Have you ever dreamt of a life coach who understands the challenges and rewards of living across cultures? Then meet Danny Soeryadjaya! In Today’s Social Expat exclusive interview will unveil a story that spans eight countries, Adimas’s journey is one of remarkable resilience and transformation.
This rich background fuels Danny’s passion as a life coach. He helps people find happiness and fulfilment, guiding them to live a life that goes beyond their comfort zones and embraces the possibilities that exist outside their everyday routines.
About Adimas Soeryadjaya
Adimas Soeryadjaya is from Indonesia, but he grew up mostly outside of Indonesia and have lived, studied, and worked in 8 countries, though he will always consider Singapore as his ‘home’ in his heart. Since that is the longest country he lived in during his formative years.
So, outside of Indonesia, he has always used the name ‘Danny’. He is currently in a transition period where he is re-starting his career as a life coach, though he is currently also a consultant in the green and renewable energy sector for a local energy company, Adaro Power.
His current business are making people happier, guiding them to live a fulfilling life, and helping people experience life differently other than what they’re used to. Growing up, he used to be an angry teen, because he moved around a lot, he ended up going to 7 different schools before graduating high school, college in Switzerland was his 8th educational institution he attended.
He found himself quite stressful, and always lonely because of moving around, On top of that, when he was 13 years old, he grew up without parents, he lived with his brother in the US until he was 15 years old, then had to move back to Singapore for the 3rd time because he was getting into trouble with my friends, and lived alone from then on in Singapore until he graduated high school.
He often learned things the hard way. Then the adventure started, he did an internship in Brunei for 3 months then for college, he went to Switzerland, Malaysia, Costa Rica, and Spain, all with his dad’s financial support, of course. There was no way to keep in touch with his friends other than email back then, and he got used to this kind of lifestyle where he is constantly on the move and in and out of countries.
At the age of 18 and 19, in his last 2 years of high school, he started reading personal development books like ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’, ‘Think and Grow Rich’, plus some others, because he was angry at the time, he felt lost, and he also realised he couldn’t depend on the outside or external circumstances anymore for his happiness.
He was willing to learn to just deal with whatever happens next or wherever he moves next or whether should my dad choose to move me again. That’s when he decided to explore the world as much as he could. He was already moving around a lot anyways, so why not experience life to the fullest and meet new people at the same time?
In that time, he noticed people’s pattern. It didn’t matter where he went, he noticed one common thing that people wanted in their life. And that is happiness! People just want to be happy, but most people don’t know how to be happy. He didn’t either until he learned meditation through his meditation teacher and mentor, Vikas Malkani, in March 2009. He was doing what others were doing, too, to find happiness, and that was partying, drugs, alcohol, sex, and other hedonistic activities, which he thought would make him happy, but it always ended up me wanting more of it, and leaving me unsatisfied.
Meditation taught him to find deep, lasting happiness, joy, and fulfilment from within him. It’s not about what you have, or how much money you got, or who your partner is. Yes, they can be a part of it and may even make you happy temporarily, but often, they leave you feeling disappointed and angry again in the end.
Why Did You Start Your Business as a Life Coach?
The reason why he started his business was because he find most people aren’t that deeply happy. If they seem happy, they’re superficially happy. Coincidentally, when he was 8 years old, he lost his mother whose name was ‘Happy’. He thought it’s pretty symbolic because since then he was searching for happiness, and when he found his true joy and happiness, he felt like it was his life’s purpose to make others happy too.
He felt it deep in his bone that it’s his mission to teach people how to be happy from within themselves. Without drugs, without alcohol, or without depending on your partner, wife, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, friends, parents or whoever. Without relying on your status, or money, or job, or whatever title you may have.
He grew up from a privilege family, one of the richest in Indonesia, and he know that money doesn’t make him happy from his own experience. He grew up with everything that any normal person would want, but there was emptiness inside of him. The new toys, the new car, the new girlfriend no matter how beautiful, ended up leaving me feeling wanting more. He also observe what money can do within family members. And it can be very ugly. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against money or the finer things in life, but there’s more to it than those shiny objects. I like money, but I don’t love it.” said Danny.
There’s also a reason why drugs, tobacco, vapes, and alcohol is such big businesses, and it’s because the majority of people rely on them to lift the burden of everyday life or whatever responsibility they may have in their life that they feel weighs them down for whatever reason. Again, “I’m not against these things, but more like, if you don’t depend on these external stimulants and instead depend on what’s already within you for your own joy and happiness, it makes life a lot lighter and more joyful and colorful”. This is speaking through his own experience.
Tell Us More About Your Life as a Coach
In its simplest explanation, his business is about helping people live a life of freedom, fulfilment and fun or bliss! Everybody wants to be free. Everybody wants to live a fulfilling life and a fun life, too, but unfortunately, most people get stuck in their old patterns of behavior, or habits, and they’re also too attached to their own ‘BS’. When he mean ‘BS’, it’s their belief system, or their own limiting beliefs, or the ‘baggage’ that they carry in their mind or heart.
You can say these are their own ‘bullsh*t’, the lies that they tell themselves over and over again. And these lies are only true in their mind, usually adopted from their upbringing, the society or the country they live in, their parents, culture, religion, and tradition, movies, the media and social media, as well as friends or other members of the family.
His approach breaking these habits and belief system in an experiential way that also, oftentimes, mimic nature. There are elements of stillness and movement, or rock and river (or ‘flow’). It’s fun, engaging, and it’s enlightening to the soul. It targets the individual’s own nature.
Most people seek happiness in the outside world. Most people seek joy through money, fame, status, job, validation, having a family, and other things that are outside of them, which is quite normal, and truthfully, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. Or people wait until a certain time or situation to be happy or content, such as getting promoted, having a family, becoming rich, getting a new car or a new house, or waiting to go to heaven in their afterlife.
But most people miss out on the inner world and the endless opportunities to be happy in this very moment. The world that is already there for you to discover. And this is where meditation is useful as a tool. It allows you to know oneself and discover the joy that’s already within you.
And once you know yourself, then all the things you thought was important will naturally fall away, like a snake shedding its skin. You’ll experience life differently, maybe a bit disoriented at first, but you’ll start to discover things that you never knew about yourself, or things that was impossible before becoming possible.
You start to draw your strength from within and this joy that comes from within makes you feel and experience life in a much lighter way. Life doesn’t feel such a burden anymore. You start having this newfound energy from within you that you’ve always had but you never tapped into. Making each moment worthwhile! Only then can freedom become possible.
He believe it’s important to spread joy and happiness to others because that’s the one sure way to create more peace, joy, and safety in this world. The world becomes safer with more joyful people, not with more stressed, anxious, and worried people.
When a person lives under stress, anxiety, and fear, anything can trigger that person. He knew from his own first-hand experience, because when he was a teen, little things could trigger him and there were times when he liked to fight people, his ego was triggered often and easily.
When you’re happy, your ego doesn’t easily get triggered, and you’re more accepting of things and people, which means less confrontation, and with less confrontation, there’s less tension and violence. Energy is infectious! Stand next to an angry person and it extends to you. Stand next to happy person, and you feel lighter too! Everybody deserves to be happy and live peacefully with others.
What are the challenges of running a business in Jakarta?
For me, the biggest challenge of running a business in personal development, or coaching, is, first, the language difference. Even though I can somewhat understand Bahasa Indonesia, it’s harder for me to speak it, or to be more specific, to articulate or express how I think and feel in Indonesian as Bahasa Indonesia is not my natural language to speak.
It’s also hard for me, for example, to speak the business language in Indonesian. The language itself is very vague, in general, and that makes it even harder to be specific in how I want to express things. For this reason, I tend to market my services to foreigners, or to the online market for North Americans or Europeans.
The second challenge I have is that the self-help or personal development industry is very new in this region and, generally speaking, not many Indonesians, either know these kinds of services or businesses exist, or it’s not openly accepted, it’s still considered taboo. And for this reason, it’s hard to market my services to the general public. In the US, the market is pretty established, dating back to the 1960s or 1970s, I think, and it’s still growing!
And the third challenge I have revolves around comfort. Most Indonesians are comfortable in their lives, but comfort does not necessarily mean they’re deeply happy people, or satisfied in their life. And this comfort, more often than not, is an obstacle to personal growth. As the saying goes, “Comfort is the enemy of progress”. Or another one, “Comfort breeds complacency”.
So what ends up happening is that most Indonesians I’ve met are stagnant in their lives, even if they’re successful, they experience life with a lot of stress and anxiety, and they don’t do much about it. Or, they resort to drugs, alcohol and other temporary or quick fix solutions that’s usually not sustainable for their overall mental, emotional, and physical well-being. They kinda tend to do the same thing over and over again. Kinda like a hamster on a wheel.
So, Where Do You See Your Businesses in 10 Years?
To be honest, I don’t have anything specific how I see my business in 10 years. However, I can see myself still helping individuals, people of all kinds, groups of people, and corporations become more creative, more fulfilling in their line of work, and enjoying whatever it is that they do.
The reason why I don’t see a definite vision for my business in 10 years is because I’m free flowing with myself and my lifestyle. I may still be in Indonesia in 10 years, or maybe, I may already have moved overseas, living in a different country.
I may also be doing different things by then. I’m the sort of person who flows with life and I don’t cling on to any future vision of how my business should, will, or may look like in the future.
I love flexibility, in general. So, perhaps, my plans have changed in 10 years! I don’t know what the future holds for me, or for my business, but one thing’s for sure, whatever happens, whether my business becomes a failure or a success, I’m fully and truly happy whatever happens.
I think for many people having a successful business is important as it gives them a sort of status in their life, or maybe, some sort of validation from their family, their community, or from the public.
Bur for me, it’s not as important to be successful, or to create a successful business. For me, what’s important is how I experience life in this very moment, or how I experience life from a moment-to-moment basis. In other words, my bliss is what’s the most important.
My joy and happiness don’t depend on whether my business becomes successful or a failure. I don’t really care or need the recognition, or the awards, or any of the things that many people find to be valuable.
What matters is how I’m feeling or experiencing this very moment. And to be able to feel everything FULLY from the good, the bad, and the ugly, as well as the beautiful, that’s what’s most important to me. This is the business of bliss! It’s not about 10 years from now, it’s about this very present moment.
Success is good, but even better is being able to be joyful despite the seemingly negative circumstances. I’m more of an artist than a businessman or an entrepreneur. I like money, but I don’t love it.
Do You Have Any Business Advice or a Business Mantra You Live By?
Yes, since you’re already complete as you are regardless of where you are in life, or how much money you have or don’t have, or what your status is, or whether your rich or poor, my favorite mantra to live by is “This too shall pass”.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter, who you are, how much you acquire, or how much you possess, or what you look like, eventually you’ll lose all of them when you die. So, enjoy the good moments, be resilient during the bad ones, and embrace the journey of life, because none of them lasts forever as everything in this life is temporary.
Life is short so enjoy whatever happens in your life, whether it’s good or bad. Life is nothing but a flux between the highs and the lows, and you only have this one life in this current body, so might as well enjoy whatever is given to you or taken away from you.
There will be joy, there will be aches and pains, as well as dull moments in life, that’s just how life is. Whatever happens, just see it as a ‘good’ thing or it’s a lesson you gotta learn. Life can only be lived fully and freely when it’s experienced in its full spectrum. In any case, “this too shall pass”.
