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 podcasts 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 Kathy Lubendino. Kathy is a 26 years old girl born and raised in the Philippines. She came to Dubai to work in an auditing firm as an accountant and lives in downtown Dubai, United Arab Emirates. As a kid, she always had a passion for singing, patience and modeling. She likes to be around people, women especially because she feels like she always learns something from them, either about beauty or life itself. Kathy has joined pageants and singing contents back in the Philippines and she had her fair share of defeats and victories, which all she is grateful for. And now in Dubai, she has been doing modeling, hosting and fashion. Kathy had great opportunities to work with brands and host some big events alongside having a full time work. Kathy, how are you today? Hi Aziz, I'm very good. Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm very much pleasure to do this interview with you. I'm honored. I'm lucky. Very, very happy. I'm glad to have you here to share your voice. And I'll begin with this nice first question, which is, Kathy, if your friends and the people who know you best could describe your personality, what would they say about you? Thank you so much for your first question, Aziz. Actually, most of my friends tell me I'm a very funny girl, you know, I have too much humor, especially in my own language. And they will probably describe me as a bubbly girl, kind one. And I'm very also emotional, and I like to express it. So if they will describe me, I think it will be those characteristic because that is the most obvious one, you know, when you first meet me and you get to know me a little bit. Thank you, I love that. And I just want to ask something first, which is you're a bubbly girl, how do you keep yourself bubbly? Do you do some things like bonding with family or singing all the time in the shower? Or what activities help you keep yourself positive, even when life sometimes is hard? Well, actually, as I grow older, I realized that it's actually hard to stay bubbly, you know, but this personality I have since I was a child and I think the things that influenced me to stay the same is my family, you know, we all share the same trait. So in and how at house when I'm at home, I usually talk to my mom and my siblings, make sure you know, we have shared some jokes and we laugh, we have a good laugh and of course praying is part of staying positive and always checking on myself on how I feel and not taking things too much personal, you know, because I feel like if I have to take everything personal like the words that are told by other persons to me, it would hurt me personally. So I would always make sure that I don't misunderstood what other people say. So I stay lightheaded. I mean, I stay positive. I stay okay. And I stay happy. I'm very happy about that. Thank you for that. And you are someone living in in Dubai, in the UAE, the culture, the heat is much, much different to the Philippines. How was early on your first experience of adapting to a new culture? What did you do in order to feel acclimated to the place and did you have any struggles? Actually, this is a very long story. I told you every single bit of what I've been through, it will take us a day. But it was actually very hard for me. It's a very rough road because this is the first country where I went that I am alone and also my first country to visit. So I was actually shocked. I mean, culture shock when I came here because it's very different from the Philippines and you know, how people live here. I think when I first came here, it's during Ramadan. So I don't see many people during the day. And at night I see a lot of people. So I was like, oh, people here likes to go out at night. But then I, I was told that it's Ramadan. So, you know, the culture is very different, the food, the weather. And mostly, I don't see Filipinos around where I was living before, so I don't socialize too much. So adopting in the culture is very challenging for me because at first I will go to work and then home. So I was not able to socialize, meet other people, talk to them, get to know them. So it's always me and myself and me just working. So it's so hard. And the first few months I remember most of the time I would cry because I miss my family. It's hard to get out of your comfort zone because my comfort zone, of course, is my country. I have my family there, my friends, my boyfriend even, and my pets. So everything I have, everything I know, everything that I know how to do since I was young or people I know since I was young, they're in the Philippines and I have to travel here alone and I don't know anyone. And I don't know how I will survive alone actually. So during the first few months, it's like a mess. But you know what they say, you will not be put in this situation if you cannot survive it. So always, I think most of the time, my strength came from praying because there's no physical people or my family here. Physically, they're not with me, but they always check on me. they always make sure I feel okay. They send people from Dubai, you know, their friends who can check on me, and I really appreciate it. And also I decided I have to get out of my comfort zone. That's why in the first place I came here. So I cannot just, you know, back down and say I give up. So I make sure I came here, that I will be able to survive anything. And also, you know, the help of my friends, calling me, my family calling me every day, reminding me of why I am here. Because I needed to work, I needed to discover myself. And yes, I want to tell everyone that when I move here, it's too much different, the culture is different. But alongside with me discovering the culture of other country, of UAE, is also me discovering myself. It's like a chance for me to rediscover myself, you know, find what I love on my own and enjoying my own company. And I think that made the road easier to, you know, walk onto because I thought to myself that, oh, I'm very lucky to have a chance to live alone, you know, to have a chance by myself, for myself, because not everyone has a chance to live on their own and discover themselves. So I just take the time to slowly adopt to the culture and people here are lovely. They are very much, the guys are very much gentlemen, females, they would smile at you on elevators. If you need help, they would lend a helping hand. So it's not hard when you look at it in positive eyes or in positivity. So it's just more of realizing that this part of my life is somehow unique from the rest and I have to enjoy it, savor it because being alone somehow makes you know yourself even more. I love that so much wisdom in those words and related to that, yes, you push yourself out of your comfort zone and it helps you discover who you are, which is absolutely great. At the same time, you're doing things that are in a new country outside of your comfort zone like hosting events for brands, doing things that would be scary to most people. There are many women who feel stuck inside their comfort zone because their brain worries so much that they can make a mistake or get judged if they go out of their comfort zone. How did you motivate yourself in order to even engage in those activities like modeling, fashion, singing, and patience? And what's your advice for other women so that they will dare to go out of their comfort zone and live to their potential? Thank you very much Aziz for that question. So actually, me pushing myself to, you know, get out of my comfort zone took a lot of courage, took a lot of strength. Because if you think about it, it's easy to do if you just think about it, but then you have to put an effort to actually get out of your comfort zone. So I have to be disciplined when it comes to my time, my attention, and of course, my self-distractive habit. And including in those self-distracting habits or thoughts is this-- sometimes I tell myself I'm not good enough, and I think everyone can relate. I can't do that. It's too much hard. I can't do that. How can I do that in this country? But then I remind myself, you know, I have to get in touch of the things that I want to do. And those things are singing. I like singing. I like modeling. I like fashion. I like hosting. Basically, I like talking. And that's why I also love doing podcasts right now, because I like sharing my thoughts, my feelings. So I want to keep in touch, you know, to the things that I love doing, because sometimes you are so caught up in the things that life throws you like you have to earn money, you have to be successful at 25, you have to have your own house, car, things like that, you have to get married. Sometimes those pressure from the outside world world is too much heavy to carry. So you have to get in touch to those things that you love doing, your passion, because that will keep the fire burning in your heart. So of course, I mean, hosting in UAE, I have to keep speaking in English and sometimes my original language would come in the way. So I feel like, oh my gosh, what if I don't do it perfectly? And also singing, sometimes I get too tense, like I'm nervous and I will forget about some lyrics and things like that, but always I remind myself that failure is part of success. People who are, you know, who wants to get something, who is very, who goal-oriented, they experience failure many times in their lives and not everyone can see it. It's not obvious to everyone. Oh, maybe they saw this person succeed and they only saw this person succeed and they didn't see the failure that happened before it. But you know failure, I think for me, makes the success sweeter. Like, oh my goodness, I work hard for this. I've been defeated many times and I never give up. So the victory itself, it's sweeter when you got it because you know that you failed many times, but you never give up. So I always remind myself that failure is just part of success. I mean, you cannot feel happiness if you didn't feel sad at some point of your life. You cannot appreciate things if it was not taken away from you at some point of your life. So I always remind myself to just, you know, appreciate even the downfalls, appreciate even the setbacks, appreciate the failures because it's important, it is necessary for me to experience those things so I know how to be better. So I know that things are just not given to you because you want it, You have to work hard for it. You have to keep the fire burning in your heart so you will keep going. And for me, my advice to those people who wants to do something, who wants to start something, but is very much afraid to do so, is just, you know, think about it this way. If you never start, Either you fail or you succeed. You will never know. So you have to take a step. You have to take a small step, a big step, whatever step it needed to, to, you know, go on with this thing that you want to do, because if you don't take that step, you will never know what if you succeed. What if you fail? If you fail, you learn. That's always it. It's not, it's not a loss. If you fail, you learn. If you succeed, then good for you. There's a lot of things. This is a very big world. So there's a lot of things ahead of you. So one success means you can get more. One failure means you can learn more. So don't let your head be on the way of getting what you want in life. I mean, always it's us. That's the reason why we don't pursue things. It's us. It's ourself. It's our mind sometimes. But thinking negative, sending negative energy outside other people as well. It's not good for you. So always make sure to just, you know, even even we feel sometimes that it's too hard or we say bad things to ourselves. It's okay, but remind yourself that, oh, I said this harsh thing to myself, I have to undo it or I have to tell myself more positive things now. And just feel confident. If you know you're good at it, if you have it, don't keep it to yourself. Show the world. Show them how much you love to do one specific things and the world will love it as you do. So I think that's my advice to other women out there who just can't wrap around doing something that they like. If you like it, if you have a passion for it if you you're good at it even if you're not that good you know you will improve along the way you can do it and don't hesitate you know a little prayer support from friends family will go a long way and of course positive thoughts from your own self thank you you are welcome 100 percent and i love your perspective and i want more you alluded to this a little bit but i want to know for you as someone who is modeling, as someone who has been involved in patience by definition your judge compared to other women and therefore comparing how you look to how other women look. Nowadays so many women are comparing themselves to others. They see other women on social media or in your case when you go hosting there are other models on modeling, casting, there are so many. How do you stay confident in your own unique beauty and how can other women see themselves as beautiful in their own unique way and stop comparing themselves to other women who might be photoshopped or having a lot of makeup or anything that gives them unrealistic beauty standards? Thank you for your follow-up question Aziz. Actually yes in the pageant industry and the modeling industry, it is very easy for women to compare themselves because, you know, you can see different kind of beauty. But, you know, when I first came here in Dubai, I realized that because Dubai itself or UAE itself has a lot of different nationalities. And when I first came here, of course, I observed people, I see different kind of beauties, different color, different sizes, different color of hair, eyes and everything, you know, different shapes. So I feel like when I first moved here, I was, you know, amazed and to see this woman, I don't want to be sound unrealistic, but actually I look at women more than I look at men, you know, because I think women here, there's too much beautiful, a lot of them, and they're, again, they come in different faces, different sizes, but you can see how beautiful they are. And as I'm living here, I realized that, oh, people have different eyes. Sometimes they look at you and they think you're really beautiful. Some people will look at you and think, oh, she's ugly. So, you know, I always tell this to my friends, girlfriends, that it's the beauty is in the eye of beholder. Definitely you cannot please everyone. Definitely people, other people cannot look at you as briefly as this one person look at you, but it's what's within you that matters, you know. Some people will actually tell you you're ugly. Actually, again, I wanted to tell you about one story when I was in the Philippines. I'm, because I joined, I joined pageant and I think one judge told me because there are people who are asking why you didn't want and then this one judge approached me and told me you are not that beautiful to win a pageant. This words are stuck on my mind and I was young and you know when you're young you're you're very easy influenced by what's going around you. This words will hurt you. This words will hunt you forever. This word's still remaining in my mind up until now. But the thing is, as I grow older, I realize that I cannot, yes, I cannot please everyone. I cannot tell them to look at me and think I'm beautiful, look at me and think I'm sexy. And now I'm exposed more with different beauties of the world here in UAE. I realized that yes, every girl have their own beauty. Every girl have beauty in their heart, you know, and if you look at them physically, it's not just what you see on the surface, it's also what's on the inside. And mind as well can be beautiful too, heart can be beautiful too, gestures can be beautiful too, it's not just physical appearance. So I think I stopped comparing myself since I moved here in Dubai because you cannot compare yourself. I mean here there's endless beauty. You can see everywhere, endless. You will see one beautiful girl, the next day you will see a girl much maybe taller than her, sexier. And yes, Instagram models, you know, they're posting unrealistic beauty standards. And what I learned specifically when I move here in Dubai is some people think you're very beautiful because you have a very small nose. And I think, because me personally, I have a very small nose and they say, oh, you have very small nose. That's very beautiful. Oh, you have this, this type of legs, which I am insecure about myself and people, other people, they see it very much beautiful. See, like, I feel like, oh, this is ugly. I think this part of my face, not cute. This is, I think if you remove this, I will look better. But other people will look at you and tell you, I wish I had that. So, you know, different people do that. We want what we don't have. That's the fact of life. So if you keep doing this, you know, like telling yourself, you're not beautiful, because this, this judge that told me I'm not beautiful enough to win a pageant, this word stuck on my mind, I stopped joining pageants for a while because of that, those words. And, and, you know, just because I don't have maybe taller nose, I don't have like what he thinks is beautiful. So that's why he told me I'm not very much beautiful. It affects me as a young female, it affects me. But what I did is I turned that sadness, I turned that anger because I'm not going to hide it. I feel angry, I feel mad. Like why would you tell me that? I feel all kind of feelings during those times And for quite a while, I resent that person. But until I realized that, oh, it's, you know, if you tell me that I can't, I'm not that much beautiful, I will turn that sickness to medicine because like negative thoughts to medicine. Now I keep pursuing, you know, I keep pursuing, I keep doing the different things, you know, and I keep learning to love myself as what I am. So now I'm doing modeling in Dubai and if I met that person once again I'll tell him that like what you said earlier it's your own type of universe. I maybe my beauty standards not appreciated in the Philippines as much as it is appreciated here in UAE. So you know you sometimes you just have to move place you have to like change the people around you to the people who will support you and who will see you beautiful. So just if you feel like that remove yourself from that place remove yourself from that situation because you cannot forever ask them to appreciate me look at me think that I'm beautiful you can't enforce people so if you're in the wrong settings wrong place you have to go somewhere else like connect with other people who appreciates you and who thinks that what who you are is enough because what we are not made you know like this just for us to resent our own selves you know I I believe and because I heard I heard that before we came here on earth we actually choose our own face and this why we choose our face because we think it's beautiful so I think the acceptance of what you look like and believing that you are beautiful as you are should come from yourself first and not from anybody. I mean like if you keep comparing yourself to other beautiful girls you will not finish even 300 years you will not finish like you will always always see like an imperfection to yourself and it will never end too much people in the world too much beautiful people different colors of ice and nationalities. So if you keep comparing, you will never stop until you're old and gray, until you cannot walk anymore. You're still going to compare yourself. So it will never stop and it's a tiring process if you keep doing it. So learn to love yourself. It will start from you and blossom, you know, blossom from you. And for girls who cannot do it at the moment, don't worry, you will, you know, find your way there. But always remind yourself that your physical appearance is one thing, making your heart pure is a second. And of course, appreciating yourself also appreciating the beauty of others is important because if you go on you know trying to appreciate yourself but you go on outside and telling other people they're ugly they're fat they're this and this and this you know this in social media mostly you will read females also bash bashing other females it's not good so you want to start it from yourself and spread positivity on others. Beauty standards on the society is just for society, but you have to have your own beauty standards for yourself. 100%. I agree with you so much. And to finish this, I'm curious because you said now you're modeling in Dubai, your younger self, who literally not believe it that you're achieving so many dreams. And so based on this, did it may give you bigger goals? What are your next steps that you desire to create in your life? What kind of happiness? What kind of things do you want to experience? Can you share a bit more about your vision for your own future? Thank you Aziz. Yes, you know, I maybe my 16 years old self will not believe me when I tell her that We did it, you know, we're doing this currently right now. So I'm so happy. It's like a childhood happiness that's coming out from me. And I'm so proud of what I have right now, even though it's not too much, but I think, you know, small steps before everything big happens to you. So I'm so proud of myself and I'm so happy I was able to do it. So right now that I'm doing modeling, fashion, hosting, singing in Dubai. I'm hoping that in the future I will be able to have a lot of experiences like what we're doing right now, sharing my thoughts, my wisdom to other female, maybe not just female, but you know target audience are female and to those aspiring people who wants to do something else in their life, do something meaningful, do something that they love, and discover themselves how to deal with their anxiety, deal with their insecurities. I hope in the future I will be given a lot more opportunity to showcase my own beauty, of course, Because even though I'm doing modeling right now, there are certain physical features that are needed and certain colors, certain shapes that they like. So it's still hard to fit into everything, but I want to have more interaction with people who wants to showcase natural beauty, because as what you said, there are endless people posting in Instagram showing unrealistic beauty standards. And I think it's so in the tend to tree, it's time for us to move forward that it's time for us to showcase what's what's beauty without filters, without edits, you know, so this, I think I would love to, you know, to participate with this kind of things in the future. And of course, I want to grow more as a woman. I am still not perfect right now, and there's no such thing as perfect, but I'm hoping to learn more about women, to interact with successful people, successful women, to learn from them, and to express more my love for singing. Because I love singing too much. and here in Dubai, I haven't participated in more singing programs. So I hope I will be able to do that. I hope I will be able to do hosting as well for events and to express my love for fashion and social media and with the young girls. I love to share my, you know, my passion with the young girls. And because I think young females, they were easily, easily, easily being exposed to social media. They see too much, yes, again, fake beauty standards in the society. So I hope I can share my voice, tell them that it like two to three years from now, it will not matter if you're perfect or not. not because it's a long road and the beauty standards always change so it's evolving sometimes black areas in the others red so it will always change and you cannot keep up all the time so i hope i will be able to share more to young females out there young girls of what i've learned throughout the years and of course i want to be successful in my career as an accountant and to be able to do this job and enjoy in my hobbies. So these are the things, you know, I want to have a very, very, very balanced life when it comes to my career, my hobbies, and, you know, socializing with other women, friends, and family. So that's my future goal. Thank you so much, Kathy. This was an enlightening conversation. It was my privilege, my honor, to have you here in this podcast to share your voice and your story. I wish you to make all your dreams come true. I wish you to feel stronger and more bubbly every single day. And thank you again for participating. Thank you so much, Aziz. I am very happy to do this with you because I have a lot of things in my mind I want to share, you know, and I think this is the perfect platform to do that and I love that when I talked to you earlier I heard your thoughts about setting up this female interactions and I think I haven't heard much about this with other people and especially from a man so it is very, I mean, I appreciate how you take our emotions, our our females as interns in consideration. So it's coming from a female myself. I appreciate that you think about us, you think what's best for us, and you want to hear from us, because I think we as a woman, we've been through so much because society is not very much good to a woman. If they're successful or if they're not successful, It's very hard to keep up on the standards of the society. So it's so fun. It's so, it's much like I'm so grateful I was able to share my thoughts and feelings and describe how I've been through in a podcast with you. Thank you so much, Aasi. - You are welcome. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
