MALLY CHAKOLA
A life between worlds.
I've spent much of my life moving between worlds.
Between cultures. Between professions. Between the practical and the creative. I've been an attorney, entrepreneur, educator, consultant, speaker, traveler, and writer. For a long time, I thought of these as separate chapters.
I don't anymore.
Each has put down roots. And together, they've created a larger system from which I draw—one that has made me more resourceful, more resilient, more curious, and better able to see connections that aren't always obvious from a single point of view.
Law taught me to examine the evidence. Entrepreneurship taught me to act without having all of it. Teaching taught me to make complicated ideas accessible. Consulting taught me to listen for the problem beneath the problem. Travel taught me how much of what we consider certain depends on where we're standing. And writing taught me to stay with a question long enough to discover what it's really asking.
None of these lives replaced the one before it. Each expanded what I could draw upon.
That, I've come to understand, is the strength of a multi-hyphenate life: not simply being many things, but allowing each of them to deepen the others.
ENTREPRENEUR
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ATTORNEY
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CHANGE LEADER
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MASTER PROBLEM SOLVER
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PUBLIC SPEAKER
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COMMUNITY BUILDER
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SELF HEALER
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PHILANTHROPIST
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SURVIVOR
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CREATOR
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LIFESTYLE EXPERT
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ENTREPRENEUR | ATTORNEY | CHANGE LEADER | MASTER PROBLEM SOLVER | PUBLIC SPEAKER | COMMUNITY BUILDER | SELF HEALER | PHILANTHROPIST | SURVIVOR | CREATOR | LIFESTYLE EXPERT |
An unconventional résumé.
Before writing became a larger part of my public life, I spent decades building an unusually varied professional one.
I trained and worked as an attorney before moving into entrepreneurship, ultimately building businesses and advising other founders and organizations.
I've taught, consulted, spoken to audiences, worked with nonprofit and community organizations, and helped people navigate moments when something—an organization, a career, a business, or a life—was ready to change.
Those experiences continue to inform everything I do.
Law taught me to examine the evidence.
Entrepreneurship taught me that evidence isn't always enough.
Travel taught me that the assumptions we consider obvious often aren't.
And writing taught me to stay with the question a little longer.
Different worlds.
The same curiosity.
A business problem. A ghost story. A dinner table. A journey through India. A conversation about identity. A room full of people considering what comes next.
On the surface, they have very little in common.
I'm interested in what lies underneath them.
The assumptions we inherit. The identities we construct. The places we belong. The stories we tell about ourselves. The moments that change those stories.
My work is less about choosing among the different things I've done than understanding the perspective they've given me.
Perhaps there is something useful about never having fit entirely into one box.
The short version.
Mally Chakola is an attorney, entrepreneur, consultant, educator, speaker, and nonfiction writer based in Santa Barbara, California.
She writes about identity, belonging, culture, travel, family, food, and the unexpected places where they intersect. Her work has appeared in Business in South Asia: Legal Views and News, The SMMC Crier Magazine, and Success.
She writes from a she-shed beneath a canopy of live oaks, usually with a fluffy dog on her lap.