Expat Choice Founder and editor in chief John Gordon, spent a day with Zephyr Khambatta to deep dive into how this inspired individual ticks. An inspiration on so many levels - he has everything to share with those who come in his path, both as recording artist coach and outside of this, as a fitness, mindset and spirituality practitioner.
Zephyr Khambatta used to collect stones and pebbles as a child in primary school, be obsessed with Spiders and how they moved and used to pluck and eat rambutans from his primary school campus at Dunearn Road, Swiss Cottage Primary School.
These were his ways to connect with nature and escape from the constant Singaporean grind of assessment books which his mother had taken a keen interest in piling on him. They served their purpose, getting him to the top positions in his level academically, for four years straight from 9 to 12.
Beneath the surface though, he was itching to play soccer, touch rugby and cricket. He then entered the prestigious Raffles Institution, just scraping through with a score of 262. In mandatory co-curricular activity trials, he was selected by a New Zealander coach for Rugby, by the respective teachers in charge for Hockey and Cricket and the respective coach for Swimming.
While he knew he was meant to be a free spirit as indicated to him by his own soul and the teachers and coaches, his mind was weighed down by childhood and societal condition of what would happen to his “future” if he did not study but spent time on sports.
Needless to say, it becomes an extremely frustrating life when one tries to fight their soul purpose. By secondary three, he had danced a little with embracing his inner nature and breaking out of his fear-based conditioning.
He was skipping classes to play soccer and knocking out about 120 push-ups a day. He was starting to play games in Hockey, as opposed to being the water boy in the first two years. He was weaker physically than classmates his age because from 7 to 12, he was made to join a uniform group as opposed to playing the sports he wanted.
He grew obsessed with the way the soccer ball’s path curled after being struck by his natural left foot. His friends and he would skip class to play soccer in secondary three and four. Nearing the end of Secondary Four, he was pretty much done with books.
He received 16 points in his prelims, which led him to enter Catholic Junior College the following year, after which he attained 7 points in the actual O Levels, leading him back after that to his Alma Mater, Raffles Junior College. Till this date, he attributes that turnaround to his uncannily strong attunement to the law of attraction, visualization and gifted spiritual talents and skills.
That said, he maintains that he enjoyed his time and studied more in Catholic Junior College more than he did in Raffles Junior College. To him, Raffles Junior felt a little cold although Raffles Institution was rather enjoyable especially in the last year.
Since he had been working on his physique towards the end of Raffles Institution, he joined the befitting Canoeing CCA at CJC and RJC, enjoying himself thoroughly. He wanted to drop all studies and join the Canoeing national team full time.
Alas, in Singapore, he found out that you do not get paid for representing the country in sports and so those dreams fizzled out. For his A Level preliminaries, he scored O, F, F, F. He had found it impossibly boring to concentrate on studying lifeless subjects, after being exhausted from Canoeing training.
He did enjoy General Paper though, where it was him having enjoyable debates with the teacher he recalls, while the rest of the class either rooted for him or got bored. For the sake of his parents’ emotions and avoiding a “hopeless future”, he decided to drop everything and study for the next 2-3 months.
He managed to score A, A, B, B, C, C, E for the finals and get into Common Engineering in the National University of Singapore. To his dismay, when he asked both boys and girls out for coffee or drinks after class to unwind, there was only one answer on the Engineering faculty students’ lips.
“We need to study bro.” Deciding this was obviously off-path for him, Zephyr decided to drop out of the National University of Singapore. He joined some friends to sell traditional Chinese medicine and diamond jewelry in a hot multi-level marketing startup where his pay was steadily increasing as his network started to grow.
Soon after, upon constant worrying and chiding by his parents about working so soon instead of studying further, he decided he would only study something his heart was in. Enter music, at LASALLE College of the Arts.
With no music background and no concept of how a major scale even worked or sounded, he decided to audition with two songs that were simple enough for him to play on drums, which he had been casually practicing for a year or two.
Growing up obsessed with Michael Jackson’s dancing and songs, dance came naturally to him, and by extension, drums. Being the most physical of all the instruments in a contemporary rock band set up, he gravitated towards them from the fitness perspective as well.
With only drum playing capability, but not much melody knowledge, the Head of Music and the Pop & Jazz Composition teacher decided to let him in as he promised to take extra classes and close the gap between him and his peers melody wise and showed a display of determination and systematic achievement of his professional goals so far in his short resume.
The Certificate of Service rating from his stint in the Singapore Army helped. His secret prediction though is that they saw much of themselves in him, the part about society finding all musicians “crazy”.
Growing from strength to strength and throwing himself at every opportunity, Zephyr has achieved a considerable sum in music in just 10 years after starting an instrument from scratch.
To understand the dimensions of Zephyr's work in the music world, ponder on the following! He took over open mics from a senior in college, set up a music group on Facebook, Singapore Music, which now has over 2000 members, performed with the top percussion bands in the country, ran a music festival over two days at Orchard Road including the top Cantonese bands in the country and presented artists who worked and continue to work with A.R. Rahman, a famous Indiam composer.
Zephyr also taught at the top music schools in the country, ran a private drum teaching practice and fought tooth and nail to learn music production, rapping and singing after not finding any of his 20 bands having the same thirst as him for releasing enjoyable pop music. This was to culminate in his first fully self-produced and self-performed song making it to MTV and VH1.
Not bad for someone who didn’t know what a major scale was eight years ago. In 2019, he launched a service to teach other musicians what he learned in eight years, in three months via private coaching. He devised a course called the Recording Artist Accelerator, for any musicians who are serious about accelerating their path to releasing music and getting their music noticed, replicating what he did and learnt.
Joining an industry he knew nothing about over the past decade, taught him a lot about people and life. As such, he has been on his own spiritual awakening over the past 3 years, with this year being the strongest in terms of aligning with his life path and soul purpose.
In both his recording artist coaching and outside of it, fitness, mindset and spirituality are three things he preaches till the cows come home, as they are what helped him along his path and enabled him to surge forward in music where other peers were failing miserably.
To him, being a balanced and whole human being means you will succeed at anything humanly possible. “How can you not? You’re good at everything. Your body functions like it should, your brain is quick, grounded and intelligent, and your spirituality and connection to the planet is off the charts.
If you work on these three things every day, anything else is child’s play and just an offshoot of one of these three in various combinations,” he chirps.
"My life purpose is to inspire, empower and help people live out their highest truths in mind, body and spirit, by using my peace, love, truthfulness and spirituality."
After his daughter was born in January 2019, while coaching a few musicians via his accelerator programme, he says he had a quantum shift in spirituality which helped him figure out his life purpose honestly despite society’s views, especially the Singaporean society in which he lives in.
He firmly believes that he is a messenger of divine wisdom, and one of the many open-minded ones who has been called upon to awaken the planet.
He received this message during a 3-day trip he took by himself, with no people and no devices. Shortly thereafter, he began doing spiritual readings for clients and friends with stunning accuracy and well-received guidance according to his clients.
Zephyr attributes much of his courage and grit to the loving words of Jack Canfield and his book The Success Principles. That book gave him the courage to drop out of Engineering and do well in music. He now brings that brand of life coaching to his clients via counseling and guidance as part of his spiritual readings.
Deciding it was time to solidify the “body” part of mind, body and spirit in his portfolio, he took on a job at True Fitness recently. For years, family and friends would approach him to ask for tips on losing unhealthy weight, nutrition, well being, and alleviating stress.
His spirit guides and quantum healing coach (yes, coaches do need coaches) guided him to get in touch with nature. Each time he walked into the park near his house, he heard “Join Fitness”.
Following his intuition and clairaudience, he also heard “Go To True Fitness” while dropping his wife to work at Salesforce, at Suntec City nearby. At 32, he felt like he was getting too old to do things he did not like and to not trust his heart.
He walked into True Fitness at Millenia Walk, currently the biggest gym in Singapore, with no Google searches and nothing of the sort or any expectations of landing any particular position.
He asked for a service-based job at the front desk which would allow him to use his spiritual, loving and kind nature. The general manager informed him that there was no such position available but if he wanted to work in the memberships department, he could apply as there was an opening then.
He did, and made it through two rounds of what he describes as the most frank interviews he has ever given. He felt that the General Manager at Millenia Walk and the Area Business Manager who interviewed him commanded respect and authority, but in a way he had never experienced in Singapore before.
He recalled that they were possibly the two most warm and down to earth potential bosses he had interviewed with ever. To him, this was a very strong sign that this would be a place where genuine people work on a genuine mission to help others.
He landed the job within 32 hours. As someone in charge of memberships, he is responsible for new members beginning their fitness journeys and as he puts it, “getting their minds, bodies and spirits in shape.”
It’s a perfect match for his life purpose and perks of the job include being able to exercise at the sprawling gym after hours. Being the launching months of the new gym, there are very attractive promotions and offers currently ongoing, which are a steal for working professionals in the area.
Accessible by the blue and yellow lines of the MRT and situated directly above Promenade MRT, the newly opened TFX gym is the perfect “one-stop solution” for any fitness goal. Zephyr considers it his privilege to be able to introduce his clients to a healthier way of life, in a very convenient and affordable way, as is suited to the typical Singaporean’s lifestyle.
Zephyr is available on all social media channels for enquiries as well as on his mobile line at +65 9424 5190.
“I’m finding my truth in life with True Fitness and I hope you will too. As a society, we have to understand that the body and health are god and universally given gifts.
There is no point in claiming we are religious, spiritual, advanced and evolved, if we cannot even take care of the temple inside which our souls live.”
There is no doubt in my minds that this young man will achieve a lot in the mind, body and spirit spaces long term, and in the meantime Expat Choice is glad that he has found a great company from which to grow.
Visit Zephyr's Website here
Visit Zephyr's Facebook here
Email Zephyr here
Call: +65 9424 5190
