Garima Sharma

I think my mother. She's a strong person, and I love her. She's a homemaker, but she really handles us very well - we are four brothers and sisters, and everybody's doing something or another in their lives, and they are successful, they are really doing good for themselves. I would like to give my credit to my mother and my brother, because he's younger to me, and I treat him like a child. I really love him a lot. All the inspiration has come from my mother, and all the positive things, the kick which I really need sometimes to move forward, that is what I'm getting from my brother.

I think whatever suits you, whatever you love the most - there are two things in life. Sometimes you have to select the field you have to work for your livelihood, and sometimes you follow your passion. Both are fine, both are correct at the right time, because priorities matter. Initially, when I started my career, my financial condition was not so great. My father was a businessman, but that business really didn't go well when I was in college, and I really wanted to start working and take a job. My father was always preparing me to carry on the business, how to work as a businesswoman, when I was in grade 11 or 12. But then things happened so wrong, and I had to prepare myself to work in corporate. I did it, and I started because of a lot of pressure and emotional breakdown at that time because the family conditions were not right. But with time, me and my sisters - we are three sisters and one brother - we really worked hard to put our home right, to bring it up financially independent. We really worked hard for that, and we are the bread and butter of our own home. We are women, but in India, men usually do these things, and women don't put so much extra at their own home. But we did, and we do it because we really love our parents, and it doesn't matter if you are a girl or a boy. Women have superpowers - they can do anything they want to. That was my career point of view. But if I follow passion, then it would be yoga. If you ask me now and I want to choose one career, it will be yoga for me, because yoga reduced my stress level, it is my passion, I really love doing it. But if I'm getting a job offer and I want to work in a company where I can support the company and earn my potential, I can also work because I think I have good skills in both areas and I can manage it very well.

I would say study a lot. First, build your career, explore your career, and do whatever you feel like. If your passion asks you to do photography, then just go for it. Try your best, but do take a degree, so that if something bad happens in your life, you always have a plan B - you can always go and work. You don't have to be in front of other people to ask for money. I tell this about everybody, but especially for women, I think being independent and having freedom should be there, it should be there actually.

In the corporate finance world, it's not easy. You really have a lot of stress. Mental stress is more than physical stress. We are not physically moving much, you are just sitting and working. People say that you are sitting and calmly working, but you have a lot of stress, you have a lot of deadlines to complete, you have a lot of teams to handle. All those things happen at one go, and you really have to work hard for that, just to bring everything to the table at the right time. For yoga, maintaining consistency is the go-to thing, which is not easier for women, I would say. Women really restart every month after menstruation. Some people really don't feel good about menstruation. Even me, I don't feel that much good when I'm having periods because I used to get pain in my body, so I used to feel very weak. But then after 3-4 days, I restart again. So I'm restarting every month. I think this is the challenge, but then I'm able to do it, and I know that many people are doing it.

I think good moral values - your morale should always be in a positive way. Helping others, being grateful for whatever you have, and if you want to earn something more in your life, just work hard for that. Nothing comes on a platter, nothing comes for free - you really have to earn your own bread in this world. Because everybody is not so lucky to be born in a royal family, right? We really work hard for ourselves. I think the moral values, if they are positive and they are correct - and correct and non-correct will depend on the person - but I would say if you're not harming anybody else and you're doing whatever you want to do, that is the best thing to do. And you should be grateful that things will always be at your side.