Every week, join 7000+ others that receive the case study of a maverick who did something daring & unconventional—and succeeded. Each edition also contains surprise gifts 🎁 & behind-the-scenes of my upcoming novel, "1000 Days of Love."
tcm #2: €150,000 book deal at 17-years-old
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Hi [FORMATTED_SUBSCRIBER_NAME GOES HERE], Soundarya here, aka thecuriousmaverick :) Welcome to the second edition of the Curious Mavericks newsletter! (Each newsletter will begin with the tag "tcm") 🎁 Every edition will have a surprise gift hidden in the newsletter. For this week, it's hidden inside a word. Whoever clicks the link first will claim it. Scroll to the end to see who won last week! With that, let's go. This week's maverick: Jyoti GuptaraTL;DR: Watch the story of a curious maverick who got a €150,000 publishing deal at 17, after dropping out of school just two years prior. He is now a bestselling author of five books and coaches business leaders to tell better stories. At 17, I was busy figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. But Jyoti Guptara? He was landing a publishing deal for €150,000 for just the German translation of his book. At the age when most of us were trying to survive high school, Jyoti was signing book deals. Like most stories though, the journey to get there was far from perfect.
The seeds of Jyoti’s writing career were planted early. At just five years old, he and his brother were drawing maps and imagining characters in faraway lands. But, like most childhood dreams, their ideas never made it past the first few pages—until one day at age 11. While cleaning their room, Jyoti stumbled upon their old notes and maps, and something clicked. He sat down to write what would eventually become their first novel. Six months later, they finished it. “But we kind of cheated though. When we hit 100 pages, we simply wrote ‘The End’ and finished the book,” he shares, laughing. “Still, we had a book before I turned 11.” . . . The next phase? Rejection. Rejection. More rejection. So they went back and rewrote the whole book and sent it back to five publishers. The result? Five rejections. But instead of giving up, they tried again. And again. And again. For six years, Jyoti and his brother lived in this cycle of writing, revising, and waiting months to hear back from publishers. Each rejection was polite, but firm. “No thanks,” they said, “it’s not a fit.” However, after the third version of their book, the responses started to change. Publishers started leaving notes—real feedback. “Your characters aren’t fully developed,” they said. “They feel flat, like cardboard cutouts.” It wasn’t a yes, but it wasn’t a no either. . . . This was the turning point. They realized that while the rejections hurt, they were actually stepping stones. Each “no” came with something to work on, a new layer to add. And so they dug in. “The whole process felt like playing ping-pong. We will send them a revised draft. They would take months to respond, only to give more feedback to work on. But we just kept at it, you know?” Draft after draft, they molded their story, adding depth to their characters and fine-tuning their narrative. And finally, at 17, they hit gold. A German publisher offered them €150,000 for the German translation of their novel alone. The deal was huge, and while it felt like the culmination of years of work, it was really just the beginning. Their book went on to become the #2 bestseller in India. . . . Although his career began as an acclaimed novelist, today, Jyoti is a business storytelling expert. He works with corporate leaders and founders who use storytelling to better communicate their ideas and connect with people. He continues to write, teach, and speak at major events, including a recent one at ETH Zurich.
This week's tiny experimentExperiment: Write down ONE story-worthy moment every day this week. Reasoning: Incredible things happen in your life. Trust me. But, they get lost in the weeds of daily chores. So, just for the next week, before you go to bed, write down ONE story-worthy moment from that day. It can be a conversation with a friend, a comment on social media, or even just an exchange with the coffee barista. I’ve done this for a year now and have 50+ moments to look back on. 💡 Bonus tip: Collect all of these moments in a single page in your journal or note-taking tool. I use Roam Research! This week's question for youQuestion: What's a risk you've taken in your 20s that has changed the trajectory of your life? Answer by Shraddha Bhandari: The biggest risk I took in my mid-20s was to leave a full-time job in India and move to the US for my master's degree with an education loan. It paid off. It helped me to grow in many ways both personally and professionally. However, later I realized that I was chasing society's definition of success so I took a similar risk last year to move back to India (in my 30s) to build a business around my passion. Due to burnout from corporate jobs, I decided to slow down and prioritize my health while doing something I love. Now I am not earning as much as I used to but this journey is helping me grow and learn many skills at my own pace. 🤔 Question for you: If you got to know that you only had 30 days left, what is the first thing you'd do? How a novel gets createdA few months ago, I was terrified of writing this novel. Why? Because I didn’t think I could. Back then, my days were occupied by my company (Unshackled). I was living in San Francisco. Mainly, it had been more than a year since I wrote my last book and it felt like I lost my writing muscle. So my belief in myself was at an all-time low. Just see a few unedited journal entries of mine between June to Aug 2024: I feel mentally constipated with this book. I feel like I’ve been trying to poop for so long and it’s just stuck in my mind. I need help. After my call with [someone from the publishing industry], i’m definitely feeling a little… dejected? demotivated? sad? i don’t know. it’s just… it sounds like a LOT of things have to go right for me to be able to make this book a win.
I feel like a writer who is too scared to write; afraid to begin working on a book again, worried that the words on the page will not come remotely close to encapsulating and conveying the story in my mind. not a single day passes by when I don’t think about the book, when i don’t find something to add to it, even if it’s just a strayed sentence. But I’m too scared to start. But then, I have managed to write 31,500 words so far on the manuscript, in approximately 5 weeks. I did a few things that made this happen:
It’s hard to believe doing the above actually paid off. If you’re stuck on a creative project, just pause and see if you’re in the best environment to execute it. If not, change it right away. 👑 Last week's gift: 👑Last week's gift was a copy of the book "How To Live" by Derek Sivers! Interestingly, 800+ people clicked on the secret link but no one reached out to claim it. If you were the first one, please hit reply and let me know with a screenshot! This week's winner will get a fresh copy of a book by Jyoti Guptara. Start searching 😉 (psst: it's hidden inside a word) Quote of the week: "Inside each of us is a natural-born storyteller, waiting to be released." ~ Robin Moore |
Soundarya Balasubramani
Every week, join 7000+ others that receive the case study of a maverick who did something daring & unconventional—and succeeded. Each edition also contains surprise gifts 🎁 & behind-the-scenes of my upcoming novel, "1000 Days of Love."
Hi there, Soundarya here, aka thecuriousmaverick :) Welcome to the seventh edition of the Curious Mavericks newsletter! (Each newsletter will begin with the tag "tcm") Let's start! This week's maverick: Anne-Laure Le Cunff TL;DR: Read the story of a curious maverick who walked away from a stable career at Google to embrace uncertainty, rediscover her love for neuroscience, and build a thriving community through curiosity and experimentation. What constitutes the recipe for success? It’s fair...
Hi [FORMATTED_SUBSCRIBER_NAME GOES HERE], Soundarya here, aka thecuriousmaverick :) It's been six weeks since I started this newsletter and podcast. I'm planning to record two more episodes for 2024 before ending Season 1 of the podcast. I still plan to continue the newsletter beyond that and am currently thinking of what would be most useful for you. What would you like to hear from me? What questions are you trying to answer? Hit reply and let me know. 🎁 As always, every edition will have a...
Hi [FORMATTED_SUBSCRIBER_NAME GOES HERE], Soundarya here, aka thecuriousmaverick :) Last week, I shared a habit tracker template, but I heard from many of you that the link wasn’t accessible. My apologies for the inconvenience! Here’s the correct link: Access the Habit Tracker Template 🎁 Every edition will have a surprise gift hidden in the newsletter. For this week, it's hidden inside a word. Whoever clicks the link first will claim it. Scroll to the end to see who won last week! With that,...