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The last decade I’ve written my novels while pursuing my corporate career.
Mostly, because I’ve liked my job but also because what I’ve seen is that my career has made me extraordinarily honest with my writing. I write only because I feel I have something of impact to say in the world. Or I’m answering some very deep unarticulated question to myself that would be of relevance to others who are asking the same questions. And never for reasons like building an audience or building a platform. Or to be in line with the latest publishing trends. And I think that’s allowed me to push the envelope with each novel and to grow and deepen myself with my writing and hopefully to keep getting better with each book.
So the question I wanted to address today is how do you have two parallel, reasonably flourishing careers?
So how do you get right novels and get published with major publishing houses while still, you know, pushing yourself to higher and higher responsibilities in the corporate career? Especially, in the context of having a family.
As many of you know, we have two very young kids and how do you kind of pull all of this together?
So I have three principles for you today. Two of them are very practical and one of them is more like a way of thinking.
1. I’ll start with the way of thinking first. And in case you kind of don’t buy into that way of thinking at least you have the practical principles to rely on. But the way of thinking I wanted to share was, I’ve moved to what I call a one-stream view. Which means that I have stopped having a very solid sense of distinction between this is my day job and this is my passion and I’m to balance both and which one should I go to. Rather I’ve started to see all of life as just one constant stream of constant learning which ebbs and flows depending on the situation. So I kind of like to view everything as a project to grow, to stretch myself as a person, to learn a lot, to make my thinking more complex.
To be able to handle more ambiguity as a person. And I try to seek those projects in both my work and my writing. And why this thinking helps me is that, for example, I do both but when I feel that one thing is going to help me do that better I really have no concerns about switching off and going into that.
So for example, in 2012 I had been working with Kraft for a couple of years and doing pretty complex assignments with them, and then there was a little bit of like an ebb in between when the company was shifting and all of that stuff and I decided to quit my job. And deepen me as a writer for that year by practicing yoga and meditation and then really concentrating on ‘The Yoga of Max’s Discontent‘ which was a novel that I was writing. And so I had not, I guess, too many concerns about quitting and doing that, and I did that for a year. I traveled, did my yoga and meditation, wrote my novel, and then actually came back and looked for a job again and found something again.
And then I worked in the job and again I was the Chief Marketing Officer of a start-up where I worked very hard. And then there was time to launch The Yoga of Max’s Discontent’ in the US which required my full effort, so I quit the job again to launch ‘The Yoga of Max’s Discontent‘ and now I’m going back to a job again. So the kind of principle here is that I’m constantly flowing in and out of things. Rather than have this very discreet solid sense that I’m going to quit my job and become a writer and I’m going to be a full-time writer. I’m rather thinking that whatever allows me to learn and grow the most is what I’m going to do. And that could be writing at some stage, could be a job at both and for the most part, could be both together.
And now for example, that I’m joining a job, I don’t think I’ll write at all for a few months. Because I just want to grow using the job as an experienced frame. Right? And the power of this kind of an approach is that what I’ve seen is that the world starts to almost reward you for that contrary to what you might expect. Because for example, at this level when they are looking for CMOs or CEOs of a company they are looking for people who have more creative thinking. Have pushed themselves into more ambiguous directions. So my having written novels is actually not a ding on my career but almost a very positive aspect of the career. And the fact that for example, if I’m doing digital marketing for my novel and I’m spending 50,000 dollars I know it inside out in a way I would never know if I were spending 50 million dollars of the company’s money.
Right, so you learn skills and you get more and more three-dimensional and more and more creative in your thinking which actually helps your day job so it’s not an either-or anymore. So I think that’s one principle which is to just treat life as one stream of constant learning in which your sole objective is to keep growing. And that could mean ebbing and flowing out of different activities rather than being very discreet about quitting one and starting one and stuff. Right, so that’s my way of thinking advice.
2. The second and the more practical advice is routine. Have a very, very, very strong sense of routine. Because I’ve seen that too many people waste a lot of psychic energy. For example, in writing, by trying to carve out time and when should I carve out time. There’s a lot of conflicts all the time and I’m not getting enough time. I should spend more time. Rather if you have a very strong sense of boundaries when you’re working on your creative project, you’ll see that your psychic energy is very concentrated during that period and you will start to produce great output.
So for example,
Kerri and I every Sunday, for four hours from two o’clock in the afternoon, till 6-6.30 in the evening we hire a babysitter and we work without guilt on our creative projects. Whether it’s a novel or blogging or whatever I’m doing and Kerri does the same. And then when we are present with the kids on Saturdays or the early part of Sundays, we are fully present because we know that period is coming. And similarly on weekdays as well, I’m pretty disciplined. that I’ll come back from my job and work on my creative project. Call it three days a week, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday and Wednesday and Friday, I’ll completely switch off to either go out or do something completely unrelated, so that I’m not burning myself out. But having these very strong boundaries on when you’re working will allow you to be extremely creative during this period and have a very strong sense of the output. Versus just constantly trying to be in this haze that I want to find time, I can’t find time, etc. So routine is my second piece of advice.
3. My third and final one is what I call Peak Performance Health. And this is my learning after being out of business school for almost 10 to, you know 12 to 13 years now. And I’ve seen that people who’ve done well you can just see it in their physical presence. They radiate energy, they haven’t put on weight. They don’t have circles under their eyes. They are radiating physical energy because I think they’re very conscious about the physical, emotional, and spiritual health components. So in my case, for example, that means that I make it a point to exercise five or six days a week, no matter what I’m going through. Even like I started exercising almost a week after we had a baby. Right in the middle of a novel launch while I was still working like in a full-time job.
So it’s a very important part of my life to spend 30 to 40 minutes almost every day in the week, for five or six days to exercise for physical well-being. And that means my diet also I’m very extraordinary careful about. Like I’m a vegetarian not that that’s the right choice for everyone but for me it’s the right choice. It’s a very plant-based diet. I don’t have too much sugar and bread. So those kinds of things gives you a lot of vitality which can be channelized into your creative project. So I would say physically, emotionally, and then spiritually obviously having some kind of a meditation practice which I have every day. I think that makes you very youthful and energetic. That allows the reservoir of energy to put in both efforts. So I think in summary, I would say have a one-stream way of thinking.
Have a very strong sense of routine. And like operate with this Peak Performance Health concept. And you’ll find yourself being like a reservoir of energy to put into multiple directions including your creative project, including your day job, including your family.
I hope that was helpful and thank you. This is Karan Bajaj and I want to offer you my free meditation video course today.
Subscribe to my channel for your free startup and meditation course and 3-5x weekly videos on startups, success models, and writing, https://www.youtube.
