35: Sharn Khaira: How Your Cultural Background and Upbringing Impacts Your Thoughts, Your Behavior and Your Mindset

Today I’m talking to Sharn Khaira. It’s quite a deep, pretty emotional conversation. We don’t stay superficial in this.

Sharn has a really interesting background, going from corporate with a really horrible, toxic, bullying environment to starting her own business, doing wedding planning for Desi Brides in the UK, to now coaching entrepreneurs of Asian descent, especially in the UK, to grow their businesses. We also talk a lot about how your cultural background and upbringing impacts your thoughts, your behavior and your mindset, which is something that I don’t really see is talked about too much online and in this industry. So, I’m excited to share this conversation with you.

Sharn is a proud owner of Desi Bride Dreams, which is a luxury Asian wedding planning company, but she doesn’t do weddings anymore because she pivoted a few years ago into another brand- The Asian Female Entrepreneur Collective. Essentially, the AFEC brand empowers Asian women in business. Their global mission is to provide Asian female entrepreneurs and women of color, the marketing and mindset tools to change their life and their business.

After graduation, at Sharn’s first job out of college, she got severely bullied. Looking back, she believes it had to do a lot with racism. During that time, she also suffered from anxiety quite a lot. In 2014 she decided that she had enough and she quit her job. At that time, she was engaged and planning her wedding, so she decided to start a wedding blog that she can later turn into a business. She was blogging three times a week, consistently for 14 months. Four months after her wedding, she started her luxury Asian wedding planning company. She booked her first clients straight away, and she believes it’s because she spent 14 month building her audience. After a couple of months, her clients started to dry up. Sharn decided to invest in a mentor and she completely rebranded her company. That was 4 and a half years ago and she hadn’t looked back since.

In 2017 Sharn started her Asian Female Entrepreneur Collective, which was just going to be a free Facebook group for Asian female entrepreneurs to network because there was nothing like that back then. And then from that it grew into sold out London workshops, masterminds, a membership. And last year she decided to stop doing Asian weddings and focus all her attention at AFEC.

“I didn’t wanna rely on my husband although he has a great job. I just wanted my own money, ‘cos money brings freedom, right? And I think you got to be really clear on why you’re doing this and if you go all in, what would that equal for your future life?”

– Sharn Khaira

Growing up in a strict Sikh family, Sharn was always taught not to draw attention to herself. When the time came for her to market her luxury Asian wedding planning brand, she really struggled with this. But she soon realized she had two choices: either she was going to continue to care about what other people thought, and the income wasn’t going to come in, and she wasn’t going to book the clients and she would be going back to corporate; or she got visible, she tested it and she sees what happens if she gets the clients, and then she can make her decision. Sharn’s advice is to be really clear on why you’re doing this and if you go all in, what will that equal for your future life. Have a proper why- if I don’t make this work, this is what’s going to happen to me.

When it comes to marketing, Sharn is a fan of what she calls “cheerleader marketing”: you have to cheer yourself on. Because no one’s going to do it for you. And you’re only doing a disservice to the people that you could be potentially helping and working with. Another marketing tip from Sharn is to tell people what you’re up to because a) it probably will inspire them and b) it just shows that you’re building a brand, you’re doing something of value.

An action step for our listeners: do something that is super outside your comfort zone. It could literally be an email to someone, it could be a DM, it doesn’t need to be this like amazingly curated launch. It could literally be reaching out to a photographer to book your photo shoot. Things that are really going to move your business forward. And if you can do that on a daily basis, that’s how you build momentum. And that’s what really moves you forward.

Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode make sure you subscribe so you never miss new episodes. And if you have a business bestie, who needs to hear this message go share this with them. See you in the next one.

Love + magic,

Maggie