In the deepest silence of oblivion, there awakened the first wave of energy shouting the first word – create. The infinite nothingness was bored to death. It yearned for self-destruction to create everything else but void. Devoid of anything since eternity, the vast emptiness beyond imagination annihilated into the tiniest point of the heaviest matter that ever existed in that vacuum. It gave birth to the universe inside the universe. The first cosmic goddess, me, called life.
This is the story of life born out of the inanimate matter of the brain called the mind, with its own emotional core of a beating heart. A life has awoken to the magical music of the creation, Wonders of Words (WoW).
The River of Beliefs
According to the Founder Megha Bajaj, three guiding principles have made WoW what it is today: “First, our vision has been our North star.” The eleven-word vision statement is:
To awaken humanity,
to better life…
through words,
and Silence.
Megha explains, “Second, we firmly believe in the power of intent. All action is born out of intent. Everything we see around us – a building or an organization, a relationship or a tree- began as intent. When the intent is pure and to make a difference, everything else flows in the right direction.” As a founder, she and her team ensure that their intent is in the right place.
“I firmly believe work hard and party harder is very old age. I live by this motto – work as if it is a party. I enjoy my work so much that it never feels like work. Every morning, there is a spring in my step. Thank God it’s Friday is as relevant to me as Thank God it’s Monday. I believe when you love what you do – it rubs onto your team and customers and creates a brand,” smiles Megha, who reflects on her journey. Or where it ‘WoW’ all started.
The Stream of Consciousness
Growing up as the youngest (also the most notorious) part of a 25-member joint Marwari family living at Nepeansea Road, Mumbai, had its say on Megha. Loud, opinionated family – who would suddenly turn silent as she would ask them uncomfortable questions about herself and Life. Their silence made Megha take to Writing to make sense (and non-sense) of everything that was.
An unconventional student, she would prefer bunking school (J B Petit, Fort) and sitting on the terrace facing the sea, scribbling away in conversation with the God in her mind.
One year, Megha would top her class; another year, sink to the bottom – leading to the nickname “Crazy Genius” from her exasperated teachers. “Ironically, it was my English teacher who told me that I would never learn English. Fortunately, the sound of my own heart was always louder than anything else in the world.” Megha went on to study English and Hindi Literature at Xavier’s College and script writing from Sophia – all of which added fuel to her love affair with words and led her to write books.
In the Forest of Letters
At age 23, she wrote the first book, ‘Thank You, Cancer’ published by the world-acclaimed Hay House. This won a lot of media attention and was written about in Times of India, The Hindu, DNA, Dainik Bhaskar, and Mumbai Mirror and was praised on various radio channels. Next came ‘I Inspire,’ where Megha narrated the story of Neerja Malik.
The next is called ‘One Woman, Two Advanced Cancers, Conquered’ is the path-breaking journey of Megha’s mother, who was given a few days to live in 2012 when she was diagnosed with Stage-4, Grade-4 Brain Cancer and went on to live for ten years after that!
Megha’s most recent book, ‘The Breakthrough,’ published by one of the top five publishers in the country, Rupa Publications, created history. It was attended by nearly half a million people, making it the biggest virtual book launch.
Apart from writing books, today, Megha is the Founder of WoW (Wonders of Words) with the roles as an author-mentor and educator with coveted programs like the WoW Online Writing and Healing Workshop for aspiring authors/seekers and WoW 3L’s (Language+Life+Leadership Skills) Program for schools which has touched 1,00,000 lives till date. Two instances gave birth to the two verticals of WoW.
Branching Out
The first was seeing her write and win awards like the Most Read Writer award for coveted magazines. Many family and friends started urging Megha to teach them writing. She recalls, “Writing was as natural as breathing to me, and I wasn’t quite sure how one could ‘teach’ this to another.” However, being a daredevil, she decided to give it a shot. She put out a message on Facebook one morning: “I am planning to teach writing through the online workshop, and asked people to mail me if interested.”
Megha went about her day as always and was stunned when she checked her mail that night and had received 36 inquiries from across the globe. “This re-iterated to me the thirst people had to write and express themselves, and I wanted to give them an avenue.” She began a decade ago with her first workshop and, over the years, realized that words had such immense power that people were not just expressing themselves but discovering themselves, feeling a greater sense of peace and self-love, publishing and writing books – few of which went on to become bestsellers. WoW Online Writing and Healing workshop today is a niche, a brand, and people are waiting to get on board.
The second instance that fueled the entrepreneurial spirit in Megha was when one of the principals – Gayathri Ram, doing WoW online writing and healing workshop with her, asked, “If I am benefitting so much, can you not create a program for the four thousand plus students in my school?”
That’s when WoW 3 L’s (Language, Life and Leadership Skills Program) was born. It gave an avenue to the educator in Megha who wanted to reach out to students of all ages and cities to have one period a week focused on growing in love with themselves, expressions, and life itself. “Word of mouth took over, and today, we have some of the most premium and student-centric educationists working with us. I feel like I have just begun and have miles to go before I sleep,” says Megha, super-excited.
The Wisdom Tree of Meditation
In the modern landscape where everything is evolving fast, to ensure that her ‘WoW’ brand remains adaptable and ahead of industry trends, providing innovative solutions to their clients, Megha uses the most distinctive approach. “Since we work closely with people and human psychology – trying to make every individual and child into their best version, one of the greatest tools we have found for ourselves is meditation. May sound strange, but it is going within – as individuals and as a team that has helped us come up with ideas and solutions born out of intuition and understanding of fellow humans,” she says, adding that by staying deeply rooted in spirituality, they have been able to find answers and solutions to the world that no AI or technology can provide.
Also, she and her team believe in personalizing and customizing their products and services significantly. “We believe that there is no one shoe that fits them all, so we constantly try to understand what the world needs in terms of mental and emotional health and wellbeing and find solutions.”
The Sagely Leadership
A brand echoes the underlying ethos of its leadership. Megha follows the adage, “Do unto others as you would do unto yourself… and don’t do unto others what you would not have them do unto you.” She believes this makes her a very humane approach to the team and creates an understanding of what they may be feeling or going through. “If something motivates me, I bring it to them – so it can motivate them too. If something disheartens me, I ensure I do not do it to them.” Empathy is a winning formula for a happy team.
When you give your team the feeling that you understand and appreciate them, when you do need to give them feedback or get them to work harder, they do so happily. “Our team operates with love and happiness, and that brings us results,” says Megha, who also ensures that she and her team enjoy a good work-life balance by pressing the stop button weekly at a stipulated time. This is something she has been following for years. “Just because I work from home, I don’t allow work to spill onto my family or ME time. I also ensure my team abides by it as I respect their family time as much as I do mine. Even if they wish to send messages on our work WhatsApp group post our work hours, I discourage it so everyone values their personal space and time.”
The Ever-Widening Tech-Connect
In the realm of publishing, technology plays a pivotal role in enhancing efficiency. Megha accepts that technology has helped WoW immensely. They had the world’s biggest virtual launch for Megha’s last book – The Breakthrough (Rupa) during COVID-19. “We had close to half a million people attend, which was only possible because of technology – social media marketing and execution.”
All their workshops are promoted widely on social media, and their online and offline presence has helped immensely.
The team WoW writes for several weekly magazines- again, the online amplification empowers them to reach more and gain brand visibility. She adds, “We are a technology-driven green company where most work happens without physical travel or leaving a carbon footprint.”
Let’s Meet Adversities Together
Challenges are part and parcel of every entrepreneur’s journey. One of Megha’s challenges was that her connection to the world was limited to family, friends, and readers at book launches. However, with WoW, her life suddenly became very people-centric. She finds it exciting to see the various hues that people bring. Earlier, she would get upset, frustrated, and hurt easily – but now she sees people as extensions of her. “I cherish all the good and actually get amused by their lesser pleasant sides.”
The next beautiful transition that Megha went through was delegation. Earlier, she used to do everything herself. She did not know how to delegate and often worried things wouldn’t be done well. She has learned to get over this. Gained immense confidence in others and entrusted them with significant tasks. “It is empowering me to scale my business. It has freed my time considerably to do what I love and maximize our product and services.”
One of the most incredible examples of the entire team coming together to create something awe-inspiring was COVID. When they wanted to launch The Breakthrough book virtually. They believed in the book and felt it was just what the world needed in the challenging time that it was facing. They wanted to ensure we had the world’s biggest virtual book launch. Since someone had already had a launch for 1,00,000 people, they needed to cross this number. The way the entire team thought out of the box and collaborated with BookMyShow to do this launch, the way everyone was so excited and willing to work ceaselessly till they met their target, and the empowering communication they had through social media (with a small budget they were able to reach over five million people), “Created a breakthrough for us. We aimed to get 111,111 people for our virtual launch held on 15th August 2020 and were amazed when we surpassed this to 3,85,700 people attending it!”
It was an incredible moment for Megha and the team as they could see how hard work, backed by effective communication and faith, had paid off.
Silver Screen Calling
Looking to the future, Megha has already begun the next chapter of her ‘WoW’ journey. A lot of her life has been a series of coincidences and miracles. It wasn’t like she chose things; life paved the way for things to happen. People asking her to teach them writing led to WoW Online Writing and Healing Workshop being born, and similarly, WoW 3 L’s was born under a huge tree in Chennai when Gayathri asked her to bring something to her school – “I think the next seed has to come from the world too.”
Many directors and producers have started connecting and asking Megha if her articles, stories or books can be converted into something for the silver screen.
She says, “My mind is now running in that direction, and many conversations are going on. We will see what comes forth, but it’s exciting because I think in images and doing movies and web series is the next stepping stone for me.”
“I wish to create E-Cube content: Entertaining, engaging and enlightening. I believe the world needs more of this to bring paradigm shifts in mindset. Several books, programs, and movies have transformed my life forever, and I believe if I bring more E-Cube content to the world, I will create insights, moments of inspiration and shifts for people.”
Rooted in Spirituality
However, the prologue and epilogue of Megha’s ‘WoW’ story would be incomplete without her version of spirituality. From a very young age, she believed that all the answers to the world outside can be found within. It led her to seek spirituality in her teens. From books to masters, she sought it all. “Until I reached my beloved Guru, Mahatria and the path he divined called infinitheism.” His ways are contemporary and practical, and his wisdom is deeply rooted in rationality and science. “His teachings appealed to both my left and right brain, and applying the formulae he gave for life, I started seeing an integration of body-mind and soul leading to peace and success.”
Like many in the world, Megha used to believe that materialism and spirituality cannot go hand in hand. However, through Mahatria, she realized this and that is not only possible but also desirable.
“Everything we do in WoW is deeply rooted in spirituality, and many of us in the team are regular meditators and believe in getting ourselves right to get the world right. It’s very fulfilling to live in such a manner, and I firmly believe that I owe everything I am and will be to my Guru. This helps me stay aspirational and yet humble,” closes Megha.
For more information, please visit https://www.meghabajajwow.com/.
The post Wonders of Words (WoW): Awakening Us Live a Better Life via the Power of Words and Silence Therein appeared first on Insights Success.
