Meena Kumari Adnani | Unpacking Your Identity, What Forgiveness is Really About, & Intentional Success

“You can’t walk on water if you won’t get out of the boat.” – Meena Kumari Adnani

EPISODE OVERVIEW:

Did you hear the one about the girl who grew up being expected to conform to thousands of years of cultural? You know, the one where she was able to convince her father to change his mind regarding years of tradition and let her go to college?

Today’s guest talks about how she went to school, got critically ill, explains how she got better, finished her education, and then she took what she learned and became uber successful. Then,  even with her successes, she talks about how she continuously had to reinvent herself, how she was taken by someone in her inner circle, and how millions of dollars were stolen from her.

She transparently talks with us about her lows, and how she not only learned how to pull herself together and rise to the top again, but how she is going to teach you to so the same today. She’s an attorney, businesswoman, a bestselling author, a coach, and a motivational speaker. And today you’re going to spend the next hour with her and be able to glean a ton. Ladies & Gentlemen, welcome to the Menna Kumari Adnani story!

GUEST BIO: 

Meena Kumari Adnani is an international High Performance & Business Coach for women, a motivational speaker, and a best-selling author. She is a qualified solicitor in England and Wales and an attorney in New York. For 25 years she held senior-level positions in high-profile companies.

Her amazing story is about losing all of the wealth that she made as a Lawyer ever since graduation due to trusting the wrong person to manage money. Meena has managed to find strength, change her career and make the same money back in just two years, as an entrepreneur.

SHOW NOTES, GUEST CONTACT INFO, SPECIAL OFFERS, & OTHER RESOURCES MENTIONED:

Guest Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.strongandshine.com/ 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meena-kumari-adnani/ 

Transcript

Meena Kumari Adnani | Unpacking Your Identity, What Forgiveness is Really About, & Intentional Success

Changing thousands of years of culture, being raw, blind, and rising through success and realizing your dreams. All this and more right now.

Hello, my Remarkable friend. Welcome to this episode of the Remarkable People Podcast. Do we have an extra special episode for you today? Whenever I record these episodes? As a host, I hope you understand that our only goal is to bring you the most [00:01:00] power and value we can, right? Our guests are so patient, they literally.

Six months right now, and it's been that way for over two years to come on the show and record. Then from the point where the recording is made, it takes another four to eight weeks to be released, so our guests are recording these episodes more than half a year, sometimes up to a year before you hear the content.

Today's episode. Resonated with me in so many ways. Now, our guest, her mission is to help everyone, but she specifically targets women. But as I listened to her story, I was not only inspired, but deep inside it hit [00:02:00] and I was like, these are things I need to apply as. So she's going to talk about growing up and after thousands of years of cultural, she was able to convince her father to change and let her go to college.

She talks about how when she was at school, she got sick, how after she got better, she finished her education, and then she took what she learned and became uber successful. And then even with the success, she talked about continuously how to reinvent herself and then how she was taken and millions of dollars were stolen from her.

She was at a low, and then she not only learned how to pull herself together and rise to the top, but now she is going to teach you this. And this is what she does in professional coaching. So she's an attorney, she's a [00:03:00] businesswoman, she's a bestselling author. She's a coach and motivational speaker. And today you're going to spend the next hour with her and be able to glean a ton.

So check out this episode, take notes, send it to your friends and family, and thrive in life. At this time, please meet our friend Mina Kumari Adnani! 

[00:03:23] Meena Kumari Adnani | Unpacking Your Identity, What Forgiveness is Really About, & Intentional Success

Hey, Mina, how are you today? I am doing great, David. How are you man? I am fantastic, Remarkable even, and I am so excited to talk with you. I was just telling the listeners about you, so you're going to get the chance to share with them your story, the highs, the lows, everything in between, but they and myself are super pumped.

Before we get started though, I just want to let them know that you are coming to us from Australia today. Yes. Yeah. And tell us a little bit, what do you, what's, [00:04:00] what's the, the background like, so for our viewers around the world, watching the background's a little different. Because yes, our guest was kind enough to stop everything she's doing to record this.

And what are you doing out in Australia today? So I usually live in Jakarta, Indonesia, but since this, this. Chat was scheduled long time ago and I decided to come to Sunshine Coast. I'm here for Dr. Joe Dispenser's retreat and yeah, so that's why I'm not at my usual desk with my usual beautiful background.

So, yeah, that's why I'm here. Yeah. So ladies and gentlemen, Mina is taking her time not only to share these awesome truths with you today, but she's doing it while she's on vacation. So thank you so much, Mina and pleasure. You're going to get a chance to share a lot of gold with us and tips and tricks and just ways to better ourselves in life and glorify God.

But if our listeners, [00:05:00] before they shut off, right? You know, a lot of people listen like 10% in or 50% in or 70% into a podcast, but what are they going to get? What's the main message you're like, if you listen to my whole episode, you are going to get at least this one truth and it can change your life. The one truth that everyone is going to get is that you are the creator of your own destiny.

And that's something that a lot of people are not aware of because a lot of us are stuck in a victim mentality. A lot of us are stuck in a place where we find it's easier to blame other people and our circumstances in our past because of who we are and where our life is. And today, I would love to be able to share a little bit about how you can shift, how you can go from being a victim to a creator and take charge of your own life.

Beautiful, beautiful. So let's just jump in Mina. We're going to go from your birth through today. Then we're going to transition from where you are [00:06:00] today into where you're going. So you just helped us, you know, for 45 minutes, an hour. Then we're going to transition to, well, how can we help you hit your next level?

So where were you born? What was your origins mo, mother, father, in the home, brothers, sisters, family, the good, the bad, and the ugly. What was your upbringing like? I was born in Indonesia, so my parents are from India and they're from the part of India, which no longer exist because after the separation it became Pakistan.

And so my parents moved to Indonesia. And so I was born in Indonesia. I'm one of seven girls and one boy. So in my family we have eight siblings. I'm the fourth. And growing up I came from such a traditional family. Growing up I wasn't given the opportunity to get an education. It was more about every girl's destiny was to get married at the age of 17.

And as a child, that was something that I just. Couldn't understand and didn't make sense of. And ever since I was a child, I believed [00:07:00] in God. And I just remember, I think I was probably around 12. I remember going to bed one night and saying, God, I know you exist, but this is a really cruel thing to what I've been told.

It's a really cruel idea of having women in the world because in my unlimited understanding, based on what I was told, that is the destiny of every woman. And so I thought, how is it possible that God created men and women and women's destiny was only to be to, to listen to her dad until she was 17, and then listen to a fa, a husband until she died.

What's the purpose of creating a woman except for, you know, procreation? So I remember asking, When I was 12, like, why did you create me? If, if my goal and my purpose in life was only to get married, why is it that I have a desire? Why is it that I wanna live my purpose? Why is it that I feel that there is so much more to my reality?

And so as a result of that, I convinced my dad since the age of 12 to 16 to send me overseas to the UK to get an education. [00:08:00] And so for four years I worked on my dad, and finally at the age of 16, he let me go to university in the uk. So I did my old levels, air levels, everything in the uk. I qualified as a solicitor in the uk, qualified as an attorney in New York.

And then I went on to take on senior management roles, doing business development, sales and marketing. So it didn't come easily for me. Every year I would have to convince my dad to let me go back to university and to pursue education and to let me continue working only so that I could become financially independent.

So when this is going on, you are the exception to the traditional role in your culture. What's going on with your other sisters and brother? What are they saying? Are they like jealous? Are they angry? Are they like you're crazy? No, I think, I think now it's interesting cuz when we are kids, you just don't know how things would pan out.

They were too young as well. I was, I was young. [00:09:00] All I remember was the more I stayed in the UK, the more I felt like a misfit because I spoke different, I acted different, I thought differently. So I remember many times my siblings pointing out, oh, she talks funny now. Oh, why is it that she's eating pizza with spoon and fork?

You know, things like that when we were kids. But as, as we started growing up, I think I, in my twenties and my thirties, I constantly felt like I was going through an identity crisis. Because if I am around Westerners in the UK and in the US I am a foreigner. But then in my own home, I am a foreigner as well.

And so as a foreigner in both countries, I used to always ask myself, where do I belong? And also coming from the Asian background, Asian setting, When I'm around other Indian women, I didn't fit in. When I'm around Indian men, I didn't fit in. So I went through a lot of, during my twenties, thirties, and even forties, going through identity [00:10:00] crisis, not knowing who I was, because I seem to need to fit a certain criteria in order for me to fit into the society.

Sir, let's talk about that. Let's have that our first, and maybe that'll continue that you'll answer it as we continue in your story. But for those who are like, I, I understand what Mina's saying. I, I don't fit in at home. I don't fit in with the world. I don't fit in anywhere. Where is my purpose? What am I built to do?

I know I personally felt that for years, right? I just didn't seem to fit in with any group. Yeah. So I thought, is there something wrong with me? So for the people listening who are like, oh, I get it. W when we go through your story, is this question going to be answered? Hundred percent. A hundred percent. Okay.

Then I don't wanna jump ahead and start asking questions. So, no, I, I love, I love the fact that you're asking questions because then there's, there's so much to share and there's only so much you can share in an hour. And so I love the fact that you jump in and [00:11:00] you ask me the questions, then I can definitely go towards the direction that you are thinking of.

Yeah, yeah. No, we just, we're just going to hang out and talk. So you're born, you're growing up around 12. You start asking your father, please let me go. Please let me go. And he does. Which is crazy, right? For a dad. Forget culture. I don't care if you're in Indonesia or America. If you're in Poland, it's like letting your little girl go to another country.

That's tough for a dad. I was surprised maybe because I gave him a lot of time, like every year I kept telling him I want to go overseas to study. And he would blow me off. He'd be like, okay you need to be one of the top 10 in your school and your in your class. I would be like, okay. I was the top 10.

And I went back to him. I said, okay, what about now? It'd be like, ah, no, you need to be the top five. So he kept doing this until I was 16, and finally when I was 16, the penny dropped and I was like, okay, he is not going to send me, so maybe I need to find a way. And fortunately I saw an ad in the paper and the [00:12:00] ad was for, there was an agency that was helping students get admitted to school and university in the uk.

So I went myself, and mind you, this was at a time when he had no internet, none of this. So I actually went to the agency, managed to get them to find me. A school got admitted and that was when I went to my dad and I said, look, I've done all the hard work and you've al always said yes, so please let me go.

And because I had already done all the work, he said, I'll let you go if your sister goes with you. So my sister agreed to go to the UK with me, and that's why I ended up being able to go. But my sister lasted only a year. She didn't really like the uk so she lasted a year. But my dad fortunately allowed me to continue after that.

Beautiful. Now, what about your your mother? Was she supportive of it? Was she like new? What was her opinion? My mother was very supportive. There was a time when so when I went to the uk, I was sick [00:13:00] after like about a year or so because coming from Indonesia where I was vegetarian, even as a child, I didn't eat vegetables.

I didn't understand the meaning of vegetables. I ate basically mainly carbs. And so even though I was 16 and then 17 and in boarding school, I didn't. Have the right diet. And at that time in the UK in Northampton, they didn't really know how to feed vegetarians. Vegetarianism wasn't a big thing, and so I barely had food that was edible.

And most of the time I survived on crisps and I became super sick. I became really, really sick. So sick that I ended up losing 13 kilos. None of the doctors knew what happened to me. My immunity was just go gone. I went to eight doctors, all doctors said I had the flu and. This was before Covid. So flu wasn't life threatening.

And then when I got home to Indonesia, there was one time [00:14:00] where I was sleeping all the time. I literally, I was just, it was like I was in my deathbed. I lost so much weight. I could not even stand. I was hardly conscious. And my dad got so upset. I remember hearing a conversation between my dad was talking to me, but I couldn't respond because I was that sick.

And he just said, see, you have been insisting on going to the uk. This is exactly why I didn't wanna send you, and I don't, you would be crazy if you assume I'll ever send you back. He said something like that. And my mom heard that, and my mom said to him, what have you done? You've taken away from her. The only reason she would fight to.

And I think it played on my dad's mind. The next morning he wrote a school check and he put it under my pillow. And throughout this whole time I couldn't respond. He put it under my pillow and he said, get well and I will send you back. And fortunately I did recover in about a few months and then I was, I was sent back.

But that changed my, my diet. So it's since then I started eating healthy [00:15:00] because I had enough of hospitals and doctors. Yeah. And it's crazy how something, so looking back obvious nobody would find, and you almost died from it. Right. It was pure dietary. Exactly. I think that's something most people don't realize.

Food can heal you or kill you. Yeah. And I, when you were talking again, I've never, I feel I shouldn't be saying this, it's kind of an ignorant comment, but I've heard several people say that like, you know, UK is wonderful, but the food isn. Like, you know, it's not like going to Italy, right? It's not like up to par is another parts of the country in the sense of taste and creativity.

So is that what you're talking about? It's just the food. Was it meeting your dietary? No, I think now it's so much better. I've been back to the UK so many times now. It's amazing. It's a melting pot of so many different cultures that literally, in fact, the British joke about this, they say Indian is the local food because it's impossible for you to walk one block down and not [00:16:00] be able to find Indian food.

You know? It's just almost impossible cuz there's so many Indians. There's so, it's a melting pot of different cultures. There's so many people from the Middle Eastern countries. There are so many Indians. There's so now the food is an incredible, what I'm talking about was more, it was in 1980. And so at that time, and I was also not in the se in the center, I was in Northampton, which is a boarding school.

And at that time people didn't really know a lot about other cultures and you know, food and people were usually eating more meat. And so they didn't really know, okay, you're vegetarian, what do I feed you? Because what does it, what does vegetarian even mean? They didn't even know that, you know? Yeah. They offered me fish and I said, I don't eat fish.

I'm vegetarian. So yeah. So I think now it's changed quite a bit. Well, so now you go off to school, your sister's with you, you come back, your dad has that moment of realization, so a bad thing turned into a good thing. Yeah. And then where do you go from there? How did [00:17:00] you get better after your body was depleted of all these nutrients and you were so weak, you were just sleeping.

Yeah. So finally, what was the journey? So finally initially the doctors didn't know what was wrong with me. At first. They, they just had all these guesses. They made all these guesses. They thought I had jaundus, I had typhoid, all sorts of things. But finally they realized I had tuberculosis. And because they knew it was tuberculosis, they knew I could be treated.

So that's why I was, I was treated for it. And because I had the right treatment, that's why I was able to accelerate my, my healing and I was able to go back. But, you know, I wanna actually make a point on this one because so many times we go through difficulty in life, like in my case, this illness, right?

And we tend to resist it, and we tend to feel like, okay, my life is over. And then, you know, I can't, I don't have, I can't do anything else and things like that. But when I look back now, I realize that that time of me being sick was the reason why I was, [00:18:00] why until today I naturally. Gravitate towards food, which is healthy.

I ensure that I eat a lot of vegetables because I know the difference that my body feels when I eat the right foods. And that wouldn't have happened had I not been that sick. So that's a really, really good thing to to remember because many times we don't want to go through hard times, but we don't realize the hard times actually opens our life up to something even better.

Yeah, I think that's very well said. And just to clarify, we're going to move on, but when you were just describing your story, I thought you were saying that you were very sick and you were losing weight and it's cuz you know your diet wasn't right. But then did you get tuberculosis from being so weak from the diet or is tuberculosis, was that the root cause, why you get so sick?

So I think that it was because my immunity was very low because I wasn't eating the right foods. That's why I [00:19:00] ended up. Having tuberculosis. That's my, that's my guess. But because I started building my immunity after that and eating the right foods, of course I took treatment for tuberculosis. But once I started eating the right food, fortunately my health is now good and I don't, I'm not so susceptible to getting sick, you know, because of the fact that I eat healthy and I of course work out as well.

Yeah, okay. Okay. I just wanna make sure we clarify cuz tuberculosis is no joke. And I could definitely see why you're sick then. I mean, that's like serious. Yeah. And, and, and now, now you have treatments. It's easy. At that time it was more like, you know, people were like, okay, what do we do now? What do we do now?

You know? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So now your dad gives you the go ahead. How long did it take you to recover and get strong again? So you could go back to the uk? So it took me six months and meanwhile, so I had a few, few things happening when I went to the uk. I was told [00:20:00] I could do my A Levels and after A Levels I can go to university.

So I was doing my first year A levels when I did my A levels just before I became sick. Usually you're supposed to apply to university a year before, so A levels is two years. So after one year you apply to university after one year applied to university and university says, oh, but your all levels are not recognized so you have to do all levels.

And I got a bit confused because the agency said it was recognized. My school said it was recognized, but the universities didn't recognize my all levels. And while we were try, I was trying to figure this out, I decided that I was going to put my A levels on pause while I accelerated my all levels. A level, all levels usually takes two years, but I did it in, I can't remember whether it was three months or six months.

I did my old levels in three or six months because I needed to go back to my A levels and catch up to the fact that I could, needed to go to university. So all this happened at a [00:21:00] time when after that I became sick. So that took another three months off, or even six months, I can't even remember that I had to take six months off, recover, come back.

Now I remember I came back, I accelerated my all levels in three months. I did my all levels in three months, went back to eight levels and then went to university. So it was quite a journey. And yeah, so it's, yeah, you, if, if you don't have a resilience and you don't have this clear vision as to why you want to get, achieve what you wanna achieve, I think it would be a lot easier to give up.

And I think that's a great point because, you know, physically just emotionally, you could have made all sorts of excuses to not complete that schooling. You could have pushed it off, but you chose to continue and to persevere. And that says a lot about your character. [00:22:00] Now. You had a vision. What was your goal at that time?

Like? Was it just merely, I want to finish, did you know you wanted to be an attorney? What was the drive? For me, it was, it was, first of all, I was running away from something and what I was running away from was that acceptance that I needed to live the life based on what society dictated for women. That was something I was, I was not able to accept, so that was something I was running away from my vision.

The reason I decided I wanted to be a lawyer was because when I was a child, I saw my mom and my aunts and I didn't really see. Women that I would want to become like when I grew up, because they were very domesticated and I used to have a lot of compassion when I saw them as a child. And I, that's why I asked them questions about why.

Why do you not have your own life? Why do you not have your dreams? You don't have aspirations? And then that's when they [00:23:00] said to me, oh, this is the destiny of every girl. And so growing up, I didn't really have a female role model that I wanted to emulate. When I was 12, I watched a Bollywood movie with my aunts and my mom.

And in the movie I saw an actress. And she was a lawyer who was fighting a case in court, and she was very well spoken. She, she wasn't worried about what other people would tell her. And when I saw her, I didn't understand what being an attorney was like. All I knew was that's the woman I wanna be like, I want to be a woman who can speak a truth.

I wanna be a woman who's not scared of speaking up. I wanna be a woman who just would not need to be told what she needs to do, how she should live, what, when she should sit down, what she should wear. And I was like, okay, that's the woman I wanna be. And that's the reason why I decided I was going to be a lawyer because I didn't understand anything else about independence.

I didn't know that I could be financially independent if I chose a [00:24:00] different career. The role model I had was a lawyer in a movie, and that's why I decided I wanted to be a lawyer. That's awesome how it turned out. Yeah. And it's just, it's kind of humorous in a way how we sometimes like, All of us all over the world, male, female, different cultures.

We make life decisions based on just such informa like fractional information, but yet God uses it for good and it all works out. Yeah. You know what? After that, after that, I've had many conversations with young people and I've told like a lot of young people who are looking to go to university for a certain career, and I would always advise them a couple of things.

I would say, look, I didn't have the benefit of foresight and so I wanna be able to share with you some benefits as to some, some of the things that you should take into consideration before choosing a career. You know, first thing is ask yourself why you choosing that career? Is it because. Your friend is going to that [00:25:00] university.

Is it because your parents projected it on you? Is it because you saw it in in a movie? Whatever the case may be. The second question you need to ask yourself is, do you see yourself doing that for the rest of your life? I know that nowadays, you know, you can actually shift and you can change careers fairly easily.

But during the time I was growing up, usually if you start in one profession, you live and die in that profession. And so I always ask them like, you gotta ask yourself all these things you're going to learn, are you interested in it? Is that something you see yourself doing? If you find it boring, why would you pick that particular you know, industry or that particular discipline?

And the other thing that's also important to bear in mind is if you are not sure, how about you intern? So if you wanna be a lawyer, Maybe before you go to law school while, while you're still in, you know, when you have a break between school and university, go intern in, in a law firm for like two months, three months and see whether this [00:26:00] is something you would enjoy.

Because unless you know that for sure you are taking a risk by pursuing education for two to three years in a certain subject or industry without knowing whether this is something you wanna do for the rest of your life, I think that's great advice. I think that's fantastic advice. So, and that doesn't just go to teenagers.

There's people Yeah. 40 years old listening to this podcast and they're thinking, I still don't know what I wanna be when I grow up. Right. And it's okay. It's okay to reinvent yourself. I mean, I kept reinventing myself. I, I, I started out as a lawyer, worked as a lawyer for maybe six years in a law firm, and then I transitioned.

I went in-house. I worked for Viacom as a lawyer. At MTV Asia Pacific overseeing legal for legal and business for Asia Pacific. Since then, I transitioned and I was overseeing business development, sales and marketing. And so I think a lot of us are waiting for approval from other people. We are waiting for other people to [00:27:00] give us a permission for us to change, for us to adapt, for people to validate us.

And we tell ourselves, oh, who am I? You know, I don't know enough of it on this subject. And, you know, you get too scared to put yourself forward. But in my case, maybe because throughout my life, I've always needed to prove myself and, and I'd always needed tore, really put myself out of my comfort zone more than most people, because a lot of people have this.

You know, on a silver platter, like, okay, sure you can go on and pursue education. Sure, you can go to university. In my case, I literally had to fight for it every step of the way. So I had to work a little extra harder than most people. And so as a result of that, I developed that muscle. And so resilience is a muscle that you can teach yourself.

And if you constantly stretch yourself over time, you put yourself in a place where you are not going to constantly follow the flock, you will take the lead in [00:28:00] designing your own life. And in my case, that came a lot easier because when I was at M T V overseeing business development, sales and marketing, I re sorry overseeing business and legal, I realized that business wasn't as complicated.

I thought it was because I was advising the se, the business units on business deals that I had no experience in. And that's when I realized, this is not rocket science. What you don't know, you can't learn. So through the years I learned, and that's why I was able to transition to, to becoming chief marketing officer of public listed companies overseeing business and sales only because I was always open to growth, always open to learning.

And I think a lot of people say, I want to be able to achieve a certain result in life. And just because they don't know something where they're at, they just disqualify themselves. I think the important thing to bear in mind is what you don't know you can [00:29:00] learn and what you don't know now, you ca you can know in a year or in two years.

If you invest the time, you invest the energy to put into something that you have a vision for, then you obviously can make it happen. I can't agree more with you than how you expressed it, because in our society today, there is knowledge everywhere. We were talking before the show about data and facts and that doesn't change, but how we interpret it is the mistakes and you know what I mean?

So yeah, information doesn't lead to transformation, right? Because, you know there are so, I mean, if you think about. Almost any information you need is available at your fingertips. You can search, do a Google search, you can watch a YouTube video. You can even ask chat g p t now about anything. You could really ask, chat, g p t about relationship advice.

You could ask about, you know, medical advice, anything, [00:30:00] right? But why is it that people still work with coaches? Why is it that people still work with train personal trainers? Why is it that people still put themselves in a position where they have accountability? Because when you have all that information, the issue is not the lack of information.

The issue is the lack of ability to see that you have what it takes to be able to create something very different from where you are right now. We get. In where we are, and then we kind of make excuses. We put it off, put it off, put it off, and then before you know it, five years have passed, 10 years have passed.

And then you talk about your regrets 10 years later. And we don't realize the time really goes by so quickly. Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. Absolutely. The, the information that's out there, unless you're going to be something very, very specific and [00:31:00] technical, like a brain surgeon, I mean college. Exactly. The university is almost useless.

Like I went to school for engineering and I switched to marketing. There you go. Engineering, you need, you know, people's lives. You know, there should be a continued higher education, hands on, practical, but for marketing it's results. You know, as long to me as if you're being moral and getting results, you're done.

You're good to go. So good. So let's get back to your story. Now you, you get sick. You have all these extra classes you need to take at university to complete your degree, you're feeling better, you get back to school. Your dad's supporting you, your mom's supporting you. Where does me and his life go from there?

So I, after that I went to university. I qualified as a solicitor and after I qualified as a solicitor, I wanted to work my dad, forgive me, solicitor. I'm thinking, is that accepted into, so in the UK law school, in the uk? Yeah, in the uk [00:32:00] the legal profession is slightly different from most countries. So I think in the US you only have like an attorney and that's it.

But in the UK you either become a barrister or a solicitor. And typically barristers are people who represent you in court and solicitors are more like corporate lawyers who advise you. And I don't know how the legal profession is now, but at least at the time when I was a lawyer, If you want, if you have a case that you want to fight in court, you would consult both a solicitor and a barrister, because solicitor would be the one who would prepare the case, and the barrister is the one who would take it to court.

But so I decided I was, wanted to be a solicitor. I wasn't really that interested in, you know, litigation matters or criminal matters. Solicitors are able to go to court, but only the lower courts, not the higher courts. And I wasn't really interested in doing any lit litigation stuff. So I was happy to do corporate and that's why I chose to be a [00:33:00] solicitor.

Okay. So I didn't wanna stop there, just, that's a term that I wasn't fully familiar with. So when I, when I qualified as a solicitor after that my dad said, okay, now that you've achieved everything, you wanna achieve enough, now is the time for you to get married. And since the cat was already out of the bag, of course, and I was almost there, I said, dad, I still need.

To work. I mean, I, what's the point? You spent all that money educating me if I don't go and work, it would be useless, right? I mean, I should at least work. And then he was like, okay, I'm going to give you a year or two years. But the thing is, once you start becoming financially independent it's not as easy for your parents to tell you how you should live your life.

So that was the thing for me. I knew I needed to get to a point where I became financially independent, and that was when I could take control a little bit more about my life. And did he kind of know when he was just screwing with [00:34:00] you or was he being completely serious? Like as a dad you kinda like pretend to be harsh on your daughter, but inside you're like proud of her.

I think he did. I think he did. But you know what, what I'm really surprised about my dad is that growing up my dad. If I compared him to the rest of the father's, my, my friend's father's, my dad was the strictest father amongst all my friend's dads, but I was the only one who managed to go overseas to get educated.

It was because my dad was open enough. To let me, so I was, I'm also quite pleasantly surprised and throughout the time I also engaged him in a dialogue. So I think even though I qualified as a lawyer much later, I think I was a negotiator since I was a child. So I, I didn't rebel. I engaged him in conversations, I had conversations with him and I would tell him that this is important to me.

I wanna do this. I wanna be able, and, you know, if you are not doing well in [00:35:00] school and you demanded to go to university, then you put your parents in a difficult position. So for me, because I was doing extremely well in school, I didn't really give him a reason as to why I, he can't send me to university.

And so I made it easier for him every step of the way by doing well in school, by getting myself the admission, just putting him in a place where it's like, okay, just please support me financially for me to be able to go overseas and even after. I qualified as a solicitor, even after I worked, there would be times when he would try and get me back to living the life that is created for women in my society.

I would again, engage him in these conversations and say, dad, why does it matter to you? Why? Why do I need to live the way other people live? And he would say, but what will people think? And I said, Hmm, interesting. Are people feeding us? You know, I don't really care about [00:36:00] people. Am I doing anything wrong with my life that you're so worried about people?

So I really made him think a lot about the kind of programmed behaviors or the programmed way of living that most people have. And I remember having another conversation with him about happiness as well. There was this one conversation I had with him where he said, you need to get married. And I said, okay.

But why? And he said, so that you can be happy. And I said, okay, do you think I'm unhappy now? And he kept quiet. I said, I know you think that marriage equals happiness, but look around you. How many people do you know who are happy? And I'm not saying marriage is a bad thing. I'm saying marriage is a great thing, but it's not the be all and end all of happiness.

And you can't say happiness and, and marriage is a guarantee. Like if you're married, if you're married, you're happy. And if you're not married, you're not [00:37:00] happy. It doesn't work like that. And ha, getting him into a dialogue and having this conversations with him really opened up his mind. And that was a very, very helpful thing.

And I'm actually proud of my dad for, for being open to listening and also reflecting and then coming back and not saying anything about it again. Yeah, that's tough. And he, he was, I mean, all of this was ingrained in your culture and his culture, and so this was a big transition and growth for everybody.

Okay. Very, very much so. So now you finish school, you become a solicitor, your dad's like, okay, come home. Now you convince him to give you another year or two. Where does your life go from there, Mina? So after that, my career just took off. I, you know, as I mentioned, from working as a lawyer for many years, I ended up transitioning into business sales, marketing, and I was working in Singapore.

I was working in the uk, I worked in [00:38:00] Indonesia. And my last career, I was in Indonesia in In one of the largest, actually the largest cable operator in Indonesia. And I was heading the television business as well as the as, as well as being the chief marketing officer. But in 2016, I suffered a massive financial loss.

I had trusted someone in my extended family with my finances, and overnight everything was gone in a bad investment. And so that really changed my life as as a person going through a spiritual journey. When I lost the finances, I, I really spiraled downwards because it wasn't just a loss of money, it was a loss of identity, especially because, I had to [00:39:00] fight so hard to become financially independent.

So the money was almost like an identity that I'd created for myself. It was the ransom for all the pressure that I put up with and all the, you know being a misfit in all these circles and not needing to worry about it because I was like, okay, this is a dark tunnel, but I have light at the end of the tunnel because if I'm financially independent, I don't really need to worry about anything and everyone.

But now that everything is gone, I started questioning the meaning of life. I started questioning why did I even go through? All of that hardship only to get to this point in my life, to lose everything. What was the point of anything? So I went through that soul searching for about two to three months. I hit rock bottom quite a few times, wanted to give up on my life quite a few times.

And I think the beauty about being in touch with your own [00:40:00] spirit is really being able to understand things that you don't understand in the physical realm. One of the things that I became very aware of is if I was constantly thinking about the financial loss, I would feel pain. I would feel anger, I would feel bitterness.

But if I took my mind off it and I started focusing on, okay, what's the next goal I can create for myself? Okay, what are the things I can be grateful for? I felt better, and because I felt better, that's when I realized, I was like, okay, maybe I just need to do more of this. Maybe I just need to be thinking more of these things in order for me to be able to feel better.

And so one of the things I did then, and which I always advise my clients as well now, is to ask yourself three questions every day, every morning, [00:41:00] in the morning when I wake up, this is what I did at that time. In the morning when I woke up, I would ask myself, how do I feel? And if I say I feel depressed, the second question I would ask myself is, who do I wanna be today?

Because I can choose who I wanna be. And I would assume, and I would always imagine that whatever identity I wanted to create that day was me just taking on a robe of a superhero, whichever superhero that may be. And so if I was feeling depressed, I would say, okay, today I want to be happy. And if happy is what I chose, that question I would ask myself is, what must I do today to be happy?

And the what must I do is not something that is dependent on circumstances or physical reward, but it is more a state of being. And so what I [00:42:00] would do is if as if I wanna be happy, one of the things I can do to be happy, one of the things that I found was easy for me to be, to be happy was to extend kindness to people.

Because when you are kind to strangers, you are kind to people you meet somehow kindness does something to you. As a giver, you don't have to be the receiver to experience happiness. Even as a giver, you become happy. So I would really be very intentional every day how I wanted to be, and slowly, slowly, slowly, I was able to get out of this mindset.

And then I said, okay, how about if I think about a future? Interestingly, up until that point, I had never given myself enough credit. I didn't even know who I was. As I mentioned, I was going through an identity crisis all those [00:43:00] years, and if it wasn't for my financial loss, I wouldn't have been intentional about my life because of that loss of finance.

When I started asking myself, what is the vision I wanna create for myself in the future? Because if I keep thinking about my past, I'm just going to recreate my past into my future. And I don't want to, 10 years down the line, 20, 30, 40 years down the line, talk about the financial loss as a victim. I wanna talk about the financial laws as somebody who overcame something big.

And so I said to myself, okay, if I wanna talk about the financial laws as someone who has overcome it, what is the goal? What is the goal I wanna set so that I can create something and I will have something to move towards? And I said, okay, the goal I wanna set is I wanna bio villain Bali. I just just randomly decided I wanna bio a villain Bali, and that would make me feel good.[00:44:00] 

And so I was like, fine. That's the vision I have. And so I was waking up every day. More excited about life instead of looking at my past. One of the other things I did as well is unpack my identity. Like I said, up until that point, I didn't really know who I was because. At work, I was highly regarded. I was well respected.

But when I'm home or when I'm in my normal cultural setting, I had to dumb down. In order to fit in. I need to be quiet so that I am like other women. And that really affected my identity and my, and the way I, I viewed myself. And I didn't really have, I looked confident, but I didn't really know who I was.

And when I would get praised at work, when people would say, oh my God, you're amazing. You've done such amazing things, I'd be like, oh, they probably don't know. They probably like imposter syndrome. You know, like, [00:45:00] you, they probably don't know. I'm not really that good. What if they're to find out the truth?

So I always discredit myself only because. At home. I needed to play a certain role, but that financial loss really got me thinking, hang on a second. You just don't give yourself enough credit. You got to this place. Did you even spend any time recognizing, celebrating where you have arrived? Because I was the first educated woman in my family.

The first educated person in my family, the first financial independent person in my family as a woman was a big deal. But I never paused to even give myself any credit for it. So the first thing I did was look at my own journey and say, well done. You've come this far. And second, tell myself, ask myself, what about me?

Got me to where I got to because I created success and I can recreate success if I knew what it [00:46:00] takes. So I. I took note, I was like, okay, it's the resilience, it's the mindset. It's the, it's the ability to say, I don't care what it takes. I am just going to get there. I will overcome anything, but I will get there because I'm driven by a vision.

So I took down all of those things. The third thing I did is what parts of me no longer serve me. And I knew that the financial loss, even though I, it was my, someone in my extended family, I knew I needed to let go of anger. I needed to let go of blame. I needed to let go of, you know, any of the emotions that would not serve me.

So that journey was a journey where I really transitioned and changed as a person where I grew spiritually as well. And I started writing on social media. About mindset, about healing, about different things without talking about my financial loss. But as I started writing about it, people were starting to [00:47:00] gravitate towards my content.

And then I created a small group on Facebook. I wasn't very confident about writing, you know, just openly. And when I create a small group, a lot of my friends added their friends and added their friends and added their friends. And from a group of 50, I grew to like 4,000 people. And one of the things that happened was a friend of mine contacted me and said, I've been silently watching your journey.

I've been seeing, and I'm so amazed, and you know, enlightened by what you share. And she said, okay, there's a company that's looking for a mentor. Are you open to mentoring companies? I didn't even think about coaching or mentoring at that time. I said, sure. And she introduced me to a. One of the largest vegan restaurants in Indonesia, and I don't have any f and b experience.

And I said, sure I'll do it. I had a chat with the owners and I asked them what was it that was stopping the business from growing? [00:48:00] And I identified two or three things that I, that was, I could see potentially that was blocking their, them being able to scale. And so I gave them advice on that, and we were supposed to meet the following month.

By the time I met them, the following month, the revenue had increased by 35% because they implemented what I told them. And that's when I realized, okay, I'm onto something here. Cuz I clearly enjoy coaching and I love the fact that these people implemented what I told them. And so from then on, coaching became something that I became very, very passionate about.

So as I started coaching and meanwhile, even though I didn't have the finances, I just kept looking for villas in Bali, I just kept looking. Believing a hundred percent that I will have the money. I didn't even look at my bank account. I just said, I am going to believe that by the time I find the my dream villa, I'll have the money.

So every time I went to Bali, I kept looking for villas. In [00:49:00] 2018, I walked into a villa and I said, this is going to be the villa. And that's when reality hit me. I was like, what are you saying? Do you even have the money? So I was like, okay, I need to look at my bank account. Because after my financial loss, what I did was I set up few different bank accounts.

I didn't really wanna look at numbers. I just set up a couple of D three different bank accounts. And when I was able to, when I found this villa, I looked at my bank account and that's when I realized I had made more money than I lost. In two years, I had surpassed my first seven figures and that's when I was like, okay, clearly setting a vision, working on yourself, changing the way you think really changes your life.

And that's what, that's how my life story just completely changed after that. Yeah, that's incredible. Now, one of [00:50:00] the major things you did was let go. You put the past in the past and sometimes you gotta keep letting it go. What are the tips you have for the listeners, whether they've had financial loss, whether they've been betrayed and went through a divorce, whether they've been physically raped or beaten, you know, what tips do you have that worked for you that you could just let go and move forward?

Yeah, it's a really good question. I think the important thing is to ask yourself, what do I want to achieve? Because if you are constantly playing that same R story in your head, being the victim, being the victim, being the victim, you are constantly recreating that past in the [00:51:00] present and then in the future.

And so I always say this to my clients as well, if you want a future radically different from your past, you need to ask yourself who is the common denominator between the past, the present, and the future? If you are the common denominator in all three, what needs to change is you. And if you have the same thoughts, you have the same beliefs, you take the same actions, how are you going to have a different consequence?

It's like saying, I want to go to, I want to arrive in Italy, in Rome, but every time I go to the airport, I have a ticket to Bali. I mean, Bali's not a bad destination, but it's not Rome. If you wanna go to Rome. So you can't constantly buy the same ticket to Bali and expect that you're going to end up in Rome.

It's just never going to happen. And so [00:52:00] if you want to achieve something in your life, and you have been through a difficult thing, like whether it is, you know sexual assault, or whether it is financial loss or betrayal, you wanna ask yourself, let's say you're 30, you, you wanna ask yourself. Do I want to carry this with me for the next 30 years?

Because if you are not going to let go of the anger, not going to let go of the hurt, not going to let go of the betrayal. You are taking it with you for the next 30 years. And then you can't blame people and circumstances because we choose the emotion, we choose the experiences we wanna create or recreate. And it's easy for us to blame other people.

And that's what I, I had to do. It's not, it's not easy to sit and [00:53:00] reflect. It's not easy to take responsibility. I think I love reading about successful people and that's why I constantly populate my head with things that work for me. And one of the things I learn with successful people is, They are very intentional about their life.

They don't dwell on a certain failure. They don't think about failure being an identity. They think failure is an event. They're willing to take radical responsibility for their life and look at things that didn't work very objectively and say, what must change here in order for me to course correct?

Because if you are not willing to reflect and course correct, and then just take it on yourself as an identity, I'm a failure. I'm a failure. I'm a failure. You are creating that into your future as well.

Yeah, that's very well said. So [00:54:00] if someone is struggling, Just the pain of the past and they're like depressed and they'll, you know, like you said, you struggle with depression from losing the money and you nearly do anything to lose it. But you trusted somebody, right? Yeah. So you're betrayed. You had this happen and now you're trying to move forward.

Yeah. You're saying reflect on yourself. Okay. I'm the common denominator. Not that you cause yourself to be raped or get your money stolen, or have your, you know, partner have adultery. But what you're saying is you are the denomin, you are the common factor. And if you want different results, you act differently, like you said.

Yeah. Don't get on a plane to roam and expect to show up in Bali. Yeah. Now it's not going to happen. Yeah. So what are the things, the daily conscious actions that people should be taking to change this mindset, reprogram themselves. There. There were a number of things I started doing. [00:55:00] One of the things I did was I started looking at the things that I still had in my life.

The thing with anxiety and depression is it tends to make you zoom in to a certain thing that causes the depression anxiety, so much so that you lose foresight and you lose perspective on the other things that's happening in your life. And so being able, I, people talk about gratitude a lot, but there is so much science around why gratitude is powerful.

And one of the things that I think. Very, very important is understanding that when you are constantly focused on something that is depleting your energy, where you are focused on the, the thing that's causing the anxiety, the thing that's causing the depression, you are not being [00:56:00] able to focus on other things that is bringing you joy or that is adding value to your life.

And that's why gratitude works, because when you focus on the things that you are taking for granted in your life, you suddenly realize these things are blessings. So when I lost my finances, it is so easy for me to be just thinking about, but what, what? What can I be grateful for? I lost everything. I worked for everything.

What can I be grateful for? And then I said, you know what? I am grateful that I have hot water to shower. Because if I don't have WA water to shower, I can't shower. I'm grateful that I even have water to shower. I'm grateful that I even have health. I have my limbs. You know, I'm grateful that I have. So I started looking at all the things I was taking for granted that I was grateful for, and that really shifts your focus and that adds a lot.

It gives you the [00:57:00] momentum to start thinking in a different direction, and that helps you overcome a lot of the anxiety that you have. The second thing I do, which I still do now, is walking in nature. There is something really powerful and beautiful about nature that really fills your soul. I meditate as well.

Working out is extremely, extremely important because, A lot of people work out only because they wanna have great shape or great physique. Having great shape and great physique is just the byproduct of working out. Working out is so good for your mind more than anything else. It helps you. Your body produces endorphines, which is a happy hormones.

Your mind becomes more focused and looking good just becomes, you know, the icing on the cake. And so these are the things that I did on a daily basis that really helped me get out of that mindset. And I think the important thing also to [00:58:00] talk about is forgiveness. The thing I hear a lot from people who've been betrayed or been hurt, the common question I get asked, why should I forgive after that person did this to.

And if you think forgiving is about the the other person, then you clearly don't understand what forgiveness is about. You do not forgive people because of what they did. First of all, forgiving someone for something horrible that they did, whether it is rape or whether whether they stole your money, forgiving them does not mean you're condoning what they did.

I mean, let's just get that right. You know, it's, we are not condoning what they did. What we are saying is I do not want to be energetically tied to someone who already created that void in my life or in, or in my. And if I am [00:59:00] constantly thinking about that person and angry and frustrated and blaming, I am energetically tied to them.

And when I'm energetically tied to them, I don't, I can't draw back that energy and use that energy to create a different future for myself. And so that's the one thing that I did, which I said, you know I did three things. And that third thing I mentioned was I unpacked everything and asked what other things that don't serve me.

And one of the things that didn't serve me was unforgiveness. And forgiving someone also doesn't mean you need to include them back in your life. Forgiving someone just literally means you are giving yourself that freedom and liberating yourself from being tied to someone who is not worthy of your energy, who's not worthy of your time.

So instead, if I feel someone has wronged me, if I'm upset about something, what I do is I just send them healing. I send them love, and I [01:00:00] just release them from my, from my energy field because I wanna focus more on things that build me, not things that tear me down.

Excellent. And do you do. Like as the hurt comes back, do you re-release or is this a one time pro? Yeah. Cause it's like most times it's not a one done. It's not like you throw a rock in the ocean and we're done. Right? Yes. It's a great question. Yeah, it it is. Because, you know, our subconscious mind is 95%, our conscious is only five.

So, and subconscious is a habitual mind. If we, we, we weren't taught about how forgi unforgiveness actually is damaging for us. We were never taught that. And so we are so used to finding it easy to get upset at people and blame people and continuously get ourselves worked up. When, when we think [01:01:00] about what people did to us, when you catch yourself going back there, you have to every now and then bring yourself back until it becomes a habit because.

What was the habit and the default was you being tied to that person and blaming someone else.

All right. Sounds good. So you are at the place where you're realizing your dream and you are like, holy cow. I have more money after two years than I have up to this point in my life. Yeah. And I'm buying my dream home in Bali. Yeah. So where does life go from there, Mina? Well, after that I gave up my corporate job and I started, I went into coaching full-time.

Up until then, I was doing coaching, only halftime and the rest, I was doing corporate. But [01:02:00] after I bought my dream home, I felt something change in me. I felt I no longer wanted to stay in corporate because I felt called. And I suggest that to myself. If I could create success twice, I could actually help other women achieve the same.

And I have the business and marketing experience, but most importantly, I've done it for myself. And I know the biggest stumbling block is usually the mindset, because if you can't see it in your mind, you can create it. And so that's why I felt like this is something I want to be able to do. I remember when I was still in corporate, I remember one day I wanted to go to the restroom and my office was in the corner.

So if I wanted to go to the restroom, I have to walk around the entire office. As I walked around the office, there's this voice in my head that said, look at your team and I. Why am I supposed to look at my team? Because I see my team every [01:03:00] day. And then that voice said, look at your team because you won't be seeing them for so long for, and I said, and I panicked.

I'm like, where am I going? Where am I going? And then I see a vision of a boat and I said, and that the vision was, you can't walk on water if you want, if you don't wanna get out the boat. And what I saw was other women who took that who took the image of my aunts when I was a kid, who are too scared or were too, who don't believe in their own success, who don't know where to start, who don't know how to create that future.

And it was almost like I saw a vision of women who were manifestations of my aunt and. It was very clear to me that what I needed to do was get out of my comfort zone, which was my corporate job, in order [01:04:00] for me to be able to help other women recreate or create success. And that's why I decided to quit my job.

And so ever since then, I have been coaching female ed businesses for them to make money for them to grow their business. But I also run programs specifically for mindset and healing and letting go of the past because I know that that is usually where most women get stuck. So between your birth and what we are just discussing, is there anything we missed in your life journey?

Mina, anything significant? Anything you wanna talk about before we transition to where you are today and where you're heading? No, I think there's, there's so many different stories that I think I'd be here all night if I told you. Yeah, no, we want, we don't want you to stretch it out. We don't want you to feel rushed, but any kind of thought.

So, where is Mina today [01:05:00] and where are you heading and how can we help you get there? Well, I, I am at a stage in my life where I feel more than anything, gratitude, more than anything, contentment and gratitude. Because the interesting thing about life is if we are not very conscious and intentional and aware, then the more we have, the more we want.

And so for me, having been through financial loss, having changed as a person, having morphed as you know, an identity, for me, what's really important now is just focusing more on

appreciating. I'm here. I may be here in the physical realm, but I'm here [01:06:00] not to be here permanent. I'm here as a spirit. I am here to enjoy this physical reality and the physical world, and that enjoyment isn't just a selfish one, but also developing myself spiritually, ensuring that I'm able to add value to other people.

Making sure I am very present with what I am doing right here, right now. Because most of us tend to live either in the past or in the future. And for me, what's important is being where I am right now and just appreciating my own journey. Excellent. Now, if a listener wants to get ahold of you, we're going to have list of links and websites in the show notes, but what's the best way to reach you?

Email me mina strong and shine.com or LinkedIn. I'm very active on LinkedIn, so LinkedIn is of the best platform and I recently started doing one minute videos on TikTok, so [01:07:00] yeah, can find me on TikTok as well. Excellent, excellent. So whether it's something we missed in your life story or a final thought you want to leave our listeners with, you know, we started the show and you said, if you listen to this episode, this is what you're going to get.

And I think we, we more than deliver, but is there anything else you want to share with our listeners before we cut this episode and move on to the next level? You know, the last thing I wanna share is I remember reading some research that said that the biggest regret most people have when they reach the end of their life is the things that they didn't do versus the thing they did.

So what I wanna say to the listeners is that if you are listening to this and you've had some dreams, you've had some goals, or you had some vision that you've been putting off, and I don't care how old you are, whether you are [01:08:00] 30 or whether you're 70, you know, it doesn't matter how old you are, it is never too late because for as long as you are breathing, there is hope.

And so you don't want to get to the end of your life just to only regret that you didn't bet on yourself, you didn't follow through with the dreams you had. And if fear is holding you back, something worse than fear is regret.

That is very, very powerful and true, and a great way to end our episode. Ladies and gentlemen, Mina has shared the last hour, hour and 15 minutes with us. And don't let this go to waste. This is gold. So like our slogan says, don't just listen, but do the things you know you need to, that Mina mentioned, repeat it each day, [01:09:00] form that habit so you can have a great life in this world, and more importantly, an attorney to come.

So Mina, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you. My pleasure. Yeah, it's been fi I'm going to go back and listen to this again myself. I really appreciate it and the content was powerful and it's, it's honored to have you here. Ladies and gentlemen. Like Nina talked about starring her group. Don't just listen to this content, but we want to apply it and share it, not so we can get popular and world famous.

So we can reach more people with truth, so they can have a better life and the whole world becomes a better place and God has glorified. So Mina, thank you again. Can't wait to continue. Thank friendship. Thank you. Happy oh, anytime. Anytime. We appreciate you. Ladies and gentlemen. Go take this, apply it. Have a great day, and we'll see you in the next episode.

Ciao. 

The [01:10:00] Remarkable People Podcast, check it out.

The Remarkable People Podcast. Listen, do repeat for life.

The Remarkable People Podcast.