Episode Transcript
Hello, my name is Aziz and I'm the son of a divorce 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 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 to 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 Grace David. Grace is a model living in Dubai and growing her own business. and raised in the north of Nigeria. She enjoys running, dancing and travel. Grace, how are you today? I'm fine. My day was good today and it was really hot today in Dubai. I can imagine I escaped the Dubai heat to Europe in the summer so I'm enjoying much better weather and I'm very happy to know much more about you Grace and I will begin with this nice first question which is if your friends could describe your personality what would they say about you? They will say a lot of things about me. Curse number one, I'm in nice place because they only say that to me so two, I don't take nonsense from people so it's kind of different so three, it can be They know I love dancing, I love smiling, I love to make people happy, to see people getting great in life, to see people doing what they want to do. I give them advice like, "When you're going down, no, don't do that. You have to do this." They know me with that kind of attitude, so I don't involve myself in where I don't supposed to be. They know me very well, like, "I like to stay on my lane, like, stay on my own. I'm a good person." So they really know me like that way, but they know I don't take shit for people. Great. I love this. There are many women who struggle with being people pleasers. So if they are nice, they will sacrifice themselves by saying yes, even if they don't want to to people. What allows you to be strong enough to take no shit from nobody and to say no or say your opinion? And what's your advice to those women who maybe will have their opinion inside, but they will not say it because they don't want to hurt people's feelings or they feel, oh, I will offend them. My parents told me what will people think? I shouldn't talk too much. No, the better is for you to say it out to the person, to the person to know what is how you feel. You understand? So the advice I would give to women outside there, when you are into something that you know, you can do it and you want to please someone do it. That's not good. Just be on yourself. Don't please people because when you please them at the end of the day, no one will please you too. So it's better for you to tell them, look, I can do this. I can do this. This is what I want to do. And if you can take it fine, you check some of your ex. Just be bold. Just be honest to people and just be sincere. Just be truthful to them. So don't hide your feelings because of you want to please someone because it will doom you when you want to please someone. Because what you want to do, you can't able to do it because of the person you are pleasing. It's better you do it for us. If you have it, you can give it to the person. If you don't have it, you say, look, I don't have it. Maybe next time when I have, I will try to ask you if you still need it or not. That was the kind of person I am. - 100%. I like that. And it seems that you know more about what you like, what you don't like about yourself. There are many people and women in this world who maybe they lived life according to other people's expectations to their parents. So they don't know what they like, what they don't like. And that's why it's hard for them to say no or yes or anything like that. And even if they try to know it, they're not sure. They're like, do I really want this? Or is it because my mother told me when I was a little girl or I saw it in Instagram or I read it in a story or I watched it in a romantic movie? How do you know yourself? How do you know what you really, really want and what other people told you that you should want? And what is your advice for other women to connect to their real true self? - Yeah, what you really want is number one, you should just be on yourself first. Don't look at what is on the social media, see what someone is doing. You think, "Oh, don't do that." Just do your own thing. It's been, I'm the kind of person I do my own thing. I don't care what someone is doing. But when I see you doing it wrong, I will correct you from that aspect. But what someone want, if you want to know what you want, just take your eyes off the material since that is in the world first, and focus on your life, focus on what you want in this life. Focus on, okay, when I was small, this is what I always said I want to be in life. So let me work very hard to get there. So you have to give yourself some time, because sometimes I sit down, I think about my life, I say, look, this is what I want. and this is what I want to get. I don't want anyone to deceive me like, you don't have to get this, it's not for you. Because I don't believe on people saying this to me. Because when he's wrong, I know when he's wrong, I know when he's right. When I was small, my mom used to tell me, "Do this, do that." Yeah, we used to take the advice from them because I grew up in the background of nine, like my mom was very poor, we are nine in number. So I have to drop out for my sisters to continue their education. So I work very hard, I walk in the streets, I do everything to make sure we eat something. So for me growing up, I feel that is a challenge is for me to be strong in life. Is for me to be focused on what I really want to do because I don't want my own kids to get to that extent. So it's better for me to work hard for them when they grow up, they will see where to call their home. They will see where to get their own places. like understand from my own side, like their mom. My mom suffered a lot, but now I love the way my mom treats us like you have to, how am I going to say it? You have to, sometimes you sit down, you just try to talk to yourself and know what you want in life. If you, because when you ask this, you ask the third party, you ask the fourth party, you'll be confused. You'll be a confused woman. Like this said different things to me. this one's a different word, what one will I accept from among the three of them? So you don't know what to do because you are not a confused person. It's better you go to where people like someone that have experience of what you really want. You ask, look, how come you get to this extent that that's the kind of person I am? When I see someone growing up, I love it a lot. I would say, how come you get to this point? I just wanna know. Then we, then, oh, I did this, I did this, but it's really hard. I say, can I able to try if I can try, if I can get to that esteem? They will say, yeah, sure. Of course, but you would have, you would take some time. I say, no problem. If you really know what you want, don't ask this, ask this, ask this. Just focus on someone that have the knowledge and have the, that's very smart. And that's like, when you have patina, you can see this cost to the patina. It's not good to be telling your friend, oh, I want this, I want this. Look at your show media. No, that is not a good idea for you know what you want. So know what you want, you have to ask your partner. If you're married, ask your partner. Thank you. I love that. And I want to know even more that you're sharing your perspective, experience, and wisdom. There are many women who are comparing themselves to how other women look and they feel ugly. They don't love how they are because, again, in Instagram or even more, you as a model, there are other when you go to a casting, it's full of models. So you're comparing yourself to them, how do you take care of your mental health so that you don't feel ugly or less than them and you see your unique beauty and have confidence in that and how can, what's your advice to other women, even teenage girls who are constantly comparing themselves and feeling not pretty because they see photoshopped pictures of women on Instagram? Yeah. Oh, the advice for me for me to them is don't compare yourself with person, because you compare yourself with other person, maybe the person don't know anything you know more than the person, your face, the way God creates you God did not make a mistake before sorry, I've make you stay so she's good. Before God created, he did not make a mistake when he created you before your mom give back to you. She didn't make any mistakes. So why you compare yourself to someone that have different nose, different mouth, like looking so beautiful. You have beautiful idea. No matter anything you put on, you used to be beautiful. You used to be because I didn't, when I got to Castee, I used to see a lot of beautiful ladies. I have challenge too, but I didn't see it like, Oh, are they beautiful than me? I don't, I don't care, let them be beautiful on the outside, from my own side, I'm beautiful. Beautiful comes from the heart. Like you have to be beautiful in the heart, not in the face. That's what I know. You have to be beautiful. When you are beautiful in your heart, you are the best in your world. Like when you are beautiful in your heart, not in the face, because the face doesn't matter. It's when you stand with someone, you're beautiful in the heart, you will see the difference there. The person that is moved, you think she's more beautiful than you, you will say, "Oh, I'm moving better than her." Why? Because she's just beautiful. So don't compare yourself with people because you compare yourself with people you always go down in life. When you compare yourself with people, "Oh, I want to do this news." You always get confused. You are not a confused person because you don't really know what life is. You are not really a confused person. - Thank you. And you, as someone who moved from Nigeria to Dubai, and I'll ask you about that story, but there is something where many women maybe for their study or for work or something like that, they need to move to a new city or a new country where they don't have family and they meet people and they're used to having friends in childhood. How do you know and what are the signs you look for to know if a person is good and sincere or a narcissist sociopath who's good at pretending? How and what is your advice to women to say, oh, if a person is like that run because they are trying now to pretend to be good, but actually they're not. So that they don't, because if they're in a new place, they're looking forward to making new connections and sometimes they might make mistakes like that. - Yeah, the way you will know that the person is pretending to be nice to you, but the person is more nice, is when you will have issue, like a problem. That's where you know the person doesn't like you. Like when you say, "Oh, please, can you help me out with something?" You will say, "No." I would keep on saying, no, no, no, like, come on, will you have a problem? I was there for you right now. I said, no, no, no, because when you, for you moving out from your country to another person's country, because I'm not a frank person. Me, I'm not a friend, I'm not a friend, but I don't keep friends that small. I can only keep only one friend. When your person is genuine to me, I will know. I will know from her speech, I will know the way she talk to me, I will know the way she like check up on me every day. How is your family? How is the place? say they are friends. You know, when you are best friends, when you share things to each other, the only person that always called you and asked, "How are you doing? How are you doing? How are you friends? How is your family? Are you easy?" True, they are called, true, they are caring, the way they call you, the way they check on for you. You will know this person is not taking this likey, like trying to like me, is not faking it. This is great. I agree 100%. And so what is your story? How did a girl born in a nine siblings family decide and choose and make it to go and start her business and become a model in Dubai? How did you get the idea of Dubai and not anywhere else in the planet? And what was the difficulty and adaptation to a different culture and to the heat as well. That is a difficult journey to go through. But at least we see get there. When I left by by my mom gave birth to my only because of we are not in number because of the twins, because she gave birth to twins like twice. That's why we are a lot. So we are not in number. So I moved on to Dubai because of my friend. So she told me that she's in Dubai because she came to Dubai before me. So I tried to see her. "What's the job in Dubai? What are you doing?" She told me, "I'm working in the company. If you can work, if they need workers, I will let you know." I said, "Okay, fine, that's good." So she introduced me to the company at Abu Dhabi. Then it was Abu Dhabi, engineering company as the receptionist. So I said, "Okay, fine. I can do that." So they gave me a employment visa. I came straight because I borrowed money in the applicant before coming down to do that. So I said with a premium salary, I'm giving beautiful money from the money I borrowed. So I grow like almost half the time around when I was coming to Dubai. So they gave me accommodation. They did my business. I started working. I worked there for three years. When I worked there for three years, then I stopped. After my contract finished, I stopped. Then I started working in taxi. I'm a taxi driver, so I I stopped at the end of my contract, I stopped because it's so hard for me. So I said, let me face my dream. I love model, I want to become a model. So I started attending classes for modeling. So I went to the class for modeling, just to buy. So I would go through some casting, trying to survive. Then my husband, I have a husband, he's one support in me, or thanks to him too, because he's one support and he's making me to live in Dubai, up to now, if not, I will go back to my country. So I say, "Oh no, you can do it. Let's just be here, you can do it." Okay, so now I'm working, like having my own business online, selling bags, sunglasses, and still doing my modeling job. So that's it. - Thank you. I love that very much. You said that your husband is supporting you a lot. There could be some women who have this kind of anxiety worry that they think, "Oh, what if I do something? I make a mistake or if I fail and then the haters will say, "I told you so" or anything like that. And so they don't go for their dreams because they worry that, "Oh, if I make a mistake and people will humiliate me and make fun of me." What's your advice for them so that they will have the courage to do it? Because if they don't go out of their comfort zone, they never reach their potential. Yeah, thank you. You have to make a mistake in life before you push forward. There's no how you would do something, you would not make a mistake. Because when you before when I wanted to do one business, I want to do like a food store business, it didn't work out for me. I failed from there. But I still didn't give up. My husband had to push me. You don't have to give up. You have to business, you will fail, you will still rise up. If you didn't, this don't work for you. Try something else to work for you. because there's no how you tell me you will not pay before you rise or because you have to fail. Try it, give a try, maybe you won't pay, maybe you will pay. So just give a try. When you try it, it will work for you perfectly the way you want it. It may not work for you perfectly the way you want it to. So it's different, you have to try it first. I agree 100% and to finish this, since you're living in Dubai, if you're working all the time, you burn out. What do you do? What do you like to enjoy to do in order to recharge yourself and feel ready to take on the world back? Something that helps you relax. Since you said you don't keep many friends, you have only one. So do you go to the beach when it's not too hot? Like what are some things that you do to feel in a great mood and have more inspiration to keep going? Yeah, I love to go to a pool party a lot because maybe four o'clock or three o'clock, I would just sit on the pool side or on the beach side. So I relax there a lot. I go to JBR a lot to relax and think more. So that's what I do when I'm bored. Thank you so much, Grace. It was my privilege and my honor to have you in this podcast to share your voice and your story. I wish you and your husband all the success and happiness and for you to make all your dreams come true. Thank you so much. Thank you. I really appreciate everything. For the time and the Zoom everything I really appreciate. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
