12# - From Homelessness to a Viral Wellness Brand: Kajal’s Kitchen Journey to Success

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she was also a client of mine a few years ago. She came to my retreat a few weeks ago as well. And honestly, her journey has been so, so, so inspiring. So I'm really excited to have her on and share her story. So Kajal, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Thank you for having me here. And do you just want to quickly like introduce yourself To the listeners and look basically who you are and what your business

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Awesome. Of course. Hi everybody. I am Kail from Kale's Healthy Kitchen. I'm the founder of Kale's Healthy Kitchen and also the founder of IL's Wellness, tree. And my life is all around wellness, anything to do with mind, body, and soul, and my journey started with food. So food, I do, teach cooking, I run workshops, I run supper clubs, I run private dining, I run retreats, and like I said, anything and everything to do with the wellness lifestyle.

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[00:01:45] Kajal: that part of your journey. Okay. Yes. So, that goes, takes me back to about, you know, almost 35 years now when my mom was diagnosed with, fourth stage cancer.

And, we were back in Kenya back then and I was, happily married and, you know, my mom was suddenly, it was a year in my marriage and, suddenly found out that my mom has, is in her last stages of her life. So, What,my ex husband now, knew a little bit about health and wellness and he brought, that to the table.

He said, look, let's try something different. Doctors have given up on mom, but maybe we could try something, you know, something different. And,that's where the journey started. All family came around and, my journey was to work on mom. Now it wasn't about giving her a long life, but it was more about giving her a quality of life.

And how we did that was by changing her diet, changing her lifestyle. And, basically giving up on all gluten, all grains, all,sugar, all refined foods and getting her very much into meditation, healing the body naturally. And, what I learned from that journey with mom was that changing her diet, just simply changing her diet what we brought onto her plate gave her a light of life, you know, gave her a complete spark of life, you know, where she had really gone down, you know, fighting cancer is not easy for anybody.

Watching my mom fight her battle was not easy and seeing that what food was doing to her, the juicing diet, the nutrition that we brought to her, the knowledge that we got from every day feeding her and what Every single day that food was doing to her was phenomenal. And I think from that day on 35 years now, I have never stopped and never looked back.

I adopted and, you know, sort of accepted that lifestyle into my life. And I am a very. health freak myself, you know, always make sure that I am holistically working on what I bring to my plate, the lifestyle I lead, meditation, yoga, exercise, everything. Of course I lost my mom. you know, six years later, but she did have a good quality of life.

She was pain free. She was happy. And, the same journey, my sister also went through cancer and same lifestyle. We practiced on my sister and the same results were shown that, you know, when you change your lifestyle and a little bit of. Give your give a thought on to what you bring to the plate. you can change many things and a lot of magic can happen, you know?

and since then, 35 years on, I have helped, hundreds, if not a thousand, you know, hundreds of people, through their journey, through their health journey. And, That's my, prayers now every day.

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35 years ago. And that blows my mind. So, 35 years ago, I mean, the internet was still in its infancy. Mm hmm. And really, I kind of feel like the health and wellness space has only really got big in the last few years. and what I've learned through my own health journey, because I got a few years diagnosed with underactive thyroid, PCOS, ovarian cysts, SIBO.

So I was diagnosed, I've been on complete health journey myself. And I think the thing was that I used to just think that you just get these things. You're just unfortunate and unlucky and you get these things. And the thing is, you don't just get disease, you know, that dis ease in the body, you don't just get overnight.

It's an accumulation of things that contribute towards dis ease, disease. In the body. And I think that what's really inspirational about that is like, there really wasn't that many resources like 35 years ago. And I think people are now waking up to, you know, what's in our foods, like how food can either make us completely sick, it can be poison, or it can be medicine, right?

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And we just go into the chemist and we will, we won't just pick on any medicine, but we will educate ourself before buying a medicine to feed into our body. Right. But food is medicine every single day. People don't actually take time out to thinking or even making an effort of, you know, saying, what am I going to bring to my plate today?

What am I going to feed my body? How nutritionally am I going to make this body work? Food is energy. You know, every food, every bite you take is energy. It's a form of energy that we're feeding into this body. So I think,when, We talk about food, and like you said, you know, food is something that make us, you know, food is who we are, when we eat food, food is who we are.

And, 35 years in my journey with, since when I, you know, learned about the magic. of what food does to our body. I have seen tremendous amount of different things that food do to us. Now, going back,Sean, you said about, you know, disease just don't come. It is something that's been accumulated over the years.

And same goes with my mom, my sisters, they had a very stressful life. And so do many of us, everyone, you know, people will say, I have stress. I have stress. Everybody has different level of stress. What does stress mean to you? You know, stress can mean so much different to you and stress means so much different to me.

But I think changing of a lifestyle and working around,you know, what stress is and how am I going to work around this stress? Yes, stress. Everybody has stress, you know, changing a little bit of your lifestyle and then erasing what is not needed in this body. And then, you know, accepting what is needed in the body is your job.

You know, this is your body. So I used to tell my mother. Why do you worry so much? Why do you do this? Why do you do this until it came to my very own life? I learned that certain things were not that easy to just say, okay, I'm not going to worry about my children I'm not going to worry about my bills. I learned what my mother went through but then At the same time, I also learned to balance and take what my body could.

So there's a difference between my mother and my sister and myself. I learned from them that they didn't learn the art of changing their lifestyle and they just took it. They just let themselves go with the world and let people rob their time, rob their happiness. Whereas I, over the past, I think 15 years, I've chosen that this is my life and I'm going to choose between what is needed in this body, what is adding to my, purpose in life and what doesn't serve me, doesn't stay with me.

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So I can definitely say I got PCOS. I got, you know, all of the things because of a big part of that was stress when I first started my business. But it wasn't the stress that like I was burnt out or I collapsed or I was like always tired. It wasn't that. It was more like, The people pleasing, lack of boundaries, overworking, all of these things.

You know contribute towards stress, you know, people's worried about what people think judgment and all these things Energetically contribute towards stress and I think so many people just don't realize that Yeah Like the stress is like that kind of ticking time bomb in the background where you you might not look stressed or feel stressed But actually your nervous system is

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But one thing I'd say is I It's only when the stress comes to your gets to your body is when you are looking outwardly pleasing other people Thinking of what other people think you know pleasing or trying to work for other people The moment you stop that you know the moment you say what they think is not my problem What they believe is not my problem.

What do I believe? What serves me? What is this body need of you know few questions that you ask yourself every day and one thing I say to people now is Breathe in just breathe in your best friend is your breath You know people will not like you for many things, but that's their perception You know if they don't like you I say take five breaths do do a box breathing and say okay Thank you for not liking me But this is my body and I will do what serves my body

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And almost, almost when you put boundaries in place with certain people, because you need to, to protect your energy and to, you know, protect your mind and your soul, you could be deemed as Bitchy or not a nice person Or selfish. Yeah. Or self-centered. Yeah. And it's, that is not that. That is basically protecting your energy, maintaining your peace.

Yes. And I think that for a lot of Asian women. That stress itself, the family stress, you know, whether they're living with in laws, whether they've got toxic extended family members, whether, you know, maybe it's their partner or husband isn't very supportive or, you know, a lot of, not a lot, but some Asian men are not emotionally available and all these things can contribute.

And I think for so many years, like we've seen our mothers and our grandmothers just part up with it. Yeah. So we think, Oh, you know, we should just. accept our reality as it is. But I actually think that we are the ones who will break that pattern in our generation. And we have to be the pattern breakers because if we're not, we'll just pass it onto the next generation.

And what does that say about us? Yeah,

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And I just saw everywhere around me when I grew up, when I was growing up, everybody was sad. There was happiness, but happiness was just, you know, very much, to show. But, internally, I don't think anybody ever recognized what happiness should be or was, you know, because they were just so designed to accept what's given to them.

Just take what's given to them, you know, and nobody was ever allowed to open their hearts or their mind to see what is hidden, their hidden talents, what their journey would take them to be, you know. So all the women I grew up. seeing were, you know, all super suppressed. And also men were suppressed. I mean, looking back at my dad, he was suppressed.

Never allowed to be, you know, say what, you know, if ever he had a problem or if he ever, he was emotional, he wasn't allowed to be emotional because he was a man. But that's how all of these, you know, our Asian culture is, you know, that hide everything or, you know, put everything under the carpet and just keep living a life because it's all about showing the world or showing the community.

But I think when what my journey, when I went through a really bad phase in my life and, you know, I was in a marriage, which wasn't a balanced marriage. And, you know, my husband, obviously then, you know, wasn't probably he wasn't happy in the marriage and he then went and had a, an affair, you know, and I had little four little kids and I'm only assuming he wasn't happy.

That's why he did that because if somebody is happy, then they wouldn't be doing what they did. Right. So, when he had an affair, I remember every single person who advised me. And these are the people who advised me who had never been through the journey I had been on but they still thought that it's alright to, you know, because Kajol is young, tell her what to do, because everybody always tells others what to do, you know, that's the society we live in, you know, do this, do this, do that, rather than telling, asking people, how are you feeling?

How does this feel? If it feels bad, it's okay. Do something about it. Nobody tells you to do something about it. Everybody tells you run or, you know, just hide it under the table, you know? And I think, in my life when my husband was having an affair with my cousin, it was sad. It was sad because I was young and my children were young.

I have, I had for young beautiful kids. and, you know, at that time I was somebodywho was, in a way, nobody, because I didn't have a voice. I lived amongst the women and men who every, everything was suppressed. And I was in a marriage where I was, Financially, I was not, you know, I didn't have no,nothing to stabilize myself with, you know, I didn't even have a bank account.

So everything was like given to me on a plate and I had to be very thankful for that plate of food or the roof on over my head. But that was it. That was enough for a woman back then, right? And when all this happened in, in life, I learned that, it happened, it suppressed me. But at the same time, I had to break through this journey.

And when I break, broke through that journey, I wasn't a very popular woman. I had no support. Actually, I had no support when I went and told my family or, you know, people around me that I really want to leave this space. They would be like, Nope, you can't. Who's going to pay you this? Who's going to do this?

Who's going to look after your kids? Rather than giving support that you'll be fine. There was no word of encouragement. There was always a word of discouragement and loads of it. And, you know, always putting you down as a woman that you won't be able to do this. You can't do this, you won't be able to raise your children.

You won't even be able to raise yourself. Right. But I did, I did say, you know, this is it, this is enough.my husband was, you know, well to do and, I, I said goodbye to the money. I said goodbye to the house. I said goodbye to the money. And I had a. Good. One old, good, school friend, a childhood, friend who came to my rescue and she said, listen, don't look back.

Just look forward. You rather die with your head, head held high then to die with, you know, being a coward, doing nothing about your life. You know, you have such a long life ahead of you and you don't want your kids to see you as a cowardice mother, you know, do something about this. So I left my, with my four kids and stayed in my friend's house in one little room with me and my four kids in one little room.

And then of course, with the help of the council, got a council home. So this period, I was basically homeless with not a single penny with me, no bank account, nothing with me. And I just walked out thinking, what am I going to do? But there was something inside me that said to me, you know what? I'm going to die this way.

If I live here. I'm dying every single day, living this life, you know, of not being loved, not being respected, not being recognized, not even have a voice. I'd rather die with doing something, you know, trying something. So this is it. I walked out and, you know. I did many jobs and the one question my friend asked me is what job are you going to do?

You know, raising your kids, what are you, what are you going to do? And I said, look, I left my mother's house when I was 17, got married. I've never been able, allowed to work. So I don't even know what the world outside there is. So I don't know what I'm going to do. And she said, Kajal, tell me, what are you good at?

I said, the only thing I'm good at is cooking food and feeding people. So she said, yes, let's do that. And that's where Kajol's Healthy Kitchen started from, you know, cooking for people and, you know, cooking for people and running parties for people. And, that's where the journey started. And I never looked back, Sean, I never did.

my children were my pillars, my four pillars, you know, you need four walls. My, my, my children were my four pillars. And every day I looked at them and I said, I don't want them to raise,you know, grow up in an environment where they are, they have insecurities or uncertainties of be it money, Be it people, be it family, I'm going to give them everything that I didn't have.

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[00:21:41] Kajal: So I'm a very disciplined woman, Sian.

Very, very disciplined woman. Time for me is everything. And, I have my routine, which I never back off from. So in the morning I wake up 5. 30, I do my routine. My, my God, I pray to God, I meditate, I do my exercise, my yoga, and I need my me time. That's my me time energizing myself. And that routine was there.

My kids were part of the routine that, you know, looked after my kids, dropped them to school. When to work timing, time was my particular, my best friend was my time, keeping to time, keeping to routine and keep discipline of your life. Because if you are a woman or a man who has a purpose in life, Then that purpose is your goal.

And then when you know what your goal is and you have your discipline with you, nothing can take you away from it. So for me, nobody outside that box mattered. What mattered to me was I was able to bring money. into the house, able to make sure that I sat down with my children and did their homework with them, fed them well, three meals a day.

That was my purpose. And when I was able to fulfill that, that, that was perfect for me. And of course, I think all over this, over the years, I mean, it's been, you know, many years now that, My now my son who back then was such a young boy got married last year and nothing has changed. Discipline for me, I don't change anything for anybody because that is part of my life.

You know, just the way I work in the way. Everybody like every day you wake up, you brush your teeth. Why would you not brush your teeth? Why would you not exercise? Why would you not eat healthy food? Just the same way as we brush our teeth and we comb our hair and we apply a little lipstick, that's part of your life.

The same way, my discipline of, you know, my, my wellness journey, how I look after myself and keep everything to time, I think has kept me going.

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So what time do you normally go to bed

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So I have my rituals before going to bed. One thing I always say to friends and family is, no matter where you are outside. And this is something also, my husband really laughs about, you know, he says, wherever I am, I'll go home and I'll wash my feet and then enter my room. And this is something that I learned from my mother that you collect energy through your feet, wherever your feet travel, you connect energy.

So water is the only element that helps us purify, right? Water is so magical that helps us purify. So whenever I step into my house, I wash my feet. Whenever I step into bed, I wash my feet and then pray to God, be thankful, pray and have great be grateful for what I have and what I've achieved and what I'm about to achieve, right?

Because the life is, super long and we've come a long way. You're right, Sian. So, you know, always be grateful. I do my journaling regularly. And, before going to bed, my prayers, my meditation and my sleeping time and reading, you know, acquiring knowledge is important to me. I never stopped studying.

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I love that so much. And, And also, Kajal, with meditation, is that just silent meditation that you do?

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So I know that today maybe my mind has spoken a lot and I've, I have also received a lot from the outer world. I now need to switch off. So when I need to switch off, I need somewhere very calm and completely silence. So that is, you know, sometimes meditation, I like spoken meditation, like a guided guided meditation.

Yeah. When I feel like I feel lethargic and I don't want to be here or you know, so I will need something to boost me. Right. Yeah. Guided meditation for that.

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Mm-Hmm. , which was in 2017. It was like this tiny, tiny place in London. Oh my God. But that was like the start of something big and for you as well. Like I remember like in Covid, I think we worked together 20 18, 20 19. Mm-Hmm. You were in my mastermind and I just remember. watching your videos on Facebook and they were like going viral and oh my god like it was wild like and obviously now you've got quite a big Instagram following.

I haven't seen your content on Facebook but that's because Facebook is annoying. But you've really grown your business like so well, like so much with your retreats and you know, you're, you've probably got like one to one clients and your workshops. And so like talk us through that, like how did that happen?

I know, I know there'll be so many parts of it because with business it's not just one thing that works overnight, but what do you think really helped you really grow a business in London? I guess.

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I even though I have the business skills and I have all the, skills that you need to run a business. Yeah. Yeah. I lacked the mind that, you know, invites money in. I always had blockage. And I remember writing to you, and I said, Look, you do mention about the money mindset. How does this work?

Because my mind does not, you know, I'll charge somebody 20 pounds, and I know my competitors would charge somebody 100 pounds. And I'm thinking, No, I shouldn't charge them so much. And that was me undermining my own self. And I knew I was doing that, but there was something in me that blocked me. And that was the reason I joined the mastermind.

And I said, I think this woman, she looks like the shrewd business woman, and I need to be in her, in her mastermind to learn the skills of how I could learn to value. My work, you know, my strength, my work and the time that I give to people, you know, and that's something that unblocked through the mastermind.

And I know that after you, after the mastermind, I, I literally went for, you know, okay, I'm charging for something 55 pounds. I went for 75 pounds and then after that was 120 pounds, I was working, I was just selling it. And I said, huh. Thank you. There was a lot of energy work done as well at that time. But yes, I think what has kept my business going is showing up, showing up myself because my business is myself.

I have many products that I sell to people. I'm a relationship coach. I'm a divorce coach, a well being divorce coach. I'm a, I'm a, you know, a chef, a wellness chef. I'm a, a yoga,a yoga therapist, but doing a lot of different things and selling a lot of products.until people haven't tried my products, they don't know what they're coming to buy.

But one thing that you do is when you show up online, people buy into you, you are the first face to your product. So all these years, Sian, what I've done is make sure that I showed up during lockdown. I gave away lots of, you know, free, healthy recipes. Every single day I was motivating people to cooking healthy breakfast, breakfast, a healthy lunches, healthy dinner.

And also talking a lot about a healthy lifestyle and dashing out advice and, my experiences as well, sharing my experience, sharing my story, which has, which took my followers from, you know, wherever they were, you know, from hundred to 500 to, 25 K 27 K. And it was, you know, and these are genuine followers.

And I love them because they are the people who have lifted me to where I am today.

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But I think. I've seen obviously over the last few years, so many people in business. And I think with you, like you've always shown up for yourself. You're always consistent, but you've got that wonderful energy and you, you've got pure intentions and energy just doesn't lie and gut feeling just doesn't lie.

So that's why I think you've been so successful is because people just know that with Kajal. There's no, there's no ulterior motive, it's just you. And I think a lot of people will say to me as well, like, I really like your energy. I really, I don't, when they used to say that to me, I was like, I don't understand what you mean.

Like, what do you mean you like my energy? And now I understand it's because obviously I'm not always going to get it right, but I try and come with pure intentions, pure energy. non judgment. And I think that shows really,

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You know, what do you want to know about me? What, what, what is it that you know? How can I help you? My first intention is always how can I elevate this person? How can I help somebody else? You know, because you've been through a journey yourself, you really see the other side in a, in a person who's come to you for help or for guidance.

You know, you see that now, you know what, guiding somebody through the truth is so important because someday it comes back, you know, biting back at you. 100%. So there's no escape in this vicious circle, you know, of life. You got to be true. Or not be there at all. Calm as a bitch. And

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Like I've spoken about being bullied and trolled in the past. And, you know, back in lockdown, some really vicious rumors was spread about me. And that was purely because from what I could see is people were triggered, people were jealous. And, and I just thought to myself, okay, let me, let me do this properly.

Let me get lawyers involved. Let's do everything correctly because this is defamation and slander. And, you know, it was really difficult and I did have some really dark moments and dark thoughts because obviously we're in lockdown, right? And, And then I thought, you know what, I'm going to get back up.

I'm, these people want me to hide. And actually some of the comments from these bullies were, Oh, I just don't think she'll come back from this anymore. She's probably just going to hide in a corner. And, you know, all these nasty things. And this is exactly what people wanted. And I thought to myself, no. I'm not going anywhere.

I've created such a good business, such amazing client results. I'm changing people's lives just because other people feel insecure about themselves and I'm triggering something in them, their own insecurities that they don't like about themselves. I'm not going anywhere. So I got back up, took a few weeks, got the legal sorted.

And then lo and behold, I just, I didn't say anything. Obviously the legal Yeah. I didn't have any communication. I didn't DM them. I didn't put anything on Facebook or Instagram. I just left it and lo and behold, what happens, I didn't even have to, you know, do anything and, you know, a couple of people said to me, this, this person had this bad thing happen to them and this person had this illness or this person has closed their business.

And obviously you don't want that for anyone. You don't, you don't want, you know, people to suffer or people to, you know, go through illnesses or these kinds of things. But at the end of the day, if you put out bad karma or bad shit or bad energy, it comes back to you. It always comes

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It is. And it's also, you know, you are, everybody's to their own. You know, Touchwood, I haven't had no, you know, enemies out there, but, I, even if they are, I don't know them. I haven't seen them. I think the light is shining very bright and,they, I won't see them hopefully in the future either, but it is, it's really sad when you see people like this and what happened to you.

It is sad. It shouldn't happen. Everybody has business. Everybody has a space to grow and be who they want to be. You know, be who you want to be. There is the whole world out there open for you. You know, world is your oyster. Go be who you want to be. But rather than stepping on somebody else's work and pulling somebody down, it's no good.

And

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[00:36:41] Kajal: No.

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What advice would you give to people who are like really struggling with visibility and like they know they need to get more visible, whether that's through video, whether that's through audio, what can you, what kind of advice can you give them?

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Visibility is also another word for erasing fear. So when you shine brighter, you take a lot of darkness away from you, if that makes sense. And showing up and sharing your journey makes you also feel much lighter. So I always say to people, start something small, take smaller steps in life, and, surround yourself with good energy people.

You know, like minded people. Surround yourself with people whom you're going to learn something from. You know, not the same circle that you are with or where you feel safe. Life is not about safety. Life is about breaking those rules and being around people that show you something new, teach you something new, do something that you've never done.

So I think visibility is very, very important. and start by sharing your journey, talk to people, go out there, share your journey, share your story. And, yeah, you're never alone. I think you're never alone.

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Two tips.

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[00:39:06] Sharn: I love that so much, Kajal. Thank you so much for sharing that. And where can everyone find you online?

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So, yes.

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