 I'm anything but an actor when I'm off-screen. Hi everyone, I'm Neha Dhupia and you're watching an Entrepreneur in Girls Digital Cover. There's nothing that a man can do that a woman can't do better. Business and entrepreneurship is a gender-neutral place and some of the most successful entrepreneurs that I have met in my life are women. So yeah, I'm very proud of being one. I'm proud that I get to learn from women at the workplace literally every day. And yeah, I'm happy to call myself an entrepreneur and I am a woman. I feel like as an actor and a businesswoman it's kind of correlated because I always say this and I like to call myself a hustler. I feel like this way or that way I'll make it work. And I feel that spirit of mine is something that keeps me going. And I feel like I have the spirit of being a little bit of a go-getter. I'm good at striking deals across the table. So I feel like that spirit of mine both ways as an actor and an entrepreneur always helps me. I'm also very clear about the things I don't want to do. So that's why I always say that everything I've learned as an actor, I want to apply in my life towards having my own production company or working with startups. I always feel that I'm going to give everything like 200% of what I've committed. So yeah, I'm not up for a bad deal ever. My intention was always to become a content producer apart from being an actor. And I feel like we're in 2020 now. And if you're not doing five jobs while you're doing one job, you're just not good enough. I feel like I just had to do this because there were so many times where a few years ago everybody would discuss, okay, this is a great show. How do we take this forward? How do we move it? I wanted to go beyond just sitting over there and thinking that what's my next job going to be? And now when I think of an idea, I'm like, hey, my next job is going to be something that I'm going to create for myself. One of the things that I did end up creating for myself four years ago was Nofilter Neha. And I was lucky enough to have fabulous co-producers. My production company is called Big Girl Productions. And I also feel like IP is the real wealth in entertainment. That's something that's going to pay you back in a few years from now. I may have not studied economics and marketing, but I know that I've spent enough time in life to understand that you don't have to be on top of the curve, you've got to be ahead of it. I have to say that I'm a bit orthodox, so I'm not a big spender. And I always think that anything's value needs to be much higher than what you actually spend on it. There's always that big thing where you say, you know, the higher the risk, the higher the profit. But I feel like you should always cut your code according to your cloth. Don't take such a big risk where you're like, okay, now it's doomsday and, you know, I have to like worry about, you know, giving away the apartment or the house you live in. I'm not that crazy about taking risks. I also feel like whatever is the little bit of profit that the company would generate, you reinvest it back in and for the same reasons. I kind of never get attached to the highs, which makes it very easy for me to detach from the lows as well. And the only way that I deal with the lows is by definitely trying harder, constantly hustling towards, you know, doing more things. You know, the minute you see a setback where you see that one aspect of your career is slowing down, you try and push another level. It's like volume control, right? You know, you got to balance between the base and the treble and everything else that happens. It was a fluke that I'm here just by fluke if I've lasted 18 to 20 years. I haven't done that badly. I think the relevance is what I kind of feel okay about. I'm not the type of person who kind of admire myself about anything, because it's not like I wake up in the morning and I see myself in the mirror and I'm like, oh, wow, you know, let's just admire us. I mean, I don't do any of that. If I had to pack myself on the back for one thing, it would probably be the fact that, you know, I kind of started off my first modeling assignment was in 1998, December, and I walked into the studio thinking that, you know, I'll just be here and I'll go back and continue studying for the things that I was studying. And we're now in December 2019, which makes it 21 years. And I feel like 21 years of relevance, sometimes more and sometimes less is something that, you know, I would give myself a pat on my back for. Definitely the relevance of it, three years from now or five years from now. Also, as far as the numbers are concerned, you know, it should be about, you know, 5x, but depending on the time you invest. The third and the most important thing is how much of that IP will I be able to call my own. Number four would definitely be that how many other players are there in the market and fifth and most importantly, will there be an audience, a consumer, a market for all the things that you plan on doing? It's an interesting time. I wanted 2020 to be very focused on, you know, my business and entrepreneurial side. I'm involved with a couple of startups. I'm involved, you know, taking one of the campaigns that I put out last year in August during breastfeeding week was freedom to feed. It's about taking freedom to feed at a bigger level. So getting more and more corporates involved with their pledges and we're trying to get a slight change with within the government policy and seeing how far I can take it. I'm very concerned about the situation or about the facilities of breastfeeding at the workplace and in public places. So I want to take that voice forward. And when you're in startup mode, there's a part of you that should talk less and do more. So I'm right there right now. I mean, a lot of people watching this will understand my pain and I know that a lot of people out there would like to share their pain and trust me, I feel all of you. Oh, it's very important. I think that it's very, very important to draw that work-life balance. So yeah, I mean, you know, when you're a working mom, it's impossible to detach yourself from your child even when you're at work. So there's no point even negotiating that. You've got to deal with all of that. The one thing that I have learned how to deal with is the lack of time. So obviously time management is of essence, trying to put in lesser hours into doing more things. The place that I'm okay compromising in or with is definitely my social life. So I do pick and choose now. But that doesn't mean that, you know, I lose my sense of self and my sense of self comes from apart from being a mother and a wife and a daughter. It definitely comes from the work I do. So I don't want to give up on that ever. The one thing that you can never really fight or explain and you consistently suffer from is mom guilt. So yeah, I haven't found the cure for that. And no matter how many times I walk out of that door with my, you know, bag on and I'm ready to go for a day at work. I mean, I always have my daughter's face in front of me and, you know, like, I always hear a sound before I leave and it breaks my heart. But I'm just really happy to get back to her. If you like this video, please like, share and subscribe. I was asked to say that.