Niya Desai was 24 when she moved to the United States on an H-4 visa. She had a master’s degree in journalism and advertising. She didn’t know that the visa meant she couldn’t work.

She thought it would take days, then weeks, then months. It took eight years.

When she told me this on the podcast, she said it without drama. She said somewhere in those eight years she forgot she had ever had a story to tell at all. She forgot she’d had talent. In her words, she'd lost her whole twenties.

Many of us who came to this country as first-generation immigrants know that feeling. That feeling of identity loss. Of wondering how your past fits in with your present. You arrive with a full life of experiences behind you, and then you spend years humbly figuring out the rules nobody told you. Some mornings you can’t even recall who you were before your world up-ended.

Share

What I loved about Niya’s sharing with me is that she doesn’t hold those eight years up as neither a tragedy nor a triumph. She calls them a small chapter, and the foundation of who she became. At the time, it felt brutal. But from where she sits now, she says, it created the foundation from which she’s standing now.

Then Niya told me something that really struck me. She said, ”What you’re going through right now is not part of your struggle. It’s part of your story.”

Struggle makes the hard times sound like something that has happened to you, something to endure and get past. Story puts you in the position of the author, which means the hard season is just material.

Niya also named something I see often in the leaders I coach. She’d spent years confusing identity with productivity. Niya’s way out was three things she learned from interviewing hundreds of founders:

trust yourself first
remember that the chapter you’re in isn’t permanent
stop comparing your life to anyone else’s

She opened up to share with me about another touching moment — with her second child, she was handed a form at the doctor’s office asking whether she had depression. She said no. She wasn’t sure yet what she was feeling, and she was afraid that saying yes would mean losing her child. Now Niya realizes that when we name what’s present, we take the power away from it. When we don’t take the time or awareness to state what’s present, we stay in the loop of fear.

Subscribe now

Near the end, Niya said something about mentorship that I want to pass along. She wishes she’d had a mentor much sooner — someone who will tell the truth and hold you to it. Neuroscience points the same direction: our nervous systems settle in the presence of safe, steady people, and it’s hard to author a new chapter alone. Take this gentle reminder as an encouragement to pursue that support - no matter where you are in your career.

If you’d like to hear Niya tell it in her own words, including the rapid-fire round where we each answered the same questions, the full conversation is on the Mindful Momentum podcast.

Mindful Moment: Think about the chapter of life you are in right now. Are there things you would change if you knew it was only a chapter and not your whole story?

Leave a comment

A note: this conversation touches on depression and fear. If anything here stirs something for you, please reach out to someone you trust or a mental health professional. In the US, you can call or text 988 anytime, and Postpartum Support International’s helpline is 1-800-944-4773.

Mindful Leadership with Anu Arora

The Chapter You’re In Isn’t Your Whole Story