I never wanted to be a full-time writer but I’d been reading self-help books for years, all of which advised me to leave my job to pursue my passion. I decided to quit. My manager convinced me to stay part-time.

2. My 4,1,4 rule or why you
shouldn’t feel the pressure to
become an entrepreneur

4. My second novel, Johnny Gone Down, was
optioned into a Hollywood film the same month I got
my first US book deal for The Yoga of Max’s
Discontent with Random House. I never wanted to
be a full-time writer but I’d been reading self-help
books for years, all of

5. which advised me to leave my job to pursue my
passion. I decided to quit. My manager convinced
me to stay part-time. I agreed reluctantly to stay
on for two days a week. Who wants to work in
corporate America when you can “live your
dream”? I do

6. Within three months, I wanted my job back.
Because I did my absolute worst writing in that
time.
For a decade, I’d been writing to get a glimpse of
transcendence through my writing and answer my
deepest questions for myself

7. wrote Johnny to understand what success meant
after a string of personal failures. The Yoga of
Max’s Discontent arose from my burning need to
know the cause of human suffering after my
mother’s death

8. In the three months I was “living my dream” as a
writer, I wrote SEO friendly blogs to build my
platform (I’ve junked all of them since). Instead of
reading books that center me everyday like The
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and the Dhammapada, I
read books on growing your e-mail list. I bought
into the myth of passive income and lifestyle
businesses. It was a disaster.

9. All insight I used to get from writing was throttled
by the pressure to monetize it, a phenomenon I’ve
seen with so many part-time creators who’ve gone
full-time. They start with something interesting, it
becomes successful, they quit their jobs, and their
works get shallower and shallower, meant to
establish themselves in a narrow niche rather than
express the inexpressible.

10. Don’t buy into the cultural pressure to follow your
dream and become an entrepreneur or a full-time
artist if that’s not your dharma. Create without the
goal to make a living of it.

11. Experience a touch of divinity through your creation
by abandoning all notions of audience, niche,
platform, or other “hacks”. Here I share why you
shouldn’t quit your corporate job and consider an
alternate model instead

12. The 4,1,4 model
Over the last decade, I’ve followed this
model, first by accident, now by intent:

13. 4 Years: Extreme goal-directed living—working at
my corporate job, disciplined
reading/writing/researching etc.
1 Year: Complete slack—take a sabbatical where
I travel without a goal, write when I want to,
meditate, work in an orphanage, create

14. an online course just to do it, basically allowing
myself the space to just be and discover facets of
myself without the constant hankering to become.
4 Years: Return to corporate/goal-directed life.
…and so on

15. I’ve done this over three cycles now. I’ve traveled,
deepened my writing, and learnt yoga and
meditation in my sabbaticals. And each time,I’ve
come back a little surprised with the output from
this silence (eg, there are sections I couldn’t write
again if I tried in The Yoga of Max’s Discontent
because they tapped into something beyond me).

16. The re-entry into corporate life has been bumpy
and felt uncertain each time but on the whole, I’ve
moved up the corporate ladder from manager at
P&G and BCG to Director at Kraft and then, the
CMO of a start-up in just more than a decade
while taking three years off in between.

18. Is the 4,1,4 right for you?
Here’s why the 4,1,4 works for me:

19. Business is my dharma.
My first job was with P&G in Philippines. There, I
lived in an Indian expatriate community, went to
the sole Indian restaurant in Manila for dinner
everyday, and saw Indian movies on the weekend.
That’s how narrow my world-view was. My world

20. expanded in the next decade of working in
business in Asia, Europe and US. I’ve loved
handling brands for P&G, Kraft etc. Contrary to
the cultural negativity around corporations, I like
business, I like marketing, I like numbers, I like
running large teams, I grow through it and feel in
my element in it.

21. Yet I like to create. My head is in the clouds more
often than it should be for my own good. I can
spend hours thinking of things that have no
practical value—why was the world created, what
is the nature of the creating energy, how does
karma and dharma wor

22. how can I dissolve myself etc. Creating, be it my
novels, blogs, or You-Tube videos, helps me
articulate my thoughts to myself.

23. ut I don’t want to be an entrepreneur.
It could be my Buddhist-leaning ideology. I don’t
have a sense of legacy. I think we’re all building
castles in the sand to be washed away by the next
wave. My goal is to build my castle without any
sense of do-ership. I want to dissolve myself in my

24. work, become just a medium for it to express
itself, be it my novels or my corporate life. And
every time I’ve had to hustle for money or security,
I’ve lost that sense of flow. I’m quite comfortable
with risk but I like taking risks with the creation
rather than the infrastructure around the creation.

25. Will any company ever agree to the
“1”?

26. It’s never easy. I left P&G to take my first
sabbatical. BCG and Kraft kept me on the payroll
as an unpaid employee with the rough assurance
of having some kind of a job when I came back—
which they did keep. Ultimately, it’s a leap of faith
and I’ve been insecure

27. about return in all three sabbaticals yet I’ve always
managed to get a job back in the same or better
position versus when I left. Here are some guiding
principles that have worked for me

28. Go towards something: You’ll have the firmness
and conviction of asking for a sabbatical if you’re
going towards something tangible—writing a
novel, becoming a yoga teacher, working in an
orphanage versus wanting a year off to travel and
find

29. yourself. Even if you relinquish goals in the
sabbatical like Kerry and I do, having enough
deep, enduring interests to sustain yourself will
give you the thrust to have the difficult
conversation.

30. Be exceptional in the 4 years you’re working: I
know my sabbaticals will be disruptive to any
organization so I give all of myself and then some
more to my job in the time I’m working to make
sure my karmic balance-sheet is clean.

31. Live life like a story: Every time I find myself stuck
with major decisions, I think of the construct of a
novel. Every great story combines entertainment
and meaning. Be it The Alchemist, Moby Dick, or
The Yoga of Max’s Discontent(ha!),

32. protagonist is on a quest for a lofty, often selfless
goal and stumbles and falls often in his pursuit.
Even if he or she doesn’t get the goal in the end,
we think of him as a winner for deepening in the
pursuit. Set out on your pursuit. You’ll likely
stumble in either the quest or your return but you’ll
be a hero for having tried it

34. Can you do it with kids?
We’re going to try in a couple of years when Leela
is four and Rumi is two and we’re due for our next
cycle. Our plan is to spend four months each in
three places–work in an orphanage in Cambodia,
learn Spanish in Spain etc.– and re-construct a
routine for our kids there. Many folks have pulled it
off and we plan to keep building the muscle so we
can keep doing it in their school-going years.

35. Are you ready to set forth?
These resources may help:

36. A summary of our travel costs for our latest gap
year. My New York Times article on a sabbatical.
Stefan Sagmeister’s excellent talk on the power of
rejuvenating with a gap year–though his intent is
different from mine. I like to surrender rather than
go with the explicit goal of becoming better in my
writing or anything at all

37. Net, don’t get sucked into the entrepreneurial
hype and put in your papers yet if it doesn’t quite
feel right. If you have a strong urge to create,
alternate models exist. Do drop a note in the
comments below to let me know what stops you
from trying the 4,1,4 and I’ll try to address how to
make it happen!

38. For more details
Visit us @
http://www.karanbajaj.com/