How Boxing Helps Safeducate CEO Divya Jain to Stay Focussed

Boxing is meditative for me. It’s something that requires your mind and body to work together,” says 38-year-old Divya Jain, Founder and CEO of Safeducate, and Co-founder of Seekho. The London School of Economics alumna—who runs one of the largest initiatives for skilling in logistics, which has skilled over 250,000 students in the past eight years—says what makes boxing attractive is that you always need to be attentive. “If you are running, you can let your mind wander, but that’s not true for boxing. In boxing, if you stop looking, you are going to get a whack,” she smiles. “What I love is that you leave everything aside and just concentrate on the skill, and are aware of the now. Boxing has really helped me sharpen my brain. If I box, I have a better day,” says Jain, the recipient of the ASEAN Young Woman Achiever Award in 2018.

Jain, who decided not to join the family business— logistics and express distribution company Safexpress—has been boxing for the past two-and-a-half years. “It happened by chance. A new ring had opened near my house where they were experimenting with boxing as a fitness form. I decided to give it a shot. And it has become a passion now,” says Jain, who set up a boxing ring at home in Delhi in 2020 when gyms and fight clubs were shut. “Irrespective of which part of the world I am in, I spend the first two hours after waking up boxing,” she says.

Jain is also promoting young girls to box. They are trained at her ring at home. “We identify young girls who have been fighting a little bit and are trying to promote them to fight in the nationals and, hopefully, take them international,” she says, adding, “It is so empowering to be able to protect and defend yourself.”

In early 2021, Jain set up Seekho, a video-first platform where young professionals and college students can learn any skill on the go. “My entire life ties in. When you box, you are learning new skills. A lot of the philosophy that I learn in boxing I have applied in Seekho. How do you build skills, how do you constantly train your body and mind,” says Jain, a mother of two. A boxer needs to be strong, as well as flexible, she says. “Muhammad Ali said, ‘Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee’. So you need to be powerful but agile,” says Jain, who spars for 10-12 hours a week with her coach and maintains a low-carb, high-protein diet. “Boxing gives you awareness about your body. I am trying to introduce my kids to it,” says Jain, who has also been flirting with jujutsu. “But my heart is in boxing.”

@smitabw