Anshula Verma an entrepreneur and Founder & Creator of “HappyFitYou” is also India’s youngest and only Happiness Coach.
A life coach, practitioner and facilitator she is the second youngest Indian to get the transactional analysis certificate and holds TTT certificate in drama based facilitation program. She teaches the art of being happy, positive thinking, fit living, work life management, living a stress free life and more. She tells us more in this exclusive tête-à-tête.
Tell us something about your early years and education?
I was born in March 1995 and my father works for the Indian Army. While my father got posted to border, my mother and I came to Mumbai to stay with my grandparents. These frequent transfers resulted in me changing nine schools. I still remember bits and parts of me asking my mom about, where my father was, and her telling me how dad was a fighter and how he would come back, even during the tough times like when he was in the Kargil War. Being a kid, I always felt that there was void due to these circumstances. Further, these voids became more intense when I started staying with my grandparents and my mother started to work. I did know that they both were doing all this to set an example for me and to give me good education and a good life. After finishing 7th Grade in Mumbai, I decided to join a boarding school and after my 10th standard, I came back to Mumbai and joined Jai Hind College in the Arts Section for my Jr. College and did BA Correspondence and was working too. I am the youngest Indian to get the Happiness Coaching Certificate from Happiness Studies Academy which is a course by Dr. Tal Ben Shahar [Positive Psychologist Professor, Harvard University]; Facilitation from TISS; Pranic Healing; and the second youngest to get the Transactional Analysis Certificate; Train The Trainer Certificate in Drama Based Facilitation and am a Licensed Zumba Instructor.
What veered your towards happiness coaching?
I never thought that I would get into something like Happiness Coaching. In fact, I did not even know if something like Happiness Coaching existed. I started out with an internship at a Celebrity Management Company in the digital management team in Mumbai. Then I got another opportunity as a PR, I tried that too. However, I never felt the job satisfaction. Later on I decided to get into fitness and started conducting fitness workshops at corporates. It was then I realised that even though people were dancing they did not smile. So, I decided to do a fun activity on gratitude before we could start fitness session and everyone smiled. I realised that I had made a positive impact and that for me was the biggest job satisfaction. I started to explore more in this field and then there was no looking back. I had found my purpose and vision.
Tell us about ‘HappyFitYou’.
HappyFitYou is a Happiness wellbeing education brand. The brand focuses on Emotional, Mental, Physical, Spiritual, and Environmental Well-Being. It caters to 3C’s i.e. Corporates, Colleges, and Communities. Mission is to create sustainable power of Happiness. Vision is to share Happiness WellBeing with more than 1 million people by 2030.
What do you do with NITI Aayog with GOAL?
I am a mentor with NITI Aayog for GOAL. I am mentoring four women from Hoshangabad, MP. GOAL which is short for Going Online As Leader is a program aimed to empower young women from rural and tribal regions in India to become tomorrow’s leaders.
Tell us about what you do as a Happiness Coach?
Happiness is about seizing the day, living in this moment. Everyone is in pursuit of happiness, or chasing happiness, or searching for happiness, whereas, happiness is right there in their highs of life and in their lows of life. As a happiness coach I teach enjoying the highs of life and embracing failures, and learning from them and unleashing the happiness within.
How challenging is it to teach happiness?
I teach and remind them to convert their vision to action. Somewhere, in our highs and lows of life, we forget about our goals and vision and human emotions. It is these warm moments that we look back to and smile.
Tell us about Happiness Studies Academy.
The certificate in Happiness Studies is the first of its kind. The course explores happiness through the lens of different disciplines including psychology and philosophy, as well as history, theology, biology, economics, literature, art and more. The program provides the knowledge and tools to generate happiness on individual, interpersonal, organisational, and national level.
This story first appeared in Sakal Times dated Sep 3, 2019 here:
