Priya Kumar is an Indian motivational speaker, corporate trainer, columnist, radio jockey and author. Priya Kumar has been awarded as the Women Leader in India, writer's category.
Video Priya Kumar
Early and personal life
Priya Kumar was born on 4 March 1973 to Kirti Kumar and Sona Kumar in the city of Chandigarh, India.
Her father was a medical representative with Anglo French, a pharmaceutical company. Her mother, Sona Kumar, was a banker and worked with the Reserved Bank Of India.
She moved to Mumbai with her family when she was 13 years old. In Mumbai, Priya completed her schooling at Gyan Kendra Secondary School.
Priya started writing at an early age. Writing essays, reading books, completing her friend's homework were her favorite things to do in school. She participated in many essay writing contests throughout her student years and won several accolades for that.
Priya did a Super Diploma course in French, from Alliance Francais, and has a diploma in German from Max Mueller. She taught French as a Tuition teacher for nine years, throughout her school and college years. She taught over 1,900 students, in that term. Priya taught French to her classmates, and then her students, from other schools/colleges from 1989 to 1998.
In 1998, Priya quit her career as a Tuition teacher, and took to motivational speaking. At the age of 24, she was the youngest motivational speaker in the country. She added the profile of author with her first book "I Am Another You" at the age of 35, which won critical acclaim and went on to be her first bestseller.
After completing her schooling, she studied Science in Mithibai College. She switched to Commerce, with MMK College. She graduated from University of Mumbai, with a Major in Economics.
Priya has a postgraduate qualification in marketing and sales from SVKM's NMIMS, Mumbai.
Priya has also done a course on Filmmaking from The New York Film Academy, in 2017. Her interests lie in filmmaking and direction.
Priya Kumar is a Scientologist and credits her success to Scientology.
Maps Priya Kumar
List of works
Columns
Kumar started writing professionally in 2006. She was a regular columnist with Midday, Financial Express, Economic Times, B Positive, DNA, Mint, Dainik Bhaskar, Complete Well Being and several others.
Her contribution to various leading newspapers in the form of weekly columns culminated in her decision to write her first book--'I Am Another You'. She continues to spread her message through her books, and occasionally writes columns for magazines and newspapers.
Motivational speaking
Dr. Niranjan Patel mentored Priya Kumar. He held anti-nicotine and anti-alcohol workshops, for youth. Priya, through her resources, would organize programs for him. When Dr. Patel died in 1998, Priya continued to fulfil his mission and conducted the seven workshops he was to speak at. This was the beginning of her career as a speaker and she moved from doing workshops on Anti Nicotine and Anti Alcohol to motivational subjects. She believed that "you can't change people, you can inspire them to make the necessary changes in their lives to be happier."
Priya became a motivational speaker at 24 years of age, making her the youngest motivational speaker in India in 1998. She conducts workshops with multinational corporate houses across the world. Her areas of expertise are corporate training, leadership, motivation, team-building, and personal breakthrough. She engages people in activities like fire walking, glass walking, steel bar bending and board break for strengthening their body and mind, all for attaining peak performance in life. All her sessions are based on experiential learning where people learn lessons not via theory or lectures but by direct experience of the concept. Priya's writing style is compared to that of Paulo Coelho and Deepak Chopra.
Early in her career, apart from doing corporate workshops, Priya was also a visiting faculty in the Indo American Society, where she did workshops on personality development for youth, for over two years.
Books
Priya has authored ten books, out of which four are nonfiction and six are fiction. Her style of writing is very versatile; she has authored four inspirational fiction books, she has penned two books of original quotes, written two biographies and a non fiction tale of her adventures with the shamans.
- I am Another You - A Journey to Powerful Breakthroughs, was released in September 2009 and published by Embassy Books. This book is a journey to powerful, personal transformation. Every page is about narration of struggle, overcoming and victory. The experiences are followed up with learnings, carefully extracted from real life, which can be applied--professionally and personally--to achieve a better life.
I am Another You was also adapted into Turkish, launched in Istanbul in 2010 and published by Goa Publishers. - License to Live - A Seekers Journey to Greatness, was released in September 2010. The book is inspirational fiction and is about insights into finding your highest self in present time.
- The Perfect World - A Journey Through Infinite Possibilities, released in November 2011. The book is an inspirational fiction that brings forth the story of the truth about one's own eternity. The book is a journey into finding one's true purpose. For promotion of the book, Kumar created video trailers and the book was launched by Sonu Nigam.
- Thinking Aloud - A Book of Inspirational Quotes, a collection of thoughts on the subjects that matter in life, was released in 2013.
- The Inspiring Journey of a Hero, a Biography of Om Prakash Munjal, founder of the Hero Cycles and manufacturer of Hero motorbikes, was released in February 2014.
- I Will Go With You - The flight of a lifetime, was released in January 2015. The story is a thrilling spiritual adventure which won the author critical acclaim and interest from film directors to make a feature film based on the story.
- Dream Dare Deliver - The story on the making of DTDC capturing the inspiring life of Subhasish Chakraborty, the founder and CMD of DTDC released in June 2015.
- The Calling- Unleash your true self. It is an encounter with the truth, the wisdom and the force that is innate in us all. It is a spiritual adventure. Released in February, 2016. In 2016, The Calling was translated into Indonesian, and made available in Indonesian bookstores.
- The Wise Man Said- Released in May, 2017. It is a collection of 12 short stories, set in different locations, centered around the life of Sammy, an 80-year-old billionaire, who embarks on a journey of self-growth and spirituality.
- The Wise Man Said Quotes Book- Is a collection of original quotes, by Priya Kumar. These quotes are based on her 9th Book, The Wise Man Said.
Awards and honours
As of July 2017, Priya Kumar has won a total of 13 international awards, along with several national awards.
- I Am Another You made it to the number one position in the crossword best sellers list.
- In 2010, Priya got the number 2 Women Leader in India Award, Writer's Category, by igroup in New Delhi. In 2011, Priya was awarded with the Citizen of the Decade honour, writers category, in by Rotary International in Cochin.
- License to Live was nominated in the long list of the Vodafone Crosswords Book Award in 2010.
- License to Live also won one of the five honorable mentions in the spiritual category of the Eric Hoffer book award in 2012.
- In 2013, Priya's first book I Am Another You won the Silver Medal at Living Now Book Award.
- In 2014, I Am Another You was shortlisted for the Eric Hoffer Grand Prize Award.
- I Am Another You was a finalist for the Montaigne Medal.
- I Am Another You also won the First Horizon Award.
- I Am Another You won the Eric Hoffer Award - First Runner-up - in the category 'Non-Fiction Legacy'.
- I Am Another You won the Evergreen Medal at the Living Now Book Awards, US.
- In 2015, I Will Go With You was a finalist in The 14th Annual USA Best Book Awards in spiritual- inspirational category
- In 2015, Dream, Dare, Deliver was a finalist for The Eric Hoffer International Book Award, USA
- In 2016, The Calling won the Book Excellence Awards, USA.
- In 2017, The Calling was a finalist of Da Vinci Eye for the current Eric Hoffer Award season.
- In 2017, The Calling was a finalist in the Spiritual category, for The Eric Hoffer International Book Award, USA.
- In 2017, Priya Kumar won the Speaking Tree Good Karma Award, for the best inspirational author, in the country.
Quotes
- 'I am as I choose.'-The Wise Man Said.
- 'Every dream is worth going after.'- The Wise Man Said.
- 'Everyone knows how to create a future, they do so everyday.'- The Wise Man Said.
- 'Destiny is a daily thing!' - License to Live.
Other interests and qualifications
After completing her graduation, Ms. Kumar felt she should have taken up painting, music and writing as vocational subjects, all through her learning years. She is passionate about these skills, and continues to hone and nurture them.
Priya is also a painter. She paints with oil and acrylic as a medium.
Philanthropy
Priya Kumar is the co-founder of Sona Sarovar Trust, started by her mother Sona Kumar. The trust has adopted over 50 children, from the Anand Nagar slum, looking after their health, education and vocational training, allowing them a chance at leading better lives.
The organisation aims at improve the living conditions of the economically backward people, especially in the rural areas through water conservation, employment generation, education, health, awareness etc. Additionally, it aims at providing medical assistance to the needy, particularly to the physically and mentally challenged, and working with slum children, to inculcate a strong value system, providing much needed culture, and encouraging them to study and making them good citizens of India.
Firewalking
Priya Kumar specializes in Fire Walking. She got her fire-walk certification from Sundoor, and went on to assist Fire Walk instructors across the world, before she introduced Fire Walking as a part of her Motivational Speaking agenda.
She has found that walking on fire is a great tool for transforming beliefs, and instilling in people a renewed confidence about handling challenges. It challenges past beliefs, where the person has learnt that fire burns and now takes it head on, and walks on it, without as much as a sting.
The experience serves as an analogy, that the past does not equal the future, and that what one sets one's mind to, one can conquer and achieve.
Ms. Kumar is popularly addressed as 'A Speaker with a difference', since her workshops focus on personal breakthrough and all-round development, instead of just one-sided communication.
References
External links
- Official website
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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