The Midlife Station

Solving Career related challenges for Mid-level & Senior level executives can become quite daunting & complex, but that didn't deter Hemant from following his passion

After working for 18+yrs in IT industry, Hemant found his true calling in coaching mid level and senior level professionals . His goal is to help them find their purpose so that they can live their life of purpose

Today, he works with mid and senior level professionals who are feeling stuck, stagnated, or lack clarity about their careers .

He uses world class assessment tools such as Strengthscope, proven 10 step Career Reinvention Process and other powerful techniques in-order to help them to gain Clarity and also reinvent their careers.

Over the last 5 years, Hemant has coached more than 200+ Mid and Senior level professionals.He is also a mentor to CXOs as well as business owners

Key Points we discussed:

•How did Hemant found his calling for coaching Mid and Senior level professionals
•How to find one's strength , approach Career Assessment & what are generally the outcomes of career assessments
•Career transition roadmap and the different phases involved
•Career stagnancy, Career growth & Work-life balance

Time Stamps:

•03:40- How did Hemant discover his passion?
•05:59 - What made Hemant decide that he wanted to move forward with career coaching for mid-level professionals?
•08:13 - How did he plan the transition?
•18:16 - How one can go about performing a career assessment?
•24:46 - Science behind figuring out one's strengths/personality?
•26:30 - What is the output of clarity assessment, what kind of clarity can one get?
•30:26 - How to cross the bridge and steps a mid-level professional should take to move towards their ideal career?
•35:10 - How much time will it take to go ahead and make a career transition?
•40:02 - Is it practical enough to transition to a totally unrelated sector or industry?
•45:15 - Why does stagnancy begin to creep in one's career?
•47:12 - Suggestions on how to come out of stagnancy and achieve career growth?
•50:48 - How to have work-life balance?
•53:54 - Quickfire segment

Key Takeaways

1) If you plan to make a career transition, ensure to give yourself at least around 1 and half years of time. Plan it in 3 phases

•6 months of Exploration phase where you discover more about yourself, your skills, personal values, strengths, personality type as well as your interests.
•2 months for Identifying career options based on the output of the exploration phase, doing the market research, and shortlisting the right Career Option
•6 months of Preparation phase so as to Identify your Skill gaps and then work towards closing those gaps by acquiring the required knowledge and certification. In parallel also start to position yourself by updating your resume, socializing yourself in Linkedin and spreading the message in your network

2) Look at work-life balance more holistically by zooming out. Have clarity on what areas of life are important to you and then identify what all goals you want to achieve in those areas in a specific time frame and If you are able to achieve those goals in that time frame, then it means you are already having your work and life in balance

3) To come out of career stagnancy you need

•Fuel which is the burning desire to achieve your goals
•Trajectory or Direction which is clarity of what you want to achieve
•Escape velocity i.e consistent action that you have to...

Our guest Vaibhav Datar has come across many people who are in Midlife and facing the challenge of not knowing what they want from life. Vaibhav feels the single reason for this is lack of Clarity in Life and hence gaining Clarity is the first and foremost step that becomes imperative and quintessential

Vaibhav is a professional Midlife coach, an Adept author, and a Blogger

His Best Selling book 'Simplify your life' emphasizes on etching behavioral and mindset changes in an individual's life that would lead to extreme happiness.

He also runs a Blog "The Maven Style" where he shares Powerful Insights on Parenting issues, Self-discovery, Transformation, Self-Enhancement, mid-life Crises, Lifestyle, Entrepreneurs, Start-ups, Funding, and investment goals

An avid learner, with profound interests in analyzing people and their behaviors, he has pursued various
certification courses in graphology, hypnosis as well as color analyst from a plethora of institutes
He has been featured in major media publications like Entrepreneur.com , YourStory, Economic times, Hindustan Times to name a few

He is an advocate of a vision board and strongly believes that Clarity in life is the most important gift that one can give to his own self

In this episode, Vaibhav shares some deep insights on how can one get Clarity in life and then use powerful tools such as Vision Board to realize his/her dreams ,goals and aspirations

Key Points we discussed:

•Why we human don't keep our life simple
•His personal journey on transitioning out from a stable corporate career in the mid-30s
•Top critical Midlife issues that people face today
•Key insights on how one can get clarity in his/her life and figure out his/her WHY
•How tools such as Vision Board can help them along the way to accelerate their journey

Time Stamps:

•03:45 - Why do we human beings are not able to keep our life simple?
•07:24 - Thoughts & feelings that occupied Vaibhav's mind while being in corporate job during the midlife phase?
•16:10 - How did he cross the bridge from being in corporate life to being a midlife coach?
•20:43 - Top 3 midlife issues, that people come to him with?
•24:57 - Key actions people can take to navigate through career challenges in their midlife?
•30:16 - What considerations one needs to take once they figure out their WHY and embark on their journey?
•32:58 - What is a vision board and how to go about doing it?
•41:12 - Where should one place the vision board, is location important?
•43:03 - Where to find pictures for the Vision board?
•45:37 - Quickfire round

Key Takeaways

•If you plan to do or start something of your own during your midlife, don't leave your job immediately. Try and taste the water around your target market for at least 9 months to 1 year before leaving the job completely. During this time, also work out in filling the skill gaps that you may have for eg - getting better on how to market yourself or getting better at selling your product.Before Jumping in and going all out, do ensure you have 2 years of financial back up to cover up family expenses


•Getting Clarity on what we want to do in life is most important gift we can give ourselves. To get clarity , we need to find out our WHY . Do a small exercise with a friend or a coach or someone whom you can trust. Find out what you want to do and have other person keep on asking you WHY questions until you reach a point where you are able to get that clarity and find your true calling. It might take 1 or more sessions before you can figure out...

Do you believe in having a plan "B" for success? Do you believe in having a personal and a separate professional life?

Sumit Shukla doesn't believe in either of them.

Sumit is a serial entrepreneur who started his first company during his early 30s.
Today he is the founder & Global CEO of Connexrm, a company that aims to help education institutes by providing them innovative solutions for the entire spectrum of their needs. Before Connexrm, Sumit had also founded Zven technologies.

In this episode, Sumit shares some of his hard-hitting insights on why Success doesn't have a plan "B", what restricts people in midlife to become successful, and why he feels there is no difference between a personal and professional life

Key Points we discussed:

•Love for education and his thoughts on how a future education system in India should look like
•Entrepreneurship journey & key learnings from it
•The Decision-making process he follows
•Key insights he would like to share for people in midlife and what restricts them in achieving success

Timestamps for Questions:

•3:42 - Why did Sumit pursue diversified educational degree's
•6:28 - How to balance between work as well as studies
•8:27 - When was the seed for Entrepreneurship planted for 1st time in his mind
•11:08 - Entrepreneurship journey kick start during his midlife and how the transition was planned
•14:08 - What business he had in his mind when he started his entrepreneurship journey
•16:52 - What was the problem that product was trying to solve
•21:07 - How did the entire work on creating a product in education space got kick-started
•23:47 - Views on releasing quick Product MVP v/s taking time in building a product before releasing it in the market
•25:21 - How the products help and make things better for schools and colleges
•27:05 - How challenging was it to sell the product to educational institutes
•29:37 - Roadblocks he faced during his entrepreneurship journey and how did he handle it
•31:45 - What is the Decision-making process that Sumit follows
•35:50 - What is his vision for the education system in India
•40:41 - What are 3 key things that people in midlife can do to transform themselves
•44:22 - Quickfire round

Key Takeaways

•Don't be afraid of improving upon the existing wheel instead of inventing a new wheel. You don't need to always solve a new problem, instead, you can make life more easier for people by solving an existing problem in a more efficient way. History has proven this fact time and again, remember Facebook got built after Orkut and google after yahoo.


•Do not have a plan "B" if you really have a strong desire to achieve your goal or vision. Having a plan B may make you complacent when you encounter a huge blow or a hindrance to your path and you may end up being satisfied with something of lower significance than what you ideally deserve.


•At any point in time, ensure you have an aggressive and updated plan for things you want to achieve in your life for the next 6 months, and then ensure you are uncomfortable in pursuing the plan. Achievers in midlife always are uncomfortable and never allow contentment or feeling of comfort to dominate them in pursuing their dreams.

Do you love conversations?

While some people may not love it but there are few people for whom it becomes the basis of whatever they do in life, and this is exactly true for Sri Ram Kumar.

Sri Ram left his high profile corporate career in his mid 40s to pursue his passion for conversations. Today, he is a much sought after trainer and speaker who helps people in deriving their best out of every conversation they have.

A TEDx speaker, his TEDx speech gives a different definition of SUCCESS as we know it and he outlines in the speech, the SHIFT framework to achieve the same.

Sri Ram worked for around 20+ years in the corporate world with stints in the IT, BPO and Banking domains in a variety of functions ranging from like Business Strategy Planning, M&A/JV, Integration, Client Engagement, Strategic Marketing and Branding, Corporate Communications, Employee Engagement, and Leadership Development, amongst others before he switched to a career in Coaching and Facilitation.

In the last three years, he has clocked more than 15,000 plus hours of facilitating and coaching experience for clients from diverse industries.

Key Points we discussed:

•TEDx speech and SHIFT framework for Success
•Key qualities that helped him grow his midlife
•Leaving his stable job in the mid-40s
•Key Principle for having impactful Conversations

Time Stamps:

•3:55 TedX talk experience and why he chose success as a key topic for the talk
•6:10 What is SHIFT framework for Success
•9:32 Top 3 characteristics that helped Sriram to grow in his career during midlife
•18:00 How Sriram kept himself updated to adapt to different kind of situations during corporate life
•21:33 Thoughts on career stagnancy and removing the resistance and self-limiting beliefs.
•28:24 Why Sriram thought it was a right time to move out of corporate career during his mid-40s
•34:31 Financial considerations while Sriram was planning for the switch
•36:05 Any other considerations that one needs to take while planning for transition
•40:50 How long it took Sriram to achieve stability post transitioning out to a new career
•44:06 Thoughts on Going deeper at one thing v/s being a jack of all trades
•49:16 What is Sriram's definition of conversations
•51:39 Thoughts/tips on developing the connect during the conversations
•54:34 Quickfire segment

Key Takeaways

•Irrespective of whether the situation is a personal or professional one, go ahead and share your opinion. Don't restrict yourself with the thought of what will other person think. Constantly voicing your opinions, will make you more confident and noticeable in front of people and it will just be a matter of time before they would start seeking your perspective before making any decision


•To move forward, it is imperative to have a plan in place, think of what you want to do, something that is quite close to your heart, then work towards it by being fully committed and as you move forward in journey, do not forget to have a community of like-minded people and finally do celebrate your win once you reach your destination


•Conversations need to have Simplicity, specificity, and Silence so that it can be impactful. At the same time, it should be delivered with a purpose, intent and right amount of content

How would you react when you realize you can no longer pursue your dream that you have been eyeing for right since your childhood ?

Shyam Sunder Singh was disheartened & dejected when he had to face rejection and let go of his childhood dream of being an army officer with the prestigious Indian Army, however that didn't deter him from being successful in life.

Shyam today is a first-generation entrepreneur and is tagged as a dynamic leader with a track record of outstanding performance in the Retail & Pharmaceutical industry. He is a visionary who believes that differentiation is the mantra for success in the 21st century.

After being in corporate job for more than a decade, Shyam decided to take entrepreneurial plunge in his late 30's and founded Septalyst Lifesciences. The company was recently awarded as the fastest-growing company in the Neurology segment in India by Times healthcare and leadership award and it has also been featured in list of top 8 companies in Nephrology segment

He is considered an authority in Pharma industry, delivers keynote addresses at major national events and has regularly featured in leading newspapers & pharma business magazines like Pharmabiz & Express Pharma

Key Points we discussed:-

•Facing rejection from the prestigious Indian Army and how he pulled himself back
•Key qualities that helped him grow in the corporate career
•How he went about starting his own venture in the late 30s and scaling it to a greater heights
•Key insights that he would like to share for people facing midlife challenges

Time Stamps:

•03:20 What were dreams and aspirations as Shyam was growing up ?
•04:50 How did he pull himself back up after facing rejection from prestigious Indian armed forces ?
•05:38 What was the reason behind doing MBA in Sales and Marketing ?
•06:35 Corporate journey and key qualities Shyam had that helped him grow in corporate career
•08:55 Key challenges during corporate life and how did he overcome them ?
•10:34 Why did he move from pharma domain to a retail domain during peak of his career ?
•13:51 Why time was right to quit the job and move into entrepreneurship in his late 30's?
•17:27 How did he battle the thoughts around what if the entrepreneurship journey didn't work out ?
•20:04 How did he planned out his venture while being in job?
•21:20 What was the venture all about ?
•24:48 How did Shyam went about building his company ?
•31:38 Facing setbacks in journey and attitude towards those setbacks?
•32:50 Did leaving all of the hustle and going back to the secure job cross his mind ?
•33:48 How long it took to achieve the same level of income ?
•34:28 What kind of success and accolades has the company achieved
•35:48 Taking team to international destinations every year
•37:46 Quickfire segment
•43:38 Key TakeAways

Key Takeaways

•If you face rejection, it's not the end of the world, it just means God has something different planned for you, so go out and try something different instead of getting frustrated with rejection
•Courage Confidence and Conviction are your biggest weapon, using them you can fight whatever problems that may come in your way be it in your midlife or at any juncture
•Dreams don't become reality through magic, it takes lot of sweat, determination and hardwork.Question is are we ready to put in that hard work and live a life that we always wanted to ?

During the recession of 2008, Milind had to let go of his high profile job. He was in his late 30s then with 25+ lakh of financial debt and was married with two amazing kids,

At this critical juncture, a normal thing for anyone to do would be to quickly get another job , but that's not what Milind chose to do. Instead of finding a job, Milind during this critical phase decided to carve out something of his own and face the life challenges head on that came along the way

Today Milind , an Alumnus of IIM Bangalore is a Certified Life Coach and is affiliated to the international coach certification body Certified Coaches Alliance. He has 9,500+ hours of coaching under his belt and has coached hundreds of people in India as well as across the world.
He has been covered by major media outlets like The Times of India,The Telegraph, Business Standard , India Today, The Asian Age, and others

Some Questions I asked to get Milind's mindshare

•Experiences and challenges he faced being in corporate job
•Touching upon an economic recession, job loss, and how he fought back from the lowest point in his life
•Key insights that he would like to share for people facing midlife challenges

Time Stamps:

•02:45 What is BE-DO-HAVE framework and how can one apply it in his life?
•06:23 Key ingredients that enabled Milind to grow in his corporate career
•09:35 What are things people can do that can help them to grow in their mid-career
•13:55 How did Milind manage his financial lifestyle while being in high profile job
•19:57 How did Milind run into 25 lakh of financial debt
•24:15 The time when Milind was technically laid off from the job in recession of 2009
•29:15 Why Milind did not take job post lay off and started out of his own during his midlife
•32:21 How did Milind overcome challenges post layoff
•34:45 How did Milind manage to get his initial customers
•41:33 By when was Milind able to achieve financial stability
•44:21 Case in point of a fictional character who is in his midlife and undergoing challenges
•52:24 Quick Fire Segment
•58:15 Key TakeAways

Key Takeaways

•BE-DO-HAVE framework for goals - In order to HAVE something, you need to DO something about it and in order to do something about it , it is imperative that BECOME a person for whom DOing become easy
•Never land yourself in huge financial debts ,becomes soon it becomes a viscous cycle to clear one debt, you take another one which quickly becomes a bubble so huge that it takes you many steps behind from reaching your destination
•If you don't enjoy what you do today, try to introspect and ask yourself few tough questions , do you want to be an employee , or employer ? What you value more - security or freedom? What do you lack in life? Are you just bluffing or playing game with yourself ? Please find answers to these powerful questions and draft an exciting future for yourself