Hello friends,

Listen to this episode to learn what updates are in store for the Navigating Culture podcast.

Sneak peak: Anya, the Navigating Culture podcast, host has decide to pause the podcast till next year. Tune in to find out why.

Don't forget to share your thoughts, stories, ideas with Anya via instagram at: @navigatingculture or email the team at anya@navigatingculture.co

Love you lots!

What does it mean to make it in The United States of America? So many of us were sold the dream that making it means we need the huge house, the million dollars or the flashiest car. 

But could ‘making’ it mean something else entirely?

Meet Johanna Vizmanos, an immigrant from the Philippines who thought coming to America would be the answer to all the frustrations she felt in her mother country. 

As a doctor’s kid, her father wanted her to study for a safe and stable profession. But no matter how much he tried, Johanna had her eyes set on the Internet’s Big Lights. She wanted to work in social media, but just couldn’t find a way in her home country.

So she moved to the USA. Except moving here was not the instant success story that some of us are told it will be. Instead Johanna had to work. As a barista, a cashier, a server…

In all this time, she never gave up and started pitching and eventually getting pitched by clients to produce social media campaigns. Finally, it was happening, and Johanna used the momentum she was experiencing on social media to launch her own lipstick line, Kolorete Cosmetics. That’s right, our guest today is launching the FIRST-EVER Filipino cosmetics line in the USA. 

When you ask Johanna what she would change about her story, she responds with a simple, ‘nothing”. She is grateful for the journey because she is creating what she is meant to create in this world. 

I love Johanna’s story because I think we can all learn from it. Instead of seeing success as the end-goal, as the final show-y trophy, we can find success in knowing that we are doing the work everyday to figure out what we really want to bring into the world and living that out. 

Listen to this episode if you want to learn why your success is in discovering your own path, and staying committed to living it out.

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Learn more about Johanna below:
Instagram - @johannavizmanos

Learn more about Johanna's beauty brand, Kolorete Cosmetics below:
Instagram - @koloretelips
Website - www.koloretecosmetics.com 

At 4 years old, Parisa immigrated to the USA from Iran and became the weird girl with the parents who had weird accents. 

After the Iran Hostage Crisis in 1979, her Arizonian community shrouded her in suspicion — she was now also a weird terrorist. Those labels compelled her to push for that ever-moving goal-post of ‘Good Immigrant’ but, as many of us know you can achieve all the features of this title but still not be and feel accepted. 

She even felt out of place in the Persian community. She was told that she talked too much, that she took up too much space, and that she had too many opinions. Eventually she left Arizona and moved to New York, a place she dreamed about for years. 

In that glorious city, she dug deep and peeled back the layers. She graduated from Parsons, she became a Drag King, and she embraced her weirdness. Parisa is honest about living. And her honesty prevents her from saying that life suddenly becomes a bed of roses. 

Despite this she shows with each personal story that when you embrace your quirks, when you welcome being on the margins, when you fall in love with who you truly are, that’s when success shows up for you. 

If you’ve ever felt alone in this world because of who you are. If you’ve struggled to feel comfortable, seen and accepted, then listen to Parisa’s story and understand that when you commit to unlearning expectations and remembering your truth, your angels smile down on you.