Episode Transcript
Hello, my name is Aziz and I'm the son of a divorced mother. She is really my superhero.
That's why it's important for me to support women to share their uniqueness, their personalities,
perspectives, and emotions about this world. In these difficult times in human history,
we need to bring the people of the world together. And when we hear the voices of women, when
we listen to real lives of women from other countries, we connect our cultures without
differences or stereotypes and we get inspired by their stories to live a better life. That's
what this podcast is all about. My guest today is Simona Scarlett. Simona is from Romania.
She works as a fraud analyst and she loves photography, writing short stories on her
blog, collecting vinyls, and she adores art very, very much. Simona, how are you today?
Hello, Aziz. First of all, thank you for this opportunity. And I'm very happy to participate
into this podcast. Today I'm feeling very good, relaxed. It's a good Sunday.
I'm happy and honored to have you here and very curious to discover even more about you
as a person to have a great conversation about life, art, the world, and the universe. And
I'll begin with this nice first question about you. If your friends and the people who know
you best could describe your personality, what would they say about you?
Well, I think first thing that my friends would say about me, it will be that I'm a
funny person. I really like to make a lot of jokes to see the funny part in each situation.
And I like to tell a lot of stories and most of my stories are very, very funny. I try
to find this comic in everything. Also, a lot of friends say that I'm a unique person.
I have a unique style of dressing, of living somehow, because I try to be very free all
the time. So yeah, I think these are the major points.
Thank you. And usually someone will say, oh, tell a funny story or whatever, because they're
uninspired. But what I'm really curious about is something else. It's about understanding
you as a woman. And how can this inspire other women to be more funny, more free all the
time? And therefore, I'll begin with this, about finding the humor and the funny in everything.
Is it something that you always had? Or did you train yourself to do it? How does it work?
Do you have a constant question in your mind? What is funny in this? And that is your approach?
Or is it like channeling, like you're almost meditative or in trance and it just comes
to you, the idea for something funny and you say it? Tell me more about the process inside
you as a person that allows the funny to be created while 99% of people don't have the
same approach.
First of all, I think this thing comes from my mother because she has this talent or I
don't know how to call it, but even if it's a sad situation, something not so good happened.
When she's telling these stories, she's bringing something funny. And of course, like in every
family, we had some small issues during the time, some small problems. And I think that
we tried to see also the funny part of things, not to get so deep into these problems. And
I don't know, while growing up, I started to find these things like it's something happening.
Maybe it's a small problem. We have a small issue, but also it's a funny side. And also
I realized that the problems and everything that's happening and is not so good, not such
a good light, it has an end. It's not like forever. So I try to see the life in a positive
way. And this is how I managed to see funny things in everything. And it helps me a lot.
This is really, really interesting. And I'm curious about two related things. Why is it
important for you to be funny? And is being funny more for yourself so that you don't
have like a painful and negative life? Or is it more because like you spoke about your
mother to give other people a good emotion? It's more about serving other people or making
their day and time better rather than for yourself personally?
I think both things apply. First, I have this talent to see funny things for me. It helps
me a lot. It's making me feel better, solving the issues easier. As I said, first it's for
myself. And then I like to bring good energy when I'm surrounded by people. And I do have
a lot of friends and I'm a social person. And I like to spend time with a lot of people.
So I really like to bring good vibes wherever I am.
Thank you. Are you a very sensitive person who feels emotions, especially negative ones,
very, very deeply?
Yes, I am. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing. But yes, I'm not all the time,
but most of the time I'm very sensitive. And I feel all the emotions, even if they are
good or bad, I feel them very strong.
Thank you. So is joking a way to kind of reduce the pain and the negativity of any negative
emotions so that they don't touch too deeply? Is this like a possible possibility?
Yes, it is indeed. I can say this. It's like, I don't know if coping mechanism is a good
way to describe this, but it helps.
Thank you. And as a person who feels things deeply and is sensitive to emotions, I can
see how you appreciate art. And I'm curious to know, how do you experience an art piece?
Do you see it and it reminds you of previous situations that are triggered by that and
you get there, you imagine yourself there and feel the emotion? Or is it when you see
it, you just feel it in a way that is unique and deep and therefore art is a way to trigger
a kind of an emotional experience and creates new emotions and new emotional adventures
within you? Or is it because you appreciate the creativity, the craftsmanship, the work
and energy of the person and you think, wow, they have created something unexpected and
it's more logical, like an art critic? Or how do you experience a piece of art that
makes you adore and love art in a way that maybe some people don't?
First of all, I find myself in many pieces of art, like in a page or in a movie or a
song or some art installation or something. I find myself most of the times or pieces
of art are making me feel some emotions, some strong emotions. But on the other hand, I
appreciate a lot the work of the artist. Since I was a kid, I was into this. I like to discover
new things. I went to the museums. So yes, it works in both ways.
That's really, really interesting. I would like to explore more about finding yourself.
But first, is writing, like, is it in a way, and I remember there is a movie about Pablo
Picasso where, for example, in a day where he will choose to create a piece of art based
on green, he will go into the forest, fill himself with all the green colors, and then
he will have an emotional charge that is focused on green, and he will go express it on the
canvas. Is art, photography, all those things, a way to give you emotion and then you're
full of that and you express it in your writing and in your blog? Or how is the process for
you?
The writing process, it's a very important one for me. First, I use writing as a therapy,
as a form of therapy, and I feel more released after I'm writing. Sometimes I use my experiences
and I had a lot of experiences, very unique, very interesting, and I tried to put them
into words. Sometimes I write about, I also like to write fiction, so I just let my imagination
go with the flow. But the most important is like therapy. And of course, I get inspiration
from all the places, people I met, places I've been, maybe sometimes going to a museum,
seeing some nice pieces of art made to inspire me to write something.
Thank you. And I'm speaking to you, I'm feeling that you're a sensitive, very creative, artistic
person. How does this mix with being working, you know, your work in fraud analysis? What
was the idea behind it? Is it to you something that you chose maybe when you were studying
because you thought, well, it's a stable and unique job and so I can have a roof over my
head rather than being a struggling artist? Or how do you find yourself and express yourself
and find that artistic side when it comes to your job? Do you or how does it work?
Well, this is very interesting question. Actually, I'm very into fraud. I like a lot this field
and I do love my job. I'm very happy that I managed to arrive in this point in my career
and it's like having both sides. This very analytical and very technical, I can say.
It's a lot of investigations to be done and I feel very, very comfortable doing this.
But also is the other side of my personality that's very dreamy, into art, into beautiful
things. So they work very well together until now, I can say.
Thank you. That's interesting. And I can see how you said your friends find you to be a
very unique person. I would like to explore that and speak about freedom. Are you some
like what does freedom mean to you? Are you someone that if you feel any restrictions
from anybody, it's almost like a prison or suffocating. So you're resistant in a way
and you only do what gives you freedom because you feel alive. Is freedom to you another
thing which is expressing your uniqueness and not being mainstream and similar to everybody?
Or how do you define your uniqueness? How do you find it? And to women and girls who
might not feel confident enough to live their freedom and uniqueness, what could be your
advice or what did you do?
First advice would be to love ourselves. Of course, during the time I had some struggles,
I was not loving myself so much. I was not feeling very good in my own skin. So I was
not all the time like this, super confident. But I started to learn how to love myself,
how to accept myself. I realized that each person is unique. We don't have to compare
with other people. We are who we are created by our experiences, by the family we were
born in. Everything makes us being unique. So we have to trust ourselves more to be confident
with ourselves.
Thank you. And I agree that you have to trust yourself, to love yourself, to be confident.
But it's more easy to say than to do. What would be a process for you? Imagine you could
go back to your teenage years, give advice to you to become a strong, confident woman.
What are things you could do? Is it to look yourself in the mirror and say affirmations
and love yourself? Is it to delete all social media so that you don't compare yourself to
others? Is it to not let in your life any toxic people and only good vibes? Or what
would be some things that if you could give advice to your younger self would create faster
and sooner the version of you that is confident, that is able to be free to love and trust
yourself?
I think the most important affirmation would be that you are worth it. You are enough and
you are a very special person. Of course, when I was a teenager, I was not able to say
these things to myself, but I think this is the most important thing to try to learn how
to accept ourselves. We don't have to be in a standard. Those beauty standards are not
for real. Of course, it's hard sometimes because the society sometimes makes you feel like
I have to be in a different way. Or we have some examples on the TV or on social media
that can make us feel complexed or something like this. But I think in the end, loving
ourselves, this is the most important thing.
Thank you. And as a Romanian woman in 2023, maybe some people have not visited Romania,
they don't know the women, the culture and all that. If you could describe the uniqueness
of Romania, the Romanian culture, the state of women and their ability in tech or anywhere
else to be free to do what they want, what would you say?
Romania, it's a good place to live, even if maybe it's not the best country in the world,
but it's a very nice place to be. And I can say that until now, we have this freedom to
be ourselves. I had the chance to meet a lot of beautiful women making nice activities
with a lot of interesting hobbies, passions. I had the chance to meet a lot of women with
a unique fashion style with these things that are very, very unique. I lived in Spain for
four years and I came back to Romania in 2019. And since then, I'm meeting all the time beautiful
women, very special women. I surrounded myself with this type of women. So I think it's a
good place to be. We can be free in our uniqueness, or at least this is how I feel.
Thank you. That's really empowering. And I love that answer. And to ask something related
to what we spoke about before, but it's different. You have your own writing in your blog. Many
people, many women in general, maybe love to write or to create art, but they worry
about the judgment of others. They don't want to post in a blog because they think, what
if someone writes a negative comment and it hurts me and then I cannot deal with that.
How do you overcome it? How do you have the ability to click publish and create your work
and put it in public? Well, we live in a time where it seems when people are online, they
feel a lot more able and willing to write any comments without caring about how it makes
people feel. Well, this is a very good question and coming back a little bit to my last answer.
Of course, there is also, I can say, a dark side of the society where, as I said, in Romania,
I think we have the chance to be free, but at the same time also it is this possibility
to receive a lot of negative feedback from people, some mean comments and everything.
This exists also. It's not something that is not real. And of course, social media,
I think it's a perfect place to receive also negative feedback. But in the end, I think
that in each area we perform everything we do, we will receive positive and negative
feedback at the same time. And it would be impossible to remove all the negative feedback
from our lives. But sometimes, for me, it's important to think that some people are not
really mean, but maybe they have some problems, they have their own issues, struggles in life.
All the time we will receive positive and also negative feedback. So sometimes it's
better to accept this, that it is possible to receive a negative feedback, but we don't
have to take it personally all the time. And this is it. Thank you, Simona. It was my privilege
and my honor to include you in this project, in this podcast, and to finish this. In the
beginning of 2023, it's always a period to rethink about life, to think about priorities.
What are some lessons that you want to have and implement more in your life in 2023 or
things you want to make sure that you do to live better, that maybe you can share with
everyone so that they get inspired by your thoughts?
Well, first of all, I like to improve this thing, to be more organized, because as I
have a lot of passion, sometimes I get distracted and I'm not so organized. And this is very
important. I saw how important it is to be organized. Second of all, if we want to start
doing something or to do more things, maybe we have more ideas, we have to take it easy
step by step, baby steps, and not to put pressure on ourselves.
Thank you so much, Simona. I am so happy we have had this conversation. I wish you success
in this year. I wish you balance all the art and the expression and the emotions you can
handle and thank you again.
Thank you also. It was very nice to participate in this. I'm very happy about it. Nice to
meet you, Wazis. I think you are doing a great job.
