Welcome back to the show, my fellow extraordinary Americans for today’s guest we have Cindy Chetta. Cindy is an entrepreneur and business owner, as well as a financial, health, and wellness mentor. She was born in Fiji to a family of entrepreneurs and immigrated to Vancouver, BC, with her parents. 

She’s the founder of Inkredible Business Solutions and also owned a restaurant business called Unforgettable Pizza and Pasta in Vancouver for 10 years. 

In 2015, after 28 years of working in the medical field, she was quick to become a licensed financial health and wellness mentor. She’s passionate about serving and assisting people and helping them create their lives by design. She’s also been involved with the Aria Simant Society of British Columbia, which the Cheddar family established. In the early 80s. 

Cindy is an extraordinary immigrant entrepreneur with determination and perseverance, and I’m glad to have her on the show. Cindy, are you there? 

Yes, I am. Thank you for having me here today.

Hey, Cindy, thank you so much for taking the time to come on this show. I know that you’re an entrepreneur. You’re a business owner, and you’re your financial health and wellness mentor. Can you tell me in the audience a little bit more about yourself and how you got started? 

Well, I think it was because my father and their brothers were always entrepreneurs. They started back in Fiji, where they were fixing bikes, when they migrated to Canada, in Vancouver, BC. They all had mechanic shops. So, I believe it’s in my blood to be an entrepreneur. 

However, my mother didn’t think I would or even encourage me to be any type of entrepreneur. I think she thought that I’d be just the legal secretary, and that was OK. But in hindsight, I had it in my blood. And I saw things that other people my age didn’t. And so, even at the age of 20, I bought my first property, and again, I shocked myself and my family by doing that. So as people know, and I think everybody has one of these, it’s called the black sheep of the family.

So it wasn’t in my blood, you know, and I tried many multi-level marketing businesses, and I found out that I was quite the one percenter. I’d always be successful, but my heart felt for those people who were not as disciplined or consistent in actually getting to the level that I was at. 

Yeah. So, I believe it was in my blood. 

So, Cindy, you know in our culture, we normally have this thing where most of our parents want us to be engineers and doctors, you know, from an Indian background and everything. But in your case, you were an entrepreneur right from the beginning. So, what was it about you from a small age that was different, and what was your mindset that made you think differently from the others? 

I would say that I saw my father, in particular, make a lot of mistakes, and there were things that I learned from those mistakes not to do. He was very trusting, and I knew at an early age that we should always have documentation and legal representation. Because we came from a family that was very open and kind, moving to America was very different. Our word was not enough, and so that was one of the things I noticed about how my father had lost a lot of money. Not to say. I haven’t lost any money in my dealings. However, you sure learn fast when you lose money and whatnot.

So, I know that entrepreneurship and business are the way to go, and I found myself even working in the medical field. I would make money, but at the end of the day I was super exhausted, and I was like, There’s more to life than this. 

So, Cindy, what is your overall vision and goal regarding your career from the late teens to now? How and what did it evolve? Did your vision and goals for your life and business evolve? 

Yes, when you’re talking about teenage life, I always thought I would be a physiotherapist. But when I was 17 years old, I was in a very bad car accident, and so I used to go to all these different healthcare providers and found that the physio just kind of left me there and was not treating me as a whole but rather just treating the item that I was hurting from. And so, my vision got disrupted because I’m like, I don’t want to be a physiotherapist. I’m not helping people.

So, I think even from a younger age, I was always very kind, helping the elderly and the newborns. I was the eldest grandchild and eldest in my family, and everybody looked up to me in the sense that I already had these skills. I felt like I was molding into my leadership and then buying my first investment at 20 years old, and then trying these different businesses. But yet, my parents said, get a good job. So, I was kind of struggling between what? Is it that I have this burning desire for discipline, yet I’m supposed to be very disciplined? I’m sure you can relate to what my parents want. 

Yeah, I mean, I can say that there is a lot of circumstantial pressure, and I know that from the culture that you and I came from, there’s a strong culture to conform with what’s everybody doing regarding career choices. Everything is pretty. It’s different to think in entrepreneurial terms, but as we get closer, for Americans, it’s just a different culture altogether. 

But related to this, Cindy, what was it that was the motivational factor that pushed you to start businesses? You know, like a lot of people, they think of starting businesses, but they never end up doing so, or they’re too afraid to do so. What pushed you to go in and take the risks?

I believe this because there’s so much out of life and I always love serving people, I felt as though when I was working from 9:00 to 5:00, industry and job: why are my paychecks this much, and I work so much, so when I took another look at business, business kept coming up in my life. I think I was attracting it honestly because I was trying all these multi-level marketing businesses, but I failed at them, and I think I failed at them because I was the only one. That can see the vision and nobody else. There was no support.

And then moving forward, I had an opportunity to purchase a brick-and-mortar business, and that was the hardest business I could do, a restaurant business. However, I was very successful at it again, and I looked at my paycheck, and I looked at what I was doing at the brick-and-mortar. I mean the nine-to-five job and it surpassed it. And then I learned from my accountant about all these tax benefits. It’s like, oh, this is how we make money now, right?  

So, my first real success in business was when I had a brick-and-mortar business. The only downfall was that I was the only one doing it. It right. So now I’m trying to replace that. Was very difficult. 

Wait, Sydney. Sydney. Let me get this straight. So, you’re doing You’re in the medical field, and you were working from 9:00 to 5:00. And on top of that, you’re doing this business. How are you juggling all of this together?

A lot of people complain, like, OK, I’m too tired. I came out. I came from a nine-to-five. Like I don’t have enough time or energy to do. It was like, how did you manage to? Do business while doing a nine-to-five job.

I have much passion for life, for living, and for people. I think that was what gave me the drive to do it. Yeah, my body would say I’m tired. I would schedule rest time.

So, I have learned over the years that every week, I sit down with my objectives. What I want to accomplish this week is to go forth and multiply from that, ensuring that I’m grounded. So that’s where my spirituality comes in as an Arya Samaj. I was grounded in the mornings to either pray or listen to meditation. Or even sit in silence.

Also, to stretch and just be quiet by myself, setting the tone right for the day is super important in anything you do, especially when you’re not an entrepreneur, because you’ve got to be sharp, flexible, and on point all the time and again delegating, I learned how to delegate and express my voice because, as a little girl, you were meant to be seen but not heard, and that was a very difficult task for me. To learn throughout the years, yeah. 

As we were saying, right, it’s really like 9 to 5 itself is pretty draining, but when you’re trying to do a business on top of that in your case, so you’re making it successful, it takes a lot of effort and it takes up, I mean, pretty much, I would say like 70 to 80 hours. And so, yeah, that’s pretty. That’s pretty intense. But Cindy What is the biggest lesson you learned during your entrepreneurial and business journey?

The biggest is less than wow. There are so many lessons. Being a scientist, I found that a lot of people were growing up, very greedy and selfish. And I never wanted that. And I thought that was my stigma about business: Oh, it’s only for the rich. It’s only for the greedy. It’s only for the selfish. Because I always saw that my dad always tried. And then people would always mess him up. And I didn’t like that. It bothered me, and so I always felt like I wanted to be kind, caring, authentic, and have integrity. But then I also learned that people took advantage of me as well. 

So, there were some things that I needed to alter because what I saw growing up made me smarter, The biggest lesson is that you can’t believe everybody, but you should treat everybody the same. Until proven guilty, if that makes sense,

Innocent until proven guilty, right? 

There you go.

No, I see what you’re saying. You know, like a lot of people, they start off being nice and kind. And a lot of people take advantage of them, becoming selfish in the process. So, it’s kind of like a delicate balance where you should be kind. But at the same time, don’t be a pushover and stand your ground. You know, don’t let people take advantage of you, and it’s a fine line. 

Indeed, indeed. And who do you trust? Who do you know? But I think over the years I’ve learned to know who I am, and I’m very comfortable in my skin to know intuitively if this person is for real or not. But again, being very nonjudgmental and treating everybody the same as much as possible 

Yeah. So, Cindy, what is the biggest challenge you faced during your time in business, whether it was for your restaurant business or for the process of starting credible solutions, and what did you do to overcome it? 

So, I’m always practicing my assertive skills because I find that sometimes people are very demanding. And I just say to myself, well, this guy’s having a bad day, or these girls are having a rough time in their lives, and they’re just taking it out on me.  

And when I know that I’m better than that, I just listen. 

So, my skills in listening overcame the hardship. For hard clients, and then I also found a way I overcome my challenge of expressing myself with assertiveness and expressing myself with two challenges I had, over time I just practiced in front of the mirror and then in public, and I’m still definitely practicing it. 

That’s awesome, Cindy. Here’s the thing, right? One thing that I’ve noticed is that a lot of people when they’re starting a business, are afraid of financial risk. Right. And we all know that financial risk comes with entrepreneurship. But in your case, did you feel like there was a challenge when it came to losing money? If you were taking on a venture where you could potentially lose a lot of money, what was your attitude and mindset around the risk of the business not succeeding and then losing money in the process? 

Right. Well, I do suggest to people that if they’re thinking about a business venture, make sure they have double that amount of money in the bank account, and I felt that strain during the coronavirus because I had overtaken incredible business solutions.

So, it was a risk that I was taking, and I did lose and broke even, and only recently have I started making money since that time. So again, it comes back to daily habits of grounding me and having faith in God and the universe. And knowing that everything will get paid, some days I’m like, how did this happen? But again, it’s believing in myself. I was never worried about money because I felt that was a negative attraction. And that’s again where my spirituality and faith come in—like this too will pass. But have faith that everything will be taken care of. So, your mental attitude was key. 

So, Cindy, this is one thing. When I talked to you in person, I was very fascinated by things like your faith and its application in business, right? So, a lot of people have the conception that business is all materialistic. And it’s all about the money and everything. There’s no spiritual involvement. But how did your faith and your spiritual practice help you succeed? In your business endeavors. 

I find that when I am not doing my daily practices, things go off the denomination, and so I feel that grounding myself first thing in the morning and having those basics ever since I was a little girl of spirituality and failing. And mentorship—knowing that you should self-care first—is so key. So that’s how I knew that when I’m not doing my daily practices, I’m falling off or something is not right, and I feel it mentally, physically, and emotionally. It is all connected. 

No, I mean, I see what you’re saying, Cindy, because in my case, if I need to meditate like twice a day, it’s because I’m meditating twice a day and I’m having this spiritual practice that I end up being stoic and not attached to a lot of things, there’s are a lot of things that go on in your life, and they’re probably out of your control. 

But what we can do is stay grounded in the center and then basically be stoic and non-attached. What I noticed in meditation is that you achieve a state of stillness, and then you let your thoughts become restless. That’s just going in and out. Then you become calm, and then you can take that calmness with you for the rest of the day. But that’s something that I need.

Absolutely. And you know, it’s funny that you said that because a couple of weeks ago, after my meditation, I got super excited because a lot of people woke up saying, FFF, what came out of my meditation was 5F’s faith. Family – fitness – Finance and the future self.

So, it’s amazing what you can do. So, when you turn off your devices and just be within. 

Yeah, I mean, we live in an era where there are just so many distractions that, for most of human history, there’s been a sense of peace, and you need to have that sense of peace to achieve things. But Cindy, I know that you’re an immigrant from Fiji, and you seem to have Indian culture in you. And then you came to Vancouver. Can you tell the audience a little bit more about the culture shock that you had to experience and how you went about starting a business in a foreign country? That is considered far away. 

OK, so I was very young at the time, and I had a culture shock where I couldn’t even speak, and then throughout school, there was a lot of prejudice because we were a minority. However, it was my father who started a business, and that’s where I witnessed how he bought cars and sold cars, and then he had a brick-and-mortar business as well.

We were well off in the sense that he always had money to take us once a week to Pancake House or something. And then I think when. I was a preteen. Business is something that I was aware of but wasn’t sure that I would get into. Again, as I mentioned, I was going to go to UBC to become a physiotherapist, but instead, I always attracted these multi-level marketing businesses, and so I knew I had something burning inside me. But once again, because of the culture, we were taught to go to school and get a good education we have. 

And get a nine-to-five job. However, I knew when I did the 95 job that I felt so constrained that there’s more to life than this. I should be enjoying my life while I’m young and working fewer hours. So that’s where the business sense has always been in me.

Yeah, like, the one thing that I noticed that is interesting is that you overcame a language barrier, right? And that’s one of the hardest things to overcome and still succeed in whatever you’re doing. 

And so, basically, that’s one of the hardest things ever. I mean, most people don’t realize how hard it is. So. My question to you is, like, how did you even overcome that in the first place and then go ahead to understand the culture enough to succeed in whatever you are doing?

Well, oftentimes, when your mother says no, you say … why? Because she doesn’t give you a reason. So, I just wanted to do it right. So, I think a lot of people have been told, and they’re like, no, you can’t do that. 

For example, Mom always said, why are you traveling? You’re a woman. You can’t travel by yourself. I’m like, well, when am I going to travel? When I’m retired or old, I can’t move and stuff, so the best education I think I could have given myself was the gift of travel.

So, when I did work and got a position, I would say, Oh. By the way, if I’m a supervisor for this position, if there’s a seat sale, I’m going. And they’re like, what? So, when I used to take my sick days on purpose, they knew I was going on vacation, I think the best education I gave myself was that I knew that for me to have more vacation time, business was the way to do it, and nowadays I want to pivot and do stuff online so I can. I can go anywhere in the world with the computer and still make a passive income somewhere else in the world while enjoying my life.

So, I just overcame it. I just went and did it. I just did it. That’s it. I didn’t even think about it. I just knew I had to drive and fire within myself. And if I have no support, then just do it. Like, at least if I failed, I knew that at least I tried. I don’t want to ever regret in my life that I wanted to do something but didn’t do it. 

Wow, Cindy —that’s interesting. And most people are afraid, and then they do want to like they give all the reasons why they don’t want to do it. But in your case, you’re always looking for the positives in that you’re pushing ahead and doing so, and like, yeah, it’s all about mindset. Ultimately, as I tell you in this podcast, a lot of the common themes and guests agree that it’s all about mindset. If you have a positive mindset and a certain way of looking at things, you’re going to succeed. No matter what.

And so, in your case, you overcame a language barrier, which is pretty amazing. Like the fact that your mom said don’t travel. But he said I’m going to travel anyway. That’s just like taking initiative, and that’s what you need to do to succeed in business. You have to take initiative because, ultimately, nobody’s going to do it for you. You have to like it for yourself, you know.

Oh, definitely.

But Cindy what do you think of, like, our school systems? Whether it’s in India or the Americas, they don’t teach you how to do entrepreneurship and business. Do you think people across the Americas should learn the techniques and strategies of entrepreneurship and business? From your perspective, like, where? How should they go about that? 

I think it should start with the finances, and if the school system can teach the children to not only balance their chequebook but also that business is not just about franchises and whatnot—there’s more to that, It’s about leverage; it’s about apprenticeship. It’s all about how you, you know, be partners in a in a good way.

There’s so much more that we can teach the children, and I think from there they can decide if business is for them. Or even going into business and having days where people can see why business is good. Because oftentimes people don’t realize all the tax write-offs are very good to have, even if they have a small business, even if they’re working. It’s good to have. 

The reason I’m asking is because, like you and me, we both like Indian culture. For instance, right? You have a situation where the parent’s mentality is OK, so you go and get a job to become an engineer or a doctor, and go to school for these many years and then have things like respect and status and all that stuff, but the mentality that should be taught, I think, is knowing how to monetize a product or service, and then, basically, focusing on obtaining financial freedom by starting their own business and being independent, and it has to be like a shift in thinking, as you mentioned, from the children themselves. Well, you know, I don’t know what your thoughts are on that. 

Yeah, I don’t have many thoughts about it. I think it’s really in you and the people you surround yourself with. If you have the passion and desire to do it, my suggestion is to just do it, because if you don’t, then you’ll regret it.

So, Cindy, one question that I have wanted to ask you since I met you as an immigrant From Fiji, How do you feel now that you know all these different cultures? I think you mentioned that you traveled, right? What is the one thing you understand about humanity in general from all the different cultures? What are the similarities, as well as the differences and the way they see the world? 

We’re all cut from the same cloth, and we just embraced everything and everyone, especially, you know, women, because there are a lot of people in our cultures and many cultures that are still seen as up and down, like, you know, not quite equal. And I still feel like women have a long way to go. So, I embrace women and mental health; it shouldn’t be such a hush-hush thing. And to be more open, for sure. 

No, I agree with you that in the past hundred years, women have made great strides in business and entrepreneurship, and the world has changed drastically. In the last 100 years. And it’s pretty incredible. But Cindy, can you tell the audience a little bit more about these incredible solutions, like how you started them and the premise of them? What is it that it does? 

So, the basis of that is that I have been here for 20 years, and about five years ago I was helping some people that were working here. I had sold some investments, and I wanted to do something with them. Instead of buying property, I decided to take over because I was hearing what the community at large wanted to see in the space. 

During Corona, I was able to pivot and put an access point here. So generally, it’s an ink and toner place, and then, of course, it keeps building because it’s a one-stop shop for many things. You want a house. Do you want a car? You know, you just came here, kind of thing.

So, it’s a one-stop shop. And I love supporting community events, and so on. So, I’m just very passionate about helping people and making sure that they don’t get ripped off and that they’re getting the best bang for their buck. 

OK, that’s awesome. And one of the questions I did want to ask you is about the period from August to March. If you could tell the audience a little bit more about the foundations of the Aries Samaj, what it does, and its spiritual application, 

Yes, of course. That’s like a whole interview in itself. But as I can explain it to people worldwide, it is a non-denominational spiritual group that says, do unto others as you want to be done to you. There is no segregation. Men and women are equal. Even women can be priests, and so on. I will be writing something in English so everybody can enjoy the basics of Arya Samaj and the how-to ones. That’s the prayer that we say on fire. In a book in English as well as in Hindi, and yeah, there’s so much more I can tell you about the history, etcetera. But it would be too long for me to do that right now. But the basics are yoga, spirituality, life, and giving. 

Yeah. I think one of the major things that would destroy America is, like, yeah, it’s about finance as a business, but it’s also about the practical application of spirituality into business. I feel like you. You have the West, and you have the East, and the West is all about, like, finance and business. The East went too much in the spiritual direction, and sometimes needed balance and all of that. And so yeah. No, I agree with that. Can you tell the audience a little bit more about how they can connect with you and also get to know more about incredible solutions? And what are you doing, and how can the audience connect? 

Yes. So, I can be connected by telephone number. I like picking up the phone and talking to people, or the link to inkrediblebusinesssolutions@gmail.com. And remember, Inkredibles, that with the INK, our phone number here is 6O4-215-9988. E-mail is the best way to contact me. 

Cindy, thank you so much for taking the time to do this podcast. You have a lot of perseverance and determination. You came to the Americas as an immigrant, and like you, I am an inspiration to the world. And I am honored, and I was honored to have you on the show. And I would want to have you back at a later time. 

Absolutely anything for your cosmos You’re a wonderful man and keep up the goodness.

Thank you. And I want to conclude this show by telling my fellow extraordinary Americans, that there is something extraordinary within every one of us, and we must awaken it and unleash it until next time. Bye for now.