From Job Hopping to Living the Dream Job

hello everyone

i’m gonna start by painting a picture

for you metaphorically of course with

the help of some photos because i can’t

actually paint

here’s a photo of me in 2017 i was

working in a corporate job

this was my fourth job in four years so

clearly i wasn’t very good when it came

to sticking to just one job

i didn’t really hate this job but i

didn’t particularly love it either

every time i quit a job i thought there

was a problem with the job

maybe there was another job that was

better suited for me because every job

i’d done left me feeling so dissatisfied

and like i had no purpose in life

on paper i seem to have it all a great

college degree

a good job a decent life living in

mumbai but deep down i knew that this

was not what i wanted to be doing

and that there had to be more to life i

just felt so restless and uneasy and it

made no sense because this was the life

that i wanted all along

i consciously worked hard to build this

life for myself to work my way up the

corporate ladder and now that i was

there it didn’t really make me happy

during my last job i finally had an

epiphany that my problem wasn’t with any

of my jobs in particular but with jobs

in general

i just didn’t want to be working for

someone else now i’m sure a lot of

people who work

feel this way but what can you actually

do about it right i mean we all

about our jobs but

at the end of the day we’ve all got

bills to pay and what does one even do

in life you study hard get into a good

college

get a good job go to b school get an

even better job and your life is said

right

at least that’s what we’re made to

believe and i definitely believe that

too

now here’s a photo of me exactly two

years later in 2019

it took a while but i finally found a

job that i stuck with for longer than a

year

in this photo i am in czech republic for

work in the past three years my work has

taken me to countries like iceland

vietnam the us dubai indonesia singapore

kazakhstan czech republic thailand and

of course a lot of places within india

as well

and the best part is that i didn’t

actually pay to go on most of these

trips

in fact i was being paid to go on some

of these trips

my current job involves traveling to

different places and creating content to

share on my youtube channel and my

instagram

something that i never knew could be a

job even when i started doing this

myself

i’m my own boss now and i finally have

something that i wanted for a very long

time which is freedom

financial freedom so that i don’t have

to rely on anyone for money

location freedom to be able to work from

anywhere in the world and time freedom

to be able to work anytime

and not work if i don’t want to be

working so how did i go from this job

switching

lost and confused person to basically

living my dream life right now traveling

the world

at least before the pandemic happened

and getting paid to do something that i

love doing which is taking photos and

videos

that journey is basically the crux of my

talk today sprinkled with some learnings

and insights

now of course i’m not assuming that all

of you or even any of you for that

matter wants to pursue a career in

content creation

i’m not here to tell you to forget about

your plans quit your job and travel the

world it’s honestly not as simple as

that

but i’m sure everyone listening to this

has a dream life whether that involves

working in consultancy

investment banking doing something

off-beat like i am

or maybe you haven’t figured out what

your dream life is quite yet

but irrespective of what your dream is

i’ve come to realize that there are

essentially five pillars that have

helped me build my dream life and that i

think will help you build your dream

life as well

the first pillar is experimenting until

college my life was fairly predictable

i grew up in a small city called velour

in tamil nadu and

i was always a good student who talked

her class now i’m not saying this to

brag but we’ll get back to this point

later again in the story

so after scoring really good marks in my

12th board exams

i got into one of the best colleges in

the country for economics

lady sriram in delhi through college i

did everything that was expected of me

i got decent grades i had a lot of fun

like any college kid would

i sat for college placements and got

myself a job in finance

partly because i enjoyed that subject

but also because i thought that it was a

smart and stable field to be in

i was all of 20 years old then and i had

no

idea how the real job world works so

with that naive enthusiasm i packed my

bags and moved from delhi to mumbai all

ready to start my life as an independent

corporate working woman

i was honestly feeling amazing about

this living by myself independently in a

city like mumbai

with my job as a financial analyst

living the good life right

of course it’s another story that my job

involved me working from 8 am to

sometimes

4 to 5 a.m and i barely got to see

mumbai while i was there but it felt

like i was living the dream life

which i was except it wasn’t my dream

life i was living a life which i was

made to believe is the ideal life but i

soon realized that i didn’t enjoy it at

all

i also saw my seniors around me at work

living a similar life

and this is what my future would have

looked like had i continued down that

path

nothing wrong with that part of course

but it just didn’t make me happy

and so i took a leap of faith and

decided to quit my stable and secure job

even though i had no idea what i

actually wanted to be doing with my life

in hindsight it was definitely easier to

take that kind of risk because i was

only 20 years old at that time

but thus began my series of experiments

to figure out and build my dream life

like i mentioned i had no idea what i

wanted to be doing i knew it wasn’t

finance and i also knew that i wanted to

try something creative because i’ve

always been a bit creatively inclined

so i started job hunting and eventually

landed myself a job in this ad agency

called lolintas in bangalore

i did that for a while then went on to

study advertising worked in digital

marketing and then eventually worked in

marketing which was my last job

and during those four years i

consciously tried to work on a lot of

other different things on the site

one such experiment happened back in

2016 when i started my own blog

i had a website where i’d write about

honestly anything because i didn’t

really start that with the intention of

becoming a blogger or making a career

out of it i had no agenda with it and it

was honestly just a creative outlet for

me

and something i enjoyed doing a lot

little did i know then that this casual

experiment of mine that i started on a

whim

would go on to help me discover my true

passion and lead me to my dream

career of youtubing and being a content

creator i’d always known youtube as a

consumer of content but after a year of

blogging on the side along with my job

i got the idea that i could also start

making videos on youtube

of course it’s another thing that i knew

nothing about filming or editing videos

but the idea of making videos excited me

so much that i knew i had to give it a

shot

so this one weekend when i was off from

work i took my phone

filmed a very random vlog and got my

friend to teach me the basics of editing

which is just cutting clips and adding

music and that’s literally how i got

started on youtube

i’m here today talking to you guys

because i essentially built my entire

current career off of experimenting

sometimes it’s easier to try things when

you’re going in with the mentality of

experimenting rather than

doing something that you’re trying to

succeed at so the first pillar of

building

your dream life is experimenting i truly

believe that the path to finding your

passion

is through experimenting and along the

way you will acquire so many different

skills that will definitely come in

handy later on in life so it’s not

really time wasted

this brings me to the second pillar

which is getting used to being

uncomfortable

now remember how i told you i was always

a good student so back in school i would

always stop my class

my family teachers friends literally

everyone who knew me sort of expected me

to do well and get good marks and with

that came the pressure of constantly

living up to that expectation

and making responsible choices in life

growing up i secretly always wanted to

be an actor or do something creative but

i never

allowed myself to think that that was an

option i had because i was a smart kid

that’s not an option smart kids have and

that’s not a responsible thing to do

so when during my last job i decided to

quit my job to take up youtubing

full-time rather than going to b-school

which was my original plan

that was one of the scariest and most

uncomfortable decisions i’ve had to make

not only was i leaving behind a steady

income and job but i also felt like i

was letting a lot of people down by not

doing the responsible thing

and taking up something so frivolous as

my career

it was also a huge risk because at the

time i had less than thousand

subscribers which is honestly

not enough to just quit your job and try

youtubing full-time so i don’t know how

i got the courage to do that but i also

didn’t know how i would be making money

once i quit my job

i did have some money saved so i knew

i’d be okay for a while but i didn’t

really know how

i would sustain this and make this into

a career

but that was just the start ever since

then it’s been one uncomfortable

decision after the other

and i’ve now come to realize that real

growth only happens outside your comfort

zone

now with experience i’ve learned to get

used to being uncomfortable and it’s

been one of the most rewarding life

lessons

whether it’s traveling solo learning to

build a whole digital business online

with no prior experience

or even giving this tedx talk for that

matter all of these things have been

outside my comfort zone but at the same

time these are all things i’ve wanted to

accomplish

and the only way to do that is to push

yourself outside your comfort zone and

do these things anyway

there’s a huge difference between

wanting something and being willing to

do what it takes to have it

i’m sure a lot of us want to be rich

travel the world have all these amazing

life experiences

but just sitting and hoping it would

happen is not a very good strategy to

apply

nothing worth having in life comes easy

and if you want a particular kind of

life you have to consciously work

towards building it and that becomes a

lot easier if you get used to being

uncomfortable

now all this is well and good but does

this mean you drop everything you’re

doing in life in order to pursue your

passion

absolutely not the third pillar which

may be a bit dull compared to the others

but it’s probably one of the most

important ones

is having a plan as someone who’s quite

spontaneous

and just likes to wing it in life this

is something i’ve really had to push

myself to do but when i quit my job to

give youtubing a real shot

i’d already built my audience on

instagram to a level where every now and

then i’d get

some paid brand deals now it wasn’t a

lot of money but what this did was that

it helped me realize that these kind of

paid opportunities did exist and if i

kept at it those opportunities would

present themselves to me

i also had some money saved having

worked for almost four years and

in order to be mindful of my expenses i

moved out of mumbai and back with my

parents so that i could save some money

and also spend my money on travel and

other things which helped me grow my

channel

i also worked on developing skills that

i could monetize i took up some

freelance writing gigs which sort of

helped me make some money in those

initial months when i wasn’t really

making any money through youtube

and on top of all of this i was also

fortunate to have a very good backup

which is my college degrees

and my work experience so i knew that

even if this whole youtube thing doesn’t

work out

i could always go back to working at my

job in fact some of my previous

employers have also told me they’d be

happy to have me back

so even though that wasn’t the ideal

outcome i knew that if things didn’t

work out i could always go back to

working at a job

so even though we hear a lot of stories

about how people quit their nine-to-five

jobs to pursue their passion and travel

the world

there’s honestly a lot that goes behind

the scenes and it’s never as easy as

that

more likely than not unless you want

some kind of lottery there’s honestly a

lot of planning and work that goes

behind the scenes and you also need to

have a reasonable timeline for yourself

because there’s no such thing as an

overnight success

in my case it took me seven months of

doing youtubing along with my job

or to get to a thousand subscribers and

another six months after i quit my job

to get to 10 000 subscribers

and today i have close to 300 000

subscribers on youtube and close to 100

000 subscribers on instagram and none of

this happened by accident

i planned for it worked hard every

single day and made it happen

now even though i had a plan in place

and everything was going great

some things just aren’t within your

control last year in march i was on a

trip to the us

at that point for a year i had been

traveling every single month

and working with brands that i love and

just living an amazing life

and suddenly lockdown was announced in

india i barely made it back home in time

and with that all my plans from future

trips to brand collaborations

went down the drain overnight i lost so

much potential income because a lot of

brand deals got cancelled and i had no

idea when i’d be able to travel next and

continue posting travel videos because

that’s mostly what i did at the time and

this brings me to the fourth pillar

which is being able to adapt to change

no matter what field you’re in this

ability to adapt and do it quickly will

help you be more successful

so in my case what did i do when

lockdown happened and in effect my whole

career was sort of threatened

well i mostly just spent the first month

watching netflix but after i got over my

whole feeling of being defeated

i decided to launch my online store

where i started selling my lightroom

presets and thus created a new revenue

stream for myself

i also switched up my content and

started creating a lot of lifestyle

vlogs at home

and found an audience that enjoyed that

type of content as well

and despite 2020 being such a horrible

year i think i managed to make the most

of it because i was able to adapt to

change

and the last pillar which is something

that feels like you have no control over

but in reality you do to some extent

and that is luck we often think of luck

as this magical external force that

could strike anyone at any time but in

reality

you can work towards stacking the deck

in your favor and increasing your

chances of getting lucky

so in my case by attempting to create

better content and improving my

production quality

i was able to stand out among the crowd

because i had money saved i was able to

afford travel which is not something a

lot of people have

and in turn make travel content i also

moved back to mumbai eventually when i

started making decent money from youtube

and that helped me get lucky in a lot of

ways because i put myself in a location

that

favored me to get a lot of cool work

opportunities and in that sense i

created my own luck

so even though luck is an external

factor i like to believe that you can

create some of your own luck by creating

favorable circumstances in your life

that help you get lucky

so now before i go just one last thing i

want you to close your eyes and picture

your dream life

try to picture every single detail

possible where do you see yourself

living what kind of work do you see

yourself doing how much money are you

making

try to picture every aspect of your

dream life and see how it makes you feel

this can be your reality as long as

you’re willing to take control and

intentionally build your dream life

because no one else

is going to do that for you that’s my

talk thank you so much for listening