In this episode of Audio Alumni, we spoke to Laetitia Damonsing, who, driven by a strong interest in social justice and diplomacy, sought professional experiences in Brazil, France, Belgium, and Switzerland. Her first learning experience abroad was volunteering in Brazil. Then she spent two years working at the Canadian Embassy in Paris and later embarked on a seven-month journey across Asia. We will hear about her experiences abroad and how her time outside of Canada has shaped her current endeavor in fashion and design.
Host- Emily: All right, so let's get this rock and rolling. Laetitia, it is so wonderful to meet you. I've done some internet sleuthing so I know that your story is absolutely incredible. Everyone else listening now needs to learn how amazing you are. So let's start by just a quick introduction.
Laetitia: So my name is Laetitia Damondsing. I am from Montreal, Quebec and I lived abroad for about five years in Brazil, in France and in Australia from 20, well my big adventure started in 2014 and I got home in 2018 ish.
Host- Emily: Wonderful. Now, what drove you to go abroad and live in so many fantastic places?
Laetitia: First things first, my parents are immigrants, so they're from the island of Mauritius. So for me, like migration and migratory movements are normal. So I think I grew up normalizing that. Like I have family in Australia, in France, in England and Belgium and Switzerland everywhere. So I've always been drawn to net like abroad. And when I decided to choose my career, I decided that I wanted to become a diplomat. So a career once again abroad. And I studied international development studies and international relations at McGill. And during my program I realized that it was necessary for me to gain international experience. So my first big experience abroad was in Brazil. I took a semester off from McGill and I decided to go to Rio for the World Cup cuz I played soccer my whole life. And soccer is very much important to Mauritian people.
So went to Brazil and at the same time I told myself I'm going to get a volunteering slash humanitarian experience. So I worked in marginalized communities, commonly known as faves and worked in Brazil for six months. Lived there I was 21, which was pretty young and my parents were kind of iffy about my decision. I think it all worked out and they were really proud in the end, but it was a bit tough for them to accept that that's what I wanted to do. And then after that I graduated McGill and the whole journey started. I decided to move to France because I told myself that I wanted, I got the humanitarian slash volunteering experience and so now I wanted more of a professional experience. So I moved to Paris and I worked at the Canadian Embassy. That was for, I lived there for two years, then I traveled Asia for about seven months and then I moved to Australia and worked at a Canadian consulate in Sydney for six months. About,
Host- Emily: All right. So Leticia, you've had such an incredible experience traveling so many places in such a short window of time, it feels like. Do you have a favorite country that you've been to?
Laetitia: I wouldn't say that I have a favorite country. I think I have a top five destination that I recommend. But I think that if I'm talking about the three countries that I lived in, so Brazil, France and Australia, they're so different. I can't compare. I think each country taught me a lesson or many lessons from each country. I've had such different experiences like what you live in Rio is definitely not what you live in Paris. And it's not the same that I experience in Sydney. So I wouldn't say that I have a favorite. I think they just all brought me something different. And this is what I was saying, it's, it's so important to go live abroad because it makes you such a well-rounded individual. It gives you this confidence in life and in yourself that maybe you wouldn't have otherwise or it's something that you get to learn by being abroad because you have to rely on yourself. You're a fish out of water, you have to figure things out. It's really not what you experienced before being home. So yeah, I would just say that every country brought me something different and taught me different experiences and and lessons. So I don't have a favorite.
Host- Emily: All right. So can we dive into your experience a little bit with each country? Let's start with your experience in Brazil cuz taking off at like you said, 21 to a country that is so far away from everything that you know, growing up in Montreal and then volunteering with vulnerable populations on top of that. I mean let's talk about what that whole experience was like.
Laetitia: Oof. Brazil. Brazil. Brazil. Brazil. I left at 21. So what happened is I was interested in taking a semester abroad. So I was looking at Scandinavian countries because I really like, given that I was studying international relations and international development studies, I really liked how their governments and their societies operate. I do think that in terms of like their policies where they're placed on the spectrum of like being left or right, the way that they engage with their populations, to me from what I see obviously from an external point of view seemed very interesting. So I wanted to learn more. I wanted to experience what it meant to live in Sweden or Denmark. And so when I looked at the possibilities offered by McGill, there was no city that was interesting to me at least for my program. And I wanted to be in the capital so either Copenhagen or Stockholm.
And there was no opportunities at that point for my program to live in these cities. So I kind of like took a step back and told, well if it's not gonna work through McGill, I can find a way to do it myself. So I took the semester off and at 12 years old I remember playing in a snowbank with my friends and I was like, the day that the World Cup is gonna be in Brazil, I'm going to go. And so cuz all of us obviously we're all kids of immigrants and soccer is super important to us. So I was telling that to my friends and then that year it was 2014, it just so happened that the World Cup wasn't real that year. So I was like, you know what, I'm gonna fulfill this childhood dream and I'm gonna go to Rio, I'm gonna go to Brazil.
So left to Brazil just like that without any plan. I did not have a plan. I do recommend to have plan instructor but I'm just more go with the flow. So I left. I knew that I wanted to volunteer in marginalized communities and I knew that I wanted to live there for at least four months. That's all I knew. So I left I did the research. I'm very much a research gal so I went on the computer, I looked at how at my age I could go live in Brazil. I think for Canadians it was just a 90 day tourist visa given that I wasn't working and it was more volunteering than I did not need a work visa. So got my visa left in April, 2014, I'd say that was like exactly nine years ago. Wow. And so I left and I moved there and I had one friend that went to my high school that lived there that was also half Brazilian and met up with her and finally ended up living with her.
And on my first day there, like my second day there, I land in Rio and I meet people in the hostel. That was before I moved in with that friend And I'm on the metro to go to a soccer game at Marak, which is one of the biggest soccer stadiums in the world or world famous at least. And we started speaking English in the metro and then two guys approach us and like, oh you're, you speak English cuz I was with two Danish girls and then we're talking and then I'm like, oh what are you doing here? And one of them is like, I'm, I'm volunteering. And I was like Wow, cool. Where are you volunteering? And he is like in this favela up north you wanna join us? And I was like, yeah. So day two found my volunteering opportunity. I think I just trusted and I went with it.
I don't know if I recommend that to everybody. I think this is my archetype, this is a person that I am but found that found a place to live. And for me it was so eye-opening at 21, there's so many things that I understood. Like I said, my parents are from the island of Mauritius, they're immigrants. I didn't grow up in like having a lot of money. So I think my parents were always made us aware of like the state of the world or like you know like don't waste food. You know like some people don't have food. You have to be grateful for that. And so you hear it as a child and growing up and you don't really understand it. Right. And then when I started working in marginalized communities and I just saw things that just shook me so much and changed me and I just understood that I'm just lucky to be born in Canada and that my parents gave me like immigrated here to gimme this opportunity and that some other kids don't necessarily have the chance to experience that. So I'd say that's what Brazil brought me a lot of like compassion and understanding humanity and the luck that I have to have all these opportunities to be Canadian. I think it just, it shook me to the core for sure.
Host- Emily: That is an amazing story And oh my goodness, I feel like my jaw almost fell to the floor hearing about how you found your volunteering opportunity. Cause oh my god
Laetitia: Day too
Host- Emily: Just random strangers on the metro. It's like oh my goodness that I am so unbelievably happy that, I mean that worked out as fantastically as it did for you but oh my goodness that
Laetitia: Yeah, well I mean also that's the thing, they were young, they were like, it wasn't just anybody, they were young, they were also going through the soccer game. They were our age, they were foreigners, they were expats also. So there's like as much as like they were Americans and I'm Canadian and the girls were Danish, you have this like common experience of being an outsider in another country so it's maybe easier for you to bond. I don't know how far that bond can go. I mean that also depends on like compatibility and like human connection. But I did realize that when you're an expat it's easy to make friends with other expats because you have that common experience. Right. I would say like definitely listen to your gut. If you feel like the other person is not trustworthy or you don't feel good or the person doesn't make you feel safe, then don't do it. But he became my friend, he's one of like my friends now, so I got a great relationship out of it and I got work experience and I made a friend that one day I'll go visit in the United States. So I don't know, it's win win win for me.
Host- Emily: That's amazing. Now was it equally easy to make new friends in each country that you've lived in and you visited as it was with that initial experience?
Laetitia: So it's funny that you say that because I think one thing that we don't often talk about being an expat and living abroad is mental health. And it's something that I've spoken about a lot as a youth ambassador for International Experience Canada during my talks is that we move abroad and we just expect it somehow. Some we know it's going to be different but we're maybe given that you don't know how to measure your, your expectations, maybe when you get there you could be disappointed or confused or feel a bit lost. So it's important to either manage your expectations before, do the research, you know, watch YouTube videos, like things to know about living in Japan, things to know about living in France, the good and the bad. Like I think for me France was amazing cuz I got to work in the diplomatic field and I realized that I loved it so much and that coming back to Canada I decided to do my diplomatic exam and so that confirmed that I really liked that career and that I was on the right path.
However, France was really hard for me to make friends. I felt like Brazil was super easy, Australia was easy, but France was very interesting to me. So there's a spectrum, okay, I'm not saying it's like that for all French people but this is, this is my personal experience and obviously I'm projecting that cuz you're asking me to talk about my experience. But there's a spectrum and I felt like Canadians, we meet people and like we're super warm and and super open right away and then you interact and there's this kindness right off the bat was what I noticed from French people. They're like on the opposite of the spectrum. It's like at first, especially in Paris, I'm not saying all of France, I lived in Paris, it's a big city, you know like it's, it has the [inaudible] effect. So I felt like the way that they make friends is that they have their guards up at first and then you have to like maybe prove yourself, I don't know.
And then once they open up and they warm up to you, then you're in. Whereas Canadians, it's like everybody's nice, everybody's kind, it's like a known thing that Canadians are extra nice and then after that, if I don't know you do something that rubs them the wrong way, then the wall is going to be up. Whereas in France I really struggle to make friends because I was super like outgoing and bubbly and forward and people thought it was weird. People were like, oh like why is she so forward? And for me it was like oh like I'm just being kind. So I did really struggle with that and I think that was the hard part for me. I felt very isolated. I felt like every day going into the embassy felt so good because every day I felt like I had social connection that I knew how to connect with people cuz I was working with Canadians.
But then I would get out of work at that bubble of the embassy and I would go and like would experience life and I was like whoa, like I don't know how to connect with people and I'm also super social. I think we're all social beings and, but I'm on the extroverted side for sure. So I found social connection really hard. I did find that my mental health could have been better if I had managed my expectations and I had done maybe a bit more research on, I don't know, social norms or their culture or how to connect with people there. Because it's very different everywhere. Everybody has different social norms and I wish I knew that.
Host- Emily: Well first of all, thank you for being so vulnerable to be able to kind of launch us into that part of the conversation because that has been a very common theme with these interviews is that you're right, we don't talk about the mental health aspect of going abroad and living in other countries where their social etiquette is so vastly different from what ours is. And being able to dive into a whole new environment where you're forced to, you know, make friends like you're starting school again, that we really don't give enough attention to that topic and how many challenges that brings into the experience. So what is something like, I know we talked a little bit about doing some research on social etiquette and social norms, but if you could give yourself a piece of advice on how to manage those expectations, like you said, what would that advice be?
Laetitia: I think I could give advice on like more of how to thrive a bit more. Being an expat, I did realize that having a routine that was similar to home or a ru a new routine that I created specifically to that country was good. So I'll give you examples. For me it's important to go to the gym, it's important to stay active. That's always been part of my lifestyle. So in France, even though that's also another thing like now it's starting but I think when I went there before there wasn't that many girls at the gym lifting weights. That's so you have to be aware of like, or even girls playing soccer, you know, it's like you have to do the research, you have to learn and figure out how you can integrate what you used to do at home that kept you happy. How can I integrate that to my new lifestyle or to the new country that I am.
And also considering all the social etiquette and the norms, the cultural norms that are, you know, in the country. So for me, I kept a routine by going to the gym. I do wish that I FaceTimed my family and my friends more. It's almost as if I was like, okay, well I'm here and I felt like I didn't reach out. That's also the thing, if you don't feel good, reach out like your friends at home and your family care. I think for me it was more like I was maybe I was stubborn, I'm very stubborn and so I decided to be like, no I moved, I made a choice. I got this when like no, it's okay to ask for help And that was one of my lessons also. So find a way to connect. There's so many ways to connect. Like there's FaceTime now, there's Skype, there's Google Hangout.
18:37 So try to integrate that in your routine as much as possible. Do things that make you feel good. If you like to read a book in a park or read a book in a park in Australia, I organize like a brunch every Sunday cause I like to brunch. And in Australia they had that culture in France, they didn't in Brazil I go to the beach every Sunday. That's something that we don't have in Montreal and that's the type of thing that I integrated in my routine there. So find a way to create a routine that makes you happy. Do things that make you feel good and when you don't feel good, ask for help. Reach out. Also, there's so many, there's so many groups I know on Facebook there's like girls who love to travel. I also know that there's an app called Meetup. So that's a really cool app.
Let's just say you wanna learn the language. So you wanna do like a language exchange session. So it's like you meet somebody in a coffee shop and then let's just say they wanna learn French and you wanna learn Brazilian Portuguese. So the way that the conversation works is that you speak Brazilian Portuguese and you practice and then the person answers you in French and then you correct each other and then you engage in a conversation that is two languages. So that's really cool as well. But yeah, just do things that make you feel good and ask for help if you need help. And also that's one thing that I learned living abroad, it's one of my biggest lessons. Like you can trust in the kindness of strangers, obviously trust your gut. If it does, if the person does not make you feel safe, go the other way. But if you met somebody that you know you can open up to and that person makes you feel safe, like don't be scared to be vulnerable, be like, hey right now I'm feeling a bit lost. Like I feel like girls here don't really play soccer. Like I need help to find a league. Like do you know of anybody? Can you ask your friends? Like yeah, I'd say that.
Host- Emily: That's amazing. And that leads me into a next incredible question of where you say, you know, you got so caught up in trying to make this new life for yourself that you didn't manage to check in and connect with your family and friends back home as much as you would've liked to. What was that part of the experience like of your family and friends, you know, seeing you off on all of these adventures and then coming back and trying to, you know, reintegrate into your old life with all of these brand new experiences of basically being a new version of yourself?
Laetitia: I have to say that for my parents it was really hard. As I said, they're immigrants so they were just, at first they were like, they understood and they were proud of the fact that I went into the diplomatic field. But I think Brazil was especially tough for them. They did not understand why I would wanna go work in marginalized communities. They were like, we don't feel safe, we don't feel comfortable. You're a girl doing this alone, you're 21. It was very scary. But like I said, I'm stubborn so I was like no I'm going and I'm gonna go do this and it's a world cup and you know I love soccer and it's, I'm doing this like you can't stop me and I'm really happy I did because now my parents look back and they're like, wow
Unfortunately that's how life is. People will tell you like I don't think you should do that. Oh no that's not a good idea. But at the end of the day it's for you to know yourself and for you to know that no, this is what I'm doing. This is gonna encourage my personal growth, this is going to change me, this is going to give me values, you know, and like not just give me values that are important but like integrate these values because I experienced something so profound that it changed me. So I'd say that coming back after five years, I felt like I grew a lot. The girl that I was at 21 and the girl that came back, I was completely different. I was completely different. I had seen things, I'd experienced things and also it's something that we don't talk about but it gives you so many soft skills like connecting with anybody and everybody, any culture, you know, beyond language barriers, being able to communicate with somebody that's different from you that you're not, you know, used to and you're surrounding in your environment.
23:16 So I think that, I think leadership also because you believe in yourself, you have the confidence by living abroad,
Host- Emily: That's amazing. Even better than a Nike promotion for the just do it slogan. So talking about some of the things that you've done since you've come back, you have done so many incredible things and like I said, I went down the rabbit hole of slew things. Some of your socials that you've got, you've built yourself this incredible brand and this incredible business that really seems to have built on your experience going abroad. So what has that whole process been like building a business that works with so many international collaborators and how does that pull from your experiences working in other countries?
Laetitia: So it's super funny. I've always known that one of the requirements for my career was that there has to be related to something international. Like it has to give me opportunities to go abroad. So I decided to become a diplomat or take that path. And coming back, I think after four and a half years of being abroad, I was kind of, I was coming back 28, approaching my thirties. For me I was like, okay, right now I'm in the chapter where I wanna set roots and setting roots meant not being on the road and setting roots meant putting a pause on the whole diplomatic dream. It's not something that I've abandoned. Of course not. I just realized that for right here, right now, it's not my path. You know, like I have another detour to do before I get to that maybe in my forties, like once I have kids.
And so I think it's a chapter for later on. And in the meantime I was doing therapy and cuz I recommend that to everybody, everybody should have therapy. Therapy should be free. And so I was telling my therapist and she's like, Leticia, what did you like as a child? And I was like, oh, I was a kid that was drawing all the time. All the time I was drawing, drawing, drawing. I was super creative, I was doing fashion shows, I was doing little
And I decided to live life for them and not for me. And so it doesn't mean that, you know, the diplomatic dream was their dream. It was definitely mine cuz my options was to become a doctor or a lawyer,
You realize, hey, I'm gonna start living life for myself, even though that's what I did before by living abroad even more for myself on my own terms. And so during the pandemic, I started [inaudible], I started curating like cool objects and getting creative and I created this whole world on social media. And then it exploded, it exploded. Brands in the United States, like Lisa Sega reached out to collaborate influencers started collaborating, and dodo baa exploded. And so at the same time I lost my job as a youth ambassador because the pandemic hit, I got laid off during the pandemic and then after that there was just like the silence and I was like, okay, well I guess I'm gonna focus on Dodo Baa entirely started as a curation for vintage objects and slowly it turned into what I feel is the culminating point of all my life experiences is what I'm doing right now.
Loving fashion. Growing up I was obsessed with fashion, I was obsessed with magazines and dressing up and I just, I loved it so much, but I just didn't think, you know, growing up in the culture that we have, that I could make a career out of it. I didn't think it was a possibility for me. It was like, oh, your drawings are nice, but like as a passion, you know, like as a hobby, it is not something that you make a living out of for anyways, the way that I grew up culturally. And so Dodo ba is now a of circular fashion and circular design, but also a platform of education on the benefits of the circular economy. And so now I'm taking that direction and I was very much exposed to upcycling during my travels, but also I was exposed to global waste and what it meant in Brazil, 21 years old.
So nine years ago, one of the first favelas when I said, I met this guy on the metro and he said, oh, I'm working in favelas up north, it's called jhu. And if you look it up and you Google it, it doesn't exist anymore. But it was one of the world's biggest landfills. And so kids would play in that every day. People that was their economy, you know, like digging waste to make a living and you know where that waste comes from the western world. And so when I got there in 2014, it was gone already, but you could still feel the repercussions of that landfill being gone because it was part of their economy. But you could also understand that this landfill was never meant to be there. All this waste, all this global waste was never meant to be there. It's from the western world as if these countries are garbages.
And then also other experiences that I had is, you know, going to Cuba, I realized like all these 1950s cars, you know, for us maybe it's garbage. You ship it there for them it's like gold and they make them work and they work on them and they, and they repurpose them and they make them beautiful again and they care for them, you know? So when you realize how much waste we have, especially now with like fast fashion everything that's happening, but with fast fashion and, and trends and social media, how much waste is created in the world. Like for me, it's not an option. Having been exposed to landfills and kids living in such dire conditions to do a job that doesn't benefit the planet or doesn't have a purpose for higher good, that's just not who I am. Like I said, 21 years old going to Brazil changed my life and I knew that whatever I did in life, it would be to create change.
Whether it's using my voice, whether it's now I started du ba, whatever I do, being an inspiration to other women of color that don't come from a high socioeconomic background to believe in yourself that you could succeed. You don't come from that world. You're not privileged, you don't have all the tools, but if you believe in yourself and you work hard enough, you can be Oprah Winfrey, you know, you could be Michelle Obama. So all of this to say that, yeah, the ba is just the culminating point of all my life experiences. And let's just say in Thailand, I was eating at Pat Thai one day and I look up and there was a lampshade made out of a Kentucky fried chicken bucket. So the bucket was the lampshade. And then they put, and I was like, wow, how creative for us? Like you're done eating your fried chicken and then you, you just put it to recycling with the garbage all depending how, how oily it is, and then you move on. And for them they made a lampshade out of it. So I think living abroad definitely influenced my, my desire to explore upcycling and reducing waste in the circular economy. And I understand the benefit of it.
Host- Emily: There's so many absolutely phenomenal rabbit holes we could go on. So I feel like we may need to record more, but first of all, like the pressures of having immigrant parents and the expectations they set for you and how that all played into your role is, oh, could be a whole episode on its own because I don't think, again, it's a topic we don't cover nearly enough and how those pressures of living the quote unquote, you know, Canadian or American dream play into those life choices, but that they don't necessarily have to limit you and that you can kind of march your own path by still doing things that are going to excite them and make them so incredibly proud of you. Another rabbit hole we could, could be going down is just the whole topic of, you know, sustainability and moral conscious or like conscious of the lack of sustainability in our Canadian American economies.
Because North America is not known for sustainable for sustainability. And we need people like you who are willing to take those leaps of faith and live in other countries and see the damage that we've done to the world to be able to bring back such an incredible lightness to our culture and try to enrich us with that knowledge. The duke, the rabbit holes I really want to go down is one, have you had an opportunity to collaborate with some of the people that you met while working abroad? I noticed in some of your posts about your most recent collection, which those blazers are absolute dynamite by the way.
Laetitia: Not yet. Actually, no. Most, most people that I collaborated with are either of the states that I met through social media because, you know, they emailed me and then we just started to collaborate. But mostly it's people in Montreal and I just, I I just ensure that like it's representative of our society. So I collaborated with a Syrian Canadian architect and designer. I collaborated with this German girl from the prairies, well German Canadian from the prairies. My models were from Senegal. Another one is from, she's Mauritian Ukrainian. So half Mauritian like me and half Ukrainian, which how crazy is that? Yeah, I collaborated with this Puerto Rican designer in New York. All of this to say that whatever I do for me is very important. Like I have values that are very strong, so representation, diversity, inclusion, sustainability, and I just move in the world with these intentions and values.
And whether it's my personal life or my business, I'm not interested in making profit or money. If it's not with intention, I'm not available for that. Energetically neither. So the way that I move in the world is the way that my life experiences have made me the woman that I am today. And that's just what I do and I don't apologize for it. It's sometimes, you know, some people are like, oh, she doesn't wanna, I got asked to collaborate with Pampers. I got asked to collaborate with this brand for like contraceptive pills and I was like, no, I'm not doing that because contraception for me, I've been on it for so long, not knowing it in my thirties now ruined my health. You know, it gave me hormonal imbalance. It's just there's not enough. And also like why isn't it available for men? So even though they offered me thousands of dollars, I was like, no, I'm not interested, even though you're offering me a trip there paid this just to be on national TV to talk about a contraceptive bill. I'm not available. I'm not interested in doing that. So yeah, I think I have values and I just don't budge on them. I'm flexible, I'm open-minded of course, but if I am to put something out in the world and for me it has to serve, you know, greater good or you know, wellbeing of others, I'm not gonna budge on my values.
Host- Emily: That's amazing and so powerful. Especially diving in, like especially talking about the contraceptive offer and bringing it back to the whole idea of representation and being an advocate for women and women of color who want to take these opportunities but may not have the confidence to not only take a large leap of faith the way that you have a few times over, but also the confidence to really understand what is core to them and how to stick to it. So in being able to build that confidence and find that voice that speaks, you know, to support other women, what's your advice for another woman who might be struggling and wants to take on some of these incredible opportunities? Like you have?
Laetitia: I'd say read, I read a lot and I read a lot of self-development. I read a lot of things that expand my mind. You know, I also realized that we live in a society that not our minds are controlled. Like I'm not that far
You know, like I have all these talents, I'm a multidimensional woman and I want to explore all of that. And also that's the thing I feel like, especially as women, and then to add the level as a woman of color, we're often told how to live our lives by society, by men, by people around us when like, my job is not to fulfill your needs and desires for me. You know, my job is to live my life for me. And if you're meant to be around, if you're meant to cheer on for me, if you're meant to support me, then you'll be around. And if you're not, then you need to go. So I'd say one thing that I really learned through therapy is boundaries. Boundaries really allowed me to speak my truth and remain in my truth and be like, Hey, like it's really cool that you want that for me, but that's not for me.
And speak from a place of authenticity and no. And you know, you might have the feeling of like guilt and shame and be like, oh my God, I told this person, you know, hey, I don't wanna work on the contraceptive project even though you're offering me thousands of dollars because it's not aligned with my values. Maybe you'll feel guilt, maybe you'll feel shame. But then the long term, the more you say no. And the more you set boundaries, the stronger you become and the more you remain in your truth and the more you're able to be an inspiration to others because you're no longer living life for others, you're living life for yourself. And also take time to know yourself and how do you take time to know yourself? I journal a lot. I said I read a lot. I like to expand my mind.
I like to have meaningful conversations with people that I feel safe with and have, you know, open-mindedness or a lot of values that I think are important for human growth. Meditation, I meditate daily. That for me was a lifesaver. I think that taking time to just like zone in on me, you know, not the noise canceling out the noise every, there's going to be naysayers and people that don't agree with you and don't support you and don't think what you're doing is great or amazing, but these people don't matter. They don't. What matters is you, how you move in this world, what you think is, I don't wanna use right or wrong and get into moral and ethics, but what you think feels good, you know, and what you wanna put out there. So boundaries, connecting to yourself, reading, finding the tools also. That's the thing, like I said, I did not, I don't come from a family that meditates.
And I mean, my dad is an intellectual and he is a very, very, very, very wise man. I'm lucky. So I have a father that doesn't really care about what other people think. He's very grounded, he's very calm, he's very wise, he's a man of few words. So he could tell you two things, you know, you could ask him for advice, he'll give you two words and you just, you get it, you know? And he also lets you live your life freely, make your own mistakes, he doesn't control you. And then when you need to talk to him, he'll give you a few words, but there're words of power. And you're like, okay, yeah, I've been on the wrong path. I'm not doing this right. You know? So surround yourself by people that are cheerleaders and that cheer you on. So many of us are not aware that we're environments or people around us that are draining us, that people that don't wanna see us succeed. People that don't wanna see us thrive. Find your core group of people that have aligned values and cheer you on and genuinely wanna see you succeed. You know, find these people. And these people are also going to give you the confidence to show up, you know, fully yourself without having to apologize or making yourself small or dim your light.
Host- Emily: That's incredible advice. And I feel like we could go on for hours here. Like there are so many rabbit holes I want to dive down into with you because there's so much power in the types of conversation that come from this initial dialogue and just the way that we can bring to light so many aspects that tie into, you know, what drove you to go abroad, why you chose the places you did, the experiences you gained from it. And that whole full circle of being a young woman who took all this on and is now absolutely killing it with a fantastic business that is built on such incredible, like moral ground. So I just wanna say thank you so, so much for taking the time to share your story and be so vulnerable. Like you can absolutely hear the confidence in your voice, you can hear the inner peace and the happiness that you have in what all these experiences have taught you. So that is so powerful. And I just wanna say an absolute heartfelt thank you.
Laetitia: Aw, thank you. My pleasure.
Host- Emily: Now, for anyone else who may want to follow along with you and your business and all the incredible journeys you go on can you tell them where to find you on the internet?
Laetitia: Yes. So my circular business is called Dudu Baa, so D O D O space, B A Z a a R. I have a website, Dudu Baam, and it's the same thing on Instagram. It's at du So yeah, and if you wanna find my personal profile, you'll see it in the bio of du ba.