Along with running my own Aerobics classes, I in addition began to volunteer with a school for blind children where I taught Aerobics and English and got into Counseling. To further supplement my income, I began to write for news papers and magazines, started selling pickles on the street, door to door and wherever I could sell them. My volunteering had, in the meantime got me a small job at the National Association for the Blind as a computer and English teacher, while I continued to teach aerobics to the blind children there. I also continued to teach my own Aerobics classes under the name of ‘Preeti’s Keep Fit Programme’, along with struggling with an abusive marriage and bringing up children! Within a few months, my record breaking sale of pickles won me the job of a Marketing and Sales Manager in the Pickles Company and soon huge media recognition and prestigious awards were being showered upon me! My confidence and self-esteem came rushing back and I thereafter filed for divorce, got rid of my abusive husband, was a single mother for some time, till I found Ashwani, the man of my dreams; to whom I have been blissfully married since 1996! I never wanted to live alone and neither wanted to become a Burdon upon my children and so I looked hard for this man of my dreams; though he was 10 years younger to me and was non disabled and a single person till I grabbed him, I asked him to marry me because I discovered that our values matched completely, and I was not wrong!
While working out of doors, I realized that the condition of disabled people was very sad in our society, and, along with all that I was doing, I became a Disability Activist, with a burning desire to prove that disability need not really mean inability! I did awareness talks and programmes in schools, colleges, corporate and wherever I could manage to get in, getting the society to understand that disability need not mean inability!
This led to me being invited to various forums including to corporate as a Motivation Speaker and I soon landed up as a Life Coach and Corporate Leadership Trainer plus a sexual harassment prevention Consultant!
On the other hand, I continued to teach, train and counsel people with disabilities and also non disabled women. And soon I realized that if I have to make a real difference in the world in the area of disability and gender, I needed to have a proper platform to do so; and in 2006 I gave my work in the social development area a shape of an NGO which I called ‘Silver Linings! As I was an ordinary person without much knowledge or connections, no funding came to me and I have been doing all the philanthropy out of our own pockets with a bit of help from a very few well meaning friends. But, to be able to impact lives of more people, I needed money, and that was what inspired me to create a self-sustainable model.
So, to be able to support the Silver Linings Trust, and to earn for ourselves, I launched a company called Silver Linings Synergies Pvt. Ltd. Which was an executive search company and also a training outfit. Thus, I began my entrepreneurial journey in 2010. This was my second attempt at business; the first time I took a lone and put the same into the pickles company, and was cheated out of it by my then partner! And the second time, after 5 years of working very hard to set-up and then running Silver Linings Synergies, I had to resign from my own business due to clash of interest and values with my second business partner! And finally in 2014 I have once again set-up my company called Silver Linings Services which is once again picking up its executive search services along with Motivation as well as consulting and trainings for the ‘Prevention Of Sexual Harassment’ at work places act!
