Episode Transcript
Hello. My name is Aziz and I'm the son of a divorced mother. She's really my superhero.
That's why it's important for me to support women to share their uniqueness, their personalities,
perspectives and emotions. Too many women in this world feel alone. They worry about the judgment
of others and they struggle with their mental health. But when they listen to the Rare Girls
podcast where empowered women share their voices and tell their stories, many women will feel
inspired to live a life of freedom and to overcome all their insecurities, they will
feel supported to find their confidence to remember their unique beauty and to feel
their self-worth, and they will feel connected to a sisterhood of rare girls who encourage their
success and support their dreams. That's what this podcast is all about. My guest today is
Myka Fernandes Santos. Myka is a Brazilian girl from São Paulo. She left Brazil in 2011
to study in France. She started doing law and political sciences, but didn't really
like French law, so she changed her university and started a diploma of foreign languages.
After her bachelor's degree, she applied for a master's degree in translation and
after 11 years of life in France, she moved in January 2023 to Dubai, the United Arab Emirates,
to work. Micah loves traveling, meeting new people, exploring new cultures and places,
cooking, going out for drinks or dancing, as well as reading, listening to music,
and watching TV shows and movies. Micah, I'm so honored, I'm so happy, glad to have you here,
and how do you feel today?
Thank you so much for inviting me.
I feel great.
What about you?
I feel blessed.
I feel always lucky and always excited
about my future dreams and goals and plans and progresses.
And I'm curious about you as a woman and as a person.
So I'll begin with this nice first question,
which is, Micah, if your friends
and the people who know you best
could describe your personality,
What would they say about you?
Well, I think they will say that I'm a person who will always be there for them.
I like helping people and spending time with people.
I have a big heart, which can be also not so good because some of them sometimes tell me that I need to be more mean sometimes.
Besides that, they would say that I'm a warrior because I always try to, no matter what's happening,
even if I have problems, I will fall, but I will stand up and continue. So I think this is
the most important point they say about me. I love that. All those are very important. I
love that resilience, but I want to focus on something first because it's important.
Being a good person in this world is very valuable,
but like you said, if it gets you being abused,
sometimes some people will become jaded and put a wall.
But to me, what I believe and what keeps me that way
is if there are no more good people in this world,
I want to be the last good person
so that I prove to myself good people exist.
So it goes like that.
But to you, what keeps you with such a good open heart,
even if sometimes it gets broken.
So what is your advice as well to some women
who might think, oh no, I'm too good.
I should close myself and totally protect myself
because it's too painful to have a good heart.
I think it's sad because yeah, of course,
if you are too good to people,
you probably will have your heart broken
in a way or in another.
But I think everything we do,
it's like we are planting something.
So after a while we will have the blessings of it and we cannot change our true nature.
And I know that I don't even realize sometimes if I have someone that I know who's suffering
for something and I can help, I will not think twice and I will help.
And at the end, in my head, I'm not helping them to have something in return.
I'm just helping because it makes me feel happy to help people.
So I don't think changing and closing yourself 100% is good.
I just think you have to have a balance.
So you can help, but you cannot forget about yourself.
You need to put yourself first anyways.
I agree, 100%.
And I notice also you are mentioning
very, very important things,
but let's return to the point where you said,
every time you fall down, you stand up back again.
That specifically to me,
what motivates you to keep going,
to stand up rather than give up
when we live in a time
where too many people are depressed, literally,
because they gave up on many of their goals, their dreams.
They often become like zombies walking
who have forgotten the excitement
of persisting and keeping going.
Do you tell yourself some mantra?
Do you read the stories of other people
who had challenges and that inspires you to keep going?
Or how do you make yourself stand up again
when times are hard?
Well, I will not say that I never thought
about giving up. To be a lie, to be honest, especially this
last year was really complicated for me. So a lot of times I
didn't even have the courage or force to get up. But at the
end, I was feeling bad anyway. So you don't have any choice.
You can stay there forever, or you can try to make things
better. And I have also my parents and I don't want they
me let's say some strength and for me in one of my goals was to achieve my goals and have the work
I wanted and to be able to help my parents and be able to see them more often. So sometimes I just
woke up and I could feel that I was feeling bad or there was a lot of problems that I have
to deal with that I don't want it to but you just get up you don't think about it and you
just go straight to it.
And when you realize you are going to deal
and one step at a time,
you cannot try to do everything together
because you will be overwhelmed.
You have to pick important stuff
and little by little doing.
And then at the end, you will be able to do everything.
Thank you.
Micah, I'm sensing that people are very important
in your life, that it's one of the joys
for you to connect with people,
to spend time with people, as you mentioned.
And so I'll ask you, what is the most interesting, valuable,
exciting, fascinating thing for you about people?
Is it like you love that open-hearted connection
and you want to feel that you're not alone
and that you are understood and able to understand,
helped and able to help other people?
Is it different that you think people are a miracle?
They're full of so many stories,
so many exciting things, a full lifetime.
So that's how you grow by understanding other people or are you made that way?
And sometimes maybe you have motherly energy or something like that
that makes you feel that you want to be that person for others.
I noticed that for you, like an essential part of your life is people specifically.
So I'm trying to understand more.
Well, for me, there are two kinds of people, if I can say maybe more,
but there are people we will meet and maybe will be deceived.
They will not, and they will teach us something.
So we will learn with them
and they will not stay a long time with us.
And there are people that I think there is a connection
that sometimes you cannot explain.
As a love at first sight,
but like friendship at first sight, let's say,
I had a lot of person that I met
that it was as if we knew each other for years.
And I think that's the beauty of it also
because sometimes a person that you didn't expect it
would just arrive in your life and can help you
or make you look at things in another way.
And it's funny that you talk about the mother side
because let's say when I'm out with friends,
if I have a friend that's not feeling okay or something,
I will go and help all the time.
And some of my friends used to play and mock me
as I was the mama of the group, so, yeah.
I understand. And that's good to be a good person, no matter, like the jokes is a good thing.
And I noticed twice now, you spoke earlier that when you're a good person,
even if you get your heart broken, it returns to you, it comes back in a good way.
And now as well, you spoke almost about like friendly soulmates and chemistry and things like that.
Are you a spiritual person? What do you believe about how life works, about destiny?
do you believe there is no destiny, you create everything or that you're protected and you're
manifesting your destiny or what or maybe I don't know you're constantly every day reading your
tarot cards. What's your spiritual attitude as a person? I think everything happens for a reason
and I think I don't know if destiny because maybe things can change. When I arrived to
I was sticking to an idea and everything changed.
So it was not what I planned.
So I think what's supposed to happen to you will happen.
It doesn't matter if I wanted, let's say, to live in one country.
If it's not the right time, it will not happen.
And it will happen when I'll be ready.
So I really believe in that.
And you mentioned living in another country.
Well, now you recently moved to Dubai.
What motivated this?
Why did you choose it?
because to many people in the world,
actually they dream of France and let's say Paris,
and they think it's a very glamorous,
there is a lot of like cultural interest related.
So to you, is it simply work
or is there something about the culture,
the style of life there that interested you?
And how was adapting to Dubai?
To be 100% honest with you,
I never thought about Dubai.
I was in France and I was trying to renew my visa and the administration in France is super
complicated, especially when you study a lot in my case that I have a master's. So it was really
complicated. And I just had this opportunity that appears to me out of nowhere. I was not
looking for it. I was in France and I saw the message. I received a message on LinkedIn.
So, I saw that they were looking for a translator and at first, I thought it was a scam.
But I was in France and I said, why not let me send my CV and let's see what happens.
I passed four interviews and at the end, they wanted me to come here to work.
So when I compared the opportunity that I could have here and what was happening
in France, even if I was really afraid, I'm not going to lie, I was really afraid
to come.
Um, I came and, uh, when I arrived here, the first day I got here, I arrived here on nine
March around midnight 30.
And I was starting the nine March.
So I was really tired and the first day I was trying to understand how it worked,
seeing everything in Arabic and English, um, trying to understand all the accents.
But to be honest, I didn't have, it was not so complicated to adapt compared to
I arrived in France from Brazil. When I arrived in France from Brazil, it was really a shock.
I think because of winter, the cold, the way people are, and Brazilian, they are really
open-minded and friendly. So when I arrived here, I didn't have any shock, nothing
at all. I heard a lot of stories before coming, but it was not exactly how things
work here. And what I think it's really funny is my father, he told me after maybe
two or three weeks that I was here, he told me,
I can see that even your face changed.
We can see that you're feeling better
and everything is good now.
So it was an opportunity that appears to me
and I'm so happy that I went for it
because I think it was the blessing I was waiting for.
I'm proud of you.
I'm very, very happy for you that you did this.
And I noticed in the way you speak
that you're a visual and kinesthetic person.
And then I'm surprised that you don't do one of your hobbies as dance or painting or something artistic like that.
Is there a huge creative part of you or a part of you that likes to do things like dance, gymnastics, yoga or something like that?
I like to go to the gym and especially visiting, exploring.
I love traveling, so I can wait when I'll be able to travel again.
I want to visit Asia.
I think if I have to say and choose one hobby to be traveling and discovering places,
going to somewhere that we have a lot of nature, I think that would be the choice.
What's the most exciting about that for you going to a place with a lot of nature?
Is it that you love new emotions and discover something new? Is it open-mindedness that you
go there, you see how the people live and you notice, wow, whatever I thought in Brazil or
in France was the way things are is just one option and I can be free to be anything because
look these people live totally differently and it's normal for them? Or is it just a break
from the monotony because you get bored quite easily so you want some excitement or how does
at work? I think when you travel, you, you will see other stuff and you will change you
see life in another way. And it will open your mind also because you're going to see
another culture, another way to live. And you will see also that maybe what you think
it's right, it's not right for other people. And it also works. So I think everyone should
travel, should go to another place, other countries, not the same. For example, there
some people that they are born and they stay on the same city
forever and then don't even go, for example, to the capital of
their own country. And this is a shame, because traveling, you
can learn so much about people, cultures, everything.
Thank you. And you spoke about the culture shock of moving
from Sao Paulo to Paris. Well, Sao Paulo has like 20
million people. If you could compare life there in that busy city to Dubai, which is
also fast-paced, full of ambitious people, what are some different things? Because in
many, many ways, there are some similarities between Sao Paulo and Dubai and the way
that life is run.
Well, I actually, I went to Lyon, not really Paris. I never lived in Paris and I don't
more calm. But when I arrived here, Dubai remembers me a lot of
Sao Paulo because it's a big city. It's always on the move. I
lost like the, for example, in France, if it's Sunday, you
will not find a supermarket open. Now maybe yes, but
normally Sunday is a day that everything is closed. And here
it remembers me about Sao Paulo because it's a big city. It
never sleeps. If you want to do something, if you have to go somewhere, you will always
find somewhere to go. And maybe that's why also for me, it was easier because it remembers
a little bit of my home country. And I saw people are really friendly also, or at least
I was really blessed for the people I met since I arrived because they are really sweet
and they helped me a lot.
It's opposite from France.
At least when I arrived there, I was a little lost.
And even on work, people are really respectful.
They will listen to you.
So yeah, it's a really good experience for now.
Thank you.
And for you going through all those difficult times
as well in adapting to France,
and like you said, you fall down and stand up
every time. How did you go about finding your confidence? Because you are far away from your
family, like you said, you went to France, you didn't find the support structure. What did you
need to rely on in order to become stronger? And what's your advice for some women or even
girls who are still beginning and they feel a lot of social anxiety, they don't feel their
confidence in order to improve that and become stronger to go out of their comfort zone and
face the challenges to build their dreams.
Well, I think you need to give time because when I arrived in France in the beginning,
I had a really tough period also.
I also had a little depression there because I was alone.
There is a lot of things that happen, not really good things.
Um, but then you just get stronger because in a moment you will just wake up and you
say, okay, I'm done.
I don't want to feel like this anymore.
So little by little you will go and just start doing normal stuff.
But once I don't remember who told me that, or I saw on a video, I don't really remember,
but a person was saying, if you have that friend who has a problem or is not feeling
Confident you will never say to your friend. You're stupid. Why did you do this? You will talk to her with love
So why do you talk to yourself?
that way and
This really make me think because sometimes we will do something and we'll see say to ourselves. Oh my god, you're so stupid
Why did you do this? I never learned and we are so mean to ourselves and we shouldn't we should just give time and be
loving to ourself and
yeah step by step I think. Yes in the same way you have the motherly energy to your friends you
should have even more to yourself correct? Yeah. Thank you and to know even more about you because
I believe I can understand your personality more and everyone can when we know what you do on
your day off when you have a day off in an ideal world maybe now you sleep all day but
in an ideal world if you could you know when you have a day off what would you
to do within that in order to take care of your mental health, your body, your
emotions and feel, yes that was a day off, that was well worth it and recharge
me for more of the work. I think I'll probably go to the gym in the beginning
of the day and then going to the beach with friends or pool because we have a
saying in Brazil that we say when you swim on the beach you are
cleaning your soul. So you take everything bad and everything goes away.
And I don't know for me,
even listening to the waves is something that will really calm me down and I
will feel energized again. So yeah, probably for me,
a perfect day will be spending the day out on the beach and maybe at night
going somewhere or having fun with friends as my family is not here.
I cannot say that, but if my family was here, probably, yeah,
spending time with my family.
I understood that nature is very important to you. Even your travel, you want to go to a place with
nature. Well, Dubai has some, you can say some nature, but what kind of nature to enjoy there?
Or are you there living and dreaming of the next trip to some tropical place or a place that
is full of ocean as well as greenery and all the stuff like Thailand or somewhere in Asia?
because technically Dubai is Asia as well.
Well, here we have the beach.
So for me, this is really nice because I miss it a lot.
And in France, I couldn't go easily.
So here I can just go every weekend if I want.
I'm used to big cities as I come from Sao Paulo.
So it doesn't really bother me.
I know I have a friend that for him, he misses a lot nature.
But for me, it doesn't really bother me.
So, but yeah, I think when you're feeling
maybe not so good or something,
if you go for a walk and you have a park
or somewhere that you can go and there is nature,
maybe not everyone, but for me, it helps me a lot.
The peaceful of being somewhere.
Thank you.
And you spoke about this possibility to meet someone
and feel like you know them all your life,
that deep chemistry feeling.
What do you believe is different about those people? Is it that your souls are connected somehow?
It's not really about what is said. Is it maybe chemistry in the sense that you feel the right
vibe and small about emotions? Or is it more about their values, what they share, like your
family oriented, maybe their family oriented, and things like that? Like if you could determine
the deeper thing when you're feeling that. What could it be?
And how would you describe that experience?
Because it can give also a lot of hope to many girls who have social
anxiety that they don't have to be perfect,
but it's more about the right person meeting them.
And things will be much, much easier rather than difficult.
If it is difficult, they're probably not the right person.
So I don't think we can think about people being perfect because
no one is perfect. So you will find people that maybe will have
some characteristic that you will not like, but it's more
about how the person makes you feel and more about you being
also understandable about the person. When I met those
friends that for me, it was a connection. They were really
similar to me, I think the same vibe as me. So genuine
people who will talk to you in a genuine way, and they
be really happy for you with your achievements and this is not so easy to find today. And I really
believe, even if it's hard, sometimes it's better to be alone instead of having someone in your
life who is jealous of you, who is not happy for your achievements. So it's just a question to
love yourself first, be strong. And being a woman, I think we have all those images,
but start doing little things alone. For me, before I wasn't able to do nothing alone,
not even go to a movie or a theater. And I know it's difficult, but if I could give an advice
for all women in the world is go for it. Even if you don't feel, little by little.
I remember the first time I went to a theater alone and I felt so free after. In the beginning,
I was really stressed. And if you start doing those kinds of stuff, you will feel better about
yourself. And I think that's the first step. And then you meet people, maybe work. Sometimes,
even if you're going out with friends, you can meet genuine people also.
I agree very, very much, Micah.
It was my privilege and my honor to interview you for this podcast, to share your voice.
Thank you for participating.
I wish you all the success and like your family said, your face looks happier when
you are in this new environment.
So I wish you even more evolution, happiness, all of the right people, and to make all
of your dreams come true.
Thank you so much and thank you for inviting me.
