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 Ola Gray Brady. Coming from the clan of politicians, lawyers, actors, and doctors from Mandela Philippines, Ola Gray Padilla Brady has been a one force in the business industry at an early age. After graduating a double major in business school, taken up marketing certificate courses at Harvard and University of Edinburgh, she became a partner of one of the Italian and premium restaurants and art galleries in the metro. Ola loves to travel. She wanted to experience every culture and appreciate art, particularly paintings. As she travels, she never stops working as she would like to bring her experience to her motherland Philippines. That's why her, together with her business partner, opened an art exhibition all over the country and focused on distributing and selling Murano products from Italy, embarking on the journey. As an entrepreneur, it's not an easy one, but as you persist, you will be able to overcome any obstacles in life. That's what Ola believes. The path to success is often filled with challenges, setbacks, and uncertainty. However, with determination, resilience, and a clear vision, you can navigate through the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. She advises you to remember that every obstacle is an opportunity to learn and grow, and with perseverance, you can turn your dreams into reality. Stay focused, stay motivated, and keep pushing forward. Your hard work and dedication will eventually lead you to success. Ola, how are you today? Hello, Aziz. Thank you for having me today. I'm honored. I'm lucky. I'm very, very happy to have you here, very curious to know everything there is to know within this short period of time about you. And so I'll begin this with a nice, usual first question, which is, if your friends could describe your personality, what would they say about you? Oh, OK. So probably my friends were to describe me. They would probably say, "I'm loyal. I'm full of energy. I'm unfiltered. And I absolutely love life. Like, I cherish connections with those around me, and I strive to bring joy and positivity in every interaction, in every people that I meet." I love that very, very much. So I'll ask a question related to your answer. You seem to be a positive person who thinks in a very positive way. There are a lot of women who worry a lot and they think about possible negative things that could happen. And so they don't feel that positivity or even if they feel it, they cannot focus on it too much. What did you do or what's your advice to any women who are struggling with overthinking and with negative patterns right now so that they can become more positive and have that good vibe and energy like you? Yes. First of all, you need to be kind with yourself. Like, not everybody has the same journey. I believe that each fruit has its season. So you need to be kind with yourself. Take time. Like, it's normal for you to have anxiety, like to feel worried like that. But you need to be worried for like maybe an hour or so and then like focus on your goal. You need to like you need to maintain that focus in your mind. So you get distracted with any anxiety and anything negative in your mind. Thank you. And another thing you said is that you love life and I appreciate that very much. Also, I understand that we live in a very competitive world, especially in the art sphere. There are so many people who are trying to become artists. There is a lot of competition and often the setbacks, like you said, can make people just either give up or they forget to fall in love with life because they say, well, if I don't live my dream, then I cannot enjoy the journey. I have to sacrifice and wait until I become a superstar. If not, I'm not happy. Well, how did you deal with that? And how is it for you? Because there are a lot of people in this world who are trying to follow the artistic success. But it seems at least temporarily that there is a spot for a few. And so too many others are not now feeling the happiness that they could choose to feel today. Yeah. Actually, not everything is an easy journey. The thing that people forget is how difficult it is the journey. Not everything you can get easily. You need to work hard for it. Like if it's easy, if you can get things easily, you can also easily like take it away from you. But if you work hard for it, like you will cherish it more. You will appreciate the fruit of your labor. So my advice or the things that I can impart to the woman or to any people that are listening to us right now is that you should appreciate and enjoy the journey, the process of how you reach your goal. Because without that journey, you won't be able to be the person that you are right now. That's for me. That's very, very important. And thank you so much for sharing that. I really appreciate you. And then since you're speaking about the process, I'm curious, what was your journey? If you could tell a bit more about your life story, but also for me in particular, why and how did you fall in love with paintings more than any other form of art? What about them made you so fascinated and interested? But in general, kind of the progress of your life since you started until today. And how was your journey so far? OK, it wasn't an easy journey because my mom is a single parent. So when we were kids like that, so I'm the eldest, too. So when you're the eldest, you have also the responsibility to be somehow like a second mom to your siblings. My mom taught us to be independent at an early age. So I also like pay for my studies and then I pay for my siblings studies. So while studying, I'm also like working. So it's a difficult thing. Then I started like becoming like an entrepreneur at an early age. Like I'm selling a lot of things to survive like that. So at an early age, like my mom taught us not to falter in any difficult challenges in life because nobody will catch you except yourself. Nobody can help you except you. It's up to you. You will determine the path of your life. So from that moment on, like I instill in my mind that I need to be strong, enable for me to reach my goal and enable for me to help my family. And so then on, like I just keep on going, like going and going. You will stumble and fall on the way, but you need to get up. It's not I'm not saying that it's bad for you to feel sad for yourself sometimes when you know, when you encounter things, problems or you fail. But as long as you're breathing, there's always like time for you to get up and, you know, just keep on moving until you reach whatever you want. And then for the paintings, because when I was young, like I'm already into like reading a lot of books about geography and art and stuff like that. So I get fascinated with that. So when I have the chance to go to different places, I always take time to go to different museums of art and appreciate like different paintings. I was thinking like why I don't open up like an art shop in the Philippines. It will be like a window of European art in the Philippines. So not all people can go to different countries and stuff like that. But if I will be able to bring it to my home country, like I will be giving them some, you know, some snipsets of what's in there. So maybe in the future they can have a chance to fly and see it for themselves in the other countries. That's beautifully said. Thank you so much for that ambition and that creative thinking. And I want to know also another thing because you keep pushing yourself forward. There are a lot of people who did not have the same experience as you because in the beginning you had no choice. You are the oldest. You have to take care of yourself, of your siblings. Like there is no choice but to move forward. There might be some women who after they graduate, they get a nice job and they're comfortable in that place and they don't push themselves forward. But they dream of like deep down of a different life, of taking risks. At the same time, they think, well, what if I fail and my parents are disappointed? What if I leave this safe job that I don't really love, but at least it's safe and then I take a risk and I don't make it, then I lost everything or whatever it is. But at the same time, it creates a life of regret where in the future when someone is old, they look back at the moment and they think, well, I spent my life doing something that is not exactly what makes me most happy. If you were to give advice to people and women who might be comfortable enough that they don't feel the fire that makes them have no choice but to push forward, how can they be motivated to go after their big dreams? Enable for you to be motivated. Like you need to go out of your comfort zone. You won't grow until you're there in your like a square inside. You won't grow. So enable for you to learn life. You need to experience life. You need to go out, like, you know, learn new things, meet new people. That's the way you can learn about life. Otherwise, you will always be in the same situation. Always keep asking yourself, like, what if I do this? What if I do that? In the end, you will be maybe 70 years old and you cannot do that anymore. So why wait if you can do it right now? So you need to be always like thinking, what can I do to challenge myself more? What are the things that I can learn more? Because in life, you need to keep on learning. Otherwise, you're going to be stuck in the same situation. And that would be for you. That would be your life story. And I don't think you would want that for yourself. I agree. 100% learning growing is enriching. It makes life so satisfying. And you within the arts field as a lover of painting, I'm sure that every time you see an art piece, you can perceive the unique beauty that it has. And to ask you about women as each one of them would be a piece of art. There are many women who today compare themselves to celebrities, to Instagram girls, to other women, and they do not feel beautiful. They don't see their unique beauty. And deep down, they feel a level of pain. They think, oh, I don't look like her. So maybe I'm not beautiful. How, and maybe from an artistic perspective, can they see a unique beauty inside each one of them so that they can feel confident in their uniqueness and never compare themselves to others? And did you struggle with this at any point? Okay. What I've learned from different arts that I saw is that the artist would always say, the beauty of perfection is through your imperfection. There is not such thing as perfection. And we should remind ourselves that social media often portrays a curated and filtered version of reality. That's not exactly the reality, because the true beauty comes in all shapes, size, and forms. So you need to love yourself. You need to find your own unique beauty, because everyone has its own unique beauty. Focus on your self-acceptance and self-love, and you should embrace your individuality. Like celebrate your strength. Each one has its own strength, and you should recognize your worth. You cannot accept that you will be defined by a standard of beauty, because in society, there's a standard of beauty. Like here in Asia, me, I'm like bigger size normally, because in Asia, you must be petite and slim, stuff like that. But I said, "Hey, what can I do? I have like an American Indian blood, so I will accept who I am. And this is who I am. Either you accept me or ciao." Like that. I like that. That's set in boundaries too, which is very important. There are a lot of women who grew up sacrificing themselves as people pleasers, unable to say no to requests of people, or they would sacrifice themselves thinking, "Oh, I wouldn't hurt this person's feeling if I said what I wanted." Often they're living to the expectations of other people that they didn't even say anything. So the woman will imagine, "Well, I need to be this person in order for people to like me when nobody said that you have to be that way." So what's your advice to women? So that they can actually say no to things that do not benefit them, so that they can say their truth and are hoping about their desires, and will be comfortable to say, "Like me the way I am, the way that makes me happy, if not ciao," like you said earlier. Yes. Well, first of all, you need to know your word. In the past, during the time when women don't have a voice, but now we're in the generation where we can speak and we can tell what we want. Because enable for you to be heard by the people that surrounds you, you need to exactly express yourself. You need to know when to say no. So the people around you will respect you, and they will know how to navigate or to treat you well. Because in that way, if you set boundaries like what you said, the people will respect you more. What I always say also to my friends and my sisters, you should know always your word. If you're not appreciated in that table, go out of that table and find somewhere else where you will be appreciated. Yeah, that's for me. 100% self-respect is very essential for mental health as well in general. And also to know, since you spoke about your friends, you spoke about people who respect you, I do believe that the people we surround ourselves with are essential in you, living up to your potential, being happy, feeling. Like I said earlier about you, part of a clan and not alone. When you are making friends as someone who has been through different spheres of life, what do you look for in order to recognize the good people, the right people to have within your life? And what are some signs you can recommend to some other women that could be red flags to know this person, could be a coworker or an acquaintance, but should not be someone who you make clothes in your life? Okay, my advice is to find someone first that is trustworthy, loyalty. Loyalty is very important to me. And second, there must be supportive and not jealous. Like whatever is your success, your friends, your true friends will support you and will rejoice with you and not the other way around. You must have those kinds of support around you. And next, they need to be respectful and kind, because when they do that, like they will respect also your boundaries. Sometimes you have this moment of being moody and sad. And when you say no, they will respect that. And lastly, must have good communication. Must be open and honest. It is important in any friendship. Exactly. That's absolutely correct. You too are someone who's studying hard, who's working hard, being an entrepreneur, trying to bring creative new things in the world. I'm sure you have a lot of ambition. What kind of next plans do you have for your future? And how do you keep yourself optimistic? Because by definition, if you are having the life of entrepreneurs, sometimes there are ups and other times are downs. And so how do you keep yourself always expecting the best in the future, no matter the situation? Okay. The good thing is, going back to what my mom instilled us, is that you stumble and fall, but each and every single day, it's a new morning. It's a new day. So it's a new day to have another purpose or another, like, in life. The one that you want to achieve, your goal, like that, you always need to think about that. And you always need to think about that wherever you go, if you have this motivation in you, if you have this goal, you will always get up every day thinking about, "Okay, I'm allowed to be sad and be broken maybe for an hour or two in a day." But then you keep on hustling until you reach that goal, until you're happy with the result. Because in life, you need to always have a purpose. Every day you wake up and you think about, "Okay, what's my purpose today?" You keep on going back to that, to that route. So my future goals is like to open other restaurants here in the metro. And then also I wanted to open an art shop again. I wanted to create my own designs and to put out here in the Philippines. And let's see. I believe in your success. I encourage it very, very, very much. And to finish this, you as someone who said learning in life is one of the biggest rewards that you look for. Is there a lesson that you have learned recently or throughout life or advice that you believe if other women heard, they can feel happier, they can live better, be more successful? Any advice to women in general so that they live their best lives? My advice is to always be kind to yourself and that each woman has different facets of life. In those different facets of life, you will know exactly what you want. And just always focus on your goals of whatever you want to achieve in life. Because I'm sure every hard work will pay off. It doesn't matter if you're in different field of work, just make sure that people will respect you and people will know your worth. Whoever it is there in your work or in your business or in whatever. Yeah, that's it. Thank you so much, Ola. It was my privilege and my honor to have you here to share your thoughts and your voice and your unique wise perspective. I wish you all the success in the world. And thank you so much for participating. Thank you. And I wish you also all the best.
