Sohrab Khushrushahi, Founder, Sohfit, speaks on following his passion

Sohrab Khushrushahi, Founder, Sohfit, speaks on following his passion

Fun fact, I was a member of this Club eight or nine years ago but my attendance record has never been good, be it in school, college, law school, anything. My father-in-law Mr. Darabshaw Davar seems to be everyone’s favourite from what I understand; he is my favourite as well. He wanted myour table is difficult because you’re constantly on calls and doing stuff. So, much to his dismay, I had to kind-of step away from Rotary before I was kicked out; I think that would have happened eventually.

So, as Anand mentioned, I was a lawyer in my previous life; I like to look at it as my previous life. I grew up in a very simple house. My mom has been my inspiration; she’s here. She was a lawyer; she still is, practising even at the age of 82. I think the one thing I picked up on – and it’s not about passion – was that you needed to work hard in life, whatever you decided to do.

When I was growing up, there were two things I was passionate about: cricket – every boy growing up in the ’90s was passionate about cricket, I think; and, I was passionate about training. I wanted to work on myself and get better every single day, physically. Now, the first one – I wasn’t good enough to make it into a career. The second one wasn’t the right thing to do in the ’90s. You don’t give to join this Club – it
was a thing for him – he really wanted me to be a part of Rotary.

And I caved. He spoke to me, my mother-in-law spoke to me, my wife spoke to me. It felt like I was going for an exam. But I caved and I became a member. Little did I realise that I had to come here every Tuesday. Now, for anyone who’s a lawyer and a capital markets lawyer which I was, in my previous life, forget lunch meetings; lunch itself is difficult on most days. Getting a meal on up a legal career or an opportunity to study and become a lawyer, an engineer, a doctor, to become a coach. Most people call it a trainer; I don’t agree with that word, but most people call it a trainer. It wasn’t really looked upon very favourably. You’re not going to give up a massive career as a lawyer working in a top law firm to become a coach.

I had one choice in front of me and that was to become a lawyer because that’s the only thing I knew. My dad’s a CA, he’s brilliant, but I’m not very good with numbers. That explains why my wife is my business partner and does all the number-crunching for me.

I became a lawyer. Now, there’s only one thing you want to do when you’re in a law firm – I don’t know how many of you are in law firms – which is to become a partner. That’s the next progression. You’ve got to be a partner, unless you’re a counsel and you become senior counsel but talking in public wasn’t my thing, so senior counsel wasn’t going to happen.

There is an incident I remember very clearly from back then, as if it was yesterday: I’d come back from Singapore, and I had a meeting with the managing partner of the firm. Now, your managing partner only takes you for a meeting when you’re up for partnership or when he’s going to sack you. I really wasn’t sure which one I was going to kind-of go through. We sat down for lunch and, just before this meeting happened, a junior of mine on my team quit; she couldn’t handle the work. I don’t know how many people know this but the capital market is taxing. We’re in office practically seven days a week, working
12 to 16 hours a day. That’s just the life we have as capital markets lawyers. And she quit; the reason
she quit was because it wasn’t getting any better – that was her reason. She had to work Monday
to Sunday. We couldn’t give her any downtime because that’s the way work life went. And kids, I
like to call them kids because they were 24 when I was 35, but the one thing they all seemed to want
is work-life balance, right? That’s the favourite  term that people used. Honestly, if you ask me, I
don’t think it exists.

So, she quit. And, I went in for that lunch meeting; the first thing he told me was: “You’re up for partnership. And we’re going to see what the process is over the next one year.” Well, if you’re a lawyer and you’re going to be a partner, that’s the one thing you want, right? It’s what you’re working towards. But it didn’t make me happy. It actually made me sad that day. I was sitting there at lunch, looking at him, blank face and thinking, ‘That’s it. This is what it’s going to feel like to be a partner in a law firm.’ It was a top law firm, don’t get me wrong. It was a great law firm. But it just didn’t feel right. Something was off. It just didn’t feel like I wanted to be a partner anymore.

So, I went home and talked to my wife. My wife’s been a massive support. I don’t think it’s easy to
switch careers at the age of 35 if your wife isn’t supporting you. I didn’t have the guts to do it
when I was 25 with no kids and just a girlfriend. But when I was 35 with a kid, I decided to take
that plunge and that says a lot about the support system you have around you. Hats off to her, she
didn’t even flinch. She said, “Okay, if this is what you want to do and you’re not happy doing what
you’re doing, what next?” I said, “The only thing I know how to do is train and be there for people
and make sure people live healthier lives. That’s what I’m good at. Could I make a career out of
it? I didn’t really know.” I couldn’t answer that question at that point in time.

Had you asked me six years back whether I’d make a career and be standing here in front of you, I’d be laughing at you; I wouldn’t believe it for a second. Then, I met an individual who I’ve always considered my mentor as far as life and corporate life and decision making are concerned, Mr. Ajay Piramal. Mr. Ajay Piramal has always been a great guide to me. He’s always given me the right advice whether I’d like to hear it or not. So, I asked if I could meet him for lunch or dinner or coffee or whatever. He said, “Yes, come over.” I went to that meeting shaking because I knew I would tell him I didn’t want to be a lawyer
anymore and he’d think I was crazy. To the man’s credit, he heard me out and the first thing he said,
was, “Great, I’m going to be your first student.” To me, that was huge.

Walking into a meeting, expecting him to laugh at you and tell you: “Listen, you’re bonkers; go do what you’re good at.” Instead, saying, “It’s time you follow your heart.” And at the age of 35, with no background in fitness whatsoever and having to start from scratch, that was the support I kind-of needed. We had a conversation once. I remember, I’d already started training him when I was a lawyer. Don’t tell my firm that – they might get really upset; I promise I didn’t take money from him. It was just fun. I said to him, “I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life. It seems really strange that I’m making this decision at a point where everything seems to be going well.

I’m going to be a partner next year. It makes no sense, but I’m just not happy anymore. I don’t
want to do this anymore.”

So, the only thing he told me, and this will stick with me for life. He said, “You have two roads
in life, right? One, which is laid out for you; everyone’s taken it. People have walked on that
road for years. You know you’re going to be successful. Whether you’re happy or not, I don’t
know, but I know you’ll be successful.”

“The other is the road you’re
going to have to create and
walk through. It’s going to be
filled with a lot of risk, but if
you’re smart and you’re good,
the rewards will be way more
than the safer path. So, make
your choice today. And don’t
look back after you make that
choice.”
I guess I decided to take the path less travelled
because while it was a lot riskier, it seemed like
the right thing to do at that point in time. Now,
training’s my passion; training’s always been my
passion. Working on myself has been my passion.
Helping people has been my passion. I loved law,
but it didn’t really kind-of go that way as far as I
was concerned.
So, I decided to follow my passion and do what
I wanted to do. Would it get me success? Even
though I’m standing here talking to you, I still
don’t think I’m successful at all. I think there’s a
long way to go before we get to that. But I knew
I wanted to take a chance on myself because if I
didn’t, I never would. And it’s really, really hard
to back yourself 24×7; you need a really good
support system if you ever want to back yourself
in life and I’ve had the best support system. I
have the best parents, in-laws, and wife. I have an
example in the family, Mr. Shiamak Davar himself.
What he’s done in the dance world is what I want to create in the fitness world, and hopefully that
will happen someday.
Really fun fact, I was at a Rotary dinner years ago;
it’s fun now because I didn’t take it as fun at that
point – it was a shock to the system. So I was at
this dinner, and I won’t take names, don’t worry,
but we were sitting and a gentleman who knew
my mom really well and, as a result, knew me,
came up to me and asked, “How’s it going? How’s
the legal career? What are you up to?” I said, “It’s
going well but I have quit.” So, he’s like, “You’ve
quit?” I said, “Yeah, I’ve quit.” He’s like, “What are
you going do? You’re going to become counsel?” I
said, “Not really, counsel is not what I’m looking
at.” So, he said, “Okay, then what are you going
to do?” I said, “I’m going to be a coach.” He said,
“You’re going to be a trainer? You know, it sounds
funny,” and he said it really loudly in front of the
whole party, but I said, “Great, so maybe that’s a
profession we need to change, right?”
No profession is better than the other. For me,
that is something that I always wanted to create.
I want kids to look up to what I’ve done and
say, “Okay, I can be a coach; a coach is a good
profession.” There is no reason why someone
cannot be a good coach. There’s no reason
why kids today cannot take up coaching as an
alternative career or as a career for that matter,
and I think that starts with us as parents, as the
system. If we keep forcing our kids to only go
down the legal route or engineers and doctors,
and everything else… We’ve got to give them that
ability and freedom to choose what they want
to do, and I want to do that with my kids. I was
lucky enough to have a support system around
me that let me do it, but maybe back in the ’90s I
don’t think anyone would have done that. So, it
took time but I’m happy I did what I did when I
did it, because it gave me that experience.
Now, I’ll say this, I didn’t come here to give you
guys a lecture about how to follow your passion.
No, I just wanted to tell you what my life story
was like and how it went for me. So, there are a
few things I learned along the way when it came
to following my passion, right? Or following what
one wants to do in life.
The first thing that I learned in my life is that it
sounds really cool to say I followed my passion.
And I know we encourage kids today to follow
their passion, follow their heart. But it’s not easy.
It’s not easy at all. You’ll have more downs than
ups. I promise you that. In six years, I’ve had
more downs, more sleepless nights than I did as a
lawyer. I’ve worked harder than I did as a lawyer,
but the ups are worth it. I get up on a Sunday
wanting to work. When I was a lawyer, I didn’t
want to get up, forget getting up on a Sunday.
I didn’t want to get up to work; I just wanted
to sleep. So, it’s really, really fun, but that fun
becomes hard at some point. And the question
you need to ask yourself is whether you’re willing
to go through those hard times as well, because
they will come.
The second thing that I’ve discovered over these
last six years is that there is no secret sauce; there
is no secret ingredient. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about tricks and things to be successful. The
only thing that works is hard work. Nothing else
does. You’ve got to really love what you do, you’ve
got to do it as per the best of your abilities, and
you’ve got to keep going – you’ve just got to keep
going every single day.
The third thing that I believed when I was a lawyer
is that you were an individual and you worked
as an individual. The last six years have made me
realise the importance of working in a team. You
can’t achieve anything alone; I don’t care what
people say, I don’t care what anyone has to say. I
don’t think I could have done what I have done
without my business partner who is also my wife.
Like I said, she is the number-cruncher. She’s the
one who keeps me in check. I’m the creative one
who wants to kind-of do things 24×7. So, that’s the
third.
The fourth thing, there will be days when you
want to quit. I promise you they will come.
They come to everybody, no matter what they
do and no matter how passionate they are about
something. But the one thing I’ve learned is don’t
quit for one more day; just give it one more day.
When you feel like you want to quit, give it one
more day. And the next day will be different. Just
go with that principle. Whether it’s business,
work, your passion, or life in general, give it one
more day and you’ll be fine.
The fifth thing, there are no free lunches. You’re
not going to get anywhere in life unless you’re
willing to put yourself out there and willing
to back yourself. No one’s going to back you if
you don’t back yourself. For me, that’s the most
important thing. So, you’ve got to back yourself.
You’ve got to believe in yourself. You’ve got to
believe in what you’re doing. You’ve got to stop
looking at what other people are doing; I think
that’s the biggest downfall. With social media,
with Instagram, everyone’s looking at what
everyone else is doing, but you lose focus of what
you’re doing and you base your decisions on what
everyone else is doing.

And it happens to all of us. This one’s doing this,
so maybe I should do this. No, that’s not what you
do. You do what you’re good at and keep going
with it and you’ll be successful.
I’m going to end with a quote that I love by Nike:
All your life, you’re told the things you cannot do.
All your life, they will say you’re not good enough or
strong enough or talented enough.
They will say you’re the wrong height or the wrong
weight or the wrong type to play this or be this or
achieve this.
They will tell you no a thousand times until all the
no’s become meaningless.
All your life they will tell you no quite firmly and
very quickly and you will tell them, yes!