Being Multi-Passionate With Hitha Palepu, Pharma Executive and Content Creator: Lesson 43

4:00 - How to find something you are passionate about: Hitha shares how she came to the decision to start a blog when she started her work in the pharmaceutical industry, and how she was able to find inspiration for the content for her blog by applying the knowledge and every-day life experience that she was gaining as a traveling executive. She shares her experience creating her first brand ‘Packing Girl’ and writing her first book, and her motivation to help women find more time to do the things they are passionate about.

6:30 - Knowing when to take a step back: Hitha shares her experience during a time when she took on more responsibility at work by stepping into the role of CEO, and how her increased workload forced her to reflect on her priorities at the time. Hitha shares with Komal how she came to the decision to step back from her blog which was her passion, in order to remain in integrity and prevent compromising the quality of her content and passion. 

9:42 - Can our passions be incongruent with one another? Komal asks Hitha: Did it ever feel like your passions were incongruent with each other? Komal asks Hitha to share how she  ‘married’ the blogging part of her life with the pharma executive part of her brain. Hitha shares advice on how she reconciled her two passions, and gives words of encouragement to those who are ‘multipassionate’

15:00 - Productivity Hacks and Intuitive Scheduling: Komal asks Hitha to share what her ‘productivity hacks’ are, and how she stayed on top of her schedule and optimized her time in order to continue performing at work as well as her blog, on top of everything else in her life. 

How she made the decision to take a break from creating content for #HithaOnTheGo during her pregnancy, and how she was able to find a balance between her day job and her content creation passion after taking some needed time off to rest and find clarity. Hitha also shares with us a helpful practice she employs in her every day workday called ‘intuitive scheduling’. 

19:00 - Prioritizing Self-Care and Non-negotiable Wellness Practices: Hitha shares how she learned to prioritize self-care and non-negotiable wellness practices after having a mental health reckoning throughout both of her pregnancies, facing postpartum depression with the birth of her first child, and prenatal depression during her pregnancy with her second child. She shares what she has prioritized in her life since as non-negotiables: meditation, working out, reading, cooking or meal-planning, putting her phone away, and creation over consumption. 

23:55 - How Quarantine Has Helped Us Identify ‘Gaps’ In Our Life: Komal asks Hitha what everyday life has been like since quarantine and the silver linings that have come from the situation for her and her family. Hitha shares how spending four months with her family and parents has been a gift and something that feeds her soul and also shares how she has learned the value of creating time to play. 

28:45 - Navigating Working From Home and Parenting: Komal asks Hitha how she does it all, navigating working from home, having children, and having a side ‘passion’. Hitha shares her advice as a mother for folks who feel that they are at the edge of burnout, and how they can create time and space in their everyday lives to balance work, parenting, and self-care. 

34:15 - Prioritizing Creation Over Consumption - Komal and Hitha discuss the effect that consuming more than creating can have on us as individuals, and Hitha shares how she made time in her days to ‘create’.

35:30 - Planning For The Next Venture and Passion - Hitha shares what is coming up for her in the future and how we can support her work. Hitha shares how she will be having new developments and content on SubStack. You can check it out here. She shares articles, newsletters, and plenty of content that is important to her and bridges the gap between important pharmaceutical and healthcare information and every-day speak. Check out her content if this interests you and you want to hear more about developments with COVID and pharmaceutics.

Click here to read Hitha’s travel blog “Hitha On The Go”.

Follow Hitha on Instagram by clicking here. 

Hitha is the author of #5SmartReads, a weekly digest of the news that you should know, the books to read, and the things that will make your life better. Check it out here.

Lessons Learned is produced and hosted by Komal Minhas.

Artwork, Brand & Social by Renira Naidu. 

Content by Daniela Ochoa.

Video Production and Audio Editing by Maddie Foran.