Dreams Do Come True - International Book Tour

It was March 2020 when I started writing a book about my eventful career journey and the philosophy I chose to apply as I made decisions along my professional pathway. It was the early days of the pandemic, and my wife and I were staying at a friend’s beautiful farmhouse in Lonavala – a quaint hill station two hours’ drive from Mumbai. During those days, I would wake up early, exercise, chant while walking in nature, make a cup of coffee, sit in one of the comfy chairs facing a nearby mountain, pull out my laptop, put on my headphones, turn on my favourite tunes and start typing. 

I relished the process of taking the memories, beliefs, insights and lived wisdom that resided in my head and heart and excitedly placing them onto the Microsoft Word document. It was therapeutic, exhilarating and addicting – creating something that did not exist before. Thanks to the online Masterclass course on how to write non-fiction led by renown author Malcolm Gladwell that my wife purchased for me for my 40th birthday, I had a structure for my story. An outline that guided my fingers as I wrote and ensured that I was on the right path – provided some method to the madness.  

I would write each morning. Two to three hours maximum until my creative juices dried up. Then, I would transition back into a sports management executive for the rest of the day. I loved the process. It was heaven. I loved knowing I was building something each day – slowly, thoughtfully, gracefully. I loved the feeling of sitting down after my morning ritual and wondering what my fingers would produce that day. As we get older, we rarely surprise ourselves, and I remember that each morning, I would be pleasantly delighted by the content I would create. 

While writing the first draft, I never thought about publishing, marketing, promotion, publicity and book tours. I just enjoyed transforming a story inside of me into something tangible, something that could be shared with others. However, after I finished the first draft and received positive feedback and some constructive criticism from my wife, I began to get excited. I started to consider life after having a completed manuscript on my computer.  

So while reading through the content and making my wife’s suggested edits, I began to spend time daydreaming about the book getting published. What would it look like in my hands? How would it feel for me to see it in bookstores? And then I got greedy; I thought about travelling around the world and leading workshops based on the stories, guidance and exercises included in the book. I pictured myself speaking in front of large audiences in global destinations. Signing purchased books and sharing my contact information in case the readers wanted to discuss their dream careers with me. Sitting in Lonavala, with just a red-lined Microsoft Word document on my computer, no agent, no publisher, no experience as an author and no network within the literary space, all of this seemed so far-fetched. But I love to dance in the sea of impossibility.  

Well, I am happy to share that dreams do come true. Your Dream Career was published in September 2023, and I just returned from my first book tour to England and the United States, where I had the privilege of delivering workshops on how to create a dream career to master’s students at two of the leading sports management programs in the world. My book was purchased by the institutes in bulk and provided to each member of the audience.   

The tour was successful, the feedback was positive, and the feeling was surreal. I am blessed that my dreams often become true and that I’m now in a position to help others identify their dreams and manifest them into reality.