Sanja Milosavljevic: Good people of the world, my name is Sanja Milosavljevic and I’m going to be your host today. You’re watching and listening to Mondopreneur podcast and the whole project is supported by the US embassy in Belgrade. The main idea of this podcast is to share stories of successful ladies in business, but not just in business but ladies who work at universities or NGO sectors. Just the main aim is to share their stories and how they’re dealing with this COVID situation and how this transformed their everyday lives and their businesses. My guest today comes from Bali. Her name is Monica Mohindra. First of all, thank you Monica for accepting my invitation to participate in this project.  

Monica Mohindra: Thank you.

Sanja Milosavljevic: So, can you tell us something about yourself? What is your educational background, is it connected somehow to your present work and your present job, what are you doing now and what are your future plans?

Monica Mohindra: Hi, everyone I’m Monica and I live in Bali. I’ve been here for over two decades. I started my career in the fashion industry, that’s what my qualifications are in regards to education and I’ve worked in the fashion industry for over 15 years and then we decided we wanted to do something by ourselves – my husband and I. And we thought why not Bali – Bali is beautiful, it’s Asia, it’s green, it’s got a great lifestyle – we just wanted to get away from the corporate world. So ten years back, which is at forty, we just took a decision. We said okay, done. We’re moving. And we moved to Bali. And when we moved to Bali we said okay, what are we going to do here? We decided. We picked out land and decided to start doing things we’d enjoy and we’d be passionate about. We built a holiday home. It’s called Pandawa. Now it is a hotel. So the journey started from the fashion industry, into the tourism industry – quite unrelated if you look at the words fashion and tourism. However, backbone of every business is the same. You have to brand it, to look after it, you’ve got to make it crawl, walk, grow and branch it out. So as I went through building our home which is now a hotel, I started understanding I got into a completely advanced industry, having absolutely no idea what tourism and hospitality involved. And it’s been hard work, a journey as I call it, it’s been challenging, it’s been fulfilling to sit today where I am sitting now. It is not easy to be accepted when you switch your industry, you know? Because you’ve already reached a certain mark – I was looking after three countries, I was looking after multiple brands across Southeast Asia. Licensing them, retailing them, branding, marketing, I was basically heading the businesses. And suddenly – you reach the pinnacle and suddenly you’re starting from zero. So you’ve got to be very confident in yourself and I think if you are confident you can make things work, whatever be the hard work and the challenges required, you do achieve success in small steps. So I set out goals and today we’ve got a hotel. We’ve also got a tourism site called www.thinkbali.com. We do a lot of work with the villages, we help empower women and the elderly. We work with the coconut plantations. We have a brand called Coconut Cupboard where we make 100% virgin coconut oil and various products. We recycle all parts of the plant to be used in home products or interior products. Then the hotel we built is also now an additional eco living space. It’s networking spaces we have built and we have done everything which is environment friendly. So I started learning about construction, about interior – because once you have a certain concept in mind I think having the fashion training it’s easier for me to develop. And we also do villa management and also other villas which we showcase under pink valley holiday. Then my husband started Ray White which is about real estate and property – he’s an ex city banker. So we started absolutely fresh into fields and businesses which we did not know about, which we learned. And we’re very happy where we are at this point of our life.

Sanja Milosavljevic: That’s perfect. You’ve shared so many things now that I’m not sure where to start with my sub-questions. So, can we just go one step back.

Monica Mohindra: Sure

Sanja Milosavljevic: You said that at one point you decided to just leave the corporate world, and you said that you need – I don’t know, you have to be confident, you have to learn some new things, but what’s that one thing that was the point when you decided that this is enough, I just want to do something…         

Monica Mohindra: Sorry, yeah. It depends on everybody’s needs. As a family we decided we’ve had enough. You’ve got to draw a line in life. Okay? So we’ve reached a certain level in both our careers. We were doing extremely well in what’s called corporate life, but that- we felt with me traveling constantly, with my husband traveling constantly…we had a little daughter at that time. She was 15 months old, our first child and what was it that I wanted? What was that which we wanted? I definitely wanted to spend more time with my child. I definitely did not want to lose my identity. I definitely wanted my family to be happy and flourish and remain healthy. And we felt that we had enough to do that. Did we- how much of savings do you want, how much do you want you have to define. We defined that it was enough for us. So what should we do next? We want to have a better lifestyle. We did not want the city life. We wanted more of a suburban life. Bali is beautiful. It offered us the experience of modern life. You’ve got all the modern amenities. It’s an amazing lifestyle where children grew – they learned what was the importance of earth and water. They learned to respect food. Where could we use our knowledge about recycling, being environment-friendly, what is it that we could do? And so Bali became the obvious choice. And we said let’s take the plunge, we’ll see what happens next. So all our friends thought we were very bohemian – and this is true, we were. Nobody leaves high paying jobs or corporate lifestyles with just a decision, a snap decision we took. And we just said yes and whatever will happen, will happen – que sera, sera. And we said- we brought our intelligence, we brought our great academy qualifications. Okay, so we might burn out our savings for a year, we might burn it out for two years, but I think we both have confidence in ourselves and we thought we can do something and that’s how it has been.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Perfect. Can you share with us what is actually necessary when you start- not just something completely different from your previous career, but when you start a business. So, is it to set goals, is it to make a marketing plan, is it to start just branding your product or service, what are the steps? What do we have to do, if I want to change my current job, what would be the steps?.

Monica Mohindra: Okay, so different people there are lots of marketing gurus that give you different theories, but for me – when I- we got over 8-10 different businesses. Some overlap and some don’t. I started with more of a gut feel. So my first was the gut feel related to what I could see and hear. So for example, let’s look at cooking oil. We’ve been using- it’s a very example, how I went into the coconut business for example. Now we do a lot of cooking. There’s so much information about palm oil, refined oil, sunflower oil, canola oil, it’s mind-boggling. I know that in India we do use mustard oil and coconut oil in our cooking and there are certain benefits to it. But do you think I ever used it in my day to day life? Never. I was always busy ordering food in flights or at airports or at various restaurants and meetings that I even think about what I’m eating. I’d order food that’s gastronomically excellent or palatable or food that I even think about? No. Because my entire thought process at that time would be I’ve got to finish this meeting, I’ve got a target, a meeting of few people, I’ve got one hour. So let’s eat, grab a meal and let’s finish the meeting, right? When I was in- when we started out in Bali a friend of ours started talking to us about what’s happening. There’s a lot of peak land because of palm oil production and it can’t be used and how it’s impacting the farmers, it was just something I heard and I thought about it over some time. It was a constant conversation I kept on hearing from people who were more aware than me at that time on the subject of what will happen to the Earth? What if we continue to grow palm oil, you know? The land gets spoiled and it takes a few years before it can come back. Some of the land in Indonesia could not even be brought back to other cultivations. It’s a farmer-dependent land. So those are the kind of questions we started asking. Then the question came okay, so what could we do this for many coconuts? We all enjoy drinking coconut water. It’s healthy, we all know about it, we love to eat coconuts also. In India we use it in prayers and various other aspects. So the first point was the gut feeling once you hear and you understand something. Then the third is your own awareness. Is this something that you could do? The thought is to put down some points for yourself. I love to do that. I love to write down for myself, I love to study, I love to research what’s happening and then how- so I was already helping various villages in their hand-craft or handiwork production. I already started that work a couple of years back. And so then I thought about – I never thought about what we could do with the coconut plant. And then this friend told me you know what, there is this opportunity – there are two villages. Why don’t we go and why don’t we take a look. So we went and took a look at what we could do. They make coconut oil very home-style. Can we do anything? So then we found out that the Solomon island has very good technology in extracting virgin coconut oil. Okay fine. So where is the money going to come from? The next point comes in this whole scenario when you’re looking at it – who’s going to do the funding? And then how are you going to work products, what will you make out of it? Whether those are sellable. Whether there are any competitors in the current market? Will you scale your business or would you just limit your business to the Bali market? And then the next aspect of it is once you’ve done the “who will be the investor, how will the divide be in terms of work and thought and the strategy implemented”? In this case there were two of us. My friend started working with me from New Zealand. And he started working with the New Zealand coconut knowledge center to understand more about that. The ambassador to New Zealand supported him. So they had various discussions. Then he came back to me and said – okay, what is your strength? Where can you join? We had by that time already we decided we would put in the money and we would buy the machines. So these were brought in. Training was done to the women. We wanted to make it- we realized that in Bali it was very difficult for women who are pregnant or the elderly to get jobs and then they had to be at home for the kids. It’s very different here. It’s- a lot of the things are controlled by the Banjars and then there are local cooperatives. So while trying to understand all that, how could we give back? I already had a very good experience with the people when we had launched Pandawas which is the name of our hotel – Pandawas Ubud. And I really wanted to do something where I could contribute more. So with these points in mind, without truly realizing the potential of what we were doing, we got into it because the investments were not very big. However the return in terms of making two villages economically independent was probably the highest gratification to me, so we went into that. So we make the coconut oil and I started learning and researching. Everything is about studying. Studies never end. You have to study, you have to understand what a product is and there’s so much information available. How I could choose the plants. Today, we use the byproducts from the plants to make candles, handcrafted items, from the roots we make bags, from the leaves we make bags, we are utilizing every- from the shell, the husk, the hair we make floor mats. So we started cropping up smaller and smaller industries that could help. It’s not a big business, but it’s a happy business. And the employed people, we train them. So when you look at various points when starting business, this was more to do with the heart than to do with the mind. This was more to do with wanting to do something, than what I would get in return. So that’s one way of looking at a business. Another way is where I went all commercial. Where I first placed the hotel which we built which was- started selling the rooms. There, I was all commercial, because there I had to look at how I would survive as a family with the earnings we got. It was more commercialized in terms of bringing in a hierarchy of people who are more experienced. In terms of setting standards and understanding that these are hospitality standards that have to be met. In terms of deeper market research on who other competitors are, what are they doing, what are the big-wigs doing, where do I fall in? And then suddenly to sit on your floor and realize you are nowhere. You know? Yeah. It’s- so, you know and then you stand up again and go out again and meet the agents. Because the agents will say “you know Monica, you’ve got a great property, you’ve got great aesthetics, it’s all environment friendly and you’ve done so much hard work and you’ve spent huge packets of money bringing forth a product which is so beautiful. I would get over 1000 compliments, but I would get no booking. I would not get any business, because the agents like to work with people who’ve got a huge inventory. I started out with only an inventory of 4-6 rooms. And I didn’t realize that in the hospitality industry you are nobody when you start out fresh. And on top of that I wasn’t a young lady who could, you know, go out for dinners – I had a commitment to my family to come back home. So, yeah a lot of things developed into points to make a business successful as you put your foot step ahead. Once you’ve decided that this is what you want to do, then you might sometimes slip here and there, but you go forward. You’ve decided and you try to learn how to go ahead. That’s when in 2015 my friend launched an online marketing business  and I started learning what a travel manager is. That was also a big turning point. That’s because there was not booking.com they were all small companies at that time. And that’s how it started zooming upwards, because I had the inventory in my hand. I was not dependent on agents who would come and give me compliments or people who would come and do three nights and would not give me much business. And from there we have now developed into 20 more rooms. We’ve got culinary spaces, we’ve got more villas, we’ve got about 18-20 other villas, so yeah. That’s all. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: Perfect, perfect. Can you just tell me something about- you said that you opened kind of a hub, or a coworking space? How that happened? I know that those digital nomads, or I don’t know how they call them. 

Monica Mohindra: Yes, digital nomads.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Yes, it’s a very popular these days. So, who are the guests of your coworking space? Who is using your coworking space and how did that idea cross your mind? 

Monica Mohindra: So from 2015-2018 we saw a huge rise in the popularity of Pandawas. We started getting a lot of guests, every year we have many repeat guests. And whatever we were doing on the ground obviously appeals. And hence people started booking and coming back to us again. In the last couple of years we have seen in Bali a huge- and not only in Bali but all over the world, so-called influencers. Facebook has become very popular. Instagram has become very popular and then you have all these influencers. They’re all young kids, you know? The age group is between I see from 18 years from 30-32 years and they’re always on the roam around Bali it’s flourishing with all of them. Then I also started understanding during my- you know, I’m meeting up with people because I’ve got many restaurants also. And in my restaurants I started meeting up with a lot of people and when you sit down and discuss and you start realizing that what are they doing. And then the words digital nomad came about. Where these people are either graduates or just finished high school and they want to go do a year of surfing or just want to go around and at the same time they want to earn or get freebies and in order to get the freebies they’d offer various digital platforms for you to spread your dream, you know, your businesses or your dreams and connect to other people. Which I feel that having spent the last decade in building seven brands or seven businesses, which go from hospitality in terms of hotels, villas, management, weddings and events also which we do and restaurants and the retail concepts and I still have a little bit of hand in fashion also. It was something I have not learned academically or maybe I’m not that young in body to travel, is was these ‘digital nomads’. Because I’m rooted. I’m not mobile as the digital nomads are. And do I want to be there? No, I do not want to be there. So this means there is a huge market for something like this and what are they looking at? I started trying to understand what they are looking at. They wanted rooms that are budget-friendly. They also wanted to have definitely beautiful green and pools access, they also wanted to have city life access because these are kids on the move. And then they are growing their own businesses and everything has boomed in the last few years, in terms of digital booms, in terms of your businesses online etc. and a lot of these kids are part of those businesses. Which was something I had not grown up with, which was also not something I had been trained in. But yes, whatever I have learned or acquired has happened on the job. You can’t do everything by yourself. You have to have teams. While we employ many people, whether experts or locals, there are certain skills which you have to work together or collaborate with people. When this collaboration started and I started understanding what these young kids are doing, they’re very smart kids. But obviously there is- we’re talking about a 10-15 years age gap with me. Why have I never looked there- not with typical hoteliers. Now there is already a glut in Bali with so many hotels. The old style of hotels, yeah? The Astons, or the Western, those are the bigger hotels. Or you have the airport hotels. There’s already a lot of it. So if I want to invest and grow my business, this is the target now. Because these people are okay with not doing a job sitting in an office. These people are okay with being on the move. So why can’t I look at expanding my business and targeting this consumer profile and see what their needs are? I can do still the same thing which I enjoy. I enjoy working with leaves and roots and recycled wood and all creating and all that I can do, and I can still use these kids to share the work we do here and on the ground maybe more effectively than we would’ve otherwise done. And at the same time have a home for them in Bali. And so that’s how…that’s the commercial angle.

Sanja Milosavljevic: That’s the win-win. That’s the win-win situation, perfect.

Monica Mohindra: That’s the commercial angle.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Yeah .So, can you tell us something about women entrepreneurs in Bali? Or as you said, you’re helping elderly ladies, or young mothers or you’re helping some groups of women through your business. But what is the state of women entrepreneurs in Bali? Are there a lot of them and what industries they use to run their businesses in? 

Monica Mohindra: Surprisingly, I would say Bali has a huge number of women entrepreneurs. Domestic women entrepreneurs and international women entrepreneurs. In a city life in my corporate life, I would come across a lot of people like myself who would be working. We would be employed either in big corporates or big brands or you know multinational companies and I would find senior- a lot of women in senior positions. I would meet a few women who were entrepreneurs, but they would be entrepreneurs through their family businesses which are like what I was – a fashion brand. Or some women would’ve started out and have gained success. In Bali the women entrepreneurship is in a different play altogether. I call it domestic women entrepreneurship. They do the laundry business. They work mainly for the hospitality industry. They can start small warungs, which are small road-side cafes which have Balenese food. They have a spa business where they can do rooted spas, or they could do mobile spas because of the amount of events and parties and pubs and the requirements from the hotels. There are a lot of women who are self-employed now. There are also women who are employed, but in the evening shifts or depending on the shifts they have, they run mobile businesses. Which could be farming, which could also be selling roadside vegetables and fruits. It’s all very organic and healthy here. So not necessarily need to buy from the supermarket, so there are lots of opportunities. And these women have actually come forth and they are using these opportunities amazingly, so I salute the ladies here. On the other hand, I also meet a lot of women who are expanse like myself. Who have come from other countries and made Bali their home. They work here, they do manufacturing here, so there’s a lot of fashion here and they’ve got their labels and they may be selling in South Africa or Australia or the US. There’s also women entrepreneurs whom I’ve met because they’re aesthetically tasteful so they have handicraft businesses. They use wood or cane or bamboo to make furniture. There are women who are in handicraft businesses where they use beads or they’re using other aspects of hand-craft items for carving because Bali is so rich in culture. It’s got amazing- I mean, you can go mad, it’s so beautiful, it’s so much- you talk about the wood, you talk about the stone, you talk about any tree and what they can do with it – carving or paintings. It’s like- it’s a culmination point. It attracts beauty, it attracts intelligence. And hence sprout out various kinds of women entrepreneurs. Some would succeed, some will give it a try for a couple of years, go back, but we’re talking about the ownership of entrepreneurship. So I’ve met amazing, amazing ladies. So when we talk about making a group of women entrepreneurs, I would say I don’t make them entrepreneurs as much as I give them economic independence. So we’ve got a community, we set up a community, we give them various roles, we train them and then we hand it over to them. And that’s how…it’s the same thing we do in our restaurants and I’m sure that they can use those skills elsewhere. Some people who do leave us, who have been training with us, it’s because they can move to other jobs or they can try their hands at their own businesses. I always tell my team “if any of you do leave us and you try your hands at your own business, be sure to invite me because you’d make me very proud”.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Oh, that’s very nice to hear. So, what is your opinion about sharing knowledge. About transferring your knowledge or your experience to others? Not just the women but everyone who wants to listen?

Monica Mohindra: I love to share. I love to learn and I love to share. You know, there was a question you sent to me “What does tourism mean to you?” And I thought about it and I said – tourism, it’s connecting cultures, connecting people across borders. And that’s what sharing is about. You share, you connect. It doesn’t matter. You learn and you give back. It’s beautiful. So yeah, I share my- the learnings that I’ve had with a lot of my friends and I share it with my team because it’s very important, because it’s very important that your team understands the concepts and the strategies. Only then they would be a happy team. For me, one of the very prerequisites is that my team needs to be happy. Because when they’re happy, they’re self-motivated. I don’t need to do much. And they are happy when there’s respect and they are self-motivated. So we’ve got different- yeah sorry?

Sanja Milosavljevic: Sorry, sorry, continue.

Monica Mohindra: So we’ve got different schemes to impart knowledge to them, make sure they stay happy. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: That’s nice. So, what type of leader are you?

Monica Mohindra: I…

Sanja Milosavljevic: Or, how hard is it to manage different teams. Because you have different businesses, so…      

Monica Mohindra: I have always been very good at multitasking. I’ve never had a problem. I’m right now juggling as I said about eight businesses with different teams, different requirements, different skillsets, different people. And I can do that. Not everybody can do that, but you have to know what your skillset is. And we have around 300-350 people and I can very proudly say that most of my team, if I opened my business around 10-12 years back, my team is still around. If I opened my business 6 years back, my team is still around. If I opened a business 4 years back, my team is still around. So I’m sure I’m doing a good job in making them stay happy and motivated. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: Yes, they are happy probably. So what changed in this- well, it’s almost a year now.

Monica Mohindra: Yes!

Sanja Milosavljevic: Yes, who would’ve thought it’s already been a year since the pandemic started. What has changed? How your business or your businesses- sorry, transformed? And what are basically new values? Have you- do you have any new values now? Have you created new values?

Monica Mohindra: Bali is very dependent on tourism.

Sanja Milosavljevic: I know.

Monica Mohindra: So for all our businesses it’s been zero or negative- I mean, it’s zero income, but it’s negative cash-flow because we still have a huge responsibility towards the families that work for us. We have not been able to pay everyone entirely 100% so there have been huge setbacks so right now we are in what you’d call survival mode. The learning that has happened is that no one has ever understood or experienced what is survival mode – at least in my generation. Today, we all know what is survival mode. So what we’ve done is – a couple of businesses that are still in play and are still operational, we as investors, or we as partners of the business or as management head of the business have decided that we would not take any income. We have not taken any income or earnings or cashed in on any earnings or etc. since March last year. What we’ve done is – let’s say a business makes for example let’s say 10000 dollars a month, for example. That’s the current trend, right? It could’ve done maybe 100.000 pre-covid. So let’s say today it’s down to only 10% and we’re only doing 10000. We pay off rentals, we pay off electricity, WiFi, basic costs, you know suppliers and whatever money is left is divided among the staff we’re working. That’s what we’ve been doing now for a year. So I think what has also happened during this is not only have people learned survival, but people are also learning to take care of each other. A lot of the time pre-covid, I would find people were very miopic. I see a lot of change in the attitude of people. They are not as miopic as they were before. They were very self-centered. I see that changed. And that has not only happened in the customers and the people I am meeting but also in my own team. We all have different habits, we all have different moods. And we all come from different experiences day to day. So the reactions on how we react to the fellow colleagues and to the business also varies. I see a stability in that. They are more patient. They are more forgiving. You know, amongst themselves. If somebody has an issue, I see more team members coming to help and support. Which as I said previously would’ve been a lot of- people would’ve been callous and self-centered and miopic and that has changed nowadays I see. So that has been a happy change, but yes people are suffering, there’s no doubt about it. They are not able to manage their livelihood as they could previously. So yes, that suffering is definitely there, the economic suffering is huge. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: How was it for you? Like you said, Bali lives from tourism, from the hospitality business. But not just closing the hotel, it’s everyone in the chain that is connected to the hotel suffered. So, how was it for you and how did you- well, you said that you haven’t paid off the earnings for yourself, but have you found any- a new way to promote your business or to keep your business alive? Or have you found something that you are going to implement in the next year or in the next few years? Something that forced you to change? Because this situation forced all of us to change.

Monica Mohindra: Yes. Being in Bali and being dependent entirely on tourism, there’s not a big much I can do at this point of time.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Sorry, I’m laughing but it’s not funny. It’s true, what you said is basically true.

Monica Mohindra: Yeah, I mean- So it’s basically survival mode at this point, however the thing that we might do once thing open up, once things get better is that this last year, personally for myself and some of my key members, I’ve forced them to do online learning. I’ve forced them to do language lessons. I test them sometimes and I don’t get very positive results. But, I started- I’ve done- I’ve learned French, but I wanted to brush that up. So we started focusing on language. Learning Spanish now. It’s important to keep the mind healthy, so language skills, walking – encouraging walk more, more and more and share your walking goals daily. Encouraging- it’s not commercial, yeah, I’m talking about spiritual here. Because I think that the spiritual of today will help my commercial of tomorrow. Yoga. Okay? There are certain yoga apps, so I downloaded those. 15 minutes of yoga every day, doesn’t matter where you are. And then online- you know, you’ve got this udemi – you can do courses there and sharing of courses and learning to the teams. So I leave my home everyday at 8 o’clock, I come back home by 3 o’clock. I go from one business to the other and all that we are doing right now is imparting skills. Teaching. Grow yourself. Develop yourself. So commercially no – commercially there is not much that can be done. And commercially is I think that we’re able to help all the people we employ to as we say have a roof over their heads, have good food, wear clothes. We’re in that mode in Bali at this point. And if that can be done for everybody, I think we will do a great job with the new skills we are acquiring once things open up. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: So, what do you think – when is this going to end? When is Bali going to open again? What do you predict?

Monica Mohindra: If you give me the rights, I’d open it tomorrow morning.

Sanja Milosavljevic: What is your gut feeling telling you? When is this really going to end? The fear of connecting to other people and going to crowded rooms and restaurants. You know? Okay we can take the vaccine and stop the pandemic, but when are we going to free our inner selves, but when are we going to free our inner selves? When are we going to return to the state of mind from 2019. To freely go?

Monica Mohindra: That depends on the masses, because when I look at the fear and paranoia that is overcoming people’s minds…unless we let go of that fear, we can’t move forward. It’s the same thing, yeah? It’s a baby taking the first step crawling. Everybody has to take that first step to say that if I lead a healthy lifestyle, nobody is talking about that. You lead a healthy lifestyle, you eat well, stop your junk food, stop your soda. You walk or you exercise, you breathe – it may be cold so you can’t go out, but you can still do exercises inside and you use the time that you have to acquire new skills .Keep your mind positive and healthy. I don’t think- I mean, I don’t have a doubt that we can’t move forward and still reconnect, but until that is not done, I don’t think anybody- the media today should be open to debating. Somehow debating has gone out of the picture, which makes me very sad. So if there is a yes and there is a no in this world, why’s only the ‘no’ being imposed. Why is there no room for me to speak about yes? I’m not asking- you know, I’m not dictating or I’m not commanding, all I’m saying is I should be given the opportunity to say yes in the way that I feel is my civil right. However I feel that a lot of people who are coming forth and saying yes or no depending on topic are not being allowed their freedom of speech. So the number one step is the freedom of speech is allowed. I think a lot of people would be able to speak forth. Second, given the correct requirements medically, scientifically, all that which I don’t know – maybe in the next 10 years I would’ve researched and I would’ve acquired some skills or some knowledge – but today, I guess having come from- you know, I believe in a healthy lifestyle more than I believe in anything else. There’s dengue, there’s malaria, we’ve fought all of that so why not this influenza? You know, there was polio, there’s so many things that have got eradicated and never has the world shut down. So the key question is who is shutting the world down and why and what’s the agenda. So for me, if from my side of the simple business entrepreneur there is no agenda – for me the world needs to be open because it needs to feel happy. So the baselines are different. So I don’t know when my baselines are going to meet the more bigger baselines and then Bali will open.

Sanja Milosavljevic: I hope it’s going to happen soon. Very soon. Yeah. So we actually came to the end of our conversation. I usually like to ask my guests to just share a message to the listeners. Something that is- everything is personal of course, everything we spoke about is personal, but something that is some kind of short intimate message to the world.

Monica Mohindra: I don’t know about to the world-

Sanja Milosavljevic: Or, to me.

Monica Mohindra: So, it’s raining, okay? It’s raining very heavily, yeah? And as a person who’s holding an umbrella, okay? You protect from the rain, right? You protect yourself from the negative energy and all that is not good because you’ve got this umbrella. That umbrella- it’s just a  symbol. And this person who’s holding the hand also in one hand is the umbrella and in the other hand holding the hand of a child. Which means things that you adore that you love that are dear to you so that you want to protect the child, so the child has to come under your umbrella. The child also has a small, little umbrella that the child is holding because that’s how you go about on a normal day-to-day, it’s a natural picture. But here we have a child – there’s a dog following and the child is actually trying to protect the dog and the child is getting wet. So you see, learning or education is not about qualifications. Learning and education is how you use them in your day to day behavior. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: Thank you, Monica. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for staying late hours to have this conversation because it’s 7 hours difference in time zones between Serbia and Bali. So thank you for sharing your experience and your time and sharing your wise words with the world. So dear people, you were listening to Monica from Bali. If you like you can always follow us on YouTube and you can find us on Facebook and Instagram and please be good, stay in good health.