I am a woman and I write my own dreams!

Ayushi is currently a Manager in the Digital Marketing space in Pharma Communications & Patient Advocacy. With her MBA in Strategic Marketing and Communications, she uses her words to charter her own territory. I am a fan of her articles and I hope you love her words below as much as I did.

1.Give us your introduction- start with 3 adjectives that best describe you.

I'd say I am inquisitive - I am always that person who asks the most questions, tries to figure what-ifs, reads fervently and wants to do new things. 

Also, hard working. I am probably an anomaly in my generation of 25-year-olds who think hard work beats smart work. Constantly seeking shortcuts to me is a form of laziness and entitlement. Lastly, I would probably say I am creative. Imagination is an important tool in my work area (marketing communications) and also for the moonlighting I do. as a writer and poet. 

2. How do you stay confident and always on the go, in a fairly patriarchal world?

There is no denying that we live in a world where expectations vary sharply for men and women. It is even worse for people who do not identify with the defined binary of gender because education and professional privileges are exempt from them. 

However, I don't think people engage in discrimination out of malice but out of fear and ignorance. Our generation of women was raised in a way that our generation of men have always not been taught to accommodate. Another important point to acknowledge is that biology evolves slower than socio-cultural norms. Physical differences matter in a few places but the right to dignity, opportunity, and freedom is not affected by it. 

I have refused to take up great job opportunities in the past because I was asked questions like, "Are you going to get married?" 

I have always believed that confidence comes from competence. Fake bravado will get spotted sooner or later. I work on knowing myself and my subject matter well. Confidence is then just an externality of competency and self-awareness. 

I also believe that having a sisterhood and support network of women friends who understand your professional challenges due to a gendered context helps a helluva lot!

3. Do you believe in success or failures?

Out of all the women I admire, Margaret Thatcher said something about success that used to be my wallpaper for the longest time.

It goes like this: “What is success? I think it is a mixture of having a flair for the thing that you are doing; knowing that it is not enough, that you have got to have hard work and a certain sense of purpose.”

It's not a quote with a lot of wordplay but it puts out everything I believe that success truly is. 

Failure is noble. Very few people fail truly - quitting at the correct time is a tactical strategy and making mistakes is just part of the learning process. I admire people who leave things that don't work out for them. I also admire people who persevere for what they want.

Everyone's journey is truly different. And if anything in this world is personal, it is your own perception of what success and failure constitutes of. 

4. Where is it that you draw your motivation from, to do everything that you do?

This might sound cheesy but I do believe that motivation dies and discipline lives. 

Instead of finding sources to externally motivate or constantly searching within - I decide what I would like to accomplish and just set routines to accomplish them. 

The good thing about that is that once I set my mind to something I am going to get it done. The not so good thing is that I might take longer than others to decide if this is what I am going to be 100% doing - because once I am in, I am going to do it better than it has ever been done. 

5. What scares you the most as a woman? Are you comfortable talking about your lows?

As a woman, I cannot deny this. I am immensely concerned with my personal safety, on and off the internet. I have created a lot of content online whether it is for LinkedIn, Quora, my personal handles or blogs since I was a teenager. A lot of people resonate with and constantly reach out. 

While appreciation & criticism for my work is always welcome - I hate personal attention that encroaches on my space and time. Over the years, I have dealt with a lot of untoward attention and I still don't know how to quite manage this. To everyone who reads content online, I'd say every piece of content is a performance of sorts. 

Seek comfort and familiarity with people in your surroundings instead of becoming obsessed with online content creators. I don't mind talking about my lows if it helps someone but to me dwelling on past lows is a fool's fancy. One must live forward. Obsessing too much about your lows can lead you to romanticize them and that's dangerous. 

6. When did you start writing? What inspires you to create content?

I can't remember a time when I have not written. I was that kid in school who was always writing - poems, speeches, articles. I was editing the school newsletter or the school magazine. I am an ardent bibliophile and writing seemed the most logical conclusion of my voracious reading. I am glad that I was born in the early 90's, discovered the internet very early in life and boom - found a plethora of opportunities to write. Whether it was for leisure or as a content writer for projects. 

I am inspired to create content because what we say lasts for a while, but what we writes leaves a mark. The digital universe democratizes the narrative that we are allowed to leave and it is imperative that we tell our stories - for without them, we are lost. 

8. If there was a legacy to be left behind, what would you choose to leave?

One of my dreams is to create a network of libraries and get people to embrace books and reading. As a form of education, yes but more importantly as a form of leisure. So if I could leave a legacy behind, I would like to create a state of the art, accessible library chain. A financially and physically accessible place for students to study, kids to play, retired folks to spend their time having kids read out to them, for office-goers like me to frantically type emails with a cup of coffee. 

That's the dream.