This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing. If you know a leader whom you would like to see celebrated on the show, please send me a message on LinkedIn with their name.

In the interview, Sooraj shared his creative side as he also has a popular youtube channel where he makes web series and short films in the Malayalam Language. We also spoke about his transition from technology to sales, and how creativity is very important in sales as well as leadership.

You can find Sooraj at the below links

In the interview, Sooraj shares

  • when an opportunity comes to you, if you are hesitant to, uh, even attempt that you never know that’s what you are missing. 
  • I always enjoy solving problems instead of just doing for one company or one organization.
  • So we are, our YouTube channel is called we are a Sambhavan which stands for Awesome. So the motto is like, we are awesome. It’s not only us, but everybody in this world is, awesome. , that’s the kind of message you want to put across.
  • I used to write blogs a lot, so when blogs were popular long back when I was in Toronto so we. Same thing. I take this experience, uh, of my life and put that in a very,  comical way.
  • everything I have done in that video production is self-taught. YouTube is my group till now. So I go and uh, view stuff, you know, how to edit a video and how to shoot a video about lenses to use.
  • creativity and playfulness play in your journey as a leader, obviously like that in the communication conversations this skill, uh, really gives an advantage over, anything else. It becomes an icebreaker. 
  • creative person, which certainly creates curiosity on the other person.  in the business aspect, it helps in conversations. A beautiful conversation sometimes, and suddenly you hit with another person who says, I always wanted to be an actor.
  • every leader should be creative. If not, you want, because every, the problems you face on a day-to-day basis, you need creative solutions.
  • if you want your people to listen to you, you must first listen to your people then. You get into their life, you understand what they’re feeling, you know, their difficulties, their happiness.