How carving out time for learning helped me?

One Friday evening, June 2019, Office Terrace

With a few years to go and nowhere close to where I wanted to be in my career at 40, a conversation over coffee got me thinking about how I want to shape my career roadmap.

While I knew I wanted to go big and make an impact, I wanted to dig deeper to understand the different kind of roles and organizations I wanted to be in. Thus, started the next 18 months of discovery.

July 2019, Bangalore

My first set of meetings involved trying to figure out what Product Management in other companies entailed and the flavour of work I wanted to do. A discussion with my mentor did not make it any easier. I had to answer a lot of hard questions on why I was doing what I was doing. I had more questions on my mind than answers, which I guess is a good thing. To start with, I was asked to read the following 3 books:

1. Measure What Matters (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39286958-measure-what-matters)
2. The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18176747-the-hard-thing-about-hard-things)
3. Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35249663-inspired)

I managed to finish the first 2 in the list and resonated a lot with The Hard Thing About Hard Things.

November 2019, Chennai

I discovered a common interest in coaching with a colleague and this helped me land at a coaching workshop which aided the discovery. The one day workshop gave me an insight on the core aspects that are essential for me to be in the flow (I was able to correlate this when I read Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6452796-drive) by Daniel Pink later next year) and keep going — in any job.

I signed up for a coach for the next 3 months to understand what coaching entails, more than anything else. These 3 months also gave me a few tools and frameworks to deal with some workplace issues. More importantly, it helped me move faster in the discovery.

Jan 2020, Chennai

I wanted to focus more on learning this year and consciously make time for it.

1. I signed up to read 12 books this year as a challenge.
2. Another Product Manager in the company and I decided to block time every two weeks to focus on cross-learning about all things product.
3. I spent a few hours every week reading on topics related to product.
4. I reached out to people on LinkedIn and started following a few other people too. I also started reading articles and blogs on LinkedIn actively
5. I reached out to people in a few companies that looked like places I might want to be in to understand what a PM role in those companies were like.

March 2020 — November 2020, Home, Chennai

The lockdown turned out to be a very productive period for me giving me more time to focus on the things I wanted to. I managed to read 24 books — some fun, some intense and some insightful

I signed up for courses and dedicated my Saturdays to learning: Picked up some skills that would help me with what I want to be. I signed up for a coaching program which turned out to be more transformative than anything. Ran a few pro-bono workshops for small companies to understand the need and test a few ideas I had.

This period also helped me understand the kind of companies and roles that would work for me. Few companies that seem like the coveted ones from the outside feel very shallow once you speak to the employees to understand further. Like any relationship, even work relationships with companies have non-negotiables: qualities or values that one would not put up with. The lockdown gave me an insight to what these attributes are for me and to draw these boundaries.

December 2020, Home, Chennai

I wanted to start coaching people soon and wanted to build an elevator pitch for myself. I heard about CoffeeMug(https://coffeemug.ai/) through a LinkedIn blog and signed up on it. Also, got invited for LunchClub (https://lunchclub.com/), another networking portal. These portals give me a great opportunity to meet people, share ideas and build skills and my network.

Little did I know until this point that all the different things I had done in the last year and half would come all together. I came across an opportunity that I resonated with and would give me opportunities to pick up skills to go towards where I want to be in 5 years from now.

April 2021, Home, Bangalore

The year ahead looks very challenging yet promising. Lots of things to learn, do and a new domain to learn. As I look forward to starting my 40th year in style in a few weeks, I continue to invest the Saturdays for learning, read on LinkedIn, read PM blogs, have bi-weekly meetings with a PM & network on CoffeeMug and LunchClub.

Quick Takeaways:

1. Dedicate time every week to learn, however busy life gets
2. Trust the process
3. Be comfortable getting uncomfortable for learning a new skill is tough at the beginning
4. Build your network: People are nice and generally, helpful. Most often, we only need to ask. Don’t shy away from asking for what you want.
5. Make the learning fun and not another work :-)