0:00

LinkedIn News. When it

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comes time to choose a career,

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we're often given the same

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piece of advice. Follow your

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passion. But what if you

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don't know what your passion

0:14

is? Or what if you

0:16

discover it once you've

0:18

already established a career

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in a different field?

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Many professionals spend years following

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one path, only to realize

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that their true calling lies

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somewhere else. Stepping into something

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completely new can feel daunting,

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but it's never too late to

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reinvent yourself and find

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fulfillment at work. Today on

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the show, you'll hear from someone

0:44

who made a major change and

0:46

found both success and purpose on

0:49

the other side. Stay tuned to

0:51

find out how you can do

0:53

the same. The LinkedIn Podcast

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The AI platform that

1:00

elevates human talent and

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allows people to shine

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brighter. This is the future

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of work. From LinkedIn News,

1:08

I'm Jesse Hemple, host of

1:10

the Hello Monday podcast. Start

1:13

your week with the Hello

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Monday podcast. We'll navigate career

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pivots. We'll learn where happiness

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Monday with me, Jesse Hemple,

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on the LinkedIn Podcast Network,

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or wherever you get your

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for the ups and downs

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and the ever-changing landscape of

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our professional lives. I'm Andrew

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Seaman, LinkedIn's editor-at-large for Jobs

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and Career Development. Bringing new

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conversations with experts who, like

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me, Want to see you

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succeed at work, at home,

1:49

and everywhere in between. Joining

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me in the studio today

1:54

is writer, content

1:56

creator, and hilarious

1:58

stand-up comedian. Zarna

2:01

broke into the comedy scene just

2:03

five years ago, after a

2:05

decade of being a stay -at -home

2:07

mom. She had never written

2:09

jokes or performed on stage before,

2:12

but what she lacked in

2:14

experience she made up for in

2:16

determination and shrewd decision -making. Zarna

2:19

and I sat down to discuss

2:21

her new book, This American Woman,

2:23

a one -in -a -billion memoir. We

2:25

also talked about how she built her

2:27

comedy career from the ground up and

2:30

what it takes to make it as

2:32

an entrepreneur. I kicked off our

2:34

conversation by asking Zarna what inspired her

2:36

to write a memoir. You

2:39

know, I get asked the same questions everywhere.

2:41

How did you get started? Because it's

2:43

an unusual path and I think there's a

2:45

lot of people in the world who

2:47

want to do something else, either as a

2:49

side hustle or switch up their career

2:51

altogether. And they look at me and they're

2:53

like, how does she do it? And

2:55

I wanted to answer that in a way

2:58

that they could keep that answer with

3:00

them, be inspired by it and

3:02

find their own path. I really, I failed

3:04

at so many things before I became

3:06

a comic that I needed people to know

3:08

that everything that they see on my

3:10

social media, which is a lot of wins,

3:12

is just what I choose to put

3:14

up front. And I talk about my losses

3:16

too, but I wrote it truthfully because

3:19

I wanted people to know my story and

3:21

know that if you're falling and if

3:23

you're getting punched in the face and if

3:25

things are not working out, that's kind

3:27

of how it's supposed to go before it

3:29

works out. Yeah. In fact, I

3:31

think in the book, you have

3:33

that one page where you just

3:35

list all the companies that you

3:37

started from disposable toothbrushes to a

3:39

matchmaker. Yeah. That was such a bad

3:42

business. By the way, if you're listening, don't do

3:44

that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

3:46

And over your life, how did

3:48

things sort of pop up? Because you

3:50

were like, you were a lawyer.

3:52

You decided to become a stay -at -home

3:54

mom. And then obviously now you've

3:57

gone into entertainment, stand -up comedy. So,

3:59

you know, we're. Were those very deliberate?

4:01

Were those sort of prescribed

4:04

to you? It was all accidental.

4:06

I mean, the deliberate part of

4:08

it was. being conscious that I wanted

4:10

to find something. But I couldn't figure

4:12

out what the thing was. I am

4:14

licensed to practice law in New York,

4:16

but I try to forget that because

4:18

I'm very bad at it. I am.

4:20

I joke about it, but there was

4:22

a time when all my clients were

4:24

in jail. I was like, God is

4:26

giving me a sign. Maybe this is

4:28

not my thing. Yeah, yeah. And I've

4:30

been on a mad mission to find

4:33

my thing. And I think that a

4:35

lot of people are in my space.

4:37

We don't all know what our passion

4:39

is. Because in America, they'll say, what's

4:41

your passion? And like, I didn't have

4:43

a passion. I didn't even know I

4:45

had a passion. I just knew I

4:47

wanted to work. I wanted to be

4:50

an entrepreneur so badly. I've been obsessed

4:52

with entrepreneurship my whole life. But I

4:54

couldn't figure out what my pathway into

4:56

it would be. It was my daughter and

4:58

my kids friends who pointed out to

5:00

me that they found my stories funny.

5:02

And the thing is I wasn't trying to

5:05

be funny at all. I'm always yelling

5:07

at kids just naturally because I

5:09

think that they're making mistakes and

5:11

like they're you know everything they're doing

5:13

seems wrong to me in my world

5:16

but then they start laughing. So it

5:18

kind of came from a place of

5:20

reflecting on what I was already doing.

5:23

that helped me find this path.

5:25

Yeah, and you talk about your daughter

5:27

being the one who basically said, like,

5:29

you should try this. Yeah. What made

5:32

you listen to her? I actually

5:34

didn't listen to her. I only

5:36

went to the comedy open mic

5:38

out of a sense of obligation.

5:40

I had made my kids do so many things

5:42

they didn't want to do. I had forced them

5:45

to take every lesson, eat every food, that

5:47

when they ganged up on me and they're

5:49

like, you should try it. Is mom too

5:51

scared to try something? I was like, I

5:53

can't just be like, I don't want to

5:55

do it because I've made them do so

5:57

much. So I went to the open mic.

6:00

fully prepared to go in, take a

6:02

few selfies. So I had proof that

6:04

I did it. That was the whole plan.

6:06

But I didn't know that walking

6:08

into that room would actually change my

6:10

life. Like, I had never. seen

6:12

a comedy show. I'd never been to

6:14

a comedy club. Comedies are a thing

6:17

in our culture. Like no one's going

6:19

to pay money to have fun. We

6:21

don't blend well with fun. We prefer

6:23

stress. We prefer the chess competition. We

6:25

prefer the chess competition. We prefer the

6:27

spelling be where it's life or death.

6:29

So we didn't know what this was.

6:32

And I remember watching and thinking, oh,

6:34

they're just going to stand up there

6:36

and talk. Yeah. And because I was

6:38

already there, the woman who was running

6:40

the open mic. a mom of three

6:42

herself. She said, you already hear, why

6:44

don't you do a few minutes on

6:46

stage? Yeah. And I was like, but

6:49

do what? Like I didn't even know

6:51

what a joke was. And she's like,

6:53

talk about whatever you think is funny.

6:55

And I got up on stage and

6:57

I started trashing my mother in law.

6:59

Who doesn't think that's funny? Yeah. You

7:01

know what I mean? And the audience

7:04

was loving it. And I really had

7:06

a moment of like, how is this,

7:08

what is happening? I couldn't believe people

7:10

were listening to what I had to

7:12

say and finding any sort of entertainment

7:14

in it or, you know, I

7:16

was telling true stories as I always

7:19

do. So I couldn't believe that people

7:21

were like, her mother-in-law said that. I

7:23

was like, yeah, she did say that.

7:25

And how did it click for you to

7:27

say like, Okay, I could do this. Like

7:29

I know a lot of times people will

7:31

say like they're on stage and they get

7:34

addicted to it. Yeah. And I know in

7:36

the book, you're open about, listen, my husband

7:38

was lost his job, it was COVID, there

7:40

were all these things going on. So

7:42

there was necessity in it too. Yeah.

7:44

So when you failed at as many

7:47

entrepreneurial endeavors as you have, you learn

7:49

a lot, which is true. The learning

7:51

happens in the failure and luckily I

7:53

have multiple PhDs. I tell my kids

7:55

the taste of failure is always in

7:57

my mouth. I'm failing at something every

7:59

single day even now and that's okay.

8:01

Actually once you embrace the fact

8:03

that it's okay to fail it's

8:05

liberating. The good thing about a

8:07

self-obsessed society that we live in

8:09

is that they no one has

8:11

time to worry about what I'm

8:14

doing. You know what I mean?

8:16

We used to think about that,

8:18

like what will people think? People

8:20

are not thinking. No one's thinking

8:22

about me or you. They're all

8:24

busy doing their own things, which

8:26

makes it much easier to fail.

8:28

What I did learn through my

8:30

journey was that you have to

8:32

be extremely unemotional with

8:34

your business. If it's working, the signs

8:36

are there. You have to receive those

8:39

signs. So by the time I reached

8:41

comedy, I was very like clinical

8:43

about. Is there a sign? Is there

8:46

not a sign? Yeah. I was starting

8:48

and closing businesses in a week, you know,

8:50

because I was that focused on it. So

8:52

when I saw the audience looking at me

8:54

like, wow, it's the first time I ever

8:57

saw that. And so I did what every

8:59

good Indian person does as research.

9:01

I went home and I was

9:03

like, I'm sure there's like thousands

9:05

of Indian mom comics that I

9:07

just don't know about. You know,

9:09

maybe this world exists and I'm

9:12

just out of it. And I'm looking in

9:14

India, I'm looking in America, I'm

9:16

looking everywhere, I was like, no

9:18

one's doing this. And that's when

9:20

it started like clicking in my

9:22

mind. And it kind of, I went down

9:25

the rabbit hole of how to write a

9:27

joke, like learning how to write that first

9:29

joke. But once I did it, it

9:31

just started flying out of me. Like

9:33

I remember after that open mic. The

9:35

woman who ran it she invited me

9:37

to do what every starting comic in

9:39

New York does which is called do

9:41

a bringer show Okay, the way those

9:43

shows work is if you bring five

9:45

people you get five minutes on stage

9:47

Oh, okay. So she said why don't

9:49

you do a bringer show and bring five

9:52

people? And at the time I was

9:54

like non-existent on social media. My only

9:56

Instagram friends were moms of my kids

9:58

friends, you know from their classes or

10:00

whatever. So I put a little flyer up

10:02

saying, if five of you can show up,

10:04

I even offered to pay for their food

10:06

and drinks because it felt wrong to make

10:09

them pay for my invite. I was like,

10:11

if five of you show up, I'll get

10:13

five minutes on stage and I'll

10:15

try to say funny things about

10:17

my mother-in-law, something to that effect.

10:19

And 96 people showed up. But

10:22

a metric like that had never happened

10:24

for me in any other business. So

10:26

when... the first few signs of like

10:28

this could be something yeah started presenting

10:31

themselves I was like this is it

10:33

this is it this is the thing I've

10:35

been waiting for like you know I because

10:37

I've been waiting with bated breath it

10:40

kind of felt like somebody finally

10:42

gave me that sign yeah and I'm gonna

10:44

take it and run with it I really

10:46

really like that because I think

10:48

especially the important part about being

10:50

very analytical when it comes to

10:52

what success looks like because I

10:55

think a lot of people, they

10:57

have that passion part of it,

10:59

but you also need it tempered

11:01

with reality. And I think there's

11:03

that idea of like, oh, but

11:05

there's persistence. And I think your

11:08

persistence was, listen, I kept trying

11:10

things. Yeah. And that's the difference

11:12

between being passionate and knowing you

11:14

want to have a business. Yeah.

11:17

Because the hobbyist is like, there's no

11:19

revenue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and I

11:21

see it in comedy all the time. There

11:23

are comics who are so attached to their

11:26

jokes that even though no one's laughing,

11:28

that joke will, they'll keep repeating the

11:30

joke. Whereas I'm extremely clinical. I tried

11:33

three times. If it's not getting the

11:35

laugh I want, it's got to go.

11:37

Yeah. So it's, it is being hyper

11:39

focused on the analytics of the

11:41

business is what has helped me

11:44

build anything as a business. We'll

11:49

be right back

11:52

with Zarnagar.

11:54

Four thinkers

11:56

know that when

11:59

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idea wherever you get

12:57

your podcasts. Obviously

13:04

now that you have this career,

13:06

I'm assuming there's been other opportunities

13:09

that come your way. And how

13:11

do you decide now what you're

13:13

going to venture into that you

13:15

have this foundation? The same

13:17

way I decide everything. Who's

13:19

the audience for it? What

13:21

is the purpose? Is it a big

13:24

money thing? Is it a reach thing?

13:26

Like the book truly is a labor

13:28

of love for me. I got paid

13:30

to do it. There was a money

13:32

aspect to it, but that's not why

13:34

I prioritized it. The path to growing

13:37

is so uncertain and messy that I

13:39

didn't want to be that person who

13:41

waits until I've achieved it all to

13:43

write a big retrospective. I'm fine with

13:45

sharing my messes. I am a product of

13:48

the social media age. I'm a

13:50

tick-talker. I'm an Instagramer. I'm very

13:52

fine with talking about all my

13:54

losses, everything that went wrong. Because

13:57

my audience expects the truth from

13:59

me. I'm very happy to give

14:01

it. I'm not so precious about it.

14:03

That's why even talking about my husband

14:05

having lost his job. I mean in

14:08

the Indian community it's blasphemous. No one

14:10

talks about it. Everybody pretends like everybody

14:12

just won the lottery. Everybody's

14:15

real estate has gone up and up.

14:17

Everybody's the managing director and CEO and

14:19

whatever. And in fact, that's the opposite

14:21

for us. He lost his job during

14:23

the pandemic and I had to go

14:25

really hard. Yeah. And you were at

14:28

one of my shows. I mean, you

14:30

know what that was. It was like

14:32

the backyard of an open air restaurant.

14:34

Yeah. But I had a mobile speaker

14:36

that I used to carry around with

14:38

me everywhere. We all had mask on and

14:40

yeah. We were masked outside. It was

14:43

crazy. because you talk about obviously your

14:45

life back in India where your mother

14:47

passed away you put it all in

14:50

here yeah and I guess how do

14:52

you judge between sort of okay I

14:54

do have a life and I have

14:56

this career do you separate them at

14:58

all no no I don't okay which is

15:00

not to say no one else should others

15:02

should do it my way I've built my

15:05

life on being very open

15:07

and transparent to my audience

15:09

and I get a lot from them

15:11

when I'm being honest like There's so

15:13

many times when I have like really

15:15

like sad crying reels that I'll make

15:17

in the moment. I remember a reel I

15:20

made when I dropped my daughter off to

15:22

college and I was at the airport waiting

15:24

to take the flight back by myself.

15:26

I was just overcome with emotion and

15:28

I just filmed it and I put

15:30

it out there and the outpouring of

15:32

support I got was so real because

15:34

everybody had a moment like that in

15:36

their life. The other question I have

15:39

for you is you have the

15:41

support system and obviously you use

15:43

your entire family and your act

15:45

and your Tik Talks your mother-in-law

15:47

So how do you? Suggest people

15:49

work on that support structure because I

15:52

think as much as we like

15:54

to say we have work we

15:56

have our personal life. They're always

15:58

intertwined especially for you So how

16:00

do you bring people along with you?

16:02

I need it badly. I don't

16:04

think I can do anything by

16:06

myself. And it's not just my

16:08

family. My friends are incredible.

16:11

My friends came to shows for

16:13

a whole year. They can recite my

16:15

entire set by memory in their sleep.

16:17

But they were like, you know, we're

16:19

going to go out drinking anyway or

16:22

we're going to go out for a

16:24

meal and you were going to come

16:26

wherever you are. Everybody needs a support

16:28

system. Not everybody is going to have

16:31

what I have or what you have

16:33

or what anybody has. You start

16:35

working with what you have. That is

16:37

my advice. For somebody, it might

16:39

be a sibling. For somebody, it

16:42

might be a parent, a neighbor,

16:44

a doorman, whoever. Start with what

16:46

you have because once the seed

16:48

takes root and people start

16:50

seeing that it's evolving into

16:52

something, you will attract more.

16:54

But if you sit there and you're like, well,

16:57

I don't have a support structure, then

16:59

nothing's going to happen. Just start with

17:01

what you have. I'm not shy about

17:03

asking for, my early videos really used

17:05

to have my building doorman in there.

17:07

And we used to just laugh about

17:10

it. We used to stand there and

17:12

be like, you wanna make a video?

17:14

I remember when COVID first happened and,

17:16

you know, hand sanitizer was like so

17:18

precious and toilet paper was so precious.

17:20

We made videos as if I was

17:22

selling hand sanitizer right outside my building.

17:24

And he filmed it. And he filmed

17:27

it. So my advice to everybody. and

17:29

always like that. We all started with

17:31

what we had. I never thought my

17:34

husband would be part of anything. He

17:36

had a corporate job. And as somebody

17:38

who works in a corporate environment,

17:40

this would not be okay with

17:42

his employers at all. But then

17:44

life turned. And I was like,

17:46

you know, you're home now, come

17:48

on, get in the game, let's go. And you

17:51

know, when you look ahead and you sort of

17:53

think, okay, I have so much more to give,

17:55

so much more to do in my career. How

17:57

far out do you plan? Like what is your...

18:00

career trajectory look like do you think?

18:02

I don't plan too much because so

18:04

much of it is outside my control

18:06

but I try to do the best

18:09

with what look to be viable options

18:11

in front of me now. You know

18:13

you can only do the best with

18:15

the information you have and the options

18:18

you have. I don't want to get

18:20

tripped up on what all it could

18:22

be. Like my daughter is at Stanford

18:24

University, my son is at Cornell. in

18:27

the big name universities there's a huge

18:29

trend among young people and like is

18:31

this idea gonna scale? Is this the

18:34

next unicorn? Well if you haven't sold

18:36

a pencil yet, don't worry about that.

18:38

Do you know what I mean? Like

18:40

I'm all about what is the job

18:43

at hand and can I deliver value

18:45

here and deliver it better than anybody

18:47

else? Yeah. I have a lot of

18:49

faith that if I do that, the

18:52

next step will evolve. Yeah. So I'm

18:54

completely opposed to the... track that is

18:56

like we see money funding until you've

18:58

done something. Don't take money from anybody.

19:01

Don't worry about scale. Don't worry about

19:03

what it could be. No one knows.

19:05

I wrote a screenplay in my bedroom

19:08

out of YouTube tutorials, having no idea

19:10

ever in my life that I would

19:12

be on stage like selling out like

19:14

a 5,000 seat venue. But each step

19:17

evolved because the step that I was

19:19

working on, I work with full intention

19:21

and love and real devotion to the

19:23

five people and the dog and the

19:26

ambulance that came, somebody saw it. And

19:28

it led to the next thing. I

19:30

really like that because a lot of

19:33

times, and when I do things here

19:35

and that are experiments or whatever, I'm

19:37

just trying to get data. And it's

19:39

sort of like one of those things

19:42

where it's like, I just need to

19:44

know if this is going to work

19:46

or give me like sort of that.

19:48

weather vein where it's like pointing into

19:51

direction. But then like there's the idea

19:53

of like how do you scale it

19:55

and everything has to be a success

19:57

from the beginning. And I think that

20:00

sort of robs you from the experimentation

20:02

of finding something really good. And I

20:04

don't think it's going to work anyway.

20:07

You can't design for success. Yeah. You

20:09

just can't. Success is evolves. If you

20:11

could design for success, we would all

20:13

be doing it. Yeah. You know, that

20:16

everybody would have had the perfect plan

20:18

on day one and we would all

20:20

be billionaires. Yeah. But it has to

20:22

evolve and that's the nature of the

20:25

process. So I, you know, I like

20:27

to say even my social media, for

20:29

example, I have millions of followers now,

20:31

but I like to say you don't

20:34

get millions of followers. You get one

20:36

follower at a time, a million times.

20:38

Each person that chooses to follow you

20:41

is making an active choice to take

20:43

their time and their attention and give

20:45

it to you. And you have to

20:47

treat it with that care and love

20:50

and respect. If you just think of

20:52

it as, oh, it's just statistics and

20:54

we need another million and another million,

20:56

then you might actually get the numbers,

20:59

but you're not going to get their

21:01

passion. And, you know, especially when you

21:03

talk to your children, what is the

21:05

advice you give them after sort of...

21:08

your life to think like okay listen

21:10

I've been a lawyer I've stayed at

21:12

home I've now gone into the comedy

21:15

you know what do you hope they

21:17

take away from what you've done but

21:19

also what you tell them I tried

21:21

to stay away from the buzzwords even

21:24

though they are accurate like I'm not

21:26

like hustle and grind and like it's

21:28

not about all that to me to

21:30

me it's sales learn to sell something

21:33

find something you like and learn to

21:35

sell that. Yeah. Because if you know

21:37

how to sell something, you can sell

21:40

anything and you can make a business

21:42

around it. You can take that skill

21:44

to a company. Everybody I know needs

21:46

to sell. Yeah. I'm saying this because

21:49

I've had to simplify the message for

21:51

my kids. There's so much noise out

21:53

there in the business and entrepreneurship world

21:55

that big words, you know. Are you

21:58

funded? All of that is not relevant.

22:00

First learn to sell something. One thing,

22:02

tiny thing. So many moms who feel

22:04

like they're stuck in their lives and

22:07

want to find their way out into

22:09

a working world or whatever. I tell

22:11

them all, find one thing that you

22:14

actually truly love. And try to sell

22:16

that to five people. Start there. Because

22:18

once you learn how to talk about

22:20

money and how to name a price

22:23

and how to validate that price and

22:25

receive that money, the engine will start

22:27

revving up in your head in business

22:29

directions and more ideas will come. Well,

22:32

thank you so much for joining us.

22:34

Thank you for having me. Her book,

22:36

This American Woman, a One in a

22:38

Billion memoir, comes out April 29th. Click

22:41

the link in the show notes to

22:43

pre-order your copy now. Get hired is

22:45

a production of LinkedIn News. The show

22:48

is produced by Grace Rubin and Emily

22:50

Reeves. As of Gidron, Engineered our show,

22:52

Tim Boland, Mixed Our Show. We get

22:54

additional support from Alexandra Kutsniyatsova and Ali

22:57

McPherson. Sarah Storm is our senior producer.

22:59

Dave Pond is head of production and

23:01

creative operations. Myope Chappelle is director of

23:03

content and audience development. Courtney Coop is

23:06

head of original programming. Dan Roth is

23:08

the editor and chief of LinkedIn, and

23:10

I am Andrew Seaman. Until next time,

23:13

stay well and best of luck.