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 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 Dhonya Mahmoudi. Dhonya is a Persian, Cypriot, born and raised in the vibrant city of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Recently, she graduated from high school and will be attending the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where she will be pursuing health and human sciences with the goal of becoming a pediatric dentist. Dounia had the privilege of being featured in Gold News' Friday column, which celebrated her academic and personal accomplishments that have brought her to to where she stands today. She has been passionately involved in tennis, dance and piano since the age of 8, each of which has enriched her life in unique ways. To stay fit and productive, Dounia has recently embraced kickboxing and weight training, inspired by her fitness-oriented family upbringing. One of her greatest pleasures in life is the opportunity to travel and explore different cultures, Donia has been fortunate to set foot in over 23 countries across the globe and she is determined to continue expanding this journey. Donia, how are you today? I am good, how are you? I feel blessed, I feel super positive and very curious to know much more about you. So I'll begin with this nice first question which is, Donia, if your friends could describe your personality, What would they say about you? That's a very difficult question, but I think if my friends were to answer this question, they would say that I am very funny. I'd say I'm quite outgoing, and they would also say that I could be spontaneous sometimes. Tell me more about that. Why only sometimes spontaneous? What's the opposite? Are you like more strict, rigid, and organized usually, and sometimes only spontaneous. Just tell me a bit more about that. I feel like it depends on the circumstances, especially because academics to me, I was raised to be very focused in my academics. You never skip class, always do the homework, so never get in trouble. So when you talk about spontaneous in those terms, I wouldn't spontaneously skip class to go hang out with my friends or do something like that. But on the weekends, I feel like I bring out a whole different side of me when I'm hanging out with my friends away from school. Spontaneous is in just suddenly making a decision to go somewhere, or it could be 12 AM and we could go out to the mall for a movie, just all of a sudden. Yeah. Thank you. You said during the weekend, you bring another part of you, which is a more spontaneous part? Well, there could be some people and even some women who are so focused that they might forget or mistrust that part of themselves. How do you balance it out if being so organized academically in order to still flow with the emotions, trust that being spontaneous is not a bad thing and so that you can explore both sides of yourself rather than only one and forgetting the other. I feel like if I were to be very strict with myself forever, like weekdays and weekends, I'd be entirely burnt out. It would just be very difficult to me to just like get myself together. So I think it's a very liberating feeling to be able to just embrace things that are out of your comfort zone or something that just gives you a peace of mind. And it's very important to balance these things because, as I said, if you don't, you will definitely get burnt out. And it's also a way of just building friendships and relationships with people. You can't always be strict with yourself. It kind of restricts you from just opening up to people and expressing yourself. Thank you for that answer and I'm very curious as well, why do you plan to become a pediatric dentist? What about this interested you? How did the idea come to be? Is it that your family is full of dentists and doctors and so it was a continuation of the legacy or there is something about it that was a moment of decision that started this all? Surprisingly, I have in my, like my parents are not doctors. I actually at first wanted to be a businesswoman and follow my father's footsteps. It was always something I wanted to do until actually like grade 11. So I was 16-17 and I changed my decision. I do have doctors in the family like my uncles and aunts, but no dentists. But I feel like I chose this career because of the stability. And I do feel like this is one of the professions that just gives you stability and also flexibility at the same time. Being a dentist, you can create your own schedule. And I mean, the money is quite good. And I'd like to sustain the life that my father's given me and I've had the privilege of having. So I'd like to independently sustain a life like that. And I think with this career, money is good at the same time. And I think what came like what brought me to this decision, like firmly was shadowing my family dentist that I've been going to from a young age. And just like recognizing that I had no fear of sitting in that chair and doing all the procedures he'd do for me, I found that this was a profession that I'd enjoy. And I explored this by just doing internships and all that and pediatric specifically, because from a young age, I was always handed the kids of the aunts and all the cousins to just take care of. And they always felt that I had a good connection with children. So I wanted to bring that on as well. Thank you for this. And you mentioned that you wanted to sustain the lifestyle that your father gave you, which is absolutely great. But there might be people in the world who have some prejudice about that, where they think, Oh, you have been privileged, you didn't learn anything real about life. Can you share some of the lessons and insights you had, that no matter what, it actually opened even more doors for you to understand the world to explore things that wouldn't have been there, if you were someone who didn't have such a lifestyle? I was raised to not take everything for granted and I've appreciated everything I've had, but I was also raised to follow my own path and eventually be let go and take care of myself financially, personally, and all that. And I know for some they may believe that this demotivates you to just work. I know I have friends and I know people who come from a wealthy family and just give up on school. But I think this motivated me even more, because at the end of the day, your parents aren't going to hold your hands forever. They are not simply as that. So I was just told to just take care of myself. And if I like the lifestyle I have, I have more of a motivation to continue this exact lifestyle, but coming from myself. Thank you. And in your introduction I mentioned that you come from a fitness-oriented family, you love tennis, dance, weightlifting, etc. Two things. One, is it to you like a kind of meditation and recovery and something that helps you avoid burnout? And like the second part, do you bring your regimented, organized, like hardworking attitude to it? Or is it more spontaneous? How do you approach it? Do you approach it the same way that you approach education? I mean that everything is organized, you have plans for each set and each rep and everything constantly goal-oriented or how do you go about your fitness journey? Initially I was brought up by my parents to start tennis and dance and they mainly did this so that I could stay fit but also build skills that I could take on to my academics and personal life. But then I fell in love with, for example, tennis and dance that I was just encouraged to just continue it. And so tennis, dance, swimming, all these activities that I do were initially almost like an investment to take on to the future. But then once I started and I kept it going for years, it became a passion. So then one with passion comes like meditate is like a form of meditation, you just feel peace doing something you love. So I just found that I love these things and I just kept on doing them as not only to stay fit, but also just because I enjoyed it. But at the same time, there was that need to stay fit because I dealt with a lot of insecurity when I was young. I was a very chubby baby. And I think up until middle school, I was, um, I wouldn't say bullied, but I could definitely understand the stigma again, against obesity. And I felt that personally, not only did that make me feel really like terrible about myself, my self-esteem was very low. So then I started to do weightlifting, as I mentioned, like weight training and cardio, like kickboxing to kind of push myself to like lose weight. So once I decided that I needed to reach a certain goal, it didn't become more of a passion anymore, but a necessity to kind of recover from, I wouldn't say the stigma, but like this challenge that I was facing, because I wasn't really, I was very insecure, and I felt I needed to fix that. And coming from a fitness family that was more motivation to become fit. Yeah. Thank you. And that's a very important topic speaking about insecurity, about looks, and other girls that might not be in your situation, but they are an Instagram scrolling, seeing women that are often photoshopped, or you who has a lifestyle in Dubai, you go to places that will be more expensive and therefore a lot more beautiful women you can compare yourself to everywhere. How do you take care of your mental health in order to see your unique beauty rather than think, Oh, that girl, she did so much plastic surgery, she looks like someone I can never be by working out 24/7 or whatever. And what's your advice to other girls and women so that they believe in themselves and see those insecurities as something they can overcome? I wouldn't be the best person to ask for advice because I'm still, I would say, a victim to these social media platforms and all these social comparisons. I mean, I especially from the beginning of high school, I dealt with like a minor eating disorder that I either wouldn't eat or I'd binge. It was just very all over the place. So then I'd have to go to therapy. I had to sort it out and I it didn't work for me it really did not work for me because I still continued even during therapy to either not eat or take medication that would like you know stop me from eating and things like that but I would say that the root cause of these things are social comparisons comparing yourself to others I felt yes I come from a wealthy family I go to all these nice places all the women with plastic surgery look amazing. That was what kind of dug my own grave. It made it feel worse. But I feel like if you stop comparing yourself and just focus on yourself, it will get better. I'm happy to say that I don't have that eating disorder anymore, especially after I graduated from high school. I had more time to work on myself because I wasn't comparing myself to others, but I was just focusing on my own health. And I even realized there were really bad side effects with this eating disorder, like hair loss, which would kind of worsen my self-esteem. So I began to just go to the gym whenever I felt like I wanted to do the things I used to love, like tennis, dance, and swimming. And I do kickboxing now. So I would just say, do not compare yourself because you are unique. You cannot look like those people, But I'm sure there are millions of people that would look like you and feel like, look at you and just think of how beautiful or unique you are. So just stop comparing yourself because I feel like that's the root cause to all the low self-esteem and insecurities. I agree 100%. Thank you for that, Donya. And it also makes me wonder since you are someone who's excelling academically and you've been raised for that, what do you believe is the secret? Let's say in the future, someday you have children and you want to make them excellent academically. Do you believe it's genetic and therefore your parents are there to thank and that you are born and you have it, you have the talent that was innate and that is a foundation for everything some people have it, some people don't. Or you believe it's the ability to work hard, to focus, to turn off notifications when you're studying, to not be constantly watching CAD videos while you are preparing your homework and all that. Which one really sincerely do you believe is it all hard work and therefore it pays off the harder you work at it as long as you don't burn out or you need a foundation of like higher IQ in order to make it and therefore it's more about some people are made for this, other people made to be fitness geniuses, other people business geniuses is unrelated, tell me more. - Higher IQ would definitely be a benefit, but it's different for everybody. I feel like if you grew up with, I don't wanna say nothing, but you weren't as fortunate enough, that could be a motivation to excel academically. And I know so many instances where people had nothing, but they've reached wonders and they've gone into amazing schools with scholarships. So that could be one way to motivate you, to get out of the lifestyle you currently have. But for me, my personal motivation was my very close relationship with my family. I feel like once you have your family, they will support you throughout. And I personally think because of my close relationship with them, I got to learn their life stories. I got to learn how my dad got to where he was. I got to learn how my mom got to where she was. And that was a motivation for me to do this for them because they sacrificed so much coming from Iran. My dad, I don't wanna say had nothing, but he wasn't in the situation where we are now. And I don't wanna say situation, it's a blessing. But it's motivated me to do this for their sake and make them proud. That's why I do what I do. I'm not the perfect student. I procrastinate so much. My notifications are never off. I binge Netflix during exam season. I lie to teachers for extensions, you know? It's just the motivation I had from my close relationship with my family. Because if you do have a close relationship with them, you have something to fight for. - Thank you so much for that. I really, really appreciate you answering that. And it makes me wonder as well, you have something to fight for. If you could install that and some other women, let's say your friends who are skipping class because they don't need the study, or there are women who are actually doing the opposite. They live up to the expectations of parents, of other people. They don't feel they're living their life, and therefore, they don't feel they have to fight for it because they feel stuck in it in a way. And that creates a sort of depression and a sort of-- I don't mean it's in a clinical term, but them being unmotivated in a sense. So any women who are either stuck in a situation they feel, oh, I have to be, let's say a doctor like my parents, because they always told me since a little girl, you'll be such a great doctor, etc. But she hates it. She wants to be a dancer, or whatever else, or those like your friends who have already everything and they're like, why should I struggle hard or be motivated? I don't need anything. I'm already good. What about the way you see the world or perceive it? Not only the closer relationship to your family, but What gives you the ability to fight for something? So maybe other women can be inspired if they are in a situation where they're not in that frame of mind. If they're not at that frame of mind, I would say that they should ask themselves if they're happy with the circumstances they're in. Are they happy with the way they're living their lives? Because you don't have to fight for someone. You can fight for yourself. You can fight towards something. if they should just set out goals for themselves and just see how they can achieve it and just try to get to where they want to be ideally. Yeah. Thank you so much, Donya. I appreciate your time and you doing this interview and to finish. Is there anything that you think other women should hear that maybe you remind yourself of, any lesson you learned recently, inspirational words, or just something that you believe, if more women remember, they will be happier in life that we can conclude with. I was always told that people who like to flaunt their success or their wealth or their amazing lifestyles or the things they bought and stuff, all those people who flaunt these things just to show off to you have a deeper story that they're trying to hide and they use that as a camouflage. So I would say do not be disheartened by all these people who just talk about their success and all their achievements and just work towards your own. And I always think it's best to not wear your wealth and it doesn't have to be money-wise, it can be like anything but show it. Yeah, I just personally feel instead of being disheartened or disencouraged by all these people showing off, just know that they might have had the same struggles that they're just hiding. That's very, very wise. Thank you so much, Donya. It was my privilege and my honor to have you here and share your voice and story. I wish you all the success and California. I wish you all your dreams to come through and to create the lifestyle on your terms and to feel like the successful woman that you desire to be. Thank you again for participating. Thank you so much for having me. This was a very interesting podcast to be a part of. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
