A Voice of Nurses, Sachin Chauhan

This week my guest is Sachin Chauhan, the founder and CEO of An Extra M. This India-based organization has provided education and training to over 50,000 nurses and nursing students worldwide, focusing on the essential soft skills needed for effective interpersonal relationships with both patients and colleagues.
You may wonder, what are soft skills? Soft skills include critical thinking, time management, teamwork, leadership and emotional intelligence, among others. While these skills are beneficial in all professions, they are particularly crucial for nurses. Our work often involves interacting with individuals who may be experiencing some of the most challenging moments of their lives.
And nurses don't work in silos. They are vital members of a multidisciplinary team. Therefore, your team's success depends on soft skills.
I am truly inspired by Sachin's story about the birth of An Extra M, and I know once you hear it, you will be too.
In the five minute snippet: Dance party in Sachin's kitchen! For Sachin's bio, visit my website (link below).

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Transcript

Michelle: This week my guest is Sachin Chauhan, the founder and CEO of An Extra M.

This India based organization has provided education and training to over 50,000 nurses and nursing students worldwide, focusing on the essential soft skills needed for effective interpersonal relationships with both patients and colleagues.

You may wonder, what are soft skills?

Soft skills include critical thinking, time management, teamwork, leadership and emotional intelligence, among others. While these skills are beneficial in all professions, they are particularly crucial for nurses. Our work often involves interacting with individuals who may be experiencing some of the most challenging moments of their lives.

And nurses don't work in silos. They are vital members of a multidisciplinary team. Therefore, your team's success depends on soft skills.

I am truly inspired by Sachin's story about the birth of An Extra M. And I know once you hear it, you will be too.

In the five-minute snippet: Dance party in Sachin's kitchen!

Well, good morning Sachin. Welcome to the podcast.

Sachin: Thank you.

Michelle: Thank you so much for being here.

And I should say it's morning for me, but it's evening for you because we are halfway around the world from each other. I am in California and you are in Bengaluru, India.

Yeah, we met on LinkedIn, which is a wonderful platform for connecting professionals.

And I think you reached out to me and and said that you loved my podcast, which I absolutely love that you are listening and wanted to have a conversation about what you do there at An Extra M because you are pivotal in teaching nurses, nursing students and other disciplines about the soft skills that we need to be successful in our roles.

So I'm excited for this conversation.

So let's just get into it. Sachin, tell me a little bit about yourself and then how you founded An Extra M.

Sachin: Okay, first of all, thank you so much Michelle and it's lovely to be here and as we are in the middle of conversation for the last few months and it's great to start it today.

Honestly speaking, if I talk about myself why and how I came into this particular domain in healthcare professionals and to training these nursing professionals especially, well, it's a very short and lovely story.

I come from defense background when I was studying in school and I dreamed of getting into defense forces and I selected for Indian Air Force but due to some medical issues I had to come outside and then I was completely blank what to do and what not to do.

Then I started thinking what exactly I can do.

And then one thought came to my mind that I can be helpful for the other people.

And then I started teaching the defense people only at the time. And by the time I started teaching and training the people in different domains, be it pharmaceutical, be it in healthcare.

I did it for two to three years. And then Covid happened in 2020 and it was a time where actually again I was thinking of starting something to create a bigger impact in society.

And then a child was born called An Extra M. And that's what actually now we are doing. So under the umbrella of An Extra M, we do help nursing students across the globe and staff nurses across the globe.

And till now we have trained more than 50,000 nursing students and staff nurses in India and Nigeria and the UK. So that's what actually we are doing.

Michelle: That's an amazing story, Sachin. And I want to delve a little bit more into your very brief Air Force career in a little bit. But I'm really interested in An Extra M.

So tell me about what your organization does.

Sachin: Well, An Extra M, the Voice of Nurses, is not the only training and development organization.

Well, we are the voice of nurses. We do raise a lot of questions to the governments, to the organizations, to the hospitals as well.

Whenever any nursing student or any staff nurse is facing any kind of difficulties or any kind of like coerciveness and somebody is teasing them, that person can actually contact us and we are here to support them in any way.

So that is one thing that we are doing. Apart from that, we are actually helping the students, those who come from rural areas, they are not able to pay for the training part.

They do not feel confident enough when they go for an interview. We actually train them after getting the training, they actually feel confident. So they get the job easily in the hospitals.

So as I said, that is not only a training company, but we are the Voice of Nurses. And slowly and gradually we are becoming global platform because recently we started one more program called Nurse of the Week, or I would say Nurse Leader of the Week that we will discuss later on.

Michelle: Yes, I absolutely love that. I love your blog and we'll talk about that because recognizing those nurse leaders is so important.

So, I'm excited to talk about that too. Well, one of the things you do there at An Extra M is you teach soft skills and first of all talk about what the soft skills are and then why are they important for nurses to learn.

Sachin: When we talk about soft skills and communication. So I summarize it only in soft skills. When somebody is actually interacting with us, and especially in healthcare. For example, you are a nurse and you are working in the hospital and you will encounter different kind of people, those who come from different backgrounds, they are really upset because from their family members, somebody is ill and who is admitted in the hospital that time, they do not actually understand how to talk with the nurses, how to talk with the doctors.

But we as a nurse can make them feel comfortable, can we can make them feel better by communicating with them really well. Like how we are helping your patient so that that person would get the surety that we are on the right place, we are with the right people, those people who can really, actually who really care about our patient.

So these are the things which actually come in the soft skills. Apart from that, we always call it ipr, Interpersonal Relation with the patient. When we talk to the patient that time, as I already said, that patient is not feeling comfortable, he is ill.

That's why he's in the hospital at that time. How do we communicate with that person? It's not all about medicine. It's not all about how that person is taking lot of pills.

Sometimes it's all about how you are talking to that person. As I always believe, sometimes medicines do not work. But your healing, your sympathy and empathy works a lot with that person.

How do you communicate with that person? How do you understand that person's situation and the mindset? This is all about soft skills. It works inside the hospital, outside the hospital as well.

Michelle: Yes. And I think those skills are absolutely essential for nurses and really for everyone in general to have. Wouldn't it be an amazing world to live in if we all had honed our soft skills to the point where communication was so effective and we were showing empathy towards our fellow humans, it would just be an amazing world.

And I love how you've broken it down and you've really focused on the nursing profession because especially when we are coming in contact with people who are living their worst days, right?

They are sick, they are injured, their families are incredibly worried. They are worried about their future, about everything.

And to be able to connect with them on a human level with all of our skills, empathy, compassion, communication, it just improves the experience for everyone.

So I love that that's your focus. And these are some of the things that, you know, we don't talk a lot about in nursing.

I think a lot of nurses have soft skills, but maybe we don't recognize them as such. They are just part of our personality, maybe. Do you think that nurses inherently have some of these soft skills and then maybe they just need to perfect them a little bit?

What do you think about that?

Sachin: Well, if I talk about whether they inculcate all these skills like soft skills inherently, yes. It, it actually creates an impact because it depends on like what kind of background you come from, right?

Whether you are raised by the people, those who were very disciplined and good at communicating. Well, in many societies, parents do not communicate with their children very well. But on the other hand, when the parents actually start communicating with the kids in a very respectful manner in a manner they should understand others as well.

Yeah, definitely. These nurses can understand all these things from the childhood if we talk about like that. And on the other hand, so soft skills are actually the skills we need to learn and we can learn all these things from the people, those who are the seniors, those who have the experience, those who have already actually mastered and became an expert in that.

Right? And it works a lot. And how does it work? I'll tell you. Let me just give you an example. In our training part, we were training in a college in India, right?

There was a girl we provided for two days workshop. And in the second day we were actually concluding it. So we always just try to put the students in front and we invite them on the stage to speak whatever they have learned in the last two days.

So one girl actually came on the stage and she was initially she was afraid of and she was not feeling confident. But we tried to make her comfortable and confident enough to speak.

And then she actually started speaking and she cried. And it was a very like I would say critical situation for me to see a girl who is crying in front of me.

And I went to her, I asked her why you are crying and in a very soft spoken voice she said, sir, actually this is the first time I'm 20 years old, this is the first time I'm standing in front of hundred, hundred people and speaking in front of them.

And just because of you and your team, that is the earning for us. That is the earning for me. This is the essence of An Extra M, the voice of nurses.

So this is how actually you can learn it and perform good things on your professional workplaces.

Michelle: Wow, that's a powerful story, Sachin. And those testimonials, that feedback, that's what keeps feeding you and your mission, right? Like you know, okay, I'm on the right track with, with what I'm doing.

This is really affecting people deeply.

So that is so important.

Thank you for sharing that. Do you work with a large team of people that help you there? So talk about your trainers. Who are your trainers and what kind of experience do they have?

Sachin: Actually, we have the core team, Retired Brigadier, actually 3 Danush Banjan Pathak and he's retired from the Indian army. Okay. Very renowned position called Brigadier. And he helps us like how we can maintain the discipline in our team and how we can teach the discipline and good behavior to the nurses.

Number one. Number two, we have Carla, Carla from Netherlands and she's the burnout coach. She helps the CEOs and MDs and executive leaders of the companies, those who are working relentlessly and they just feel exhausted sometimes.

So Carla actually helped them to become more efficient and a refreshing mindset they can work with. Right? And apart from that, we do have Swathi and she comes from South a part of our country.

She helps us to connect with the different kind of colleges and institutions. Right. So that we can conduct a lot of trainings. Apart from that, we do have Dr. Shreya.

She comes from a physiotherapy background. Okay. And she has a vast experience, more than five to six years. And she is helping with us. And now she has become training director.

So she directing all the trainings that we are conducting. And then we do have Uzma Kazi, she's from UAE and she is an international trainer. She's helping with us like wherever we get the virtual trainings from the different countries.

She handles that part. And that's what actually we do. And this is our team. And the last but not the least, I am the part of the team. I never found myself the superior and junior.

I am the part of team. That's it.

Michelle: I love it. That's great. Gosh, it sounds like you work with such a great team of professionals who are really well connected and you're addressing all of the different components that nurses need to learn.

So that. That sounds amazing.

Okay. One of the things that you mentioned in your bio is that you and your team are guided by a core set of values that define your uniqueness. And those are compassion, empathy, integrity, excellence, respect, and unity.

And when I read those, I thought, well, those are all values that nurses have or maybe should have. Right?

So are these values that can be taught or are these values that are inherent in people that go into nursing? What are your thoughts on that?

Sachin: Well, partially. Sometimes they. We find lot of good things into the people they inherited by their ancestors or their parents.

But the majority of the people, they actually they need to learn all these things from their superiors, from their colleagues, from the people, those who teach them, from their teachers, from their professors.

And I think like all these skills actually we learned from the practical aspect, we cannot learn all these skills or all these skill sets. I would say you can't learn from a book, you can't learn from the PDF.

You can learn all these things while you are working with someone. Because when you work with a team, then when, then you realize that it's not all about you only.

You have to actually understand your team members. That actually works a lot. And apart from that, when we talk about the integrity, if integrity and unity is there in any organization, then that organization can grow rapidly.

That's what actually I believe in. And apart from that, as you asked me like whether somebody can learn it. Yes. As I believe many people actually they, we have already worked with them.

They came to us like we want to learn how to deal with the people. It's not all about sometimes soft skills, but many times it's all about human skills. Because we, we see like day to day life.

Like many people do not have the human skills how to interact, how to initiate, how to break the ice. Right? And if you are a person who actually. Who do not try to talk to someone, who do not try to initiate your conversation, some chit chat with somebody and you are in a group, then you will be actually discarded by the time, right?

You will be feeling alone. Because everybody likes a person who loves to be the part of a team, who loves to create some good funny moments. Right? So that's what we actually need to have in our team while we work with other people.

Michelle: Yeah. I really love Sachin how you said that these skills can't be learned from a book. Right?

So they have to be learned either from our ancestors like you said, or in some other way. And that's what you're doing at An extra M.

So you have worked with nurses in India, Africa and the United States.

And what, what differences do you see in nurses and the nursing profession in those different places?

Sachin: Okay, if I actually talk about Indian nurses, they are really hardworking. It's not like that other nurses are not hardworking. All nurses are hardworking. But Indian nurses are really hardworking and they just go beyond their limits.

We have seen it in COVID 19. Our nurses actually has created the history across the globe. Right? We actually helped a lot of nations, lot of countries to by sending the nurses to help them.

In Indian nurses they are actually always curious to learn. They always love to learn from the others and how they can become more efficient towards work.

Although they come from majority of the nurses in India actually come from rural background. And that is the thing actually that we sometimes feel whenever we visit hospital then they are really hard working.

But if they do not get enough chances then they do not understand their value. So in India we are still feeling that nurses should get more respect and more like recognition.

And if they will get all these two things like good recognition and respect and some good pay scale they can do wonders. They are still doing. But we need to actually skill them and they are really great at their work.

They do not actually leave any stone unturned when it comes to any emergency or any urgency in our country. And I love all the nurses across my country and if I talk about other two countries that we have already worked in in nicely I realized one very lovely thing actually.

All the nurses are very, were very curious to understand. While we were conducting our workshops virtually I found that like hundreds of messages in the chat box. Every nurse was very curious to learn how we can develop the hand gestures, how we can develop the body language and the personality, develop development skills.

They were really, really curious. And even though I have realized one thing. Even though they did not get recognition on international level, I feel like that still you will find a very cute smile on their faces.

I always love it in Nigerian nurses and African nurses and I love that. And then we train of very sizable nurses. A group of nurses in, in the UK we found that very professionalism is there in UK and they are really good at their work.

They're really good at appreciating others work. That's what actually I found it. And they are really passionate about their work.

They just find the very research-based things. They love to do research on the different new things to learn, something new to care about the patient. So this is actually the differences actually I could found in the different in these three different countries.

And with all the due respect to all the nurses among the three countries, I love them. I love them, right? They have their different skill sets, different mindset but one motto is clear.

They want to give their best. And I love it.

Michelle: Sachin, I just love watching you right now and how lit up you are about what you do. I mean I see that coming through. I know our listeners can't see that.

But you are just so excited and so engaged and I absolutely love that. And thank you for talking about those differences.

And I would say those differences are so minor. Right? I think nurses everywhere are united in what they want. And I think they are very thirsty for more education, more trainings on how to improve communication and how to hone their empathy.

All of these things that, that we want to show our patients, our families, our coworkers, our institutions. I think they're very thirsty for that. And again, I'm just so glad that you're providing this training.

So what do, what would you say are the biggest challenges that US nurses face? And how is your team approaching that?

Sachin: Well, across the globe we are finding one big problem.

We are trying to solve it according to WHO indicated by WHO that we should have three is to 1,000 nurses. Every 1,000 people should have at least three nurses. But if I talk about India, it is only 1.96,

not exactly 2. Right. So we are lacking the number of nurses not in India, but across the globe. We are in Indian actually helping the other nations as well to fulfill this particular gap of nurses.

Apart from that, the existing nurses, they need to actually upskill themselves and they need to have the continuous training to actually learn some technical things. And as technology is actually honing and taking the place in this 21st century, they need to learn the technology as well so that the work can be faster, can be done faster.

And these are the things actually we are seeing. And when it comes to what exactly we do in that and how we are actually addressing that, these kind of challenges, we are making them more efficient and more reliable, I would say.

And we are actually emphasizing on one specific thing that be very, very clear when you say anything, Number one, you need to learn the technology to sharpen your skills, sharpen your work.

And in order to do your work in a very fraction of second. Right. If a nurse who is not learning these two things, it means one owners who is not upskilling herself or himself and one who is not actually getting familiar with the technology, then they have to face the music in the future.

So that's what actually we are trying to overcome the problem that can occur in the future. But we are ready to fight with any odd which is coming in our way.

Right. So that's what actually we are doing. And our team actually always try to approach these nurses with love and compassion. Right. And when it comes to nurses, we always just talk to them in a very soft voice and they understand us and we are trying to change, make some changes with that kind of approach.

Michelle: That's fantastic. Technology is a double edged sword, right? It's like we need it and it's useful. It's incredibly useful in time management, lots of different areas in medicine and nursing.

But it's also difficult to learn. There's a definite learning curve there with technology. So a lot of people, when they can't learn something, they just shy away from it.

And that's not the approach that we need. We need to make technology work for us so that we are not intimidated by it and we can use it to its full extent to really improve what we do for patients.

So talk about burnout, Sachin. So burnout is a problem in nursing and I know that you have a burnout coach that you work with, but how do you address burnout?

Sachin: We have seen like thousands of nurses till now who have actually texted us on different platforms. Me on Instagram and LinkedIn and different platform like Twitter. We keep actually receiving a lot of messages like, I have been working for 12 hours continuously, did not take a break. Last night there was a nurse.

Actually I would take one example, I cannot reveal the name, there was a nurse, actually she texted me on my LinkedIn profile and with a complaint that in a hospital she's working with, she has been working for the last 18 hours without a break.

It might be lack of nurses, maybe less number of nurses in the hospital, but she was working continuously 18 hours. And due to that, after few weeks she started having very severe headache and she went to consult a doctor and the doctor actually gave the report by saying it like you are suffering from migraine.

A small thing actually. She was forgetting that to take some rest, right? But it was not her fault. It was the fault of management, it was the fault of that hospital.

I am not degrading anybody here, but when we see this kind of complaints, this kind of serious issues in nursing, we should not forget that they are the humans, they are the human beings, they are like us, they are our brothers, they are our sisters, they are somebody's mother, they are somebody's like daughter.

So how we can forget their efforts?

So we always request, although hospital owners, all the leaders in the hospital industry that do not actually force the nurses more than eight hours to work. So let them actually sleep well, let them actually take rest, take proper rest so that they can perform their duty really well.

So in our team, Carla Jensen is working on that issue globally and she got a lot of acclaim and applaud from a lot of people from India, outside India, right?

And we are fortunate to have her on our team and not only from the other people, but many hospital owners actually congratulated us after taking training from her on burnout issues.

So, yes, this, this is how actually we are trying to reduce this particular pandemic. I would say this is a silent pandemic for the nurses. Right. And I hope in near future people actually eradicate from our society.

Michelle: Yes, I, it is a pandemic and thank you for bringing that to light and describing it as such. And I think here in the United States, we've been talking about burnout now for quite a while and especially I think Covid brought that to light for sure with the ratios and the mistreatment of nurses by institutions, by leaders.

And it's just, it's such a pervasive problem and such a frustrating problem. And you know, when we used to say a few years ago that we had a nursing shortage, I think the new verbiage and what I've been hearing lately is that in the US at least, we don't really have a nursing shortage.

We have a shortage of nurses who want to work for big institutions.

And I've talked to many nurses that have left nursing, left the bedside and become entrepreneurs.

And I don't think we're going to fix this problem unless we address it head on.

Exactly what your team is doing by calling out institutions for abuse of nurses, for those long shifts where nurses are not able to get sleep, get food, refresh themselves, we just can't.

That's not sustainable. And so institutions are going to have to look at different models and different ways of interacting with nurses if they want to retain those nurses.

So that's a huge problem and I'm thankful that your team is addressing it.

One of the things on your website, by the way, I have to say, your website is amazing.

And I was navigating around on there and I saw this training for a front desk operator and I thought to myself, is this like a training for a person who sits at the front desk and greets people as they come in?

Because I think that person is probably the most important person that an organization or a business can have. Right? Because the public is the first one to meet this person and they really need to have those soft skills.

So talk about this position and what sort of training you do for this position.

Sachin: You got it right. Honestly speaking, a friend, desk operator, or I would say front desk executive, a person who greets you when you go somewhere. Right. In any industry you talk about it might be hospital it might be hospitality industry, I would say.

Hotels and restaurants and bankings.

Banks, I would say. And any professional or formal place you go, you would find a person, and preferably a girl greeting with a huge smile and a very soft smile on her face and just taking you forward and guiding you to go inside.

What exactly we realized in healthcare. Let's come to the point.

When you visit a hospital, you see a person who is standing on the gate, or I would say, who is sitting on the front desk.

That person is guide for you. If that person is not talking to you in a proper manner, then you will start having some, I would say negative feeling from the beginning or you will start judging that organization on the basis of that person.

So can you get my point? Like how this person is important for any organization, right? And how this person can help this organization in which he or she is working to grow and to give a good experience.

And for example, you are visiting a hospital for any consultation, right? A person who is sitting on front desk is busy with some work, right? And you are just trying to communicate with his or him or her, right?

How can I go to the this room? How can I connect with this Dr. John, right? And that person is actually engaged in some work for a while, it's okay.

But that person is not listening you properly. Then you, you can get frustrated. You can feel like why this person is not listening us properly, right? That is the time where we are coming in the picture.

We are training these people on the skills how to do telephonic conversation because somebody calls you and sometimes you do not answer properly. And that person do not, does not come to your organization just because of that person did not get a proper information on that call, right?

That is how actually we got this particular thing in our mind. And now we are actually, we have trained thousands of people like these who are actually doing wonders, who are just creating some good environment in their respective organizations.

So this is actually about 

Making a very positive impact when somebody is visiting any organization. So that's what actually FDO, Front Desk Operator or FDE, Front Desk Executive.

Michelle: It's like I said, it's the most important person, I think because those are the people that absolutely what you said, the public is going to judge the institution, the restaurant, the hotel, whatever they are entering by how this person interacts with them.

And it's happened to me a million times where I've said, you know what, what has happened to customer service? Where is customer service?

And I think am I that way just because I'm 60 years old. Am I sounding like an old woman saying, you know, why is nobody greeting me? Why does this person not look up and acknowledge that I'm there?

So I'm glad to know that I'm not just old, that those things are really important. So thank you so much for clarifying that and I love that you're doing those trainings because we forget about those people and they are so important in our organizations.

So thank you so much for that.

Well, which of your trainings would you say would be applicable for nursing students in particular? Are there, are all the trainings applicable? Are there special trainings that you select for nursing students?

Talk about that.

Sachin: Yeah, definitely. We do have two modules for nursing students. One module is very short term module. That is for today's training program. We conduct this in two days, four hours each day, and that featuring these students on practical skills, how they can communicate with their seniors, with their juniors, especially for the final year students, those who are pursuing their BSc nursing.

Okay. We train them for the interview part because after a few months they will be going for interview in the different hospitals. And we also actually train them on confidence building because if they have good confidence while they are speaking in front of anyone, then they can actually get some good job and some good pay scale as well.

Right. And number two, we have extended learning program in that we cover the fundamental of English language because when you go for the corporate hospitals, then you have to communicate with a variety of people, those who are coming from different states.

Sometimes people do not know local language, so English becomes actually a common language. That time we, in this particular program we focus on English language. And apart from that, we also add in this, the soft skills and communication part.

So these are the two programs. The second one actually goes for 14 days. It's two weeks. We cover it accordingly.

Michelle: That's fantastic. Those student nurses, they are just preparing to, you know, go out into the nursing world and to be able to have those interview skills. I know how important those are.

As a NICU nurse, I had the pleasure of serving on many interview boards and we interviewed lots of NICU nurses that came through our unit.

And you could tell the ones that had had some training versus the ones that didn't.

And those nurses that had those skills, those communication skills, those confidence building skills, those were the ones that got the job every time. Even if, you know, all the nurses across the board had the same experience.

So those skills are so important when it comes to landing those first jobs, especially for nursing students.

So I'm glad you guys are addressing that as well.

Sachin, do you work with disciplines other than nursing?

Tell me about that.

Sachin: Apart from nursing, we used to do some trainings for some MBA students, but we realized it, we need to stick towards only healthcare very soon. So as such, we do not actually go beyond the healthcare.

But sometimes if anybody invites me for a special talk or any special session, then I love to explore the different areas, but. But not frequently or sometimes.

Michelle: Okay, well, I mean, stick with what you know, right? So that's great. Well, I have to say on your website you have a blog and I love your blog because what you do every week there is you highlight a Nurse of the Week and it's a Nurse Leader of the Week.

And nurse leaders are so important in our organizations for so many reasons. But what you do is recognize these nurses for their leadership. And how important is that recognition to nurses and to get the word out to our society in general?

Sachin: It's very important actually to recognize the work of nurses and not only the nursing leaders, but we also recognize the nursing staff, those who do not have that much experience, if they have experience of two, three years.

We also recognize their work. Especially we always love to talk to them, like how they actually reached on this particular place and what kind of difficulties they have faced in the past and what kind of challenges they are facing in the present.

And they talk about their hardships, they talk about their achievements in this particular nurse leader of the week. And when it comes to recognizing their work, like, we realized one thing by doing the trainings and development things and just raising their voices.

Nobody was doing it earlier, especially our country. We realized it like, we need to initiate one such program where we can recognize we can actually give respect to the nursing professionals.

So then we started with the initiative called Nurse Leader of the Week. Every week we invite the nursing professionals from different countries, not only from India, but we invite the nursing leaders from Canada, from the USA, from the African countries and India itself.

So we are not only recognizing their work, we are actually creating an environment where every nurse should feel that somebody is actually thinking about us, somebody is actually recognizing our work so that they would feel motivated.

For example, if a child who is actually studying for four to five hours and the mother comes and she says, like, you are not studying properly, right? You have not done this, you have not done that, right?

And that child would definitely think in his or her mind, like, I have been studying for four to five hours. My mother came and she is just actually scolding me, right?

Just because of I have done, I have not done something different and I have not done that thing. Rather we can appreciate that you have been studying four to five hours.

What else you going to do? You are going to do different subject. If you are studying physics, then you are going to like let's say if a child is not studying physics, for example, the child is just doing some, some additions and some subtractions and some multiplications and the mother asked like, would you like to do read some stories in science stories in social science stories about some scientists?

Right. Then that child would become very curious. So do actually. So the same thing actually we are doing for the Nurse leaders. We are actually appreciating their work. They are becoming more confident than ever.

They are becoming more valuable than ever. So that is the initiative and it is making good impact in our society and changing the lenses of the citizens towards nurses.

Michelle: Yeah, I really love that you have that feature and I hope you continue it because it's so important for that, that recognition for the nursing community and then also for others to see what nurses are actually doing.

Right.

Because maybe the public doesn't see what the nurses are doing. So I think that's important and I hope you, I hope you continue that.

I want to talk for a moment, because part of your bio you talk about Coursera. And Coursera was introduced to me by one of my guests, CRNA Jenny Finnell. She told me about Coursera.

And that is a free open access medical education site. Some of the education modules are paid, you need to pay for them, but there's hundreds and hundreds that are free.

And I have taken some courses on Coursera and I absolutely love that platform.

But talk about that and if you use that in any of your trainings for nurses.

Sachin: Well, I have been actually familiar with this particular platform for the, the last seven to eight years. One of my friends, Subham Mishra, he introduced me this particular platform and with the help of him I did two, three courses on it.

And till now actually whenever I feel I need to learn something, then I go to this website and I learn and I do some certification. I have done some certification courses from this particular website and it's very, very cool website, very simple.

And yeah, there are some paid courses and unpaid courses. Yes, we are also thinking to create some courses free of cost for the nurses on Coursera and in near future you will see some courses from our site.

Michelle: That would be fantastic. I would absolutely love that.

And you know the other thing, Sachin, that I was thinking about was continuing education credits. Has that been something that your organization has thought of providing for nurses?

Talk about that. Is that in the plans at all?

Sachin: Well, when it comes to CME, right. If I'm not wrong. 

Michelle: Yeah. So CME or CE. 

Sachin: So when we talk about like we are continuously providing some free of cost documents, free of cost PDFs to the students every week we do, we do actually send some free of cost material to help them without any cost.

So in the future we, we make sure that we will be helping the students and the staff nurses in the different areas and with different ways. Yeah, we also support this particular initiative because nowadays we, we often see that this program is actually widely known in India and we are helping the organizations in the same way according to the need of this particular continuous learning program and.

Or continuous nursing learning program we call it. Right. So yes, definitely. We have a plan to support it and we have plan to integrate it in our program.

Michelle: I'm glad to hear that because you know, we all need continuing education. So I get it from an organization that is proficient in it, that's good.

So tell me about your podcast because I learned about this just by researching you. But talk about it and talk about your plans for the future for the podcast.

Sachin: First of all, I would appreciate you because you have done a lovely research about me and the organization An Extra M. You have not actually left any stone unturned to know more about us, be it any platform like YouTube, on our website, on LinkedIn, anywhere.

Right. And thank you so much for that. Well, if I talk about the podcast that we started few months back, I was very curious and very, very enthusiastic at the time to start this podcast and we invited three to four guests over there

And the sole purpose of this podcast to invite some corporate heroes. And these heroes are not the leaders. These heroes were not the company owners or the MDs and CEOs.

These heroes were the normal or I would say very ordinary person who is working in any organization. We started inviting them and understanding how they are working, how they are feeling working in any organization.

And because nobody was doing it at that time and still nobody's doing it right. But I could not do it just because of I could not continue. I was not feeling well.

I got sick after that, but it could not actually continue by my myself. And now as actually I told you earlier, by getting inspiration from you, I will be starting the podcast called Voice of Nurses on YouTube very soon and all credit goes to you, right?

I will be starting after two, three weeks. You can see the videos on it. So that was the purpose of podcast doing and now we will be starting restarting again.

Michelle: Well, Sachin, thank you first for all those kind words and I'm glad to hear that you're going to be continuing it. I for one know how much work a podcast is and I could not imagine doing a podcast and working full time as you do.

So I know that you have a lot on your plate, but I also think that it's very crucial that we get the word out there and let those voices be heard of those heroes, those everyday heroes that you said are not, you know, hospital owners, they're not CEOs, they are regular people.

And I just think it's so important what you're doing and, and my best wishes to you to continue that because I think it's really crucial.

Sachin: Yeah. This time we will be doing this podcast for the nurses only and we will be inviting the staff nurses and nursing leaders to know more about them and we will be addressing their issues there.

That's all.

Michelle: That's great. I love it. Okay. Earlier when we opened, you talked briefly about your very brief time in the Air Force and kind of what happened after that. And we talked a little bit about this yesterday

Off-record, whatever you want to say, but tell me about that experience and the lessons that you learned.

Sachin: Well, it was a lovely experience, Very memorable experience. I was studying in 8th standard and I saw a dream getting into defense forces. My father was working in Indian Army, but I never wanted to get into Indian Army.

I always actually saw myself just sitting in cockpit and flying the planes and fighting in the sky. Right.

And there is a tagline I would say of Indian Air Force, touch the sky with glory. Right. And it touched my heart actually first. And when I completed my primary education after that I started preparing for the examination called Air Force Common Admission Test.

I qualified that examination. I got into the interview and this is the longest interview in our country. It goes for actually five days. There is no other interview in a country which goes for five days.

Every interview in any organization actually go for like 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes maximum one hour. But this is the only interview that goes for five days. I enjoyed it.

I love the process of like just waking up early in the morning right at 6 o'clock and getting like the T shirts, white color T shirt and cycler short white color shoes and socks.

And we used to go to the ground and we all the participants used to just like used to sang the anthem. The Indian national anthem. And that time I used to feel like that there is no one in the country.

No one outside in my family.

My flag and me. Only two things are there. My country, to serve the nation. Everything is nation, everything is my flag. For the reputation like that. But you know, sometimes you do not get what you actually plan.

Due to some medical problems, I got injured. And due to that I had to leave it after some time. But the experience that you are asking for, it was truly amazing.

It would be stick to my heart till the time I will take my last breath. If somebody will ask me, can you just give me the essence of your life.

I would say that the most memorable day of my life. These were the five days in my entire life till I will take my last breath. So this is the, this is all about my small journey with Indian Air Force.

Michelle: Wow. This experience for you was so powerful. And again, I'm so sorry that our listeners can't see the love that comes through as you're talking about it. And I think you know that, that most people would join the military because they want to be part of a group and they want to serve their country.

Right. They have this pride for their country. They want to serve their country.

And though it didn't happen to you in the military, you took that experience and you are doing exactly what you would have done if you would have been in the military.

You are part of a group that is so important and you are serving your country by, through your organization, An Extra M. And you're serving nurses, you're serving the nursing profession.

So you took something that didn't work out and you made something of it. Something so amazing. And I just have to give you credit for that. That's fantastic. Thank you for sharing that story with us.

Yeah.

Sachin: One more thing I would like to add on.

As I always believe in I all the only motto to serve the nation. Since I, I was a kid, I always used to think like that I will be serving the nation.

But maybe in the defense forces my luck was not good enough. Right. But whatever I am doing nowadays, that is also actually the service to the country. We are actually making our healthcare system more powerful than ever, more stronger.

And, and I love it. Whatever I'm doing, I never actually feel bad about what happened in the past, but I'm always, I always love to see what is happening and what is going to happen in the future.

Michelle: Yeah, I can see you are the meaning of resilience. You took something that you really, really wanted in your core to serve in the military. And through a series of events that didn't happen and I'm sure it was disappointing but you took that experience and then you started An Extra M and you're doing exactly that.

You're serving your country, you're making it better. One nurse at a time, one healthcare institution at a time, one nursing school at a time. So you've just taken something that you know didn't work out and, and you just made it into something better and you continued your dream, your childhood dream of wanting to serve your country and that's exactly what you're doing.

Sachin: Yeah.

Michelle: Well, Sachin, what are your plans for the future with An Extra M?

Sachin: It is very exciting question for me for the future plans. I would definitely love to talk about it. Till now we have trained more than 50,000 nursing students and staff nurses.

And by the end of 2025, the month of December, we are aiming for training approx. 1 crore (10 million) nurses. I know this is huge number, people will laugh at me when people will listen it but we are aiming for training 1 crore nurses across the globe.

And if it happens then I would come again for the different podcast and I will say yes, we did it right and yeah, honestly speaking we are looking forward to just training maximum number of people not only in India but across the globe to make their life better, to make them more efficient, to make them a good communicator.

By communicating really well, they can actually improve their lives. So that's what actually I'm aiming for and to have more people in our team. I would be more than happy to help our team members as well because I have a lovely team and I would love to have more people.

And you know what somebody was asking me recently what excites you a lot about your work? I love whatever I do but more than that, sometimes I love when I see a few people actually running their homes just because of I started something right and I love that particular thing and I every night when I go to sleep and I think about it like I need to do more so that many people can make their families and make their families happy.

So that's what actually I'm looking forward to do.

Michelle: Those are some very steep goals and if anyone can, can accomplish those, it's you Sachin. So all of my prayers and all of my good thoughts  everything is directed towards you and really lifting up An Extra M and helping as many people as possible and I think that's something that definitely fuels you and me alike.

So I think you have a really bright future and I think that.

Sachin: Thank you so much.

Michelle: Yeah, you've been an amazing guest. Sachin, is there someone you recommend as a guest on this podcast?

Sachin: There are many people actually I can recommend but as you are asking right now, I feel like there initially when I was starting off in especially nursing. You do the podcast for the nursing people, right?

Michelle: Yes.

Sachin: Like, okay, there is a mem called Saibala. She's from south part of our nation. Right. She's brilliant, she's awesome. And I would say she is the mentor. She has taught me a lot there.

She actually gave the confidence like when I was starting off and still she is actually guiding me whatever I have been doing. Whenever I feel stuck, I call her especially for this healthcare domain and I would love to see her on your podcast and there are many people like Rupa Ravatji and she is also a great human being you can invite.

I can get you connected with these people. There are multiple people. I will keep texting you that you can invite these people.

Michelle: Yeah, anybody that's been a mentor to you, Sachin, I would love to talk to.

Sachin: Definitely. Yeah.

Michelle: For our guests listening today if they want to contact you, where can we find you?

Sachin: Okay, well anybody who is using LinkedIn can find me by just searching my name.

Okay. And on Instagram I can be like somebody can find me there. And if somebody can Google it, I would be there because there are a lot of post you would see on Google.

Right. So there are multiple platforms. If somebody writes on Google my name on Google. Right. Then you will get a lot of links, be it LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and Medium, maybe Reddit and Quora, that different kind of platform that I am available.

Michelle: Okay, awesome. You're everywhere. I do have your LinkedIn, An Extra M website and An Extra M Instagram and I will put those in the show notes for anybody that wants to contact you.

So that's great.

Well, Sachin, thank you so much for coming on today and telling me all about An Extra M and I have found this conversation to be so inspiring for me as a nurse to know that there are people like you out there that are investing in the nursing community, in helping nurses become a better version of themselves and versed in the soft skills, communication, emotional intelligence.

Thank you to you and your team that are investing your time and your energy and your love into the nursing profession and into making it better. So thank you so much for being my guest today.

Sachin: You're welcome. You're most welcome. I love this conversation and I would love to listen it as soon as possible. Like whatever. We have had chat during this podcast, right?

Michelle: Yeah. Like I said, I might get brave and do a LinkedIn Live pretty soon. So I'll call you and. And we can do that.

Sachin: Sure, sure.

Michelle: Okay. Well, you know, we've reached the end. We're at the last five minutes and so we're ready to play the five minute snippet. It's just five minutes of fun.

So are you ready, Sachin?

Sachin: Yeah, I'm ready. And a little bit nervous. I don't know what questions you are going to ask now. Okay, yeah, I'm ready.

Michelle: You know what is so funny? I have talked to so many like high-powered CEOs and leaders and entrepreneurs and at the very last, at the very five minutes is when they get the most nervous and it's when we're going to have the most fun.

Sachin: Okay.

Michelle: So you'll do fine. So convince me to live in Bengaluru.

Sachin: Okay.

If you are a person who is techno savvy, I would say who loves to understand technology, then Bengaluru is a place and it is very well known place in India that is known as Silicon Valley of India.

Right.

Michelle: Wow. Okay. That's very cool.

Okay. Well, I have to tell you, I've never been to India. But when I was 17 years old and I was a nurse's aide working in a hospital, I fell in love with an Indian man who was from Kashmir and he was a physical therapist.

Well, isn't that crazy good?

Sachin: Yeah, it is.

Michelle: So. But the way he talked about India, it sounded so beautiful. And maybe one day I'll get over it. Yeah, it is okay. Okay.

Sachin: I'll just mention one more thing.

Michelle: Yeah.

Sachin: Like apart from Bengaluru, I have lived in a city called Ahmedabad in Gujarat state.

You might have heard about Gujarat because many Gujarati people live in the USA. Right?

Michelle: Oh, okay. Didn't know that.

Sachin: I have. Yeah. Okay.

There's a place, a city, beautiful city called Ahmedabad. This is very wonderful city and I would love to invite you and host you in this city. And you cannot miss the city because this city is famous for its food and culture.

So you have two options and I'm convincing you to invite in two cities in my country.

Yes.

Michelle: Oh my gosh. Okay. Thank you, Sachin. Okay, speaking of food, your favorite local cuisine.

Sachin: Okay. I would say that it is called potato paratha. It's a like bread with the mixed of potatoes. Like you crush the potatoes and you just put into the flour like and you put just kind of bread.

Okay. And I love it with buttermilk. So I love it. This is a kind of very, I would say exotic food I found in my country.

Michelle: Yeah, it sounds amazing. I like sign me up. Any kind of bread product, I'm there. That sounds great.

Okay, finish this sentence. When I am in nature, I feel...

Sachin: When I'm in nature I feel the serenity and I love it. I feel the calmness. And I'll just give you one example. In my balcony, there are 30 plants are there and whenever I sit in my balcony, I forget everything out there.

So that's or the like answer from my side.

Michelle: I love it. We're both plant people. That's great. Okay.  Would you rather ride in a flying car or ride a horse with wheels?

Sachin: As I said that I am a nature loving person so I would not love to sit in a car because I don't want to actually sit in a very closed place.

I would love to ride a horse. Right, okay.

Yeah, yeah. So I would love to ride a horse actually and in the open place and so that I can go anywhere I want. Right. I would love to do.

Michelle: Yeah, you can, you can feel the wind in your face and you can see nature. Yeah, I love it.

Okay, we're in your home, Sachin, and there's a picture on the wall of your favorite travel destination.

Where is it and who is in the picture?

Sachin: Okay, there's a picture in my home. I would say a very famous and renowned saint and monk. Gautam Buddha, if you heard about him or not. I'm not sure that is.

There is a religion called Buddhism. They used to preach about the humanity. And Gautam Buddha himself, he's in picture right now. The picture is hanging on the wall and he was known for his calmness and his knowledge and wisdom.

So and that picture is somewhere in the place into the Himalayas. All right. So I would love to be on the place and sit there and do the meditation.

Michelle: It sounds like you have taken a lot of teachings from this person and that you embody a lot of the same values as this person.

Sachin: Yes.

Michelle: Okay. My favorite song makes me feel...

Sachin: My favorite song makes me feel crazy, right? I dance, although I don't know how to dance. Really bad dancer. But as I live alone, right. Whenever I listen any song, then I dance.

I do some weird activities, right? Making some food in kitchen and I dance with the utensils in my hands, right? So it makes me crazy.

Michelle: Oh my gosh, I love that. Dance party in Sachin's kitchen. Okay, last question. What famous person's memoir would you love to read?

Sachin: Well, I admire our former president and well known scientist called Dr. A.P.J. Abdulkhala.

I have already read his autobiography named Wings of Fire. And if anybody else is, if I would like to read that, there's many. But right now if I talk about Swami Vivekananda, his biography, his life, I would love to read.

And he was a monk from India. He came to the USA in 1893 in Chicago. And he gave the lecture on zero, like the importance of zero in our life.

He gave the, and he started the speech with my sisters and brothers of the USA and people started clapping for him because he was the only person who started his speech like this.

So I would love to read about him.

Michelle: Wow, Sachin, you have all these mentors and people that you look up to and I think they have just enriched your life so much and you have learned so much from them and now you're bringing that to the world.

And I think one day people will say, you know, the same about you, that I would love to read his memoir and hear all about his work with An Extra M and everything that he did for nurses and the nursing community.

I love it. And you did very well in the five-minute snippet. So you should applaud for that.

Well, it's fun, right?

Sachin, thank you so much again for being my guest today and for everything that you're doing to raise the voice of nurses. I think the more that we can do that
the better world we're going to have.

Sachin: Really amazing. And as you have asked me some four to five questions in the fun activity, let me ask you one or two question maybe any guest has not asked you yet.

Maybe somebody has asked you, like what makes you happy in your life?

Michelle: That's a great question. Oh man that's just so deep, right? What makes you happy? I think for me, what makes me happy is being a voice for maybe people that don't have a voice.

So speaking up for those that, for whatever reason, they don't want to speak for themselves.

And a lot of those people are nurses.

So definitely the podcast for me makes me very happy because I've met so many amazing nurses and other healthcare professionals through this platform that have opened my eyes to when I started, I thought nursing was great.

I loved being a nurse and I loved the nursing profession. And through the podcast, it's just enriched everything in my life because I've met so many amazing nurses and heard what they do, why they do it, their purpose, their what makes them happy, what brings them joy, and, and I have learned through them just everything that makes this profession great.

And it makes me happy every time I talk to somebody about the nursing profession. So that definitely makes me happy.

Sachin: Wonderful.

Michelle: Great question.

Sachin: I loved it. One more question, then we can actually close it.

Okay. And you will love the second question as well.

Can you remember the best day of your life till now?

Michelle: The best day of my life.

Sachin: It might be professional or it might be personal.

Michelle: Yeah. Yeah. I think the best day of my life was when my daughter was born.

Sachin: Amazing. Love it. 

Michelle: People have known my story through the podcast. I've told it many times. I was a single parent. I found myself at 20 years old, not married, pregnant, coming from a Catholic family.

There was a lot of stigma attached to that.

And I was very close to my grandmother, and I had a very deep conversation with her about if I should marry the father of my child. And I didn't have a good relationship with him, but I felt obligated.

And she said, no, you don't have to. And I looked up to my grandmother so much and I took her advice and I was very happy raising my daughter as a single mother.

And it was a good decision.

So those mentors in our life are so important, whoever they are, if it's a teacher, a parent, a grandparent, a family member, a friend, those teachers, those mentors are so important to us in the trajectory of how our life is going to go.

So I definitely think becoming a single parent to my daughter was the most important day in my life.

Sachin: Well, you are a wonderful and brave lady, first of all, I have ever come across. And what exactly is she doing now, your daughter?

Michelle: My daughter. So my daughter, she's 38 years old. She just turned 38 years old, and she just has this knack that I don't have. Everything that I see in her are qualities that I say, are you really my daughter?

Like, did you really come from me? Because. Yeah. Even though I raised her, I see things in her that I wish I had. She has this ability to, she's such a good listener, Sachin.

She's such a good listener. And that's a skill. That's a soft skill, right?

Sachin: Yes.

Michelle: That I need more training on. Yeah. I wish I could be a better listener. So I strive all the time for that. But she's very good at that, so I'm just thankful for her every day in my life.

And I'm thankful for the decisions I made when I was young and how they have led me in my life to this moment.

Sachin: Amazing. Thank you for giving the answers to my questions. I loved it.

Michelle: Oh, my gosh. Thank you for the questions. I love it, too. You're very good. See? You're very good. You gotta continue your podcast, Sachin.

Sachin: Yes. Yeah.

Michelle: Well, thank you again for being with me today and have a good evening. I hope you get to go to bed soon.

Sachin: Yeah. It's almost 10. Then I'll have my dinner and then I'll just read some pieces of a book which I'm reading nowadays, then I'll see.

Michelle: Sounds great. All right, you take care.

Sachin: You too. And thank you very much for inviting me once again. And I wish you all the very best. And whenever it comes, live on Spotify, and I would love to share with the people, they can also hear what exactly we have enjoyed.

Right?

Michelle: Yes. I will let you know. I will let you know. And we'll get it out everywhere. Thank you. Okay, take care.

Sachin: Yeah, bye.