Being Epic
By Julietta Tschudi
Being EpicOct 25, 2020
Abi - The fact is skin is skin
My guest today is Abi Oyepitan. She is best known as being a british Olympic athlete as well as co-founder of Liha beauty, which she founded with her friend Liha. The two of them have wanted to do something together for years and finally found the right project for them, with Abi being interested and more passionate about haircare and Liha more intrigued in skincare the combination became what we now see as Liha beauty. I can highly recommend their Idan Oil and Shea Butter, the smell is magical and it’s helped me with dry skin and scalp like no other product has. Abi and I talked about changing careers, the ups and downs of being self-employed, the world of sports, how she became an athlete, her heritage and how that impacted her upbringing, racial injustice and seeing a correlation to her business growing, mental health, and as always so much more.
Raphaela - You can be whoever you want be
My guest today is Raphaela Pichler, an incredibly inspiring woman, who I recently met for the first time despite circulating in similar pools for a couple of years. Photographer, musician, consultant, design-o-phile, and lover of life in all its facets. Listening to her story and asking her how she navigates through different trenches paints a picture of the peak and pits of being a self-employed woman, trying to pave her way as a photographer in an industry that is often not taken seriously when looking at it from a monetary aspect. We spoke about photography, our definition of beauty, going inwards, the difficulty of the pandemic job and health wise, the word empowerment and how we find importance in it, female networks, comparing ourselves, self-confidence issues, and most importantly being paid, situations that we found ourselves in, the struggle of receiving payment, negotiating payment and finding it disbelieving how our work is not getting the recognition whereas other professions are never questioned.
Nicole - Election Edition
My guest today is Nicole Bullock, a dear friend of mine and the perfect person to record this special episode with. I knew that with Season 3 I wanted to address U.S. politics in some shape or form and with the 2020 Election taking place I brainstormed how to thread this into an episode. If you didn’t know, I am a U.S. citizen and lived in Florida from 2009 to 2018 on/off. While politics was not at the forefront in terms of things to think about or discuss for many years, I’ve been voting in every single election in Switzerland and have voted in every election in the U.S. since 2016. American politics has only become part of daily conversations within the last 4 years, since the election of the 45thpresident, also known as Donald Trump. Today is election day, so welcome to a bonus episode of Season 3: Election Edition. Thank you to We’re not really strangers for sending out the Voting Edition pack, which I used for this episode in terms of questioning. Nicole and I dig in to voting, how we voted, what voting means to us, what is at stake in this election, what issues are close to our heart, how we deal with speaking to the other side of the political spectrum, and what we hope for in terms of change.
Rebekah Abdeen - Has your life been filled with color?
Rebekah Abdeen, who we’ve had on here a couple of times and are making it a seasonal regular because the conversations with her are always so special, is the creative director and head trainer at OpenRide, her alias is ‘rocket’ as she always sends us to space in her rides and never fails to give her riders the energy, the push and the safety of knowing everything is going to be ok. Her motto: the only way out is through and that speaks to our current time like nothing else. It’s been just a little over a year to the day where we first recorded so we decided to have a little bit of a retrospective of the year, in business and in private. We talk about OpenRide and how its grown, out delivered expectations, its growing pains and most memorable moments. We speak about what it feels like to return to yourself, and the importance of sense of self how this past year has allowed us to do that. What a successful life means not just in our society but also for us as individual women. How the current pandemic has affected us and our ongoing anxiety with the unknown of what is to come and of course so much more.
Kathrin Eckhardt - What do you want in life?
Kathrin Eckhardt is the owner, creator and force of nature behind her label Kathrin Eckhardt Studio. Her journey in fashion began when she was a kid, loving to experiment with colors and dressing herself and then some of her classmates who asked for help, this has evolved into writing her own fashion magazine and then later transitioning to stylist and now designer. When experiencing the culture in Ghana and observing how women wore their clothes, she bought fabrics there and created wrap skirts which sold out very quickly once she brought them back to Zurich. This was the starting point of what was to become her now label. She creates clothes to embolden women, to make them feel confident, the primary focus are always other women and what they would love to wear and what they would need in the time that she is creating a new collection.
She’s a very inspiring woman and we could’ve talked so much longer but to give you a bit of insight into her life and work we talk about law of attraction, fashion and her journey into it, body image, visualization, daily routine, her evolving experience in Ghana, the social impact she created with her label, cultural differences and the need for re-adjustment, adapting to the pandemic and how it affected her business and facing racism.
Social Profiles:
Dupi Singh - be less robotic, be more human
Dupi Singh is the co-founder of Daydreamers, a space that allows for creatives and self-proclaimed non-creatives to tap into areas that they haven't explored since they were children, essentially, a gym for creativity. In a society that sees value in racing through life, checking boxes that are deemed important we lose touch with our true self and forget to do things that we enjoy or don't even know we enjoy because we are permanently busy. Dupi and his co-founder Katina have experienced mindless scrolling and streaming and wanted to create something that would allow for offline time, creating human connection and exploration. In our episode we talk about what creativity means, why we lose touch with it, the connotation of daydreaming, technology and social media and its effects on creativity, we touch on his personal story of being a 1st gen immigrant, the current situations the world is facing and so much more.
Social Profiles:
Daydreamers Podcast:
Julietta x Sue - What would I put in the ark?
From my living room to yours, here's our thoughts, opinions, perspectives and feelings on current events. We discuss the uncertainty that this pandemic has created within us, how to be alone and how that is not coupled to being lonely, creating a circle of trust, being honest without justifying how we feel, racism, cultural differences and the wonders of figuring life out in 2020.
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Julietta x Rebekah - Who's swimming naked?
From my living room to yours, here's our thoughts, opinions, perspectives and feelings of what happened over the past few days, weeks and months. We are aware we might make mistakes, and say something that's not politically correct but we believe that speaking up and using our voices is the first step and if no one listens in at the end of the day, we'll always have this episode for ourselves to look back on.
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References:
Julietta x Veronica - How do you put value on a piece of you?
You already know todays guest, which is the wonderful Veronica Tucker. I asked in the outro to our episode which we recorded 2 months ago if she would like to continue the conversation because I wanted to chat with her about a few things more in depth and she said yes (yay)! Heads up, of course we didn’t cover everything we wanted to but more on that later. This episode is a special one because it really felt like friends catching up, we talk about working from home, a very guilty enjoyment we both share, learning our way around pricing, anxiety and what we do to help ease it, what a working day looks like, imposter syndrome, and of course the creative industry and how devastating the sentence “but it will only take you 5 minutes to do this” or “I can do that myself” is.
I knew that we weren’t done chatting so, I asked if she was interested to keep doing catch ups and record more episodes where we talk about different topics because we couldn’t even cover the ones we wanted to chat about today and since you already listen to the end to find out her answer.
If you haven’t heard our first episode, tune into that because I also asked her what has changed for her and her label in the last 2 months.
Social Profiles:
Natalie Holloway - Go slow and be careful on the way
Natalie Holloway is the co-founder of Bala, a movement company best known for supplying you with the most luxe wrist/ankle weights and other accessories you could add to your arsenal to use in your next workout. Forget sandbag weights that you strap onto your wrists and ankles to add some weight, Bala bangles are more comfortable and come in a variety of different colors so you don’t just end up wearing them as movement enhancers but also as accessories, honestly they’re game changers and I every second person I follow on Instagram has gotten themselves a pair during this pandemic, and you’ll hear from Natalie in a second how the pandemic has affected their supply and demand.We talk about the aha moment, the logistics of creating a bangle, telling a color story, when it became clear that Bala can be considered a successful venture, celebrity spotting, her journey into fitness, starting her career in advertising, the reality of the current job market, what she looks for in a future employee, effects of Covid-19, learning lessons, the life changing moment of shark tank.
Social Profiles:
Veronica Tucker - There's beauty in the simplicity of things
Veronica Tucker is the owner, creator and wonder woman behind Veronica Tucker The Label. Although it wasn’t a deliberate decision to start her label and it was more of a gradual process that resulted from amazing feedback via social media, she’s creating some magical custom pieces for women. The power of Instagram is actually how we came in contact and I couldn’t be more grateful, because I seldomly get to connect with creatives in the fashion industry. I live for her stories and tune into fabric Fridays every week to learn more about textiles, so definitely make sure to check out her profile! I wish this conversation would’ve kept going but in our episode we talk about what it needs to start a label, her first job, creativity vs. what sells, psychological affect of sizing, sourcing, education, eliminating waste, inspiration, what is more important the eye or the technique, copyright, creating a sustainable fashion system and putting a price tag on creative work, just to give you an overview but as always we cover so much more. Have a look for yourself at what beautiful pieces she has and is creating, if you’re looking to invest in something special then I can only recommend to send her a message.
Social Profiles:
Carla Vidal - I want to be as transparent as I can be
Carla is the founder and creator of her label Nineteen Seventy, that creates resort wear for men. Her mission is to balance style with comfort, thereby creating pieces that you need in the local climate of the Dominican Republic and want on your next vacation, which we’re all craving I’m sure. Carla is a force of nature and you’ll hear that for yourself in the episode. We talk about what she wanted to be when she grew up, the dream of living in Paris, that we clearly shared, being confronted with the ideal, cultural differences, making mistakes, the importance of fulfillment, sustainability and transparency and yes, we also touched on how covid affects her current state business wise as well as personally.
If you’re looking for something comfortable and easy to buy for yourself, her products are the way to go, she ships to the US, Europe and of course within the Dominican Republic.
Emi Fukahori - It’s an excitement of flavor
Emi Fukahori is the owner and magician behind Mame, a specialty coffee shop in Zurich with now two locations. This episode is dedicated to all the coffee fanatics who have wanted to learn about the craft of making coffee. It’s a bit of a nerdy conversation in terms of discussing technicality but it brings out Emi’s personality and passion for what she does in the best way and I was so excited that she took the time and answered some of my most pressing questions. We talk about Japanese culture, why she ended up in Zurich, what makes a good cup of coffee, the world of flavors, what creating the right type of atmosphere needs, latte art, championship preparations, learning lessons and the love for people.
Eva Nidecker - Don’t do it for anybody else but you
Eva Nidecker, owner of Open Ride, some of you have heard her on Radio Energy, some of you have seen her on SRF and some of you have met her at Open Ride, the new ride studio at Europaallee in Zürich. She practices and creates magic, she’s forever curious, she pushes through the challenges and she doesn’t stop. Having built a career in media she had the lightbulb moment of creating her own ride studio purely from her love of riding and here we are in the studio, chatting about having an initial idea and breathing life into the project, finding the right person to partner with, choosing what to offer in terms of product and service, better than sex, consistency, battling stress, fitting into society and so much more.
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Being Epic Season 2
Welcome to Being Epic, a podcast where we take honest conversations to a new level. I’m Julietta, your host, and for those that don’t know me I’m a multi-cultural self-employed travel-hungry woman with the ambition and hope to make an impact with this podcast. My guests and I are here to remove filters, stigmas and insecurities and create a collective energy of being vulnerable, of being honest and of sharing each other’s epic ideas. We give you culture, knowledge and inspiration by shining a spotlight on personal journeys so we can adapt our opinions and perspectives and let go of restraints.
Being Epic is a state of mind, it’s about following your dreams and ideas and turning them into reality. Doing your thing basically. That’s ultimately when we are our most authentic, when we create something that resembles not just our ideology but also our personality.
I hope you’re going to love all that is coming on here and maybe, just maybe it will inspire you to step out of your comfort zone and do something you never thought you would but always wanted to.
Let’s be epic together.
Love, Julietta x