Meet Shumaila Kidwai

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Shumaila Kidwai. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Shumaila, so happy you were able to devote some time to sharing your thoughts and wisdom with our community. So, we’ve always admired how you have seemingly never let nay-sayers or haters keep you down. Can you talk to us about how to persist despite the negative energy that so often is thrown at folks trying to do something special with their lives?

I believe in the saying ” where there is a will, there is a way” and that’s a motto I live by so anything I want to do or look forward to doing perhaps leads me to figure it out as I go despite judgment from people. Obviously, when you’re trying to achieve a goal not many people would believe in you or provide the help and guidance to get you there. People sometimes tend to look from a limited belief system when it comes to seeing other people grow and that comes from a place of internal conflict rather than envy towards you. It pushes them to level up and that can be an intimidating outlook of their own choices and life. The truth is, no matter what you want to achieve in life whether it’s through work or personal relationships you just have to focus on your own path and push yourself. The competition is never other people, it’s always you and your own habits and comfort levels. Take risks in everything and see where it actually takes you. You either lose or you win but so what??? I have had several pauses in my life due to some other environmental factors but I still keep going with the belief that I have to find a way to achieve what I want to.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

My story is a cluster of experiences and a lot of moving and traveling but despite that showing up with a solution oriented mindset. I always intend to complete my goals even if they have to pause for a little bit or be delayed due to extraneous factors. This coming year, I intend to focus on growing my photography page mainly. I always had a thing for working for myself rather than working for others. I come from a family of educationalists who are highly qualified and doing very well in their careers and I always looked up to them as people that inspire me but also, I always wanted something of my own that allows me the liberty to work around my schedule and life. Being the youngest, you always have that drive in you to either succeed in your personal life or your career so you can be seen and heard just the same as the others in the family which is why I want to focus on my photography and social media agency. I always wanted people to feel good about themselves and whenever I would go out and look at things I would look at the aesthetics and beauty of things which is what I want to capture through my lens. It’s the little details and nuances you see when you’re going about life. The focus is to bring what I see to you- the people!

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Hmm wonderful questions. The three qualities that were impactful in my journey was resilience, adaptability and patience. When you want to do something that challenges the usual expectations of you, you have to build a lot of resilience to overcome your own belief system, limited thought process and most importantly the drive to succeed (whatever success may be to you) despite continuous hurdles. If you can learn to fail, you have to learn to win too. Failure will teach you so much more about your own self and build your character. Sometimes it’s not about the goal but about the journey to it. This also coincides with building the patience for everything. The patience for people, the patience to build something beautiful & the patience to tolerate whatever happens in between and for that you need to be adaptable to your own circumstances and the challenges of the world. You have to be okay with knowing that this is your journey and yours alone and it has nothing to do with what people have to say or do in order to create your narrative of that journey. In conclusion, build patience first, then be adaptable and then that will build your resilience to keep pushing forward.

Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?

I would say the biggest example would be my oldest brother “Dr. Shahroz Kidwai”. His journey inspired me to know that moving forward is a lot of hard work and he is living proof of what success can look like without the help of others but the resilience and patience of your own work ethic and goals. He’s somebody who honed his skills and knowledge and belief in something and turned it into living proof of what success is! He’s taught me so much about and has been there with me when I had difficult emotions and life issues. He picked me up and taught me to keep going and played a huge role in reminding me what life really is. He’s somebody I truly owe alot to and one day I hope in any way possible I can give back to him for being the stone who holds the family together and is able to teach me what I deserve in my life.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shutograph/
• Other: https://www.instagram.com/shumailayyyyy

Image Credits

All from my instagram pages.