Will you Answer the Call?

 

one nightAnswer the Call!

In Chetan Bhagat’s One Night at the Call Center, six Indian coworkers share their life stories while working together during one night at Connexions. Due to their hours, the story begins with Shyam Mehra (Sam Marcy) missing a family wedding. Over the course of the narrative, each team member reveals various secrets, dramas and personal traumas. Issues from arranged marriage to relations between genders and generations were all pertinent issues dealt with in this novel. At one point, on the verge of personal and physical disaster, the team is asked, “Are you going to answer the call?”

One team member, Vroom, answered, “I want to have a life with meaning.” He must alter his life by giving up meaningless work and quit the call center. “Calling is not my calling,” he pronounced. “Each of us must decide when to listen to the inner voice and when to make a change to begin the life we have always wanted,” he adds. Shyam admits, “I want to be worthy of someone like her and I want to be successful too.” All the characters realize they need to focus on themselves and are told: “Never be afraid of failure. If it has come your way, it means I want to give you a real shot at being successful later.”

If you have always wanted to write, we hope you are ready to answer the call to join our Travel Writing Contest.

The team members from One Night at the Call Center would urge you to go for it. As John Wooden, the infamous UCLA Basketball Coach used to say, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

Book-CoverIn The Impact Equation: Are You Making Things Happen or Just Making Noise?, Chris Brogan and Julien Smith stated that, “Writing is now one of the few skills you must have –and we really mean “must” here for the twenty-first century.” It is something we all must practice. Each of us must be ready to share our stories and realize: “We consume more written media than we ever have in history…it’s time for all of us to become master copywriters.” Answer the call and contribute.

The reality is that we are the first generation of people on this planet to be not only media consumers and media creators. We are all media owners as well.

In The Impact Equation, they argued that it is time to get your own channel. Create your own media. The global community is waiting.

People often ask me how to start a blog. My first suggestion is always to start immediately. Don’t worry about the name or the format but make a commitment to write on a schedule either every Sunday (as I did for two years) or once a month. Whatever schedule works for you, start today. If inspired, you can join our travel-writing contest, potentially being selected to win a cash prize or a wonderful book of travel literature in our raffle. It might even enthuse you to keep going! You do not necessarily have to create your own site but everyone has stories to share and you would be surprised at how many people want to read them.

My other suggestion is to keep reading. If you haven’t read Chetan Bhagat, his stories are very entertaining and bring to light the pulse and heart of young Indians. Referring to Bhagat, Time magazine stated, “Many writers are successful at expressing what’s in their hearts or articulating a particular point of view. Chetan Bhagat’s books do both and more.” The New York Times said Bhagat is “the biggest-selling English-language novelist in India’s history.” And I bet even he wonders sometimes if his stories are good enough.

Give yourself permission to make a change or work to make a dream come true. I cannot wait to read your stories. Don’t wait! Our contest ends February 14! All the rules and instructions are at http://www.wesaidgotravel.com/writing-contest

Lisa Ellen Niver

Lisa Niver is an award-winning travel expert who has explored 102 countries on six continents. This University of Pennsylvania graduate sailed across the seas for seven years with Princess Cruises, Royal Caribbean, and Renaissance Cruises and spent three years backpacking across Asia. Discover her articles in publications from AARP: The Magazine and AAA Explorer to WIRED and Wharton Magazine, as well as her site WeSaidGoTravel. On her award nominated global podcast, Make Your Own Map, Niver has interviewed Deepak Chopra, Olympic medalists, and numerous bestselling authors, and as a journalist has been invited to both the Oscars and the United Nations. For her print and digital stories as well as her television segments, she has been awarded three Southern California Journalism Awards and two National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards and been a finalist twenty-two times. Named a #3 travel influencer for 2023, Niver talks travel on broadcast television at KTLA TV Los Angeles, her YouTube channel with over 2 million views, and in her memoir, Brave-ish, One Breakup, Six Continents and Feeling Fearless After Fifty.

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