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Note: This is an original transcript–edited for sense, length, and clarity.  If you have any questions or concerns, please email our host, Doria Lavagnino, at doria@sheventurespodcast.com.

Intro: 

Doria Lavagnino: You live in New Jersey, and you’re raising two children. Life has a way of taking unexpected turns. Your husband unexpectedly dies of a heart attack, while you spent more than a decade beforehand working at a global banking institution. You’re now navigating sudden loss, raising two children alone, and running your company, all while grieving. She’s here to talk to us about her pivots and how she kept moving forward, helping her children cope with their grief along with her own, and how she’s done it all to get where she is today. Sejal Lakhani-Bhatt, welcome to SheVentures.

Sejal: Thank you so much. I am so excited to be here.

Childhood

Doria: I am excited to have you and very interested in your story. I always like to start with childhood and just reflect on today. Is there one person or a memory that comes to mind when you think about growing up?

Sejal: My childhood, I got to say, the memory, it’s going to be an overarching memory, is that I have amazing parents. My father is an entrepreneur. My mother was a stay-at-home mom, and we were two girls.

I have a younger sister. In the Indian community, in the Indian tradition, it’s always like, you’ve got to have boys. Boys are the important ones. My parents never. They didn’t even see that.
When I was born, and I was a girl, and I was the firstborn, my dad threw a party as big as he would have if he’d had a son. Growing up, my life has just been that. It’s been very open. My parents were immigrants. They came to this country.

My father did go to college here, but they didn’t raise me as an immigrant. They raised me to welcome the new world we were in. We weren’t extremely traditional. My parents, believe it or not, weren’t ultra, ultra-strict. My mom and I had a very open relationship.

Doria: So it’s overarching. Just everything that they did and the things that they didn’t do were as important. 

And you said your family is originally from India. Is that correct? 

Sejal: Yeah.

Doria: Where from? 

Sejal: From around Bombay. Gujarat. 

Global Banking Career

Doria: I asked only because I know someone well who’s from there. So, your early career was in global banking. Can you give us a high-level overview of what you did? 

Sejal: I worked my bum off. Truth be told, I actually wanted to go to law school, and I pivoted. I started off at USA Cable, if you know, the channel USA Network, and then went to BMG. And one day sort of just got a call from a headhunter. They’re like, there’s this company called Merrill Lynch. And you’ll be, like, doing reconciliations there. And I was like, I don’t know what this Merrill Lynch thing is, but, yeah, that’s great. I don’t want to be here anymore.

So I started there, and my boss was this amazing woman who was one year younger than me. And when I say powerhouse, I mean she’s incredible. As she moved, she just moved me along with her. So, I ended up on the trading floor at Merrill Lynch.

I’ve worked then for Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, and Morgan Stanley, and I was basically climbing the corporate ladder. I did everything from trading to trade support to project management. And I just sort of really did my thing while I had two kids. And my husband started a company in 2008, the recession year. 

So he’s like, I’m going to quit my job and start a company. I’m like, no pressure for you. And I’m pregnant. Okay, so maybe we’ll just live in a box.

Doria: Yeah. Oh, my gosh. That must have been something. Did you guys discuss it at all, or was he just like, I’m doing this? 

Sejal: No, we discussed it. But again, my dad’s an entrepreneur. And we sat down with my father. I still to this day, don’t make a decision without calling my dad. I might not listen to him, right, but I want his point of view. But I still call him.

But we sat down with my parents, and we went through it, and they had our back. And my dad was an entrepreneur, so he understood. My husband killed it. He just did really well. It was his passion.He loved technology, and he just was really built to do this. 

Doria: That is incredible that you had the backing and the support of your family. And I also want to reflect back on what you said about climbing the corporate ladder and having a mentor or a sponsor that had your back because I think that resoundingly, that’s something that I hear, women of color, women of any whatever, that having someone have your back and sponsoring you and even if you’re not in the room that they stand up for you get there or benefit, right? I mean, listen, my biggest thing is always to ask for what you think you deserve.

Sejal: I did have an amazing woman who helped me in the beginning. And then after that, I made a point to become closer when I moved banks and et cetera. I made it a point to talk, whether it was male or female. And I made my allies, and I did it in a way that, I mean, think about it. In Deutsche Bank, I had two kids. I just started Deutsche Bank in 2007 or the beginning of 2008, and I was pregnant and I had a child and then I had another child two years later.

But after that first child, I worked two days from home for the entire five years I was at Deutsche Bank. And I climbed the corporate ladder while doing it, worked in London, got new jobs. I worked two days. Two days. And I’m talking about 2008, 2009, 2010. I’m not talking post-COVID.

Doria: What do you think it was? Obviously, part of it is you, no doubt. But was there something about their corporate culture that allowed for that? 

Sejal: Deutsche Bank was great because it was a German company, but I don’t know. I want to say I was lucky.

I hate using that word, lucky. But I was lucky to have just incredible managers. I was so scared when I went on maternity leave for my first kid, for my first boy, and I all of a sudden got a new manager. She was a woman, and I was like, “Oh my God, this is going to be the worst.” And we don’t tend to support each other.

And by the way, I just came from a very supportive woman at Merrill Lynch. So it’s not that I didn’t have that right, but I was like, “Oh God, this is going to be awful.” And she was incredible. And it just goes to show you. So it taught me from these two women: support the women around you, and bring others up.

Doria: Absolutely. A couple of things that I hear from what you’re saying is that you’re an engineer and scientist, but while it interests you what’s done in the lab, you are interested more so in how can we get this to be practically applied to everyday life, whether it’s through the legislative process or whatever.

The second thing, I understand better how you got involved with the White House. 

Thriving in Male-Dominated Industries

Doria: There is this. I don’t know if it’s a myth today, but I know because I’ve run into it in my own career. There are queen bees and they feel like I suffered and I made it to where I am. And so, therefore, you’re going to suffer, too. It just has never made sense to me because you can do so much more in a supportive environment. Well, but that’s how men do it, right?

Sejal: Men don’t put each other down when they’re trying to get promotions and stuff. They’re like, “Oh, come on, let’s go out for drinks, and we’ll figure it out.” They’re doing it together. Women are the ones competing against each other, and that’s part of why we can’t succeed because we think that “If I don’t get the promotion, if she gets a promotion, I suck. I’m not. I’m the loser.” That entire aspect of it becomes really difficult. Difficult to excel. You’ve been in male-dominated industries. I wanted to transition to entrepreneurship for all of my life.

Doria: Really? Right. Yeah. How has that been for you? I don’t look at it that way.

Sejal: I don’t look at it that way. I’ve never looked at it that way. We’ve talked about the glass ceiling, and I do realize there is something out there where women get paid X amount, and I’m not poo-pooing it, because I don’t look at it that way. I’ve always asked for what I wanted. When the guys would go out, and I wasn’t invited, the next morning, I’d be like, “Hey, guys, you went out last night. I’m in next time.” And then I was invited.

I’ve never looked at it [like that]. I run a tech company. I’d like to say a fairly successful tech company. And all of my colleagues are male, and we get along. I am vulnerable. I am myself. I’m authentic. I’m transparent. I cry. I ask for help. I am what everyone deems a woman is that everyone believes are shortfalls. And I don’t see them as shortfalls. They’re my strengths.

Pivoting to Entrepreneurship 

Doria: Yes. So true. I don’t even have anything to say to that because that’s just right on. So, what went into your decision to pivot from a stable career in global finance to join your late husband?

Sejal: It was called TechWerxe. It is now, and it was then. 

No decision. So here’s what happened at that point.

I had two kids. Both of them, I think, were under 3 or 4. I had breastfed both kids for a year. I was exhausted. I was waking up at 5:30 to get to meetings by 7:00, and I was just tired.

And I went to a meeting one day, and we talked about football for 42 minutes. Football. Instead of waking up my little one and cuddling with him or seeing my other one or whatever, I lost it. That was it. I quit.

I didn’t talk to my husband. I didn’t talk to anybody. I didn’t call my father. I didn’t do anything. I got on the train, and I called my husband.

He’s like, “What are you doing?” I’m like, “Oh, I’m on the train.” And he’s like, “What are you doing on the train?” I’m like, “I’m going home.”

He’s like, “Why are you going home?” I go, “I quit.” He goes, “You quit what?” “My job.” He goes, “Yeah, you should go back and get it back.”

We had just built, not even bought, built our brand-new forever home, the health insurance, all of it, right? It was right because he was on his own. I mean, it was everything. There was no thought process that went through this brain. And I got home, and I said, “I can’t do this anymore. I’m exhausted. I’m missing the boys. You and I are fighting” because if he was even two minutes late to pick me up, like, that’s two minutes late with my kids and less with my kids. It wasn’t the right environment. So I was like, I’m going to be a stay-at-home mom.

I wasn’t going to work. I had no intention of working. I was going to be a stay-at-home mom and go to yoga, and I wanted to go to Nordstrom with my girlfriends and eat lunch. And I did that for three months, and I couldn’t do it anymore. And it just was not what I thought it was going to be.

And my husband said to me, “You’re project management certified. You know how to do all this. Why don’t you help me with the company a little bit?” I’m like, sure.

In 2012, I quit, and in 2013, I started helping him with the company. By 2015, I took over as CEO and ran the sales, marketing, and operations, and he took over just everything  financially. 

Doria: So, he did everything financially. Even though that was your background and you were the CEO? 

Sejal: And even in the house. Even in the house, even though banking and all that was my background, I actually hated it. I still, to this day, hate looking at my books and records and hate my P&L statements. I can’t stand it. Can’t stand it.

Doria: You’re very charismatic, clearly. And so, I mean, it takes more than that, obviously, to run a company. But that was where you felt comfortable. 

Sejal: Yes.

Understanding Each Other

Doria: How was that working with someone that you are married to? 

Sejal: So we worked together, we lived together, we raised kids together. It definitely wasn’t all unicorns and rainbows. I mean, I’m, like, really amazing. So it couldn’t have been that hard for him. In all honesty, it was harder. We fought a lot. There were times when the boundaries weren’t respected. And we’d go out to dinner on a date, and I’d be like, “Oh, my God, did you call that person?” 

He’s like, no. And then I’m in CEO mode, and it doesn’t work. And so we went to therapy. We definitely had a breakdown.

We went to therapy, and we had to work hard at it. But we put together boundaries. We put boundaries in place. We put things in place that really helped us not just take the business to the next level, but to take our marriage, take our family. We started doing dinners without our phones, us and the kids.

It didn’t matter what the hell happened. Everything was at home. We did two trips alone, two trips with the kids, one with my family and one without, and we did a trip with friends. We traveled. We made time for each other.

Doria: Would you say that is the key thing that made the difference was finding ways to acknowledge and make time for each other? 

Sejal: Yes, but the first key thing was to understand what we were doing wrong.

I just thought he was trying to be annoying. He thought I was being bossy, probably words I can’t say. And it wasn’t that. He created this amazing company, and all of a sudden, his wife came over and came in and took over. Took over.

Maybe did it better than he did, right? Well, there are aspects that I am definitely better at, but there are aspects that I can’t touch with a 10-foot pole to what he does. It was really understanding how each other felt, why we felt the way we felt, and then being able to take that.

And that wasn’t easy. I know. I’m just, like, rolling it off my tongue. But it took time, to admit it, for me to admit it, for us to get there.

And then we said, okay, well, what do we need to do? Well, we need to go into husband-wife mode, into mom and Dad mode, and not do all these other things some days. And that’s how we started breaking it up.

TechWerxe’ Evolution

Doria: So, talk to us about what your company did initially and how it has pivoted over time. 

Sejal: So TechWerxe was started because we realized that there was a need for enterprise-level security, and IT needs for small and medium businesses. Small and medium businesses needed more to protect themselves and more to have flexibility than larger businesses.

But they didn’t have the money that the larger businesses did. We started this company, and that was sort of where we went from there. We added a huge cybersecurity arm. I launched a new cloud platform. We became the number-one cybersecurity company in New Jersey this year, and we’re in the top 100 internationally for cybersecurity.

It’s pivoted through the years as technology constantly changes. I mean, look at what we just did with AI. So we’re constantly training, we’re constantly learning new things. But our biggest benefit, our little superpower, is that I have the ability to make incredible relationships with vendors across the board, enterprise-level vendors, and get things done in a small and medium business, affordable way. And we’re able to offer that to our clients.

Doria: That’s what I was wondering, because, as a small business owner myself, when I think of tech consultants or cybersecurity, I see the dollar signs, dollars. And so you’re able to offer services more affordably. 

Sejal: Affordably, that will work because what we do is we collectively go in, I’ve partnered with different vendors. I’ve partnered with different IT companies. And I said, hey, I have 500, you have 500, you have 500.

Now we have enough. We have as many as Goldman Sachs does. Let’s go and do it that way. And that’s how we built the company, and that’s how we built all of our relationships, and that’s how we built our entire technology and cybersecurity stack, and that’s how we offer it to our clients. 

Doria: And you have your own cloud, if I’m correct?

Sejal: Yes. So we built our own cloud platform. We have our own cloud company, which I launched in 2022. 

You think about most IT companies, and when you have that image in your head, you think about the phone constantly ringing and everyone like the help desk picking up and then you get transferred to the next level. We’re not that. Our help desk is our last line of defense. So, we are extremely proactive. We are at your company all the time.

We’re a flat fee. So you know what your budget is. And what that’s allowed me to do is really grow the company in a way that most people can’t grow the company because I know exactly how many people, I know exactly what we’re doing, and I’m able to spend more of my time training my people than firefighting because we don’t have that many fires. Well. And clearly, the cloud is highly scalable.

Doria: So you diversified in a really smart way. 

Sejal: Yeah, it’s amazing. And we’re able to offer the cloud to our IT colleagues as well. So it’s not just for our clients. Now, we go out to smaller IT companies and larger IT companies that are using Azure or AWS.

We’ll do all the work. So now we have one-, two-man IT shops that really don’t have a help desk or anything, but they have an entire company because our infrastructure is their background as their support.

Coping with Tragedy

Doria: Can you think back now to the day when your husband, who I assume was in good health, but I don’t know that he was?

Sejal: Yes, he’s 39 years old and in great health. [He was] 39 years old and had a fatal heart attack. 

Doria: What happened? 

Sejal: I was in Florida in training, and my younger son actually saw him have a heart attack because my husband had gone to pick him up from tennis. Everything that could go wrong went wrong at that time. Meaning all the people that weren’t supposed to be there were there, and all the people that were supposed to be there weren’t there, my parents were away, his mother was away. It changed our life. He’s 39, he was in great health, he wasn’t obese, he was fit.

It just puts you in a whole different place. One minute, you’re here, and everything is like this, and the next minute, you’re just in a whole different world, and you don’t know how to navigate the world, you don’t know what to do in the world, you don’t know who to talk to because nobody understands. 

Doria: I can imagine, right? 

Sejal: Yeah. It’s not like losing a parent or just everything. We work together, kids together.

So I don’t know. I mean, the kind of person I am is when it all happened, my first thought was, what do I do? Do I go back into the banking world where many of my colleagues, ex-colleagues, had called me and said, “Hey, girl, this isn’t your thing? Come back, come work for” whatever company they were at at the time? And I said, “Well, I don’t think I can do that.”

I’ve got two kids that I got to really take care of. And going to work at 6:00 a.m. and coming back at 08:00 p.m. can’t be my life anymore.

And the way I work, Doria, is that I just start to make it go. I’m like, okay, I got to keep the company. What I need to do if I got to keep the company, the one thing I’ll tell you, is I have and had an incredible circle of trust. I mean, some of my support system was way beyond what you could ever imagine. 

Doria: How big is your circle of trust?

Sejal: I mean, I have a set of probably 15 to 20 people that I could call in a heartbeat, but it depends on for what. My right-hand man, who’s currently my right-hand guy, who runs all of it right now for TechWerxe, was not hired by me. 

I had an issue where the relationship is amazing now with my in-law’s family, with my husband’s family, but at that moment, right, everyone’s going through their own grief, and people are going through their own thing. And his brother worked for us, and it just wasn’t working. And he quit last minute.

Just let me high and dry, and I have zero IT skills.

Financial Challenges

Doria: The other thing I wanted to ask you is, how much did you know and how did you learn? 

Sejal: I knew nothing. I knew everything about sales, marketing, and operations, but I knew nothing about finance. I knew nothing about it. 

It is not something I can learn. Finance, I knew. I just chose not to do it. It was just a matter of picking up the things that I knew I had to do, giving away the things that I couldn’t do, finding people to do the things I couldn’t do, and realizing what priority was, and all the while making sure that my kids and everything else were [ok]. 

Doria: And while this is all happening, you discovered that there were financial issues that you were unaware of in either your personal life or in your business.

Sejal: Both, unfortunately. My husband had a gambling addiction. He was a day trader. We’re left in a financial state that I did not know or was completely unaware of. Looking back, there were definitely signs. And as a woman who came from the banking world and who knew financing inside out and whose father was a right, like, I should have seen it.

And, you know, the thing is, though, Doria, you kind of do see it, you trust somebody so implicitly that when you’re asking them for why something didn’t happen or why something balanced, they’re like, oh, well, so and so. And they give you some excuse, and you’re like, okay. Even though if somebody you didn’t know gave you that answer, you’d be like, what are you talking about? What were the signs? Sometimes, I would write checks and they would bounce.

I went to the doctor once on my health insurance. They said you don’t have health insurance. I’m like, what are you talking about? Credit cards? I would try to use a credit card, and it would decline. 

And he’s like, well, I forgot to make that payment. Or I was moving money from here to there. Or we had a lot of accounts. We have a lot of businesses. We just have a lot of moving parts.

Yeah, we have a lot going on. And there’s a lot of manipulation. I feel like that goes on, and addiction of any kind. There is manipulation, and the person is very good at it. It has nothing to do with how intelligent the victim is.

Doria: I don’t want to call you a victim because you were able to get through it. 

Sejal: But still, as a woman, me personally, as a woman, I was like, let him do the finances. It’s not that we fought. It’s not like he managed our money and I was given an allowance. None of that. I had a credit card. He had a credit card. I had ample access to everything. I had access to everything.

I chose. I made a conscious decision to not be involved. I chose to be ignorant. And what I’ve seen after that, what I’ve learned after that is many women choose that. They’re like, “Well, my husband’s got it.”

And, guys, you know what? That’s okay. We can’t do everything. We do need to split responsibilities. But that doesn’t put us out of the accountability aspect. Have a meeting once a month. Go over the finances. Just do an update. Hey, where are we with this? Where with this? Let’s open up the accounts and look through them really quickly because ignorance isn’t a vulnerability. Ignorance is flat-out ignorance, which leads to stupidity. And, yeah, I beat myself up. I was embarrassed. I couldn’t believe it.

I mean, we lost over $6 million. There was a second mortgage out on my house that I hadn’t signed for. There were credit card bills that hadn’t been paid and vendors that hadn’t been paid in years. The IRS actually came knocking on my door one day when I was sitting with my PR person, and they’re like, “Well, your sales taxes haven’t been paid.” We were $6 million in debt.

Doria: Wow. 

Sejal: It was $6 million of either loans, mortgages, and unpaid bills from electricity. Unpaid taxes were a lot.

Doria: And you are so incredibly educated. Part of you must have been angry, too.

Sejal: I was livid. And that’s the problem, right? You’re grieving. You’re angry. My kids know none of this. So they still to this day, don’t know. They’re 12 and 14 right now, and I’m not there yet. And my husband was an amazing father. One of the best you will ever, ever meet.

Dealing with Grief and Anger

Doria: That’s what makes people so complicated, right? 

Sejal: That’s it. And most of the people here don’t know. Nobody knows.

So, as I’m grieving and going through this, I’m so angry. There were people in my circle of trust who knew what was happening, but the rest of the world had no idea. And they’re sitting there going, “She’s working so hard. She got so much life insurance. Why is she working so hard?”

Or why is she out working when she could be with the kids? Or all of these things that come into play as you’re grieving, as you’re hurting, as you’re going through this catastrophe, as you’re working with your kids, as you’re trying to restabilize the business, and by the way, you have a house to run. And then there’s all the other relationships you have to deal with because you’re alone, you’re exhausted. You have no one to talk to. Even though you have a circle of trust, it’s not the same as having a husband that you chitchat with at 10:00 p.m.

Doria: How did you take care of yourself? How did you give yourself the resilience that you needed? And how long did it take to untangle also? That must have been quite [a lot]. 

Sejal: Within 11 months. January 11, 2020. Right before COVID, I stabilized the business. Took me 11 months. I had every contract moved. Vendors that were not respecting the fact, some of them just needed a death certificate, they needed blood, basically for me to move things. I canceled them, I left them, I fired them, I moved.

I restabilized my business in 11 months, again with the help of my network. Please understand that I did not do any of this alone. Then COVID hit. He passed away on February 28, 2019. And it took me about two and a half years to either fight the debts and win or pay off the debt.

All the court cases and retirement accounts had been emptied. Redo all the health insurance, do back everything. Everything was done in two and a half years. And doing it alone. 

And not letting my kids know. And we still live in the same house. We live the same lifestyle. With the help of my network, with the help of my parents, and my family in general.

Thriving After Loss

Doria: There’s so much to be grateful for there and for women who find themselves in a situation for which they don’t feel ready, which certainly you have been in a few of those. 

And I don’t mean to trivialize it, but what are three tips that you would give women to help them rise to the challenge even if they don’t feel ready? 

Sejal: I’ll tell you from my experience what happened. I was so scared to make any decisions. I mean, things like, what soccer club should they move to and what teacher should I ask for? What language should they take in school? And is that going to change their entire life? And they’re going to be homeless. 

I became paralyzed. I didn’t know who to talk to.

So here’s something. Number one is every decision you make is the right decision today, and you know what? Tomorrow can be changed. Right? It’s the best that you know right now.

You’re doing the best that you can. Every decision is the right decision. Just think about the amount of pressure that took off of me. I can change that decision tomorrow. But if you don’t make a decision, then there’s no next step.

And if there’s no next step, you’re now moving backward, so you can’t do that. You have to make a decision so you can get to the next step. The second thing for me was I was constantly worried about being judged. We tend to do this a lot. We judge others, and we worry about what people are thinking.

And nobody knew. Nobody knew my story. Only my circle of trust knew my story. Most people did not know my story. I had to learn, and it was hard to not care about what other people were thinking.

I needed to do what was best for me and my two boys, and that was it. So I worked for my company. My company, as I said, is one of the top companies in the nation. We’ve launched new companies. I run a real estate investment agency with a couple of other partners.

I have really taken to the fact that I love being an entrepreneur. I focused on not judging, but I focused more on not caring what people thought about me. Whenever you start caring about that, and you know what that also means, that also means that sometimes it’s time for people to leave your life. There are people who were in my circle of trust who were my closest friends and allies when my husband was around, who are barely blips in my life now, and others that are part of my tribe because there is a time and a place for everyone.

The people that you want around you are not the people that judge you for changing. They celebrate you for growing. My circle of trust wants what’s best for me. They’re going to celebrate me every time I grow, and that means I’m going to be changing. So that’s the second thing. 

It reminds me of a saying that I read once that if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you don’t deserve me at my best. And I do think that there’s so much truth to that completely. And then the third thing. We, women, have an issue in general asking for help. We are superwomen. We wear capes, and we fly around the world doing everything for everybody, no matter what. Ask for help. I learned that. And to this day, I still ask for help.

I am vulnerable if I can’t do anything. I mean, I talk about anything. I can’t change the filters in my house, or I can’t change the tire of my car. I need to launch a new business, and I don’t know how to do that. Or are these new labor laws throwing me for a loop? I don’t know how to work with that.

Doria: I completely agree with that. It may not be in the form of the time that you necessarily think 100 percent right, but it always ends up being what you need at the time, whether you realize it or not.

Sejal: And I went through some hard truths. I mean, I definitely went through some hard truths when these things happened, and people were like, how did you not know, and what did you do? And I’m like, God. Well, I can’t change it, but let’s make sure I don’t screw that up again. 

Doria: Let’s talk a bit about your children, the grieving process, and where they are today. How are they? 

Sejal: My boys are thriving. They’re not surviving. They’re both hardcore soccer players in academy-level soccer. They’re both doing amazing in school. They have tons of friends, and we talk about my husband every day. There is not a minute that goes by that my husband’s name doesn’t come up. They don’t shy away. They’re open if they miss him.

You know, my little one, I missed Daddy today. I’m like, all right, we cry. Let’s take the five-minute cry, let’s do it, and then get up and move forward because there’s nothing else to do. We practice a lot of gratitude because, in the beginning, they’re like, why us? 

And I’m like, let’s think about all the things we do have. Look at where we are and what we have. And I’m not talking about the house and the health. I’m talking; my friend saved a peanut butter cracker for me today, and my other friend put his arm around me because I was crying. 

So, let’s be thankful for that. So, my kids are doing amazing. They absolutely miss their father. We absolutely talk about him on a daily basis in my house. His pictures are everywhere.

Everything is everywhere. It is not a taboo subject. It’s not something that we can’t do. It is free-flowing. We ask questions, and that has made them have the ability to just be so open.

Like, they’ll go out and be like, “Oh, my God, Daddy used to do this, and Mommy can’t do that at all.” And I’m like, I know, but it’s a great conversation. I put them in therapy right away, by the way. 

Doria: Right away? 

Sejal: Right away. Within two weeks, they were in therapy. I know for a fact that helped. I’m a big proponent of it. I didn’t go to therapy.

I honestly didn’t have the time. But they were both in therapy. They had their own sessions, and we did a family session once a month. I have to tell you, they are incredible and doing amazing. They’re still a pain in the butt.

They’re 12 and 14. They’re not like roses. I mean, I’m not saying they listen to everything I say. Absolutely not. We yell, we fight, but they’re incredible. 

Doria: I can see your pride. I have daughters 18 and 16, and I say the same in my life. But they are a pain in the ass.

Sejal: Really? Pain in the ass. Coming back full circle.

Doria: Where are you today as a woman, as a mom, and as a business owner?

Sejal: Well, one is, I’m all three all the time. I am all three, all the time. So if one part isn’t going well, the others are not going well either. I am proud to say that I did a damn good job.

Am I going to brag? Yeah. I’m out of debt. I have fought everything. My kids are doing amazing.

I take time for myself. I go on vacations. I do spa days. I take time for myself. I’m dating, and I’m open with my kids about it.

And we talk about it. No, they haven’t met anyone. But in the aspects of where I need to be as a mother and as an entrepreneur, my business is doing well. Of course, I have problems. Of course, I had issues. I mean, we had COVID, we had these employee issues, all sorts of stuff. But it’s a business. It’s like everybody else. And I have an incredible support network. And I’m happy.

I’m very happy. I’m involved in all the things I want to be involved in. I tell you, I just came back from South Africa and Peru in the last month. Peru with my kids and my parents and my sister and family, and South Africa for me. I’m part of an organization called Entrepreneurs Organization (EO). It’s an incredible organization, and I am very involved in it.

We’re a global organization. There are 17,000 of us across the world. And so when I travel, anywhere I go, I call up one of you. I’m like, hey, I’m coming to your place. And our kids meet, and we meet, and we hang out, and they’re lifelines.

I can go anywhere in the world and call anybody and find someone. Being part of organizations that are true and really good and strong is incredible. I’m part of another organization called C4BX, which I helped found. Again, it’s just a tight group of people that help you no matter what. Personal, professional.

When I went through this, one of the guys was an estate lawyer. He helped me. One of the guys, as an accountant, helped me. My PR person is in that same organization. It is all sort of just leaning on each other and trusting that they’re going to want the best for you.

Doria: That’s wonderful. And when I think of professional organizations, I don’t think I have found any that I would say I feel I could lean on people. So that’s something I’m going to think about because mine are very just, like, professional. You know what I mean? 

Sejal: Yeah, these are both incredible. EO is all personal as well, and everyone’s an entrepreneur. Everyone owns a business, so everyone knows what you’re going through. Maybe not in tech, someone’s in manufacturing, someone’s in whatever service. But it is incredible because I can call up anyone in the world and say, I’m exhausted.

Techwerxe and its Services

Doria: Yeah, I get you, girl. Let’s talk about why. Tell me why. Totally. So, where can our listeners learn more about how your company works with small to medium-sized businesses?

Is it just in the tristate area, or is it nationwide? 

Sejal: Worldwide. We are nationwide. We’re nationwide. We do cybersecurity. We’re a managed service provider, meaning everything from, like help desk to my mouse won’t work to mergers and acquisitions. We work with new companies, with startups across the nation, and our cloud platforms across the nation. So you can go to Techwerxe.com. 

All of my information is on there. I do a ton of speaking across the globe on cybersecurity, entrepreneurship, on the power and strength of vulnerability, and I love it. 

Doria: There was one thing I meant to ask you. So what can a solopreneur do today to make herself feel more secure, personally or, like, tech-wise, that are easy things to do? 

Sejal: So, security-wise, I’ll tell you, as a solopreneur, I know the biggest thing is dollars, right? You’re just like, “Oh, my gosh, how am I going to spend all this money?” At least get certain tools that are like multi-factor authentication. Make sure your passwords are secure, make sure that you’re using a VPN, you’re not hopping onto a public Wi-Fi, you’re not going to Starbucks and working.

We tend to make these mistakes, right? You need to make sure that your data is safe and secure. So if you don’t know what that means, get a Sharepoint. Get something where you can make sure that you have double passwords, where you’re getting authenticated on the phone, you’re getting, like, log in with your password. 

As a solopreneur, make sure you’re not letting your kids or your spouse use your laptop. Make sure there’s a password on your laptop. Lock it because God forbid you lose it. That is everything to you. Back it up, please.

As a solopreneur, you can’t afford to go into certain places, et cetera. Get a hard drive. I don’t care what it is. Back it up. Back it up so that you don’t lose everything every day.

I mean, it would depend on how important you think your work is. Are you okay if we start tomorrow without today, it’s on you.

Doria: Love it. I have really enjoyed this conversation so much. Thank you for coming on.

Sejal: Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for doing what you’re doing and being a platform for women and a place for women to sort of come to and hear the experiences of other women. 

Doria: Thank you. Well, I couldn’t do it without you, just to say. And your willingness to be authentic and vulnerable. So thank you.

Sejal: It was my pleasure.