Sheets & Scribbles

How this corporate girly moved from financial modeling to storytelling

Writing & living: my journey from surviving to thriving

I was at my 5 year Stanford GSB reunion this past weekend when a friend told me that a video of my performance at a poetry open mic had inspired him to explore his own passion for writing. My friend is a successful founder, former Marine, and graduated top of his class before starting at Stanford. He’s also been shot at twice while in combat. I work in big tech and read out my stories and poems to strangers on weekends. I was inspiring him? 

Surprising as that was, I did realize how rare it is to see people from the corporate world talking openly about exploring the arts. It is just as unusual to see people open up to the idea of their own bountiful creativity. That’s because, despite what any cool-aid drinking associate/engagement manager/analyst/principal will tell you, excelling in the corporate world requires you to fit into a mould. Standardized frameworks are the norm (in fact, they do make things easier and the work better. Scale comes with easy repeatability). There isn’t space for imagination and many high-achieving individuals in these industries bottle up their originality, ingenuity, and artistry.

But, as my friend and I discussed, there is a growing number of folks craving to bust these shackles of imposed homogeneity. For those curious about exploring the arts, there are few mentors, even fewer role models, and the few that have done it are so famous and brilliant (e.g., John Legend, former BCG consultant) that their achievements feel impossible for normal people. The road ahead is unclear - What does being a creative even mean? How do I bring that into my life? Why should I even bother?

I will attempt to answer the first two questions through my life story and leave you with the last. It is the hardest and can only be answered by you. All I can do is share my journey about how I came to accept that writing was my lifeline and that I wanted to actually, truly, and fully give it a shot.

Taking the leap out of corporate America into the arts world has been terrifying and electrifying at the same time. I hope my decisions will empower you to make your own.

So, why should you care about what I have to say? If you are at all interested in a creative field and are working in a soul-sucking, usually well-paying industry (tech, banking, consulting, advertising, marketing, etc.), this newsletter is for you. We might be similar in some ways and something I did might help you bring creative joy in your life. I’m a former McKinsey consultant, who’s currently at Google. I have an MBA from Stanford GSB and have previously worked at Microsoft, presented my research on small businesses to an audience of hundreds at the World Bank, and have worked around the world, including in the US, India, and Cameroon.

How did I get here?

Like many people with my background, I sought validation from family and society, and the easily recognizable brand names on my resume made me feel worthy. People gushed about my experiences, I got job offers, and was proud of my achievements. My path was also practical. My employer enabled me to live in America and I was able to pay off my student loans. I learned how to make financial models, communicate with executives, and help clients solve hairy problems, from uplifting plummeting customer acquisition and retention rates to boosting employee morale to setting up specialized teams. From the outside, it was glamorous. But, on the inside? Gosh, I was exhausted. The 12 - 14 hour long days in consulting and the years of fitting into the mould of corporate America left me with intractable mental health struggles. Sleep was not my friend; I was averaging about 5-6 hours every night and spending entire days in a brain foggy funk, working until I collapsed. I was neglecting and straining all my relationships and had no idea what to do with my one wild life. 

In all of this, writing - both poetry and fiction - kept me alive. As the pandemic raged on and my friends took up baking sourdough bread, I was staying up past midnight everyday, making powerpoint slides and financial models for companies desperate to squeeze profitability in a tight economic environment. At the same time, my people back in India were dying. I was enraged by the inequality - I, too, could have been dead had I stayed behind - and the life I was blessed with was being wasted away behind a computer screen and in reams of excel sheets.

I couldn’t quit because I was in debt, was still measuring my self worth by the name of my employer, and couldn’t risk deportation without a work visa.

So I did what I could from the comfort of my swivel chair - I raised funds from my generous friends and sent money to organizations providing oxygen cylinders to the sickest of Indians. And, I wrote. Every single night, I captured my rage at the unnecessary deaths, at the abortion bans, at the massacre of black and brown people around the world. My words kept me sane and helped me wake up each morning to go back to the grind. This was not the first time writing had saved me. I first took it seriously while in college at Dartmouth, where I finished a novel in my senior year. It was a piece of auto-fiction that helped heal my own difficulties at the time (being a heavily accented foreigner in a homogenous university, not coming from a wealthy family, and reeling from a case of sexual assault in my first year).

…They float in water

Hope held between petals of mortal beauty

A moment of delight

In a world gone to hell

Flowers in Bloom, published with A Thousand Flowers and with Red Rose Thorns

[That’s me right after a late-night break down]

After the pandemic, I changed jobs from consulting to tech. I had more time on my hands, but I was disillusioned by the mind games and politics common across tech giants. I wasn’t writing so feverishly anymore and was once again searching for meaning. A resurgence of my mental health challenges forced me out of my home and onto poetry and fiction performing venues - my favorite moment was reading at the Nuyorican Poets’ Cafe in NYC, a lifelong dream of mine - while managing my day job. Eventually, I decided I needed a real hiatus. After months of agonizing over the decision and feeling tremendous guilt for taking time to care for myself, I finally listened to my doctor and decided to unplug.

How I explored my creativity

It was during this time that I truly threw myself into the creative world. I found a GSB alumna who had directed and produced a film after graduation (Groomed, go check it out. It’s eye-opening and fantastically made). Her story of passion and dedication was exactly what I needed to hear. Here was a former consultant and business school grad who had found, nurtured, and unleashed her creativity. Maybe, I could too.

[The gods] speak with no words

And promise that she will heal.

She lets their arms encircle her,

Becomes entwined with their bodies -

A small, brown child becoming one 

With the blue of the cosmos.

Day of the Goddess, published with Empyrean Press, Issue 4 Winter 2022

I tried a number of things; I joined a weekly writers’ workshop (the same one where Khaled Hosseini workshopped The Kite Runner!), started working on a new novel, co-directed a documentary film (Sprouts in Concrete), and began helping one of my professors who had produced/directed a feature film. I felt electrified. Writing made me come alive, performing in front of an audience thrilled me, and sharing stories and poems with friends felt like magic.

[That’s me beaming after my first ever reading at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe]

I started Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Way, writing 3 handwritten pages daily and taking myself out on solo dates that continued even after my break came to an end (simple things like a 20 minute walk outside during lunch time also count). I began writing before work for 45 minutes on Mondays and Fridays. Sometimes I skipped because I didn’t wake up early enough. Some days I wrote in the evenings. The weekly workshops helped me get serious about my art - I loved the exchange of new materials with my fellow writers, eagerly awaiting the end of the work day on Tuesdays so I could rush over to my artist friends and talk about literature. I finished 8 chapters of my novel, wrote and trashed a short story, and got into the habit of scribbling in the Notes app on my phone the minute something sparked my imagination. 

Finally, some clarity

By now, it was obvious that I needed more time to write. I applied to many schools (only those that offered full funding; unless you are wealthy, taking on debt for an art degree is highly risky and ultimately will force you away from writing and back into repaying loans. You’ll likely end up in the same place you were running away from. Don’t do it), and miraculously got into the University of Oregon with a full scholarship and a teaching stipend. When I began my writing journey alongside a full-time job, I never imagined that I’d be able to dedicate myself to writing. Now that I have the chance to do so, I can hardly contain my excitement.

My story is about fully embracing art, but yours doesn’t have to be. If you’ve been thinking about bringing in any level of creativity, then my newsletters might be interesting for you. It’s not easy to step away from the rat race and even small adjustments feel monumental. There are many carrots along the way and enough intangible sticks that keep us stuck in an unfulfilling cycle of making money for the sake of it. I don’t know how the next few months and years will unfold but I do know that I will be doing something I have been dreaming of for years. I will finally be acknowledging that art saved me, and will be dedicating the next two years to learning as much as possible about what it takes to be a good writer.

If you liked this, please subscribe. I’d love to keep you updated on my writing journey and share anything that could help you take a/the leap. If I can inspire you to make one small change in pursuit of something you’ve always dreamed of, I’ll have been successful.