This was an interview of me on Angie Lee Podcast and it got such great feedback that I wanted to share it with my Highest Self Podcast tribe!

Join me on my brand-new Abundance Mindset Masterclass where we will break through your money blocks that are holding you back from living a life of freedom, purpose and joy. This is a much-requested class after my abundance podcasts and I’m so excited to be teaching you the very lessons that have totally shifted my life. The masterclass includes an interactive live webinar with me and is and just $35.

Join at abundancemindsetmasterclass.com

Catch me speaking live at Angie Lee’s Pays to Be Brave Summit Oct 21: www.angielee.com/p/paystobebrave and connect with Angie @Angieleepodcast

Intro + Outro Music: Silent Ganges by Maneesh de Moor

Let’s take the discussion further in the Mind-Body Balancers FB group: www.facebook.com/groups/1213662491998309/

Discover Your Dosha (Mind-Body Type) with my free quiz: iamsahararose.com

Connect with me for daily Ayurvedic and modern spiritual wisdom at Instagram: @iamsahararose Facebook.com/iamsahararose Twitter.com/iamsahararose

Pre-order my new book Eat Feel Fresh: A Contemporary Plant-Based Ayurvedic Cookbook: eatfeelfresh.com/book/ and receive a signed book plate, inspirational card and 10 bonus recipes

Join my Awaken Your Powers Masterclass to become a leader in the new paradigm with Shaman Durek: www.iamsahararose.com/awaken-your-powers

 

Episode 126 – Your Entrepreneurship Dosha with Sahara Rose

By Sahara Rose

Namaste. It’s Sahara Rose and welcome back to the “Highest Self” podcast, a place where we discuss what makes you your soul’s highest evolvement. Today I’m going to share with you an interview that my friend Angie Lee did of me. So you’re going to be able to hear me being interviewed on Angie Lee’s podcast, and I really loved this episode because it was on a topic that I am so passionate about, which is entrepreneurship and Ayurveda and how I believe the two are inherently linked together. And by knowing your unique dosha type you can be the entrepreneur that you were meant to be.

So this episode is all about how the doshas are related to different types of leaders, businesspeople, et cetera and how you can get passed whatever the blocks are of your dosha to become the entrepreneur that you were meant to be. So even if you have no experience as an entrepreneur, you don’t even know if you want to be an entrepreneur, this episode is for you. It really opens up your eyes to see how we all are born with unique gifts, unique skills, we all have incredible things to share, and we just have to focus on our strengths. We shouldn’t be looking around us and see what other people are doing, it’s all about what you are here to do, what you are called on this planet to achieve, and this episode is going to help you find that.

And I also want to share with you that I am launching my new “Abundance Mindset” master class. Yes, I am bringing you a master class all about abundance because I have done two podcasts now about abundance, financial self-care, and adapting an abundance mindset. And they have been two of the most popular episodes to date in our 100-plus episodes. So I know you guys want to hear about this stuff and are really resonating with how I’m teaching it because I look at it from such a different lens. We see a lot of people teaching about money, it’s all about it’s only about the money, it’s only about how can I make more dollars? And for me, it’s not about that, I actually don’t care about cars, don’t care about clothes, don’t care about shoes, bags, fashion. None of that stuff is important to me, but for me what money is for is to make a larger impact to be able to help people.

I shared in my financial self-care episode that I, with changing my relationship with money, I was able to create more revenue in my business, and for the first time, truly become financially free—beyond free, abundant. And with that abundance the first thing I wanted to do was help people and give back. So I had heard about this incredible organization called Cambodia Children’s Fund, and I had met the founder, he was giving a presentation at this conference that I went to, and I saw the videos of the people that he was helping, thousands of people who live in literal dumpsters in Cambodia who get Hepatitis C and so many diseases because of all of the bacteria, and the poor hygiene, and it was just so heartbreaking to see.

And he essentially created this organization that takes those kids out of their dumpster, puts them into school, a full-on school where they can live, are fed, cared for, and also takes their families out. A lot of the parents are drug-addicted, they have dealt with prostitution in the Khmer Rouge genocide. A lot of the grandparents were killed so they help the grandparents as well, and in fact they have two types of sponsorships: one that is to sponsor a child. So you are able to sponsor a child for $150 a month and you pay for not only the child’s school and food, but also for their whole family to get out of the dump.

And also they have a grandmother sponsorship program where you are able to sponsor a grandma that’s only $50 a month, and you are able to help the grandma cause a lot of these grandmas were abandoned, their families didn’t want them. And these grandmas preserve the ancient traditions that were essentially stripped away from them in this genocide and they pass along the ancient roots of the Khmer tribes for thousands of years to these children.

So the first thing I did when I made money is I sponsored a child. And now, more recently, few months later I sponsored a grandma too. And I shared about that, the child on my podcast, the first one I did, and this beautiful woman Laura heard about it, and she was going to go on a yoga teacher training in Thailand and decided that she wants to go to this exact organization in Cambodia and visit it, and she did that. I’m gonna share with you the interview I did of her, very, very powerful. But she went to Cambodia and she saw those children there, she sponsored a child, her friends had sponsored another, she took them out for a day and just loved these kids, just gave them love. She said she had never seen such an incredible organization and just how much they care.

And again, this is not sponsored by them, they’re a non-profit organization. But I share this with you so when you think about entrepreneurship it’s not about yourself, it’s not about how much money you can make and what you’re going to get out of it, it’s how much you can help others. That to me is what is the most important thing about all of this. And why I created the “Abundance Mindset” master class is because a lot of us are not able to truly help people because we’re in lack ourselves. We are going through our own financial burdens that make it really difficult for us to share and help.

And I genuinely believe you are never too poor to help someone else. If you even have two dollars you have a dollar to share. But again, I understand how the fear comes in when you’re not able to pay bills that the last thing you’re going to do is sponsor a child. So this is why it’s important that we talk about this stuff. We talk about abundance, we change our mindset about it ,and we reshape our framework with money, and more importantly, we create businesses that fulfill us on a soul level, that help the planet, that are providing services and goods that elevate vibration, but also we could use some of that revenue to help others across the world that don’t have access to this kind of stuff. Like if money is for one thing it is currency that we can use to support the causes that matter to us, and that to me fuels me up more than anything else, and that is my big why.

So if you want to shift your relationship with money, please join my “Abundance Mindset” master class. The link is in the show notes of this episode. You can also find it on my website, iamsahararose.com. We are going to be doing a live webinar at the beginning of November, so please sign up by then so you can make it in the webinar. If for some reason you’re listening to this episode months later, we’re going to run it again in January. So even if it’s months after November, please still sign up, but this master class is gonna have the potential for you to lead to a small group, six-week guided program where I help you learn how to create your online business, how to have a funnel, how to do the marketing, how to look at your own blocks of what’s holding you back from creating your business, what’s holding you back from having a strong relationship with abundance.

All of that stuff, all of the things that I had to learn I am here to share it with you. It is my honor, it is my duty, it is a thing that has changed my life. You know, the first thing that I had to take care of was my health, and then after I took care of my health I had to find my purpose, and after I found my purpose I had to figure out how I’m going to create a lifestyle around it. So that’s what I’m sharing with you, and again, it doesn’t matter if you have a business or not, you’re going to gain value from this. The program you’re going to have people who have mentored me, people who have created businesses for people like Tony Robbins, and T. Harv Eker—I’m talking that big—they’re going to be live on the webinars answering your questions about programs, and funnels, and what software do I use, and how do I monetize it, what kind of program should I start off with? All those questions you have, we’re going to answer, we are going to be live on the call with you answering it with my mentor, and it is gonna be such a life-changing experience.

So please, please, please, if this is at all calling you, the master class is $35—nothing, the price of a yoga class here in L.A. and it could be the very hour that changes your life. So please head over to my show notes or my website, iamasahararose.com, sign up for the “Abundance Mindset” master class. It’s gonna rock your socks off, you’re gonna have the best time, and I can’t wait to chat with you live on the webinar.

Also I’d like to make my book tour announcement. I will be coming to several different cities, not just to share my book, but to have a Bollywood dance party, and huge each other, and talk all about the doshas, and relationships, and business, and self-care, and everything in between. My book launch events are so much more than me just talking about the book, but it’s really a way to create community and to have a lot of fun. So come join me October 12th in L.A., October 17th in New York, November 30th in Miami, and I’m going to be going to San Diego some time in between then. Head over to my website, eatfeelfresh.com/book. I’m going to be adding some more cities, so head over there so you can stay tuned, and I’m so excited to meet you in person.

So in this interview where Angie Lee is interviewing me we talk about my journey, what brought me to Ayurveda, and how the doshas are related to entrepreneurship. So I’m really excited to share this wisdom with you, I hope it resonates with you on a soul level, it opens your mind, and inspires you to be your highest self. Without further ado, let’s welcome me being interviewed by Angie on the “Highest Self” podcast.

Sahara: I basically make ancient wisdom modern and accessible.

Angie: When I first started following you I thought that you would be a…

Sahara: (chanting)

Angie: Yeah! This girl’s probably like real serious and uptight.

Sahara: Everyday I have like my song of the day and I also text it to my mom, and she’s like, “Yesterday was Indian sitar, today Fat Joe.” She’s like, “Why you can’t make your mind?”

Angie: “Why you can’t make your mind?”

Sahara: That’s just who I am, I’m Fat Joe and an Indian sitar.

Angie: Is that your mom’s voice?

Sahara: Absolutely.

Angie: Oh my gosh, why is she not here?

Sahara: I could just do the whole podcast like this if you want.

Angie: Oh my God, so growing up did you have a strict upbringing?

Sahara: No, they weren’t strict on me at all. Like my parents were immigrants from Iran, so like in terms of money my dad had a lot of money, but was really cheap, and my mom was like the housewife who didn’t have any money, but also like was like, “Oh, I’ll take money from your dad and give it to you.” So it was like this very like polar opposite. Like I remember my first memory of money was like I was at the ice cream store with my dad and my brother, and normally my mom would take us and we would pick whatever we want. And then my dad’s like, “Okay, what flavor do you want?”

Angie: Oh my gosh, I’m doing. Have you ever seen “Superwoman” on YouTube? Do you know what that is?

Sahara: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do.

Angie: So she always makes fun of her Indian parents, and like she literally uses this voice and it’s so funny.

Sahara: Yeah, totally. So I was like, “I want vanilla with sprinkles.” My brother’s like, “I want chocolate Rocky Road.” And my dad’s like, “Well, a small is $1.79, $1.79, but if you get a medium it’s $2.10 so we’ll save like 60 cents, so you better pick one flavor and you share it. How about coffee? Cause I like coffee, you can just have mine.” I was like, “No, I want vanilla with sprinkles.”

Angie: I want what I want.

Sahara: And he’s like, “I want chocolate.” And then my dad’s like, “If you can’t decide on one flavor, no one’s getting ice cream.” And we couldn’t so neither of us got ice cream. So I learned early on that if you don’t have the money, you can’t make the decisions. But at the same time I had this belief that like money makes you really stressed out, I remember always like seeing my dad like just so like angry paying bills, and like almost feeling like, you know…

Angie: What are these bills?

Sahara: Right, like he had… he had a lot of money, but he was so unhappy all the time. So I went down this road of like, “Screw money, I’m just going to live my life,” and I started volunteering with different NGOs all around the world. So I went to Costa Rica when I was 15 with an NGO, and I lived in a prison, and I was helping the orphans whose moms were incarcerated. And then I went to Nicaragua, I built a community center there, I went to Vietnam, I was teaching the people with Agent Orange—deaf, mute, deformed—about like workers’ rights. I was basically volunteering all over and my goal was to become an international human rights lawyer. And you know…

Angie: That didn’t happen.

Sahara: … obviously didn’t happen. You know… Yeah, but I always wanted to help people, and that’s what I knew, and I thought that the way to help—and I knew I wanted to help a lot of people, not just one-on-one. So I thought the best way to do that was to get into like law. And then I went to school at George Washington University, the best program for this, and I was studying, and I was so unhappy because I saw at these NGOs like people weren’t actually being helped. You were raising money for the fundraiser for the next fundraiser, and there’s no contact. I was like, “Where are these people that we’re supposedly helping,” and I didn’t—I was just stuck in this office.

Angie: Wow. So what is NGOS?

Sahara: NGOs means non-governmental organization.

Angie: Oh, okay.

Sahara: Yeah, so basically any like charity, essentially, rights organizations like that, Amnesty International. So I became super depressed, and I actually left college, and I went back home to Boston because I was like, “I don’t even know what I want to do. Like I spent my whole life wanting to do this, and it’s not working,” and at this time I got a super bad eating disorder, and like just like, you know, when you lose control about everything in your life. So I became super fixated and obsessed with food at this time, and I decided the healthiest thing I could ever do is to become a raw vegan. So I became a raw vegan…

Angie: I love this story, yeah. Just eating broccoli all day?

Sahara: Yeah.

Angie: Just dry, cold broccoli.

Sahara: Exactly. And I lived in Boston, which is like Antarctica.

Angie: Which is so cold and dry and…

Sahara: Exactly. So…

Angie: You’re from Boston.

Sahara: …basically—yeah, so that’s why I’m real. No.

Angie: That’s why I’m real, Chicago, Boston. Oh now it makes sense, okay.

Sahara: So we just have great baseball teams. No, I’m kidding. So I was a raw vegan, and a few months into it I started to just kind of feel dizzy all the time, my hair was…

Angie: You didn’t cook anything.

Sahara: No, nothing.

Angie: Oh my god.

Sahara: My hair was falling out in pieces, people would come up to me and be like, “Are you okay?” And I was like, “Oh, it’s cause I lost weight,” but it was… it was not a compliment. I had lost 30 pounds, I was 88 pounds.

Angie: Wow. What?

Sahara: Yeah. So I was just… I looked like a ghost, a walking ghost, and I remember being at the gym and I was obsessed with working out, and I would faint. And then I would like try to go to like the bathroom and like try to vomit or something to like get… So this was like a really like dark point in my life, but I wouldn’t listen to anyone because again, I was using this like raw vegan façade of like, “I’m actually healthier than all of you because I’m eating living enzymes.”

Angie: Because I don’t cook my broccoli.

Sahara: Yeah. Obviously my body was not working and I didn’t have my period for two years.

Angie: Wow. That’s not good.

Sahara: Yeah. So at this time I was going back and forth to India already, not for Ayurveda, but to volunteer teaching health and sanitation in the slums of New Delhi.

Angie: Oh man, you’ve done a lot at a young age. Wow.

Sahara: Yeah. So and I was a raw vegan in India, which is like unheard of. They would call me like “the cow,” cause it’s like that was the only thing they’ve ever seen eat like raw greens. And while I was there I was like, I was just so sick all the time that I decided to go visit the local doctor, which is an Ayurvedic doctor. So Ayurveda is the ancient Indian health system, and it’s the world’s oldest health system. It’s a sister science of yoga based off of mind-body balance. So I had heard of it before, and at this point I had done I.I.N, Institute for Integrative Nutrition, they mentioned it, I had heard the word before, but honestly, I thought it was like a psychic, or astrologer, or something like really weird.

Angie: Yeah.

Sahara: I was like whatever, I’m in India, and I went, and instantly she’s like, “Beta, beta, you’re too pretty to not have baby.” I was like, “What?” She knew that I was infertile, my body had gone through pre-menopause when I was 21 years old, instantly could tell, and basically all of these problems that I had been going to doctors for, for years—IBS and my digestion, anxiety and insomnia, my bones always getting injured—all of these issues that I had were all interconnected as a vata imbalance. Meaning I had too much air in my system.

Angie: Almost like anorexic.

Sahara: Yeah, and it’s also caused by eating only cold dry raw foods.

Angie: Yeah.

Sahara: So basically this diet that I was doing to be super healthy was actually making my body shut down. And she had told me if I don’t stop I’m on the path towards infertility—well already was infertile—but Alzheimer’s and osteoporosis.

Angie: My gosh, at 21, wow.

Sahara: Yes. So that was like a big slap in the face, but the suggestions that she gave me were like, “Eat ghee, and lentils, and rice, and all of these like super Indian cooked foods that like a raw vegan would never want to eat.” So I was like ugh…

Angie: Like kitchari.

Sahara: Kitchari, basically, for the rest of my life.

Angie: Kitchari is so good. Ugh, it’s so good.

Sahara: But at that point I was like, “No way.” So I kind of threw it away, tried paleo, SIBO diet, GAPS diet, everything you can imagine, and nothing was working, no doctor could get to the point of it. So I was like, “Okay, I’m gonna give this Ayurveda thing a shot, but make it in my own modern way.”

Angie: Yeah.

Sahara: So maybe instead of rice I’ll do quinoa, maybe instead of ghee I’ll do coconut oil, and maybe I’ll add in avocados. There’s no avocados in India, and just trying to make it more modernized. And once I started doing that, not only did I feel physically better, but also mentally better. Like I could sleep, I could make a decision.

Angie: Breathe?

Sahara: Like yeah, things, you know, and eventually got my period back, my hair grew back, looked like a normal person. So I immediately got the download, a download is essentially like a glimpse of information that I need to write a book about this. So I signed up for Ayurveda school in India, ended up going to school for two years in India, writing, I had never met an author before, but I just wanted to write a book. So I just decided to call it “Eat Right For Your Mind Body Type,” and I incorporated Ayurveda—the vata, pitta, kapha, which we can talk about—with ectomorph, mesomorph, and endomorph and how they’re interconnected. And just like kind of like looking at the science of like the gut-brain connection, et cetera, and how does that have to do with Ayurveda. So long story short, cause I know this podcast is about business and not about health.

Angie: No, they love it too though. They’re like keep—I can see them being like, “No, keep it up, yeah.”

Sahara: Okay, so well basically I ended up writing the whole book, paid to get it graphic designed, edited, I wanted it to be super, super visual, like for the online reader because I know people don’t like to read words anymore.

Angie: And what was your dad saying at this time? Was he like…

Sahara: “You’re crazy! What are you doing? Why are you not engineer?” My dad has three Ph.D.s from M.I.T.

Angie: Oh, so do I. No big deal. No big deal.

Sahara: Like next stuff.

Angie: I did them in like a year or two if he wants to talk about it. I have the opposite of three Ph.Ds.

Sahara: Exactly. Like they were just like, “You don’t exist if you don’t have post-graduate education.”

Angie: So this was very rebellious of you.

Sahara: Well, this is not even—so I’m studying this, I’m staying in India, they’re like, “When the fuck are you coming back from India?” And I’m like, “I don’t really know guys if I’m gonna come back.” Because at this point I was like so done with like malls, and consumerism, and all of these things, and I honestly wanted to be Gandhi. I was like, “I just want to live in India, you know, be with my people here, meditate, live the life, eat fruits from the trees.”

Angie: Is this where you met Deepak?

Sahara: No, I met him here in the U.S.

Angie: In L.A.

Sahara: But if I had not lived in India for so long we would not have the connection that we have cause he’s also from Delhi.

Angie: Yeah.

Sahara: So this is where like shit got really real, and this is actually where my entrepreneurship was born from. Because before that I really had no entrepreneurial desires, but at this point basically was so bad between my parents and me of like “You need to get a job, you need to get focused, you need to get serious.” And me being like, “No, I’m writing this book on Ayurveda.” They’re like, “What is Ayurveda? No one knows about this. You don’t have an agent, you don’t know anything about this.” And I remember them very clearly saying, “A writer is like a starving artist. You’re never gonna make it.”

Angie: Wow.

Sahara: And they were like, “Get realistic. You think you’re J.K. Rowling? You think you have something other people don’t have?” And this is very much actually like the immigrant mindset of like…

Angie: It is the immigrant mindset.

Sahara:Do what’s practical, do what’s going to make money.

Angie: To be safe.

Sahara: Yeah. And it’s like when I look at Maslow’s hierarchy, it’s like you know, the beginning is like safety and survival, and then it’s like needs, and then wants, and then the top is self-actualization. So I’m here trying to get self-actualized whereas they’re like needs and wants.

Angie: Of course, well you can’t blame them almost.

Sahara: Right, of course.

Angie: They’re trying to breathe and make sure you’re safe.

Sahara: Exactly. So it got so rocky to this point that eventually I came back from India, but it was constant fights, and my dad just getting like really verbally abusive at this point. Being like, “You’re a failure, you’re a loser. I wish you weren’t my daughter. I want nothing to do with you.” And it got to this point that I was like, okay, I would actually go back and forth of like kind of asking people around who were like—cause then I went to Bali and I was like, “Do your parents know you’re here? Like what do your parents think of this?” like I had this like thing stuck in my head that like only if you had hippie parents could you live life to yourself. But people with like educated parents have to be educated. So it’s this like in-between but all the advice I was getting was like follow what you want, but it’s so different to get advice and do it yourself. And I basically got to this point that I was like, “I’m okay to not have a relationship with my family to write this book.”

Angie: Live your purpose.

Sahara: That I don’t even know where it’s going to go.

Angie: Yeah.

Sahara: But that’s how all-in I was, like and I basically told them, I wrote them a letter from Bali. I was like “Maybe we’re never gonna talk again. Like it was great being raised by you, but like this is it.” And obviously they freaked out.

Angie: Of course, yeah.

Sahara: And I also dropped my phone in a waterfall, I didn’t have a phone for a few months. And yeah, so I was like living in a rice village writing this book.

Angie: Oh my god, this is so cool. I love it. Like if you were my daughter I’d be like, “Do it. Live life.”

Sahara: But you know, maybe this drive also came from them saying not to do it that I really feel like the reason why I’m so strong today is like if you can get to the point of like being dead to your parents you don’t give a shit what other people think.

Angie: Shit, I love that. I’m so glad you’re saying that because that’s a huge message right now. I have a lot of really young girls who listen to my show and I want them to know that yes, you are the daughter of someone, but you are also your own person. And not only legally when you’re 18, but cut the cord, cut the umbilical cord, this is your life. And it’s a very trippy moment, it hit me at about 25, and I have a great relationship with them, but it hit me that, “Oh my god, this is my life. They’re not gonna be here forever, and I have to live out what I have to live out,” and I think that’s a really cool moment that you—yours came to you maybe in a more difficult way, but you realized this is your life.

Sahara: Right.

Angie: This isn’t your dad’s life.

Sahara: And I think the universe provides you with whatever experience that you need to listen. And maybe for me it took like sobbing on the floor crying, “God, do you even exist?” Like that level for me to listen because if it had just been—it had come in there just before, but I wasn’t listening to it enough, and I didn’t have examples, I had never seen anyone do something like this. But then I went all in and guys, four—now this is four years later, my parents loved what I do and are so proud of me, and are like, “Look, my daughter write Ayurveda book,” like bragging to their friends. So guys, your parents, honestly, your parents are testing you, they’re testing you, because if they can sense a quiver of uncertainty in your voice, they will question that. Because they know then you don’t really have what it takes to make it, you don’t have that level of tenacity. But if you’re so sure about it, it’s like your parents want you in their life, they’re eventually just going to accept you. But then once you do it, you change the game for what they believe is possible. And now my mom takes philosophy classes, and goes African drumming, and is like opened up this whole spiritual world, and like sees that, you know, I’m the first woman in my family to ever make money. Like it’s such a…

Angie: And you’re changing the lineage.

Sahara: Right, like both of my grandmas were in child marriages, one of them 11 years old. So it’s like changes what they believe. Now my grandma goes to unplugged meditation. So that’s why you have to believe in yourself so much to literally shift the ancestral bullshit and bonds and lineage that all of us, you know, all of our grandparents have gone through World War II, and poverty, and this, and that. And we don’t realize that we actually still have that in ourselves and we are re-going through those same experiences, but on different scales. And when we can pass through that we just healed a whole ancestral lineage.

Angie: Yeah, reprogramming fear, and I feel like it’s our responsibility to do this for our daughters and our sons. So then they can say, “Guess what my mom did even though no one thought she could do it.” And then he’s going to tell his son, and she’s going to tell her daughter, and then that’s how life works. And that’s your gift to this world is maybe you reprogramming the lineage of what was possible. Maybe that’s really what all of this was in addition to the work you’re doing.

Sahara: Exactly. Exactly.

Angie: I love this. And okay, so you’re in India, and then you write this book, and the next thing you know it does really well.

Sahara: Yeah, so the book ended up, I ended up finding a literary agent, got rejected by 30 publishers, and happened to be that Penguin Random House was looking for someone to write “The Idiot’s Guide to Ayurveda.” So I didn’t call this book “The Idiot’s Guide,” it’s actually like the part of the series of “Idiot’s Guides” to like gardening, and mowing your lawn, part of that. So they were looking for someone to write the book. They had someone four months in who had quit, and you normally have six months to write the book. So they happened—there were no coincidences—to call my literary agent and say, “We’re looking for someone to write ‘The Idiot’s Guide to Ayurveda.’ Do you happen to know anyone?” Which is like literally, guys, the most random topic ever.

Angie: Get out, this is crazy.
Sahara: So she was like, “Yeah, I do know someone, she’s pitching her first book.” They’re like, “I don’t know, we want like a doctor, blah, blah, blah.” And they were like, “Well, let’s put you guys in contact to see what happens.” So they were like, “Okay, if you were to write the table of contents, what would it be? You have one week.” That day I was literally like, boom, this it. I channeled source, I got that shit done, and I sent it back to them that day. The whole—you know, it’s a 400-page book with like detailed paragraph by paragraph. And they were like, “Okay, if you were to write the first chapter of the book, what would it look like? You have a week to do it.” The next day, wrote that first chapter, and then they hired me. And then I was like—at first I was really excited, but then I was like, oh shit, now I just got myself in this situation where I’m trying to sell my book, ‘Eat Right For Your Mind Body Type,’ and now I have to write this whole other book and I can’t have a sentence be the same because of copyright laws. So now I’m going to have to really learn about Ayurveda because how many ways can I explain this one subject without repeating myself?

Angie: Yeah.

Sahara: So that actually brought me way deeper into my knowledge of Ayurveda from like the digestion, the food, and the self-care into like the spirituality of it and like what is this really about? And the book I talk about, you know, finding your dosha, what’s good for you, but like why, and like the, you know, the energetics behind it, and the spirituality, and writing that book so very much deepened my spiritual experience. You know, when you’re writing through something you’re going through it yourself. And that book came out now as the best-selling Ayurvedic book globally, I ended up seeing Deepak Chopra at a conference, walked up to him, walked on to his stage, introduced myself to him, and he ended up writing the foreword to that book, this book, is like a close mentor of mine. And yeah, and now I’m just, you know, I’m always just looking for the signs of like where to go next.

Angie: Yeah, what did you go up and say to him? “Hello. Hello, sir. I heard you’re a big deal kinda. Anyways, do you want to write my book?”

Sahara: I have always loved Deepak, started reading his books when I was 12 years old. So I had always loved him and I always had a dream of meeting him, but I didn’t know it was gonna happen. And I actually met someone off Instagram, we ended up going, meeting at this conference called “Yoga and Science Conference,” and he was not supposed to be there. And then I remember it’s lunch break, and I’m like literally so bored in my chair, and cause you know, I don’t need to learn about the science of yoga, I just do the yoga. So I remember saying in my head, “Oh my god, this could only get lit right now if Deepak Chopra walked on stage.” And they’re like, “It’s time for lunch. Oh, and here’s our sponsor, Deepak Chopra.” And he’s like, “Hello, everyone,” and like walks off. And I just knew like this is your chance. Like if you don’t walk up to him right now you’re probably never gonna see him again.

Angie: Yeah. This is Deepak, where does he live?

Sahara: He like is everywhere.

Angie: Everywhere, that’s right.

Sahara: He’s like in a new country a day.

Angie: He’s a nomad.

Sahara: And I literally just walked up to him, I walked onto the stage, he’s talking to someone, I just stand next to him until he’s done.

Angie: This is what, five years ago, four years ago?

Sahara: No, this was like a year ago, like last May, it happened so fast.

A; You grabbed your lady balls and you’re like, “This is it. This is it.”

Sahara: Yeah, I already finished writing the book, so I was like basically like, “I wrote this book, ‘Idiot’s Guide to Ayurveda,’ it’s published by your same publisher, Penguin Random House, and this book’s gonna bring, you know, Ayurveda, to the masses. You were the person who introduced Ayurveda to me so it would only make sense.” At first I told him just the quote, and he basically was like, “Just send me the book and I’ll see.” I sent him the book, he’s like, “What’s your phone number?” I was like, “Oh my god, Deepak Chopra wants my phone number. Like this is like the voice of God right now.” And I talked on the phone, and he’s like, “What are you doing tomorrow?” And I was flying—

Angie: Nothing, you’re like nothing.

Sahara: No, I was flying back to L.A., and this was all in New York.

Angie: Cancel it.

Sahara: And he was like, “I’m gonna be in San Diego. Can you come to my event?” And I was like, “Yes,” cause I was gonna be in L.A.”

Angie: I have to get my nails done, Deepak.

Sahara: Yeah. So that next day I flew back that—I literally just drove out there that next morning and I went to his lecture, and then afterwards he, you know, really interrogated me with like three people. He just wanted to know everything about me, and what I’m doing, and then he was like, “Yeah, we love you, we want you to be faculty on Jiyo, his organization, teach at the Chopra Center, and would love to write the foreword of your book,” and just literally just like offering so much. But it was because one: I had done the work.

Angie: You showed up.

Sahara: I showed up, I had done the work. Do you know how many people—we were just talking about this—I get people like, “Can you write the foreword? I’ve never written a book.” No, I had done the book, gone to a publisher, it was a good book, it was gonna—and also you have to think what’s in it for that person? You know, for him he’s gonna also reach an audience of like 20-year-olds who don’t know who Deepak Chopra is.

Angie: Now you’ve brought back relevancy for him.

Sahara: Exactly. So for him, it’s a win-win for both people, and I think people need to know that when they’re messaging influential people because now we’ve been on the other side of that. When it comes from this place of need, when it comes from this place of “I’m inferior to you,” that energetics will set up this no. Because do you know how many people everyday are like, “Deepak, you’re my lord and savior, I love you.”

Angie: You came from an empowered place of “I’m gonna be brave, I’m gonna raise my hand here.”

Sahara: Yeah.

Angie: “And ask for what I want,” which I love, but you were prepared. And you said—and God, spirit, whoever brought you to him at the exact right time, no sooner no later.

Sahara: Exactly.

Angie: And you were prepared, and you came to him with confidence, and that’s what he wanted to see.

Sahara: Right, and I mean think of how many times like now sometimes I’ll like, you know, when you see someone at a party that you like know from Instagram, but you don’t say hi because it’s like weird. I’m like, “Wait, if I can go up to Deepak Chopra, I could go up to this person from Instagram,” you know. But it’s like we lose these moments that like, “Look, I went up to you at Lori Harder’s thing.

Angie: Yeah, I’m so glad you did.

Sahara: If I hadn’t then we would have never talked. And so I think people we are presented these opportunities all the time but it’s free-will. Are you going to say yes to it or not?

Angie: Yeah. I love that, that’s one of my biggest messages is just asking for what you want, raising your hand, picking up the phone, and having that scary conversation. The worst thing that could have happened is he would have said to you, “Oh my gosh, thank you so much. I wish you the best on this,” and you would have been like, “Thank you. That’s great.” But at least you went to sleep knowing you tried, but it ended up being such a beautiful experience for you, and probably one of the coolest moments of your life, and you’re so proud that you went up there.

Sahara: Oh, I mean it’s such a game changer for everything that I’ve done since.

Angie: So fill us in about the doshas—dun, dun, dun—and then how they relate to business because I had no idea they relate to business, but I’m so excited.

Sahara: Yeah.

Angie: Because I have too much fire, so we gotta get the fire out of me.

Sahara: So the doshas are energy types, they’re essentially archetypes, and they’re part of Ayurveda. So when I say dosha, think archetype, and there’s three of them: vata, pitta, kapha. Vata, air, pitta, fire, kapha, earth. So if I was like, “Angie, I’m dating this guy who’s really airy,” what do you think he’s like?

Angie: L.A. flake ball. Just doesn’t show up, super spacy.

Sahara: Right, but he’s like probably like the creative of an ad agency, right?

Angie: Oh yeah, he definitely is writing music and is the creative at an ad agency.

Sahara: Exactly, so that’s vata right there. Now if I was like, “I have this friend who’s super fiery,” what’s that person like?

Angie: He’s probably a speaker, or also a creative, really passionate, maybe he’s loud, he’s extroverted.

Sahara: Okay, we got the pitta. And if I was like, “Mm, I have this friend who’s really earthy.”

Angie: I see this guy laying in the grass, he’s a yoga teacher, he has a few really good friends, he kind of talk like this maybe even.

Sahara: Exactly.

Angie: I see all these people.

Sahara: Exactly, so we see them.

Angie: I get them, yeah, no I understand them after learning from you.

Sahara: Right, so vata, airy, we even have the words—an airhead, a space head, space cadet—we have the same words in our language. So airy fairy, they feel like, you know, the friend who you’re talking to them, but they’re like definitely thinking about something else. It’s like almost like they’re just gonna like float away into their thoughts. So they can be forgetful, they can be all over the place, they’re that friend that every time you talk to them they’re like, “Yeah, I’m actually gonna be a life coach,” and like the next time you meet up for coffee they’re like…

Angie: I want to be a surfer.

Sahara: Yeah, I’m going to be a surfer. It’s like, oh, I’m gonna be a shoe smith. It’s like what—I mean I used to be one of those people, so I totally freaking get it.

Angie: And we all have all three, I want to set the stage for that.

Sahara: We all have all three and we also have different phases in our lives.

Angie: Okay, okay, okay.

Sahara: So like my like living in Bali 23-year-old self was super, super vata, but that’s why I was experiencing the physical imbalances of it, which we’ll talk about.

Angie: Got a lot of anxiety.

Sahara: A lot of anxiety. But the good side of being vata is you’re really creative. You know, when you have all of these thoughts and all of this space in your head, you’re able to think of thoughts, you’re an idea machine, you’re able to see things. Like I like to think of vata as like the bird, seeing things from the higher frequency. Whereas everyone’s like stuck in day-to-day life, and they’re kind of looking at things like—in human design they say it’s like the projector. So that’s sort of what vata’s like—creative, energetic, more like enthusiastic, a little bit quirky, but also when there’s too many thoughts in your mind that can lead into a tornado, and that’s when the anxiety and the insomnia ends up happening. And then the mind is related to the body, so when it’s happening mentally it will happen physically, and that turns into feeling cold and dry all the time is a good indicator, having a cold and dry digestive system. So that looks like bloating, literally air, gas, air, constipation, cold dry colon.

Angie: Yeah.

Sahara: So if your poop looks like deer pebblets, that’s vata going on, so bloating, gas, constipation, turning off all cycles. So if you have a very far spaced apart menstrual cycle or no menstrual cycle, that’s related to vata, a very dark menstrual cycle as well—again, cold, dry. If you get like cracking joints all the time, you feel like you get injured often, vata’s in the skeletal structure. So…

Angie: They’re weak a little bit.

Sahara: Yeah, you’re weak, you’re skeletal. I like to think of the fall season, you know, you have those type of qualities, you’re like the wind.

Angie: Brittle.

Sahara: Brittle, ever-moving, sometimes you’re really enthusiastic, and other times you crash. It’s unpredictable, you can’t predict the way the wind’s gonna go, that’s how vata is. Now pitta on the other hand is the fire. So fire is goal-oriented, it’s passionate, it knows what it wants, it’s hard-working. It’s like that friend that you’re gonna hang out, and they’re like, “I’m gonna send you Google Cal fro 3:10 to 4:53, please accept. And then the like 24-hour confirmation that our Google Cal is still happening, okay. My assistant’s just gonna email you a third time to confirm.” Like that is pitta.

Angie: Oh man, that’s like not me because okay, there’s where I’m the more vata. I’m just like I show up when I show up, yeah.

Sahara: So that’s when you know you’re not 100% pitta.

Angie: Yeah.
Sahara: So and a lot of entrepreneurs are like that. I mean it’s great, they’re really—so pittas are very fixated on time.

Angie: Mm!

Sahara: They love time. They’re always knowing what time it is, they always in their minds, you can ask them what time it is any time of the day, they’ll know.

Angie: Oh!

Sahara: Like in this conversation they are keeping track of the time.

Angie: Oh, okay.

Sahara: Pittas are very, very present. So when you’re very present that can lead to you getting a lot done, but it can also lead to, you know, when someone cancels your Google Cal and didn’t hit no, you freak out. And they end up becoming impatient with people, they get agitated, they get angry, they get irritable. It’s like that guy honking at you in traffic, you’re like, “I can’t move.”

Angie: Sorry, I have too much pitta.

Sahara: Yeah, that’s a major pitta imbalance going on. So you know, life, pittas love to control things, but you can’t control everything in life, and that’s where the imbalance shows up when things don’t go as planned and they can’t handle. So it’s that heat, that goal-oriented passionate drive turns into the volcano of anger, and just you know, they’re so present that they don’t realize what those people have done for them before and what’s gonna relationships gonna be like after so they’ll explode because they’re only thinking about that moment. So this, you know, anger problems, that’s what it is, it’s a severe pitta imbalance. And Donald Trump is a really good example of an imbalanced pitta.

Angie: Too much fire.

Sahara: Too much fire, I mean he dyed his hair orange, like he’s trying to let us know. He’s like, “Guys, help me out, leafy greens, coconut water, mail it over to me. You know my address, the White House.”

Angie: Only you would think that, that’s so funny.

Sahara: Yeah, he’s like so pitta imbalanced, and you can see, you know, he’s obviously a great businessperson, he’s obviously great at manifesting. Like he freaking became president, it’s amazing. If he wrote a book on manifesting I would so buy it.

Angie: Yeah, yeah.

Sahara: Obviously good at delegating tasks. We can’t deny that. But as a human being he’s super in his ego, us versus them, using fear tactics, can’t take a joke, the fire is just so unsettled.

Angie: He needs your book.

Sahara: Right, needs my book. If anyone has any connects.

Angie: Donald, if you’re listening.

Sahara: Donald, paging Donald. Whereas Jennifer Lopez on the other side would be a balanced pitta. You know, she’s fiery, she’s fierce, she’s got her Latina fire going on, and it’s even interesting culturally, like in Latin culture women want to be fiery. Whereas in Western culture women want to be vata, airy, spacy, I’m so skinny, you know? Fashion models, it’s like the most vata body type. Whereas in Latin America it’s all about how much fuego, like that’s sexy, you know. So you could be J.Lo, you could be Donald Trump, choose your side, pittas.

Angie: If I had a baby you could be whatever that is.

Sahara: Yeah. Oh God.

Angie: Oh God that’s gross.

Sahara: He’d be like, “I’m gonna deport myself.”

(laughing)

Like half of him would be on one side of the fence, half on another.

Angie: That’s the weirdest couple ever, weirdest couple ever.

Sahara: So physically in the body, fire, heat, they feel hot all the time, they’re sweating, in Ayurveda the digestion is called a fire, it’s called agni. So when they have too much fire your stomach basically throws too much stomach acid. So you get acidity, acid reflux, heartburn, literally your heart is burning. So we have the same language in English culture, a hothead, all pitta. So if you’re feeling sweaty, hot, acidic, rashes, ulcers, rosacea, anything that’s red and inflamed is pitta, and globally we are going through a mass pitta imbalance. All of the inflammation on a individual level is leading to inflammation as a planetary level, which is why we’re going through so much war, chaos, gun violence, et cetera. Cause it’s really just inflammation cause when one person’s in a bad mood and you interact with them, and then you interact with the next person, it’s like a ripple effect.

Angie: Yeah, of course.

Sahara: So then lastly, it’s kapha. So kaphas talk… mm… a little bit more like this. Mm… And they’ll look in your eyes for a long time, mm… yes.

Angie: The yoga teacher.

Sahara: Yes. Om namah shivaya.

Angie: That’s all my yoga teachers.

Sahara: Yeah, even right now.

Angie: They have all the time in the world.

Sahara: All the time. They do the podcast like this. And then breathe for a few minutes and stare in your eyes for a little too long and hug you for a good seven minutes because it’s not a hug if it’s not seven minutes long. Heart-to-heart though, heart-to-heart.

Angie: Oh my God, I meet those people in Encinitas, California. I’m like, “Can we go? Let’s go.”

Sahara: I know, I’m like getting stressed out talking to them.

Angie: Well that’s awesome though. That’s a good quality.

Sahara: Right. It can be both. So kaphas energetically don’t have a good grasp on time. They—I mean they feel like they have all the time in the world, which can be really beautiful. So they like to take things slow, they like to go at their own pace, they are like, “Pittas have all this like drive energy like for what?” You know, they just like to take it as it is. A kapha person would be better off doing the one-on-one coaching because they can sit, they hold space, they can listen, they are empaths, they can connect with people, they are calm, loving, understanding. Think of Oprah energy. So it doesn’t mean you’re gonna, you know, never get a job. Oprah is like the kapha. Deepak is a kapha.

Angie: He is?

Sahara: Yes, he is.

Angie: And are they usually introverted?

Sahara: Usually, most of the healers. My prakriti, natural born constitution, is also kapha.

Angie: Oh.

Sahara: And I can go into this telling about the shape of your face and stuff. My personality’s not kapha, but as a kid I had a lot of—I was very shy, calm, you know, just sweet little girl.

Angie: Well your body and your head can be two different things. I read that, is that correct?

Sahara: It can.

Angie: Okay, so…

Sahara: Because of imbalances that are—

Angie: You can be like vata pitta, you can like mix them.

Sahara: Exactly, your mind can be different. So kapha people mentally calm, loving, Oprah energy. You know, think of Oprah, she’s like, “You win a car, you win a car, everyone gets a car,” like they love to give, that’s actually how they get off. They are natural-born nurturers. But in this giving, giving, giving just like the earth gives us resources, oil, gas, whatever we need, and then you just take, take, take, it ends up feeling depleted. So kaphas are seem like they’re the happiest all the time, but are the most likely to suffer from depression, and Robin Williams is a good example of this. You know, he was making America laugh, and no one knew that he was clinically depressed. So kaphas really need to learn about one: speaking their needs.

Angie: Do you think he was a kapha?

Sahara: For sure he is a very kapha body, face, everything about him.

Angie: Interesting how you’re studying all these things that are happening in the world.

Sahara: Yeah, everything can be reflected back into the doshas. Everything.

Angie: That’s crazy.

Sahara: Yeah, so he had—he was very kapha personality, but again, with kaphas they feel like if they’re not making everyone else around them comfortable and happy, then they’re not going to be loved. That’s really what it comes down to. They get their reassurance from making everyone else around them okay. So if they’re like, “Hey, I’m feeling off,” or, “Hey, I need your help,” they feel like that other person’s gonna run, and they don’t want to get into that space of confrontation. So they take it out on emotional eating, and then you know, sometimes even self-harming behaviors. But what ends up happening is we take on energy all the time. So when you take, take, take, you end up storing it somatically in your body as fat.

Angie: Of course.

Sahara: So kaphas end up feeling heavy, grounded, stuck, lethargic. They end up gaining weight, particularly in their hips and their thighs. Earthy, grounded, bringing them lower.

Angie: Issues letting go.

Sahara: Exactly, issues letting go, hoarding, thinking about the path. So vata’s futurist, pitta, present, kapha, past.

Angie: So each one has a good thing and a bad thing to it.

Sahara: Exactly, you can be balanced or imbalanced of any of the doshas, and you can have imbalances going on of two doshas at the same time.

Angie: Oh my god.

Sahara: Cancer is an imbalance of three doshas. So it doesn’t mean you’re just one, this is like a very—people are like, “I don’t know, I can’t decide because I can’t relate to just one.” You’re gonna relate to all three on different levels. We have our prakriti, which is our natural born constitution, which is like the deck of cards we were handed with. And then we have our vikriti, which is what we have now. So for example, I was actually born primarily kapha, secondarily vata, lastly, pitta. Now my personality probably comes off more pitta than vata, lastly kapha.

Angie: Yeah.

Sahara: Why? I had to make a conscious choice. I had to, you know, really step up into it, but also since I have that kapha background, I don’t need to sit in a meditation every day to get grounded because I’m already pretty grounded. In fact, for me, I need to get up in the morning and exercise first thing because kaphas need to always stay moving, always stay active. If I don’t, if I let myself have a month off, I’m not going to exercise, I’m not going to go back, you know. So that’s why a lot of times kapha people can either get obsessed with weight loss, and dieting, and exercise because they feel like they’re gaining weight so fast, or they totally let it go cause they feel like it’s not working.

Angie: Yeah, oh my gosh, that’s fascinating. So then how do these apply to business?

Sahara: Yeah, so this is what my next book’s about. I don’t have the title yet, I’m thinking “Ayurvedic Entrepreneur.”

Angie: Ooh!

Sahara: So maybe.

Angie: I like that.

Sahara: So I actually kind of got this download while I was public speaking somewhere about intuition and business, and I realized that every business process is vata, pitta, kapha. Vata is the idea.

Angie: Like the masculine and the feminine energy, right? We’re seeing some correlation in there?

Sahara: No.

Angie: No, okay.

Sahara: Vata is the idea, it’s the download, it’s the brainstorming. It’s that, “Huh, imagine if I did an event, you know.” It’s still up in the air, it’s not tangible.” And then you start, you know, playing with it a little more. Well, where would that even be? Or would people actually come? And what would it look like? And you start really—it comes—moves from space into air into your brain, and then you vocalize it, throat chakra, this is also moving through the chakras if you guys know what chakras are. You vocalize it, you call your boyfriend, “Hey, I’m thinking about doing an event.” He’s like, “Huh, sounds cool.” Now you feel it, it’s in your heart chakra. Oh my God, this event, I could do this, it’s like it’s here, it’s almost here. And then you put in the pitta, the work moving into solar plexus, which is the action, the digestion, the transformation. What are the phone calls I need? What are the emails I need? What are the things I need to put this into practice? You’re executing, you’re taking action, and then you sacral chakra, you’re experiencing it, the pleasures of it, the juice of it, root chakra, you birth it, and it’s into reality.

Angie: Wow.

Sahara: But in this place of birthing, kapha, comes the re-evaluation of what could I do better next time? Is this even what I still want to do? Maybe I don’t want to do an event anymore. What can be improved? And a lot of entrepreneurs skip this side because they’re like, “It worked, so let me just do it again,” and they stay in the pitta, in the doing, doing, doing, not asking themselves why, not re-evaluating, and not resting and nourishing themselves too. Because it’s like your best idea doesn’t come to you when you’re like up against the wall trying to think of the idea. It comes when you take that step back.

Angie: Ah, I’m so glad you said that, yeah.

Sahara: Yeah, so all three—

Angie: It comes in the shower when you’re naked, yeah.

Sahara: Exactly. Yeah, I think I saw your Instagram, like I get my best ideas naked.
Angie: I’m always in the shower. My ideas, all of them.

Sahara: Cause you’re naked, you’re connected to nature, you’re connected to source, you’re just in your primal energy.

Angie: It’s like podcast idea, and I just write them all down.

Sahara: So exactly, it’s the cycle from the kapha comes the vata. Again, the idea comes from that deep space of rest.

Angie: So that’s important that I’m doing this.

Sahara: Very vital. If you don’t do that you’re going to, you’re going to keep on doing things. That’s how we entered a rat race of, “I don’t know, I’m doing it.”

Angie: Making money, yeah.

Sahara: You know, making money, why? Is it where I want to be going? Is this who I was? You know, even with online programs, I tell entrepreneurs all the time: is this program eve who you are this year? Because we are changing so much that the program that you show yourself doing last year, maybe that’s not why you want to put that on the internet anymore because you’ve changed so much. Yeah, the easy way is I can still monetize on that, but are you going to spend your whole life monetizing on something you made five years ago? It’s like you have to keep growing, the cycles have to continue. If you don’t, you actually get an imbalance in that dosha.

Angie: Yeah. Wow. That is fascinating. So you’re applying it to—is there—are there certain things that we could do as business owners? So let’s say I have too much fire, like too much pitta in my business, and I’m driving it more from that state. The doing, I kind of correlate that to like it feels masculine energy to me a little bit, that fire, the anxiety. What would you say for another woman listening, I feel like a lot of pittas listen to my show, they’re just really go-getters, drive, drive, drive, hustle, hustle, hustle, make money, get it done, and they need help and we need help balancing that out a little bit and taking that time to sit back, reflect, create space. And I’m noticing recently what’s happening is I am getting a very strong calling to create more space, and have more kapha, right, kapha. Because just too much of pitta or just creation makes me—I mean eventually you just burn out.

Sahara: Exactly.

Angie: And then that’s what causes anxiety.

Sahara: Exactly.

Angie: This is where even as an entrepreneur I need to realize that I need to play in all three, and strategically.

Sahara: Exactly. So you need to find what dosha you’re lacking in. So if you are very vata, you’re super creative, ideas come naturally to you, maybe you have a hard time with execution though, you know. So work on now bringing it into pitta, bring it to the next stage, take one of your amazing ideas and just execute on it. Because an idea’s only as good as people can see and experience. Now if you’re very much in the pitta and the execution, how can you give yourself that space, that nourishment, that grounding so you can then say, “Okay, is this really true to who I am right now?”

Angie: Yeah.

Sahara: And that’s that constant renewal, it’s the spring, you know. It’s kapha is the spring, it’s life, it’s a baby being born. So you need to come back into that state of what can I bring new, sprout new into life, and to do that, you know, you have to become pregnant with that idea, you need to take that step back. So that’s what you’re doing is very intuitive of you to do to take that step back, connect with nature.

Angie: Yeah.

Sahara: Literally walk on the earth, ground yourself, and then ask yourself, you know, there are a million ways to make money, guys, but are the ways you want to be making money?

Angie: I love that.

Sahara: Because there are so many—you could be an affiliate for other people’s programs for the rest of your life, and you might make a shit ton of money, but when are you going to make your own program, you know? And to make your own program you have to really be clear about it. To be clear about it you have to take a step back from it.

Angie: Yeah.

Sahara: You have to look at it from fresh eyes, and you have to look at who—first of all, who is the person I want to speak to today and there’s too much of the what does the audience want? Don’t ask what the audience wants because you’ll make your own audience. Ask what you want, ask what are the gifts and the skills that you uniquely have at this present moment that you’re also excited to teach. Because also what I find is people are teaching stuff they’ve experienced ten years ago, they’re not enthusiastic about it anymore because it’s also like, you know, I healed myself from this eating disorder ten years ago so it’s like they don’t care anymore. Whereas not saying you should be fresh off of it, but there should still be a passion there, not you’re just doing things because there’s a system in place.

Angie: And then you have to, or you think you should, or your parents told you, you should.

Sahara: Exactly. And you know, even moving past, like so many entrepreneurs are just like, “I don’t know,” I’m just like—like I meet so many people who are in food and they want to move into life, like life coaching and that sort of stuff. But they feel like, “I don’t know, I’ve never done that before,” and it’s like that’s when you have to take a step back. Like I’m going to Bali by myself in two weeks for two weeks just to like write and think.

Angie: You are, that’s amazing!

Sahara: Yeah, and if I don’t do these types of things regularly, yeah, I can just keep creating content. Is it going to be next level? No.

Angie: When does it end? Yeah. I’m noticing that a lot in entrepreneurs, a lot of successful entrepreneurs are noticing that they hit this place or this spot where they feel that they, on paper, it’s everything, but they still don’t feel how they want it to feel or thought what they thought it was.

Sahara: Exactly.

Angie: And I’ve had many elements of that over the last few years, and so I’m taking a step back just to say, “Okay, what do you really want to do?” And that’s where the event came from, it just was that question. I believe that become better entrepreneurs and humans, and we ask ourselves those really scary awkward questions of what do you want to do now? And it was like, “Oh, I want to have an event, I don’t want to watch another course. I just really don’t want to right now.”

Sahara: Exactly.

Angie: And yeah, it would make me a crap load of money, but I just don’t want to do it. I want to do a live event. And so I think that’s really the process of taking a step back to move forward. And that’s so necessary because I don’t think a lot of entrepreneurs are doing that, I think they’re just moving forward, moving forward, got to make money, got to keep going. And newbie entrepreneurs too, I want you ladies listening to know that that’s important as well. You deserve to take a step back every once in a while and say, “What am I doing? Why did I create this course? How could I make it better next time?” If you don’t ever sit back and implement, you’re in the rat race.

Sahara: For sure. I like to think of if you look at Starbucks, that’s a very kapha business.

Angie: Oh it is.

Sahara: Why is it different from Dunkin’ Donuts or whatever else?Because it’s all about the customer. What do you want? How do you feel? Oh, do you want grande, vente, latte? They make it so personalized, and that’s that kapha touch. It’s making it personalized, it’s the connecting like what you’re doing connecting with every member of your audience. That’s actually your kapha really coming through.

Angie: Aw, yeah.

Sahara: Of like really wanting to be there and understand, and people have a lot of kapha, that’s their super power. So if you know, scaling and public speaking gives you the heebie jeebies, you actually don’t need to do it because we don’t have—any desire you have means you do have the capability, but if you don’t have the desire, then maybe that’s not part of your dharma, that’s not your magic power. Not everyone’s meant to talk on a stage, not everyone’s meant to talk one-on-one with people. So kaphas should be connecting one-on-one, they should be doing live in-person stuff. Pittas should be managing stuff, they should be running a team, that’s how they thrive. Vatas should be creating ideas, they should be big picture people. And I do believe you should have a good kind of setting on each one otherwise there’s going to be a gaping hole in your pocket, but doesn’t mean you have to spend all your time. You just want to make sure that’s not a setback, but if eventually with your ideas you can find a team, or with your one-on-one you can find an execution person, you can scale.

Angie: I love that. And I want to touch on your last episode you did a little bit, it was super fiery, it was super awesome. You were super heated, and basically kind of touched on, you know, your thoughts on schooling and this system that we’re put into. And I don’t think enough of us are chatting about this, and it’s a radical thing to bring up, but I would love to hear about your thoughts on that and kind of what’s going on with what we were taught, and then how that actually hinders us from our growth.

Sahara: Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I’m saying this from someone whose dad is a straight up scholar, and I’ve always been good at school, but it’s bullshit, it fucked me up, it made me look for the answer, it made me wait for a teacher to hand me the assignment telling me where to go and what to do and what comes next.

Angie: Wait in lines.

Sahara: Yeah, and what ends up happening is it does you this massive disservice because when you leave high school, college, graduate school, your doctorate, Harvard, whatever it is that you decide that you need to be taken seriously, then no one’s handing you a fucking piece of paper. And you’re like, “Where do I turn?” So then you look for people to hand you sheets of paper, which are going to be massive like headhunter companies who are just using you as like, you know, just human workforce, basically. And you’re going to end up chasing someone else’s dream, and that person’s dream is just to have ton of employees under them. So and I see this, I mean I teach people about living their dharma, and they’re like, “So, are you going to tell me what my dharma is?” And I could, I have a very good gift.

Angie: And dharma means purpose, right?

Sahara: Purpose. I’ve had this gift my whole life that through someone’s conversation I could basically tell you what your purpose is, but I don’t do that, and I used to, and the reason why is because if I can kind of tap in and tell them, then that creates a dependency. And then they’re going to keep on saying, “Well, then what do I do next and how do I execute?” And then I’m just sort of feeding them the answers and they are losing the drive that they need to fulfill this thing. It’s like, you know, going to a psychic. Let’s say the psychic is spot on. Does it really help you? No, because now you’re going to be addicted to asking someone else questions you should be asking yourself.

Angie: Yeah, yeah, and you love radical responsibility.

Sahara: Absolutely.

Angie: I feel like people they’re huge, huge like pioneers of let’s take control of our life, and it’s your life, this is no one else’s. And I hear so many excuses on a daily basis from people who want to do things, and it’s crazy how much we let life tell us what to do instead of being our own guru. And I’m a coach, obviously, and I’m honestly saying that I don’t think I am the end-all be-all for everyone woman who comes into my space. I’m just a guide, I’m part of her journey, I hope it’s magical, I hope it’s incredible, but I am not the answers to everything.
Sahara: Yeah.

Angie: And I don’t want to be.

Sahara: You are not the answer. They’re never going to find an end-all be-all, they are the end-all be-all. And if you are continually looking for another coach, another certificate, another program, honey, you’re going to be looking for the rest of your god damn life. And you’re going to end up copying other people’s funnels and other people’s ideas, and the internet is changing everyday.

Angie: Literally.

Sahara: So you’re going to do something that worked two years ago and you’re back at square one. So you know, it’s great to read books, have coaches, all of these things. But the moment that this becomes a dependency, you lost the whole purpose. So radical responsibility is first being okay with the free fall, being okay with the not knowing, being okay with, you know, you could call me confused, but I say I’m curious. Maybe you’re dabbling in different types of teachers, or entrepreneurships, and spiritual topics, and you’re just dabbling. But don’t say, “Now I’m only going to do what Deepak says. I’m only going to do what Amy Porter says. I’m only going to do what this person says.” Because then you’re not being authentic to yourself. You can use these things as inspiration, but you know, I personally when I read a business book, I’m so like motivated at that time, I can’t even finish it cause I’m like, “Oh my god, I want to go do.” But I see people read business book after business book after business book and they’re not running the business. You know, you’re going to learn so much more by just doing it than by sitting and reading about other people who’ve done something totally different.

Angie: And it’s a different experience. How I built this business you could literally try to copy it right now, anybody could, and it probably wouldn’t be the same. Because of how I interact with the audience, because of the unique type of content, my personality, you can’t mimic that. And you’re not supposed to, and that’s the cool thing is that everybody builds businesses differently. And there’s somewhat of a structure, and a system, and that’s what I teach, but I also really teach my students, guys, there’s rules but there’s no rules.

Sahara: Exactly.

Angie: And they’re like, “Oh my god.” I’m like, “That’s a good a thing! That means you could do whatever the hell you want!.”

Sahara: Right.

Angie: There is no online social media police who’s like, “You have to post this at this time and that’s how you get followers.” There really is no way, everything’s kind of hearsay. The algorithm, everything is just kind of up in the air and it’s our opportunity to grab it, play with it, see what works, see what doesn’t. And coaches are guides, and they’re fantastic, obviously we’re both in coaching and we love it, but honestly, I don’t think it’s the end-all be-all, and I hope women know that when they go to things. And even my event, I want them to come and I want them to find the answers inside themselves. I want that to be inspiration to look in. Not like, “Oh my god, I need to go be these speakers now.” No, I want you to leave and say, “Wow, I do have all the answers, I really do.” And here and there coaches are fantastic, but not as a crutch, not as something you need 24/7 all the time. Go get these things a few times a year, but I don’t think you need them every day all the time. Cause there are people who are bouncing from a new coach to a new coach every single month. A new going back to school because I need more, they’re like hiding almost in a sense.

Sahara: Absolutely.

Angie: And I’ve been one where I have. I pick my particular people here and there, I pick the things I want to go to here and there, other than that I don’t make it complicated.

Sahara: They’re actually using it as a way to shift responsibility of them. Because—

Angie: Mm, responsibility shifting.

Sahara: Yeah. Because if I’m saying, “Well, now I’m part of your program, now it’s up to you, and now the responsibility’s on you to entertain me, and educate me. And if you don’t do it then I’m going to sit and complain. ‘Oh, Angie wasn’t that good of a teacher.’” You know, it has nothing to—you’re just teaching what you know in your capacity. But if they don’t implement things, like people are like, “Is this guaranteed to make me healthy? Is this guaranteed to make me find my purpose?” No, no one can guarantee anything to you, only you can guarantee things to yourself. And you know, and with the responsibility, with responsibility comes freedom, you know. When you are responsible and you say, “Listen, I don’t know what I’m doing so I’m just going to try doing something,” you become free.

Angie: Yeah.

Sahara: You get to live life on your own terms. No one that you follow, that you like, and that you look up to is doing something someone else did. Every single person was a game changer.

Angie: Yeah.

Sahara: And there are traditionalists and there are game changers, and these are two different things. A traditionalist will say, “Well, you know, Ayurveda said this, or the Bible said this, or blah blah blah.” Or it could even look like, “This funnel NLP, this specific form of marketing.”

Angie: Is the answer.

Sahara: And they just keep preaching that form of marketing. This is the traditionalist. The change maker, the game changer, they are saying, “Okay, I learned about these things, this is my take on it, and you can take it or leave it, I don’t have a fancy name for it, this is just what I’m doing.” And those are the people that you’re like, “Huh, cool.” It’s like, you know, Chinese Mexican food, interesting, it’s something new. And we have to be comfortable with being change makers if you want to be remembered, if you want to make an influence, it’s not going to be reiterating what someone else said. It’s going to be adding your unique spin on it, and people actually are not here just for your knowledge, they’re here for your energy. And this has been a huge lesson of mine as a very intellectual person who can memorize things, and you know, write textbooks, I realize it has nothing to do with the information that I’m putting out there. I thought I have to  know everything about Ayurveda, everything about spirituality, and be this like human library for people. And then I realize it’s just the energy that I’m bringing forth, and then that’s really what people want.

Angie: And it’s how you deliver the information. You’re so relatable, which makes me want to learn from you cause I feel like you get me.

Sahara: Exactly.

Angie: Where I’m afraid to sometimes learn from people who are on their high horse of “I know everything, I’m a library.” Cause I’m like, “Do you really get me? Do you understand what I’m going through right now? Can you just put this in layman’s terms? Cause it’s just way over my head.” And that’s what I think I know you did with Ayurveda is you made it fun, and practical, and relatable.

Sahara: Right.

Angie: Which is why I want to read the book versus someone who is like  “Chapter 1,000,005.” And it’s like…

Sahara: Exactly.

Angie: I don’t want to read this, this is not doable for me.

Sahara: Yes, and that comes with confidence. Because you know at first I was like, “I can’t change Ayurveda, this is a 5,000 year old health system. What are people going to think of me?” Imposter syndrome, you know, as you talk about with your people like that you—

Angie: You did have some crazy imposter syndrome.

Sahara: A massive thing to be changing, right? But then I was like, listen, I wholeheartedly believe that these changes are necessary and I’ve explained why I believe these changes are necessary. And again, you can hate it or you can love it, I found most people do love it. I have haters just like the next person does, but if you don’t, then you’re doing something wrong. Where I am, where I want to be, what are the things I need to do? You know, sometimes it’s in our head just writing down like what are the things that I need to be doing more of.

Angie: Doing pitta, getting into the action.

Sahara: Yeah, so the you’re not like, “Oh, someone threw this opportunity at me, which is like you know, start a skincare line, and my goal is not to start a skincare line, you know. But we get opportunities thrown at us, and the more successful you get, the more people want to tango with you. And you have to have a really clear focus of where you want to be going because it’s going to get really, really easy to get lost in collaborations, and this, and that when you lose your own inner compass.

Angie: I feel like I was meant to hear this right now.

Sahara: Yeah.

Angie: That’s right, I have a lot of tangoing of people wanting things that it’s—yeah, I don’t want to do that.I’m like that’s not—I don’t want to start that business, I don’t want to join that, I don’t want to start this skincare line, or—

Sahara: Exactly.

Angie: I totally know what you mean.

Sahara: You know, you’re only as smart as the money you leave on the table. There are a lot of ways to make money, lots of ways, easy ways. But when you leave money on the table you are saying, “I can find a more aligned way to make that money.” And you are creating that possibility did it happen. Because with every business as easy as it is sounds and they tell you, “You’re just going to be partner, you don’t have to do work on this, blah blah, I’m going to do everything.” It’s never the case. It’s never the case because energetically, it’s like if you’re dating multiple guys you’re not going to be all in on this one guy even if they don’t know about each other. Because energetically you’re scattered.

Angie: Yeah.

Sahara: With business we are scattered and a lot of people think to scale, to build, to grow means to get involved in more businesses, and that’s not the case.

Angie: Less is more.

Sahara: I think of Crossfit. You know, Crossfit is the fastest growing gym, over $100 million business, they’ve been offered to do protein shakes, this, that. Think about how many things Crossfit could sell, they could make a killing on. They said, “No, we’re a gym, and we’re only going to build gyms.”

Angie: That’s what we do.

Sahara: Yeah.

Angie: Yeah, having that integrity of the simplicity, having that focus, having the niche, having—I think this can apply to every single business. Less is more.

Sahara: Too many people they haven’t done the first thing. “Oh, and then I’m going to create a product line, and this and that and my vision board has all these things.” Great, dream big, but execute on that one thing really well and then actually once you execute it and you see how much work it is you’re going to see all these other things are just not going to happen.

Angie: Stop being a vata, you guys, get into the pitta and realize that it takes some work, execute it.

Sahara: You can take sips of kapha in that. Taking the walk, going to the yoga class, taking a bath, sips of kapha to keep you going, but the majority, your day-to-day is the doing, it’s the grind, it’s the hustle. And as long you’re in alignment it’s not going to deplete you.

Angie: Yeah. I love that, as long as you’re in alignment it’s not going to deplete you. I think that’s what I’m going to title this episode.

Sahara: Awesome.

Angie: That’s juicy! How can everyone creep on you, stalk you, find you, what’s coming up next?

Sahara: Yeah, so my website is iamsahararose.com. Sahara like the desert. And I have a quiz they can take to discover what their doshas are, and I break it down into the percentage in their mind and in their body. So if they’re like, “I don’t know,” just take the quiz, you’ll figure it out. And my Instagram is also @iamsahararose. I’m always posting motivational stories and stuff. I have a podcast, which I just interviewed you on, “Highest Self” podcast. And my book is called, “Idiot’s Guide to Ayurveda,” and my new book is called, “Eat Feel Fresh,” which comes out October 2nd.

Angie: Awesome! So excited. You’ve got a lot of good stuff coming out, but it’s also in alignment, and that’s why it feels good for you, and that’s super honorable cause there’s so many entrepreneurs right now who are not leading their business like that. So thank you for being you, thank you for being on, and we’ll chat soon. Hope you guys loved this episode!

Well, I hope you enjoyed me being interviewed by Angie Lee on the Angie Lee podcast. She’s amazing. I’m actually speaking at her event this coming weekend, “Pays to Be Brave,” so excited for that. So if you loved learning about entrepreneurship from me and want to dive deeper into that, please join me on the “Abundance Mindset” master class. It is all about this—money, abundance, how to create a living doing what you love—and also based on your dosha, looking at money from a spiritual lens, but also a really, really pragmatic one. Teaching you how to build a program, sales funnels, all of the things you want to do to become an entrepreneur, have your own thriving online business, and all of the freedom to like read books, and go to the beach, and live your fullest life. Because really, money is just a tool that provides us with freedom so we can live as our highest selves.

So please join me on the “Abundance Mindset” master class. Again, spots are limited, we get started this November. If you’re listening after November we’re going to start again in January. So head over to the show notes to check that out, and I am so excited to share it with you. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I can’t wait to see you on my “Abundance Mindset” master class webinar. Namaste.

Episode 126 – Your Entrepreneurship Dosha with Sahara Rose