About the Book:

In 2019, Karan Bajaj quit his job as Discovery India’s head to start WhiteHat Jr with the mission of making every kid a creator in this world. At the time, everyone thought Karan was reckless to give up a high-flying corporate career at the age of forty, but eighteen months later, WhiteHat Jr was acquired by BYJU’s for $300 million. On the surface, it was one of the fastest startup-to-exit journeys in India, but the seeds of this were planted a decade ago when Karan first decided to create his own set of life rules.

In The Freedom Manifesto, Karan, for the first time, reveals these secrets to help you transform your life. Unconventional, practical and no-nonsense, these seven rules will help you prioritize what matters most, radically transform your mindset from an employee to an owner, create a daily routine to end self-doubt and negativity and break the shackles of conformity to design a life of your calling. These rules will set you free, not just financially, but also help to reveal your best self.

My Thoughts:

The Freedom Manifesto is insightful and gripping in a way that I did not expect. I generally do not read non-fiction and especially books of self-help or self-improvement (not yet anyway!). However, this book is indeed a stepping stone for me, inspiring me to consider reading more books out of my comfort zone ( usually fiction) and to explore new avenues and genres.

The book draws on the author’s personal experiences as the basis for explaining several simple steps to transform your life. Karan doesn’t just talk to us about his successes but highlights his failures and the lessons he learnt from them. He is open, accepting of his decisions (both the ones that worked and those that did not), precise and clear in his thinking and critical of himself in a way that draws the reader in, igniting sparks of interest in following his journey. Through this journey, we also read about steps that we can follow to help ourselves, questions to ask to help introspect and suggestions on what to do after we have thought of the answers. I found the style of writing and presentation to be quite unique and this is what captured my attention. The book and writing are personal but written in a way that anyone can understand or relate to and this is something I quite enjoyed.

In conclusion, I truly enjoyed reading this book even though some of the formulas went over my head. This is something I would have to truly look into at some point. In general, I realized that a lot of the questions that Karan raises or suggests that we ask ourselves are ones which I have thought of but never focused on specifically. The point which sticks with me is what to do with the answers once have them and how to prioritize things which are important to us. All this makes this book worth reading!