Good Life Project - Empowering Girls to Stand in Their Stories | Laura Peña

Episode Date: March 12, 2019

Growing up in the Dominican Republic, Laura Peña (http://www.laurapena.com/about) discovered a love of design, animation, filmmaking, storytelling and technology that led her to New York City to study. Her fierce commitment to her craft created a fast name in the space, led her work with many of the top brands in the world, and eventually found her own creative design lab, JelloMonsters.But, an experience back in the Dominican Republic set in motion a different quest that would lead her to put nearly every other part of her life on hiatus. She wanted to find a way to give voice to teenage girls. To share their stories, their hopes, dreams, fears, struggles and triumphs in a real and empowering way. She wanted them to choose what mattered, to be in charge of the way they would be seen and heard and accepted.With that, the video docuseries, She Is The Universe (http://www.sheistheuniverse.org/) was born, along with a platform designed to amplify the voices girls from around the world. For the past year, Peña has been traveling the globe, on a mission to capture and share the stories of 111 teenage girls of all shapes, sizes, colors, languages, cultural, and socio-economic backgrounds. Her ultimate goal is to not only offer their unfiltered stories, the way they choose to tell it, but also create a place for them to see themselves in others and find a sense of community, mentorship and possibility.-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As I sat down to speak with my guest today, Laura Pena, she had been traveling the world for the better part of a year, sitting down with teenage girls to interview them, to film them as part of a documentary series called She is the Universe, and discover who they were, what their lives were like, what their concerns were, their dreams, their hopes, their struggles, their needs, to give them voice. And that is part of a bigger mission now, to really shine the light on the role of women and girls from all walks of life and tell their stories and bring them together in a mentoring community. But that is not where Laura's story began. She grew up in the Dominican Republic and found herself drawn to the field of design. Eventually went to school and through a series of leaps of faith, found herself studying in New York City and launched into the world of design and motion graphics in New York,

where she began to build a life and a career and a relationship. But everything was not the way it was supposed to be. Eventually, she found herself no longer wanting to live the life she, quote, should live, and making some huge changes that set her off on her own journey of discovery and led to her current project. In today's conversation, we dive deep into the major stops and awakenings along the way. Really excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X.

Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. As we're recording this, I'm reading Junot Diaz's book. The picture that he paints of the Dominican is, so that book is fiction, but is it remotely realistic in any way to your experience of growing up there? Absolutely. He, some things

he makes them a little bit bigger than they are, but, but for the most part it is, it is. And, you know, he talks a lot about the dictator that we had. And I feel like people, when I was reading it, I, the first time I was like, I wonder if people really will connect with this book, people that haven't lived in the Dominican Republic. But I think people do. People love it. It's, I mean, because it also feel, it felt so, on the one hand, you're like, oh, there's

so much stuff that feels real, but it feels so disconnected from our experience. You know, like growing up, I grew up outside of New York, just, you know, a suburb of the city. But on the other hand, it's oddly reflective of some sort of, you know, like changes in politics and power that are going on these days. So where in the Dominican did you grow up? Santo Domingo, which is the capital. A big city. Yeah, but my family is from a region that's called the Cibao, which is up in the mountains and on the beach on the north part. My dad is from a region that is very close to where Christopher Columbus first came.

So when he came to America, some books say it's different. He came to another island first, but then he came to the DR, and that's where he actually formed his home and have his devastation. What was life like for you there as a kid? Wow. It was freeing. Most of the time we had a power outlet, like almost every day. So my favorite thing was at night, maybe at like 6 p.m., the power will go off.

And then that's the moment when all the kids will come out to the streets and then we'll run around and we'll play so many games. And then when the power will come up, sometimes we'll stay in a way because it will go off again. And then we just didn't want the power to come back on because we wanted to be out so it was like I see kids now it's not like that anymore um but I see kids now like playing with their iPads and all the time inside I'm like they're missing their childhood for me my childhood was just running around free and

you know just falling on the sidewalk and getting off, back off. You learn so much just by being a kid. Yeah. What kind of kid were you? Oh, I was a very quiet kid. I was a very shy kid, but I was always like a rebel at heart. Like I will behave, but I was so mad that my brother could do everything. You know, there was like, I could go out and be free until certain time. And then I was a girl and I couldn't go out anymore.

And my brother was out the whole, like, you know, he could be out for hours and hours. And I was like, I will ask my mom, like, why can't he go out? And I came, she'll say, because you're a girl. I hated that so much. To rebel against it eventually? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. At some point, it's like the pressure just gets too much oh my gosh yes it's it was intense yeah so what was it that um eventually led you to want

to leave the island um so in 2014 i when i got a scholarship to come to the U.S. and go to Parsons and continue my education in design. So I was a graphic designer. I was working for a few years before I decided to go back to school. Then when I went back to school, that's when I got the scholarship. So you'd already gotten your education in Dominican. Yeah. So I got a BFA in graphic design, and I was of the three first people that graduated from like that as a career. Oh, no kidding.

Yeah. And then after that, I was working for like, you know, for publicist in the VR, which is like a big agency. And but then I was like, I want more. I want more. I want to do more. So if you were one of the first three people to graduate with that degree, that puzzles me. Was it just no interest or no demand in that career path? Oh, yeah. No, no, no. Then the school that I went after, because then I wanted a degree because everybody had a degree. So I guess I had to have one. But the school that I really wanted to go to, they didn't have the type graphic design

as they wouldn't give you a BFA title. Like you wouldn't have, you have a certificate that then you could have and go to the university and do the career. So we did have graphic designers, but they were not, they were like two year, you know, like intense classes, but no, you know, you wouldn't end up with a degree. Yeah. What drew you to design in the first place? Since I'm a little girl, I was drawing the whole time and like all the time. I'll be creating and my mom, you know, everybody thought that I was going to be an artist, some sort of artist. But I never, I could never like really draw a draw, but in my mind, I will, so the way that I used to play, my idea of play was I will take an entire room and I will

spread, I will get like objects from the house and I will like, you know, like boxes and things. I never had like a Barbie doll, which I always wanted. So maybe that was the best thing that happened to me because then I will take objects and I will, in my mind, they will become something and then I'll spread out through the floor and, and then I'll create stories with that. I'll be like, okay, so this is the room of so-and-so and she is this. So I'll create a story around her and then I'll create relationships between the characters. Like, I didn't know what I was doing because I thought that was like I was creating the game and then I was going to play. But I never got to the actual play part.

I'll get tired. I'll be like, oh, I've been here for like five hours. I should just go down and eat. And I'll be like, nobody can touch this. Nobody touches. And then it'll start over because I was like, oh, I don't know. I want a different story. So I thought that when it was time for me to choose a career,

I thought that maybe architecture was going to be something that I could do. And I especially wanted architecture because I met this woman. Like everybody, like, you know, I grew up with my mom having a job and also being kind of like a freelancer. But I never saw anyone that was like a full-time freelancer or that would work. But then I met this woman. She's an engineer, an architect.

She was an architect and engineer at the same time. And she would be home most of the time. And my mom told me she's working I was like oh I want to do it I want to do that so when I went to find out about that career I found the uh the program and it was new it was not they were not even like showing it to people and they're like oh yeah this is a new career and I was like oh this has so many things design one design two design three four. I want to do this. Like psychology for like consumers.

I was like, yes. I don't know what that is, but it sounds like it's about people. So, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of interesting. I mean, you just dropped something really quickly as you were sharing that, which I kind of want to just ask about. You mentioned like you kind of desperately wanted a Barbie. She didn't have one.

A Barbie doll house. Barbie doll house. So it wasn't even the doll. It was the house. It was the house. I wanted the house. Yeah. And I was so mad because my,

my brother had a Nintendo and that one was the same price as my Barbie doll house. And my mom, you know, of course there were reasons why I never got it, but I always, that was always in my mind, you know, like, why can't I get that? So even then it was more about like the scene. It was about like the structure, the sort of like the environment around it.

Kind of interesting. So you end up sort of seeing all these things and seeing this possibility. You go to school for that to the extent that you can in Dominican Republic and then start working there. And then head to Parsons in New York. for that to the extent that you can in Dominican Republic and then start working there. And then head to Parsons in New York. What was, I mean, did you know, you know, from the beginning, like New York was a place you want to go and that was a school you want to go to? So in the Dominican Republic, New York City is a big deal. So everybody wants to go to New York. I believe that one of the biggest minorities here in New York is Dominican.

Yeah, I know there's a very large Dominican population. Yeah, everybody's in Washington Heights. So everybody wanted to come to New York, and I always had that idea as well, that one day I will go to New York to go to school. But that was not really possible for me. Like, how could I ever afford coming here? And one, and two, it's really hard. Unless you have like a family member that will like, you know, bring you to the country

or you will go illegally and I will never do that. So it was just like a fantasy basically, but I was always very clear. And I told my mom, I was like, I know that someday I will go there. But I didn't know how. And I know that there was, before this school, so when I was working at the agencies and then I decided to go back to school, I knew that there was a possibility to get a scholarship to come to the U.S. But I was not, because of the career that I chose, I was not supposed to apply. But my the U.S. but I was not because of the career that I chose I was not supposed to

apply and then but my teachers really encouraged me they're like do it don't worry about it do it do it do it and actually my when they announced the scholarships mine was the first one that got announced so do you ever wonder what would happen if I'm so fascinated with sort of like the idea of of like sliding windows and like If your teachers didn't encourage you to do that, if that one thing was different. Well, I can tell you, before I went to that school, I was engaged to be married. And I knew that I wanted to go back to school. And I remember telling him, I was like, well, you know what, this is something I want to do. But this school is in a different town, and you have to be there for a year.

You can go home once in a while, but you're there. And he made me choose. And he asked me, like, you have to choose between me or going to school. And I, of course, you know, I chose to go back to school. And I asked myself that same question. Like, what would my life be like if I hadn't won? Like, so many things happened for that to happen. And, yeah.

So those teachers, like, when you're talking about those teachers for me, they are people that I still love very much, and I'm very close to them. And I'm so grateful because, you know, people believing in you and people seeing something that you might not see. I think it's so important. Yeah. So great. So you ended up applying and then getting what you wanted. Full scholarship. Yeah. What's it like the day that you actually find out this is going to happen? Well, first, did you apply and then just kind of forget about it? Or did you apply and then like, kind of like you're just waiting for the end? Oh yeah, we were waiting.

Everybody was waiting. We still have, you know, we're still at school, so we still have finals and we still have to take care of that. But we're like waiting. And when this came, I was like, I couldn't, one, I couldn't believe it because my English was so bad. Like I couldn't believe it because my English was so bad. Like, I couldn't speak English. I could barely communicate, and I was better at maybe understanding people,

but not so much about, you know, speaking. And that was a really hard thing for me coming here. But, yeah, we celebrated. My mom was like, I don't know how we're going to do this because, you know, it's not only the school. Then there's supplies. And then there's like, how are you going to leave New York? But then luckily we had a friend who we, my mom is one of those people that if someone needs a home, she will. We have so many people staying at our house throughout my life.

And there was a woman that came from Cuba and she was trying to get to the U.S. and she had no family. And for different reasons, she was without a home. And then we asked my mom, like, can she stay with us for a little bit? And she ended up staying with us for, I think, two years. And that's the person who, when I came here, she opened her house for me and I stayed with her for like two years. Ah, that's beautiful.

Yeah. It was like full circle. That's beautiful. Yeah. It was like full circle. Yeah. Yeah. So when you first get here, then you're enrolled in, I mean, not only just living here, but you're enrolled in school where there's classes and curriculum and expectations and you're still struggling with the language. So what was that like?

Oh, it was awful. Yeah. You know, i came from being like an eighth student to being a big student which isn't bad but for me that was the worst thing ever i mean i know you also well enough to know that you have very high expectations for yourself oh absolutely i'm very hard with myself in that regards like i really wanted to be really good and and and then i start like there are things here that I never saw in my life like you know you have to write a lot at school here we didn't have that and now I come to a country where the different language and now I have to write I think and write in this new language

and it's not only design you know it's not only creating things that I can do but then actually talking about that and talking about the world. You know, PowerSense is very much about, you know, issues in the world and like how can we address those things using design as a tool. And it was really hard for me, you know, like the first year was a struggle. And then the weather. Oh, my gosh. Oh, I still remember I at some point I had to get a job so I got a job at the school and um I remember walking down the street my job was to get projectors and computers from you know from one room to the next to another room and set it up before the class started so I remember one day it was so cold so cold and I was like you know I didn't have gloves

I didn't have any of those things I was not prepared for this so I'm like walking Parsons like the buildings are in different like I you have sometimes you have to walk like maybe like four or five blocks with all this equipment like I remember I was carrying maybe like five um like like not that many maybe three computers and two projectors and I was carrying maybe like five, not that many, maybe three computers and two projectors. And I was trying to go through a blizzard and I was just crying. And I was like, what am I doing here? Why am I here? And a lot of the students that came with me that year, I think two of them actually quit and they just went back.

I don't know what happened. So other students also came from Dominican. Yeah. So they, they, they give a scholarship to about four people. I think there's like three full scholarships and then a few half. And then some people just couldn't take it and they just went back. It's hard. It's very different culture, everything. Yeah. As you started, I mean, did you find that you found your groove relatively quickly? Did it take a long time? So you were here at Parsons.

Did you sort of do the entire program at Parsons, like another four years? Or was it a different thing? Two years. Two years. No. At school, not so quickly. I graduated. I'm glad I did.

But then working, that was easier for me, like doing actual work. Then I got a job before I even finished school, and that was great. It was like a small studio, and I was doing like great games for like Marvel, which is like, you know, right out of school, I'm doing like this. Like there were DVD games for kids. So that dates me right there. So that's when I actually found my groove. Yeah. Well, I guess also at that point, right, because you're not, now you're out of a school environment where you're being sort of like, quote, tested on all these other things.

And now it's about like, do you have the chops or not? Like fundamentally, that's what it comes down to in that environment. Right. Exactly. Like I could not, like some people ask me now if they should go to school for this. And, and I have my reservations about that. Sometimes I say,

depending on what you want to do in life, like, what do you want to do with it? But there's a lot of the things that I do that you can learn on your own. But for me, having coming from the Dominican Republic and having a school like Parsons, having that degree was super helpful for me to move in my career. Yeah. Was it your intention to stay here or to stay here for a bit and develop and get sort of like a background and then go back? Or were you just kind of open to whatever happened?

I was very open, but I knew that I was like, well, if I have to go back, then I'll go back. But I didn't want to go back. I love my family and I go see them as much as I can now. But I knew that for me to grow in my career, I was not going to do it in the Dominican Republic. I knew that if I were to go back, I could not have the opportunities that I have here at all. So you decide, okay, so I'm staying in New York and you start building a career. And how does it go the first few years? Well, I think the first like three years, um, it was, I'm trying to find like all the like if it was bad

meaning like was it hard I don't think it was hard I think it was actually sometimes people say that I'm very lucky and I think you know it is true things just sometimes things just happen like I work a lot

for it but things just happen and I was very a lot for it, but things just happen. And I was very clear about what I wanted. When I decided, okay, I want to stay here, then I started to figure out how I was going to do that. So a way that a lot of people do that is by getting married. And I knew that that was not my path. So I had to find other ways. So that was hard, trying to figure it out. How can I stay in this country using my talents? And I find a way later. But I think that was the hardest part,

really. So the uncertainty of like... The uncertainty, yeah. Of not knowing, because sometimes I will think, okay, when I was in the process, you know, the immigration process, I was like, well, I could just be sent home tomorrow. Like, if they say no, then I have like, I don't know, 30 days to go. And this is my home. Like, you know, New York City became my home. And I could never, I'll go back to the VR and I was like, I don't know, I don't fit in here anymore. I still love it and I love to visit, but I don't think that I could fit in again. Mayday, mayday.

We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him!

Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. So what was the way that you actually figured out to be able to make that happen yeah so there is so that happened because i was when i was working at that agency that i um right out of school there was this um a place upstairs on the second floor they they help artists gain access to an immigration status so they can stay in the U.S.

And I started that process and the visa is called O-1. And it's for, they describe it as people with extraordinary abilities. And so that's how I did it. And that one, you have to have a sponsor and you have to reapply like after three years you have to reapply every year and then after that I got another one called EB1 which is a permanent resident so now I didn't have a U.S. passport but I could stay here as long as I wanted and I didn't need a sponsor for that. So I was my own sponsor basically. And because I had a good job and, you know, I presented a portfolio with like 400 pages and I had to get, like, I had maybe 20 letters of recommendations from people from around the world.

So that was. So you show up with like a giant. Oh yeah. It's like, I got every angle covered here. Everything. You have to prove, you can either show that you have like a Grammy or an Oscar, or you can prove you have like other five criterias that you can fill. So you're building a career. You kind of have that part of it figured out. At some point along the way, you also fall in love. Yeah. Funny story there.

So the same person that I was engaged with when I was in the DR, when I went back to school, he, you know, we went back and forth for many years. And one day he shows up in New York and he says, let's hang out. And I was like, OK. So I see him again and I'm like, if I if I start something here, I know I'm going to get married with this man because I know that's what he wants. And, yeah, we did get married. And very quickly because, you know, I knew that that's what was next. You know, like that was supposed to be the next. Like now I have a career. And in life, you know, like you're supposed to do these things. That's what I thought then, right?

Like getting married and then we'll kind of have kids and then we're going to buy a house and then, you know, get a dog and all the things. And yeah. Yeah. I mean, interesting that you use the word supposed to. You're supposed to. It's like that's the expectation of a life well lived, of success. Yeah. That's the expectation in my country. And I think in a lot of places, you're supposed to do all these things. And then a lot of people do it just because they're supposed to do it,

not because they really want to do it. And I knew that at some point I wanted to have someone, but I don't think that I was, I made the decision mostly because it was the next thing. Even though I was like, you know, I adore, I adore him. But of course, you know, after eight years, that just fell apart. So what happened? Oh, many, many things. And

he was a doctor in the Dominican Republic and he came here to do his specialty. And we were, you know, he was working really hard to pass, he has to pass like four tests

and he was never able to do it, even though he was studying all the time. He was a really good doctor, but he was not very good at taking tests. And at some point we got, I think that we just grew apart. Many things happened in between. Then he became a developer, a web developer, and I quit my job. I was working at an agency here doing events for six years, around six years. And then he came on board and he was working at the same company. And then I decided to quit. So we started

a company together. And I think that was kind of like the, what really made it, okay, we cannot work, we couldn't work together. Like we were very bad at working together. And then, and I feel like there was an awakening in my life that year, that was 2014. And there was, I, I found this thing, there were many summer camps for adults. And that was the year that also GLP started. But I didn't find GLP until the next year, actually. But I went to two summer camps. And when I came back from the second one, I was in such a different, like I found community.

I found my own voice. And I kind of connected with myself in a way that I haven't before. And I realized that I was, you know, we were fighting a lot. We kind of, like I realized that I was a very different person than when I married him. And we wanted things, we wanted very different things. You know, the first, a few years before that, we had like the normal life. We were going to work. That's when we were working together.

We'll go to work. We'll come home. We'll cook dinner. We'll watch TV. And of course, you know, the next step was like to get a house. We had a car. We already bought a car. We're like, we're going to like now buy a house.

And we will watch shows like, you know, home improvement shows and like dream about buying a house. It was always for me like, oh, but, you know, that's what you're supposed to do. And like a year before that, actually, we were also trying to have a baby. And I can't have a baby, I find out. I mean, I could with treatment, but we tried for six months, so that didn't work. So, you know, there were many different things. And they were like, okay, so this is it. This is us.

This is us. So we were working, coming home, doing this every day. And one day I got home, and he's sitting on the couch. And I look at him, and I'm like, is this it? And he says, what? Like, this? Is this life? And he said, what? Like, this? Is this life? And he said, yes.

And that was the moment when I started wondering. Maybe we're in very different places, because I don't think this is it. I think there should be more. I cannot see myself doing this, like, one more second of my life. And then when I came back from that summer camp, I felt the difference.

Like, I really felt the difference. We were in very different places. So where do you go from there? I mean, it's like you've both come from another country. You know, you've built a life together. You've built, at that that point a career together also and like when you sort of awaken to this thing in a moment that like we want two different things yeah well it was a very hard decision after that because i felt maybe we can make it work maybe we can find a way and um I suggested let's get someone to talk to.

And he was open to it, but I don't think that he really thought that we needed it. And after that, it was just, I remember sitting on the floor and asking. I'm not religious, but I'm very spiritual. So I was asking God, I was like, please tell me what to do. What do I do? Tell me what to do. Tell me what to do. Tell me what to do.

I would like, I'll be asking that all the time. And so I remember sitting in my, I had like a meditation space. So I was sitting there and I'm asking, please tell me what to do. Please tell me what to do. And then I got the answer. And the answer was, please tell me what to do. Please tell me what to do. And then I got the answer. And the answer was, it was like super, it was very, so you know when you're, you meditate. So, you know, I was in this space and where I was like so, I was crying, but I'm like elevated and I'm feeling very calm and very peaceful. And then suddenly I feel like elevated and I'm feeling very calm and very peaceful. And then suddenly

I feel like a hurricane is in the room and I'm asking, please tell me what to do. Please tell me what to do. And then suddenly everything stops and I get my answer. And my answer was, there's something you need to do and you cannot do it while you're in this situation. And I knew it, and I never doubted. Like, after that, I knew that I had to leave the marriage because I wasn't happy. We were not happy. And I didn't know what it was that I was supposed to be doing, but I knew there was something important. And that was it put my stuff in storage and I decided that

I've been waiting for too long to actually do something with my life I've always wanted to travel I was like what would it feel like to actually not have a home and go and travel like what would it feel to do everything different

from the way I've been doing it now I've been doing it now. I've been playing it safe. What it will be like if I just went. And this thing that scares me so much of uncertainty, like what if I just live my life in this way, not really knowing, just getting my heart to lead the way. That was big.

Yeah. How do you take the first step into that adventure? So I remember I told him, I was like, hey, I have this idea. Because we're still friends. I'm like, I have this idea. I think that I want to travel the world. I want to put myself in search. I want to travel the world. And he said, nobody does that.

I was like, oh, okay, just watch me. So the first thing is there was a retreat in San Francisco that a friend of mine was leading. And I was like, well, I'm going to start in San Francisco. So I didn't have an apartment. And I just had my bags. And I went to San Francisco. And when I was there, someone reached out to me for a job. And the job was in Argentina.

So now I was going to Argentina. And I was like, oh, the job is like for a week. But what if I stay there for like a month? So I ended up staying there for a month. And then my brother had, he's a filmmaker. And his short film was in Cannes, the festival. So he got into Cannes. And I was like, well, I'm going to come with you. So then I went to Europe for a month and yeah, that was the start of it.

Then I just couldn't stop it. So it's sort of like the, once you made the decision to do it, you knew the first step, like the first place you were going to. Yeah. And then it's like, once you are in motion, just sort of like the next thing would somehow drop. And then the next thing from there would drop in the next thing. Absolutely. And life keeps showing me that that's how things work. Sometimes we think that we have to have it all figured out before we take the first step. And we don't. And I don't know. I don't know if other people have it figured out before they do anything but it doesn't work for me that way I just you know I have the first it's there's a lot of trust

in that right it's like I know what I need to do next and I don't know if I don't know what that's leading me I know what I I have a vision of what I want and also I think that if we knew all the steps if we knew all the things, if we knew all the things that it will take to do something, we might not do it. We might get so scared that we will just freeze and do nothing. Yeah. You know, not everything was easy. And on this, you know, on those, like the three years after that, not everything was, you know, the two years after that. Um, so I'm glad I didn't know where things were led me. Yeah, I mean, it's so interesting.

I think what at least in my mind I found is more important to me than knowing exactly where I want to land at the end of the day is really knowing what matters to me, knowing who I am and what matters to me, knowing who I am and what matters to me, and then being able to see the next step. But I think it's funny because you hear the self-help platitude, just take the next step and the road will appear and the road will appear. And for some people, I've seen that happen. And for some people, they take the first step and nothing appears. And I think the missing piece of that is, you know, do the work to start to know yourself. And that's one of the things that allows those next steps to appear or that allows you to understand what that next step is and to see it and to know when to say yes and when to say no,

when and if it does. But it's sort of like the commitment to self-knowledge. And like you were saying, like before this whole thing started, you had already started this practice of self-inquiry and knowing yourself and meditations. So that doorway had started to unlock for you. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that you're so right. You're making me think about something that I have been doing in the past few years also, which is having my priorities super clear. And for me to understand my priorities, it means understanding myself, right? So I think that, you know, like things work differently for people, but I think that if people understood what their priorities in life are, making those decisions will be so much easier.

For me, my first priority, and I ask people all the time, like, what are your priorities? And some people say, like, well, you know, my family. And for me, I'm my first priority. And it might sound selfish, but if I'm not taking care of myself, then I cannot take care of anyone else or anything else. So I'm my first priority, you know, self-care, making sure that I'm okay. Like if

anything is happening, it's like, am I putting myself into this equation before I make any decisions? Then it's my family, then it's my travels, my passion project, and then work. And that has helped me so much along the way, so much. And it's because, you know, because I've been in the, it's a process.

You're not always, you're not going to be like, oh, I know myself. You know, people say that. I was like, well, yeah, but there's so much more. Like we, also because we keep evolving in different ways. Right, we keep growing, yeah. Yeah. So that idea that you know yourself and that's it, it's not, it's not a, you're never going to finish that job, I don't think. Yeah. I mean, let alone like trying to just know yourself in the moment that you're in, you know, knowing yourself 10 years from now in the moment that you're in, it's a whole, there's some things that will stay and grow and build, like the really, really deep core things, but so much, you will continue to change as a human being.

Yeah. So you said that when you were sitting there and you got your answer, part of it was that there's something you're here to do. Yeah. of it was that there's something you're here to do. And so you go ahead and sort of almost like a vision quest and you're spending years now traveling around the world and still working sort of like part-time freelance to sustain yourself. But during those early years, it seems like you still didn't know what that thing was. No. But you knew there was something. I knew there was something. Yeah. And I was in that quest, you know, like trying to figure it out what that was. And I made, you know, a pact with my heart.

I was like, I will follow you. And the things with the matters of the heart is that it won't tell you. It will just give you pieces of things, right? It won't tell you the whole thing. So I, yeah, I started to find out different parts of it. It's like, well, traveling has to be part of this thing. And then one day I'm taking a friend of mine to the Dominican Republic. And we're trying to find places that they can volunteer her with her family.

And we come across this place called Mariposa Foundation. And Mariposa, it mariposa it's a after-school program for girls and you know i've never seen it before so because i wasn't looking for you know volunteer work so you know we get in the place and they're giving us a tour and i start bawling like i shaking. I'm crying uncontrollably. Because as I'm seeing this place, you know, girls are running around and they're happy and they're, you know, dancing. They're getting ready. They're getting like ready to, there's a performance that day.

So everybody's like doing their thing. And there's so much happiness. And there are quotes on the walls from women from the Dominican Republic, but also from the U.S. and from other parts of the world. You know, there's a quote about Malala and another quote from, you know, things like that. And there's, like, paintings also from different women. And, you know, I'm like, what is this place this place and one why haven't i seen this place before two i wish this existed when i was a kid three why am i not be part of this and four it was it was an american woman who runs it patricia i'm like why does an american woman

has to come and do this for our girls and i'm not doing it and that last question was like really for me it was like they're not being said i have to do something i think that everything starts with you know asking the questions asking the questions they asking the questions. They're like, oh. And sometimes it's not the answer that matters. It's actually the question itself. So, yeah, I remember that day I went to Patricia and I was like, I don't know. I'm an animator. I want to come back here.

How can I help? And she was very open to it. And I went back and I was teaching girls how to tell their story using animation. So they had a campaign then, which was for Day Against Violence Against Women. And we did a campaign called Yo No Soy Tu Mamacita, which means I'm not your baby, basically, where the girls will choose a word that will represent them or a phrase. It'll be like, I am this, I'm a leader, I am strong, I am an entrepreneur. So that the idea was that nobody else will tell them what they are, but they will take ownership of who they are.

And that was really powerful. And some of the girls still use what the phrase that they chose because I'm, you know, I'm in contact with them. They still use their phrase that they chose because I'm in contact with them. They still use their words that they chose. And I knew, you know, when I started working with them, I knew that that was the thing for me. I was, you know, working with girls and women empowerment was the thing that I was here to do. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever,

making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary.

Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die.

Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. So where do you go from there? I mean, you're being of service to a beautiful community of girls in this organization. But as you said, the fourth question still hangs out there. Right. So then I was asking, how can I take this to the next level? How can I now that I know the things that I know, how can I do something more?

Do something. And the first idea was, you know, because I'm a motion designer, which means more like graphic design and motion. So there's not that many women in my career. I will go to an event and maybe from 100 people, there will be three women. I have a friend now who she's speaking at an event, and there are maybe nine men speakers, and she's the only woman. So, you know, it's like very much like that. So I started with the idea, well, I can do this on the road.

I can do this while traveling. Maybe other women can do this. And maybe this is my way of empowering women. I want more women also to be part of this. I think this is a great career. And then I realized that that was very limiting, that I wanted to reach out to more girls. And just like just trying to find girls with you know that wanted to be in the creative field to teach them how to do these things I didn't know I didn't thought

that that was it yet and and then I I got this idea of creating a myth like I realized also that having having someone you know I went back to this to this when I first saw this woman that was an architect and how she was kind of my role model. Like I saw for the first time someone that was like working from home and I was like, oh, and she's doing something that she loves. I was like, wow, is that possible? So I thought that having a mentor or someone that will open up the world for you in that way, I think was so important. So I, when I was thinking about the animation part, I was like, well, we can do a mentorship where I can bring, you know,

I know so many people in the film industry and the animation industry, maybe they can like help. And then I was like, well, what if it's like a mentorship program, but just for girls, you know, from girls all over the world that connect with women from all over the world. And then I was super inspired by, you know, by Camp GLP

and all the camps that I attend to where like, where community is such a big thing. And I was like, what if I create a community of women and girls? And that felt really big John Danda was like I was like oh I don't know how to go from being an animator to doing this like this is this feels big and again I was like well I went back to meditation and I was like okay and I'll ask I was like okay what is, what is next? What's next? What's next? And then again, in another meditation, I just got my answer. My answer was very clear.

Of course, not all the things, but I knew that I was going to be traveling, interviewing girls. And that's what I'm doing now. Tell me more. So last November, I put in paper something that kind of came to me. And I started writing about it. And it's been forming. And now it's a thing. And it's called She's the Universe. And She's the Universe is a video series.

So they're short documentaries, about three minutes, where I'm telling the story of a teenage girl from around the world. And my goal is to interview 111 girls from different countries, so diversity is something that I'm looking for, so a lot of girls from different backgrounds, different languages, different colors. Really, the project started with a question again. The question was, I was like, well, if I'm going to develop this mentorship program,

I need to know what girls need so I can actually provide this. You know, I had in front of me a blank page. I was like, oh, I don't know what girls need. And then I was like, well, I can find out on study. I can ask people. But I think that I need to go ask them. So that's a big question that I ask girls. What do they need from all of us to get to where they want to be in life?

I ask them what their dreams are. I ask them about their struggles and fears. And then I ask them that, like what their hopes for the future and for the world. The point of it is for girls to inspire other girls. And also for me to sit down in front of another human and ask questions that sometimes we don't get asked. So you're now about, as we record this, half a year or so into it. Yeah, so I started interviewing in June. Right. Where have you been so far? Here in New York and Portland and the Dominican Republic and different cities in Colombia and in Peru. What was it like when you sat down for the very first time?

I was thinking about that a few days ago. I thought I didn't know what I was doing. I was like, oh, you know, I call myself a filmmaker now, but I didn't consider myself a filmmaker. So now I was working, you know, I've been working digitally with animation for a long time, for 15 years. But this was, I had a person in front of me.

So now there was like something I cannot control. And a young person. A young person, right, a teenager. And I have a camera in front of them. And, you know, I have a bunch of questions that I'm asking and I don't know how to ask. So I didn't really have proper training in the asking, but I watched a bunch of documentaries that I love and I found the behind the scenes of how to do

this. So, you know, I had like the theory of how to ask questions. And I remember I, you know, I asked them like, tell me your name and tell me, you know, what's your dream? And there's a question that I ask that is, like, what's your struggle, right? Like, what do you struggle with? And the struggle can be, like, a real thing or something in your mind. Like, what's your mind? And she had, this first girl that I interviewed, she had a speech impediment. And she's this wonderful, smart girl.

And then she started crying. And I just realized how powerful this was because she told me a story that she doesn't tell very often. And I knew that I needed to continue doing this and I've learned so much from that first time one thing that I learned is not to ask the very emotional questions at the beginning but it was I I knew that I had to continue doing that and of course as and this still happens as I'm doing the interview, as I'm asking the questions, I'm in it and I am so I'm listening. But most of the time when I'm done with the interview, I'm like, I feel like I forgot so many things.

I wanted to go deeper. And these are like two hour interviews. And I still like I should have asked about this. This like all the insecurities of like, what am I doing? Do I know what I'm doing? Like, do I have enough content to create a story? Should I have gone this way or that way? Even though I've interviewed already 32 girls, I still have doubts, and I don't think that they will, maybe they will go away.

And even if they don't go away, I think that's now part of the process yeah yeah so it's sort of like you're simultaneously there's your the adventure and your own growth and your own evolution i mean what's it like for you also to sit down with girls from all over the world in a certain age range, who very often in that age range, they spend so much time putting on sort of like the facade of the public life. They want everybody to see them living, especially with social media these days with so much of like teenage life has lived through apps to then just sit down across from this other woman, woman of color, a woman who is sitting there interested in them, not distracted, just them, like without having to filter anything.

Yeah. Well, I think that I've been given a superpower, Jonathan. I think that girls trust me for some reason they feel that they can tell me things that sometimes they don't talk about with everybody and I'm very respectful of everything like it's very clear from the beginning that whatever they don't want in the videos won't be in the videos of course if I think that's something that's going to help them or help other girls I will talk to them but this is is their story, in whatever way they want to tell the story. For me, I feel like I'm transformed every time I do an interview.

And I think they are as well. Most of the time, when we start the interview, they say, What are you going to ask me? I have nothing to say. I don't think that there's something that I, you know, not all of them. Some of them are more open. But sometimes I believe, I think that they're wondering, like, what am I going to say? What's my story? Like, sometimes they don't think that they have a story until they see it. And I know this because now at the end, I wasn't doing that at the first for the first interviews but now i'm doing that i'm asking them at the end like what their experience is with this

and what do they think about and how they feel and most of them are like i'm say things that i didn't even thought i had things inside of me that I didn't even thought that I had. And they surprised themselves. And seeing that transformation from the first come in and they're shy to at the end where they're like super open. It's magical. It really is

magical. Now 32 people in. I imagine you're starting to also see some sort of commonalities across all different people from different parts of the world. So like if you ask, you know,

what is your struggle or what is your dream or what do you need? What are sort of like some of the common themes that come up? Yeah. Something that I was very surprised with is that, you know, I've interviewed in the Dominican Republic, I interviewed a big group of girls that don't have the resources of other girls

that I've interviewed and that come from like really poor communities. And I was very sure, you know, I came with the assumption that they were going to ask, like I'm giving them a platform to say whatever they want and to ask for whatever they want from everybody. And I thought that they were going to ask for money. I thought that they were going to ask for scholarships. That's what I thought. And maybe if I asked them that at the beginning of the interview, maybe they will ask that. But because we are deep in conversation at that point, I think they're asking me really what they want.

And the answer for most of them have been support. Then I ask, like, you know, what does that mean to you? And some of them do want, you know, financial support. But most of them, what they want is to know that their family and the people around them trust them, that they're making the right decisions, and that what they want is valid. So it's just trusting them. That's the kind of support that I think that they're needing. And I'm very curious to know if that's different in Europe, where I'm going next, especially in some of the countries where, like, you know, there's more of a woman empowerment than in some of the countries that I was at in South America. So, yeah.

But that's sort of things that I see. That's the biggest thing that I'm like, that is incredible. In fact, my niece, which is one of the MRE, she's also part of the project as a person that I interview, but also she works with me in this. She also says support. And I was like, okay. That's the moment when I was like, okay, there's something here because she has all the support. What do you mean you need more support? And I've been having conversations with her about it.

And she's like, yeah, we just want people to to trust me like i just want my parents and everybody to trust that what i want it's let me i guess it's like i think what she's asking is like let me make my own mistakes let me try to figure it out like trust that i can figure it out yeah yeah i mean it's powerful to see that sort of emerge in different people and completely different places as a common theme. What about on the struggle side? I mean, well, I guess that's sort of a blended, like that's my struggle and that's also my desire. Those are very different. Yeah. I think that every girl has a different, there's different themes there, but one of the themes is the fear of making mistakes.

I've seen girls that, I have a girl that actually made me do the interview again. After we were done, it was perfect. And she's like, I want to do it all again. It's like, but it was great. And she's like, yeah, but I think I can do it better. So that idea of, you know, she didn't tell me, but I think perfectionism is like, like have it perfect was something very important to her. And I find out with other girls. There was a girl that I interviewed now in Peru and she wanted to, she was, she will say some data that she was fine with it. And then she's like, oh, don't put that because I don't know if that's, you know, so I think that some of the insecurities are the struggle of like having to be perfect or having to have it all figured out and having to know the right answers. I feel like that's on the rise a lot in the last decade too.

Yeah. Especially with everybody living so publicly. Oh yeah. And so subject to judgment from people they've never even met. Right. Social media. Like for them, that's something I learned also from girls. Like they, and I guess I don't know about boys, but probably the same thing.

Like how they use social media is very different from how we're using social media. So what's the difference? They are very careful about what they post. So sometimes, you know, we say like, oh, I'm eating this or I'm here. They will curate everything that goes out for them. The caption has to be perfect and sometimes what they do is that they will run the caption through

like they will send the caption to different friends and be like, what do you think about this? Can you help me choose one? Or the pictures, they will be very careful. They will lay out everything because they're following influencers and celebrities who have the thing perfect so they think that they have to have it perfect. so that life of having a perfect life outside in the you know in the

internet is really important for them yeah it's sad it's so sad it's like what about i mean because it's just not reality no and it also it dev devalues all the mess. Life is messy. Life is rough. Life doesn't have filters. It does not. It does not. But it's still good. It's okay. You can live a great life that doesn't look like

the light room filters of the influencers that you follow. Not at all. Not at all. But you know this new generation, they grew up with this perfect image, you know? Having to have that, it's sad. Yeah. So as we sit here, you're just kind of passing through New York for a couple of days. And then you're on your way to a swing through Europe and through Denmark and Iceland and all these

other cool places, kind of around halfway through the journey-ish. How do you feel like even to just up until now, this has changed you? Yeah, I think I'm not even grasping yet how it has changed me because I'm in so in the middle of it right now. But I can tell you that from that moment that I did that meditation last year, um, that I got this insight of like, this is next. I think that I am a completely different person. My vision of the world and what I've learned also have made me more in touch with a part of myself that I was not before.

As a woman, as a Dominican, you know, I've always been not very proud. I mean, I've always been very proud of being Dominican, but not of being different. Like, I always wanted to blend in. So now I think that I am just who I am am and I'm just showing up as who I am. I feel like I am more, even like more, I will say more confident and more daring. Like I can, I'm not so scared of making mistakes anymore. I'm not so scared of trying things.

I'm going to Iceland next week and I'm not prepared. I'm not preparing like, you know, like, oh, I know what I'm going to Iceland next week and I'm not prepared. I'm not preparing like, you know, like, oh, I know what I'm going to stay. But I think I'm living my life in a more trusting way, knowing that things will be fine. And knowing that I don't have to have it all figured out before I do anything. Yeah. It's interesting that you used the word trust after sharing that one of the biggest things that these teenage girls were asking for was trust. Yeah.

Yeah. This feels like a good place for us to sort of start to come full circle. So in this container of the Good Life Project, if I offer up that phrase to live a good life, what comes up for you? I think living a good life is trusting. Trusting in the process and trusting that even though you don't have all the answers and you don't have it all figured out, things are going to happen the way they should happen. I think that's it. Thank you.

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that's when real change takes hold. See you next time. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. We'll be right back. X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results

will vary.