All right. Hello. Thank you for listening to I'm speaking with Elizabeth West. I am your host, and today I'm going to be talking with Punam Sexena, and we are going to be talking about a few things. Punam, if you can introduce yourself, let us know more of who you are, what you do, and who you do it for.

Thank you, Elizabeth, for having me on. I'm super excited to be here. My name is Punam Saxena. I am a speaker, a TEDx speaker, two time author. And what I work on is connecting parents and their schools and creating opportunities to build relationships and increase communication skills between the parents and schools so that we can work for the child as a cohesive team. And what I found is that when we do that, our students feel more confident, they feel more excited about going to school, and they also know that they have a support team that's on the same page. So often, we feel like we are antagonistic, and we're really not. We're all working in the same direction for the same goal.

We just need to get in the same boat and rode the same way. So that's what my job is, and.

I love that, too. And I did some more research. I actually saw your TEDx Talk, and so it was really great.

Thank you.

And it hit the nail on the head because it's very true. It's like you're like, it's not the curricula, it's not this. It's the parents. That's the difference of as far as education.

Yes.

Students retaining. Yeah.

Students always succeed when they know that they have people on their side. And the difficulty is that a lot of these kids go to school, and they're like, oh, my gosh, the teacher, they just want me to learn all this stuff, but I don't know any of this stuff. And they come home. And the parents don't really understand the education system. And you don't have to know every single minute detail of it. But you do need to know enough about what's going on in your child's school so that you can send an email or connect with the teachers or administrators so that you've got a touch point and you can ask questions. And, Elizabeth, I know you can appreciate know it's all in our tone. It's how we choose to approach these relationships.

And it's no different than any other relationship in our lives, whether it's a professional relationship or a personal relationship. This is just one that includes educators. And so we have to foster them as friendships and business partners and team members. And that's how we change that dynamic. And when we start to change that dynamic, our students start to succeed. And I'm not saying every kid needs to be the valedictorian, because there can only be one, but every child can reach their full potential. And if they're a C student and that is their best, you got to be really excited about that, because without that cohesive support, they may be a D or F student, or they may just quit when they get to high school because there are more lucrative opportunities out there. So that is what I wholeheartedly believe is the way to change how we're going to be seen in our future generations.

We're going to be judged on it.

That's huge. And to those listening, you might be wondering, okay, they're talking about students. Well, adults are listening to this. So why is Elizabeth doing this interview? Well, this comes from the premise of it is work how you are. And for me, and finding out I'm not the only one, but me feeling broken by buying a lot of digital products, digital courses, even getting expensive coaching and having 90% of them not work for me. And I felt broken and like, is there something wrong with it? Seems like everyone else seems to be getting everything except me. And that's when I thought of my friend Punam, who I'm not going to go off on a tangent, but this is relevant. I met Punam from the She Podcast Live Conference.

She was a speaker for She Podcast. It was a couple of years ago, I believe, 2021 in Arizona.

Yeah.

Your presentation was the best, or one of the best, because it got my attention. It was sentimental. You talked about your family, and so I was engaged from the jump from the beginning. And you had, like, a bingo card. It was interactive. And why I asked Punam to come onto this work, how you are, and onto this podcast series, is because of that. Because we're all students. We're taking these digital courses.

We're all students and in life, right? Aren't we students in life?

Yes.

It was perfect to have Punam come on because of how her presentation was so engaging. And I know that a lot of those of us that are in the online business world and doing digital courses and digital products, we can learn a lot from her as to how I was so engaged. So I know that what she's telling us. We can all use this information.

Well, thank you. That's very sweet of you. It was a fun conference that we attended, and I'm very passionate about you're right. One thing you said that struck me was we're lifelong learners or we should be lifelong learners. And it's really important for us to never give that. So, you know, on my Facebook feed and my LinkedIn feed and all of my feeds, I'm getting all of these business opportunities. Come do your MBA with us and come take this digital marketing course.

I can get you to seven figures in six months. Okay. Yes. Only if, though, you do nothing else for the next six months, if you do not take care of yourself, if you do not eat, if you do not take care of your family, if you do not sleep, and you know what? Some people absolutely probably get to six figures in six months. I will tell you, the majority of us have to step back and take the information that we're learning in this digital world, because we're learning from everywhere, not only in courses, but just what you're reading on your phone, what pops up, all of those things. We have to step back and we have to process what it's wanting us to do. But then how are we going to personalize it for ourselves? Because it is not possible for me, with a husband and four kids in a business, to even think about doing nothing else for six months. It can't work for me.

It may not work for you as well to your listeners out there, but what we can do is we can find a support system within our professions, within our social networks, within our online cohorts, and pull them in as resources to be able to say, are you struggling? How can you help me get through this? I literally just got off the phone with one of my dearest friends and we're taking a class together. And she goes, I need you to stop everything you're doing and focus on this right now, because I need you to hear what's going on. And so when we talk about learning and we talk about retaining, learning is one thing. Retaining it is a whole different ballgame. We have to be willing to be present, and we are so not present. Let's throw that out there. I know Elizabeth and I are both all right. That's great.

But we've got a podcast and we've got things we need to get done today. But in this moment when we are talking, we have to be present about what we are saying and how we're saying it and what it means to the rest of what we have to do today and tomorrow and our future. So these online modules are fantastic. They're easy, they're quick, they're short, they feel good. Yes, you're doing a great job. And then if you're like I am. I hang up and I'm like 30 minutes later. I don't know, if I didn't take copious notes, I would have no idea what I had learned.

And so we need to rely on our support system. So I'm going to let you in on a little secret elizabeth and I haven't told a lot of people, but I guess I am now.

Yeah.

You ready?

Please.

I've been working on my doctorate. I started my doctorate a year ago. So I'm two thirds of the way through the classwork, and then I can start working on my dissertation. And I will tell you, if I didn't have a support system, I would have been gone the first two weeks. So not only is it important when we are students, it's important when we're adults, it's important when we are going into our workplaces, because if we don't have a support team or a cohort that's working to help each other. We're on an island by ourself, and that is unproductive, not only professionally, but personally, because you begin to doubt your own skills. You begin to feel that you're not good enough. You begin to wonder why you're there, what your purpose is.

And guess what happens? We lose our self confidence, and self confidence is really hard to get back. It took me a good 30 years to get mine back. So we have to be wise in how we choose. And I will say it's easy to get sucked into the online vortex of courses. Oh, it's only $100 here or $1,000 here, five here. Okay, $50,000 later, you're right where you started. So we have to be wise in choosing the courses that we're taking as well, because if they're not a good fit for where you are and what your goals are and how you work, then the courses are just courses. They're not beneficial.

They just make you feel inadequate. And I've taken a lot of classes that made me feel that way.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Actually. I noticed that you have some great courses on your website.

They're coming. They're still coming. Yeah.

All right. We'll get that information in the show notes.

Yeah, they're coming. The difficulty is when you're doing your doctorate, is you're literally in a vortex. And every time I come up and take a deep breath, I'm like, how do I have to go back in? But that's the beauty of what I chosen to do. But a lot of your listeners are parents, and our children don't have a choice. They have to go K through eight at least. So how can we make it better for them?

Yeah.

And make it worthwhile and more impactful than just the mundaneness of going to school and sitting there for 8 hours, taking an online course and sitting there for 8 hours to come home. And your significant other or your parents or whoever, say, ask you, how was your day? What did you learn? And you're like, Nothing, because it wasn't impactful, it had no meaning. It was just part of what you felt like you needed to do. But it needs to be able to change where you want to go. It needs to have that catalyst for being creative and thinking outside the box and motivating you to go out and try it. And I'm learning in my ripe old age that if I'm not going to try it, I may not get another chance to try it because I'm too afraid to try it, because, you know, I might fail. What happens if I fail? Oh, my gosh. What happens if you fail? Nothing.

You knew just as much as you went into it. You just didn't get anything out of it. And there's no such thing as failure when you're learning. There's always something that you can take out and say, yes, I keep using the word impactful because I use it a lot, but it is a game changer. It got me thinking, oh, what can I do? How can I do this? Every time I listen to someone speak, I think, wow, I could be doing that. I should be doing that. Why not? So worse is going to happen. I'll have to pivot.

Pivoting is good. It's not boring. It keeps you energized and it's supposed to take you where you need to be. I'm a firm believer in that, that whatever we do is where we need to be in that moment in time. If it's a course, if you're going for a walk, if you're cooking, whatever it is, that's what you're supposed to be doing in that moment. So you're never going to be wasting time. It's all purposeful. And so if you take a class and it doesn't work, great, it's okay, it's okay.

Go to something else. Because you never know what's going to be that one piece of golden nugget that someone's going to say and you're going to go, I got it. That's it. That's what I want to do.

Right? Yeah. And some key words that you were talking about, which I totally agree with, is we talked about support, which is we're human. And I was talking to someone else the other day, I'm going to get her on the podcast as well. She is a therapist for entrepreneurs because we're in Silos.

Yes.

Ourselves. And we're usually the leader or the one that's putting on the course or the community we're the head of kind of making sure things are going the way they're supposed to go, so there's no one for us. And I was like, wow, that's another huge thing because I felt it and I was like, I wish there was. And then I discovered her on a podcast and I was like, okay, yeah, I would like you to get on. So that will be coming up down the pike as well. But it's true. It's like support, accountability, and we're all individuals, so we're all different and kind of like taking something, which I feel like there's almost like a backlash now where a lot of those that are in the online business world were kind of like the same thing. Like, well, you know what, am I broken? And everyone's kind of like, you know what, I'm not broken.

And we're kind of all coming together. You and I are included in this and we're like, it's like we're all individuals and how everyone learns different. Like there's seven learning styles. I believe there are.

One of the things let me add another word to your list, and that is grace. Grace is something that we, for some reason, feel we don't need to give ourselves, that it's not important, that we need to be on that hamster wheel running at 100 miles an hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, that is not normal. And we also not only do that, but we expect perfection at 110%. Our dinners are going to be five course meals. Our house is going to look pristine. We're going to have a six figure income. We're going to run marathons. We're going to drive I don't know.

Lamborghini? I don't have one. Do you have one? No. Okay. Elizabeth is saying, you know, we have this unrealistic expectation of ourselves and we don't allow ourselves to say, I'm at my maximum capacity today and I'm calling it a day. And what can we do to make the rest of the day go smoother? Some days, us at 09:00 a.m.. Some days that's at 09:00 p.m.. And both are okay because it's our body's way of saying you need a break. So we need to give ourselves grace.

We need to be able to say, you know, that wasn't my best. I'll try again tomorrow. Or maybe not. Maybe it's not important enough to try again tomorrow grace. I would actually put at the top of your list.

Yeah, it's funny because when you said that, I was like I was nodding my head and I feel like I write that in my journal, like, every day, which are be kind to myself and then give myself grace. I feel like they're always and it's repetitive because I'm so hard on myself. And we are all hard on ourselves. You know what I mean? We're our worst critics. You're right. We have to give ourselves grace.

We absolutely do. And one of the ways to give yourself grace is to be able to spend some time with yourself, some self care. For me, it is going on a run. I love going for runs. And that's why I check out. I don't have to talk to anybody. I don't have to think about anything. I can look at the beauty around me and appreciate it.

And that's my time. And a few years ago, I was really anxious about something. I don't remember what it was. And the kids were home, and my son goes, have you gone for a run? And I said, no, I haven't gone for a run. I haven't had time. He goes, you know what? All of this is going to wait. Why don't you go for a run? And then I think you'll be able to finish this. And so I did.

I took his advice. I went for a little run, came back, showered, and I was like, this kid's brilliant. He's pretty smart. But again, it goes back to your support team as well, understanding that you need that self care and being able to tell you, enough, you need a break, go take it. And your break may be sitting on the TV, watching a Netflix show or taking a nap. I love know, but whatever it is, checking out is just as important as giving yourself grace. Yeah, I think we start there and then all this other stuff layers in. Yeah, because we're very unproductive if we're not happy.

That's right. And it's like that brings me to a quote and someone else that I talked to recently for an interview, she's had a similar quote, but a quote that I heard, I'm not sure who exactly said it, but a friend of mine said that what's in your cup is for you, so it's for us. What is in the saucer? The overflow that is for everyone else.

I love that. Yes.

And so that reminds me of that as well because I talk a lot about self care as well on this podcast. So that's perfect. That ties right into what it's so important. It's so important.

And as women, we're the hardest on ourselves because we have this mindset or society tells us and we develop this mindset that we are supposed to be superwoman. And I cannot tell you how many days I say, well, my superwoman cape is in the wash because today was not the day. I didn't get much out of my online class today. I didn't get the benefits that I was hoping for today. But what I did get was I got a 20 minutes nap in where I was able to do nothing. I watched my favorite rerun on TV and that was healing to laugh about something silly. So not every single moment of our day has to be productive. And especially when we're taking in information that's online where we don't have that physical presence together, we have to be aware of that, but we also have to be aware of how it impacts us.

When Elizabeth and I met, we met in person and there was a lot of connection in our conversation. You don't necessarily get that online. So you have to make an extraordinary effort to take that information that you're receiving and not feel like you're alone trying to implement it. And you use the word broken a lot. Elizabeth and I would say that broken is a way I'd like to change our vernacular. How's that? Yeah, it's not broken, it's realigning. You're realigning. With those missions and those thought processes and those strategies that work for you.

You're not broken, you're realigning.

Another one of my favorite words is alignment.

Yes. Don't use broken anymore. Let's use the alignment.

I'll tell that martyr. I hope that martyr. Listen. Martyr in my head.

Listen.

Well.

It is. It's a battle for everybody because you're looking at everybody, you feel like they're throwing up fireworks, going woohoo, look at me, I did this, that and the other. And behind that positive exterior, there's somebody really struggling trying to figure that out. I'll never forget I had this mother come up to me in high school and say, how do you do it? And I said, how do I do what? She goes, you have four children and they're all so happy and put together and they're so nice and kind. And she went on and on. And I looked at her, I said, this is the exterior. The interior is very different. And I'm not saying that they're not happy or good citizens or kind.

I'm not saying that at all. But behind that exterior are people, as we all are. We're all trying to figure it out. Nobody's got the answer. No one. And just when we do have it figured out, good grief, something blows up in our face. And you're like, oh, good grief, I have to start over. But that's where grace and self care and support all come in.

Because without those three, it's tough. That's right, it's tough. But there's all these positive things that we can be doing. They can totally change that. We can talk to a friend. We can turn the other way and say, you know what? This isn't for me. And because it's an online course, guess what? You can turn it off. It's so easy.

You just leave the meeting. You don't have to sit there. It's okay. No one's going to be hurt because guess what? Nobody knows you anyway in the class.

I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Go ahead.

I was going to say, I feel like another term in this interview is failing forward, which is a lot of people are saying failing forward.

Yeah. When I do my coaching, I talk about safe fails. And safe fails are challenges that you incur. I'm not going to use fails challenges that you incur that are less successful, but they're safe. You're not losing let me rephrase it. They should not be situations where you're losing your house, your job, your home. They should not be the big ticket items, those you need to pay attention to. But a lot of times when we're taking these online courses or we're in this digital marketing arena, it's okay to fail safe because it's a safety net.

There are people under you to catch you and your clients are going to say, you know, this isn't exactly the direction, so can we go another way? Most are not going to go, we hate this. You have no skills and we need you to leave. Most people aren't going to do that. They're going to give you a second and third chance. That's your safety net. And those are okay. We need it for our children. They need an environment where they can fail safely.

We need it for ourselves so that if we don't succeed at the level we want that we either walk away or we find a support group that says, hey, Elizabeth, I need some help because I don't have a clue what I am doing. And that's okay too. One of the biggest things that I've noticed is that we are averse to asking for help because we're supposed to know it all. We're supposed to be able to do it all. We're supposed to be perfectionists. We're supposed to wear our halo all the time because we're perfect.

Yeah.

No, not how it works in the real world. And it's okay.

Yeah, it's funny because that was one of my I have a podcast episode that says, do you hate asking for help? Question mark. And that was my most popular episode up until recently, and I was like, okay. None of us like asking for help. And it's like, that's another thing that I'm doing as far as giving myself grace and with self care, is asking for help. I'm like, they all tie in together.

They do. They do tie in together. And I will tell you, I started my doctorate at 54. I'm not a spring chicken here, and so I don't know the technology. When I was in college, we didn't have laptops and all these apps and software, and I have no idea about any of this stuff. And I went to my kids, went to my husband, I went to my Cohort. I'm like, listen, I don't know this. And not one person said, Boy, you're a dummy.

How do you not know this? Everybody jumped in to help, so people are willing to help. We just have to be able to be comfortable enough to ask for it and secure enough to ask for it.

That's it. That's it.

Ask for help.

So you're working on your doctorate. What is new and exciting for you?

Thank you.

Yeah.

So I'm doing my doctorate in education. Big surprise. But I'm really interested in I'm a first generation Asian American. My parents immigrated from India in the 1960s, and learning the education system in this country is very different than what my parents had in India. And there were a lot of academic, social, personal challenges that I faced. And my parents are both well educated. They both had graduate degrees, but they didn't understand the system, and it was hard for them, as hard as they tried to get me over that hump. And in my Ted talk, I say I don't fault them at all.

I actually applaud them for trying so very hard. But my interest lies in parent engagement of immigrant first generation and second generation parents. How do parents retain their culture regardless of the generational phase that you're in, while also assimilating and ensuring your children succeed academically? That's where my interest lies.

That's amazing. I got to have you on here again with so much more that I'd like, you know what I mean?

I'm ready.

Where can we find you? Online?

Yeah. So my website is WW dot Punamvsaxena.com V, as in Victor, and it's my website. It talks about my coaching, my TEDx, my speaking opportunities, what I am doing, my books. And it's a platform for everyone to come and find a home, because whether you're a parent or you're not, we're all struggling with the same things. We're all struggling with trying to be the best person we can be while trying to do a million other things. And so it's important for there to be a platform for that. So my website is really about getting everybody together and let's start listening to each other and helping each other and working together, because when we do that, there's a lot of strength in numbers. We can move mountains.

That's right.

But we all have to be on the same page and we all have to be able to give a little bit because we're not all right.

That's right.

We go back to learning it's full circle. Elizabeth, we go back to learning. I'm learning from you. You've had such an amazing journey in the last two and a half years, and it's not an easy journey, but it's a journey that helps me understand more about you. And it's important that I know that if in fact, we're going to be friends and be change makers.

Yeah, I agree. Change makers. I like that word.

We can't do it together. We can't do it together. There's got to be a group. There's got to be a support team.

Yeah, support is huge. I'll be in touch with you because I have some ideas on that. A community, and not to say that there aren't other communities, but the way I look at it is you can't have too many friends, you can't have too many supporters.

Yeah, say that again. I'm sorry.

Yeah, go ahead. I was just going to say so I'll be in touch about that.

Yeah, that sounds wonderful. The other thing that I will say is you need different support groups for different things. You can't have a support group, one support group for everything that you're dealing with. There's a support group for my classwork. Those are my peers in class, and we lean on each other very heavily for that, but my friends don't really care. Yeah, I mean, they do, but they're not in it and they're not living that piece of my life. And so it's important to have different peer groups because one day something may happen and that peer group may be gone for some reason, and you need to be able to have other support groups to help you through that.

Yes, that's exactly right. And thanks for clarifying that, because that's exactly right. I'm thinking, like biz buddies is a separate you know what I mean? But yeah, we definitely have to have separate groups because, like family, they don't know a lot of things that I'm doing because they wouldn't understand it. They're not entrepreneurs or they're not even in that mindset, or they're happy being where they are. So they're like, why would I want to change anything? You know what I mean? So that's exactly right. You got to have different groups. And that's huge. Again with that support system.

Huge.

And it may be that it's not in their wheelhouse. Yeah, maybe their wheelhouse is something else and everybody's wheelhouse is different, but every wheelhouse can impact your. Life.

Yeah. We're all individuals, but we all need.

Each other now more than ever.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. That's another thing.

Yeah. Well, because with online, we're all isolationists, every one of us. So now more than ever, we have to create pods of support.

That's right. I did that side because I'm thinking about so much going on in the world, in the country. You know what I mean? Yeah. But that's even why we need more support. That's even why we need more self care. We need to recharge. You talked about going for we need to listen. We need to listen.

That's right.

A lot of what we're dealing with globally is the fact that we don't listen. And if each one of us can be better at listening, it's infectious and it will grow. We'll have a lot of listeners out there.

I agree. I feel like empathy is another huge word. Talk about that all day.

I know. We're going to have to get another episode out.

Yeah, we have to have another one. Thank you so much for talking with me today. I appreciate you.

I appreciate you. Thank you so much for having me on. It's always wonderful to chat with you.

Thank you so much. Thanks you all for listening. Cheers for speaking up and for making your voice heard. Bye.