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 about life.
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 overcome
all insecurities.
They will feel it is a safe space to find their confidence, to remember their unique
beauty and to feel their self-worth.
And they will connect with the sisterhood of rare girls who encourage their success
and support their dreams.
That's what this podcast is all about.
My guest today is Valeria Nabieva.
Valeria is a 27-year-old girl from Kyrgyzstan who works as an information technology project
manager in an American IT company and she's very passionate about it.
Valeria loves traveling, playing tennis, skiing, and reading books.
Piano is her meditation, not only her hobby.
She is married and trying to keep balance in all fields of her life.
Valeria, how are you today?
I'm great. Thank you very much.
Thank you for your invitation. What about you?
I feel blessed. I feel very positive
and absolutely curious to know much more about you as a person and as a woman.
So I'll begin with this nice first question, which is
Valeria, if your friends and the people who love you
and know you well could describe your personality,
what would they say about you?
Well, the things that I hear most frequently
from my friends, colleagues, acquaintances
are that I motivate some of them a lot.
I have some good leadership skills.
Sometimes I'm over-responsible
and I guess they would say that I can trust me.
I love that. You said sometimes they say you're overly responsible. Can you explain that a bit more?
You know, I have previously I had a syndrome of being an excellent pupil. You know,
when you try to be excellent in everything that you do, to do it in a proper way,
when you work on like satisfying other people, making them happy instead of being happy yourself.
But I can say that I have overcome this part, but in some cases, I still stay responsible.
So when I do something, I do my best, even if I'm tired, to reach the goal, to finish
my work.
And sometimes my friends tell me like, oh my God, just have a rest and stay relaxed.
And that's enough.
I understand.
I love that.
and there are many women who struggle with being people pleasers and what you said that you are
overcoming and have already did a lot of progress on. Can you share your journey and how were you
able to get stronger in this area so that other women might get inspired and know a bit more about
it? You know, I can say that I remember clearly what was the main fact that inspired me to
But when I was a student, I suddenly realized that I always working on really satisfying other people instead of thinking about myself.
And there were such situations when, for example, I start doing something and friends of mine were laughing at me and saying, why are you doing this?
like it's not worse.
For example, when I was a student,
I participated in volunteering project
and some social international projects
and some of my friends were telling me like,
why are you spending so much time on this?
You are not paid, you're attired after this.
But at that moment I realized like,
why do I have to listen to them?
I have my own opinion and I want to keep on doing what I want, really.
But of course, it didn't happen suddenly to me.
It's a big work and it's a very long journey to think in this way.
First of all, when I realized it first time, I accepted that I have a problem.
And then I started analyzing the reasons.
and as usual, most of our reasons come from our childhood, so I started working on this part.
It took me a lot of time and I think that I still have sometimes this problem. I still like
fighting with this, but it is much better right now. I understand and I'm proud of you. And
Also about piano, I want to understand the other part,
because usually if people see you
as being overly responsible, they think you're serious.
Maybe you don't show too much emotion sometimes,
but piano is for people who flow
with emotions who are sensitive.
Can you tell me a bit more about that?
Whether piano is the way for you
to connect with your emotions,
maybe life makes you logical too much,
or it's a mental health kind of meditation,
or how does it work for you? Yeah, for me definitely piano is more likely meditation
because when I felt stressed in some situations at my job and I shared it with my friends,
they started suggesting me to start meditating like you know classical meditation. I tried
many times and for me it didn't work. I can just you know sit and meditating without thinking
about anything. Like million thoughts come to my mind and I can't relax. And then I started
searching for a hobby which will help me like to feel the emotions, to stay calm, to forget about
the problems. And finally, I found out the playing piano process. And I realized that
when playing piano, I'm so much focused on the process that I forget about everything else.
and it helps me a lot. Thank you. And to understand a bit more about you as a woman from Kyrgyzstan
who works in an American IT company. First, like were you already having a lot of American
culture within you because of watching Hollywood and watching TV and YouTube? So that was
something that you found it easy to adapt or did you find some kind of differences between
culture you grew up in, which is Kyrgyzstan, and maybe the work culture when you are working within
a team that could be not only from Kyrgyzstan? I can say that I faced so many difficulties
during the working process because when I was a student I already participated in some international
projects. I lived abroad and I got acquainted with different students from all over the world.
At that moment, it was difficult for me to adapt, but it helped me when I started building my career.
And in general, you know, we all watch different American movies.
We know everything about their culture.
So it wasn't they were they were in some unexpected things for me.
Thank you for that. And you are married.
You're trying to find balance.
often it is said if you don't put 100% in your relationship, it becomes hard to manage. And so
if you're working and you're having your marriage, just in general, do you believe that there are
many things like you might have work duties, needing to work overtime, family emergencies
with your parents, etc. that are sometimes a distraction from focusing on your relationship?
And what do you do in order to find that balance so that you give it the nutrition
and like a plant and a flower, you give it the water so that it stays beautiful and alive?
You know, I noticed that the more things you do, the more hobbies you have, the more busy you are
with different things, the more energy you gain. And for example, when playing tennis, yes,
I am getting tired physically but I gained some energy for my mental health. So this helps me to
use this energy for example in my private life. Then I use the emotions that I get like in my
private life and I use it in my professional career. This helps me a lot and in general what
I can suggest to girls is of course the main secret is finding the right partner who will
your point of view, who will support you, and in general, it's good when you
surround yourself with the people who believe in you, who share your point of
view, who can say, hey, I support, I'm going to support you, you are the best
one, you're going to achieve it and everything be okay. I like that and it
shows that you have a lot of confidence and the vision. Maybe to
many women and girls who grew up in a situation where they were living
other people's vision and expectation, maybe it's their parents or girls who grew up in the pandemic
and they didn't really have much of a life, how can they develop their confidence so that they
know what they want and therefore they can choose the right partner because they know
what they want so that they choose the right career and they feel they are living their life
not a copy of someone else? You know, as I said previously according like I'm not a professional
on this field, like to give professional advices,
but I can rely on my personal experience.
First of all, you need to accept that you have a problem.
Then I get that the second step is just analyzing
the reasons in order to work on them.
And I would say that it's not easy.
It's a very long journey to overcome it.
If I say to you, just like, hey girls,
just change your mind and tomorrow you will be happy
in a different person, it's not true.
You need to understand that you need to work a lot on improving yourself.
If you can do it independently, you can go to the professional, to the psychologist who can help you to analyze and overcome some problems.
And the third thing is, as I said also, you need to surround yourself with the people who can support you.
I know that some girls doesn't have such people in their circle, and my suggestion would be
find the community which is right for you.
We are living in the 21st century and there are a lot of opportunities for women.
Different projects, amazing projects like yours, for example, Aziz.
Even listening to the podcast may help them because when women join the communities,
They can understand that there are other women who have the main problems,
they can share it, they can share the solution and you can get support from there as well.
I agree 100% and that's very important and an important mission for this project.
And you're a very active woman, you are taking care of your partner in marriage,
you're taking care of your work, you love skiing, playing the piano, reading books, all that.
How do you have so much energy?
How do you gain and cultivate so much energy,
especially in a time where a lot of people,
maybe they don't really love their work.
So they work and then at the end of the day,
they're like, I'm too exhausted.
I'm just gonna nap and then watch a TV series
or something.
So how can they have that much energy
so that their day doesn't feel like all day
they worked and then they sleep without having a life?
First of all, my suggestion would be
have a word that you love. That is the secret number one, because when you love some doing
something, it won't be for you as a punishment to do it. It would be vice versa. You will
have a great desire to do it day by day. I already mentioned it that I think the
main secret of having so much energy is the fact that I have different hobbies.
Because when doing something, I, as I already said, I gather energy and to use it, and I can use it like in another field. And that's great for me.
Thank you. And there could be women who are listening, who want to become project managers. For you, how is that work really?
What do you do and how much is it about humans and like taking care of, talking with, knowing other people?
How much is it logical?
How much is it something that is both connecting
your feminine side and energy
and your masculine and purposeful energy?
How does it work?
So first of all, I would like to say that previously
when I was a student,
I didn't get education in information technology field.
And I was also supporting the stereotype
that information technology is not for women.
It's something very difficult, logical.
And if you are a communicative person,
you will never be able to build career in this field.
But then like one day I was a project manager
in a social and business project
and I initialized a project about the automation processes.
That's how I dived into this sphere.
I tried my skills and then I realized,
oh no, even communicative people
also can build a career in this field.
And about the profession, project manager in IT sector is a person who helps other team members to achieve their goals,
starting from initializing the idea and finishing with full execution and support.
I can say that this profession combines communicative skills, some leadership skills,
but at the same time you need to be able to plan,
to think strategically, to build business processes.
And sometimes even my perfectionism helps me
to solve a lot of problems in my job.
Great, and you live in Kyrgyzstan,
you're working online,
you could have spent some time traveling the world,
maybe trying to live in Bali with your husband
or in India, or at least taking a break that you can spend as a digital nomad for three months.
Tell me a bit more why you're choosing to stay in Kyrgyzstan, while some other people might choose
to just go somewhere else, as well as, if you could, I know you love your country, live anywhere
on the planet, where would you choose to live? Good question. I think that the main reason is
that my parents are here and they want to stay like near to them in order to help them to spend some time with them because for me like family is very important for me and for my husband as well.
Sometimes we live in different countries, but not for a long period of time, we travel a lot.
But I don't know maybe in the future we will take decision to move to another country.
it could happen. But for now, I'm okay. I like my country. Yes, I agree, we have some
maybe problems in the society and so on. But I think that instead of leaving the country,
you need to do your best to solve these problems and to make some contribution to
your society. And maybe for some period of time, maybe I would live in Bali, I guess,
because there are a lot of interesting people.
They have like very great nature.
Thank you.
Yes, I can imagine you enjoying those beach kind of energies
and waves while you're doing your project management.
And it gives you a lot of energy to do all your hobbies.
So it will be absolutely great.
And to finish this, is there any advice or lesson
or idea that you think if more women remembered
or thought of, they can live their life happier, better, in a way that even for yourself you
want to remember as well.
Don't have a fear of failure.
If you want to try something new, to start something new, just do it.
Yes, you may make some mistakes.
It's okay, but you will learn the lessons and you can learn, you can use the lessons
you gained in the future and become more happier.
It is better because otherwise you may close your eyes,
and when opening them,
you can realize that you are an old person who has
a lot of regrets because of not doing something that you wanted.
Just do it without any procrastinating, postponing your desire.
Thank you so much, Valeria.
It was my privilege and my honor to hear your voice,
to share your perspective.
I wish you all the success with your husband,
all the connection with your family,
all the hobbies and energy,
and thank you again for participating.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for such a great opportunity.
