Golfer. Heartfulness meditation practitioner. Podcaster.
These are just a handful of the many hats that Pragya Misra wears. Pragya is the Director of Public Affairs at Truecaller, a role she enjoys to the hilt. Her refreshing and unique approach to life sees her thriving on challenges and crises. It’s an approach, which also sees stress as something positive, something to be embraced.
We sat down with Pragya to understand more about how she moves through life’s challenges, how she preserves her mental health, and the self-care routines that have stood her in good stead through the years.
Your professional achievements are aspirational for many. Tell us how it all started.
I almost have imposter syndrome when I listen to others, finding my journey aspirational!
Sport has always been a very critical part of my growing-up years. At the age of five, I started playing tennis. It contributed to building my social skills and gave me a certain shape of mind, coordination and discipline.
Today, I make sure that I’m either playing golf or learning a new sport. It’s also a way for me to build friendships.
The second thing I can very clearly remember are conversations around honesty, truthfulness, and humility that were always floating around me at home.
And I think this aligned very well even with the school I attended, The School, Krishnamoorthy Foundation in Chennai. Again, it was the same value system of questioning everything and being open.
I learned a lot of survival and life skills as a golfer when I moved cities, from Jaipur to Chennai, back to Jaipur and then to Delhi.
How was the move from Jaipur to Chennai for you?
I was about 10-11 years old. Most of my teenage years were spent in Chennai. In the beginning, I resented it, but now I think that was the best thing that could have happened to me.
I was able to explore this side of me where I was trying to reinvent myself. I learned how to speak Tamil. These are new facets that help you open up.
How has golf helped with your mental well-being?
Sport is about physical well-being when you are just starting. When you start competing, what really sets you apart is the mental edge. I started representing the country when I was playing junior, sub-junior, junior, and then amateur golf.
Golf is a single-person sport. You have a crunch moment where you need to make that part or control your nerves or regulate your mind from all the negative thoughts that are creeping in.
You remind yourself- this is the only shot that I have to play in this moment and can I play this shot well?
I’m not saying that we should not simulate life situations.
If you’re going into an interview, you must simulate the questions that could come up and be prepared, but preparation and stimulation causing anxiety and stress are two different things.
I love Naval Ravikant’s quote where he says “life is a single-player game.” My little addition to it is it’s a single-player sport, but it’s always nice to have cheerleaders around you, right?
This is a thought-provoking quote, where I always think on how I can showcase the positive side of struggles through storytelling by my guests on my podcasts and more broadly through sharing my story. I want to inspire many more people to see what I have seen, learn, and learn from my struggles. And just create a space for a healthy dialogue on why the struggle is actually a great thing and how it makes us better people.
You are serving a very demanding role right now. So how do you cope with stress and pressure in such a position?
I’m not someone who feels stressed. I see stress as a very positive thing. I remember at WhatsApp, I had a very, very fun role, but it was also a lot of crisis management. Most people who knew me in those years would look at me and say, my God. You’re so happy.
And I’m like, I’m happy because of two things. One, I love what I do. Two, I have something to solve – a crisis pushes me and fuels my problem-solving side.
I always get told you’re working so much. Where is the work-life balance? But I don’t see it as a work-life balance because both things mean the same. And for me, it’s an integration where I can find time for myself and do the things I love.
Meditating allows me to be far clearer about what I want to do, where I want to spend my time, and what I want to prioritize.
You said that you don’t feel stressed and don’t look at your job as a job. But has it been like this since the beginning?
It develops over time, because of your self-awareness, constantly honing that skill to decipher between the controllable and the uncontrollable.
When I got out of college, I set up my startup. This made me realize what is controllable is I can give my 100%.
That’s one of the reasons why I think running a small business in India is very difficult. I started to put far more solid processes around what I can do to and how the money comes in.
I think when somebody is thinking and doing something genuine, when people around you can see that you’re really trying to make this work, they mostly support you.
Being honest certainly pays off in the long run.
If I don’t create that environment of high trust and authenticity in the workplace, I think that’s when a lot of the stress grows exponentially.
When did you realize the importance of meditation, and how did it all start for you?
My meditation process helps me see what I want to get out of that situation. Also, knowing what I am here for and being very clear with that vision and objectives has helped me cut through a lot of this noise.
My parents have been meditators so I started meditating very early on in my life.
As an adult, I started with heartfulness; I went to the heartfulness meditation centres, built my own practice, and spent much time with our meditation guru.
Meditation is my anchor during trying times. I don’t think I’ve done anything else as consistently as I have been part of this meditation.
Through my podcast, I’m trying to communicate that the one relationship you will invest in where you will never be disappointed is the one with yourself.
All of the ideas around self-worth and self-love come from the fact that you need to meditate and know yourself.
Tell us more about the thought behind Pragyaan.
One evening, on the January 1st, I was sitting together with a couple of friends and we started to go over our new year resolutions. I just picked up a piece of paper and wrote, ‘One of the things I want to do is really start a podcast.’
One of my friends had an agency, and they are leaders in managing gaming influencers. He helped me kick it off. I wanted to be very clear about the messaging behind the podcast. I am selective about the people I interview. They should add value to the goals I set for Pragyaan.
Pragyaan means wisdom. Pragya is around spiritual wisdom. Pragnya, in the Gita, is a sense of stillness.
We are at our 13th episode and have close to 30,000 followers. The numbers reiterate my belief that there is a big place for these kinds of conversations
Is there a specific moment of your life that you would describe as the toughest and if you can, could you tell us how you dealt with it?
There are many. But one was when my car, with all my important stuff, got stolen. I was young, I was working out of college, and I was struggling with my startup.
The theft made me question my choices at many levels.
Who am I, and what identity is this?
When I got my old car back, I started driving it and did not buy another car.
The second was that I had severe COVID.
That time I used to really think about life, its purpose, etc. The therapy I took at that time and my meditation has made me far more comfortable with who I am today.
How do you manage your podcast with your professional life?
I do most of this work mostly over the weekends. I am pushing myself, I am learning a new skill. Just hearing people and learning from them has been tremendous for me.
And in the process, if you can impact lives, what better can there be?
What does self-care and mental health mean to you? And what are the mental health resources or support systems that you want to recommend to others?
A lot of self-care is a function of how I speak to myself and the voice in my head. And I have recalibrated a lot of that. I have a far kinder approach to myself. It’s positive reinforcement. Meditation has helped me translate my thoughts into feelings and it is more fulfilling.
I would recommend using our Heartfulness app which is especially great for guided meditation.
Daaji, the Heartfulness Global Guide, recently wrote a book called “The Wisdom Bridge”. I also did the audio version on Audible.
It’s a very nice book about how wisdom is getting lost because of nuclear families. He is sort of reminding us through this book the value of this Wisdom Bridge – the crucial relationship between different generations.
