The Break School

Transcript of the Snippet

Hello and Welcome,

I’m Sanjay Khandelwal and this is The Break School, A podcast to enable you to do what you love every day. 

2019 has been a special year. Starting this podcast gave me an opportunity to have conversations with individuals, who gave up conventional careers to pursue what they love full time. This snippet is a summary of 5 powerful lessons I have learnt from these conversations. I don’t claim these will transform your life but I assure you, if you believe in not spending your entire life doing what you don’t find meaningful, then these lesson will help you in your pursuit of doing what you love and lead a meaningful life. 

Let’s dive in

Lesson 1 : The Pull must be greater than the push 

Let’s say you’ve started a podcast. After a few months you realize you want to quit your job and pursue podcasting full time. There are 2 to 3 reasons why you would do this. One, because you really love podcasting. You are pulled towards it. Two, because you don’t like your job, may be you are bored, you don’t see any learning potential. You feel an internal push to get away from your job.  From my conversations with path breakers on the show, It is my learning that you quit your job when the pull of something you love is greater than the push of what you don’t like. 

This is extremely crucial because every craft has a gestation period. A period when you are learning your craft, building your company or audience but with zero returns. To successfully get through the gestation period and make some money later, you really need consistency and curiosity. Consistency to regularly put out good work and curiosity to learn the nuances of your craft, to understand your industry. 

Both consistency and curiosity stem from your deep desire to learn. You will have neither if you aren’t genuinely in love with what you do. Many guests on the show like Saloni Srivastava, Sumit Bansal, Nitin Dayalu did not really hate their job. But they realized they loved something else more than their job and they pursued it with consistency and curiosity. 

So, if you want to quit your job and pursue something radically different full time, ask yourself are you doing it because you really love you new found craft or because you want to escape your job. 

Lesson 2 : You don’t need capital but consistency to get started 

I use Zencastr to record my podcast. I use audacity to edit my episodes. I use Canva to make my posters. I used word press to build my website. You know what’s common among these tools? They are all free software’s. There is a generally a misconception that you need a lot of money to start something. Well you do need a lot of money, if you are going for a masters just to get fancy degree without knowing what you are going for but you don’t need that to learn anything specific. 

In the age the internet, no matter what you want to learn – blogging, podcasting, storytelling, entrepreneurship (YC Startup school is great place) there are free tools and communities to learn everything. Most free tools are good enough to help you move beyond the beginner’s stage. In addition, there are number of online and offline communities where you can interact with people who have similar interest. So stop giving yourself this bull crap reason that you need to a lot of money to get started. Just ask yourself, what you want to learn, google the tools and communities and get started. 

Lesson 3 : Doing things that move the needle 

When you start something new, you take 2 kinds of action. Soft actions and hard actions. Soft actions are actions you take when you are in your comfort zone. Let’s go back to our podcast example. In the beginning, it is important, you work on your podcast every day. This process of doing something every day helps you develop consistency, which is crucial. However, these actions may not have long term impact. These are soft actions. 

After a few months, however, you need to start doing things that move the needle. You need to take hard actions that achieve specific results. For example, building and growing your audience is one of your major goal while podcasting. After your podcast is up and running, you need to track your numbers to see how many people are listening to your podcast? What are they listening to? Do listen to the complete episode or drop off in between? These are your feedback numbers. Based on this feedback, you need to make tweaks and changes. 

By tweaks, I don’t mean throwing garbage content out there just to make it viral. That is not sustainable. By tweaks, I mean breaking your episodes into multiple parts, or find new distribution platform, or change your call for action etc. Such actions that have visible impact, that requires you to step out of your comfort zone and learn something new are hard actions. So, no matter what you are pursuing, after your initial stage, start measuring the outcome of your actions. Focus on doing things have higher impact. Do things that move the needle. 

Lesson 4 : Teaching is great way to learn and earn 

One of the best ways to learn is to teach. As author and blogger Chetan Mahajan mentioned “becoming a teacher of writing made a significant difference to his own writing” or as the personal finance coach Manish Chauhan mentioned “because he had to teach his readers, he learnt a lot”. When you teach, you begin to clearly see the gaps in your own understanding, you sharply look at every tiny detail and master all the concepts. Moreover, teaching can also be a great source of sustainable income. More than half guests on the show so far earn money by teaching. 

It is not that difficult. You can now create online courses that people from across the world can take and pay you for. So mate, if you want to accentuate your learning and make some income, may be try teaching what you love mastering yourself. 

Lesson 5 : The Boring Riyaz 

I’m thankful to Mehak Mirza Prabhu for leaving me with this beautiful word. Riyaz is a word for practice in Hindustani music. Another beautiful word is Sadhana used in Carnatic music. 

These words beautifully capture the essence of mastery and refining one’s art through repetitions. Practicing something consistently every day is boring, even frustrating at times, but that is exactly what you need achieve mastery. As Mehak mentioned, for every one great story her audience loves, there are 10 stories that she has never published. That’s true for every craft. Doing this is not just painful but boring. Who wants to write a blog post that nobody will ever read? who wants to build a product that nobody will every buy. The answer is YOU. These are essential reps to build your craft muscle, even if nobody cares for 80% of what you create. Make time for your Riyaz, it will take you far and wide.

So those were 5 powerful lessons from people who quit traditional careers to do what they loved. I hope they help you find some direction in your pursuit of doing what you love. 

If you loved this episode, don’t forget to share this with your friends over WhatsApp. If you would like to receive future episodes, then subscribe to the break school podcast on Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox or Apple podcast. 

I’ll see you again next week with the story of another path breaker. Until then do what you love, everyday.