From Carefree to a Carer

 

She considers herself a shy and an introvert person who likes to hide behind her pen and paper but, you start talking to her and you will realise that Samara Mahindra is very poised, articulate and has designed a beautiful life for herself that is all about making a difference in other people’s lives.

Her 3 life’s lessons learnt in a short span of time are

• Don’t be bound by physical reality (What you see),

• You can achieve more than you think you can
• Be in the present ( forget the past and don’t think about the future)

“This I have learnt from my mum- stand on your own feet and all is in your hands how to shape it for yourself,” says Samara, in conversation with Vishal Gondal on “Beneath the Force-The Vishal Gondal Show’.

Having lost her mother to Cancer and being left alone to make her choices and take her decisions, Samara’s eyes opened to a lot of brutal realities during her mother’s long journey of struggle with Cancer. She went on to study Integrative Life style medicine and also get a certification in Cancer Exercise Specialist.

“Once I came back from the US after my studies, I did an Observership with Tata Memorial and what I found was that hospitals were not a healing place for patients. And, doctors never gave any proper answer. That is when I decided on Carer Program where a specialist would be taken to the patient and treated in the confines of their home,” she says.

The oncology ward of numerous hospitals became her home where she witnessed extreme cases and dire situations that were unimaginable. She watched blank refusals of curable stage cancer treatment to those who didn’t have the funding and children who saw hospital wards before a classroom. This was the beginning of her carefree to an entrepreneurial journey ‘The Carer Program’.

The CARER Program is an integrative cancer recovery program that helps a patient recover from the side effects of treatment and cancer itself. CARER provides a holistic approach to healing through complementary therapies that target nutrition, movement and mind-body healing for patients post treatment.

Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Samara kept looking for an escapist route to avoid going back home. So she travelled to Australia and UK for studies and then worked in Singapore and even attended a 3-month acting course with Barry John in Mumbai. She says the acting course was therapeutic and help build her confidence and come out of her shell.

Talking of her success habits Samara says that being disciplined has helped her a lot in her work.

Secondly, having a sense of empathy without sympathy and looking at the situation very positively and passing on that positivity to the patients has been the biggest success.

She admits to being a big fan of Tim Ferris and has read all his books and believes in the 4 Hour Work Week. The 4 Hour Work week is a book by Tim Ferris where he refers to a ‘lifestyle design’

and repudiates the traditional ‘deferred’ life plan in which people work gruelling hours and take few vacations for decades and save money in order to relax after retirement.

Listen to the Podcast here: https://youtu.be/yV0naFwElfo