Meet Lalana Dara

We were lucky to catch up with Lalana Dara recently and have shared our conversation below.

Lalana, so great to have you with us today. There are so many topics we want to ask you about, but perhaps the one we can start with is burnout. How have you overcome or avoided burnout?

In February of 2021, I was not only mentally burned out. My body forcefully let me know I’d pushed myself too far. I suffered a heart attack.

At the time, I had been building two parallel careers: I was a Regulatory Consultant for pharmaceutical research and development, employed as a Practice Manager for a cloud-based software development company serving life sciences. I was also a published author of romance, science fiction, and fantasy with multiple series traditionally published with the Big 5 traditional publishers.

While on bed rest, recovering from the immediate aftermath of my heart attack, I made the decision to resign my life sciences position rather than take medical leave. I chose this because I needed to let go of the feeling of responsibility I had to the teams I was leading and the management team I was a part of. I couldn’t continue to serve them if I had no energy to give. I also coordinated with my literary agent to put my contractual obligations for writing on hold for my recovery. Finally, I worked with my therapist on the tools I had to cope with stress.

Then I made a list.

My list was whimsical. I thought about all the things I had said no, I didn’t have the time for because I had a day job.

Voice acting. Photography. Art. Video gaming. These were all interests I had. Over the years, I had been offered opportunities to explore these interests in cool ways, but I hadn’t because I had focused on my day job. Well, I was retired from my day job for the moment, so I let myself explore and have fun. It didn’t matter if I was good or if my efforts would result in return on investment. I was experimenting. Playing. Relearning what I enjoyed doing.

I carefully rebuilt my physical health through slow and steady exercise. Turns out, one of my most effective coping tools for stress is movement. I like to move. I identified with my therapist that food is one of the major elements in my life that brings me joy and I have serious trauma related to dieting – so I ignored dieting, embracing the joy instead, and learned what portion sizes were best for me without giving up any of the foods that made me happy.

By the end of 2021, I had a careful discussion with my medical doctor and embarked on an adventure to Egypt with two author friends. Everyone I knew was surprised and alarmed. Too soon! But I was suffocating at home, even with my new hobbies. In Egypt, my friends and I climbed through seven pyramids and any number of ancient tombs. We visited the national museum and learned about Egyptian mythologies. We ate so much incredible food. I not only survived, I flourished.

Travel and adventure, it seems, are also important elements for my happiness and well-being.

Over the next year, I was careful to keep in mind what really brought me joy. What were the things that energized me? Excited me? Filled me with energy? I returned to writing as Piper J. Drake and launched a new book series, starting with Wings Once Cursed and Bound. It was a whirlwind year for redefining who I wanted to be as an author.

But burnout doesn’t just disappear. It echoed through everything I did. I had low points where my coping mechanisms didn’t quite manage the stress. I worked very carefully with my therapist and my doctor to manage my blood pressure and stress levels.

Uncertainty can kill creativity.

Without creativity, writing fiction is just about impossible. My writing stalled out. I was starting to panic.

Around that time, a colleague from life sciences pinged me and asked if I was ready to dip my toe back into consulting. I was excited again. She had an interesting project, working with disruptive technology that could have major impact to the time it took to get much needed medical treatments to the patients who needed them.

I was inspired. I felt needed. I felt relieved I had another way to bring in income. So I resurrected my life sciences career as a regulatory consultant.

It took some experimenting with workload balance and redefining success for myself. I carefully set boundaries to ensure I wouldn’t find myself back where I was just before my heart attack. In life sciences, I decided not to carry the load of leading teams, instead leading by example as a senior individual contributor. As an author, I decided not to commit to the ultra fast-paced deadlines of turning out multiple books in a year, and worked out a slower release cadence.

There is a Japanese concept referring to something that gives a person a sense of purpose, a reason for living. It’s an intersection of what you love, what the world needs, what you are good at, and what you can get paid for–that last consideration isn’t discussed enough, but it’s a major consideration. Focusing on any of the other things is really hard if you don’t have the financial stability to do so.

I learned over the years after my heart attack that my ikigai was still the combination of my life sciences career and my author career – with careful changes to prioritize the elements that brought me joy and boundaries to protect myself from aspects that leeched the life out of me.

But I haven’t forgotten the basics I rediscovered during that year of recovery. Food brings me joy. Travel delights me. Adventure inspires me.

So I’m embarking on a new phase. We’re moving beyond recovery from my heart attack and burn out. I’m growing myself in new ways. So I’m taking my parallel careers and becoming a digital nomad, establishing multiple home bases from which I can explore and enjoy new experiences. Because for me, the best way not to burn out again is to find energy in the things that make me happy.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I’m an independent consultant serving the life sciences industry, leveraging deep knowledge of Regulatory Information Management, Regulatory Affairs, and Regulatory Operations with close to 25 years experience.

I’m also a published author of romance, science fiction, and fantasy. Over the years, I’ve had multiple pen names, though I’m currently best known as Piper J. Drake. My latest release is FANGS SO BRIGHT AND DEADLY, book 2 of my Mythwoven series. As Piper J. Drake, I also give my time as the Chief Operating Officer of Writing the Other, a non-profit organization offering in-person and online writing classes for creators who want to set their narratives in cultures outside of their own and/or include characters whose gender, sexual preference, race, or other major identity differs significantly from their own.

What I love about these parallel careers is how they combine to inspire passion in me, give me a sense of purpose, highlight my skills, and also provide me with the financial means to sustain myself.

I’m incredibly excited to take my life into a new phase, in which I leverage the ability to pursue both these careers virtually. I can work remotely, from anywhere. My primary home base will remain firmly established in Seattle, WA USA. I also plan to establish a second home base in Bangkok, Thailand.

I’m becoming a digital nomad and I’m exploring developing a personal brand to share this next journey with people. To that end, I’ve established a presence on Substack and Instagram. Being middle aged woman of marginalized identity, just a year or two from turning fifty, a divorcee, a cancer survivor, a heart attack survivor, and living with chronic pain due to spinal issues – I thought some aspects of my life would be relatable to others out there pursuing what makes them happy, one decision at a time.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

1) Prioritization. There’s a lot of ways to help yourself think through what matters most and what could wait or even be offloaded. One of the biggest things I learned to do was prioritize the things that not only contributed to my goals, but also gave me energy to do even more.

2) Thought stopping. This was a skill that didn’t even hit my radar before my heart attack. I’m very strategic by nature, and as an experienced project manager and global program manager, I tend to actively consider best and worst case scenarios to call out risks early so I can develop ways to mitigate them. But sometimes that super power can go out of control and spiral so negatively, stress and anxiety overwhelm everything else. Learning to stop that line of thought, redirect, and reframe those thoughts in a more positive way, was life saving.

3) Communication. I’m extremely independent. There’s a lot to unpack about hyper-independent personalities and why we are the way we are. So communicating becomes a skill to constantly work on, because it’s not wrong to ask for help. It’s not a failure to recognize you need to request information or outsource tasks to someone who has the skills to do it better. It’s not weakness to recognize what you have energy for and set a boundary with others before you overextend yourself. Too often, people assume competent, strong individuals are doing great without ever realizing we might be drowning. then we burn out and literally everyone involved is surprised. Communication can manage expectations and lead to collaboration, growth, and stronger relationships.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

Always! There is no greater inspiration than being surrounded by nifty people, doing awesome things.

I love to brainstorm with people who have shared interests or goals, collaborate together, cheer for other’s success and appreciate when they cheer for me.

You can find me on Substack (https://lalanadara.substack.com/) or on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/lalana_dara)

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/lalanadara
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lalana_dara
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LalanaDara
• Other: Substack: https://lalanadara.substack.com/

Image Credits

Images by Lalana Dararutana