In this episode of the Becoming You podcast, I welcome Jyoti Chand, full-time influencer and full-time mom to two little toddlers. With a mission to make you smile, you’ll find Jyoti’s Instagram chock-full of content documenting highlights of her days as a toddler mom.

I love your videos. They're all short, punchy reels. And you're also a comedian. Let's not forget that. You used to do stand up comedy, right?

Jyoti: I was born and raised in L.A. I did stand-up comedy at The Comedy Store and all the cool places for about two years in Studio City. I left stand-up comedy because, even though I had a big dream of being a comedian and an entertainer, I had a bigger dream of getting married and being a mom and having a family.

This brings me to one of my favorite topics: the fear that women can’t have it all—the fear that it’s either love or career, but never both. I feel like you've really hit that sweet spot of where you found or carved out a way of doing it.

Jyoti: It took Instagram for me to realize that I can do what I wanted to do, to continue to be a female entertainer in my own way. "I’m doing comedy through Instagram. I don’t need to be on a stage.” It’s comedy because I have an audience that is laughing.

How do you deal with the haters and the trolls?

Jyoti: The trolls are fun. There was a point where they did affect me early on and it had me questioning my content and things like that. I hate giving anyone the power to have that control. It took a lot of self-talk, telling myself that these people are internalizing something you’re doing, and it comes from jealousy. These are very deeply disturbed people, and that makes me kind of sad. A lot of people tell me that they don’t deserve my empathy; but that’s exactly what they need right now. I’ve had a full-on conversation with a hurtful troll and turned the tables for them. I became a confidant for them.

Can you talk more about your self-love journey?

Jyoti: I didn’t have a lot of self-worth growing up. I saw a lot of flaws on my body and compared myself to a lot of women. When I was 17, I was bullied a lot. I had anxiety. I had depression that was untreated. And I was always on the search for a man. For some reason, I felt like I always needed a guy to validate that I was pretty or worth something. I think I was really good at faking confidence for a long time. It took me breaking down and taking a three-month trip through Europe after a relationship ended to start my journey of transformation. But all that taught me how to be who I am today. It took me getting married to realize that I didn’t need a man because I had the space during marriage to spend time working on myself and what I loved.

Learn more about Jyoti Chand:

Visit her website: www.mamajotes.com 

Follow her on Instagram: www.instagram.com/mamajotes 

Resources mentioned:

Sober Curious by Ruby Warrington: www.amazon.com/Sober-Curious-Blissful-Limitless-Connection-ebook/dp/B0796V2RPG 

Rachel Hollis’s Start Today Journal: www.starttoday.com

Learn more about Jyoti Chand:

Visit her website: www.mamajotes.com 

Follow her on Instagram: www.instagram.com/mamajotes 

Resources mentioned:

Sober Curious by Ruby Warrington: www.amazon.com/Sober-Curious-Blissful-Limitless-Connection-ebook/dp/B0796V2RPG 

Rachel Hollis’s Start Today Journal: www.starttoday.com

In this episode of Becoming You, I offer three practical tips for showing up to meetings, presentations, and interviews with more confidence and less anxiety.

Why do we feel nervous or anxious before a significant meeting or event?

Well, I may not feel very confident or passionate about what I'm about to speak about, I don’t believe that I have what it takes to be successful or achieve a goal, or I'm worried about what others will think of me.

When I master self-confidence, it doesn’t matter how much or how little I know.

Ask yourself this question: Who do I need to be when I show up for this meeting?

1. Believe that you are the expert in the room – This doesn’t mean I have to know every single thing there is to know about the topic at hand, it just means I know more than the average person in the room. This will immediately take some anxiety away. 
2. Make sure your space is inviting, clutter-free, and distraction-free, specifically for Zoom meetings, and clear the energy of the room – I cleanse the energy of my office by burning [sustainable] palo santo and calling in loving beings of a higher vibration to help me through the meeting. This changes the way I feel in that moment and helps me feel energetically supported.
3. Connect to your body – When I don’t feel safe, I get nervous and stop thinking and speaking clearly. Standing in the power pose, like Wonder Woman does, for a few minutes before a nerve-wracking event is proven to ease stress and boost confidence. Dancing and light exercise help to release excess energy that doesn’t serve me. Lastly, I close my eyes, breathe, visualize the meeting going just how I want it to go, and tap into how that makes me feel. 

Release the need to be perfect and to impress anybody. The part that’s out of my control is how I am received by others. That’s the part I get hung up on. The more I can differentiate what’s in my control and what’s out of my control, the less stressed I will feel and the more power I will have to take on meetings, interviews, and presentations with confidence.

Conclusion: What matters is showing up with your whole heart and knowing you did your very best. If it wasn’t perfect, that’s okay, it was meant to go that way! The Universe has your back, always.

Keep tuning in to Becoming You to continue learning how to foster a strong, healthy relationship with yourself with actionable tips to implement in your own life so you can feel free and safe to be yourself. 

If you enjoyed this episode and found it insightful, screenshot this episode, share it on Instagram, and tag Visa – let’s start a conversation!

Learn more about Visa Shanmugam and her coaching services:

Visit her website: www.www.visalakshi.com 

Follow her on Instagram: www.instagram.com/lifecoachvisa 

Connect with her on Facebook: www.facebook.com/VisaShanmugamCoaching 

Follow her on Twitter: www.twitter.com/VisaShan 

Connect with her on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/visashanmugam 

Subscribe to her YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/channel/UC1bDJb2tawEJlLXwWoOceNQ

In this episode of Becoming You, Visa dives into the five valuable life lessons that she extracted from the Regency-era Netflix original series, Bridgerton. She breaks down how she uncovered these insights and then applies them to real life scenarios to make them easily digestible.

Disclaimer: If you haven’t watched the show yet and you want to, you may want to skip this episode and come back to it because there are a lot of spoilers!

1. We all have childhood wounds that are unique to us. Childhood wounds can come in many forms and unless we uncover them, acknowledge them, heal them, and give love to our inner child, we’ll keep holding onto them. If you’ve never thought about your inner child, the time is now!
2. Forgiveness is our key to feeling free. When have you felt so angry that you make irrational and harmful decisions, especially for the long-term? If you refuse to forgive someone for the way they’ve hurt you, it’s as though you drank poison and are expecting the other person to die. Nothing good can come from life if we insist on holding onto anger and resentment. It’s okay to let things go and set yourself free.
3. Nobody ever wins from judgement. – Judgement helps us assess where we stand on things. It makes us feel better than or less than but when have we ever felt fantastic from judging ourselves or others? It’s exhausting because it’s a never-ending cycle. If you’re afraid of being judged about something, chances are you’re judging other people too. When you stop judging others, you stop worrying about judgment from others because you realize that it benefits no one. In what areas of your life do you judge yourself and others?
4. Keeping up appearances and maintaining a façade to impress others is exhausting. What kind of life is that? As long as you’re living your life to please others, your happiness and contentment will not be prioritized and you’ll slowly lose yourself in the process.
5. Ultimately, we want to be seen and accepted for who we are… and that starts with us. Don’t wait around for someone else to give you that validation. It’s important that you find it within yourself because only the truest version of yourself can set you free in life. Your imperfections, your realness, your failures, and the parts of yourself that you hide away are the parts that make you so worthy of being loved. 

Visa cherishes vulnerability and shares her moments of weakness on social media. Those posts are often the most popular ones because she’s being her real, authentic self. That’s what people can connect with. People can’t connect to perfection. 

Conclusion: Your truth will set you free! We all have childhood wounds and we all want to be seen and accepted. Acceptance and healing starts from within and so does the release of judgement, perfection, and resentment. Know your truth and forgive yourself because all forgiveness is self-forgiveness.

Keep tuning in to Becoming You to continue learning how to foster a strong, healthy relationship with yourself with actionable tips to implement in your own life so you can feel free and safe to be yourself. 

Which of these five life lessons resonated the most with you? 

If you enjoyed this episode and found it insightful, screenshot this episode, share it on Instagram, and tag Visa – let’s start a conversation!

Learn more about Visa Shanmugam and her coaching services:

Visit her website: www.www.visalakshi.com 

Follow her on Instagram: www.instagram.com/lifecoachvisa 

Connect with her on Facebook: www.facebook.com/VisaShanmugamCoaching 

Follow her on Twitter: www.twitter.com/VisaShan 

Connect with her on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/visashanmugam 

Subscribe to her YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/channel/UC1bDJb2tawEJlLXwWoOceNQ

In this episode of Becoming You, Visa shares one mind-blowing truth that will set you free in life and bring you back to a state of peace. She’ll then share simple, yet actionable tips you can practice today to improve your mindset and your outlook on life.

You have thoughts, but your thoughts are not always true. You have thoughts, but you are not your thoughts.

We think that just because we are the ones experiencing our thoughts, they must be true and we must believe them. 

It’s important to realize that we can have multiple voices inside our heads having conversations which each other. It doesn’t mean you’re a crazy person! It just means that there are several lines of thought that are constantly happening all the time. That’s why we often have conflicting thoughts. It’s totally normal.

Not every thought you have is true and none of our thoughts are original. 

“I’m not lovable” “I’m not smart enough” “I can’t do this” “I’m not good enough”

Sound familiar? You get to choose which thoughts you believe and which thoughts you release. It’s very powerful to practice detaching yourself and freeing yourself from your thoughts. Try this just for one day or even one hour and see how it affects how you feel. Meditation is a great tool for putting distance between you and your thoughts.

Every thought you have is based on a memory from the past. Once we believe a thought, we start to collect evidence to affirm that thought. This compounding self-harm makes you believe that you can’t change and that your future won’t look different from what it is today. If you constantly hold onto certain thoughts, then your future is going to look quite the same, unless you look at your thoughts objectively and choose to change them.

So, now what?

Your thoughts drive every action and inaction in your life. Taking action can feel hard to do, but the moment you become aware of the thought that’s holding you back is the most divine moment to change that thought and open the door to the endless possibilities life has for you. You are in charge, so take charge!

“Every single thought you have, it either is helping you become more of the person you want to be or it’s slowing you down or pulling you back from the person you want to be.”

Visa encourages you to incorporate positive affirmations into your morning when you’re laying in bed just after waking up, which will help to improve your mindset for the rest of the day. 

Here are a few examples:

“I trust myself” “It’s safe for me to be myself” “I am so worthy and deserving of all that I desire in my life” 

Conclusion: You have thoughts, but your thoughts are not always true. You have thoughts, but you are not your thoughts. Not every thought you have is true and none of our thoughts are original. You are in charge of whether you believe your thoughts or not and whether you have positive or negative self-talk.

Keep tuning in to Becoming You to continue learning how to foster a strong, healthy relationship with yourself with actionable tips to implement in your own life so you can feel free and safe to be yourself. 

If you enjoyed this episode and found it insightful, screenshot this episode, share it on Instagram, and tag Visa – let’s start a conversation!

Learn more about Visa Shanmugam and her coaching services:

Visit her website: www.www.visalakshi.com 

Follow her on Instagram: www.instagram.com/lifecoachvisa 

Connect with her on Facebook: www.facebook.com/VisaShanmugamCoaching 

Follow her on Twitter: www.twitter.com/VisaShan 

Connect with her on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/visashanmugam 

Subscribe to her YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/channel/UC1bDJb2tawEJlLXwWoOceNQ

In this episode of Becoming You, Visa talks about the dark side of perfectionism, sharing everything she’s learned about her perfectionist tendencies over the last few years. 

Oftentimes, we view being a perfectionist as a strength in life. Visa is here to shatter the belief that perfectionism serves you in your life and to explain why perfectionism hinders you from experiencing joy and happiness. 

Listen in as Visa declares 6 truths about perfectionism and explains why they may be causing harm to your health and wellbeing:

1. Perfection is an illusion – Our ideas of perfection comes from unrealistic standards, often portrayed by the media, which aren’t what we truly want.
2. Being a perfectionist stops you from accepting what is – It keeps you in a mindset of lack, keeping you from acknowledging your accomplishments.
3. Perfectionism is a symptom of deep feelings of unworthiness – In order to make up for not being enough, we use perfection as a suit of armor. Unworthiness often comes from childhood feelings of not meeting expectations.
4. Perfectionism leads to procrastination – The need to figure out every step of how to do something delays our initiation of tasks being worked on, for fear of not being able to do it right.
5. Perfectionism leads to self-sabotage – In the mind of perfectionists, there’s no room for mistakes or second chances, which leads to a harmful ‘all or nothing’ mentality. 
6. Perfectionism is poisonous to your wellbeing – Perfectionists believe the world won’t accept or support them unless they show up perfectly. They don’t feel safe if they show up imperfectly. The people around you are also affected by your perfectionism, causing tension in relationships and even your children picking up the same tendencies.

Perfectionism keeps us from embracing our true, authentic, imperfect selves. 

What is the antidote to this toxic perfectionism?

Become aware of the fact that you are a perfectionist, then ask yourself: In what areas of your life are you really striving for perfection? It just might be all areas of your life, but you have the power to break the pattern and reprogram your mind. 

“Awareness is always the first step to change.”

Explore why you may have become a perfectionist. Dive deep into your childhood to see where you may have ‘not been enough’ to someone.

Forgive yourself for being less than perfect. Start with small action steps to embrace your imperfections. It all starts from within. Incorporate affirmations in your life to validate your renewed authenticity.

Conclusion: Perfection is not attainable because it doesn’t exist. Although being a perfectionist is harmful to your health, there are many ways you can release the patterns of perfectionism and work towards accepting your true self. You have the power, it just takes one small step to create lasting change!

Keep tuning in to Becoming You to continue learning how to foster a strong, healthy relationship with yourself with actionable tips to implement in your own life so you can feel free and safe to be yourself. 

If you enjoyed this episode and found it helpful, screenshot this episode, share it on Instagram, and tag Visa – let’s start a conversation!

Learn more about Visa Shanmugam and her coaching services:

Visit her website: www.www.visalakshi.com 

Follow her on Instagram: www.instagram.com/lifecoachvisa 

Connect with her on Facebook: www.facebook.com/VisaShanmugamCoaching 

Follow her on Twitter: www.twitter.com/VisaShan 

Connect with her on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/visashanmugam 

Subscribe to her YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/channel/UC1bDJb2tawEJlLXwWoOceNQ

In this first episode of Becoming You, Visa tells her transformational story that starts when she was a child, being noticed for all the ‘wrong’ reasons and playing by all the rules, and to be continued as a recovering perfectionist and people pleaser who is thriving as a mindset transformation coach.

After a lifetime of striving for the perfect life, two babies, a great career, and a happily arranged marriage, she began feeling unsatisfied and unexcited about her life. Despite the immense gratitude she felt for the things she had, Visa felt unfulfilled and wondered, is there more to life?

Visa knew she was capable of more and had more to offer to the world, but she had no clue how to begin on that journey. She tried to ignore these thoughts and feelings, which led to resentment, loneliness, and leaving her corporate job when her first child was born.

She thought that starting her own business would fix many of her problems and since making that leap, it’s been a rollercoaster ride of entrepreneurship and discovery. That first step was the step she needed to take to dive deep into herself. She dipped her toes into sleep consulting and network marketing before falling into the personal development and self-help world. 

“Every challenge that I had ever had in my life, every obstacle, every setback, and all the struggles I was having in my life… most of that pain was caused by me.”

In this episode, Visa explains what she means by that statement and how that made her feel. She shares the truths that came up for her, evoking an awakening, and what changes when you start to heal your relationship with yourself. And so, her journey to self-love and self-acceptance began. 

Keep tuning in to Becoming You to continue learning how to foster a strong, healthy relationship with yourself with actionable tips to implement in your own life so you can feel free and safe to be yourself. 

Conclusion: You don’t need to become someone else in order to experience more success, abundance, peace and happiness, you need to become more yourself! The intention of this podcast is to help you become the most you that you can be because that’s the secret to living a life you love.

Learn more about Visa Shanmugam and her coaching services:

Visit her website: www.www.visalakshi.com 

Follow her on Instagram: www.instagram.com/lifecoachvisa

Connect with her on Facebook: www.facebook.com/VisaShanmugamCoaching 

Follow her on Twitter: www.twitter.com/VisaShan 

Connect with her on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/visashanmugam 

Subscribe to her YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/channel/UC1bDJb2tawEJlLXwWoOceNQ