Geeta Nadkarni, Founder of Impact with Influence

Geeta Nadkarni is a veteran journalist and performer with more than 25 years experience in the mainstream media. As the founder of Impact with Influence (ImpactwithInfluence.com), she has helped coaches and info-preneurs all over the world grow 6- and 7-figure businesses without sacrificing freedom, family time or integrity. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, CBC, CNN, ABC, Reader’s Digest and she has been a contributor to Huffington Post, Entrepreneur, Inc and more.

Bio Source: impactwithinfluence.com

Geeta Truly believes in the power of impact with influence.  Her book gives inspiration to those who seek to impact with influence.

Transcript of Geeta Nadkarni interview by Alan Olsen, Host of the American Dreams Show (“Founder of Impact with Influence”):

Alan Olsen: Welcome! I’m here today with Geeta Nadkarni. Welcome to today’s show.

Geeta Nadkarni: Hello, thank you so much for having me.

Alan Olsen: Geeta, for the listeners here (before we get into the book that you just put out) I’d like to take a few moments and have you outline your path in life. What brought you up to where you are today, and then we can talk about contents of your book: The Law of Attraction.

Geeta Nadkarni: What brought me to where I am today? To paraphrase Sarah McLachlan, the great Canadian singer, ‘bumbling stewards ecstasy’ it’s like basically I would describe my path that way. I grew up in India. I was born in Mumbai, I grew up there. I was very, very lucky to have a coach, if you will, very early in life. I was 10 years old. I went to school in English. It’s my first language, I speak several others, but English is my first language. And my and I almost flunked English language, which is a whole 100 mile paper in school. And it was horrifying to my father, who was a journalist and had won awards for his English and he was horrified that anyone carrying his DNA could almost flunk grammar. He was like, “What!?! This is impossible!” If you ever watch Bollywood films, you know how dramatic Indian dads are this. It’s all true. It’s all true. He and my mom devised a program were my two younger sisters, (when I was 10, this is the summer turn 10) my two younger sisters, and I had to write three essays a week in a scrapbook, or we couldn’t go out to play.

Now, to his credit, he made it really interesting. We would cut images out of magazines, and then stick them in the scrapbook and then create fictitious characters, we would write book reports of our favorite bedtime stories. If we went out on a family outing of some sort, then we would write a report on it. And then he would sit painstakingly on the weekend, and he would just correct things. And he would be like, “Here is how you write a really strong headline. And here is how you bring a story full circle. Here’s how you use metaphors” all these different things. And I went from hating essay writing, to absolutely knowing that it was my purpose to tell stories in the course of one summer. Who needs an inheritance when you can have that. That was kind of where it all started for me. I got published for the first time for pay when I was 12. I’ve been a freelance writer since I was 12 years old. And I’ve always done it as a kind of side hustle, thinking I would get a real job, whatever that is. (I never did, by the way.) I ended up working in television, I lived in Singapore for a couple of years, I lived in London for a short stint. And now I live in Canada in Montreal.

And I’ve ended up on television, I’ve had my own radio show across the country. And then about almost 10 years at this point ago, I had a child, I had my first and I decided that I was done with the nine to five life, I was already kind of getting disenchanted with the media, I didn’t want to put more fear and shame and grief into the world. I wanted to do something real. And I didn’t know what it was. And I was terrified that all I knew how to do was tell stories. And I was like, What am I supposed to do with that? I need a real skill. Turns out, it’s pretty lucrative. I did not know this. Lesson number one for any one listening, whatever you think you like, the thing that you do, you probably don’t realize how important and valuable it is to the world because you probably haven’t fully understood your gift yet. I know that was true for me. And now I run my own company. It’s a business coaching company. So I help experts, people who are really, really great at what they do break free from dollars for hours or you know, I often work with recovering therapists or folks who have a very clearly defined expertise. They have proven results in and a methodology that in what they do, and I help them bring their businesses online and then grow them and scale them and tell stories that bring in their ideal clients. That’s what I do now.

Alan Olsen: Geeta, Do you believe in the law of attraction?

Geeta Nadkarni: Yeah, it’s a great question, Alan, because I’m a journalist. That was my background. So I’m a skeptic. I’ve always been kind of skeptical about it because it seems really kind of bad. Like just believe in something and then it just falls in your lap and if If it doesn’t fall in your lap, and you’re just not believing hard enough. I’ve always had a problem with that; however, which is ironic, because now I’ve written a book on manifestation. How to live your vision, how to manifest your dream life in under 15 minutes a day? Because if you’re an underachiever like me, that’s really all you’ve got to play with anyway. If you want to stay if you want to actually do it consistently. The long answer is, I’ve come to believe in it more, because it’s kind of like my gift. I think I understand it better more. And I think I misunderstood it at the beginning. It is not that if you think about something all the time that it will suddenly materialize in your life. It is more that the energy underneath the thinking is what’s going to lead to whether it happens for you or not.

If you think about something in this yearning, finding, I’m never going to have it way, then what ends up happening is all your attention falls to the details that seem to lead you to think, “Oh, I’m never going to have it, I knew it.” Everything that confirms all your fears, etc., (if you’re feeling angsty about it). If on the other hand, you’re feeling really joyful about something, chances are, it’s totally gonna fall in your lap. That’s what I’ve come to realize. I kind of do believe in it now.

Alan Olsen: In writing this book, how did it come about? Was there a manifestation towards this in bringing your vision to life? What is it? Because you’re a freelance writer, right?

Geeta Nadkarni: I was. I haven’t been one in 10 years in a decade. How did I get to this? It’s because I got, I really wanted to practice it, I wanted to have it for myself. Even my coaching program, I basically built it for me, I built it for someone like me, somebody who had this huge, audacious over the top ambition. I knew I wanted to run a seven figure business, I knew I wanted to create a lot of opportunity both for myself and for other people. One of my absolute joys in business is to create opportunity to create jobs for other people, we now have a team of 11, like these 11 jobs did not exist 10 years ago. That’s so exciting to me. I knew I wanted to do this. When I when I first saw what people were doing online, I was like, Oh, my God, this is huge. And I was a Luddite like I was completely a technophobe. The whole idea of like learning how to use computers and software and all of this stuff, this was a huge leap for me. But when look, calling is that visceral, which it was, for me, it really doesn’t matter what’s in your way. You’re going to be able to overcome it.

And what I do now is my program is quite different from the way that most business coaching programs work. Most business coaching programs are like, here’s a strategy. Here’s some spreadsheets, here’s some templates, here’s what you do, here are the steps to follow, etc. Whereas the approach that we take his chances are, you’ve got a whole stack of templates and spreadsheets and crap that you’ve already collected. You’ve been trying to do this for a while, what I’m really interested in and what my team is really interested in is, why are you not doing it? Why aren’t you able to do it? Where do you have either an intellectual misunderstanding of what the process is? Or more interestingly, what are your subconscious fears that you have that you’re unaware of that are actually guiding your every action, but that consciously, you have no clue that this is your belief system. We work with clients, one on one, we use hypnotherapy, we use all kinds of different modalities to kind of bring that out. Because once you understand your own fear pattern better.

Here’s how we do it, we have all these different processes that we used. If one thing doesn’t work for you, no big deal, we’ll find something else. Once you bring them to your fears into a Google Doc, literally a Google Doc, you submit it to us. The mindset team then works with you one on one to release the fear. And then the copy team comes in once the fear is released. And we take that same fear because if you have that fear, then the people you were designed to serve have that exact fear, you were given the fear so that you could find your way through it and lead them. That’s why you were given it. It’s a gift. Now you understand it better. Now you can harness it, you can use its power, you can surf the wave instead of having it crash over your head and drown you. And now you bring that for what you paid for to those next that next generation of people. That’s kind of how we do what we do.

Alan Olsen: I love the approach there. I’m sure a lot of people are really afraid to do something they’d never done in life. And afraid of failure. Are the common mistakes people make when they start out to venture in a area of uncertainty?

Geeta Nadkarni: Yes, there are so many mistakes that we make. And I say ‘we’ because I’m very much one of you. I have figured a few things out. These are slippery things that I have figured out. These are the kinds of things where there’s a visceral every time you make a huge uplevel. Like one of the things I’m experimenting with now is stand up comedy within which I have zero experience, I have never done it before. It terrifies the living daylights out of me. But it also excites me, and it calls to me and I’m like, Huh, no, do I listen to the field? Or do I listen to the calling. And luckily, now I’ve done I’ve had enough rounds with this particular kind of fear that I’m like, Alright, I know what you’re trying to do, I see what you’re trying to pull, let’s play, okay, like, I’m not going to get rid of you, I’m never going to get rid of the fear, the fear, the point of the game is not to get rid of the fear, the point of the game is to use the fear. It is to embrace the fear and then use the fear. Because if I can really look at what are the specifics of what I’m afraid of, and then pull that into my comedy, I mean, hell, that’s, that’s going to be an act that people will pay money for. I would pay money to watch that. So that’s kind of the process of it.

One of the big mistakes that I see is people trying to not be afraid, or being people thinking, well, if I’m afraid, then it must mean something, and I make it mean, I’m gonna, you know, it’s not gonna work for me, it’s not for me, etc. Be careful about what meaning you assign to your field. That’s one thing that I see people doing. People being me obviously, the second thing that people do, (i.e. me), is I don’t do this anymore. But many, many times in the past I have, I have been very undiscerning, if you will, with who I allow at my leadership table. And what I mean by this is, if you’re wanting to be an entrepreneur, if you’re wanting to take a wild risk in some space, and you’re taking advice from a bunch of people who may love you very much, who are very level headed and whatnot, but who are not entrepreneurs, and don’t understand how the mechanisms of this game work, then they’re probably going to tell you, you’re crazy! They’re going to tell you, you’re irresponsible. They’re going to give you all of the very logical reasons that you won’t succeed. If you listen to them, you’re never going to realize your full potential and what will happen in the long term is you’ll end up resenting them, or your life will become a push pull between being loved by the people that you love, and going for the thing that you that calls to you. And you will have to deny one of those very, very essential pieces of yourself.

And what I highly recommend instead, is find a way to put your phone on airplane mode. When that is necessary, you will go through a phase most likely where you just need to put your phone on airplane mode, which is what I did when I was wanting my site, this business when I was launching this business, which is now a multimillion dollar business. Back in the day, I had just bombed another venture that I had gotten my entire family in on so the taste of failure was fresh in my mouth. It was messy. And everybody had supported me. And I was like, Yeah, this is the one like, it was a baby sling company. I was a new mother, of course. So this was all about was all about babies and slings and this whole name, but it never really took off because it was not my purpose.

But I learned a lot from the experience. And I broke a lot of eggs, if you will, because, you know, my dad got me fabric and they all supported me and they told all their friends and whatnot. And then you know, next thing you know, six months later, I’m like, You know what, I have nabbed going in a different direction. But this is the one and they’re like, really, this is really irresponsible. You know, you’re a mother now, like this is not a good thing to do. And so if you’re in that place where you’re like, that irresponsible person, it it’s like falling in love though. And I remember my husband and I who had been together for a decade at the time. We almost broke up because he was like, What are you doing? You are risking everything that we have built together. We will lose the house. You don’t even have a job. I was coming off of two years of maternity leave. So like I literally did not have a job. I was unemployed. He was holding down the fort. We were living bait literally dollar to dollar paycheck to paycheck. I had to pack coffee from home because I didn’t have the money to buy coffee at cafes like that is how close to the wire we will at the time. And he was like what are you doing?

All this to say that that it was a really, really fraught time in our relationship because the because what was really happening was, I was daring to dream. And I was doing the cane that he wasn’t allowing himself to do. He was stuck at a job that he really didn’t like, because he had to pay the bills. He was our stability at the time. And so for me to take these ridiculous risks to go for something that lit me up the way that it lit me up, I felt like a slap in the face to him. And I can really understand that and have a lot of compassion for it now, but at the time, we argued like cats and dogs, it was awful. And what we ended up doing what ended up happening is the clarity that emerged was at some point, I sat him down, I said, Listen, the only other time I have felt this way, was when I met you, because I met him coming out of another messy relationship. It was a very messy breakup. And I was like, I’m done with men. I’m done with relationships. I just want a job instability. And then I met him, and I was like, okay, oh, very cute. Why are you so cute. I was like, it feels like the same thing. It’s terrible timing. There are so many reasons this can go wrong. And I can’t not do it.

And if I did not do it, and I didn’t do it to keep you happy in this moment, we would grow to hate each other. I would rather we break up and stay friends, we’ll always be in each other’s lives, we have child together. But I would rather we stay each other’s friends and love each other and respect each other, then do this thing where I give up my calling to make you comfortable, I can’t do it, I won’t do it. And that was the conversation that kind of just crushed all of the stress. It just like it broke the conversation open. And then he was like, You know what, I actually really want this for you. And I want this for us. And I’m terrified that it won’t work. And that’s why I’m holding back. And then we were like, Oh, we’re on the same team. Okay, yay, let’s do this together. So then it was great. And I’m not promising that, that if you have this conversation with your partner, that that is the way it’s going to go. But I was very, very lucky that that is the way it went. And today we run this company together. And we’ve been together 17 years.

Alan Olsen: You bring up a good point in the midst of this, and I guess we’re in a river of change. And as the world and environment changes around us, and we encounter new problems, new adversities, we need to adjust if we if we don’t adjust, we get run over. Let’s dwell a little bit on increasing our capacity to change. As we go through life. What do you got any tips? For the listeners here?

Geeta Nadkarni: Yes, it’s so funny, because I recently listened to two TED Talks that say the exact same thing. And it goes to the practice that is in my book, how to live your vision. The very first thing that I do, the first thing I do in the morning is I wake up and I write down at least one thing that I want. And sometimes it’s a big thing, like I want to be really great at stand up comedy, that’s a big deal. Or something. It’s like I just I just want to have a really satisfying breakfast. It could be small, it could be banal, it doesn’t matter. But a huge piece of this is learning to be comfortable. And to develop a lexicon around your desire. Most people, if you literally point blank, ask them what do you want? They don’t know. They can’t say sometimes they know but they can’t say because it’s buried so down deep, that language can’t penetrate. Like it just doesn’t. It hasn’t come up to the like past the limbic system of the brain where the language where you can find the words to describe it. It’s this yearning, it’s a visceral wanting, but because there’s no concept to it, you can’t proceed and take action on it. And so then you remain this yearning, angsty animal.

Part of my practice, part of the Beman journal practice is and again, I say journal like it, you can do this in any old notebook. You can do this on basically, you can do this on your hand, I don’t care. It’s just it’s a journaling practice. The first thing you do is you write down something that you want and then the real magic of this is you write down if you were to receive whatever it is you want, what would it make you feel? And so for me if we would take the same example I just ran with it me getting up on stage and doing a killer set that made everybody just be that pee laughing that would make me feel like I had reached my highest potential. Because I took a creative risk I laid everything on the table, because doing stand up is like that, right? You’re there’s no ego left. It’s it’s all of you, you put all of you on the table, and if the audience boos or jeers a pointer finger, and like laughs but not in the way that you want them to write, that can feel like death. For me to put that to have the courage to know that I had the courage to put all of me on the table. That’s what I want.

So now that I know what I want, think about this, I just took a random example, stand up comedy is just one way that I can attain this potential. But now that I’m clear on the potential now, if now I go to my desk, and I’m running this business, and I’m having conversations, and I’m, you know, doing this interview with you, now I can, at every point, I know, in the back of my mind, one of the ways that I wanted to put all of me on the table, so I can put all of me on the table right here, I don’t have to wait for a stand up comedy show, I don’t have to wait for something in the future, I can give myself the gift of a baby step in that direction, right here right now. That I think is how you go for change. And then there’s more to the practice where you there are two pieces during the day where you set them up once and then they run for the rest of you, potentially the rest of your life. You can put them on a post it I put them as reminders on my phone. One says, “What help am I willing and able to receive? Because nobody gets to anywhere they want to go alone.” Part of your job, this life, I believe is to is to gather the people that you were meant to serve and that were meant to serve you.

So asking for help. And receiving help when it is offered is a big piece of that. What help Am I willing and able to receive? And then the other is what is the best and highest use of my time. So I have saved myself a lot of busy work. One of the things my husband is really jealous of me is he’s just like, you spend all your time doing exactly what you love. And I’m like, Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Like, it people off. Because like, how come you get to do that. And I’m like, because I chose it. It’s not like I don’t do things that I don’t want to do in the moment. But if I noticed that I’m like, Ah, time after time, I’m doing something and I’m like, I really don’t enjoy this. I don’t like this, I’d be like, is this the best and highest use of my time? Chances are, t5he answer is no. And then I’m like, Okay, who can I hand this to? Who can I give this to who’s who can I create opportunity for by giving this to somebody else that loves doing this, there’s all kinds of people in this world, which is awesome.

So that so that’s the sort of middle of the day BS that those reminders pop up. So they’re always kind of humming under your consciousness. And then at the end of the day, I practice the act of receiving. If I have put out a want, if I have put out a desire to the universe to God to the powers that be to my friends, to my family, at the beginning of the day, then it is my freakin job to make sure that I am noticing all the ways that it has been delivered to me. A lot of type A overachievers My hand is up. Absolutely crap at receiving. We talk a lot we do a lot. We push a lot, we accomplish a lot. But we don’t let any of it land. We don’t savor it when it happens. We don’t experience the joy of the baby steps. We don’t celebrate every minor victory on the way to the big one. And then what if we die on the way to the big one? Then what like that’s something I always think about. So I’m just like, now I’m gonna I’m gonna celebrate every part of it. It’s not like there’s a cap on celebration there isn’t. So I noticed all the miracles in my life. So all the weird like things that just fall in my lap like I lost an earring the other day and it just showed up. And I’m like miracle! Yipee! I noticed all the synchronicities where I’m the dead ducks.

This idea of I mentioned it before. Oprah somebody interviewed her and asked her how, you know, you’ve done your you’ve run your own show, you’ve done screenplays, you’ve acted, you’ve done this, you’ve done that you’ve started a nonprofit, how do you do it all and she’s like, I just really I got really clear on what I wanted. And then I give myself permission to have it. I just go for it. And I was like, See, I knew it. I knew it like this. This is happening. This is a real thing. Everybody that you know, who has a resume, like Oprah who is going for things and you’re like, How the heck are you doing it? They’re not doing it alone. That’s a myth. They’re not necessarily burning themselves out. Burnout is when you do too much of what you don’t love burnout is not doing too much burnout is just doing too much of what doesn’t light you up.

If on the other hand, you’re taking that creative risk, where you put all of yourself on the table. And you’re like, I’m going to do this thing because I really want it and I’m going to allow myself to receive whatever’s there for me, it may not be success the way that you wish it was right I’m probably going to fall off stage and everyone’s gonna see my underwear. Like that’s just part of the game. You understand that that may be where it leads you in the short term. But if you’re willing to receive all of it if you’re willing to make peace with all the parts of you that come up that want your love that feel ashamed and that feel, you know, rejected or any of that if you can make peace with those spots, then All of its available to you. No one can hold that person down. So practicing receiving at the end of the day, so you start your day by getting clear on what you want. You’ve run your filters through the day. And then at the end of the day you practice receiving and it doesn’t have to take any more than 15 minutes, honestly, all of it all together could take less than seven minutes.

Alan Olsen: Geeta how does one find your book?

Geeta Nadkarni: It is the easiest thing to find it is on Amazon, any Amazon anywhere in the world.

Alan Olsen: Why don’t you hold it up for the listeners here.

Geeta Nadkarni:  This is what it looks like. It’s called, How to Live Your Vision: Manifest Your Dream Reality in Less than 15 Minutes a Day And again, I built this for myself. I built this for real life. I’m a mom, I you know take Friday’s off I don’t I’m not a workaholic. I’m a total recovering Type A overachiever, I don’t want to live my life and measure my worth on pure achievement. I want to celebrate I want to have joy. And so I built this as a as a series of reminders. And again, I’m not one that will tell you man if you don’t do this every single day then it’s not going to work. Actually, I’m an 8020 goals I always have been at 20 is like my max. I’m more of a 6040 You don’t have to be perfect to achieve deep satisfaction.

Alan Olsen: Geeta Thank you for being with us! Today I’ve been visiting with Geeta Nadkarni and go pick up her book, How To Live Your Vision For Life In 15 Minutes A Day. That’s all it takes. Thank You for being with us today.

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This transcript was generated by software and may not accurately reflect exactly what was said.

Alan Olsen, is the Host of the American Dreams Show and the Managing Partner of GROCO.com.  GROCO is a premier family office and tax advisory firm located in the San Francisco Bay area serving clients all over the world.

Alan L. Olsen, CPA, Wikipedia Bio

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