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Personal growth spills over into professional growth, says Karan Baja, author of The Freedom Manifesto and the founder of WhiteHat Jr. In 2019, Karan Bajaj quit his job as head of Discovery India to start WhiteHat Jr with the mission of making every child in this world a creator. At the time, everyone thought Karan was foolhardy to give up a prestigious corporate career at the age of 40, but 18 months later, WhitehatJr was acquired by BYJU for $300 million. On the face of it, it’s been one of the fastest start-to-exit journeys in India, but the seeds of it were planted a decade ago when Karan first decided to create his own set of life rules. in The Freedom Manifesto, Karan reveals these secrets to help you transform your life. Unconventional, practical and no-nonsense, these seven rules are expected to transform a person’s mindset from employee to owner.
BT: You have packed life lessons and your journey is full of adventure and experimentation. How and when did you start experimenting with your boundaries?
Karan Bajaj: It all started with my first act of creation – my first book when I was 28. As I began to travel and write my book, something profound began to take shape and eventually created a pattern for my future growth and experimentation. What happens when you put everything into your first act of creation is that your creative barrel becomes empty. You then begin to fill yourself with new experiences and new goals that help your creative journey. Thus, the first act of creation is often very important in establishing a pattern of creation in future stages.
BT: Becoming a full-time author and ditching the proverbial 9-5 is a dream of thousands of people around the world, but only a few manage to turn it into a financially viable opportunity. How did you make it possible?
Karan Bajaj: I didn’t make money writing, but I did make money writing. It is true that the royalties and other emoluments which some books receive are not sufficient to sustain a living. I started writing a book while traveling and thanks to my writing experience I achieved success in another dimension and then became the head of Discovery. Every time I accomplished something creatively, life rewarded me in some other form. Writing a book is like creating a startup – you just start with an idea and a blank page. Most of the time it might not work, but eventually something great will definitely come out. So yes, I haven’t made any money from my writing, but I’ve definitely made some money through my writing.
BT: Both startups and writing are about dealing with rejection, and you’ve dealt with your fair share of that. How did your early writing failure eventually lead to the creation of WhitehatJr?
Karan Bajaj: It’s true. It all starts with an idea you have and you believe that I and most people think it’s a bad idea, but you still persist. My first book was rejected 61 times. I didn’t give up. When you throw yourself into the immersive experience of writing, you see yourself going through growth. The world eventually rewards this growth. Some projects will work, some won’t, but ultimately you’re setting yourself up for later success. The world systems are very inefficient in the short term, but in the long term they are very efficient and you will reap the rewards.
BT: You say that and it’s widely known that freedom lies in finding yourself, last year we saw a lot of people giving up their jobs in a phenomenon called the Great Retrenchment. So, is quitting a job salvation?
Karan Bajaj: What I learned during my sabbaticals is that you can never run away from something, but you have to run towards something. When I first started traveling after quitting my job, I ended up feeling very unsatisfied with what I was doing, and then starting to write my book The Big Resignation was a spur-of-the-moment reaction. People will eventually gravitate toward professional fulfillment in a deeper way.
BT: You talked about finding traction. How do you know what their strength is? Does anyone naturally start out knowing where their passion lies?
Karan Bajaj: To understand your power, you need to take a lot of action, because action leads to information. In your 20s and 30s, you should open yourself up to experiences and try to find yourself through these actions, as they will inform you about yourself. Some will work and some won’t. In the 40s and 50s, those choices narrow and you settle on one or two things you want to build on. That’s how we find our thrust.
BT: Through the long experiences you have gathered throughout your life and which you have curated into The Freedom Manifesto, what is one mantra that has guided you?
Karan Bajaj: Through everything I’ve encountered growing up as a writer, professional, and then entrepreneur, one thing I’ve been certain of is that extraordinary personal growth will lead to extraordinary professional growth. In some ways, growth in one area affects growth in other segments of life. It always overflows. My thought has always been to give the maximum contribution and never worry about the output because when you give the maximum contribution, the output takes care of itself.
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