Malini Agarwal better known in the Bollywood, Fashion and
Lifestyle world as the very charasmatic, MissMalini, is a famous blogger and
celebrity in her own right. So when ShethePeople in the first edition of
Bombaywaali for 2018 posted an invite to meet her in person on January 12th, I was definitely not missing it.
Walking into Title Waves at Bandra, I see Miss Malini
standing next to her book "To the Moon" happily posing for a
click. People who know me, will shake
their head again in good humour for sure. Oh yes, I did walk up to her right
there to ask for a selfie. Never miss an
opportunity in life, I say. What worst can happen, but a No!
Miss Malini took the stage with author Kiran Manral and as
the evening unfolded, I realised that there was so much to learn from her. What
endeared me more was the fact that like me, she chose to explore whatever came
her way....and as we know, she made a success of it too from pioneering an Indian
lifestyle blog and a website that touches 4 million lives from over 200
countries with a social media following of over 7.5 million.
So what does one do when you have an awesome woman like her
sitting across you on a stage. Naturally, you whip out your mobile and start
recording her conversation. That is
exactly what I did and I even asked a question.
Here are transcripts of what I recorded.
Miss
Malini gave credit to her mother, Manjulika (a selfie with her was mandatory)
for her support and what she has been able to achieve. She shared, "Actually I have to give
credit to my mom for that. When I wanted to become a back up dancer, she said
'okay, I am coming to watch with a handy cam'.
She would record everything but she would cut off everyone's heads and
just film me, which is amazing. I could just go and try new things. I was lucky
to be at a point of time in every career where something new was happening."
To
a question on blogging as an entrepreneur, she responded "There is a difference between hobby blogging and entrepreneur. So people who are blogging as a hobby, do it
your own way. As an entrepreneur, you
need to think a little ahead and you need to make a business plan. You have to
think about where I am going to be a year from now. What is my mission, what is
my vision and how am I going to make money out of it and how can I make it
sustainable. Step by step but the most important thing in this is to find that,
whether it is going to be an
entrepreneur, what is the USP. Are you just selling to people, is it just content.
Is your money going to come from advertising or from selling your product on
the blog. You need to decide all those things,
You also need to decide what your benchmark of success will be, is it
money, is it fame, is it influence or is it making a difference. So they are
very different things so they may not all be money. There might be something
you are doing as a project for social work or something, so there money is not
the main thing, it is really about getting the message across. So first decide
those things, question what your agenda is
and what you would measure as your metric of success".
A
few tips she shared along the way in her own words were >>"you
really have to figure out what you really want to do on your blog or Instagram
handle and then find the right tools to do it...." >>"find the gap, or what are you
doing differently, or what is the identity that you have that nobody else has out
there" >>"find something
that speaks your voice, and that is
unique and that is what is going to make you stand out". There is an A to Z in her book on digital
brand building which will help you to understand more on reaching out to
people.
I
too, often wonder, why do we need to feed on stories mud-slinging and tearing films
down. I may not like a film but I always believe that so much hard work goes
into making one, that It was heartening to hear that there is someone out there
like Miss Malini who prefers to use the positive vs the negative when reporting
about Bollywood. Talking about Bollywood blogging, Miss Malini shared "Bollywood blogging is very complex. There is
tabloid blogging, or there is reviewing or there is documenting a fly on the
wall experience or doing much more lengthy pieces. So what kind of content do you want to create.
Having a personality and identity makes the biggest difference. The ones who
stand out to me who have been Bollywood bloggers have been influencers."
Interestingly
I could identify with her totally when she was asked about finding time for
herself. Like her I have always loved my
job and the things I do today, that her
saying "I think the balance really
comes from finding time to make things that are most important to you, your
focus. For me honestly, my job and what
I do is so much fun. It is probably why I spend most time on it."
seemed just right to me.
Like Miss Malini, even I abhor the advertisements that talk
about fairness creams. Forget about whether it works or not, but have you seen
the way the advertisements are presented.
I recently saw one on fairness cream for men. The man removes his head band and there is a fair
skin under it while the rest of the face is dark from the sun. Really !! I can clearly see the dark make up
used for the face. Terrible sharing for
vulnerable men and women out there who have been told fairness matter. Miss
Malini too believes that, "The
problem with fairness creams is the emotional damage they do. Our skin is a
representation of our rich history, why hide? Feel beautiful with the skin you
are in."
Then it is Q&A time and I ask a good question and got her
book "To the Moon" duly autographed that
read "Continue to be the rock star you are!!" I guess my madness
showed, because wow, in a few minutes Miss Malini had got me totally. I am
going to cherish those words forever indeed.
My
question to her :.
Hi Malini. It was a pleasure listening to you and
especially about the blogging, because I do blog but as you said I do not focus
on any blogging, particularly any topic till now and I will probably seek your
help on that. My question to you is that
networking is important for entrepreneurs, I do know that, but how we go about
it is really not the right way, I've seen.
Women think that walking into an event, meeting women, talking to them,
sharing your cards, and that kind of
thing is really networking. But to me I am not very sure that whether you
actually achieve what you set out to achieve in that way. What tip would you give me if I were to walk
in for a specific networking for maybe
growing my own business, or sharing my own story or learning more.
Miss Malini
replied:
Great question. So the one thing I have learnt about
networking is that the best thing you could do when networking is don't spend that time talking about yourself. When you go to a room of people you want to
meet, go and understand their story. Ask them what they do, how they came up
with the business, their plans are and tips because one they will be endeared
by the fact that you care about their stories. So you are going to be memorable
immediately and you will learn something from them. I am a talker and the one thing I had to
teach myself is to listen more talk less, because you are talking and you are
not learning anything from them. Let someone else talk and then you will learn.
So when you network, go in and ask people their stories and genuinely listen.
It is more effective if you went and spoke to three people and had that kind of
a conversation than you went and handed your cards to fifty people. In most
cases it is going to be dropped somewhere and forgotten. People don't really
use it until they really need someone's numbers, right. So go and have a genuine
conversation and ask that person about themselves. They will always come back
and ask you, your story.
I too truly believe that the more friends you make, the more people you meet, the more you talk to people and connect to, the more you get to learn..... and I do just that. The number of stalwarts that I have met at #ShethePeopleTV #Bombaywali
like RJ Malishka, Tisca Chopra, Bachi
Karkaria and many more has indeed been an enriching experience. As the quote says -
"I truly believe that everything
that we do and everyone that we meet is put in our path
for a purpose. There are no
accidents; we're all teachers - if we're willing to pay attention
to the lessons we learn, trust our positive
instincts and not be afraid to take risks
or wait for some miracle to come
knocking at our door" ~ Marla Gibbs
