Studio Sonkind

[studiosonkind]

The critical things to consider for scaling and marketing your brand are:

WHAT problem am I solving here?

WHAT am I trying to get across?

WHAT is the ONE thing that I want my audience to come to me for? (SETTING CLEAR EXPECTATIONS ABOUT WHAT YOU OFFER and how it will benefit them)

HOW am I going to support my ONE key message?

WHAT examples will I use to convey my message?

At the end of the day, I’ve learned that what we do with our life can’t JUST be about our own likes, comfort & security.

What you love + combined with what you do do really well + the demand for it in the marketplace = sweet spot.

That’s all marketing is. Honing your distinct voice and represent your contribution to society in a way that fascinates, cajoles, entertains and charms people.

Because you’re better than NOTICE ME

🏕🎯🍯🌩🌪🔥

[studiosonkind]

“I fear not a man who has a 1000 kicks, I fear a man who has one kick that he’s practiced a 1000 times“ - Bruce Lee.

Classic procrastination. Creative avoidance & Priority Dilution - This is what I do best unless I am way too amped up or invested in the process or results of the current task at hand.  

Do you ever find yourself doing any of these?

Wait..

Let me explain.

Oftentimes we fall into the trap of overpromising and underdelivering, and it’s always better for the reverse to take place. Isn’t it?

Creative avoidance is my favourite brand of procrastination. Because we can always find a 100 more appealing things to do at all times rather than do the most important task. The risk of rejection and failure sits there looming above our shoulder, and keeping the dream going gets difficult by default.

Priority Dilution is another brand of procrastination that walks with me like a shadow. There’s this notion that it’s sexy and max appealing if you are good at 10 different things, and all of that is part of your elevator pitch.

What I’ve recently come to realise is that priority dilution results in diluted focus, and therefore diluted results.

Why?! Because great results are not achieved through balance. Great results are achieved through short seasons of intensive imbalance. That’s the reason farmers abide by the harvest principle. They work 18hours a day during the harvest thereby putting all their other activities in imbalance.

So by the law of Harvest Principle, it seems only viable that we expend the minimum amount of energy maintaining everything else and dedicate 💯of the excess energy in one direction to create an explosion - to create the power, focus and breakthrough.   

Seasons are a much more accurate reflection of our lives and how you create lasting results. 

As appealing as it is to be a multi-hyphenate, all the great peak performers seem to have made it big with one thing. They dominated one thing and post blowing through the wall they diversified into different assets and grew by doing other things.

Let’s raise a toast to conquering one feat at a time. Shall we?!

Qui?!

[studiosonkind]

Me Vs You and The Anxiety Spiral

Sometimes the internet can make us feel alone in our pain. In the hardship that often walks in the shadow of delight. Reminding us to be proud of what we've overcome, and that we are allowed to delight in the good? What a gift. I'm feeling more alive, inspired, excited, and grateful than I have in a long long time. Coming home to oneself is a truly special thing. And that's worth sharing.

[studiosonkind]

30 On The Horizon

The biggest flex is how many wounds you can turn into wisdom!

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[studiosonkind]

“Always live life in such a way that no one gets hurt because of you.”

“It’s because of you that I am in such distress.”

“It’s your fault this didn’t turn out as we expected.”

“I know better because I’m older. Your job is to just do as I say.”

I grew up in an environment where these were the daily indoctrinations in my life.

Are we on the same boat? Nah? Just me?

Cool.

I have an uneasiness about following tradition & values like this. I try to interrogate why.

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I was walking on a fine line with my co-conspirators on either side. Submission and rebellion. Submission to soften the blow after rebellion, and rebellion to give voice to the fiery rage burning inside.

After years of unlearning, I still find it hard to NOT hold myself responsible for other people’s emotional state. On most days. I could be the best specimen as a ‘people pleaser’ in a lab experiment, as everything seems to be my fault at all times according to me. On some days, even the relearning of a lesson takes extra practice to put in action.

So, I think to protect my little heart, I've over corrected. If you think God is talking to you or that following a custom equates to preserving one’s identity, I won't get it. And I won't believe you.

I am a wounded dog. I was bit and I bite back. And I'm certain that I am not entirely right. I know there is pulsing meaning in everything, and perhaps intelligible messages. Perhaps even consciousness. Spirits everywhere. I'm just cautious because I was conned.

[studiosonkind]

“Conflict delayed is conflict multiplied”, said a wise person. Jordan Peterson, to be precise.

“Waqt rehta nahi kahi bhi tik kar...

Aadat iski bhi aadmi si hai!“

— Gulzar 🍂🥀

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Staying > Escaping. Breathing > Fleeing. Responding > Reacting.

[studiosonkind]

Studio Sonkind has been a long gestating passion project. To cut the long story short, I was a coward to not have started this sooner. I feared to put myself in a position where I could get rejected a million times. I feared to put work that’s so personal into this abyss of social media because everything seems to be said and done. ‘What do I have to offer that isn’t already been done?’ I often wondered. So I sat, waiting for the clouds to part and have the right moment come to me.

It never did come to me. The right moment. So I decided to do this anyway. This project is basically an experiment to create a safe space that encourages self examination, exploring emotional resilience and being human.

I am all too familiar with the struggles of anxiety, imposter syndrome, low self-esteem, not feeling good enough and striving for radical self acceptance within myself and towards others.

I want to bare it all and address the ever present elephant in the room, the issues that all too often get swept under the rug. I realised that hiding under the facade of an acceptable version of myself to present to others can only get me so far. It’s time to unlearn, relearn, transform, evolve, reinvent for me.

I truly hope that you can get a glimpse of yourself through my stories and the people I interview.

Here’s to using this platform to speak up, share our creative self expression, connect our hearts and be seen by one another.

[studiosonkind]

So, what do you do, you ask?

BOTTOM LINE: I help people sell like their bottom dollar depended on it (without losing their soul).

Throughout history, revolutionary businesses and individuals have connected deeply with their audience, sold in a way that makes buyers feel great about buying. They do it without even the slightest hesitation on your part to reach for your credit card.

Leaving your imprint? Having an impact? Who doesn’t want that unless you are a small business that shook hands with our old friend, complacency.

A brand is only as good as the impact it has on it’s target audience, consistently. Wouldn’t you agree? I can help.

To put it simply, if getting noticed and heard in a way that you are known for the value you bring to the table is what you’re struggling with, I’m here to do just that for you. Every step of the way.

So let’s turn people into admirers of your work rather than look away, you in?

If self promotion, marketing your value and what you stand for seems like a stretch, I’m here for you. If you aren’t able to sell yourself whilst being in the trenches of your actual work because things are hard as it is during office hours and exhaustion gets the better of you. Don’t beat yourself over this.

But please, let me HELP!!! Nothing would give me more joy than to showcase your potential to the world.

How?

It all begins with THE POWER HOUR. YES.

Our first date. Pun intended. Trying to figure if we would be a good fit to work with each other starts with the ever elusive first meeting. Dunnit? So, lets? And then take it from there.

To book the said POWER HOUR MEETING with me, kindly DM or email. Hold on. This won’t be FREE but the charges are absolute minimal. I promise.

[studiosonkind]

That Sweet Caffeine High!

Kya horaye bhai!!!!! I am HIGH on CAFFEINE.        

I vividly remember that in the latter part of 2018, I was around people who used ‘bhai’ in their speech almost all the time.

I was so intrigued by it. The naive idiot that I was asked if they were all siblings, and what followed thereafter was all of them howling in laughter. My confusion was soon put to rest by them.

I was relieved and embarrassed. But that’s the story of my life.            

Always the unintentional clown of the party.        

You’re welcome!

[studiosonkind]

Are You Addicted to Approval Seeking? No? I am the only one? Ermm.. okay!

Any fellow validation and approval-holics around here?

I have been noticing how codependent I have been, looking at the other person to nod in approval. To say that I’m doing okay, doing the right thing. To anticipate with baited breath for that next dopamine hit. They say we latch onto any pleasure seeking activity for dear life because we’re scared of uncomfy feelings. How else will we soothe our internal conflict? But there’s an interesting fact to be considered here.

Neuroscientists have said, “Feeling come and pass through us within 60-90 seconds. They stay, only when we dwell in them, overindulge in them. Especially the uncomfortable feelings.”

It’s a circuitous rigmarole path for us I think. All it takes is a sudden nudge from someone to tap into a certain insecurity, light the flame to a past wound and we are lit. We find ourselves acting in opposition to our values, losing track of who and what’s happening RIGHT NOW. In this moment.

It’s this falling flat on our face in a ditch,

and then crawling out with new lessons learned.

The ability to gather ourselves,

keep calm and get back up with a head held high is astonishing to me.

We are all capable of this, rather than fixating on what the other person did or didn’t, should or shouldn’t have done to us.

So why shouldn’t we create a metric of self-validation instead? I’m not trying to promote narcissism here, I promise. It’s a metric that doesn’t allow your internal architecture to run custom autonomy by external circumstances and people.

It’s a practice of self-discipline and commitment Rich Roll and David Goggins taught me. Creating non-negotiable activities you can’t fall short on doing, daily is crucial they said. “The quality of our lives is directly proportional to the quality of questions we ask ourselves on a daily basis,” said Rich Roll. So each morning and night I started keeping a mental checklist by asking myself;

Did you meet or fall short on the standards you set for yourself?

How did you fare today?

Are your actions steering you forward or keeping you stationary?

Because after all, at the end of the day, you’ve got no-one but yourself to face.

Isn’t it?

[studiosonkind]

Two kinds of Advice Giving

If you’re anything like me, you’d know how repelling it is to be met with advice garbed as a command, an instruction manual. It’s hard to get people on your side by exercising an aggressive command & control dictum I think. To come at you with guns-blazing, wanting to force you into submission. That doesn’t seem to work on me.

I can never learn from lessons alone. Reading some warning and believe it? Nah, not a chance.

Don't date him? Watch me.

Don't buy that? Now I want it.

Don't touch that? Already did.

But here’s what I've learned. Advice doesn't have to be instructions for living. After all, every life is different. A warning from you might be limiting to me, and prove unneeded. But, but... good advice gives language to future feelings. When I do burn myself, I won't cry to the sky with confusion. I've already heard of this. My friend told me what it's called. I'm not alone in my pain and now I know. People have survived this and maybe now I should ask them how.

So when you're giving your perspective and your warnings to friends, think of it as labels for what may come. The naming of future feelings. And off they go, to feel.

[studiosonkind]

Voyage of Discovery

I’ve been reflecting on this Proust quote for quite some time now. What does it mean?

Looking at something with a new lens? Renewing our perception? Taking an alternate route to walk home? Knowing the history of your country and finding the good? Become an active member of the community rather than detesting it from afar? Maybe.

Prof. Huberman said it best.

“No country is perfect. No human being is perfect. Science certainly isn’t perfect, and like biology itself, freedom is a complex and ongoing process, not an event.”

🌪🧠🌻

[studiosonkind]

Shifting narrative = making room for building new experiences and nourish relationships

If I’ve learned anything, it’s that everyone has their own version of everything that’s ever happened. I always wanted to remember events as it being the other person’s fault and this realisation has been making me cringe lately. Because, it is easier for me to absolve myself from taking responsibility for the part I played in ‘what actually must’ve happened.’ I do this enough times for it to turn into my default setting for making everyone else responsible for how my life has turned out to be.

The ultimate high performer David Goggins says, ‘The most important conversations you have are the one’s you have with yourself.’ I wish this was a skill I was equipped with, because there ain’t anyone MORE critical of my work and actions than me. I mean, if we don’t stand guard at the door of our own mind, who will? Human’s are wired to draw drastic conclusions so that the brain can do it’s job to protect us, apparently. Science says it’s the most natural thing to think of worst case scenarios than the alternative because that’s how our ancestors learned to fend themselves. Well, we aren’t hunter-gatherers anymore and yet defying our biological instincts seem like the end of the world. For the longest time, my instant reaction to a friend not responding to my text or phone call was that she hates me or he clearly doesn’t care enough. I would try and measure each and every rejection I came across as a personal failure, a grave defeat. I have often discovered for myself that the reality was rather far from what I’d made it out to be. Wait, was it because I had framed one of these situations by defaulting to making myself the victim, the one that has been wronged? Most likely. This was subconscious, of course. But, seems so silly in hindsight.

There’s something psychoanalyst Lori Gottlieb and coach Tony Robbins have taught me. They say, ‘There’s no denying of what had taken place and what you went through but you’re out of it. You can either choose to empathise with that person, forgive and acknowledge that YOU aren’t them. You have an opportunity to learn from them by acknowledging you would try never doing what they did because you know better. You either get to love them by accepting them as they are or stay away deliberately. Remaining stuck has never done any good for the person in question or the people around him.’

I have been thinking about this. The meaning you assign to a story running in the crevices of your mind matters. Sometimes, more than anything because you often punish someone who isn’t even aware of why they’re being punished. It’s this act of constantly holding on to the past you have with someone and measuring all their actions since then to the standards of what they once did. I have been guilty of doing this and it hasn’t led me anywhere. Dismissing someone despite their best efforts to redeem themselves is a sure-shot way to sabotage relationships.

Reframing the narrative is everything. The causation of reframing and being done with how you choose to remember what had happened is the greatest thing you could do for yourself. It has been, for me. It’s so important to get done with what once happened because a) it doesn’t bother you anymore and b) you seldom or almost never focus and ruminate over what could’ve or should’ve happened.

Nothing in life is more liberating than this.

[studiosonkind]

Cog in a Wheel.

It has started to make sense now. The radical conservatives and traditional societies limit the books you read and what you watch. Places you visit. Dispensing all inquiry of any kind. They try to shame it, shun it and cut it out of existence. It’s the basic principle that if you let the mind see what’s possible then it makes its own choice.

Freedom of speech and inquiry are an obvious antithesis to a tyrannical doctrine.

Isn’t being dispassionate robots too big a price to pay?

[studiosonkind]

Listen; The answers lie within the act of listening.

What kind of listener are you? Listen to respond or listen to understand?

I find it especially hard to listen when I’m in disagreement with the person sitting across. It’s difficult to be in a situation of conflict. To sit with it rather than run from it. Acknowledge it, and work to resolve it. To find common ground. It’s the least we can do, and yet we don’t. I find it easier to avert my gaze and pretend that the problem will automatically dissolve upon ignoring it enough. Worst strategy. Ever.

I like to think of the territory of conflict/disagreement as a tricky terrain. It’s a path that requires us to stand our ground without defaming and denying someone else’s opinion. We load the barrel of our metaphorical gun, and shoot in two instances I’ve come to realise.

When we get defensive in pursuit of proving we are right about something.                                                     Or

When our existing point of view is shaken or challenged.

The eminent psychologist Jordan Peterson said, “You need to decide at some point in your life whether you’re in love with what you know or what you don’t know. People tend to be in love with what they don’t know because they don’t want to be shaken and challenged. Your ignorance outweighs your knowledge. So you should make friends with what you don’t know.”

I need to remind myself of this everyday. I need to become a better listener, because compassion doesn’t exist without it. How scary is that? If anyone has found a way of resolving conflict without partaking in it, please let me know?

I hate it when I get cut off mid-sentence or I see someone tune me out. Meanwhile, I find myself doing it often.

How dare I dispense someone to make any latitude of error? What would life be if we were all meant to be perfect all the time? Really boring, I imagine.

[studiosonkind]

GIVING is RECEIVING!!!

“Live life with an understanding that it is calling out for you to give, not get something.”

Tony Robbins

Almost everyone I revere and admire has said something along the lines of this quote. It’s almost overwhelming to finally realise how true and poignant this is. There’s no greater joy than being the reason for someone else’s growth, development and happiness.

They say, the more you give the more you get.

Having said that, it’s hard to toe the line between over deliverance and apathetic insignificance. I find it hard. Do you?

Having healthy boundaries vs spreading yourself too thin by taking care of everyone else’s needs.

It seems like a constant state of push and pull.

Mind vs heart.

Intuition vs logic.

[studiosonkind]

The Tidal waves of icky Feelings.

Numb it down. Numb it down, and sink with it like the titanic. It’s not like I didn’t know better but I habitually and almost unconsciously opted this route. I assume that’s the case with most of us? Also, how uncomfortable is it when you’re overwhelmed from feeling too much? I think my body decides on my behalf and runs from any discomforting feeling. I can’t find any other rational explanation for why my first instinct is to numb the feeling. Especially the overwhelming kind.

Sitting with it. Acknowledging it and witnessing it is still hard. The struggle is real but it’s worth it.

I am trying to teach myself to sit with discomfort. Witness the feeling without getting enveloped in it’s tidal waves.

Feeling and releasing.