I was born and raised in Bombay (it was renamed Mumbai later on) and moved to the U.S. for graduate school. After getting a master’s degree in English literature from Yale University and a second master’s degree in communications from Stanford University, I built a 40-year career in Silicon Valley, including 20 years as the chief marketing officer of the venture capital firm Mayfield Fund.
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Today, I’m the author of Lotus Leadership: A Modern Playbook of Ancient Wisdom. It is a nonfiction book that unpacks a new framework based on my conversations with 33 powerful and wise women. Thirty of them are of Indian origin, while the other three are of Black, Chinese, and Hispanic heritage.
The Lotus Leaders are CEOs of companies like PepsiCo and Waymo, board members of Levi Strauss and Uber, founders of Evite and Zum, CXOs at Google and Intel, investors at Andreessen Horowitz and Iconiq, academics at Caltech and Yale, movement creators of MomsFirst and Room to Read, and more. They manage over $5 trillion in value, employ tens of thousands of people, invest billions in capital, make breakthrough discoveries, and ignite communities.
Since the launch of my book in September, I have heard from many readers who have aspirations to author their own books. The key theme of Lotus Leadership is how we can tap into our inherited wisdom as a leadership superpower. As a brown immigrant woman, I tapped into both the good and bad parts of my heritage on my author journey. I’m sharing five learnings that might serve you if you decide to embark on your own.
Do the work and the outcome will follow: A few of the leaders in the book quoted this saying from the Bhagavad Gita. While I have to confess I have not yet read it in full, this did resonate with me. During the three-year journey from idea to getting a superstar agent and a six-figure advance from top U.S. publisher HarperCollins, to a rave review in Publishers Weekly, to the book’s No. 21 position on the USA Today list, making it an instant national bestseller, I just focused on three things: the story I wanted to tell, whom I wanted to tell it to, and who would help me tell it. To be clear, many authors work on their books while holding full-time jobs. I was lucky to dive into this project after hanging up my work boots, as it can be an all-consuming process. And I’m still pinching myself over the wonderful outcome.
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Let go of the fear of the evil eye/nazar/kannu: Authors have to hustle like crazy to market a book online and in the real world. I post at least twice a week on LinkedIn, almost daily on Instagram, have spoken at 10 public events, given 10 corporate talks, hosted five private gatherings, appeared on 12 podcasts, and given interviews for 14 broadcast, print, and online stories. As my photos and videos show up in the world, I have embraced the uncomfortable reality of becoming a public persona, without running off to do the nazar utharifying pooja at every turn.
Free yourself from the likability trap: Being Indian and a woman can be a double whammy when it comes to the pressure to be a people pleaser. Launching a book is like having a baby, and you don’t want anyone to say she has a big nose, small eyes, or is downright ugly. But I decided early on that I would accept whatever the reviewers and readers said about the book. For now, we are at more than 55 five-star Amazon reviews, but I know there are skeptics and even haters out there, and that slings and arrows will come my way.
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Lean into the cultural value of reverence for elders: I decided early on to be honest about my age, sharing how I got the idea for the book on my 60th birthday and released it on my 63rd. Since our culture values age as a sign of wisdom, not irrelevance, and the book dispenses advice to Rising Stars, I figured that having experience would be a benefit, not a disadvantage. But it is definitely a risk, especially for women to disclose their age, and a completely personal decision.
Surround yourself with the collective: It takes a universe to bring a book to life. I have a degree in English literature from Yale, 40 years of experience as a marketing leader, and 10 years of creative writing training. I have self-published a memoir and have a thick portfolio of many draft essays. Still, I did not hesitate to find help. I worked with three different editors at the proposal stage before I got one who attracted my top-tier agent. I built a yearlong zone of trust with her as my writing partner, and she helped me find my voice and bring the 33 rich voices to life so that we could deliver the 70,000-word manuscript on time. I took tough feedback from my young, non-Indian editor at HarperCollins, who asked incisive questions. I worked with six different marketing resources for design, strategy, social media, public relations, events, and campaign management.
I’m so thrilled that the book is resonating with readers. If I can influence even one leader’s trajectory to embrace inheritance as wisdom, instead of burying, hiding, or running away from it, I can fully enter the forest bathing phase of my life.
So if you have an idea for a book and know how you can change the world by writing it, go for it with my blessing.
Source: https://indicanews.com/tapping-into-inherited-wisdom-on-my-author-journey/
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