could you do me a quick favor if you're

listening to this please hit the follow

or subscribe button it helps more than

you know and we invite subscribers in

every month to watch the show in person

i think society goes success is get this

job get married get a house what does

that do to you it just really makes your

life feel small the founder of kloss

boss monthly fitness program a billion

dollar founder wild scanacchio when i

would watch my parents not really fit in

it sort of made me realize maybe i don't

fit in and then be told i smelled or i

didn't belong somewhere everyone wanted

to box me into something and i just

refused to be boxed we spent half a

million dollars building a product that

didn't work was i exhausted yes was i

lonely yeah i missed family things i

missed weddings i i was just not around

i have learned at this point like time

means more to me than money i want to

make sure my priorities are more

reflective of the human i want to be in

my life

if you go towards purpose i guarantee

your life will be more fulfilling do you

believe that everybody has a purpose

beyond the nine to five i do how do you

find it so

first of all

so without further ado

i'm stephen bartlett and this is the

diary of a ceo usa edition i hope

nobody's listening but if you are

then please keep this to yourself

[Music]

when i read someone's story one of the

first questions i try and answer when

i'm reading through that especially the

early years is i'm trying to identify

what it is that made them

either an anomaly or

hungry i have a kind of a thesis that

much of people's drive and their

ambition especially the people that i

sit here with comes from kind of some

kind of pain or trauma or early

experience that molded them so my

question to you

is what made you hungry

you know when i was younger i got to

taste something that was so magical

which was

dance and

it was this place in my life that it

wasn't about the physicality of actually

dancing it was

the ability to make other people feel

through something that i did and to be

able to realize that as a human

being you can have

that type of influence power connection

to other people and to feel that

when you are

four or five years old

was just this magical experience for me

that honestly nothing else in my life

could compare to it and once i uncovered

that i always wanted to feel that

in anything i did and i strived in all

the work i did and all

of you know the different careers i've

had in my life and the different you

know art i've done

i've strived always to go back to that

intention of how

do i give to others and make them feel

something in their life and that's

really been this anchor for me and its

purpose at the end of the day

and that started at five years old yeah

when i was really young with a don't set

a wedding yeah it was just a random

dance performance that

for some reason i started dancing and

everyone started watching me and i it

wasn't anything that was a

structured performance by any means it

was very much just this organic thing

that came out of me

and

i really just loved it and i realized

actually in a deeper way that the other

part of the hunger came from

when i danced and felt that feeling i

felt like the most authentic version of

me

and i realized that i was in so many

settings where i didn't always feel like

i could be me

whether that was you know being an

indian girl in the middle of a town

where no one looked like me or sometimes

being with my indian community but being

in a town that where i was a cheerleader

and i didn't fit in there i realized

that so many parts of me never felt

whole and i was always showing up with

one little strand of me one little

strand of me there here

and i felt when i performed and danced

especially indian dance i felt like the

most

whole version of who i was

the resistance you felt and the struggle

you felt of bit trying to

i guess conform to two different

communities at the same time so tell me

about trying to be an

american in in a town where there's

you know 300 people at your school and

you're the only

people of indian heritage how is that i

think one of the most interesting parts

of it is so much of this comes from the

parents not really from the kids

and when i would watch my parents not

really fit in it sort of made me realize

maybe i don't fit in it was sort of this

interesting way

to look at my parents and know that they

felt uncomfortable and then look at

myself and be in different settings and

realize wait i don't look like everyone

else and then be told i smelled or my

food smelled or i didn't belong

somewhere because

my hair color was different

was just a very interesting

place to be kids said that she yeah i

remember like i mean i talk about it in

my book but there were some some really

harsh moments you know and when you're

young you're you're impressionable right

things can scar you for a very long time

and i think for me the the goodness was

that i did have this place of dance that

made me feel

grounded and made me feel whole because

if i didn't have that i think the trauma

that i was probably going through by not

fitting in would have just burned a hole

so deep in me that i'm not sure how i

would have been able to recover but i

had this light right

and i think that's you know going back

to what you were asking

it was the light

that i saw that there is something

beautiful out there for me to go and do

for the world if i can just hang on to

it and fight for it and it was a fight

for me to even hang on to whatever my

identity was right when we talk about

our identities and in all these labels

which i really don't love like whether

it's indian american ceo whatever all

these labels are it was really just i

think my whole journey in my life

was a fight to be myself in any setting

and not have people tell me what to do

right i think we all struggle with that

in our whole lives and probably why i

had to be a ceo because i don't like

anyone telling me what to do but it

really stemmed because i think

throughout my life everyone wanted to

box me into something

and i just refused to be boxed did your

parents want to box you into something

of course i mean my parents you know

they sacrificed everything to come to

america they obviously wanted my sister

and i

to have successful careers which you

know amounted to a few different

industries like be a doctor a lawyer

engineer or you know and then the other

part of it was get married you know

obviously at like a normal age where you

could

cook for your family and be a good wife

right these were sort of the

these were the expectations that were

set in my life and i think that's really

the hardest part is when you are

constantly

brought in your life in saying that you

need to

live by the expectations of others you

end up either rebelling or you conform

and

i always wanted to make my parents proud

so

i knew i did what i felt was at the core

part of the value so for example if it

was getting education i thought that was

important too i wasn't going to sit

there and rebel from getting education

but there came a point in my career

trajectory where i had to say okay like

i have checked every box in this now i

have to do it my way with the way i

really want to feel and not conform and

rebel and i think that's really the

whole formula of people knowing when to

rebel and when to conform

you referenced that um you were looking

for a different feeling

after checking those boxes what was the

feeling you had when you were doing that

job

i had trained myself my entire life to

do well when people told me to

hit this mark in my life right and

that's like in a way that's like how i

developed the skills in my life to to

always propel myself and execute and

make sure that um i was able to you know

be responsible and move forward in

everything i did

but

i felt no deep

fire or passion or love towards it right

i wasn't jumping out of my bed

to go to my office to go and work for my

clients right i was doing what i had to

because you know i knew it was

once again expected of me when you you

must have friends that are living a life

that is

expected of them

and you can start to see as the the

years go on the consequence of living a

life that is expected of you

absolutely what would you say to those

people

and what lessons have you learned about

living a life expected of you i mean

that's not the way to have a fulfilled

life you can have a life and you can

probably

check all the boxes and make your people

proud in your life but you're going to

be on the other side of it and feel

empty

and that feeling of emptiness is the

worst feeling anyone can ever have and i

think people come to it at different

points in their life they either come to

it when they're 20 or they come to it

when they're 50.

and

that's because they haven't done the

work to actually ask themselves

what are the expectations you want for

your own life and that's the problem i

think we're never taught that right no

one's ever

asked

us what we want for our own lives and i

think society goes and tells us okay

success is get this job successes get

married get a house have kids you know

and especially for women it's even i

think even a bit more of a closed road

and that what does that do to you it

just really

it makes your life feel small right

because it makes you feel like you can't

get past it to go and live for your

dreams and ultimately you know i've been

there in my life where i have felt like

the road has closed in

and it's left me feeling hopeless

and that's the worst place in the world

to be is feeling hopeless the best thing

you could do is feel like you can go and

do anything change the world and i think

the more you taste it the more you want

more of it in your life

at that phase in your life were you

battling somewhat with your

north star that light you referenced

earlier which was dancing

but also you're i guess you're nine to

five yeah and what tell me about that

battle in how

dance ultimately ended up winning i

remember always having this bounce in my

step like i would walk to work in the

middle of new york city choreographing

in my head listening to

the song i was performing like i in a

weird way was like embodying this life

that of what i wanted to be

and then i would get to the office and i

would do my work and you know once again

like i i love the steve martin quote be

so good they can't ignore you like

whatever work i do in my life i will do

150 if i say yes but

i knew that something was wrong i never

i didn't want to live like that i didn't

want to feel like i was hiding so much

of who i was and as my 95 which by the

way in consulting isn't a nine to five

you work like 80 hours a week i mean

that was my life and i as i realized

that if i wanted to commit to that

career path that that 80 was probably

going to go to 90 it was going to go to

100 was going to be traveling and i was

going to have to say

no more and more to the thing i loved i

just realized i wasn't willing to make

that trade-off and i think that's

sometimes the hardest thing people have

to think about is what are you

sacrificing what's the trade-off in your

life that you're making

and i just wasn't willing to make it at

that point and i i had

done so much in my life at that point

where um i felt like i had achieved

according to everyone else enough to

start taking

a little bit of a path to being

rebellious right and i think that's

really when

i started to do a lot of work to say

what can i do to bring all parts of me

to the table

when you make that decision to leave

bain and company yeah the managing

management consultant firm in new york

was there like a series of catalystic

sort of moments or pivotal moments near

the end of your time there that made you

think i [ __ ] this

you know like i i read about a meeting

you had yeah

yeah so it's literally the opening um of

my book but

you know a few a few things happen i

would say so

first of all most people stay in

consulting like at this this job for

about three years then you go off to

business school it's sort of the usual

route people take so i was in my third

year there and a few people can kind of

stay on and just continue there i really

wasn't interested in going to business

school at the time

i wanted to live i wanted to like be in

new york city and feel the energy of it

and so my third in my third year i had a

performance at um in the middle of times

square for the for this big uh

unveiling of ushuayarai's madame

tussauds statue which was an important

thing and australia rai is one of my

icons especially as a dancer she's a

huge bollywood actress

and the week before a client meeting

gets scheduled at the same time as my

performance

and i'm you know my clients are big

clients these aren't these are fortune

500 companies these aren't small clients

by any means and and we're meeting like

the ceos you know

cfos of the company and um i remember

talking to my boss saying hey you know

what i really want to go to the

performance i'm not like a big part of

this meeting is it okay if i miss it and

we talked about it really briefly it

wasn't a big deal i didn't feel bad

about it i went to the performance

it went well a few months later we're

sitting down talking about you know

review and she's like giving me feedback

and she says this thing to me which just

triggered me and it was

is this the job you really want like i

don't think that you want to be a

consultant and i took that in my heart

as

oh my gosh she doesn't think i'm good

enough right and i just kind of went

through how throughout my life

i've been taught to be type a everyone

tell me i've done a good job

and so my initial reaction to her saying

that to me was i'm going to prove to you

how good i am right that's like the

natural type a reaction is to say no

what do you mean like i love this job i

really want to be here

and

the more i started thinking about that

the more i realized she was right i

didn't want to be there it was not the

life i wanted it was not the career i

wanted and that's when i decided to

start looking at other jobs that

would give me a bit more of the

flexibility i wanted in my day to day

but still pay the bills and that's when

you move over to mtv i went to warner

music right now we warner right okay and

there's this really interesting balance

that i see in you like which clearly

shifts in your life where you you feel

like you're a um and correct me where

i'm wrong here but you're quite a good

like conformist in terms of expectation

and then slowly rebellion starts to

creep in and it was just just had me

thinking about like the probably if

there is a right balance of conformity

and rebellion in our life because

conformity makes sense

you know

in some regards you can't just be a

total robot right we'd all be living out

in the desert or something right but

just the interesting balance i see in

people like you that i meet of

i mean a lot of them start as kind of

conformist or a little bit more

people-pleasing especially

first-generation immigrant families

right and then that fails them

yeah

in terms of fulfillment happiness mental

health

and then that's where the rebellion

starts to

i think that's the key it's it's

rebelling for the right reason if that

makes sense i always believe

that i was rebelling for purpose

right right and if you're rebelling for

purpose

i think it's exactly yeah it's

justifiable right dance wasn't

something that was just okay pile go and

do this because it's a hobby like it it

was this place for me to bring together

so much of my trauma actually from when

i was younger it was this place for me

and and you know my dance company was

this indian american dance experience

and

it was about me bringing together the

pile who got made fun of with the pile

who danced at her indian festivals and

bringing all of me together to say

when the world doesn't want to accept

the different parts of who i am i'm

going to show you what it can look like

right like that's really a big part of

what i've realized in my journey is when

people have told me parts don't fit

together i find a way to put them

together and show you even a more

beautiful experience right and i i

believe even class pass was really the

epitome of that too in my life is

bringing parts of me together that

i would never have been able to bring

together in any other way

and you know i think so much of when

we're rebelling it's about fighting for

something i wasn't i wasn't trying to

rebel i was fighting

for my passion i was fighting for my

purpose and

i mean isn't that what life should be

about is fighting for something like

that amen

when you leave bain and company though

is there a part of you because that

expectation is it's

never really yeah they really fully

shake it right is there a part of you

that whispers in your ear and goes you

failed

oh

i mean what was hard was all my

colleagues right that at that point who

had gone to harvard gone to stanford you

know

i was

comparing myself to them and i felt

like i was taking a step back compared

to what they were doing but one of the

other important things i learned during

this time and i think this is an

important part and for all of us at any

phase especially when we're going

through these transitional times

is i also embraced a new community right

so i obviously didn't just define myself

by my bain and mit friends i had this

huge artistic dance community that was

sort of like growing this indian

american community that was sort of

coming around me

and that made me feel whole in a

different way so instead of constantly

being around people i felt

less than i went and found a community i

belonged in even though it wasn't the

one that i would have you know naturally

feel felt inclined to go to and i think

that's another important thing

especially when we're exploring these

decisions and identities it's you know

back to the light thing it's sometimes

it's not the people we think are going

to give us the light who give us the

light so find that new community that

makes you shine it's such an appreciated

point of resistance for people that are

trying to make an adjustment in their

life i hear it so much people say i want

to levex situation but i'm scared of

losing the community that comes with

that situation that could be a city it

could be a job it could be a partner

sometimes your lives become so

intertwined that you think well if i

lose this partner if i lose this job or

whatever then i'm going to lose all of

these people

and that really keeps people trapped i

agree with that that's right that's a

really good point yeah i mean

and you can find new communities you

know and i think you have to remember

that the people you surround yourself

with are your choice yeah right and i've

had different communities show up for me

at different times in my life right for

me

it was the different communities that

made me the entrepreneur i was it was my

business community that helped me build

class bus but it was also this girl who

was going to ballet classes every single

day with my with my dancer friends who

also was thinking about

the classes that they people need to

take in their life and it was that

unique combination of my traits combined

with the different experiences i was

having that enabled me to build what i

did ultimately you talk about so you

managed to get a now a job you consider

to be more of a nine to five where

you've got time in the evenings to dance

and you end up setting up your own sort

of dance company um how did you get to

from there

to that pivotal trip to san francisco

that introduced you to the world of tech

yeah so in those two years when i was at

warner music group

i started tasting leadership and

entrepreneurship right i started tasting

this idea

of what life could look like when i was

living to my own drumbeat right and we

put on a few shows in new york city

during that time that honestly like just

were so well received from people the

the momentum of that the the feeling i

felt for of my community support it made

me just start feeling confidence and my

ability to go after my dreams right and

i think this is an important part of the

journey that we also forget is that

it's the confidence and the small stuff

that actually builds the confidence

towards the big stuff right because it's

not it wasn't okay pile just decided to

go quit her job one day and start a

company it was this series of small

steps right it was putting on a show for

150 people that went well then putting

on a show for a thousand people that

went well then saying oh wait let me

think about my life in a bigger way and

that's sort of where i was at that

moment so i wanted to explore new career

paths that i could take and that's why i

decided to go out to san francisco and

it changed my life

the point you made about

the way confidence is built i think is

so so important because i think a lot of

people think they see people like you

now sat here um after all this all

you've achieved and they think how do i

get from where i am sat on the sofa in

this job that i'm in that i hate to

being

her it seems like such a huge canyon i

have to cross that it feels like you

must be from another planet so that when

people see you at the finish line it can

sometimes be quite demotivating

but what you've just said there is in

fact there's these small it's a

staircase small one tiny step at a time

building like subjective evidence in

yourself that you you can do a little

bit more than you thought

and i'm curious as to what makes people

like you take

take that small step and it sounds like

it's you're just driven this purpose is

dragging purpose 100

if if i wasn't driven

to make an impact in the world i

wouldn't do it i mean you know you know

yes like i could go and get a good job

and do all of that and live like the

expected life and

be fine but that's not

fire right that's not me

taking my hours of 5 to 10 pm after work

and

reserving studio space and getting girls

together or you know

working till two three in the morning to

make reservations for people to get to

class like that's a very different

why right and i think that's why i go

back always to

how do you find that why like what is

that light that your life is always

about and i think you know and i feel

very blessed that i found something that

made me feel a sense of service so young

because nothing compares to it you know

no amount of money no amount of like you

know whatever press or you know any of

that is ever going to compare

to the feeling of touching somebody's

life

so many people might like again my dm's

are like how do i find my why yeah and

it feels

almost like a privilege doesn't it for

people that have

figured that out and there's people i

don't know that will be listening to

this in the morning washing the dishes

driving up and down the country in a

delivery van whatever it is thinking

i know i'm capable and deserving of more

but i just don't know what it is do you

do you believe that everybody has a

oh

a purpose beyond the nine to five

i do yeah but how do we find it yeah i

think

at the end of the day

it's it's already inside you it's

usually ourselves that are

unwilling to listen to it right

to ask yourself what did you love when

you were younger right

what when did you

light up what it who are your role

models and inspirations what's that

what's that thing you look at for a

second longer right who's that person

you want to talk to for a few minutes

more and why there is something pulling

you

there

and

you have to be willing

to go down the path of exploring it and

trying trying it right and i think

that's really the hardest thing is we

put so many blocks on ourselves right

and and i get it i mean our society

tells us this is the way to live that it

does not tell you

to live purposefully and to go and chase

your dreams i mean that's not i mean yes

we do

in the instagram world of life and

quotes i get that

but the structure of our life is not

actually built that way right and and

like you just said i mean you compared

it to

the nine to five which is about making

money right and i think actually and i

have a whole chapter where i talk about

money because

money is the most trapping thing

that's the reason people are are aren't

willing to do it

usually you know it i and i always ask

people this when they're like i don't

know if you had all the money in the

world how would you spend your day

tomorrow that's like a very good way to

start exploring what would i do without

one of the biggest constraints right

that is probably on my mind what would

truly

make you light you up right and it's not

about like buying stuff right at the end

of the day like i mean anyone who wins

the lottery like you know that they can

go buy stuff but that's not fulfillment

at the end of the day it's it's a sense

of purpose right and i think people have

to just get themselves in a place where

they're trying new things and it does

honestly feel like a privilege and

that's part of also why i started class

pass was because i wanted people to

in a way live a life that i knew i was i

was sitting there when i was in my early

20s and i would spend my you know weeks

performing for a show i'd perform on

saturday night invite people to come and

watch me dance

and i remember i felt like i had like i

said like this pep to my life and my

step and all of that

and i want everyone to have that and i

remember thinking wait a second like you

used to be an athlete like you were

training for the olympics like you were

this amazing singer and would you now

just show up and go to work all day and

don't think about finding time to even

explore these things so my contribution

to that was honestly creating class that

was like part of my very big inspiration

for it was how can i

give some of that to other people to go

and try something and potentially have

that same enlightenment in their life so

you kind of get out of your

path and your routine

and meet a teacher right that will

inspire the growth in you and that

reflection in you because most of the

times the hardest thing to do is to ask

yourself what you love in your own life

and how did you when was the moment

because i i read in i read in your book

you know there's certain pain points we

encounter where we realize okay i can

solve this problem and the sort of my

manifestation of the solution is

um this app or this website what was the

problem that you encountered and when

that made you think class pass is the

solution yeah so i was once again

training in ballet at the time i you

know i had my nine to five but every day

after work i would go and train in

ballet and i'd have my ballet clothes

with me and i'd been going to the same

teacher for about six months at the time

and i wanted to try a new class it was

just like a very

simple

thing i wanted to do i get onto you know

my computer i start browsing for this

class

two hours go by it was just this

terrible experience from a information

standpoint from you know not knowing

what class to take if it was if it's you

know close enough to me what time it

starts how do i register

and that's when i started looking at

other models that existed so there were

things you know in the us like opentable

seamless web that just made this type of

information so accessible and so easy

and convenient for a customer

that i started thinking what if i could

do this for classes and therefore get

people to get an hour out of their life

that was out of their routine to go and

do something fun and exciting so that

was really where it started

even that you kind of glossed over that

but that's pretty extraordinary because

a lot of people encounter a problem the

issue you encounter trying to book that

class and they go [ __ ] the world is not

not good enough or they think they'll

just think uh this is broken and then

they'll carry on with it oh let me

caveat that so i had come back from san

francisco 36 hours before that and when

i was in san francisco i had met a bunch

of entrepreneurs and this was my first

time ever meeting entrepreneurs right so

going back to even the whole trying new

things conversation

it was really important for me to take

that trip to sf i had been sort of stuck

in new york city i had been living this

the crazy dance life the crazy you know

nine-to-five life and i had no time for

anything else so i was not trying new

things and i needed an epiphany i needed

something to change because the two

roads i was on like they were going to

crash at some point and it wasn't going

to work

and i decided to go on this trip and

meet a bunch of entrepreneurs and i come

back thinking what if i could be an

entrepreneur let me give myself two

weeks to think of an idea that's

literally the mindset i was in

when i encountered that so 36 hours

later

i happened to be searching for this

ballet class and that's it was just like

during this perfect period in my life

and honestly like this is when i

sometimes think like does the universe

make us do these things because what are

the chances of all that happening at the

same time but it did and

i really remember in that moment

thinking i know i'm the right person to

build this because of

this background i have the communities

i've been around the experiences i have

there's probably no one else who cares

as much about dance who then also went

to mit and payne mit which is an amazing

college for those that don't know right

and it was sort of this perfect

combination of things that

made me say i got to do this and i went

for it but that is extraordinary because

a lot of people will encounter things

i'll encounter things today i might sit

on a chair and be like this chair could

be better but then i'll carry on with my

day you know what i mean and then i'll

open the fridge and go this fridge could

be yeah that's true i know that yeah

that's that feels like the pivotal

moment which a lot of people listening

to this they'll all they'll notice

things maybe they don't even notice them

because there's something in when you

start looking you know in your case

you're actually kind of looking for a

problem to solve yeah yeah

but it takes a certain character makeup

to say i

can be the one to solve this

also a little bit of delusion if you

look at the stats it's fair that's a

very good point um i was definitely

delusional at the time in thinking that

but you know what it was it was more of

i want to try

to solve this problem regardless yeah

because

it felt so tied to everything i had done

in my life i had literally fought to

dance up and ever for every year of my

life up until that point why not bring

the fight to everyone else right like

that's how i felt i was like i've

already been doing this

let's just go and you know make this

happen and and by the way like i'm also

used my you know my left brain which is

you know my analytical side to go and do

the market research and i was able to

raise money like i i definitely did this

in the practical way too and i was

making sure that it wasn't just some

crazy dream i there was there was

substance to it for sure i mean i

wouldn't have been able to raise the

capital i did i got into an incubator it

was a good idea right in the way and it

was once again it stemmed from a really

deep why in me and that was the most

important thing i think that's you know

when you know we can talk a little bit

about

the failures and the points where the

product didn't work but

i was never obsessed with getting a

product to work i was obsessed with

solving a problem from day one it's how

do i get people to class and not make it

so hard for people to get to class why

is it important for people to go to

class because then they can feel what i

have in dance in their life it was just

such a like an important

mission for me that i could just never

stop on it and every day it fueled me

because it was just so real for me to

say

i gave this to someone and even today

like you know and we've booked

like 100 million hours of workouts at

this point you know and when someone

comes to me and is and says to me like i

just went and worked out because of

class past it brings me joy because

that's an hour of their life that

was like what dances to me right that i

gave them out of their

routine or expectations or the way

society wants them to live that they did

for themselves and that is such a gift

and i think in my life i knew

fighting for that

was always a win whether it worked or

not right but what if it didn't work

if it didn't work i had a back-up plan i

mean when i say i had a back-up plan i

mean i went through my finances and my

dad and i were very clear about

how much money i had received at that

point to say i had three years to build

this i had three years before i ran out

of my own cash

and you've because you've been a saver

as it says in the business

and so that's the other thing is

you know because money can be the

biggest hurdle in going after our dreams

and if you know you're a dreamer and i

think i always knew i was a dreamer

whether i was going to spend my money to

build a company or built or put on a dan

show i knew i was always dreamer and so

i didn't care to spend money on the

smaller things in my life right like i

just didn't i didn't like i said i

didn't travel i barely went shopping and

by the way these are decisions i made

right i think it's so important i'm not

saying that because i want other people

to do the same it's it's about you

knowing and thinking about it in a very

deliberate way of how you're spending

your money

right and i was building up a savings i

didn't know what i was going to spend it

on but then when this idea came and i

got to sit down i had three years to go

after

running towards something were you

scared

um i was excited i i mean it was an

adrenaline rush you know i mean there

were times where it was terrible and

challenging and sucked and

um but i wasn't scared if i was scared i

wouldn't have done it you know i think

if my

fear trumped my

my

my confidence i wouldn't have i don't

think i would have been able to to uh

quit my job and go for it when you quit

your job and go for it at warner right

you have a meeting with the cham and the

chairman you're 28 years old

he says something interesting to you

right and i think this is this is

actually a people said people will say

to your other luck but actually it's

very much the opposite because he said

that he would invest in yeah so i mean

this goes perfectly with what we were

talking about is it's really

the reason i didn't get scared is

because more and more opportunities and

doors just kept opening for me it was

almost like the universe just started

guiding me in the most beautiful way

towards towards the mission towards the

purpose towards the answer in a way that

i felt before i was blocking it right so

the second i decided to go after

building this company one of the biggest

things i had to do was quit my job and

on the day i quit i decided to write an

email to people i had worked with my

company some executives and the vice

chairman of warner music group says hey

come to my office i'd love to hear what

you're building

go up to his office

probably the second or third time i've

ever met him in the two three years i

was there

tell him about my idea he says great i

want to invest literally writes me a

check for ten thousand dollars and gives

me an introduction into a big incubator

that was in new york city and i just

remember thinking in my head

this is this was the scariest

door i'd ever closed my life quitting my

job

but i'm literally walking out out of

here with a ten thousand dollar check

towards my next thing why did why did he

give you that check in your opinion

a few things

one

so he was a former bani so once again

reputation does follow you right like

this goes back to like everything i was

talking about in the sense of it's

always important to do good work because

if he had ever heard you know pyle is

not good i mean he knew that i was a

good worker no matter what i did even

though i didn't once again love my job i

always did good good work and i know

that i i that reputation followed me and

he knew that and we call that invisible

peel around here yeah there you go right

it's so important it shows up it shows

up yeah right exactly and i think that

was one of the big things and then i

mean two this was also like an ecosystem

where entrepreneurship was the thing but

i mean at the end of the day he believed

in me right and it was also because

you know actually this is one of my

favorite things that happened on the day

i quit is i would go and tell people

right especially people i had worked

with who were much older than me that i

was quitting my job and here i was

10 15 years younger than most of them

and i remember everyone looking at me

almost

thinking to themselves like i wish i had

the courage to do that so i think you

forget like me quitting that day was

such a sign of courage in my capability

and i didn't even realize it at the

moment but being able to make such a

bold decision at that age 28 yeah it was

a huge thing for even my vice terminacy

to say wow like

this girl is gonna go for it right and i

mean that was probably one of the first

hard decisions i had to make in my life

i had to make so many more but to

sort of have that control over your life

your thoughts your dreams

is such an important way to live and

honestly at the end of the day to be a

good leader a good ceo like you need to

be in control of your ship and in

control of your life i asked that

question about why he invested because

in my time in my company probably had

just over a thousand employees and there

was two occasions where someone said

they were quitting and they were leaving

to start a business and i went i'm gonna

invest in your business and it was

purely based on one thing which is

exactly what you've described which was

in their invisible pr they might not

even have known that i knew right but

they were great right they always did

great work that's why you have to always

do good work and yeah like i mean it's

it's such a

i and i think in this day and age people

don't feel it as much yeah even though

it might be a job you don't love we all

have to kind of in a way like you have

to earn your

or your

what does it call like earn your marks

your own strengths

earn your stripes you know and i think i

remember earning my stripes to to take

the leap for my dreams whether that was

in money or skills or and i don't regret

any of that you know and i think when

people ask me how did you do it i spent

i mean it goes back to the whole

conformity rebellious thing i was

earning my stripes so then when i felt

like i could leap i had built the

parachute in the plane you know like i i

wasn't taking a leap without anything

around me like i had built a great

structure

that was going to then let me take the

most rebellious of leaps

what that came towards the mission right

i didn't have to like rebuild all the

stuff that was about my life and like

worrying about money and this is also an

important thing is like when you are

starting a company if i'm worrying about

paying my bills right and if i'm

worrying about like do i have the skills

then i'm not worried or i'm not worrying

about the most important thing which is

can i get someone to class right like

the number one thing for me to focus on

was my business not anything that was

going on outside of that and that's why

i think it's setting ourselves up to

succeed when we are leaders when we are

entrepreneurs to be in a place where

we're not worried about the peripheral

constraints in our life we're able to

focus on the most important thing at

hand is so important for us to do it's

what's going to make us more impactful

in being able to actually solve the most

important thing i had a few words to say

about one of my sponsors on this podcast

we're now playing in a world where the

digital landscape is changing every

single day and to succeed as a small

business the most important thing you

can do is stay informed with the latest

trends and that's why i've partnered

with vodafone business they genuinely

want to help small businesses like you

navigate this fast moving space they've

developed the vhub a site containing

everything you need to get up to speed

with what's going on and you can even

ring up a vhub digital advisor for

completely free and have a one-on-one

conversation with them about your

business if you haven't checked out the

v-hub i'd highly recommend you do so as

it will help your business navigate the

changing landscape and keep you on the

front foot so go to vhub by vodafone you

can search that anywhere on google and

check it out now

we are all looking for ways to live a

little bit more sustainably and to make

more conscious choices in our day-to-day

routines so when a brand like my energy

who i've spoken about before offered to

sponsor this podcast i felt like and i

knew deep down inside that i had to help

them share their mission to create an

even greener world it feels like there's

not much more fulfilling than that and

their products provide an easy and

cost-effective way to make a sustainable

switch in your life and they've got some

existing new products coming out that i

can't wait to use myself and i'll let

you know as i use those products how i

get on so if you're a my energy customer

at the moment let me know your favorite

products down below in the comments

section and if you haven't checked them

out yet go to myenergy.com and find out

a lot more about who they are and what

they're doing if you're one of those

people that wants to make a sustainable

switch

my energy.com is the place for you

let's go to the start then of this the

class pass journey because i'm really

compelled by

you know much of the reason i started

this podcast was because

i wanted to

shine a light on the tough times in

business and i know when you're starting

a business especially a business and

tech

it can be

really really difficult because you're

sort of jockeying and pivoting to find

product market fit and to figure out

like what your customers want

how to deliver it and i read that when i

was reading about your journey when you

started um you quit your job in 2011 and

then you go through a long phase of

trying to figure out how to get people

to use this thing how to market it and

all that

nightmare talk to me about that

nightmare

so

we

went

into the market with a very clear

product idea and it was a replica of

what had worked in another industry so

opentable which allows you to book

restaurant reservations it seemed like

the right parallel to what we were doing

go on search for classes

but what i didn't realize was that there

was a very big missing part in it and i

mean i'll spare everyone like the little

details of it but everyone has to eat

everyone does not have to work out right

it was and working out usually is

something scary for people and it's more

of an aspirational thing it's not

something that you have to do every

single day so they were sort of on

different planes of people's psychology

which really became the biggest

bottleneck to what ended up happening

because we spent a year we spent

half a million dollars

building a product that didn't work and

um even though i had all this momentum

like i was saying all these beautiful

doors were opening for me and they were

and i had a lot of great you know what i

now call false signals of success like

followers press we ended up on the cover

of ink magazine without launching a

product

and all these things made me feel like i

was succeeding right because this is

what success looked like to everyone

else

and then i launched my product

and no one went to class it was like it

was and no one bought a class no one

was transacting it was crickets it was

just a really

it was this was the hardest probably a

few months of the entire trajectory

because

i i had never really faced

failure in my life i mean going back to

everything i just told you i had i'd

sort of done things well and i

tried to make sure that this would go

well right by doing everything that i

knew how how to which was let's get the

press let's build a beautiful product

let's you know get as many email

addresses as possible those are like the

obvious things that seem you know you

would do when you're building a company

but i forgot to really

ask myself if i was solving the problem

i set out to and

i

really think back to that moment and

even though it was

the hardest

that moment

is the reason

i became a real entrepreneur like i

don't think i was an entrepreneur before

that day i was

excited about solving something but the

day i failed was the day i became an

entrepreneur because that was the day i

really had to think

deeper about creating something in the

world that didn't exist

and i think it's so easy

to follow the blueprints of everyone

else and realize that entrepreneurship

is actually about having no plan and

having you know not following anyone

else's

ideas of what success is it's about

figuring out what you know what is it to

solve your mission or your you know your

business model that you're going after

and that woke me up and it was a a month

or two period where we were

trying to be comfortable like it was

this comfortable place we were in

because we had raised money we had just

come out of techstars

but

i mean it was not going well and i knew

we were going to run out of cash if like

we didn't you know figure out something

in the next few months and

um we just i remember like after a few

few weeks of it we sent this email

literally telling people to go to class

for free

thinking you know okay like this is

gonna work

we're literally paying for the classes

people have to go

and still no one went and that's when i

realized we had just gone the wrong

direction

and i needed to like circle back up i

needed to break what we had built

just think a whole new way

re-energize my team around going up

about solving this problem

in a completely new way not worrying

about what we had done

but worrying about where we're going to

go and that flipped everything and i

have been there now so many times where

i've been okay with throwing away our

past i mean people don't know this um

but class pass has changed its name

three times

it wasn't called class pass i mean even

with this time i'm talking about it was

called something else and i've thrown

away names like i've thrown away product

ideas like we've thrown we've thrown

away a lot of stuff we've changed our

pricing our plans

and it's because it's not about that

right it's about solving

the problem in the world and moving

towards that and your mission so many

entrepreneurs though and this is

probably the mistake i made when i was

18 and started my first little tech

company was um they get romantic about

that initial hypothesis being correct

exactly so it's like you've got this

square shape thing and you're just

trying to force it into this triangle

because like your ego

and there's so much relying on it and

you know the runway you know you're

running out of cash and you just maybe i

just push harder

and then all these vanity metrics can be

kind of confusing oh we've got some

false signals of success yes no one's

buying anything but we've got traffic

absolutely and as you just said like i'm

on a magazine

but then certain entrepreneurs i think

that have the humility to say in fact

it's not about being

me my hypothesis being right it's about

creating a product market fit yeah you

know and what was the moment when you

started to get closer to that product

market yeah and and to you know one of

the things i love saying about that is

to be uh mission obsessed not product

obsessed and i learned that through that

journey but um you know we started then

putting this discovery pass out there so

what we did learn is that you know we

started finally actually going and

talking to a lot of the studio owners

and talking to customers i think one of

the things that happens in tech

sometimes is you sit behind the tech

that you

you don't like go and

talk to real people right and it was

funny because i was in a tech incubator

so we showed up we were working from

like 6 a.m to 10 p.m every night but

sitting in an office we weren't actually

going to class and talking to studio

owners and all of that so once we

started flipping that we started

realizing that you know a lot of the

studio owners they were offering a free

class for people who were new they

wanted new people in the door and then

customers you know knew about all these

places but they had fears we were like

how do we break the fear and so we

started building this product our second

product which also doesn't exist anymore

it was called the passport and it was a

discovery pass where you could go and

try uh 10 different classes for 30 days

so you could go to like a spin class

monday pole dance class tuesday dance

class wednesday you can kind of you know

it was like sort of this way for people

for 50 to go and explore this is sort of

when we started realizing the whole love

of variety that people had when it came

to working out in classes which was the

magic of what we actually discovered in

our second mistake of a product is that

people loved variety they wanted to

really go and try new things it's what

motivated them they didn't want to do

the same workout every single day how

did you learn that the variety point

well people started going and like they

started loving this past right they

started loving the 30-day pass and then

they start they try to actually buy it

over and over again for the next month

and you weren't allowed to because it

was like a one-month product

and we had literally gotten these

classes for no money it was very much uh

do this for a month and then you're

gonna go find your favorite studio and

buy a pass there we thought it was

legion for the studio owners but it

ended up not being that at all people

literally were

obsessed with the variety wanted to do

it every single month and not stop and

that's when we started thinking about

what if we become a subscription we

weren't a subscription at the time it

was just this one month product and we

then started

experimenting with this idea of a class

past it wasn't even class past at the

time it was a class pass and

we launched it to about 50 customers in

june of 2013

and um they loved it the next month it

just kind of kept doubling and then it

was exponential growth and it just i

mean the sales of that took over our

other products and we just knew that the

monthly subscription was the way to go

and that that was the way that this

model was going to work and that's two

years in right three years three isn't

three years of stumbling around i mean i

went to san francisco in uh in july of

2010 and this is june of 2013. so three

years

wow one of the quotes from your book is

that um about failure being a data point

not an endpoint and i really think that

is i wish someone said that to me when i

was 18 because

um i saw failure as a testament of my

inadequacy or something as opposed to

something i should be listening to right

and that's a sort of testament to your

journey and then you know throughout

throughout that period though i think

we've

how was your as a founder something

again founders don't talk about like how

is your mental health

because i know there's sacrifice there

um let's see

a few things i would say um

i mean i sacrificed a lot especially in

those three years where we were trying

to get the product right and it wasn't

working

i mean i missed

i missed family things i missed weddings

i i was just not around right i mean i

was

literally at work all day long and if

someone on my team needed me i i gave my

150 percent to my company so

i felt fulfilled because i was doing

something i loved was i exhausted yes

was i

lonely yeah i mean i thankfully like

lived with a roommate who is one of my

like closest dearest friends till today

but

she was the only person i would see

outside of people at work you know it

was i was living in this like closed

circuit world and i don't

i don't mind that like as somebody who

has been on a mission before like has

created dan shows where they're you know

you there's this like intensity that

happens for two weeks and

you go really really intense you know

the thing that with the dan show is

though it ends at some point like you

have the show

and it's over

the thing i didn't know didn't realize

about this one is you know it's it's a

marathon not a sprint like the dance

shows can be a sprint

and that definitely got to me and i you

know one of the reasons i even developed

this entire goal setting method was

because three years in so right when i

was at this point where i realized class

was going to take off

i mean it felt like amazing right it

spent like three years i was so focused

i had literally like

probably not talked to anyone in my life

and i found myself alone for the

holidays my sister was away my parents

were in india and i was about to like

literally be by myself on christmas and

it was one of those moments for me i

always hated the holidays as an

entrepreneur because

it was the one like it was the time in

my life where i couldn't work through my

like my loneliness or through work

through any of my issues it was like the

one time where everyone

would go and do things with other people

and i would be that person who would

finally have to realize that i was on

myself right because i wasn't

cultivating relationships at that point

in my life i didn't have time to

and so it was a wake-up call and kind of

going back to you know

my mom may have been pestering me about

it for the years before

at that point in my life i just started

realizing wait a second like

i knew class was going to take off like

i just knew we i mean we only had we had

less than a thousand customers but

i had i had caught lightning in a bottle

like it was there it was so magical i

knew it was going to take over the world

like it was one of those moments as an

entrepreneur i could breathe but i

looked at everything else and i'm like

everything else is a mess my health was

a mess i could barely work out which was

crazy for me i wasn't dancing i was like

i was single i you know i had a few good

friends but i felt like i i like hadn't

been there for them and that's when i

started really doing the school setting

because i'm like i need to have

a bit more i want to make sure my

priorities are more reflective of the

human i want to be in my life

and how in like a practical sense in

terms of a time allocation sense did you

get from that place to living more in

line with those values of connection

community love and health so i you know

i'll the details of like what i did on

that session the first time i did it are

in the book but i will say this so in

the next six months uh after i started

doing that i literally met my husband a

month later really yes i decided to do a

huge dance show

at alvin ailey six months later and i

sold out a thousand uh a thousand seats

at that so i got to do a huge

performance you're gonna sell so many

books just by saying you found a husband

buy something it's really crazy but i

literally changed my

perspective around love and what i

wanted and i met my husband a month

later which was crazy and i also you

know i set goals around what i wanted to

do with class pass i set goals around my

health and how i wanted to

live and work out on a daily basis

and i did all those things and i

remember this is always my favorite

moment six months later

i was flying home on a plane

and when i first did this goal setting

method i had written it on a post-it

note because i was on a plane and i was

i was on another

plane ride because i was always

traveling and i took it out and i looked

at it and i had done everything on my

dream list

you know and sometimes just writing down

those dreams is the most important thing

but

it was just such an important moment

because i felt

more i don't i don't want to say the

word balance because that has so many

you know wrong intentions with it but i

felt that i was very clear about my

priorities and i went towards them and i

missed things too but i didn't feel

guilty about them and i just felt so

proud of myself for

saying here's what i want to do in my

life and i'm going to go and do it and

accomplishing it not just obviously

professionally but personally as well

there's like an overarching theme here

in your in your journey where the minute

you become intentional about something

yeah the door's open

it's true do you believe in that

manifestation 100

and it goes back to the you saying you

know we were talking about having a why

i think when you don't have a why you go

aimlessly and you you know i think you

start living life thinking that you want

money thinking you want to be famous

thinking you want power

and instead of thinking about like love

and passion and purpose and

whenever i have made decisions that are

about the former and not the latter i've

never been led in the right in the right

direction and you know if that's

something people can take away from this

like i think is one of it's one of the

most important points is

if you go towards purpose even if you

are rebelling right and even if you

might be pissing a few people off i

guarantee your life will be more

fulfilling

what were you like as an entrepreneur as

a leader and as a manager of people

i would say i was very much

i had a lot of positive energy i'm i'm a

small human but i

i show up with all of me um

i

am i expect a lot of people i think

because people have always expected a

lot for me so i'm sort of uh when you

start working with me

i can very quickly tell if someone's

going to like sink or swim you know

because i don't tell you a lot but i

like let you go because i think to me

that's what i've had to do is just kind

of i don't want to put a lot of boxes on

you i want you to just show me what you

can be at your highest potential and i

think like that sort of i liked giving

people that room to be free and then

allowing me to see what their capability

is versus me saying you need to be your

best in this box that i'm giving you and

i've i've found really great talent in

that way um

[Music]

i've had to learn how to like hire for

my strengths and weaknesses you know i

think um

that's probably the hardest the hardest

parts when your company grows is you do

everything in the beginning and then you

have to learn to let go and um i've

definitely learned that building a tribe

around you of great people is the only

way to succeed you struggle to delegate

right in the early days um i've gotten

better at i've got i've i've realized

that there is no other way to success

and to build big things and great things

in the world without being able to

delegate so i've become much better at

it in my life and it's the only way i i

can do what is my magical thing right

and i've i think i've put a lot of

thought into that is

what part of this company is is

something that only i know i can do

right everything else that i know

someone else can do i shouldn't be doing

is that why you delegated the role of

ceo yes absolutely at some point a ceo

title becomes a lot of you know managing

investors managing team

doing press and i was like this is not

what i want to be doing with my time i

want to be solving the problem i want to

be in with my customers working on like

interesting concepts not spending my day

in a bunch of meetings that you know

didn't feel inspiring so i think like

you know and everyone's set up

differently you have to know how you

work that's another big thing is is

learning the insights of what motivates

you like it's it's the work you do and

why you do it that ends up really

mattering right in any job you're in and

i remember there was a point where i

remember being

so

just disheartened and not wanting to

show up to build my own company and i'm

like what is going on it was because i

hated the work i was doing and i loved

obviously my company but i hated the

actual work that i had to do and so i

had to figure out a way to get past that

it was like 20 like 16 17. i mean we

were launching like around the world it

was so intense it was you know i mean it

was magical like i said it was

incredible to build that but i remember

like i said i was showing up every day

dealing with like hr issues legal issues

like needing to talk to my investors i

wasn't like around my customers and i

wasn't going to class and around my

product you know and that's what really

fuels me as an entrepreneur and a

founder did you have email dread like i

used to at one point i remember when my

company was getting big because there

was lots of chaos in my company there's

all kinds of cash flow issues i used to

like dread opening my emails i was like

it's going to be some other [ __ ]

from like

an investor or something yeah i mean i

definitely i wanted to make sure that

i had more to look forward to and i

think there came a point where i was

looking forward to less and less right

and i think it goes back to what i was

saying about

i didn't want my whole day to be like

ugh okay there's like another competitor

okay we need to worry about this now i

didn't want my days to be about worrying

i wanted my days to be about dreaming

right and by the way you have to

obviously as a leader of any of this it

comes with a responsibility right so

it's not that

it's not that i didn't have to worry

about those things there were certain

parts of it that i knew i had to worry

about i needed to be on my radar but i

knew there were certain things where i'm

like i could hire someone to really work

on this and fix this it doesn't need to

take up my time and energy and that's

really where where the combination is or

where that decision lies

so all of that passion all of that love

driven by this really deep intrinsic why

why did you step away from class pass

you know i think at some point

and this happens i think for so many

founders i mean it had been a decade of

my life solving this problem which of

course i'm so

deeply passionate about and you know i

think the earliest days were when we did

the most leg work and actually like

figuring out the product you know

the product nuances that were going to

actually like unleash the behavior i

think it just got bigger you know for me

i think there are other things i want to

do in the world and there's probably

other problems in the world i still need

to go and solve and it's on me to

unleash myself to be able to face them

so i can move forward towards them and

have them even come into my periphery i

think if you're kind of stuck in the

past you don't even welcome the doors

right that are that you need to go

through to reach your future and

i know for me my

my future

is waiting for me you know and it's on

me to sit there and walk through the

door and go towards it and was there was

there a feeling of like a loss of

love

yeah i mean it's a bittersweet moment

you know it was um

it's super bittersweet right

i always say this like the the hardest

day was when

i stopped getting my my class pass email

i mean like it was insane i've had this

email for for years it was like my main

inbox and um

[Music]

you know it was it was definitely a

sense of loss i mean i think it's you

know

for it's like having a child and

watching your child get married right

but it's also being able to say like

they're okay i i did all i could

to get them to this point and being

proud of that and that's really where

i'm at i remember the

when i resigned from my company went

public and i said to the company i said

i'm going to resign but i have one

caveat they're like what is it i was

like i want to keep my email

oh you didn't use that

my email

i still have my you know it's funny that

you say that i think i did it going back

to the whole

uh it was just been more noise right for

me

i just think it was it was a nice break

for me i actually remember creating a

new email address and it was like no

mail

what you know and it was it was

interesting because it started making me

realize like what do i want to fill that

part of my life up with what's the

answer what's the answer to that i'm

sort of in the middle of it still but

you know obviously

lots of dance you know i think i

probably have a few more big problems in

the world to solve you know i'm i'm only

39 you know it's interesting because

i'm young you know my mom and i always

talk about this too and she's like it's

interesting because

yeah like i could retire them no there's

no part of me that would ever think

about that you know but

it's an interesting it's a great place

to be the valuation of class pass at

sale is probably confidential as it

tends to be but um i know that in 2020

in the series he rounded was valued at

over a billion

it's a lot of money

how does that change things for you

um

well you know we haven't exited so like

the company hasn't been been sold yet so

it's still private but um is your stake

acquired or your stake is still in the

company my stake is still in the company

yeah so it's not fully you know fully

there but you know i think these and

here's the thing the reason why that was

such an important moment was because of

what it really the message it sent for

women especially and me being you know

an indian woman like that was actually

the most important part of it i don't

think as an entrepreneur you should run

towards numbers like that because what

you should run towards is making an

impact right the 100 million hours of

people's lives is actually much more

impactful to

my business and society than hitting

that billion dollar evaluation but in my

case i think it's different because i

know what that represents

to so many other

girls out there who can look at

something and say wow if she can do it

maybe i can too

and that to me is a really important

part of it and that wave of press

whenever whenever someone becomes a

unicorn is tremendous right and that

will reach so so many young women all

over the world and entrepreneurs

your partner

your son completely other part of your

life nick zane yep nick and zayn how's

that been you know

you talk about the obsession you've had

building class pass

um entrepreneurs always struggle and

tend to struggle in managing their

romantic relationships in the other part

of their life what advice have you got

for me on maintaining a good romantic

relationship and family whilst also

striving to build big dreams yeah and i

i'll be honest i think we're always

still learning in the process of it but

i think one of the biggest things i

learned is and this goes along with a

lot of the advice i have with my parents

is bringing them along the journey

nick was

with me through so much of it i mean

when we went to go launch london

um i always actually love this story is

me one of uh my co-founder and

one of my uh sales sales girls cam came

with me and so did nick and we had to go

try out about 30 studios in in london in

about five days and nick just went and

did some of them too like it was amazing

we all just went and worked out and he

was sort of like checking out studios

because we before we put anything on the

platform we wanted to make sure they

were vetted studios and this was like i

said it was like six seven years ago so

it wasn't that much that many reviews on

studios

and um yeah like i mean he would come to

australia with me come to london with me

and he was just a big part of the

process you know and i think that's so

awesome that we got to live like he got

to live the dream with me

and i think that was a really nice part

of it i think as we've had a kid we've

just had to become very clear on

priorities right and he is and he's a

partner at a law firm he's you know one

of the youngest partners at his law firm

it's insane

what he's been able to accomplish in his

career so we have to just always be very