It started innocently early enough in her tweens—a self-grooming technique of plucking eyebrows. Over time the habit intensified, altering her looks (no eyebrows) and became a secretive compulsive coping strategy and a mental health condition. Aneela Idnani outed her 20+ year habit to the world in a real, raw, and riveting 2019 TEDTALK.

Self-Harming has many secretive, creative, and seductive companions that slowly over time suffocate our birthright to love, connect, and accept oneself (self-love). One in 20 people or 21M Americans are obsessed with three repetitive and injurious habits connected with self-grooming routines: hair pulling, skin picking, and nail-biting. Body-focused repetitive behaviors, known as BFRB, are used as a compulsive coping strategy to relieve stress, anxiety, and boredom. DOWNLOAD

 To break up with self-harming habits, few people go to the extent today’s Mentor Guests Aneela Idnani (Kumar) and Sameer Kumar have; unless you are entrepreneurs and disrupt the behaviors by inventing a smart bracelet solution. They have won prominent awards and research grants for their 2017 KEEN, smart bracelet:

• TIME Magazine’s 2018 Best Invention,
• 2018 MN Cup and MEDA Small Biz Startup Competition,
• 2018 Tekne Best Startup,
• 2019 MEDA $1 Challenge, and a
• 2020 Phase 1 research grant from both the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) for their ground-breaking work in mental health technology.

Two other co-founders have been instrumental in leading HabitAware to their gesture detection technology early successes. Johan Pritchard is the lead hardware engineer, and Kirk Klobe is the chief technology officer (CTO). They round out this four-person founding team.

 Designed with love, KEEN tracks hand motions to help those suffering from BFRB and curb their compulsive hand habits. Their second smart bracelet KEEN2 was launched this month, providing a holistic approach to healthier soothing strategies so you can go from autopilot to aware to control by exercising the freedom to choose behaviors that increase self-esteem.

The scientific names for the three nonfunctional habits that cause significant distress or impairment are trichotillomania (compulsive hair-pulling), dermatillomania (excessive skin picking), and onychophagia (chronic nail-biting).

The regular self-grooming routine temporarily relieved the stress Aneela felt as her Dad lost the battle to overcome leukemia. Her Dad’s passing cemented Aneela’s unconscious soothing companion into a 20+-year coping strategy. To alleviate stress, anxiety, or boredom Aneela would compulsively pluck.  

Sameer had a lovingly thoughtful way to help Aneela become aware of her hands and her feelings. We could all adopt more loving ways to intervene with loved ones. Hear how Sameer created the safe emotional space for Aneela to emerge from the shame and embarrassment of a habit people think is easy to stop doing. “Ew, why don’t you just stop plucking?” others have said. Awareness is KEEN.

Hear Aneela and Sameer’s personal entrepreneurial journey in becoming HabitAware. We go from how they each grew-up, meeting one another to launching HabitAware and discussing their latest KEEN2 smart bracelet invention. When you have meaningful conversations, you can cover a lot of territory with fulfilling depth and satisfying insight. We round out our conversation with three lessons they have learned about themselves and each other so far. I left the conversation feeling nourished like you usually do with a meaningful conversation. Enjoy.