Sohail Shaikh - The Knowledge That You Consume Actively Will Be Your Biggest Weapon to Fight Against Redundancy (Content Creator, Art Director, Architect From India)

I believe spirituality has a very personal meaning for everyone and rather than learning about its meaning from someone else, we should try to discover its meaning for ourselves. The way I see it is, that spirituality brings you closer to a power that is much bigger than you. Everyone has a different name for that power. 

1  1.  Tell us about your background and journey.

    I am an Architect/Interior Designer by Profession. I've been practising Art direction for a year. I have designed TV  Series sets for multiple TV Shows.

I have always found myself to be a person who likes to create, build or engage myself in a challenge all the time. I feel I've got this urge to be involved in processing ideas to create something or to consume ideas to get sharp all the time. And hence since I was a child I loved playing imaginary mind games, watching weird things & creative cartoons that keep my brain involved in some kind of activity.

Very recently I have started creating content which kind of honestly started as a thought experiment. An experiment to share whatever I have learned with the world and see how it reacts. Because ever since I could remember, I was always a keen learner. I used to love learning through Movies, YouTube Videos, and Reading piles of self-development books. There was always this 'keeda' to learn something new and then share it to a great extent with my friends. This social media channel became an expanded version of that habit.

And once I realized that people are liking and gaining some value from the content that I could produce, the game just got bigger and even more serious.

 

 2. Is it financially sustainable to be a digital creator these days?

I truly believe that where the attention goes, money flows. And all of us can clearly see, where the world is paying attention right now. It's social media, whether it is a 15-year-old teenager or an 80-year-old adult, everyone is in some form or another other a consumer of the social media platform. And we creators are the producers of the product. 

So if you are a producer of content that is graciously accepted and loved by a sizable amount of audience, you are bound to make money in some way or the other. And the boom of the Influencer/creator economy is yet to begin in India. It has gained a substantial standard in the last 2 years especially post-pandemic but the game is about to get bigger I presume in the coming decade.

 

3. How can we avoid arguments and turn nasty debates into healthy discussions when we know that the other person is wrong?

I believe that the structure of ideas has disparity and contradiction embedded in them naturally. When there are 2 different individuals coming together with their conceptualized set of ideas and beliefs, a disparity in ideas is bound to happen. The issue arises when people misalign the conflicts that exist between their ideas to each other personally. That's when a debate of ideas gets transformed into a dispute of individuals.

The best way to argue over an idea is to rather enter into a debate with a default belief that both parties have the equal possibility of being wrong. Rather than trying to prove the other person wrong and convincing him about the truth, we must try to use the debate as the navigator to seek the truth. When both parties put forward their reasoning and facts for their ideas, the reasons with loose soil surely falls apart and only the merit of a reason leads to the actual truth of the matter.

 

4. What is spirituality? How does it help us and how to practice it?

I believe spirituality has a very personal meaning for everyone and rather than learning about its meaning from someone else, we should try to discover its meaning for ourselves. The way I see it is, that spirituality brings you closer to a power that is much bigger than you. Everyone has a different name for that power. 

Some call it god, some call it religion, some call it the universe, and some call it nature. Whatever suits the individual, the sure thing is every human takes a fall sometime or the other in life and everyone needs that power as a strong wall behind him to support him in those times. Being spiritually inclined makes you aware and grateful for that wall.

 

5. What impact did all these learnings make in your life? Any experience that you would like to share?

I don't think there is 1 specific impact that I can share because there have been hundreds of ways learning has impacted my life. But one thing I must say is that a person who is unaware that he needs to learn is a person who is already lost in life. Actively learning from whatever source suits one is the only way to live a fulfilled life I feel.

 

6. How and where do you find inspiration to churn out content while making reels on Instagram?

I have been a keen learner always. I have been learning through videos, books, films, and mentors since my school days. For the longest time, it wasn't for any specific goal but rather it was just my curiosity that I was feeding. So all these years of learning have been stored somewhere in the darkest corner of my brain I feel. 

And when something happens in my surrounding that stimulates my emotions, the required learning comes out from that dark corner to help me out. And all the learning that's coming out is now getting translated into reels. Plus I have never stopped learning and growing my mind, so many of the things I share are the things that I have learned lately and used in my life as well.

 

7. How do you handle the negative opinions and trash talks of others?

Opinions are cheap, everyone has some. The ones I take to my heart are the ones that come from people I love and respect. I have mentally shortlisted people who I believe want the best for me and who knows more about life than I do, so when they say something I listen. Rest I mostly ignore if it's the hate coming from a random person hiding behind the walls of his social profile. Everyone nowadays is a keyboard warrior.

 

8. What is Self-love as per you and how to practice it?

I have kept a very simple definition of self-love for myself. If there are things that make me happy, if there are things that help me grow, if there are things that keep me near the people I love, I will do those things as first priority. That's the unconscious way for me to express self-love. If you do things that make you happy, and things that help you build the version of you that you aspire to, you are bound to love yourself more. And that I feel is a simple way to express self-love.

 

9. Any advice that you would like to give to school and college students for self-improvement?

Keep learning and keep growing every day. The world is changing at the fastest pace possible and the pace is surely going to increase even more. The knowledge that you consume actively will be your biggest weapon to fight against redundancy. And always choose a career or a profession that makes you happy and delighted every day. Your work is 80% of your conscious life. You mess up with that you mess up with a lot. Being happy with what you are doing is the fastest way to success.

 

10. How to change one’s negative attitude and not be jealous or egoistic?

Comparison is the root of jealousy. When you try to compare yourself to someone else you, ask yourself to become like someone else. You will fail in that surely and failure hurts even more. So the smarter option is don't compare yourself to anyone but just your current self to the future self that you desire. And work religiously to build that self. Changing a negative attitude has hundreds of facets to it I feel and all of us battle with some of those facets. But one thing surely helps, knowing that a negative attitude is nothing but a repetitive thought pattern that you have developed. Like a habit. And the easiest way to kill a bad habit is to replace it with a positive one. The constant injection of that positive action once you notice the negative action coming out. Like a deliberate thought injection. 

 

Bio - 

Sohail Shaikh is an Architect by profession, an Art Director by practice, and a Content creator by passion. He has been practicing design for the last 5 years and has undertaken multiple design projects for luxury houses, offices & restaurants. Some of his recent work includes designing TV show sets for various production houses and prime shows being telecasted on ZeeTv, SabTV, Star Plus, Colors.

He has a passion for learning and he loves to share what he has picked up through his experience via his content.

Interviewed By - Shashank Sehgal