My journey:

* As a kid, desperate to be blonde, I shaved off my black bushy eyebrows, coloured them in with a yellow marker, and went to school. Miss Davies, my teacher, was horrified and told me that I would go far in life by just being myself. Well…Not possible culturally! I wanted to be a writer; my parents wanted me to be a lawyer. Their struggle shaped their desire for my stability.

*Worked for a management consultancy and wrote my first novel, Gypsy Masala. It got rejected by every publisher. Quit my job to follow a dream. Well, technically I got made redundant. Couldn’t tell my parents, so I put on a suit, pretended to go to work, and went to the library. That suit routine lasted 8 months – yes, you read that right!

* Had a brainwave and set up my own publishing and PR company. Hyped Gypsy Masala shamelessly under a blonde alias, Pru, thereby fulfilling my blonde ambition 😉 Got Gypsy Masala into the charts (still putting on a suit and still pretending to go to work!). Pru was shortlisted as Publicist of the Year! Really didn’t want to win as I couldn’t thank the various parts of myself who had been a dream to work with.

* Signed a 3-book deal with HarperCollins. Not what I thought it would be. Set up my own consultancy, working with leaders globally to tell their stories.

* A series of life-changing events in short succession made me want to stay safely in my comfort zone. But nothing happens in the comfort zone, so I did the thing that terrified me the most… Having never acted before (not even at school), I booked a theatre in the West End and put on a one-woman show – because nobody was interested in seeing a show about a 50-something Asian woman. The show sold out. The producer of The Crown came to see it, and the show got optioned for television.

* Wrote my fourth novel, Unravelling. Turned down the book deal with HarperCollins to go solo again (reasons are many). Unravelling is out in September 2024.

* I’m on the faculty of various business schools, teaching storytelling for personal transformation, and wherever else I can speak because if you change your story, you change your life…

Feel your roots and embrace your dreams…

———————-

Unravelling is out September 2024. You can pre-order at any online retailer or at your local bookshop.

Loving this year’s South Asian Heritage Month theme, ‘Free to Be Me’. The irony isn’t lost on me, given my own journey of setting up a double life and creating a blonde alter-ego alias publicist to follow my dreams.

– My first novel was rejected by most publishers so I set up a publishing company and a PR company, whilst pretending to go to work (long story!). Hyped the novel under an alias and got it into the book charts.
– I went on to sign a 3-book deal and my alter-ego was shortlisted as publicist of the year.
– I didn’t attend the ceremony because, well, if I won, I couldn’t thank the various parts of myself that had been a dream to work with.

I have turned down a fourth book deal to go solo again. The reasons are many, but the most important one is that I am finally free to be me.

Don’t contort yourself to fit into a system.
There is always a way forward.

Looking forward to this new chapter and to the events next month where I get to share my story.

Unravelling is published in September.
More to follow…

#SouthAsianHeritageMonth
#Unravelling

It was my midlife crisis… Having never acted before (not even at school), I booked a theatre in Covent Garden, rehearsed for 18 months, and put on a one woman show playing all 17 parts. I did this mostly to get over the fear that had secretly crept up on me (that creeps up exponentially on a lot of us in our late 40s).

↪ It’s a type of fear that you develop a strange Stockholm syndrome relationship with, the one that makes you fall in love with the confines of a comfort zone, you know it’s toxic but you can’t seem to escape.

↪ I also produced the show on because I was tired of hearing that there is no market for a 50-something Asian woman. We are invisible. 😢

Doing the show was the most terrifying/exhilarating thing that I have ever done.

The play wanted to be a novel and I did everything I could not to write it -but I did and it took me four years. I was offered a fourth book deal with HarperCollins and for various reasons, had to turn it down. Fear faithfully accompanying me, whispering that it would never see the light of day if I turned down that deal.

As Elizabeth Gilbert says fear “is boring, because it only ever has one thing to say to us, and that thing is: “STOP!”

➡ Don’t let anyone define who you are and tell you what you can or cannot do.
➡ I have found trying to overcome fear before starting anything is pointless.
➡ Invite fear along the journey but don’t let it drive 😊

🚀 Paperback launch today in Germany 🇩🇪

More to follow…

#Keepgoing
#tellyourselfanotherstory
#DieFreischwimmerin

Yesterday, I asked  myself why I continue to do things that make no sense to anyone else but me. I love it when questions that are posed by myself are answered by the universe. It answered the question this morning, via a poem by William Stafford:

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

“The Way It Is” by William Stafford

➡ My thread is the love of story. The power it has to transform not just the self but others.
➡ When I am doubting and about to embark upon a journey that makes no sense (which I currently am), I have found it really helpful to take a moment to reflect and feel its pull.

If you’re on a journey that appears to make no sense to anyone but yourself, I hope you find this poem both helpful and hopeful 🙏 ✨

#Keep going
#storytelling

#knowyourwhy

 

I was jobless, putting on a suit and pretending to go to work every day. That suit routine, I’m ashamed to say lasted around 9 months or so until one day, I took out a piece of paper and wrote down my goals. They were as follows:

• Bestselling author
• Books translated globally
• Speak internationally
• Run my own storytelling consultancy

My unemployed self, laughed at these goals and so I decided to engage it with a full technicolour story and gave it a new narrative it could follow.

Research shows that if you write down your goals, you are 42% more likely to make it happen (study by Dr Gail Matthews). I can’t find any research on how likely you make this happen with a story but for me, it has been 100%.

There are many other stories that entered my life that I didn’t see coming. Some sad, some motivating and some entirely unexpected. I have tried my best to welcome them all. Weaving them all into a tapestry that I can look back on and say, “That was quite a journey!”

What I do know is that at any point along this journey, you can tell yourself a new story. Keep believing in that story, put one foot in front of the other, even on the days you feel you can’t and watch it unfold.

Wishing you a Happy New Year filled with possibility.

#storytelling #powerofstorytelling #Newbeginnings

 

 

6 years ago, I wrote a one woman show called Sari: The whole Five Yards about a 60-year-old woman who tells the truth for the very first time and in doing so, her life unravels. I was, at that point, safely ensconced in my comfort zone unaware how my life would unravel with this piece of work. Nobody wanted to commission the show.

Having never acted before, I booked a theatre in Covent Garden, rehearsed for 18 months, put it on playing all 17 parts. It was one of the most terrifying/exilharating things that I have done. The show got bought by a production company, it then got pulled during the pandemic as budgets were cut. I did everything I could not to write the novel that it wanted to be. It took me about four years to write.

I was offered a fourth book deal with HarperCollins and for various reasons, had to turn it down. The book is still on a journey with me – unravelling as we make our first stop in Germany.

This post is to mark a milestone in a project where many times, I have wanted to give up. The things that have kept me going are:

• No regrets – The thought of not doing it scares me more than the thought of doing it. Life is short!
• Easing off on the pressure – Seeing the whole thing as an adventure and not my life’s work!
• Focussing on why I started the project in the first place – which was to give voice to people we don’t often hear from

Die Freischwimmerin is published by Droemer today (available at amazon and all bookshops)

My first novel was rejected by over twenty publishers. This coincided with me being made redundant from the management consultancy where I worked and getting unceremoniously dumped. Unable at the time to deal with the shame of rejection, every day, I put on a suit and pretended to go to work. I would end up at the library.

After many months of this “suit routine,” one day, I took out a blank sheet of paper and I filled it with a new narrative that went something like this…. “I am a bestselling novelist, my books are translated internationally, I write plays and films, I teach creativity……”

At first I laughed at the absurdity, audacity even, but every day, I continued writing out this narrative until it became real to me.

I went on to set up my own publishing company and PR company, hyped my rejected novel under an alias, got it into the book charts and signed a three-book deal with HarperCollins. Pru, my alter-ego was shortlisted as publicist of the year! I didn’t go to the award’s ceremony, fearing that if I won, I would have to thank the various parts of myself who were a joy (not) to work with. The publicist who won ended up being my publicist!

I completed my three novels and then set up my own consultancy taking creativity into organisations.

Then there was loss, an untidy mess and another ending. This particular ending felt so big that it required an audacious new beginning.

Having never acted before, I wrote and produced a one woman show. It was for me one of the scariest things I have ever done. It opened up a huge window and is currently being adapted for television. I wrote my fourth novel (currently going through the redirection process) and began teaching again (seems to be a constant) but this time, from a very different perspective.

Back to that list; all the things that I wrote on that blank sheet of paper have pretty much materialised. There has heart break and rejection along the way and for the purposes of this article, I have edited them out but I have felt them — deeply. But what I know is that where there is an ending, there is always the possibility of a new beginning.

So to the things I have learnt and would like to share:

1) The stories we tell ourselves are the most important.

2) At any point along a journey, we can change the narrative and tell a different story.

3) There are two things that are hugely underestimated

a. The power of intention

b. The imagination

4) Put endings to rest with whatever ritual they need so you can start again.

5) We are meaning making machines. X happened therefore x=y. NO! X could equal z or a, b, c or any other letter.

Choose the one that is the best for your spirit, the one that that will make it soar.

May your new beginnings be bold.

www.preethinair.com

 

A study by Dr Gail Matthews, a Psychology Professor at Dominican University of California, demonstrated that writing down your goals increases the odds of success by 42%.

My first job after graduating was glorified tea maker to a chain-smoking boss whose favourite word when he spoke to me was, “error”. The job of “Consultant” had somewhat been mis-sold to me and I should have known having seen the smoke-filled room, the ashtray piled high and the confined space littered with used teabags. However, I took the job and should have left immediately but for various reasons, didn’t.

My boss, let’s call him Harry, would stand over my shoulder as he dictated his letters and shouted “error” every time I made a grammatical mistake. It was every other sentence and hugely soul-destroying as ironically, I harboured dreams of being a writer.

However, no job in my career history propelled me like this one. Weirdly, when I feel confined, there is space to dream and one day, when he was at a client meeting, I took out a piece of paper from the printer tray and wrote down my goals. It went something like this:

* I am a best-selling novelist

* My books are translated internationally

* I write films and plays

* I have my own consultancy where imagination and creativity are at the centre of what I do

And so it went on……

I folded the piece of paper and put it in the book that had inspired this process (Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People — the chapter on Beginning with the end in mind). Very recently, whilst moving house, I came across that list written over twenty years ago, I slowly unfolded it and read it. Pretty much everything had materialised.

Dr Gail in her study, suggests not just writing goals, but committing to goal-directed actions, and also, creating accountability for those actions.

I would add:

• Describe them in full technicolour, detailing how it will make you feel.
• Take Action. HUGE if possible (perhaps don’t create a double life). Huge action shows commitment and will get you to where you want to go faster.
• Journal out your your fears and doubts. When you put them on the page, they are less scary and surmountable. Journaling also allows access to your subcounscious mind — your biggest ally.

 

I had lost my voice. By this, I mean the little voice that used to be my GPS, the one that would tell me to turn left instead of right. It had been my constant companion who had gotten me out of many a sticky situation. Then one day, like a neglected lover, it upped and left. No note, nothing.

To tell you the truth, at first I didn’t even notice. I was busy constructing a Fakebook narrative, looking good in the outer-world, seeking validation in the number of likes and generally losing myself in other voices.

Despite the noise, it all felt quite empty. I missed my voice, the one who did not follow, the one who would say, “This is the way, let’s go,” and then proceed to take me on all sorts of crazy adventures. So, I went in search of it.

Here’s what I learnt in the year of finding my voice:
Turn off the noise, even for a day. Whatever your method of distraction: Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Insta…..turn it off.
Don’t seek validation from other people — even the “experts”. Your path is unique. No one else can possibly know the exquisite alchemy that makes you unique.
Still no voice? It is hiding — keeping score of the times you disregarded it, silenced it, betrayed it. Coax it back. How?

Sit and wait. Go for walks, write, tell it you are sorry and will do whatever it takes to listen.
Still no voice?

Be uncomfortable and wait some more.

Wait with a defiance that says you will not leave until it speaks to you.
And then, when it whispers: listen. Listen with fearless courage and go wherever it may want to take you….