Sara Khan is a well-known author of four books, but that’s one of her talents. Apart from being a writer, Sara also dons the hat of a book coach, life skills trainer, a ghost author, and The Happiness Trader.
Fondly addressed as Smiling Sakha by many of her readers, she is the recipient of India Young Achievers Award 2019 by Entrepreneur Live Network. Sara was named among the 100 Inspiring Authors of India by The Indian Awaz. She was honoured with Khateeb-e-Akbar Samman by Shia P.G. College. She was named Author of the Year 2019 and conferred Popular Author of the Year Award 2019 by The Spirit Mania.
Heena Mehta of Top Lead India managed to have a word with the author. Here are excerpts:
Q. You were successfully enjoying your stint as a media professional before donning the hat of a writer, so are you an author by chance or choice?
A. I began my career in writing in early 2008 while I was pursuing my Masters in Journalism and Mass Communication. I always intended to have a career in online journalism, which begins with writing. My stint as a media professional helped me in fulfilling my passion as a writer/editor. Writing a book had been always on my mind, which got accomplished in 2017; since then, there’s no looking back. I would say both – my career and passion – are my choices and, thankfully, they are interrelated!
Q. Why Smiling Sakha and what makes Smiling Sakha a writer with an exception?
A. I pen down emotions and weave them into words instead of writing mere words. Whenever I meet people they connect with my smile and friendly persona. Even my students treat me as their friend, instead of a trainer or a teacher. Also, if you decode my name the first two letters of Sara and first three letters of Khan when combined make Sakha. Therefore, I came up with my name that resonates with my personality – Smiling Sakha.
Q. How does your writing reach and teach those who suffer from mental health issues?
A. I never want to teach anyone. My intention is to educate people on living a life full of possibilities; through my writings, workshops, seminars, and webinars.
Q. Any unusual experience that you want to share with your readers?
A. Well, this is the irony. I keep sharing all my unusual experiences with my extended family (readers), so that they too know that I am one of them. Majority of people suffer from inside but they don’t prefer talking about what they go through. In my newly-launched book Embrace Your Fear, I have talked about fear that I have had throughout my life and how I handled them.
Q. What motivated you to write Embrace Your Fear, your newly-launched book?
A. Embrace Your Fear is my fourth book and, second from the series Wake Up Now Is The Time (#WUNITT). An array of events in my life and the simultaneous observations of my family, friends’ and my extended family’s (readers’) lives led me to write the book on fear.
People don’t talk openly about this particular emotion; I felt that this is high time we discuss this emotion in a ‘positive’ way. In this book I’ve talked how people can Face Everything And Rise (F.E.A.R.). It is said that when your intentions are right, you will make a path to success, that’s what happened. Veteran Bollywood actor Raza Murad has given foreword for this book and Avi Arya (Top 100 influencer in Asia), Kamalneet Singh (TEDx speaker), Actor Pavleen Gujral, Celebrity Chef Mujeeb-ur-Rehman, and more industry experts have shared their stories through the book Embrace Your Fear.
Q. What is this mission of impacting 10,000 lives by 2022?
A. I was invited at a university as a speaker in 2018. While interacting with one of the students, I discovered that he doesn’t know why he got enrolled in B. Com. The student lacked guidance. It was a defining moment for me. That is when I came up with a mission to impact 10,000 lives by 2022 and decided to work more with students. As a life skills trainer and peak performance coach, I have already impacted the lives of 6,000 students in Delhi NCR during 2019-20.
Q. Your advice to budding writers and upcoming authors?
A. People want to write and share their stories with the world but many of them have ‘what-others-will-think’ syndrome. For them, I just want to say that you have to start from somewhere. If you go unheard, people won’t get affected, but YOU WILL!
Great efforts.
Would like to have Embrace