EP 179 A Year of Focus Equals Big Results with guest Nesha Pai
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Sara Mayer: [00:00:00] Welcome to the bold goal crusher podcast for anyone looking to stop letting life get in the way and start crushing bold goals. I'm your host, Sara Mayer, and I'm thrilled to navigate this journey with you because it's time to start boldly achieving without working double time. So let's dive in.
Sara Mayer: Hello, bold goal crushers. I'm super excited about this episode because this is like an update episode. This is a repeat guest. I haven't done this. I think maybe once I've done this once, and I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation. Let me introduce you to Nisha. She is a first generation Indian American raised in the South, and she has had her fair share of facing and overcoming obstacles, dealing with racism and sexism throughout her life.[00:01:00]
Sara Mayer: She's endured mental health struggles and a personal religious identity crisis, all while navigating marriage, divorce, and single motherhood. But she credits these challenges as the catalyst for her success. She opened her accounting firm in 2000. 11 and made it her mission to empower women through hiring and due to its unique virtual office structure.
Sara Mayer: Remember this was 2011. She was able to give employment opportunities to mostly stay at home moms, and she has great pride in owning a business that supported women and empowering business owners in their finances. She truly is a testament to how her faith forgiveness and resilience transformed her seemingly insurmountable obstacles into priceless opportunity and power.
Sara Mayer: She's one of my clients and I'm so proud of all that she has accomplished in this last year. [00:02:00] And I call her a friend now as well. Nisha, thanks for being on the show.
Nesha Pai: Thank you for having me, Sarah. Oh, I'm just so honored to be here. And so honored that we reconnected. And that you have helped guide me through this year.
Nesha Pai: That has been amazing. Yeah, you
Sara Mayer: have accomplished so much in this last year. And I feel like I have the title of biggest cheerleader.
Nesha Pai: You have been an amazing cheerleader and coach for me in so many ways. And I am so grateful. So I, I credit you as 1 of the people in my corner that have helped me to get here with all the different.
Nesha Pai: Balls. I am juggling in the air and projects and goals that I've had. So thank you.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. Oh my pleasure. It's truly been a pleasure working with you and I want to jump in because you've accomplished so much in this past year and. One of the things that I love about working with you and other entrepreneurs is that you are [00:03:00] multi passionate about different things.
Sara Mayer: You have a book and you have a speaking business, you're a CPA, you employ working mothers, and you also have launched a digital course. So I just love that you've been able to do it all, but do everything really well and really segment those things. So you. Are able to serve the people that fall into those different buckets.
Nesha Pai: Yes. Thank you. It's not easy, right? Because this as an entrepreneur, you're like, it's like squirrel. It's Oh, I want to do that. Oh, I want to do that. Oh, I won't do that. And you'd have to stay focused. One of my credits to you is that you help me stay focused. On my biggest project that I wanted to accomplish that launched in January, which was my digital course.
Nesha Pai: And I had a successful launch. Now, it only it made 7, 000 first launch, which may not seem like a lot of money, but to me, that's a lot of [00:04:00] money for a first time launch, and it went really well. And so what I've been able to do with that course. is I've been able to take segments of it and create local workshops.
Nesha Pai: Quick little 20 minute mastermind appearances, and I've been able to take chunks of the content and create different things with it. And so it's been IP that I'm using over and over in different ways. Yeah. And it has been so amazing because I now have this library, I'll call it, of content, and I'm like, man, it was painful to create.
Nesha Pai: Yeah, 6 months. I spent 6 months with you creating this thing and you helped me. If it weren't for you, I know I wouldn't have finished it on my own. I know this without a doubt and you're coaching your guidance helped me. And so this thing that took me 6 months to create that was painful. [00:05:00] Is now out in the world and I'm doing all kinds of things with it.
Nesha Pai: So it has been great. And I
Sara Mayer: think you bring up one of the coolest thing is that you were building a digital asset. You have a very time intensive business. There's only so much time in your day. There's only so much time in your employees days and at growing that business. There's a cap and you have to decide, do I add more people to bring on more clients?
Sara Mayer: And what you really have a mission for, which I think is so cool is that you want to empower others to be more financially secure and stable and to build their own freedom in their own life. And. By building this course, you're able to impact more people who maybe can't afford you, or maybe you don't have the time to add to your book of business, but your
Nesha Pai: reach has grown.
Nesha Pai: Yeah, financial literacy in this [00:06:00] country is a huge crisis. personally and professionally. And you know this, that business owners, man, it scares me when I get out here and they have no idea what they're doing and they're not supposed to, they're not accountants. But the rate of people starting businesses in this country, maybe even in the world, right?
Nesha Pai: But in this country is alarmingly got grown so fast that There's just not enough people out here or enough information out here to help them and I had a recent business owner say to me, man, I googled this stuff and I get even more confused. It's become a mission of mine to want to empower and educate small business owners on the finance part of their business.
Nesha Pai: Yeah.
Sara Mayer: And you did that with your course and now your course ha, you did a live version of that course and then now it's evergreen so people can take it [00:07:00] as fits their schedule. But one of the other things I wanna talk about is you really have been very purposeful, even from the beginning, from 2011 in designing your business so that it has.
Sara Mayer: So it's flexible so you can live the lifestyle you want to live. And your digital course is a part of that. You're speaking as a part of that, your book. Can you talk a little bit about your intention and your desire and how you've been able to actually do that?
Nesha Pai: Yeah, what's funny is I didn't set out intentionally to build this.
Nesha Pai: I actually walked out of a boss that told me I didn't deserve the raise I came in for and said I had a mom gap in my resume. So I quit. I quit on the spot. It wasn't like I had this eloquent picture of like intention and an intentional life at that moment. And [00:08:00] when that happened and I walked out, I said, you know what, I'm going to try this on my own.
Nesha Pai: I'm going to do this on my own and I'm going to do it better. And so I sat down on my kitchen table with one client and I created my entity basically. And I said, you know what, I'm going to be able to meet my son. Off of the bus every day. Okay. Step number 1 of my intentionality. Let's start there.
Nesha Pai: So I was able to have a flexible work schedule to be at home with him in the afternoons. And then from there, it grew to the fact that I could create this entire entity remotely. And hire people remotely. And at that time, most of my clients came locally. They came from Charlotte and just in the recent, since the pandemic, to be honest, I've grown nationally, got clients in Chicago, Texas, California, New York, and it has allowed me the freedom as well as having.
Nesha Pai: The other [00:09:00] revenue streams, like the digital course and the speaking that I do to be able to live the life that I want. And what I realized I really want in life. Is to have more of this digital nomadic kind of lifestyle and travel and live anywhere and still be able to work. And so I've created that intentionally.
Nesha Pai: Because that's the life that I've always wanted and I just figured it out along the way, but I knew that was always a part of it, that was eventually what I wanted and I never wanted to be chained down to a corporate job or a desk again. Yeah.
Sara Mayer: And two things I love about this is that your journey evolved over time and it wasn't something like today I'm going to do this like you have had to work at that for many years.
Sara Mayer: To get to the point where right now you are
Nesha Pai: able to do that. Yeah, 12 years in. Listen, there was a point in time, probably, definitely within the first five years. Where I was living [00:10:00] off of my credit card that I couldn't cover all of my living expenses and I was living off of a credit card for a while and or a line of credit.
Nesha Pai: And it took me 12 years to get here. And that would be my reminder to people of it is not overnight. Absolutely not. Unless you happen to turn into a windfall of money by winning the lottery. Yeah.
Sara Mayer: And if you do know those lottery ticket numbers, we would be willing to share the lottery winning.
Sara Mayer: We would do good, good with it for sure.
Nesha Pai: Yes. Good point too, that people think it's an overnight thing. A lot of entrepreneurs get out here thinking that, and Sara, we know better that it is constant hard work. Consistency and just pushing through all the obstacles. Every day.
Nesha Pai: Yeah. Yeah.
Sara Mayer: And it's building that, but keeping your eye on what that ultimate goal is. I think so many times in entrepreneurship people are like, oh, shiny thing. Let's go do this, [00:11:00] let's go do that. And those are all great things, except if it's not getting you closer to that goal. For you it was to be more, of a nomad and be able to work from anywhere.
Sara Mayer: And having that freedom. If it's not getting you closer to that, it might be a no. Absolutely.
Nesha Pai: And, I'm a shiny object squirrel kind of girl, but I knew that if I was going to start something, I wanted it to be good. So I started my book that took me a little over a year, but I didn't let any other projects come into play.
Nesha Pai: And a digital course was on my list. But I wasn't going to start that course or that process until I knew, okay, this is my focus this year. Like I pick a focus a year and I say, here's what I'm going to do this year. And I'm just going to work on that until I get it done and then I'll move on to the next project.
Nesha Pai: Yeah.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. And hear me now. She said. My focus for the year one, [00:12:00] she didn't say my three, my five, my six. So often in January, I work with so many people, wonderful clients. And they're like, I'm going to do these 10 things in a year. And I think we overestimate what we can get done in a year, but we underestimate what we can get done in five.
Sara Mayer: So I'm a big proponent of, longer term planning. And I love the focus plan. I'm going to work on this project until I get it done. Because the things that are really important or needle movers, like for you, your digital course, they do take a little bit longer. It took six months for you. You were hyper focused on that.
Sara Mayer: And You made 7, 000 and when you launch it again, like you're going to be able to make more money when you live launch it. And then now you're, you have it in evergreen. So that's 7, 000 that hard work paid off.
Nesha Pai: That was awesome. I put that straight into my vacation fund and, I'm a big proponent [00:13:00] like you multiple streams of income, no matter what those streams are, but and also creating assets, creating. Assets that can live into the future that are relevant that you can sell with a click of a button from your computer. And that was the biggest reason I created that course was to not only reach more people that I couldn't reach physically, but also this will sell into the future because my course is relevant.
Nesha Pai: It's about accounting and accounting is never going to change.
Sara Mayer: Yes, and so tell everyone where you were this spring.
Nesha Pai: I was in Paris actually France for a month. This was my big test. You guys, this was my big test of one, could I live overseas, which is my dream to live by continentally, but could I do it.
Nesha Pai: And could I do it successfully, i. e. could I work from there? [00:14:00] And so I decided to take a solo trip, which is also very ballsy of me because, a big solo trip overseas is like way out of my comfort zone. So I took this trip and it was the most amazing experience of my life. And I not only proved.
Nesha Pai: That it is possible to go solo, but it is also possible to work from anywhere. Yeah. I proved it.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. And so what's next on that journey?
Nesha Pai: Next on that journey. I, so I came back from this one month and at the end, I thought when I first went, I thought, man, this is going to be a long time, like you might be missing home.
Nesha Pai: I got to the last day of my trip and I said. Is this it? So my next brainstorming session was on the plane ride home and I was like, I want to come back here for three months. So I'm going back in the spring for three months and I've already got into motion what it would be [00:15:00] like to live there longer than three months.
Nesha Pai: And I'm going to be working with an immigration attorney on a long term visa and I decided I want to be a bi continental liver. I have no idea if that is a term, but I made it up.
Sara Mayer: You heard it here first.
Nesha Pai: And that's in my big dream. That's in my big goal, my big dream, my life vision. So that's what's next.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. And it's taken you 12 years to get to
Nesha Pai: this point. Years. And I want people to fully understand that I could not have done this. I couldn't have even thought about this. It was on a vision board. I couldn't have thought about this before. It just wasn't the right time.
Sara Mayer: And you had to put a lot of things in place in your business.
Sara Mayer: You needed to make sure you had the right people, the right clients. I think sometimes entrepreneurs forget that part. We take on clients just to take on clients, but they're not the right clients or [00:16:00] they're not a good fit. And. Because you're going to be working in a different time zone. So you can't have somebody who's I must meet with you at eight o'clock on a whatever
Nesha Pai: day.
Nesha Pai: Absolutely. Absolutely. Or meet with me physically and they have to pay you, right? The biggest thing is. Are they paying you and are they paying you what you're worth? Yeah. And on time. And so there's a lot of factors that go into the right client. You're absolutely right.
Sara Mayer: And I think one of the lessons here as well is that it did take 12 years, but there were lots of wins along the way.
Sara Mayer: There are lots of probably setbacks as well. But sometimes when we start off on something new, as an entrepreneur, we're starting as a beginner. And so you're looking at somebody who's been working on this for 12 years, and now she's going to spend three months next year in Paris. It is possible, but the comparison needs to be with when she first started as a beginner, [00:17:00] because her journey started so many years ago, but it is completely possible.
Nesha Pai: I started with one client on my kitchen table and that one client covered, it covered my mortgage and maybe a week's worth of groceries. Okay. Yeah. Just to give you an example. Okay. So I could have a roof over my head and probably eat for about a week with my son, but obviously nowhere near the lifestyle that I have today, 12 years later.
Nesha Pai: And now I have 80 clients.
Sara Mayer: And how many
Nesha Pai: employees? I have three getting ready to hire one more. And they're all stay at home moms. They work part time. And yeah to drive your point home, Sarah, that, yeah, that was a journey. One client to 80, covering my mortgage all the way to now being able to live three months in France.
Nesha Pai: And I just stayed on it. I stayed focused and [00:18:00] I knew I was going to get there and that's what people have to
Sara Mayer: believe. And what a tremendous example for your
Nesha Pai: son. Thank you. I hope he sees it. He's 24. So I don't know if he thinks about these things, but I think, if he doesn't, then one day he will.
Sara Mayer: So someday they, they seem to come around. Yeah.
Nesha Pai: Yeah. Yeah. I know he's proud of me. He doesn't probably say it, but he's proud of me. Yeah.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. So last year, your theme was creating a digital course. You launched it. And this year, what are you working on this year?
Nesha Pai: This year is the year of the keynote speech.
Nesha Pai: The keynote speech and I say that because I'm working on a signature keynote speech that I've been working on. I'm in a 7 month program with heroic public speaking, which is 1 of the best schools in the country based in New Jersey. And I also did a program with another amazing program theater public speaking.
Nesha Pai: And so I [00:19:00] have immersed myself into the craft and the art. Of a keynote and how to deliver speeches. Love it.
Sara Mayer: And that's another component of your business that you will be able to launch over and
Nesha Pai: over and over again. Yeah, I want, my goal is to be a, like a global speaker. And I landed my first international gig this October.
Nesha Pai: in London. So I'm super, super excited about that. And a little, it's a little nerve wracking because it's okay, now I really got to deliver. Yeah. And but this is what I've been praying for. This is what I've been working for. And so it's here. And so I want people to understand just keep plugging away because it's going to happen.
Nesha Pai: It'll happen.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. And there's a lot of. Gurus out there that'll say niche down and pick one thing and only do that one thing. And I think we are both testaments to, [00:20:00] you don't necessarily need to do that. You can be multi passionate, you can be a speaker, you can be a CPA, you can employ stay at home moms, you can launch a digital course and you can do all those things just.
Sara Mayer: Focus on one thing, do it well. And then when you're speaking about that thing, only speak to that audience that would be attracted to that piece. Yes.
Nesha Pai: Yeah. And you've done a great job helping me with that too. And and how to market, right? Okay, we'll just market to this group of people that would be interested versus your whole database.
Nesha Pai: And yeah, that's very important. And that's something that I will continually need help with. Because I'm not a marketer, but it's okay, how can I get to the people that would be interested in this or this? Yeah.
Sara Mayer: So if you're sit, if you're listening to this and you're sitting in your cube and you're like, I just don't even [00:21:00] know.
Sara Mayer: Cause you know, niche just. Into financial literacy, I just don't even know if I can quit my nine to five job. I don't know if I could do this or create something. Nisha is a prime example of that. She already had she had a job. She left it, started her own practice, but you don't necessarily need to jump ship to add another asset or something.
Sara Mayer: To your financial portfolio. So Nisha, what advice would you give to somebody who was like, I like my job. I'm not looking to quit, but I do have other interests and things that I think maybe a course or speaking might be something I might be interested in. What would you, what advice
Nesha Pai: would you give them?
Nesha Pai: Yeah, that's a great question. I consider that. Like a side gig because so many people have passions outside of their nine to five job. And it's how can you monetize that? Yeah, it is possible, right? And so do you want to make a course? Do you want to go speak? So [00:22:00] take the core, take the course.
Nesha Pai: To develop it. I took any Porterfield's digital course Academy with you as my mentor to create my course. I'm taking speaking public speaking courses and classes to hone that. And I think people there's so many resources out here. People don't have to leave their job, they can take courses and classes to learn how to do the thing they want to do and then launch it
Sara Mayer: out into the world.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. And it doesn't mean, maybe you'll make a ton of money and you'll be able to quit your job if that's what you want, or it could be just your vacation fund on the side that you build over time.
Nesha Pai: Yeah. And Sarah, another thing, and you had reminded me of this when I launched my course. It doesn't have to be perfect.
Nesha Pai: Yes. It doesn't have to be perfect because guess what? It'll never be perfect because we'll always look at it and be like I can change this, or I can do this, or maybe I should wait until this. And it's [00:23:00] just launch it. Just get it out there.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. Yeah. And it was truly a pleasure working with you.
Sara Mayer: I think one of the cool parts is you are very focused. Like you decide I'm going to work on this project and you're very focused to get finished, but there were, little rocks along the way where I'm sure you thought about giving up. So how did
Nesha Pai: you work through those things? I had you as a coach.
Sara Mayer: I'll send you the check later. No, just kidding.
Nesha Pai: I'm serious. If I did not have you as a coach, I think I would have been, I could have been one of those people that might've put it down for a little while. And I would have eventually gotten back to it, but it would have taken me much, much longer than when I had you to help coach me through it.
Nesha Pai: So that brings me to my point of ask for help, accountability, whatever you want to call it. To get what you need to get
Sara Mayer: done. Yeah. Yeah. I have a person that I listened to Laurie Harder. If you've heard about [00:24:00] her and she always says it's never a what it's always a who you're stuck. It's never what to do or, anything like that.
Sara Mayer: It's always who do I need to connect with to help me get past this? And I think so often we try and do things on our own, or we think we need to do things on our own or especially women. We don't like to ask for help. So what happens is we get frustrated. We get stuck and we don't move forward because.
Sara Mayer: Sometimes the really important stuff is difficult.
Nesha Pai: Totally. And this is where you need to get help. And when I saw that you were offering, your coaching services alongside the digital course offering, I said, okay, I'm in because I had looked at her course. For a few years before, and I never jumped in.
Nesha Pai: And I think the reason I didn't jump in is it was so daunting for me to try to figure out how to do it myself. Yeah. And then I saw you and I [00:25:00] said, doing it, and it worked out brilliantly.
Sara Mayer: Yeah, and I think it's a responsibility to, I figured out how to do my digital course. I launched my digital course in 2020.
Sara Mayer: Wow. That seems so long ago, but yeah, I launched my course in 2020. I've had over 800 students in my course now at this point, which is mind blowing. And. I think it's a tremendous responsibility as a leader to not only seek out the wisdom of others, but to turn back and say, who needs help and who can I bring along on this journey?
Sara Mayer: Because in reality, I'm not inventing the post it news flash that's already invented. I'm not dealing with anything like that is so top secret that I can't share. And I think as leaders, And in business owners and just good people, we should be helping others to get to [00:26:00] where they want to go so they can achieve their dreams.
Nesha Pai: A thousand percent. And I think that's why you and I connect. So like we're on the same level here and the same vibe. And it's I a hundred percent believe in that. Absolutely.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. I am so proud of your journey this year, and I cannot wait to see what you do with your focus this year of public speaking, because I know you're going to knock it out of the park.
Sara Mayer: I can't wait to see that keynotes.
Nesha Pai: I'm going to get an amazing journey. In fact, today I just got back our first edit. From our from Perot public speaking school after three months and we turned in our first draft and I got pretty good remarks. It's not like I have to redo my whole script, so I'm like, okay, I'm on the right track.
Nesha Pai: It feels pretty good. It feels pretty good.
Sara Mayer: I love it. So proud of you. All right. If you are listening to this episode and you're like, Ooh, I need to work with Nisha or I may need this. Financial literacy course. [00:27:00] What's the name of your course again? Remind
Nesha Pai: me. Overcoming Finance Obstacles for Entrepreneurs.
Sara Mayer: Perfect. So if you're listening and you're like, I might need that course, please connect with Nisha. How can they connect with you? And what might they expect?
Nesha Pai: They can connect with me on Instagram at Nisha Pai, N E S H A P A I, which is my preferred platform of choice. And on there, I have different ways you can.
Nesha Pai: work with me and my website's there. The link to my course is there. And yeah, I'd love to have you join. I love
Sara Mayer: it. All right, everyone. Just remember that your bold goals are possible. It's time to focus and get to it because you can achieve everything you want to achieve without working double time.
Sara Mayer: Thank you for tuning into the bold goal crusher podcast where we crush goals and everything that gets in the way. I always love to support my community.
Sara Mayer: I look [00:28:00] forward to seeing you crush your goals this year.
