a big draw for me because going in, I kind of was like, I know I have these different interests, and I have this kind of background. And so I went and I even switched my major at one point from communications to industrial systems engineering. And so for me, I went in with a lot of curiosity, just kind of wanting to learn, and that's kind of what drove me. I thought maybe journalism.
 | 08:01 | But then I wasn't fully sure. And I went in, and I was like, I just got to do it to know, when you left University, did you deliberately decide to travel and have this location independent life? So I actually stayed the idea for location independent life. Now that we're talking about, I'm pretty sure that seed was planted when I was in University around that time. There were a few books out about that topic. It was very new.
 | 08:31 | It was very new. It was like freeway pre-pandemic. Remote work was not the norm at all. But I heard about that. I heard about that lifestyle when I was at University, and it piqued my interest. And like a really good friend of mine, I would have a chat would have chats about it and be like, it would be so cool to be able to do that one day. And I always thought it would have to be later in my career, like, I have to establish myself. And then really after that, figure out how I can use that to be like, okay, now I've established myself, let me get flexibility.
 | 09:01 | But what ended up happening was after graduation, I got swept back up in a job hunting with everybody else. The seed was planted, but then I kind of got swept back up. Everyone's applying for jobs. And so I ended up landing my dream job at the time, which was a producer at content marketing agency in Southern California. And I loved that role. It also let me stay interdisciplinary because it was a mixture of copywriting project management and client facing communication.
 | 09:33 | And it was a very cool role. And then to stay in the US, I needed them to sponsor my working visa because I was international. They did apply, but the lottery didn't play out in our favor. And so one year after being there, I didn't get to stay. And so I was forced to go home. And I was like, okay, what can I do with this? This was a setback for me at the time because I was super happy. It took me a while to find my footing, find that job and do that.
 | 10:03 | So it was kind of a setback at that time. But then I was like, okay, how can I make the most of this? How can I turn this into an opportunity? And so I was like, okay, that seed that had been planted before kind of came back, and I was like, well, I could try and see if I can negotiate a remote contract with them. And I did. I brought it up to my manager very nervously. I used to be super shy, much more shy than I am today. I bought it up with them, and they agreed to a three month trial of that because it's relatively new.
 | 10:32 | It was very new to have someone be in a totally different time zone. They had flexibility on the continent, but in a totally different time zone. So I negotiated a three month agreement with them. Once we did that, it became eight months. And then after that, I renegotiated to a contract agreement because I realized that if they're going to let me do this, maybe other people would too. And once I had saved up enough, I realized I could actually start to travel. And I started with short trips in the region just to test it out when I had that security of, like, that stable contract.
 | 11:05 | And so I went to Hong Kong. I went to Singapore, I went to Vietnam, places nearby. And then once I felt ready, I embarked on this three month trip. Three and a half month trip where I did, like, eleven countries, 35 cities too short of a time span. But it was an amazing experience. Did any of this make you nervous? Here you are. You were born and bred in the same city with your support systems around you.
 | 11:36 | How did you have the nerve for that? Yeah, that's a really good question. Because also it was not the norm back then. It was like nobody I knew from my community was doing this. And I think it kind of came from like, if I don't do this now because I didn't know how long I would have the flexibility. Right. Like, it was new. I was just trying to figure out how can I make this sustainable?
 | 12:04 | And so I was like, if I don't do this now, when will I do this? And so it kind of became to me more risky not to try it now than it was to try it. And I kind of mitigated. Like anywhere I went solo, I tried to make sure I was going near someone where I may have known because I went to international school, international University. Lots of people were in different countries. So I started that way to mitigate the risk a little bit and have some people in some of the places I was going.
 | 12:34 | Okay, I get it. That would make it easier. Now, do you have a home in Berlin? No, I don't have like a home home in Berlin yet, but I do spend sometime there or I'll go to Spain. It depends with the Europe. How do you deal with the languages? I think that is definitely something interesting. So I grew up speaking three languages in my family.
 | 13:02 | And so for me, it's kind of one of those things where you learn to pick up queues and you learn to communicate with people. And I went to a pretty international school where people spoke so many, most of the languages. So for me, it's like I'll pick up the essential things that I need to do to communicate, order things for restaurants or get the essentials that I need and go from there. And then thankfully, a lot of the places, like the big cities that I end up in, most people are good with English. So that's been okay. That's true.
 | 13:31 | Yes. I remember once being in Rome and we were staying at a hotel and I'm lousy with languages. And the guy on reception was so good with English. It was just amazing. And I said to him, your English is just so amazing. I really appreciate that. And he said, well, I can only speak hotel, though. He could speak to me because there's certain conversations you're going to have with a guest in a hotel. Right.
 | 14:00 | And out on the street or whatever. In a broader sense, he couldn't speak the language. That's great. I speak hotel. Yeah. It's like I speak survival language. Exactly. So somewhere in there, let's talk about your career, and in particular, you are a business strategist. Is that fair to say? How would you describe what you do in that aspect of your career? Yeah. So I am a business strategist.
 | 14:31 | The way that I described that is, I started in operations. I was an operator, like, at the agency. I was an operator. I was in event production. I was in digital media production before I actually started working in College and event production. So I went from, like, operations into business strategy, and then I carved out my space in the middle in strategy execution. So that's kind of where I landed, because I noticed oftentimes I would be implementing things, and I was like, Why are we implementing this?
 | 14:58 | I don't understand why this isn't the thing or what results are we trying to achieve. I crawl back through those projects. I was an operator on find gaps in the strategy and be like, let's fill this in and let's do this. And then my clients started inviting me to the strategy table right away, being like, hey, we want to make sure whatever we're planning is actually executable or implementable, so maybe we should have you in sooner. And then I found this really cool middle ground in strategy execution. And that actually became the thing that a lot of people came to me for.
 | 15:28 | They were like, you do the thing where you bridge strategy and operations, right? And I'm like, yeah, I do that. And so that became quite popular as an offering as well. And where do you find your clients? So my business, my practice in that area is fully referral based. I've been really lucky, but I did start by finding my clients happen organically. So my first client was technically my agency, who I converted into a client.
 | 15:59 | And then from there, I had some clients through LinkedIn, not too many, some clients through my network, and then a lot of clients through making friends while traveling. I was like around a lot of digital Nomads. I was in a lot of digital Nomad communities, location, independent worker communities. They were a lot smaller back then, but they were still there. And a lot of people were doing their own thing and building their own businesses and ventures that were more online and flexible.
 | 16:28 | That was a huge area where I started to find a lot of clients. And then once I had a few projects that went really well, then they would refer people, and then it kind of snowballed from there. It's interesting, isn't it, Manisha? Because I sort of have adapted completely to the pandemic world, and you were doing this before the pandemic world. So it would have been very niche.
 | 16:55 | And I can see how you would run into other people like you at that time. Yeah, it was definitely very niche. I actually tried to find people to work with in Bangkok because I came back at a time and I was like, Let me see if I can work with people here. And back then, what would happen is I would secure someone, I would do a little bit of work for them, and then I'd be like, hey, just so you know, I'm going to be switching time zones. It was just like my response rate might be a little different because I'm going to be a different time zone.
 | 17:26 | And the reaction I would get would be, oh, you're not going to be here. Well, let us know when you're back. And I'm like, but everything that I'm doing is just on my laptop. And it's not like I'm coming in anyways, but they literally will be like, oh, no, just let us know when you're back. It was just hard for them to conceptualize that I would be working if I was out of the country because they thought, oh, you're going on vacation. I can't tell you how many times I got asked by people in my community, when are you back for your vacation? Yes, because we just didn't have the mindset.
 | 17:54 | So was the pandemic an easier transition for you from a business point of view? I think the pandemic was a challenge for I think it's just different when you're in the pandemic. Like, even I didn't have the flexibility that I used to have. So I was stationary. Now I wasn't mobile anymore. And a lot of my friends were travelers. They were in traveler communities, and so people weren't hopping around and seeing each other.
 | 18:27 | And so it was different for me in that sense. I think, like, everybody learning to go through something like that was a whole thing in and of itself that you don't think you could prepare for until you go through it. But I think the transition was easier for me digitally. Of course. I had all the tools. I knew how to work online. I knew how to find social connection online and how to find clients online. And a lot of my clients'businesses grew a lot during the pandemic after that initial freeze, kind of that everyone had while they were trying to figure things out.
 | 19:00 | There was that moment a lot of my clients had to do emergency strategy sessions to pivot their businesses to meet the needs, especially the ones in the travel niche or in some of the other, like, more location based niche to digital offerings. And then those took off. So I got a very interesting vantage point to see how people were adopting to digital services as well. How many hours do you work in a week? That's a great question.
 | 19:27 | So right now, I work probably about 35 hours in a week or 35 hours in a week. I'm very intentionally I've had those ups and downs of like, really hectic months, really hectic weeks, and then those, like, that classic thing. But now I've started to stabilize at this. I find that, like, 6 hours of really solid work is quite productive for me. And so that's like a nice level for me to be able to have some balance as well.
 | 20:00 | So you set the intention to try and work in those hours, that box of hours sort of, yeah, I kind of set the intention. And I also like that's part of the challenges that I'm working with my clients now, mostly growing businesses. So I'm working with people on their capacity challenges. They're like, overflowing with work, and they're like, how do I put structure in place to expand my capacity while protect my well being? That's kind of been the theme of my work recently and the theme of the training company that I founded.
 | 20:33 | And so I'm very intentional about that because I feel like I have to practice what I help other people with as well. Let me just ask you, are you working with businesses or are you working with individuals or is it a bit of both? So I work directly with founders of companies, and typically they're at a stage where it's the founder and they have a couple of contractors or a couple of employees, and they're looking to expand from there. And so that's usually when I meet them.
 | 21:01 | I did before, like, way early on when I was freelancing and trying to figure out my direction a little bit. I did work with much larger companies at the agency. I was working with much larger corporations. So I do have a little bit of that experience. But my joy is working at people who are building meaningful businesses, and those are the people that like, that moment in time when they're experiencing growth is where my skills are the most useful to them. Right. Because it's sort of at that point of time that things could go great or things could go downhill.
 | 21:34 | Right. It's that moment where they are like, they've made it to this point where they have the work that they dreamed of having, and it's busier than they ever could have thought. And things are starting to slip through the cracks, and they usually reach out to me and they're like, if I keep going like this, I'm not going to be able to sustain it. And if I don't do something different, then they want to, they want to. This is what they were waiting for, but they didn't really think about, what do I do now once I get here after you validate, after you figured out all those early messaging and marketing and client acquisition challenges, you're like, oh, I have growth, I have gross challenges now what do I do?
 | 22:10 | Yeah, I like that the way you say that. This is what I was waiting for, and now I'm here and, oh, my gosh, what do I do to make this sustainable? I wanted to switch over, as I said at the beginning, you have to me, two completely different careers. So I wanted to talk about room choice. And this is an organization that you founded yourself.
 | 22:39 | And I'm just fascinated because I see you as this business person talking strategy, operational, how we execute and so on. So tell us about Room Choice. Room Choice is a nonprofit organization. We're focused on relationship violence prevention programs. We run those in Thailand. So technically you could say I have a semi location, independent life because I am here a good chunk of the year working on room Choy.
 | 23:08 | Room Choice. We run workshops and programs and circle discussions in very small group settings. And our goal is to equip people with skills to actually create safer relationships. And so you know how people are like, oh, we should talk about the primary areas that we specialize in our sexual assault prevention and emotional abuse prevention. Those are the two types of relationship violence that are very interlocking and very prevalent but not talked about.
 | 23:37 | And so that's the areas we address. And so we do that in small group settings because one of the key challenges in our work is creating a space where people are comfortable talking about these things in a more conservative environment where talking about them, even just talking about, like, sex or intimacy is not like growing up. I never got the talk. It's like that's like something we didn't do in our culture.
 | 24:01 | And so that work is very much about connecting with people, meeting them where they are, and then giving them skills to actually create the relationships that they want. And what's cool about it is our programs are intergenerational. So we work with teenagers, we work with their parents, we work with grandparents. I've given talks on this topic in front of my own grandmother, which was quite a milestone for me. And so that's from choice in a nutshell. So where did this come from?
 | 24:31 | How did you get inspired to do this? It happened very organically, actually. So I guess it does go back to my University days. So alongside my studying, I was working on campus as an international student. You were pretty much limited to on campus jobs, paid jobs on campus because of visa reasons. But I had two leadership roles on campus at that time, and part of some of that training was related to responding to crisis on campus.
 | 25:05 | Is this monitor where you dropped some of your shyness because you said that you were shy at some point. I mean, these are very brave things to do for a shy person. How did you do that? Yeah, I think that's kind of when I was working with people because I was in very kind of, like, active roles and leadership roles. I think that's where I really have space to kind of, like, build those skills of being comfortable doing that. I was also a communication major.
 | 25:35 | I had lots of practice doing speaking and all of those things. Like, I had a ton of debate classes and public speaking classes and all of that. So that was a nice training. And actually, yeah, that training was really helpful, too. And just, like, having skills to communicate with people where I was learning, like, I took an education counseling class where you're learning how to counsel people in a crisis and de escalate a situation. And so I had all these skills.
 | 26:03 | And then when I came back to Bangkok, I was like, well, I have this here, and I wish I had learned all of this stuff sooner. I felt like when I got to University, I learned it too late because learning about sexual assault, learning about emotional abuse, learning about this phenomenon, it kind of has you think back and go, oh, like unhealthy dynamics and safe dynamics. We've kind of been around them all the time and we didn't even realize it. How many of us have seen a movie where there's like this scene of someone making a big romantic gesture by following them home or surprising them?
 | 26:36 | Somewhere in the real world, if you show up to someone's house uninvited and unannounced, it's called stalking. And we're just constantly consuming this information. And over here in particular in Bangkok, there was so much silence around it that I just didn't have even the space to talk about it. I was learning the terms and the vocabulary there, and it felt really powerful to have that language. I wanted to ask you and maybe this is a little bit off base, but isn't Thailand sort of famous for sexual tourism?
 | 27:09 | Is this something you would be aware of if you are someone who lives in Bangkok, or is this just something that I'm aware of because it's an international media? I think you are aware of it here, but I don't think when we were growing up here, I don't think we were consciously, fully aware of all the implications of that or had open conversation about that. So I think that is one of the things that I find interesting, too, about being here.
 | 27:38 | And there was a study done by the UN and the Ministry of Education on comprehensive sexuality education here and basically saying that sexual rights and power and these topics are given little to no coverage in sexual education here, and people don't feel comfortable talking about these topics. That was part of the study. I think only 11% of students felt comfortable bringing this stuff up to their parents or teachers. Teachers in that study is super interesting.
 | 28:07 | Teachers don't even feel comfortable talking about these topics in classroom because they weren't taught it. And so I think that's a very interesting point that you bring up because there is that side of it. But growing up, I don't think I really fully grasped that until I left. And then that's when I started to reflect, like, hey, why didn't we explore these things more? So you were inspired to do this to help and provide education because you felt there was a gap in that sort of education.
 | 28:44 | So what kind of feedback have you received on doing this work? So the way that I got started in this is actually we had so me and my mom is actually the director of operations at the nonprofit. While I was abroad and getting my training, she had joined a philanthropy organization, and it happened to be the theme of the year at the time where they wanted someone to address interpersonal violence.
 | 29:14 | And she became the committee chair for that. They kind of thrust her into that role. She was new. They had a vacancy. They put her in it, and she was doing that on a parallel track as I was doing this, and we didn't talk about it. Right. Because we not have this topic as an open line of communication until I graduated. Then we were catching up, and I was sharing this, and she was like, oh, I just did this workshop. I did this talk at a University on this subject of gender based violence.
 | 29:43 | And she was like, I honestly did not land. I was just giving people a bunch of stats. Like, I didn't connect with the students. And I was like, oh, well, I actually have this training. So, like, the next one you have to do, maybe we can collaborate on it. I can help you with it. And so we actually collaborated on designing what at that time, we didn't know it, but was the pilot for what we ended up taking into room Joy, and we went to a University and delivered that. And we were super deliberate about it, super careful about it.
 | 30:12 | And we got a really positive reception in that first session that we did together. And they asked us to come back again. And they were like, you should tell other schools about this. So the first initial support was very encouraging. But, man, was it an uphill battle after that, because we tried to reach out to other schools. We tried to reach out to other organizations and different types of organizations, workplaces and other groups, anywhere there's groups. Right. Because we really honed in on this interpersonal aspect.
 | 30:43 | So violence that happens in communities and workplaces. And sometimes we would just get people going, like, if we bring you in, it might look like we have a problem that we need to address so we can't bring you in. And I was like, but we're prevention. We're doing prevention workshops. But it was hard. We had people ask us, why aren't you doing this in rural areas?
 | 31:04 | When we first started, and I was like, but for me, it was really important that we started in our own backyard because we understood the cultural nuances of addressing it here, because I couldn't just take everything I had learned and then do it exactly the same, like learn in the US and do it exactly the same way in Thailand. That doesn't work because we were at a different place. We have a different cultural values and cultural norms. And I really wanted to be mindful of that in our programming so that it was culturally based. When you talk about your 35 hours work week.
 | 31:35 | Does that include room Choy? Yes, right now it includes room Choy. Right now, room Choy. We found it. It's been a few years now, so I have trained team who handles some of the outreach work, and I have facilitators, like a network of facilitators that I've trained to help me with delivery. So I still facilitate some workshops myself because that's like the part when you're with people and having these conversations. I love that part, but I'm heavily focused on new program development, and so that's how I'm able to do that.
 | 32:07 | Is your mom a remarkable woman? Yes. She's really cool, actually. When we started Rome Choy, we both were like, we should really get more training so that we can do this properly. We were like, very much like, how do we do this in a way that's proper? How do we develop a theory of change for the organization that is based on some research and evidence? So she went back and got her not paraprosat with me. She went back and got a degree in psychotherapy and counseling because that was something that was always interesting to her because she was always interested in psychology.
 | 32:40 | And so she went in that direction, and I went and got a certification in restorative justice so that I could look at the social change side of things. And so we really complemented each other in that way and were able to bring that into the organization. And that was really cool. Have you always been close with your mom? Yeah, I think we were always close. I think during College because I was a little bit away. We were talking as much as we usually did. But yeah, I would say we're pretty close, but I will say just because we were close, we did not.
 | 33:11 | We still had to go through hurdles of, like, learning how to work with each other because that was a different dynamic. We had to practice a lot of the communication skills that we were teaching people, and we had to do it ourselves. And so there was a lot of like, okay, we just sit there. We should learn how to communicate our needs and communicate our boundaries with each other and respect that because especially if you are mother daughter, you're like, oh, we always have access to each other. You know, it's so it's different.
 | 33:36 | When I go into our workshops, for example, I can tell that some people are on guard, and they're, like, hesitant about what we're going to say because there is this sense that if we're just generalizing, like, it's not always this way for everyone. We're actually very intentional to be super inclusive in all of our work, in any scenarios that we talk about of all gender identities.
 | 34:02 | And one of the things that I do notice among the students that are, like, are the young boys as they come in with their guard up and a lot of them have vocalized to us that they expected to be blamed in our session or ashamed, but that they were pleasantly surprised that that didn't happen. They were like, wow, it was actually really interesting for us to engage in it and to think about these things in the way that you did. And so we're really proud of that, being able to open up that conversation.
 | 34:30 | But I think we have to understand that the structure of our society impact everybody. And we've had such cool moments where young boys have blurted out like, wait, I didn't have to be aggressive. And a young girl was like, I can say no, you know what I mean? Just like, unlearning some of these things and kind of giving people back their agency over their full selves. I had one student who was nonbinary and identified an LGBTQ community.
 | 35:00 | And they came up to me at the end of the workshop, and they were like, this was awesome. I was expecting not to be able to fully relate to anything and not to be able to participate in the discussion, but I was like, fully able to engage, fully able to show up. And like, I wish we had more programs like this. And so that was a super moving moment. And I ended up like, yeah, that was a super moving moment. That was very validating for how intentional we have been in those scenarios, because there's a lot of stakeholders.
 | 35:30 | Right? Sometimes some schools will be like, can you just talk about in this way? Or can you do it that way? So staying in our values and showing up and being like, we know this is the safest, most inclusive way to deliver our program that we can as much as we can. Right. That's one story, and then another story that I love is we do these small group exercises, and in them, the students get to read these scenarios. And the scenarios have genderneutral names and no specific pronouns.
 | 35:59 | And one of the students raised their hand and was like, Why is it always the man that is the aggressor in these scenarios? And I said, can you tell me where you read that? And they were like, oh, that's not in here. Why did I make that assumption? That's what they questioned in themselves, and that sparked a whole discussion about that.
 | 36:23 | I think when we're breaking things down and allowing people to realize that was an assumption, because that's what we absorb through the messages that were taught through the movies that we watch, through the media that we consume. And when we have the space to be able to just talk about it and to deconstruct and deconstruct what we've been taught and then build back up with the skills and the perceptions we need, that's where the change starts to happen.
 | 36:54 | Yes, of course. I'm going to ask you a difficult question now, Manisha, which of your two worlds is more of your passion. I think that Room Troy feels very much like my contribution and my work with founders feels like my craft.
 | 37:19 | So I think that's how I look at it, because even the way I approach Room Troy, we have values that we are building the programs around, right? We want to be inclusive, we want to be traumainformed, we want to be solutions oriented. But even how I build the organization, I want to live those as well. And so I'm considering how our operation structured so that we are caring for the wellbeing of my team in delivering this work.
 | 37:49 | They have to hear a lot of different stories sometimes that are difficult. They have to be receptive to people's perspectives, no matter where they are and their understanding on these topics. And sometimes that can be challenging. So I think about it operationally in Rome as well. Like, I use my skills in the business area and apply it to how we build the organization and grow that too. So I think I get to do both.
 | 38:13 | And now more and more, I get to apply some of those skills that I use in rural to help founders when they're building their teams and working with people, because business is a network of relationships, and they have to be also built in a way that's really healthy. And so I think I see it as my craft and my contribution. I hope that's a good enough answer. You know what? I think that's a fantastic answer, because I like that my contribution and my craft, because it's so important to contribute, and it's also important to have a craft.
 | 38:46 | And I really love the way you have entwined those two things, and that is how I see them being entwined. But the fact that you contribute in such a major way, that is pretty darn impressive. There's volunteerism, and I think he's taken that to a whole other level with this not for profit that you've put in place with your mom. I think that's incredible.
 | 39:15 | So kudos to both of you on that and to you on your craft. So I wanted to move over to my three questions that I wanted to ask you. So first of all, what has been the best career advice you have received? The best career advice I've received is follow the fun, which is from my Uncle Vikram. And he actually fun fact, he actually guided me through writing my first business and marketing plan when I was 14.
 | 39:45 | I was doing a project, and he was a C suite at a marketing company, and he guided me through that. But the follow the fun is advice that he told me when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do for College as we started. Like, I didn't go in with, like, here's my path. But he gave me that advice as I was trying to decide what I wanted to do and what I liked about it was it wasn't follow your passion, right? That's different. It was follow the fun. So tune into what's exciting to you and what you're enjoying doing.
 | 40:16 | And it sounds light and easy, but I found it actually really hard to put that advice into practice because I had to shed a lot of what's the perception of a communication major? What's the perception of this? Maybe I should try something. So follow the fun. Once I really started to follow that advice and shed social expectations of this major has this reputation or this had that, that's when I really started to enjoy what I was learning and I learned better. I know there are studies on that, like, I enjoyed, and I fully engaged in what I was doing.
 | 40:48 | So I think that's the best career advice. But I will say it's complemented by my dad always telling me to focus. He would literally come and say, focus. Like, this would be a word I heard growing up all the time. And he literally would just come in and be like to me. And my son was like, what are you guys doing? Okay, whatever you do, just focus. Be intentional, do it deliberately. And there's just something he repeated so often. And my mom would always be like, try and really make sure whatever you do, you can be financially independent, because that was not affordable to women in my culture and my community for so many generations before me.
 | 41:22 | And that's something she reminded me of constantly. So I think follow the fund, complemented by these two foundational ideas of like, make sure it's financially sustainable and that you're focusing. I think those three go really well together. That's fantastic. Thank you. Secondly, I wanted to ask, what book have you read that's been of influence to you? I think the book that has had the most influence on me is probably Mastery by Robert Green.
 | 41:52 | It's very much about craftsmanship, I think, in developing that, actually, I think in that book, you also talked about what is your natural inclination, like finding what comes naturally to you and then starting to Hone in on it and build discipline around it and really commit to it in a path. The book breaks it down way so eloquently because he's a brilliant writer. But I think that book had a really big influence on me. I actually was super lucky.
 | 42:22 | And I got to meet him at a book signing when I was in California as well. And he told me when I was talking to him, he told me he studied, I think, like ancient Greek in College. And he said, even if your major, you don't feel like it's applicable, because as we know, I was going through a lot of different things. He's like, what it's going to teach you right now is discipline. And so I was like, cool, I can work with that. But you know what Manisha? I always think everything counts, every step and every experience, and it all counts to making you the person that you are.
 | 42:55 | And I like that combination of follow the fun and the discipline and focus and so on, combined with what you took out of that book, because it's sort of a similar thing. Right. Because if we're not doing something that we're interested in, I think we're in a bit of trouble. Yeah. And third, I'm interested to hear what advice would you give your younger self? I think I would say advocate for yourself because I told you I was shy before.
 | 43:26 | I wouldn't really speak up. I would kind of be wait to be asked. And so I think one of the skills that I've really cultivated over the past few years has been to advocate for myself. I mean, running your own business, working with a team, working with clients, working with organizations, all of it, you really start to realize that we have to learn how to advocate for ourselves. And I think that's what I would hope that I would start learning sooner. Yeah.
 | 43:56 | But maybe it just wasn't your time, right? Yeah. I mean, I was absorbing a lot. I remember one of the parent teacher conferences when I was really young, like early teens. The teacher was like, we'd love to hear from you more in class. We'd love to hear you speak up and share your thoughts more. And my response was, but I like listening. I can't really say anything negative about that. So maybe there was something to absorbing and observing and learning before learning how to use my voice.
 | 44:26 | Yeah. I remember when I was in school and I actually went to the instructor and I said, please be sure not to ask me any questions or call at all a word you are saying. If I think that there's even a potential that you might actually call on me, which is similar. So it's kind of nice.
 | 44:54 | He said to me, you know, but you look like you might have interesting things to say. I said, don't do it. And I won't be able to if I know you're going to call on me. And it actually gave me the courage to occasionally put my hand up because I knew I would be not called on. He was really shyness. Right. That a lot of us have and sounds like you had it, and I certainly had it.
 | 45:23 | And it's just part of ourselves and it's okay. Yeah. I love that he gave you the space to do that because that's really like gave you the agency to engage in the way you want it to engage. Yeah. And that's the thing. Right. I always remember that and appreciate that about him. And although when I do my own workshops, I'll always say if you make eye contact with me, I'm going to probably call on you.
 | 45:53 | Obviously didn't carry it too far forward. But I do try and be kind in my own workshops, but yeah, it was a kind thing. It was a very kind thing, and I've always appreciated that. Those are the things that I wanted to chat about. Is there anything that you wanted to add, Manisha? I think what I really like about the conversations that you're having on career resilience, I've listened to a handful and I think what's really cool is just sharing so many different people's experiences and stories.
 | 46:25 | I think what it's showing me is more and more like there's not like a linear path to career anymore, but that you have to create it and you have that. And that's been super powerful for me, being able to create it and develop it. And so I think that's something that I'm excited to see how more people do that. And I think this podcast in these conversations are going to be a really cool contributor to inspiring people to consider different paths. So thank you for doing this. That's so nice of you to say.
 | 46:53 | And I think that is actually a big part of the point of it that we're not in a box and it isn't linear. And I think that that is part of life that we think, okay, we're waiting to go to school or waiting to go to high school or waiting to go to University. We're waiting for a career. We're waiting for retirement as opposed to thinking, okay, this was an interesting thing to do. This was an interesting course to take.
 | 47:17 | This was an interesting job for me Because actually I didn't like it and so I learned from that and this was an interesting job because I liked it and things like what you're saying, what your uncle said about follow the fun. That's helpful to all of us to remember that follow the fun at any age or stage. Think about it in those terms Because sometimes we forget to do that Because we're so ardent or we're so worried about putting food on the table and that's a valid worry, but at the same time, it's nice to be able to maybe follow the fun.
 | 47:50 | Thank you so much for chatting with me today. Yes, thank you so much for having me. So thanks to our viewers and listeners for joining Manisha and me today and talking about her very eclectic career and so impressive and we've learned a lot from having this kind of conversation about, well, following the fun. Let's just focus on following the fun on this one. So if you're a viewer on YouTube, if you are a listener, wherever you get your podcast, give us a listen and thanks so much for joining us.
 | 48:23 | And until we meet again.