Can writing be your second career?

“Am ready to restart and I want to try out content writing, how do I start?” I get many messages like this quite often. Let me ask you some questions before I answer yours:

• Do you plan to take it up full time?
• Do you have a blog?
• Do you have ideas as to what to write on?
• Are you prepared to spend long hours researching?
• Did you Google the prospects of writing as a career?
• Are there courses available?
• Does it really pay?

 

These are just a few questions that popped up in my mind before I took up writing as a career. To be frank, I never thought of writing as a full-time career until I realized its potential. That happened after I decided to try it out of curiosity! Those times, around 10 years before, we didn’t have active communities online to seek help on whatever few opportunities we could find. It was always a risk but writing involved no investments other than time. But there was learning involved and that’s what attracted me more.

 

These days, there’s enough and more information available online regarding writing as a career so if you plan to take it up, please do your research first. Here are my answers to the above-mentioned questions:

 

Full time or part-time?

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If you are already working, you can still consider writing as a part-time job. But remember, if it’s a job, it comes with commitments. Writing as a profession requires a lot of research (read time and effort). From my experience, even if the topic is familiar and sounds simple, as you start writing, you may find it more exuberating to research than to write. That is if you intend to add value to your writing instead of rewriting what you find online. Remember, if its already available online, you rewriting it will not make any difference. You may get paid, but does it add value to your experience? Eventually,  the employer will realize it and get someone better.

To me, it never made sense and hence, I spend a lot of time researching than on writing. So, if you plan to take writing as a part-time option, check if you will be able to spend enough time to add value to what you write. For those who say I can spend 2-3 hours a day for writing, well, good for you if you make it a career!

 

Blogging

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Whether you have a blog or not does not make much difference! It makes things easier when you are looking for samples to showcase on your profile as you take up writing professionally. So, if you are looking to restart as a writer, please start blogging now! As you start blogging, you will learn a lot about what people like to read, whether you are able to engage them enough, are you really able to write out the ideas in your mind etc. When you have time, research, when you have more time, write! That’s what ultimately helps.

 

And remember, blogging is totally different from writing as a profession. When you write for organizations, they have a set of requirements which you have to meet. The deadlines, quality, topics, keywords, SEO, and a lot more come into the picture! Do keep that in mind! That’s why I mentioned, it really doesn’t make much difference when you take up writing as a profession.

 

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If you intend to impress your prospective employers and audience with your blogs, make sure you use the free or paid tools available online to check spelling, grammar, and plagiarism. You may be well-experienced, but it never hurts to have your writing checked to be double sure! I run all my content through Gingerly/Grammarly and a Plagiarism checker before I submit.

 

Can you ideate?

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When you are blogging, you will realize that after the initial few blogs, ideation becomes the biggest challenge. What do you write upon? That’s a million-dollar question!!! For personal blogs, you can write on whatever you find is interesting. But when it comes to professional writing, your ideas have to align with your organization’s goals. That’s where research helps!

 

Research – You cannot do without!

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If you plan to take up writing as a profession, you will have to spend a considerable amount of time to research. In fact, 80% of my time on each project goes on research, 15% on writing and 5% on editing. Research should start before you even consider writing as a career! That’s how you learn. If you do not have that zest, I would recommend not to take up writing at all professionally.

 

Did you Google?

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Well, if you found my article from Google, you are on the right path! Otherwise, you have to read this as “Google and help yourself please!”. As I mentioned earlier, there’s enough and more available online to help you start. Even if you don’t have experience writing, you can start blogging and create those samples and publish them. You can share them when your prospective employer asks for samples. They only want to know how skilled you are, especially your language skills.

 

Are there courses that teach writing?

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You may join language classes to perfect your grammar. There are courses that offer you training on different types of writing. They also may familiarize you on some tools used to ensure better writing quality. There are paid courses, free internships and low-paid assignments you can bag online. Again, the keyword is Research! As for me, I took up low-paid assignments and learned on the job. That’s why I mentioned earlier, it was a learning process for me that turned into a full-time profession.

 

The golden question – Does it really pay?

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Yeah, for many, it all boils down to this golden question – Pay! It definitely does, depending upon what you have to give. It’s like what you have learned during your basic computer classes – Garbage In, Garbage Out! If your content has that quality, adds value to the organization and if you can offer a variety in writing in terms of styles and topics, it pays decently well. Writing is definitely a career to consider full-time if you have the veracity and can put in the time and effort it demands.

Back to your Roots – A visit to Roots Organic Farm, Panvel

Recently I was fortunate to visit an organic farm at Panvel, near Mumbai. Though born and brought up in Kerala, the only farmland I had ever visited till recently was my grandpa’s paddy fields near our hometown. When I visited it on a hot summer afternoon, it didn’t seem so interesting, but that was more than 15 years back!

I was looking forward to this visit since we planned our trip to Mumbai a few months back as I had seen the pictures and heard how passionately my uncle made his dream come true. But it turned out to be totally beyond my imagination! Salute this man, my uncle, who decided to set up his own organic farm, at an age people decide to retire!!! He has spent almost 2 years on research and collecting the information from various resources including the internet before he set out to actually start procuring and planting. You may not believe, but he spends all his weekdays here, looking after the affairs carefully, making sure no one plucks the fruits of his hard-work a day before or later. He stays back near the farm, away from his charming family, most importantly, away from his two darling grandchildren, to take care of the beauty that the farm is.

Roots Farm, at Morbe Village, is a place people should visit at least once in their lifetime. It may be a little early to suggest now, as many plants and trees are still being planted and many facilities are still being developed within the farm. But I still suggest you make a visit now, to know what it takes to build up such a vision so that a few years down the lane, you can see how beautifully Roots have grown strong and healthy!

On a beautiful winter morning, we visited the farm after our sumptuous breakfast. The Malang gad stands tall on one side of the farm, though a little far. All I can share with you are some pictures. You have to visit the farm to enjoy the fresh smell of turmeric, coriander, jasmine, lemon and more in different parts of the farm. We munched on fresh green crunchy guava straight from the tree. I had long forgotten how fresh guava tasted and relished this time!

My favorite place was the dairy – had long-forgotten that milk came from cows!!! We are so used to buying the packets from the market!!! In fact, that’s one of the reasons my uncle decided to make his dream come true, to let his grandchildren understand from where and how food comes on to their table.

The calves looked at us bewildered first. But then, they were so friendly and cool!

 

Did I tell you, this is my uncle’s venture after he successfully built up an empire in the 90s? That’s a different saga altogether – building up Good Knight from the scratch, at a time when there was hardly any technology or processes in place in India! Coming back to Roots, here’s how you can contact them for fresh organic vegetables, fruits, and A2 milk.

Click here to go to Roots’ facebook page Relish the fresh produce that ranges from cabbage, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, lady’s finger, brinjal, beans, carrot, radish, coriander, methi, turmeric, ginger, guava, bananas (any Malayali’s residing near Mumbai, you wouldn’t want to miss the authentic Kerala Nedrappazham!), lime, musumbi, lemons, green chilli, Kandari (that’s another hot version of chilli), jasmine, jackfruit, mangoes, greens like spinach and it’s varieties and every good thing under the sun.

And one more thing, in a few years’ time you will see around 3000 trees of different varieties growing up here. Many rare varieties of trees are planted here. Did I tell you about the Solar Plant inside, that powers most of the farm? And the natural water reservoirs? What’s more? Well, in a few months’ time, you will also be able to stay in the cottages being built on the farm and get to mingle with the cows, quails, rabbits and more growing up there. This will be the perfect getaway to enjoy the farm experience.  Far away from the hectic city craziness!!! There’s a restaurant coming up where you can enjoy some authentic Indian food made from fresh organic produce.

If you love farming, you will love visiting The Roots. Afterall, its one man’s passion and the family’s effort in making his dream come true, for the future generations. It’s his gift to humanity, for healthy living, for unadulterated, organic produce. Food that you can eat without worrying about its origin.

Roots’ Farm, I fell in love with you at the first sight! Will long to see you again, very soon!!!

How to sit home and earn 50k per month easily?

I do not intend to mislead you with some easy-money-making gig. So if you are here because of the title, you may skip reading! But if you have been fooled enough by such gigs and wonder how people could even think it is possible to just sit home and make 50k when you work so hard, read on:

I don’t want to deny the fact that there are people who do that, earn a handsome pay every month without much effort. But I can guarantee that those very same people would have struggled for years and even decades before they found that magic potion. And that magic potion is definitely nothing other than smart efforts. So what makes this smart effort? Where, how and when can you learn it? Well, you have to drop the L and Earn it!

I can tell you this for sure because I have been working hard and know many such people who have been working hard too before they were able to sit back and relax to enjoy the fruits of their hard work. But the definitions have changed. People’s attitudes have changed and people who work hard these days will probably remain working hard. Now everything’s turning smart. You have smartphones, smart TVs and smart watches. This generation has probably been the smartest so far and never heard the word – hard-work. That’s because one need to adapt to the changing situations and one way to do that is to adopt smart-working rather than hard-work.

Follow the leaders?

So how do you work smartly and yet be able to reap the fruits of hard-work? Be aware of what’s happening around you; be aware of how people are succeeding. Do not blindly follow them, but do follow how they achieved and became successful. I can bet there will be many sleepless nights and many more failed ventures in their past. They all ride past these failures with double the efforts and determination and taste the success. While most of them want to let others understand that it is quite possible to succeed, what they rarely glorify are the efforts and failures that have helped them emerge successfully.

Dr A P J Kalam once said: “If four things are followed – having a great aim, acquiring knowledge, hard work, and perseverance – then anything can be achieved.” Just as iron has to go through immense heat and beating to get strong, successful people also go through very hard times and beatings that make them strong. People fail too! The difference between those who succeed and fail is the determination and positivity the successful ones hold on to. I can bet you even those immensely successful fail after they taste the success. But then, if they manage to emerge successfully again, they are the true warriors. They have done it all and experienced it all!

Smart work, not Hard work pays!

So coming back to the point of working smart – how essentially do you work smartly? This is the billion dollar question to be answered! That’s something to be understood by following the paths taken by the successful ones. More than comprehending how they succeeded, what we need to know are the hurdles they had to cross and how they managed to cross them. That’s the key to preparing your own journey to success. That definitely does not mean that your journey will be a cakewalk. If you manage it, you have worked smart!

Be Passionate & Professional

Another important aspect to consider is your passion. I am a content writer and I have learned how to turn my passion into my profession. I work from home and am able to earn a decent pay every month because I work passionately. Most of the people looking to work from home get into writing thinking they can easily make money by simply writing about things! This has become a huge threat to the more serious WFH freelancers. These newbies realise the challenges involved only when the client starts rejecting their work one after the other. It not only reduces their confidence but also the confidence of employers who are willing to offer flexible jobs. I guess many employers who are reading me would agree that they got a raw deal trying to help out someone with a flexible job which made them refute their decision.

Don’t just give it a try!

I have heard many people say ‘Let me give it a try if it pays well!’ Unless you are focused, you will get nowhere! So there’s no point giving it a try just for the sake of pay. I agree that pay definitely is one of the major aspects that inspire people to try jobs. But if you cannot relate yourself to doing something in any way, reconsider spending your time and effort on it! If you are determined that you can give it a serious try and not on a casual mind, don’t bother about what others say.

Your takeaways from this article are:

1. There’s no shortcut to success. If someone tries to sell you one, beware!
2. Whether you sit home or work from the office, rule no. 1 applies! In fact, if you plan to sit home and be successful, you may find this article useful!
3. Even if you find success, working from home, be ready to face a failure as freelancing can be extremely challenging! This article will give you some insights into freelancing.
4. Find passion in whatever you do. Or else, do something you are passionate about. If you can’t, you may not succeed.
5. Money is not everything! Consider what you compromise against what you earn and decide the best.

As Nicolas Cole, one of the Top 25 Market Influencers listed in Forbes once tweeted “Every up has its down. Every win has its loss. Every step has its moment of contemplation. Enjoy it all.” Yes, while holding on to these lines, never let anyone fool you with such gigs as sitting home and earning 50k per month easily! That’s only a fad.

Image Courtesy: https://www.brainyquote.com/

8 Lessons for Life to Learn from Sri Narendra Modi

I am as amazed by the positivity he reflects as most of the people in the country are! From a tea seller in Gujarat to becoming one of the most popular Prime Ministers the world has seen in the recent times, Sri Narendra Damodardas Modi has travelled a long way. He has been controversy’s child for many years. But that never deterred his journey from becoming the mass leader of the world’s largest democratic republic. Keeping his politics and controversies aside, his self-discovery and journey to become the best are inspirational to look at. He owes much of his discipline and success to his uncompromising values he was taught as a child and following the path of a Yogi. It is interesting to see his journey to self-discovery and success, as one of the most popular leaders the world has ever seen so far.

That he was a tea seller is something every child knows now. He used to help his father run his tea stall in Gujarat and later took over its running. His joining the RSS or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh at the tender age of 8 influenced his life considerably. He left home at the age of 17 as he could not come to terms with the arranged marriage he was forced into. Two main qualities that helped Modi rise to this level are his talent to debate and public speaking. According to his teachers, Modi, though being an average student, was really good at playing larger than life characters in theatre and debating.

He travelled across Northern and North-Eastern India for about 2 years after his graduation while being an active member of the RSS. He was much attracted by Swami Vivekananda’s principles and following the same he tried to join some Ashram’s across these regions. But he was rejected because he lacked a basic graduation. These rejections later prompted him to complete his graduate degree in political science and later a master’s degree in Arts by distance education. By this time he was actively working for the RSS and BJP. But he took a break in 1992 and built a school in Ahmadabad. Though this is rumoured to be because of a rift among some of his peers in politics, he took his time off in a creative way by contributing to the school he founded during this period.

When he returned to electoral politics, he took some out of the way and stern decisions, sometimes, even questioning the senior leaders in the party which earned him some enemies within the party. But he did not deter and stood by his conviction and showed the party and the state that he made the right decisions. Even though he faced serious allegations within the country and was even banned from visiting the USA owing to these allegations, he came out clean in the court of law and continued his journey to become the top leader of his party. His (and his party’s) winnings post the allegations and till date has been historic, in spite of the media hate.

His life and success story are quite inspirational in many ways. His conviction and the effort he takes to make his dream for the country come true are inspiring even the children and the common people to keep going strong and positive. The very same countries that once looked at him suspiciously and denied a Visa were looking forward to welcoming him with grace and respect he rightly deserves.

I think his life journey influences one to implement these simple lessons of life which can make amazing changes for good:

1. Change one’s thoughts and deeds to match one’s passion. Modi’s decision to leave the family and pursue a journey to understand life changed his perceptions.
2. Nurture one’s Passions as it would lead them to success one day. He nurtured his talent for public speaking and debating which has earned him high respect and popularity among the people.
3. Adopt knowledge and technology as these can take one a long way forward. Modi was quick to adopt the latest technologies to popularise his work and also uses it to the benefit of the country’s development.
4. Use one’s time most creatively and positively without wasting a minute. Modi’s style of working 16 to 18 hours a day, even while travelling, is remarkable. He has become a role model for his followers, and even non-followers, in terms of the effort he puts.
5. Turn deaf and blind to immaterial allegations and aim for success. His success is proof to this!
6. Be humble, in spite of your success. Modi considers himself as the Prime Servant of the country rather than the Prime Minister!
7. Exercise can help you stay healthy and energetic. Modi practices an hour of Yoga and still considers that as the source of his energy.
8. Never forget your roots. Modi firmly believes in the true spirits of being an Indian and follows the tradition to its core. Being the Prime Minister does not deter him from respecting the elders and traditions.

 

Image Courtesy – http://www.bjp.org

Passion and Profession are Different!

One can never be passionately professionally or professionally passionate! Passion and Profession are totally different things. You can love your profession but you can either be a thorough professional or quite passionate about what you do. That’s a strange truth!

Being a Professional

Professionals deal indifferently no matter what happens. They mean business and personal matters never come in between professionalism. They know how to get things done, and being a professional, would go any extend getting it done. Professional ethics are good, those are things many people don’t ever bother to mind! Those who consider ethics and are professional, make sure that the work gets done just the way required, on time, in an ethical way.

Being Passionate

If you are passionate about what you do, you will mix up personal and work life in a miserable way! You will be working on something official if you are passionate about it, even during your personal time. You will dedicate yourself to go to any extent to get things done if you are passionate about things you do. Whether it gets completed or not, on time or not, wouldn’t matter at all, as you will be more driven towards making things perfect about what you are passionate about. You will be spending more time on the minute nuances of things that you passionately work on and those are things visible only to you!

What happens to a passionate worker is that he/she unnecessarily spends more time of making it perfect rather than completing it on time even with negligible issues. At work, no one bothers about the small nuances, as long as the bigger picture is perfect. At work, deadlines are to be met even if not as perfectly. At work, you’d rather be a professional than passionate.

Have you seen the painter adding strokes that remain invisible to the spectator’s eye? That’s being passionate about his work. But have you seen the manager ever checking on his reports during the meeting? No, right! He knows that once on the desk, there’s nothing he can do about it! So why unnecessarily waste energy on it? That’s being a professional.

Be passionate about hobbies! Be passionate towards life! And be a professional when it comes to work. That balances work-life!