Ep. 85: Sabbaticalling

I, V, M. Are you the same, Utsam memoria of whom they say he accidently swallowed a packet of live have been left speechless but such amazing poetry that only could die. Thank you, Narayan. I was just a fabulous introduction.

Oh, man. Utsar previously came out of the show to explain market research and its glorious dynamics and branches and how every product we consume at some point of time has had some poor intern go and ask some people a shady question about their condom usage. I was not an intern, I was a full time employee on training. It's like please.

I keep things I'm not even sure. So Utsar is back by popular demand. Yeah, that is actually is one part of this podcast who said yeah please come and talk to us. It's about to be actually got to a bit of the world.

We've been able to keep the women out. So apart from being a world-class market researcher, Utsar, there you go on. I was talking about your idols but anyway. So he is also a very very inter-pit traveler.

So over the years Utsar has been pinging me from various parts of the world. He has been to, he's one of the few people I know who's actually gone to China and has had fun doing it. Yeah, I've left this month. Yeah.

I wrote an e-book as well. Yeah, that's in the work. It's not out yet. It's in the works.

I think I've seen a draft of this. Yeah. So the usual England and Dubai and Rajasthan care a lot of things. I know while you have this perfectly nice places to visit in that sentence, I've been to the Rajasthan and care a lot of the agency places to go.

So I've been to Tibet, Chinese control Tibet which is a very very moving experience to be very honest. China is also moving in to it. Yes, I'm moving on from that moved experience. I've been to Indonesia a couple of times.

I've been to Uzbekistan. I've been to Utsbakistan. I've been to Utsbakistan and the problem with the world is that whenever there is anything star attached to it, people think you're going to a destination. That's the stance that people make.

I've been to the stance which people take on star countries. But fantastic country to visit. I definitely recommend it. I've been to Colombia, Ecuador.

I've been to Argentina. I've been to Kenya, South Africa. So yeah, fair bit around the world. I think I've only not touched Australia as a continent.

So yeah, pretty damn awesome. So I know. You should hop over to Oseidur. Clearly in market research phase.

I just have to have a million in lifestyle except the fact that I will never be paid enough. Well done. And today we're going to talk about a very specific aspect of your travels. Would you like to tell us what that is?

Yeah. So I've been traveling for about 10 years now. How I wish that was true but no. I've not been traveling continuously.

On and off whenever I found time. And what I'm doing now is I am taking sabbatical. Now, just to be clear, I am not taking a break from my job. So I have not quit my job to travel the world.

I am taking a sabbatical from work which means I will rejoin my organization once I am done with the sabbatical. So it's a lot different from those nice memes you see on Facebook that if traveling briefly, I would never come back to this world or something like that. And all these memes circulating which I have a massive problem with by the way. Yeah, yes.

I'm just a family group. I'm a family group company. My family is already in the place with what we do in life. So that's not go there.

So how long are you doing sabbatical for? So sabbatical is for a period of three months. And that's something I worked out with my organization. I think my organization deserves some amount of applause for the fact that I think Indian Company they have.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. My company's name is Benskip Swell White.

It's a great place to work. I've been there for four years now. So yeah. And I've worked that out with my organization.

And yeah, starting first of June, I am off work with three months. Awesome. So I'm actually going to look at like a sabbatical, how to go about planning for one and importantly how to go about pitching one to your organization. Right.

I may be cutting a long story short, but what's your first thing? Can I take a sabbatical for a year? And then they say no, then you'll run to three months. Sorry to cut you, but before you even get to that, why did you think of taking us a vertical?

Yeah. I think that's an important question to answer because that's why everything really starts. So I'm a few people I've mentioned the previous postcards that I like my job. I like my job.

I like my job. So it's not really about that. I've got burnt out with work or anything like that. So which is a good reason to take a sabbatical as well.

It's not. I think that apart from growing professionally, there are always personal goals and personal projects which you want to take to a tradition. And that's where really the item sabbatical is coming from. And that's the reason actually the sabbatical is happening for me.

So I have a few goals in mind which I want to sort of fulfill. And that sabbatical is going to be that concentrated focus time for me to be able to get to that. So you're approaching it more from a personal goals thing rather than sort of like a bucket list. I need to see one, two, three, four, five.

Absolutely not. So two things. I mean, one thing few things I realized from 10 years of traveling is that one, this whole ticking of places doesn't really take you anywhere because you retain so little or well you've gone. So I'm more and more gone.

That's a fascinating observation actually. Yeah. Because the thing is that literally everything is a blur. I mean, I just want to go to a city and go to a monument.

That's part of the city. But there's so much more to a city such a complex being, there's so much happening. So I've taken a conscious choice to travel slowly because I believe that you really want to soak in and get a feel of the place and you want the place to enrich yourself. You know, you want the place to add some sort of a three-dimensional experience to your own being.

I think it is important to travel slowly. The other thing is that when it comes to sabbatical, one thing should be very, very clear of why I think of the sabbatical. I've seen this whole trend coming up right now that people are traveling for the sake of traveling. Don't travel for the sake of traveling.

I mean, as pointless as doing anything for the sake of just doing that, how people in this country get married just for the sake of getting married. Right. So because that's what everybody does. Everybody does travel now.

That's what people do these days. So no, but sabbatical should come from very strong reasons. And one of the myths I want to definitely talk about today is a lot of people think that when you're talking to your organization about sabbatical, your goals of sabbatical should be tangentially linked at least to your work in some way. Oh, I will become a better.

Yeah, count plan. Unless you are using a sabbatical to pick up very tangible skills, let's suppose you're taking six months off one year off to do a course, which is linked to your work. Then yes, of course, there is a little bit. But in my case, there is no direct link to what I do.

It's intensely personal of what I'm trying to do in my sabbatical. And you will be surprised at how open sometimes organizations can be. I think this is where I'll take off from Sika to comment the last podcast, Kuchina Mecha Jata here. Because I don't know of anyone in my organization at my level of leadership teams who have ever taken a sabbatical.

So there wasn't a policy. No one in the company that this could be done. I was like, Puchina Mecha, so that's how it started actually. It's very interesting what you said about skill building.

I mean, it does turn out that way. I think it reflects the attitude that Indians have towards their workplace still, where it's reflected in many different ways. You have people who work, who are leaving at 5.30, which is officially leaving time in your office and everyone looks at you on Saturday, half day, half day. The attitude being under, like attitude for it being that you're required to go over and work for your employer because there's still this sort of archaic idea of what work is where your employer is paying you and that's a big deal and you're supposed to be owing them.

Work is worship as they used to say in the bottom of a school series. And the top of our blackboards. And so I mean, that entire attitude of saying that, okay, I'm taking this sabbatical not to build, I didn't do engineering, so I don't have analytical skills which I can get now. That attitude, poor K, you're actually saying that you know what, I'm taking this break because there might be people who have reasons of saying, you know, I need a break, I need a burnout for that.

Or like you're doing it, which is saying that I have a very specific set of things that I've been working with for in my life and therefore I want to go to travel. So I think that's a very interesting angle to it. But yeah, so going about the second part of what you were getting to, how did you decide to, so clearly you've been working with a company for a while, so it's a certain comfort level that existed. Sure, sure.

But how did you formulate your argument to the people that you work with? Okay, so first thing is that you need clarity that why do you want to take this as a because unless you are convinced you're not going to come in with anyone else. Right. The second thing is that fundamentally you should be valuable to your organization.

I think that's very, very important because if the organization and of course what I'm taking as much as paying me for it, but still in the world we live in and if I'm not very typical but in some sort of ways, still a typical corporate job, pretty much it's a long time to take off. Right. But you should be very clear in your head why do you want to take this as a particle? And second, be very open to communicating with your organization why you are doing it.

This whole thing of how we had an interview is that when someone asks you that what is your weakness you try to spin off a strength. That's one of the reasons. I'm a very hard worker. I work too hard.

I seek perfection in everything I do, which actually can be dramatic. So you have to be very open about your intent and you need to have very clear goals because you cannot just go walk up your organization and say that I won't take a subject because just like that or travel or just fail. But you don't have more specific goals because otherwise the request also doesn't come off since here. I think it needs to be since here because you are also asking your organization to put strain on its structure on its resources because while I'm away for three months no one is going to be hired to do my work.

It's going to be distributed amongst my team members. Right. So it's an ask for the organization as well. So one thing is be clear and communicate very clearly why do you want to do it.

So do you want to tell us why you do it? Sure. So if that's not too personal. No, it's definitely not personal.

If it was personal I would not be on the podcast. So, but I like about the point. I speak at May about owing everything to our organization. Because we come from this point of view that our work defines all aspects of personality because I would say our parents and their generation went with that thing.

They got a job stuck to it through other careers. And so everything was the job to them. But also when we meet it's part of 24th century life. You ask what do you do?

What do you do? If you're entirely of that person in the first five minutes because of what you do. And they're like, what do you do? And they're like, what do you like?

They're like, what do you do? Like a royalty for the organization. Like a retired at the place they joined. I mean, that was a standard thing.

And you're like, okay, come rain or shine. Whatever. I'm going to stick with this company because they gave me employment originally. Yeah.

And you're like, I'm going to upscale. You can play for anyone who throws money at them. Yeah. But I'm not getting paid how much will scale get to it.

So I'm saying that, which is why our lives are not dimensional anymore. There are a lot of dimensions to us outside of work. We work very hard on our day jobs, put everything into it and intend for a best outcome. I don't see the reason why you should not be investing into yourself personally.

That is also the aspect of your personality and life which you need to work on. So my desire, I mean, I have a, since I travel, I have a travel blog. So I like about my experiences and I write at the intersection of travel history and human psychology and behavior. So I don't write a how to guide because I don't think I'm very qualified to do that.

I have an Instagram account which has 104 followers. I just checked it, which has your own latest doing because it's not a person's Instagram account. I've created it just for the blog. And I've been writing on and off.

So one of the desires for me was to travel extensively. I mentioned about slow travel a little while back. And the other thing was to work on a book project or on travel. And that's the reason I wanted this time off.

And I felt that it requires somewhat of a slow travel, a little bit of solitude to be able to really push yourself out and get a finished product at the end of it. Do you sort of learn the language of the place you're going to as a way to see in the culture? Or how does that work? When you go to Arjuna, you've been to Arjuna, you've been to Ecuador.

So a lot of these places speak little or no English. How does that work when part of what you want to do is sort of soak in the experiences locally? So what I typically do is, you know, sound a little creepy sometimes, but I tend to hang out at universities once I go to a country. Because there is very well filed bilingual people.

Because most developing countries are actively going to the developing part of the world more than the part of the world. That's not a B in the LGBT, right? No, no. That's just terrific.

I was drifting. I was drifting. And that's where you will find the bilingual people. They are the ones, one because they're young.

So they're very motivated and keen to talk about their countries. And the language is much lesser. Having said that, it's always not the case. I was living in China for six months.

I was working there, but I traveled in Chile and I went to the smaller towns where I was no English at all. So apart from the words for hello and thank you, I pretty much did not know anything. And you'll be surprised how far you can make it into a country without knowing the language. Wow, that's amazing because Chinese is notoriously difficult.

They have different words for Coca-Cola. So you can't even ask for Coca-Cola. I don't know about that. It's a very different language form.

So most language works on grammar Chinese if I'm not understanding Mandarin. It's not Chinese. Mandarin doesn't really have grammar. A lot of South-East Asian languages also work on grammar.

So they work with a collection of words. So if you look at Bahasa, that's Indonesian, they don't really have a grammar. Which is why when you see that a lot of, I'm not going to be racist, you're just how language works. A lot of South-East Asian pick up English.

Sometimes you see that sometimes the grammar is often not just because it's a learned thing. It's how they understand language. Most Indian languages have a grammatical structure. Which is why when we pick up English, we understand grammar more instinctively as compared to...

And that's probably also the origin of all the Chinese to English translation jokes that you see. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I was coming back to that. I'm not in the words.

Chao miba. So I'll try to Uzbekistan. No one spoke any English pretty much the most time. They spoke Uzbek or Russian, which I knew anything about.

So I think two things really help you. One is smile. It's the most simplest way to get to know people. I think you have a smile 100 times while I have a 98 times, I've got a smile back.

And that really, really puts people at ease. Because while you were in a foreign country, they also don't know who you are. What animals are you? We remember we were in Argentina and most people had never met an Indian in their life.

It was amazing because we are everywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So our superpower is breeding. That's a big breed.

Yeah. I mean, just as I recently went to the parentian islands which is off the coast of North West Emulation. And like, barely people go there. You turn up over there and you're like in the sun and the beach and it's so beautiful.

And in the background you're in here. Come on, I'll check. So I had an even better one. I went to an ultra remote island in Indonesia.

There were no Indians over there. But there were two Philip local guys on an island far away from. So I was like remote even by phillipin standards. And they were watching a tiger show of movie.

Oh yeah, I've been travelling in the park. Like I remember this happened in Uzbekistan and I was travelling in a second-class compartment. I decided to rough it out a little bit and see how those bags travel. And I love this in public transport.

But it's a very good way to understand how country lives and breeds and talks and eats. So the moonlight breeds. Can't even mind out of the gutter. And I was with the three old ladies and for the first many minutes there was just no communication.

I was smiling, but there was nothing really going on. And they asked for my passport. And that's one thing you are like, no, if you're an Indian, you got your passport with your life. Like passport kokya, katama is in the gebar.

You don't have too much faith in me in consulate abroad. But most people have no lost their passports. They actually have a very good experience. I can second-class one-person lost their passport either in Uzbekistan or Tajikistan.

One of these countries. And the local consulate was really, really big capes and under the outside. The country was like, oh, I'm not going to be there. You'll be surprised how many Indians are in Central Asia.

But sorry, I can't miss the point. So I'll be a passport. So I'll be a passport and I'm like, why are these guys asking who are passport? I think the two-part passport somehow they figured out that I'm an Indian, okay?

And the old ladies who probably grew up in the Soviet era because they could start a sort of broke up from the Soviet Union at that point in time. And all of them started asking for the most comfortable passport. It was such an amazing moment. I am like, you know, in this for God's first and second part of the world, I have been trying to communicate with this women for the last 20 minutes and suddenly Rajkapul baked into it.

I was so happy. You know, the most important part of travel I think sometimes language varies actually created by the situations. And more memorable experiences than I expected. And just then expect, I mean, next time we should get somebody on the show who doesn't speak our language.

And on that note, we should take a little break as well. But not as long a break as Utsurva is going to. Absolutely three months. We'll be back in three months.

Sorry, I was so sorry. So I was so sorry, I called, boom, morning, evening, afternoon. My podcast is titled Sales. No guys, no topic and no filter is safe from Father Brochar.

That's me, Monday to Friday, Saturday Sunday, I'm with all kids. With Rajkapul, you'll never meet traffic jams on the streets and people from all professions. Every Monday I go live with the show, ask me anything, you follow the questions. I know it's better than a Mumbai reach out.

I even host a panel discussion called Cock and Bull where we dive into current affairs and wonder why anyone even cares at all. And Friday releases are always surprise episodes for you all. So tune into CyberSayers on YouTube and all audio streaming platforms. Are you looking for finance products and services that can enhance your personal finance experience?

Are you looking for a space to talk about your financial product or service? And are you looking for a Chris Proxio where the conversation is all about money? Well, your search ends here. Hi, my name is Arupak Gupta and I post other best-ever support cards and I invite you for the conversation about your personal finance for each Monday on the IBM Proxar's app or the website or on any podcast streaming platforms.

See you folks. And welcome back to Simplified. We're here with Utsa Mamoria and talking about this amazing thing called a sabbatical, which Indian companies are actually not that reluctant to give. You're just reluctant to ask.

Wow. In fact, I want to talk about this specifically that why shouldn't an organization actually give you a sabbatical? I think as a researcher, of course I wanted to find out if there's research on it. And of course there was.

How about Business Review in August 2017? Actually I had a review of that and actually came up with the finding that employees are more productive and happy after a sabbatical. And specifically sabbatical, not vacation. No, not vacation.

So this is about two weeks, three weeks off. Sabbatical is much longer and what I'm taking is a very short sabbatical. It takes months to year. Sometimes.

And it had very good reasons. And let me talk both from an organizational point of view and employee-unto-view. So let's talk about the organization. So suppose I'm taking a three month or six months of bactical.

And if any of you have hired, how difficult is it to replace someone in three months? It's very difficult. It takes time to get good people on board. Right?

So suppose if you are pitching for a three month sabbatical to your company and your company says no. I think your pitch to the company back should be, hey, let's say you say no, I still want to go. I quit. I have some two months notice.

Okay. You will definitely not find someone in two months on board them and still be able to do the job which I'm doing. So from an organization point of view, it makes no sense. Because once you are bactical, you will hit the running.

You don't need the orientation. You don't need the onboarding. And also the last month of your notice period is basically like, I'm like, I'm just kidding. You just start working in the market as an industry.

It's a different ball shape. I worked in the last day of my previous job. I gave up about 6pm when I sent out a last email to a fellow colleague. So...

Yeah, advertising industry is working very well. So that's one point definitely. The other thing I want to speak about is it's also the opportunity for an organization to stress test its system. Okay.

Understand how much slack we have in the system and every system needs to have slack. Because if I replace my sabbatical saying that, what for me to one of my employees means to the whole black student, he or she's not for three months. You don't replace that person. Yeah.

Because the person is going to come back as soon he or she is well. Or even otherwise Matt leave. If people are not. Matt leave.

I mean, we always accommodate Matt leaves, right? So just because you're not a maternity leave, this is something which is important to you as having children is important to people. Taking time off for pursuing persons who are important and I think organizations should respect that. The other aspect also is that while employees are sabbatical, it also gives a chance to a lot of other people in the system to step up and take on roles which they have not been able to do.

So you have very, very promising people in your team, but they're just not in a space for them to showcase their skills. But those six months or one year can really be the time for them to say, I have already stepped up to this. Yeah. Right.

And that works both for the organization as it's for the employee. So it's actually a very important point that you said before as well as this one where the first point that you said about how organizations may be accepting of something like maternity leave, but a sabbatical might be an out of the ordinary. Yeah. So it actually also points to how we have we are so used to traditional familial structures where having a child is acceptable and saying, okay, fine, I need a break for having a child.

But if I ever say that I need a break for it's the same attitude saying that I need a break because I need my mental health back and I was looking at you like you're going crazy or you're saying that I need a break to travel and they're like, why? And what you're just wasting your time. So I mean, that's the traditional way of approaching how jobs are supposed to work. You're supposed to work yourself to detail your 60 and then like die quietly.

So I mean, that attitude is changing. And the second part about having people step up and often what happens in very structured, especially in like very structured jobs is that the since the movement upward is so linear, often you need some like sort of like discrete things like this to happen. Like you need someone to actually step out of the line so that you get that experience and get to come back. So I think it's a very important point.

What you were saying both the points were like really important ones. What is your pitch? I'll come to my pitch as one last point. I actually still want to make which is that one thing which I've heard people say that if we start giving a sabbatical to you, it is certain example.

Huge, huge, huge problems in that thinking. One is that if every other employee in your company wants a sabbatical, you have a culture problem to fix. You do not have a sabbatical problem to fix. You have a culture problem to fix.

Second is that not everyone, let me say this after that, it is a very privileged thing to take us a particular. I have good enough experience in my industry. I have built savings over time. So just to be clear, a sabbatical is unpaid.

It's unpaid. So it's not that I'm going to be off three months on a paid vacation. No, it's unpaid. So while you think that everyone will go asking for a sabbatical, it's actually not going to happen.

It's not going to happen because people have a lot of constraints. Some people just may not have a desire. It's probably fine. Right.

So I think from the organization, I want to be taking that panic button saying that if you give it to one person, everyone will be an example for everyone and they will start for it. It's not going to happen. I think it's not going to happen. I'm not necessarily thinking on their part.

No, so I don't think sabbatical is hard for everyone or at least not at a certain life stage or something. I mean beyond a certain point, you start itching wanting to get back to work or doing something. I find it very difficult to imagine married people successfully taking sabbatical. You have to, you know, you have to be completely disagree with that because it's a while.

I was in Uzbekistan. I met this guy. He's sort of bang lower. I will definitely send a link to him now.

So he took a break from work and he was cycling across Central Asia. He cycled for a month in Tajikistan and he went to the, I've got embassy and pitched himself to get a visa so that he could go to Mazari Sharif, which is right next to the Uzbekistan border. This is a beautiful place. He sent me pictures and I was like, oh my God, why did I not go there?

And yeah, he has a 14 year old boy and he's definitely married. So I met, I know of this lady who backpacked through Europe in six month old child. So I think a lot of the barriers which we speak of are self created. So I would like to use the word here.

It's a Yudish word, but it's very nicely adopted by Vishal Paradwaj. It's called Chutzpah. You need a little bit of Chutzpah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because you need to step out of the comfort zone saying that, you know, yeah, what will happen because you're so obsessed with the fact that what is like, let's be honest. It's a perfect movie by the way. I thought it's a fantastic movie. Even I have actually.

So this whole thing that people, why that over three months, six months, one year in my career, I'll fall back, I'm going to be like, do you really care? The question is that's a question of priority. Do you really care? And does it really happen?

Really? I mean, unless you're in a really high pressure job, it's very high stakes. Yes, it might happen. But most of us are not in those kind of jobs.

Yeah. Right. And obviously, creative. So these pressures are of how my peers are doing and whether I'm in the 50 percentile of my class and me and all this.

It's not so many pressure. Yeah. Right. So you have to break away from them.

Yeah. And if it's a priority, it will take place at some point. Yeah, very right. I mean, it's almost, it's a continuation of the thing that already it's that it's almost the line the parents give.

Now, I can say, but I think it's a very standard. It's basically the same argument. It's the same argument that continues to your job. Everyone's like, you're like Mira, CTC, it's not here.

We currently discuss CTC, it's not here. I mean, we're very bravely at us. It's not here. It's not here.

So, you know, when people take a near or drop for different exams, I'm 32 now. Yeah. Do I really remember my friends who took a drop? No, it doesn't matter.

It's the same thing. Yeah. Five years down the line, you remember a sabbatical in a far more positive light than one year you were trying to change the CTC. It's not going to get you anywhere.

It's an everything game. And yeah, the corporate world wants you to play that game because it works with that benefit. So are you ready to tell us how you pitched this? Ah, you keep coming back to the question.

So I've been incredibly supportive of organization. I'm definitely opening that up. And doing one of my discussions, I mentioned that this is something I've been thinking of. and when I was in the conversation with my super boss.

And she simply asked me two questions. She's like, for how long? And I said three months. And then I said, are you flexible about the dates?

I said, yeah, sure. Let's work something out which causes many other disruption to work. And she said, yeah, okay. So I think that the point is that a lot of people think of a sabbatical conversation as me versus an organization.

Why? It's not a day versus a goliath. You know, just me, he's still talking out, right? The worst thing that is probably no.

Right? And by the way, let me put it very clear. After this, you know, what your end game should be. Are you prepared to walk out at some point and say, no, I really want to do this?

If you say no, I'm going to work out. You should have that clarity in your head. Or even so, even if they do say no, the fundamental implication of that is that they really value you, at least at the organization, it's enough to stay there. So you're not, you're not really thought at the right.

Also, it's never binaries like that. So you can, you know, can be denied a sabbatical and continue working maybe some. Absolutely. It's not one of those things that one is off with you.

It's a radical. No, it's a connoissement. So many connoissements you have at one place. I know I'm an employer and I know, sorry, Kithne, for tea, I have some key person goes away.

Yeah. Yeah. You have your responsible whole bunch of stuff and you're mentally planted. You're mentally planted.

This guy's going to do that. And then he says, oh, uncle, I'm going, I'm going, you screwed it. Correct. Then, you know, it, in the, in the big scheme of things nothing changes, but yes, the rest of the people have to take shoulder than blame.

So it's not an easy decision for employers to make it. Correct. Which is why, which is why I get to my employer for that because I mean, when I spoke to them about it and one thing, what I also probably wanted to be flexible about it. Right.

So I didn't say that. Okay. This is my start date and this is when I need to go. So until a couple of, what couple of weeks ago, my date was actually not finalized.

We had a broad time frame in mind, but I didn't really pinned down. Okay. So two months from now, I will be off. He will still be okay.

Sorry. All jokes apart. So I think it's not a you versus your organization. And especially so because when you intend to return to the same workplace, right, you should actually have a very smooth transition into it and out of it.

So I, of course, I'm going to discuss with my boss, you know, these are the key projects which we have. This is the ideal time because this is the link period. Sure. You also need to be more flexible unless you have very, very specific things.

So you say, oh, I want to go to Japan only when it's happening. Yeah. So then it's a different scenario, but as in my case, it was not that time specific. Okay.

As long as you didn't send me in the data for winter to a place I didn't want to go to. Okay. What's the other places? So then the next question I find it fascinating that we've spoken up for almost half an hour without even asking you where you're going.

Oh, yeah. Okay. So I'm spending a month in Eastern Europe, specifically Bosnia and Huskovina. And the next two months I'll be spending in the Himalayas split in time between maybe Kumam or Amura in Uttarakhand and somewhere in Himachal, maybe on Hanthapas or GPs, but I'm looking at, but it's still not, I'm sorry, I'm nearly down yet.

Okay. And what you're, and specifically what you're trying, and why these destinations specifically. Okay. And going, I mean, how do they tie back to the goals that you had in mind?

Okay. So my goal set largely comes from my love for travel. And I think there are some places which have been written about it too much. And there has been some places which have not been written about it all.

So I did a fair bit of travel writing right from Tanjavathas, Indians, and everyone. But what I've noticed is there's a huge gap in literature on travel writing around, Eastern Europe for example. So it's not a lot of writing around, Eastern people will talk about how Paris is great as it is probably. I've not been there, but I've heard so much about it.

So this is why I decided to pick a place where, which is not that frequented because a place not over and by other travelers, is always a better place to go. So I was looking at this in Europe and personally I've always been interested in places which have been impacted by civil conflicts, internal strikes, agencies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not true.

No, no, no. I'm not sure that because the stand-cut is wrong with it. It was perfectly fine. No, but then I think that's also a very important point, because it always gets divided.

So sometimes when you're planning a foreign holiday, you're like, okay, let me get recommendations from friends about whether this place is good or not. Yeah. Sometimes you might have an idea of, like for example, just recently when I went to the parentian island, nobody in my entire friend list or- I've only heard of it. Oh my God, friends, friend list.

I even heard of this place. And she found it from some online resource and I was like, dude, nobody knows about this place. What if it's like terrible? And then after something in my head said, what if it's amazing?

Yeah. Then nobody will have us doing that idea. And that becomes like a really, really amazing thing. And then it's just again how we're wired to thinking that, actually, we need to, if you're taking this holiday, it needs to be perfect.

And then you're like, you do realize you can make it perfect. It will be something that you go and figure out something. And then what is perfect holiday? It's a pointless state idea.

What is perfect holiday could vary about this, all of us sitting in the room here, have very different ideas for holidays. Yeah. Second thing is that, in fact, I would say that you should go to places where people ask you, where is this? Where is it on the map?

Which one is it? So when I go to Uzbekistan, they're like, I rest on the other side. I'm like, you clearly have no idea what this is in the world or current affairs. So one of the reasons was that for Bosnia and has Govina.

The other thing is that I typically go to places which have multiple experiences. So you have Christianity, you have Islam, you have Judaism in that place. So to me, it sort of reminds me of my travel to Turkey and Istanbul. Because that's also a place which has a small and small places.

And that becomes very interesting to do to place. So when I was in Argentina in Buenos Aires, I took a walk-in door. And they're one of the students of Articitor that just by looking at the roofs of the buildings, you can tell that which colonizers made this building. Because I was blown away because for the rest of the day, that's all I need.

I was like, oh, this is the British, these are Spanish. And yeah, I mean, there are so many interesting things we'll pick up. I'm going to one usual places because I was also a little bit of a long shot. I think that's how it's going to be influencing my future travel plans.

Because I think now I can almost say that the two best places I've gone to are places which are not really conventional places. I've been to Israel and Israel and I've been to these Malaysian islands. And both of those were turned out to be some of my best holidays. And I was like, wow, okay, so actually going to one one places turns out to be better.

You don't know what you're going to expect over there. So it's actually really good. So next important thing, money. How do you plan for something like this?

Not only are you not earning money, actually spending money. Spending money. Let me remind you that I have rent to pay for the three months. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, because my mom is also moved to Mumbai recently. So she's going to be here. So in any case, it's not like you can have a sabbatical at rent. No, you can't say like you rent it out.

I mean, you still have to pay that. So I still have to make a rent. I should have a basic expense to that. I think planning needs to start from the point that why you're taking a sabbatical.

Because the why will tell you how long you need to take it. And the most important thing about taking a sabbatical is what do you want to either feel or achieve at the end of the sabbatical? I think that's very, very important because you do not want to come back from a sabbatical and say, okay, what just happy. It was great, but what just happened?

So that's probably okay for a short vacation. Which is okay. So my sense is even if you felt burnt out, you need to be sure that you felt rejuvenated after three months. And you would come with the same mindset, okay, I'm back to the same shit again.

That's not the point of taking a sabbatical. That's why if it's either about feeling or about completing a personal goal or a sense of achievement, I think that's important. That informs how long a sabbatical do you need to take. So for my goals to sabbatical, which I'll come to in some time, I realize that three months is sufficient.

So I just wanted to be a sabbatical. For some people, maybe six months or even a one year thing. So suppose if you want to, let's say, pick up a dance form or martial arts form. You probably need a lot more training.

It's kind of a three months of all in a year thing. So yeah, then you need to be clear. And then that's how you need to start with back calculations. So it's very simple.

So income minus expenses are savings. If you want to increase income, you can become leader modey. Or if you want to decrease expenses, you can be like me and start budgeting. So best ways to save are still the same.

Two bajatis at the opposite end of the spectrum. Yes, it shows how unfortunate two bajatis are. Moving on, so... Oh, initiative.

He's so disappointed. He's like, as a fellow, he didn't judge two bajatis. That's such a typical Indian estate plus. Oh my God.

That was just... Why are you blaming my... What do you say? It's the last one.

It's the last one. It'll be a little bit of luck. So I forgot what you were saying. Money.

Money. So I think that expenses and I'm speaking to someone who lives in a metro, stop eating out and drinking out. Huge savings. Brilliant.

Massive savings. Start using public transport. You don't have to get a car for yourself. Start using over pools.

Start using the train. If you're not in distances. Don't be like, let's call a... Those are big drains.

And I don't shop too much as a person. But if you're into impulse shopping, cut that down. Make impulse shopping more difficult for yourself. So the best way to do it is that hand off your credit card to address it per cent.

You can't have access to it. You can't have access to it. So it'll kill the impulse to spend. Other good ways.

And since I always believe in behavior change, as a researcher, delete apps from your phone. How do money be spent on stupid apps? You ordering food sometimes you don't know how to food. You'll think about it.

Then you'll own it. And then you'll own it. And then you'll have wasted money. And you'll eat it like a pig.

So my tas are already dissolved also. Because the damage is already done. I'll eat it. I'm not sure what it's going to happen.

Which never happens. So those are good ways to cut down on your expense. And also start looking at, unless I pay for a lot of content I read. So I have a new time subscription.

I pay for the Ken and a couple of other places as well. So just see that. Any rationalism. Some of them.

Because it's only $25 a month. But it still adds up. The other way to budget, when you actually start planning for how much money you need. This is just to help you save.

So I am a solo traveler largely. And I back back. So I go with a simple rule. It's the golden rule of backpacking.

50 years of the day. Okay. All includes it. Including all you need.

And it also accounts for your. All includes it. Like a stay and your. Oh wow.

Yeah. He did use a word of thanks now. He did use a word of hostel. Okay.

I've seen your check in. So it's hostile for him. Go on. So yeah, I think it's a good rule.

And you have to find your comfort level. So probably for someone it's $1.50 a day. It's good to know that it can be done. And in my experience, the biggest waste of money on traveling is A traveling business class.

Which is absolutely the stupidest thing you can do. And you're paying a lot of money. 3x money. Because everyone says thank you.

So thank you. Open your bus back from now. Okay. So that and the second thing is going and staying in fancy hotels.

Because you're going to be out most of the time. So yeah. So what I'm not trying to do. Constance I'm also moving a little bit away from hostels.

Well hostels are the greatest way to meet people and find travel companies. In fact, I'm starting my trip to Germany with a German couple I met. When I was hiking the Asia. So they invited me to stop for 2-3 days.

We'll go around in a secret somewhere. But I'm trying to move towards smaller home stays and family run, you know, BMS because they sort of used to a more authentic experience because the hostile experience to get standardized over places. Okay. You know, because they know you have these long-term backpacks one year, two year, travelers, three year, five year travelers also.

Right. And the advantage of going to a small place and going in a local home stage, you get a better feel of culture. Right. And if you slow travel like I like to do, when you live in a place a little longer enough, you start seeing things which you don't see otherwise.

And I felt this very severely when I was in China, because for the first two weeks, I was literally living at a tourist. Like, you're like, how can I see you go there? But once I started settling in, I decided, okay, I need to buy groceries to go. I need to figure out public transport on our daily basis.

Then actually find the most efficient way to get from A to B, not just because I do it once. You start seeing a lot of character, the city of how people live, how people think. And I think that's really the beauty of travel, not to me, and to be able to satisfy that innate curiosity in you to see how the world works. And probably that's why I'm still a researcher at my job and not gone to the other side of things.

So yes, I think almost factors also. So how long did it take you to save up for this? So clearly already. Oh, totally.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So how long did it take you to save up for this? So it helps if I was going to Germany for a long time. This is a different way.

Well, yeah. Second thing is I also rely on planning to do scouts off. And calls off is a great way to. What is called?