“Do what you love and love what you do”

|By Runjhun Gupta|

As a part of Point Blank 7’s International women’s day celebration, I am excited to share the story of my roller-coaster entrepreneurial journey with you.

A journey that has been an adventure and one that has led me on to explore the different sides to myself. I wish my story inspires and encourages people to do what they love.

Back in 2008, I was working with a reputed MNC, stuck in the rat race like everyone else. After work I used to hold dance classes at home three times a week, which I enjoyed immensely. One day I realised that instead of cribbing about Monday Blues and work pressures, why not make every day of my life worthwhile and happy? Why not make dance my life since I love it so much?

While I was trying to make this plan happen, something drastic happened. I fainted at work. There was so much stress and so many expectations. I hated the fact that I had to work so hard for someone else, and I wasn’t even enjoying it!

This was my trigger that pushed me to take the plunge, leave the corporate life behind and do what I really love – to be happy, to dance and spread this joy to as many people as I can.

I realized that there are a million others who are stressed out and if I can touch as many lives, I’ll be able to do something extremely fulfilling. I knew that I had to create a value-based system where like-minded people could come, de-stress, and enjoy life. And what better way to do this than with my core passion and strength – dance!

Thus began the journey of my venture, ZipOut (zip stands for ‘Zindagi In Pajamas’).

Thanks to ZipOut, I have moved on from being a person who could never speak extempore, to becoming an entrepreneurial speaker today and I enjoy it.To top that, I am authoring a book (a little secret: I was petrified of writing!).

This decision has helped me discover new sides to my personality. It has given shape to my dreams and aspirations. It’s given me very lucid clarity.

I took professional training in the creative style dancing, where the entire focus is on the very essence of dance. It helped me understand the beats, the rhythm, and the soul of music and also express myself through graceful and rhythmic body movements.

It helped me create a combination of styles like belly dandiya , bhangra cardio, modern Bollywood, belly hip hop and the likes.

Today, I am well versed in nine styles of dance.

Family and dance

My family has always been very supportive of my endeavors, right from the day I decided to quit my job.

At the age of six, my parents enrolled me in a professional dance school – Ananda Shankar Dance Academy. It was because of my mother’s dedication to take me to dance class every Sunday for seven years, that I was able to dance at umpteen stage performances and have been able to spread the joy of dancing to so many others.

ZipOut’s role in de-stressing today’s working woman

Through my four-year journey with ZipOut I could identify obesity, lack of ‘me’ time, work-life pressure as the major causes of stress in a woman’s life.

This led me to developing an effective program for women, called Curv’It – get curvy and be fit. Through this program one can lose around 8-10 kgs in 6-8 months only through natural and fun ways.

There is no denying that it has been a really tough and bumpy entrepreneurial ride so far, where challenges ranged from managing time, prioritising, finding a work-life balance to creating a name in an unconventional field. However, when I see people experiencing true happiness through Zipout, it all seems worthwhile.

Pranav Chaturvedi, a successful serial entrepreneur himself and my mentor in setting up Zipout once advised me –

If it is to be, it is up to me

And I live by it.

To conclude, I would share a valued insight from my journey so far: If we can identify the root cause of the problem people face today and can create an innovative service/product to solve that problem, then we have a recipe for success.