Changing a set lifestyle overnight requires a lot of determination. It is only possible when a strong purpose guides one – a vision that would rattle the person to the core and instill him or her with a new sense of meaning. Nafsika Antypas, the Founder of Nafsika’s Garden, had such a moment of epiphany almost a decade back while watching a documentary on Netflix – about veganism and animals.
The show destabilized her thoughts and disrupted her way of life. Being a compassionate person, she felt strongly about things that are happening encircling animal husbandry. She turned vegan that day and since then, she has never looked back.
But it didn’t stop there. The show’s impact and the views it shared were so overpowering that she decided to take relevant steps to start a movement. One individual turning vegan can never usher in a reform but inspiring millions can. That is when she decided to take a step forward and launched her TV show that shared experts’ views on how changing the food habit could pave ways for more significant benefits.
Transforming Ecosystem
Since the early days of evolution, human beings have shown a real dependency on animal products in some countries, particularly in the cold winter months. But the days of hunters and gatherers are now in the past. People have evolved into experts in genetic mutations and breeding. The consumption has sky-rocketed and it has brought people face-to-face with some radical challenges about which earlier generations never bothered. It has driven the world towards some unwanted challenges where the chances are high of a complete breakdown of the ecosystem. However, food has a huge role to play in preventing this complete collapse.
Nafsika understood this and decided to put her feet on the gas paddle. She knew it well that she has to bring more into her fold to spread veganism and for that, she has to reach a broader audience using a medium with the ability to sway minds. She found TV as a perfect medium and started airing her own show with experts to promote the idea of building a more peaceful world.
In 2015, after spending two successful years as a vegan, she developed an outline of a talk show. It was a deliberate move provoked by her inability to find a single show on TV that reflected her views. Six months later, she started airing her own show, Plant-Based By Nafsika, on the A&E network. It has a specific outlook and it is the first-of-its-kind vegan lifestyle/talk show series that owns a space in mainstream television.
Times have considerably changed. A substantial rise has been noticed in favor of veganism in recent years. People have started realizing the ill-effects of sacrificing animals for human consumption. Nafsika feels that loving and taking care of others are two innate qualities that can create a more peaceful society. She senses that once people establish this bond with animals, they would find themselves in a new world. In her opinion, this is what turns vegans into activists as they feel an urge within themselves to help others.
But for many, letting an age-old habit go is not an easy task. The transition needs some kind of polishing and alternatives that would lessen the impact of this sudden change. Nafsika realized this and decided to initiate a method that would simplify the process. As a result, Nafsika’s Garden came into being. The intent was to serve delicious food without compromising the taste or the texture of an animal product.
One such product is the cheese produced by the company. It is a plant-based product that tastes just like the dairy cheese and melts when heated in such a way that even a hardcore cheese lover would fail to spot a difference. In her words, “unless you’re missing the cholesterol, you won’t have an issue switching to my dairy-free products.”
Roadblocks On Her Way
Like most of the entrepreneurial ventures, she had a few hiccups in the beginning. Initial rough patches hit her hard but never got her off the track she set for herself when she ventured out. The primary obstacle for her was to produce her own TV show as funding was a huge problem. For such a show, a constant influx of cash is required and it is often challenging to manage a single source for that.
But that is in the past now. She is now experiencing a phase where her prospects are very bright. She is currently expanding her business on an international scale and planning to launch a new TV series. Additionally, she has been writing her own books. One among them is “Make the Plant-Based Switch,” which complements the online course she provides on vegan topics. The book is slated to come out in the Fall. She is also planning to launch herself as a fiction writer.
In fact, she is quite happy about the progress she has made thus far and doesn’t want to change a single thing. Nafsika is aware of the butterfly effect– she understands that a single change in the past may alter the present for her and throw her off the trajectory she has envisioned for herself. The learning curve hasn’t ended for her yet, and she is still evolving by noting her mistakes to get insights from them.
Moreover, her paths are often guided by a simple belief- “If someone is trying to persuade you not to do something you believe in or really want, it’s probably because they believe you can do it.” She trusts in her intuitions and finds them as real, which is why she never doubts herself while committing to something wholeheartedly.
Future Plans
Nafsika has set a premise for herself by discussing various myths and stereotypes in the three seasons of her show, Plant-Based by Nafsika that have aired.
She knows that this has helped her reach out to a larger audience who are now opening up more and more to this way of life. This also creates an opportunity for her to expand her business and she is quite elated to find herself on steps towards global growth.
Her Stance On Leadership
As a leader, Nafsika has realized that nothing comes close to perseverance when it is about leading a pack of enthusiastic employees towards a goal. Giving up in such conditions is not an option. As a leader, it is crucial to have clarity in vision that can help see things on the other side of obstacles. This simplifies planning for the upcoming days, which acts as a tailwind and opens up scopes that can be explored for a better expansion plan.
Challenges motivate her and make her determined to explore ways through which she can achieve the desired end. Her endeavors as an entrepreneur transformed her ways of thinking and she believes, “you’ve got to visualize your future and believe it. Then, nothing can stop you, because, in your mind, it’s already happening.” What she has accomplished is a reflection of this and inspiring in many ways for a lot of people.
