~Supriya Srivastav

Bangalore, India

My journey started when I was working at Amazon India as their Social Media Community Manager, and while I was working there I managed to understand the importance of bringing ‘processes and learned how they can be executed, which reduces the chances of errors. This contributed to helping me get the confidence to do something of my own. The other side of it though is that I wasn’t fully enjoying the environment/culture and found it wasn’t very creative as compared to what I needed. To put it into perspective, I was previously working for Myntra.com, an Indian Fashion E-commerce company where I would work on several social media campaigns in a month. However, at Amazon India, I was working on one campaign for say 6 months which wasn’t very satisfactory for my pace.

As of now, I am focused on two things in my life.

I am the Founder of a social media marketing consulting called ‘Purple Filter’, which I started in 2017, and ‘HoopWithSupriya’ which is a growing community of people who are learning the fitness and joyful aspects of Hula Hooping. I train kids and adults in India.

I have over 10 years of experience in social media and the following have been the highlights of my career so far…

#1. Received an award from Franchisee India for the Best Use of Social Media & Communication Strategy- 2013).

#2. The year 2018- Awarded as the Top 50 Social Media Agency Professionals in India by Social Samosa.

#3. Was also nominated for ’40 under 40’ women achievers in 2018 via Social Samosa.

You can check the details on my Linkedin page here!

This year alone, I received a very good response from the people for my hooping skills including FIFA who reposted my Hula Hoop and Football trickshot video on their Instagram page. A lot of Indian publications have come forward this year to support my hooping journey like, The Hindu and The Indian Express who found my life story inspiring enough to share with people who might have faced depression, failures, self-limiting beliefs and also how Hula Hoop is bringing ‘hope’ to the world of healing and fitness.

What challenges have you faced?

As an entrepreneur, I’ve had the biggest challenge of learning everything on the job because there were no studies on how to use ‘social media’ platforms for brands. From taking the decision of leaving a well-cushioned job to starting my own consultancy ‘Purple FIlter’(started April 2017) it’s been a maddening ride. From handling the financial aspects of the business as well as keeping yourself calm during your ‘not-so-good’ phases of growth in career, trying to stay ‘self-motivated’ and the most difficult one that I still struggle to keep up with is to like your ‘boss’ (which is nobody else but you).

Although as a hula hooper, I started my journey in 2015, and there aren’t many Indian hoopers here from whom you could learn from so I watched countless youtube videos of different hoopers around the world to teach myself this skill to a level that I now feel comfortable to teach others. Needless to say, my learning of this skill came without any safety instruction booklet so I had to go through a lot of beating by my hoops to understand how ‘personal safety’ should be practiced, how hooping is all about technique and practice and so much more which cannot be described in details here. You might want to visit my Instagram and read long posts that I post very often.

My hoop journey started back In 2015 when I was in Goa, there was another lady who was being very condescending towards Indian women and I got ticked as she was saying how Indian girls were boring, for instance, they don’t dance freely or hoop, so I just picked up the hoop that was lying there and started hooping. Honestly, I had never seen a hoop in my life! I saw the hoop lying there and said I could do it because I was tired of what she was saying. To my surprise, I did it and so when I went home, I ordered a hoop and thought let’s get it started!

What have been your best resources?

My best resources for Hula Hooping have been- Youtube — ‘Deanne Love’ is my favourite hooper/teacher because she knows how to break down the steps really well for beginners. I regularly follow other hoopers around the world on Instagram as well but to be honest, my best resources are ‘Observation’, ‘Awareness’ & ‘Practise’.

What advice do you have?

My advice to other youngsters would be…

1.)To not compare your ‘uniqueness’ and ‘journey’ with others. To immerse in wholesome experiences of ourselves. Understand that life is about enjoying this journey.

2.) Just don’t stop ‘creating’ and by creating I mean anything- room for your own thoughts(positive or negative), possibilities, opportunities, love for yourself first, and understanding that we are all ‘one’.

3.) Live in the present because that is the only transitory phase of our life. Past cannot be re-lived but visited and future is something that hasn’t really happened, it’s our imagination of what we want, isn’t it? Understanding this can help you bring a lot of peace and acceptance of this ‘life’ while you are here on earth. Accept others in your journey and surrender to the natural rhythm of the universe.

So if you ask me about the plans for the future, as I said, I do like to keep my plans more transitory so it’s focused on the present. As of now, I am working towards a project that’s very close to my heart, not to divulge too many details at this point because it will be the voice of what I have experienced so far in my #hoopjourney and otherwise. I am writing it as we speak and looking forward to its release in January 2020.