Today we’d like to introduce you to Natalie Dayan Birwadkar.
Hi Natalie Dayan, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
“Graduation now what, what next now?”
I remember asking myself this question right when I entered my senior year of studying my undergrad in biomedical engineering. I always dreaded school, but somehow when I entered my senior year, I wish it never ended because I wasn’t prepared to let go of the structured path and enter the real world, wherein my only two options were: A. Get a master’s degree in biomedical engineering in India B. Get a full-time job.
I knew that I wanted to pursue entrepreneurship and taking up both of these options would end up leaving me unhappy in life. Studying abroad wasn’t an option either because it was expensive and I already had a younger brother whose future needed to be planned for and I was already getting asked by my parents, family and teachers as to what I wanted to do next after graduation.
Not having an answer to their question stressed me out, especially since all my classmates had a master’s degree or a job lined up. Unlike me, they seemed to have it all figured out. So I did what I had to, applied for a Jewish youth Leadership program in the US called “BCI” – Brandeis Collegiate Institute in Simi Valley a few months before I graduated, luckily I got accepted and realized not only how perfect the timing of it was since it not only started a few days after I graduated but also helped me buy time for myself to figure out what the hell I wanted to do next. Most importantly, have something to tell people until I got back.
This program was where I found myself, my community, the city I wanted to be most in – LA and above all, the reason I was put on this earth for my purpose in life – “to make a difference in the lives of others” – the way I saw myself doing this was by helping people do what they loved for a living.
The reason I wanted to do this was because I met all these talented people, who were literally so good at their art/their passion, but unfortunately were stuck at dead-end jobs only because they didn’t know how to go about making their dreams happen.
I wanted to help but didn’t know how. I always wanted to start a podcast, so a friend I made at BCI, who’s literally family now; we haven’t caught up in a long time, but he’s the reason why I was inspired to dream big and ultimately get where I am today.
Matt was like why don’t you start “Humans of BCI”, like “Humans of NY” – but in the form of an audio/ video. The one wherein people can get a sense of the personality of the person you are interviewing. I loved it, for this was what led to my podcast “The Hidden Artists” – a platform to help people share their talent/stories/ideas with the world so that they could be discovered by the right set of people who could help them thrive, which ultimately now inspired my business “Wyzdom”.
Anyway, coming back home was a nightmare. I suddenly didn’t have anything to look forward to except my podcast, which I didn’t know how to continue. I was back to feeling lost. I knew I wanted to pursue entrepreneurship, but didn’t know how to go about it. I was also interested in research but didn’t know how to go about making that happen since I tried applying for jobs in research in healthcare but was getting rejected.
Tried looking for mentors but was hitting dead ends. Realized that doing what you love, despite the talents and skills, wasn’t easy as a young person, so continued working on my podcast “The hidden artists” to help other people, took up a job as a teacher and unfortunately, this was also the time I lost my grandfather to an undiagnosed brain disorder.
I felt so guilty that I couldn’t do anything for him in spite of having a degree in biomedical engineering. I figured that there was something that could have helped, that was when I discovered a Ted talk on how stem cells could be used to repair brain. After having done some research and taken up some courses, I realized this is what I wanted to study.
So, even though it was expensive to study abroad, I applied to universities and then got accepted to study at this university in Ohio called “Case Western Reserve University”. Although it was in Ohio, I was happy to have gotten accepted into my course of choice. Unfortunately, covid hit, forcing me to defer my admission and take up a sales job I wasn’t really passionate about.
This was when I was more lost than what I was before; working a job, I didn’t feel passionate about just drained me. There was so much uncertainty and just emotions that I didn’t know what to make of. However, this was also the time I got back to what I loved and found comfort in, movies and books.
So, I thought maybe this could help me understand how to go about feeling lost. However, there were no books written on feeling lost after graduating from college. Either way, I tried making the most of the time I had on my hands by learning a bunch of different skills, hoping that I’d find something that I could use while I was stuck at home.
Having come across this acting class online conducted by 13 reasons why actor “Brandon Flynn”, I decided to enroll. We had to prepare a monologue – could be from any movie/tv show. I had no idea about monologue. So, I thought maybe I’d write one based off my experience of feeling lost after graduation. That somehow not only helped me feel so much more lighter but also helped me realize the gift I had of turning my pain and using it to solve problems for other people, something which I. realized upon not only being appreciated by Brandon himself for my acting and writing skills but also was told that I should write a screenplay inspired by feeling lost in life and the pressure of having it all figured out after graduation.
Now, I had no idea how to go about writing one, but after having researched enough, I began with this book that probably every screenwriter begins with “Save the Cat”. A great book, except that I was struggling with giving structure to my story because there was so much I had to say and only so many pages to fit in. So I tried looking for mentors, but all what I heard was that I’m busy and that this book or course could help, the ones that explicitly mentioned they mentored were expensive and that was when the idea for “Mentors hub” now “Wyzdom” was born.
Fast forward, I finished writing the first draft of the screenplay and am now hoping that I am able to work on the second and third drafts of it alongside someone with screenwriting experience and hopefully have it be made into a Netflix film with me playing the lead, for ultimately it is loosely inspired by my own experiences as a young Indian Jewish woman (Bene-Israeli) who no-one really know’s of because we are a minority – fun fact I am the only one at USC.
The best place to make it happen seemed to be LA and what better school than USC that could help, so I applied and got accepted into a master’s in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine at USC, a degree I just graduated from.
Fast forward, I moved to LA in August 2022, begin studies at USC – a degree of my choice, network as much as I can after classes, came to know about this competition called “New venture seed” – a startup competition at USC, applied with my business idea, got selected in the first round but didn’t get through to the next one, reached out to professor “Albert Napoli” – who selected my idea in the first place, got his advice – who asked me to speak to my target audience, so got on bumble bizz to personally connect with people, see my now co-founder work on a similar startup, pitched myself to him, told him about my vision for “Wyzdom” and am now the co-founder and chief visionary officer at “wyzdom”.
Aside from that, I also now found a mentor in real life -“Audrey Jacobs” – who I first reached out to back in 2019 when I was first going to visit LA after having watched her ted talk on “How to be a matchmaker in life, love and work”, matchmaking outside love was a very fascinating concept for me and so now getting to learn from her is the coolest thing ever, She’s literally my family now, always a call away for when I need advice, guidance, or even when I panic, she’s the best and I’m so proud of her, and hope to be half the woman she is today, an absolute boss woman who is just doing everything she’s passionate about aside from her full-time job as vice president at Bernstein, and recently was the chief connector and curator at TEDx San Diego.
I also now have a screenwriting mentor “David Issacs” – who’s an amazing screenwriter, producer, professor, the chair of John Wells Division of Writing for Screen and Television at USC and has won so many awards and held so many other prestigious positions, I reached out to him on email, and not only did he take the time to meet and speak with me about me and my script, but also agreed to look over and help me out as to how to go about my script.
So in a nutshell, this is how I got to where I am at now in life.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Oh, hell no! The road to get here wasn’t and still isn’t easy. Every day is filled with its own obstacles, but I chose to have them because my dreams, the potential I had, and just the desire to make a difference in this world and leave it better than I found it forced me to face my fears and take this huge risk that I am not even sure how it will pan itself out.
I could have been at home, living peacefully, spending time with my family in Mumbai, India, working a 9-5 job that paid me, and just in general not have to stress about visa, money, food, my living situation, and just, if I am even going to be in this country I so very always dreamt of being in.
There’s just so much uncertainty I wake up to every single day. It just feels like I am so close and yet so far away from my dreams that now could be snatched away from me at any point. The very dream for which I have fought and come so far for.
You know what makes it all the more harder, enduring these challenges by yourself, especially right after you endured one of the biggest challenges of them all, moving countries, graduating with a Master’s degree in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine from USC – 27 units in two semesters for a degree I had no experience in, starting a business and above all – starting life from scratch in a new country, all while tackling anxiety, depression and the worst of it all, loneliness.
A lot of my classmates are going on vacations, taking time out to cool off/take a break and figure out what they are really passionate about, and here I am put on a deadline to figure something out, any job, but something that keeps me in the country, and if you, like me, move countries to find opportunities that could help you move closer to your dreams, then willing to settle for anything, just to maintain your status in the country, is the most harsh reality that I wish nobody has to face.
For those who don’t know – if you are an international student on an F-1 visa, there’s only so long you can stay in the country (on an F-1 visa) without a job – three months on OPT (which I have) unless I find an internship/job to derail the timeline or an employer who’d sponsor my H-1 B visa. If not, I’d have to go back to India – something which I can’t afford to after coming so far, especially after now having a student loan of $60000, to help me get which my parents had to mortgage their house.
The ideal career for me is one wherein I could happily combine my passion with my purpose in life, “To make a difference in the lives of others”, something for which I moved countries, and the way I saw myself doing is by:
1. working as a healthcare/life sciences consultant at a healthcare/life sciences company. Preferably as a behavioral health consultant at a mental health company to implement an idea I had and presented in class to tackle mental health struggles – especially loneliness but in a personalized way. I want to personalize my mental health.
2. Work on my business – Wyzdom – to help people figure out their path in life and get closer to their goals/ do what they love for a living – which I did but
3. Have my screenplay, the one I wrote based on my feeling lost in life after graduation – turned into a Netflix film, with me starring in it.
Unfortunately, I haven’t found an internship or a job, and to top that off, the OPT restricts me from taking up any job that comes my way until it is related to my degree – anything in healthcare/life sciences/ behavioral health. Thus, in order to pay my bills, I cannot even work anywhere like at a fast food restaurant, and since I graduated already – neither am I eligible to work as a student worker on campus.
My parents already spent their life savings on me, all while having a 12-year-old son to take care of. So, it is very important that I find a way to make money using my skills and figure out a way to stay in the country doing what I love.
People say money can’t buy happiness, but for me and my family, money is the reason behind our stress. Every day, ever since I graduated, the only conversations I’m having with my parents is, why am I not being blessed for all the risks I have taken and the efforts I put in every single waking hour of the day. Seeing the stress I’m under, my parents kept asking me if I’d want to come back home/move to India, which to me means not only have I failed, but also with me killed dreams of all those people – my younger brother and future generations who believe that dreams could come true and something for which – to change their lives I made the move to the US, especially LA.
So, I’m not giving up. Every day is hard, but you know what is harder, accepting your fate without doing anything to change it. I made the choice to endure these challenges and struggles because I knew I had potential and a dream that I wanted to fulfill – while living in alignment with my purpose in life, “To make a difference in other’s lives”.
I wanted to make sure that I left this earth better than I found it, and that is exactly what inspires me to wake up every single day – irrespective of how unmotivated I might be then. Not seeing the results of your efforts makes it hard, especially when you are looking for work alongside working on your startup. Rejections after rejections is all I have gotten, both from investors – because they think it’s early to invest, and employers – because of the state the economy is in, all the more because employers don’t want to invest thousands of dollars into sponsoring H-1 B visa.
Neither can I get my startup to sponsor my visa, not until I get enough investment for that. Luckily I got accepted into a Master’s in entrepreneurship and innovation at USC, a program I had once been rejected from – thus solving my visa problems and thus gives me the ability to get the knowledge, mentorship, opportunities and ability to work and impact lives through my startup, and that too without worrying about visa problems.
Only problem is that the fees is too much, and I already have a humongous student loan, so need to figure out ways to pay for it, alongside finding ways to pay my bills. Not having my family besides me is hard.
The bottom line is there are so many challenges I had to and am still facing; the road to get to where I am isn’t easy. Not having your family and friends during this time makes it even more harder. Most of the friends I made here aren’t around too; they all went back home for the break. So, it’s been even more lonelier than before.
I am a workaholic, so find it very easy to distract myself from my loneliness. It comes in waves, but instead of sitting with it, I just avoid it, so that makes it all the more difficult for me because when you are an international student, you can’t have the liberty to let your feelings and emotions slow you down, you have to work 1000x times harder than the US citizens.
However, I am grateful to have my family – mom, dad, Zephan, my friends back home and abroad, who in spite of the time difference, manage to speak with me and calm me down. They keep me sane. This journey has been so gratifying because if it weren’t for the move I made, I wouldn’t have had access to all these amazing opportunities and people who are now an integral part of my life.
Lisa Toefler, Sherri Ziff, Audrey Jacobs, Joshua Avedon – y’all and your family has embraced me so well, my cousins and my sister in law – Doron, Oren, Sarina, Jennifer, my friends in LA – Mamta, Sumathi, my co-founder – Keven and all these amazing people I am blanking on, who I met at school, outside of school. I love and am so grateful for having y’all in my life, y’all are family in LA/CA and I couldn’t be more happier to have y’all.
Also, shout out to people who I lost out as friends and also to those who broke my heart, y’all made me realize who I was and how my life was so much better without your presence in it. I am grateful for your short existence in my life, but please don’t ruin my peace by getting back into it again. Sorry, not sorry.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Wyzdom?
Wyzdom is a platform that connects mentees – from students – high school, college, recent graduates, professionals looking to upskill/ switch careers, women getting back to work from a sabbatical, retirees, anyone general with a passion, dream, interest, but feeling stuck, with mentors – professionals from diverse fields such science, tech, arts, business, sports, etc. who can help them figure out what steps to take to break out in their industry of choice.
The goal is to make this a platform to help everyone make a living off doing what they love. There a million ways to go about doing what you love. The internet is a great place to go and look for it. However, not every way is for you and also, there’s only so much time and energy that we have to try out all these options.
It is this, the failure attained by trying a few ways/steps that stops the majority of them, in spite of the talent, keeping them stuck at a place they don’t feel happy being only for the money, something which we need being in. a capitalist society. They stop, thinking they aren’t good enough, when in reality, it isn’t them, but just what steps they took to get there.
A few steps taken in the wrong direction can get you further away from your goals, which is why you need a mentor; someone has done what you want to do before and can after getting to know you better, help save your time by providing you with personalized action steps that would help you reach your goals faster.
I would spend so much time reaching out to individuals I admired – asking them to mentor me. However, all they said was that they didn’t have the time or energy for it. So hence I thought, why not create a platform that consisted of mentors – who actually had the time and energy to mentor, someone who mentees could reach out to for guidance.
Now, there are a few platforms that existed. However, not only were they expensive, but also didn’t have the mentors in the field I was looking. This is exactly what makes our platform different:
1. You can connect with a diverse range of mentors from different fields – something which is so important because so many careers options have opened up because of the internet
2. We personally speak with each mentor on call and select whether they should be on our platform or not on the basis of their experience motive behind being a mentor on our platform. This also helps us make this platform more safe and of value to the mentees.
3. It is affordable and profitable for both the mentors and mentees.
4. The mentors and mentees are connected on basis of shared values.
We plan on launching the app in August 2023 and are offering some exciting perks for people – both mentors and mentees who sign up on our website before we launch. The way this works is:
1. Once you download the app, you sign up as a mentor/mentee
2. If a mentor, you have to go through a vetting process aside from the Zoom call you have with us – very similar to uber driver – so that this platform is safe to use for mentees
3. Once we approve the mentor, the mentors get to create their profile explaining who they are. what field their expertise lies in, what they value/ they could also create a video profile of theirs answering a few questions we prepare for them to answer
4. Same goes for mentee – but they mention about what and in what field are they interested in seeking a mentor/guidance
5. Once that is done, based off a list of filters, the mentee using AI would be suggested a list of mentors in their field of interest, post which they can send a request to a mentor
6. Once the mentor approves it, the mentor and mentee would be placed in a message chat and then take it from there
The vision is to make this a platform to make dreams happen, that means beyond just mentorship, but this how we start for now.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Resilience, adaptability, dreaming big and delusionally going after them, irrespective of how crazy and impossible they may seem to others.
I may cry, whine, curse a little, stress eat, not do anything for a day or two, but one thing I would never do is give up and take no for an answer. My brain is always plotting on how to turn things around for myself, probably in the most craziest ways anyone could ever imagine AND somehow, it does work.
My mentor Audrey Jacobs says this, “Natalie, you have the most amount of fear, but somehow instead of letting it stop you, you end up taking the step to face it anyways.
Believe it or not, I always wanted to come to the US, especially LA, and do exactly what I am doing now, get a degree in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine – work as a consultant at a healthcare/life sciences/ mental health companies – for this is how I get to change many lives at once-working alongside/ guiding companies who does it, continue with my podcast, work on my business – to help people do what they love for a living and have my screenplay made into a Netflix film with me as the lead. Now that hasn’t happened yet, but I am manifesting it. Never know who’s reading this. I didn’t know the how, but I took the steps either way.
Anyways, three years later, when I managed to finally make this dream happen with my parent’s help and my best friend in the entire world – 12-year-old brother – Zephan’s support and also my friend Mukta – who I constantly whine to even now, I didn’t want to go.
Three days before my flight to LA, I fell sick with a really high fever. I wasn’t able to move or do anything at all. Neither had I packed my bags or shopped for the things I needed to take with me. However, for some reason, I was so glad that I fell sick because that meant that I didn’t have to go. I was even contemplating on canceling my flight and canceling my admission and the very reason behind me thinking of doing that, or even falling sick was my anxiety.
I had a lot of anxiety, and most of it was the uncertainty of how my future would pan out in the US, especially how I would achieve my dreams and pay off the huge student loan my parents managed to help me with. There was a lot at stake, and I always doubted myself, but you know how I got on the flight?
The pep talk I had with my dad. My parents always made it a point to remind me how smart, beautiful and capable I am of doing everything I put my mind to, but to hear my dad say that he believed in me and has seen me work extremely hard to make my dreams happen and that he was proud of me, was what kept me going.
He said that he doesn’t understand why I doubt myself so much. because he, in his heart knew I’d make it, even though he always challenged my thought process.
My parents literally stayed up the whole night packing my bags and that too a few hours before my flight, only because I couldn’t get myself to do it. That’s how bad my anxiety had gotten. In fact, the last night I was at home, I hugged my brother and mom real tight, we had that special moment and all I could think of was I wished I had a way to make this night last forever.
The night did end and here I am, fighting every day, hoping that at some point, I get to make my family proud and especially prove to my little brother that your biggest, wildest dreams can come true too.
I am very delusional about my dreams and I believe that if you are too, you can rise above your fears and find any way to make them happen, no matter how crazy the route you take might be.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.wyzdom.io
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nataliebirwadkar/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/natalie.birwadkar/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalie-dayan/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKPqqTa1qlIx4mKYIyOj3QA
- Other: https://linktr.ee/nataliedayanbirwadkar
