Lessons Learned From Landing in a Jail with Chetan Mahajan: TIT60

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Imagine being arrested wrongly and you have to spend two months in jail for someone else’s mistake.

That’s exactly what happened with my guest Chetan Mahajan few years back. He was put behind the bars for the case against his employer. After this episode, Chetan was terrified and had nightmares but he didn’t let that define his life. He wanted to make something good out of the darkest phase in his life.

He went on to write a fairly popular Book called The Bad Boys of Bokaro Jail published by Penguin.  Chetan has served in several corporate leadership roles in his life before he packed his bags and moved to a remote village in Uttrakhand with his family. He runs Asia’s first writing retreat called Himalayan Writing Retreat which offers a wide variety of retreats and workshops for writers. 

He is a TEDx speaker and passionate blogger. I met chetan at Professional Speakers Summit in Chennai where we both were sharing the stage and I was very Inspired after listening to his story and invited him to share the same with you all. 

Some Questions I ask Chetan

• How did you land up in the jail?
• What was the moment like when you landed up in jail?
• How has that experience helped you in facing challenging situation in your life?
• What is your definition of freedom?
• Would you have discovered writing as your passion if you had not been to jail? 

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Time Stamps:

• 03:18 Chetan shares about his life in village and his writing.
• 05:15 He talks about what made him to live in village.
• 07:01 Chetan talks about the corporate roles that he has taken before starting on his own.
• 08:02 He shares how he landed up in jail for that case against his employer.
• 12:10 The confidence gained from going through this experience.
• 13:30 Chetan talks about the survival inside jail.
• 17:10 He shares how the journal he kept inside the jail later turned into a book.
• 19:48 Freedom is recognizing your constraints. 
• 22:13 Dealing with people after coming outside jail.
• 23:32 Making a transition from Job to starting a Himalayan Writing Retreat.
• 29:21 Feeling proud and grateful for the past experience.
• 30:42 Message to people going through darkest phase in their life.
• 31:20 Enlightening Round

Enlightening Round:

• What inspires Chetan to do everything that he does: Love for what he does.
• Which one daily habit has been game-changer for him: Rising up early morning and staying fit
• Books that has influenced him:   
  1. On Writing Well by William Zinsser
  2. Kissing the Demon by Amrita Kumar

• Which online tool has been super-helpful for him:  Hemingway App

Connect With Chetan Mahajan

• Website
• LinkedIn

 Follow the Inspiring Talk on

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram

One Last thing….

It really means a lot to me if you could subscribe to this podcast and write a nice review as I love reading them and hear from you:
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