As someone fluent in five languages, what are the words that empower you?
Jasmine: I adore words. I have a tattoo of the most meaningful word for me in Italian - coraggio. I got it six years ago when I was living in Cuba. It was so important to me to get this tattooed on my arm because I wanted to always, always remind myself the question: “What would you be doing in this moment if you just had a bit more courage? If you could just go forward with more heart?” It also connotes going forward with heart. It is like saying “anima”, which in many languages is the same thing. I don't think you can ever have enough courage, you can always have more. Boldness is something that I respect and admire — when you dare to live and breathe, speak, and present yourself in a way that is truest to yourself. I find that so beautiful. And being courageous is also being vulnerable. It is not about traditional patriarchal forms of strength. It is about softness. The highest form of courage comes from vulnerability.
Can you tell us about your background? Where did you grow up? Were there any consistent missing pieces there? Where are the roots of your mission?
Jasmine: The roots of my mission are very true to what still drives me today, which is connection. I grew up in Italy for the most part. I was first gen, so I was the first in my family to be born in the US for a passport. But then I moved back to Italy. I was living in Tuscany, and going to school in Florence, but my roots were very much in isolation. I never felt like I fit in early on in life. I was systemically bullied. I was the kind of person who would be eating lunch alone in the bathroom because I couldn't deal with the anxiety of school. I didn’t fit in at school, I didn't fit in at home. I grew up around a lot of domestic abuse and violence. I tried to take my own life when I was 14, but luckily that didn't happen. And that is a very big and defining part of who I am. I don't speak about it on social media because it just doesn't feel in alignment. But in these kinds of contexts, I am happy to talk about it because it is a values-aligned community. So even if I haven't met the wonderful Luxembourg-based We Belong community, maybe they can relate to this and I am happy to talk to them because it might seem like I am someone who has always had it figured out but what motivated me a lot in my life was loneliness. And ego as well. So I am someone who came from wanting to define my career story and my leadership journey by choosing a path that I thought I should have taken. So I went to all the right schools. I tried to go to all of the Golden Star employers, and when I got to the place of ultimate Ego at the UN, a very big part of my story was being at the UN and asking myself after having worked in gender-based violence: “what am I doing here?” I wanted to be disruptive, and I wanted to work in sustainability and climate justice, but I came from a legal and gender background, so I couldn't find a place to transition. I couldn't find a platform where I could learn from diverse leaders. And so I built that while still at the UN called The Bloom. It started as a newsletter. I almost got fired because I was working on it while I was an intern. I didn't have a desk. I didn't have an office. So I would hide and work on the first editions of the newsletter from a storage closet in Switzerland. And that was how it started. With 15 people. I just wanted to connect the people whom I cared about with diverse professional development opportunities around the world, so that if you want to lead a more heart-driven career, bold career, and explore all these options, you could find a buffet of meaningful opportunities around the world. And that you had a place of belonging in this buffet of professional development opportunities where it could feel like someone was looking out for you, like a friend.
Thank you for opening up to me. It's astonishing how from a place of loneliness and ego you have created this blossoming ecosystem of people driven by a shared vision of social transformation — The Bloom. How can we bring this and this into the physical world, into our shared spaces?
Jasmine: We’ve been doing that in Barcelona. We have a large community here, around 400 people and we have been doing in-person events around the world. In-person bloomers are as amazing as they are online. We have everything you can think of under the social impact sun — from conservation leaders in Mongolia with a focus on gender equity to former business leaders in Rio de Janeiro who are now starting their nonprofits in tech activism. How we bring that in person is through an ambassador program where we can support people who want to bring social impact leaders together to meet in person in gatherings. We have a few different formats that have proven successful. For example, a career fair where we do a storytelling of diverse impactful organizations. The only condition is they are not hiring. The goal is to smash down the privilege of gatekeeping from organizations to be able to network with them before they even start hiring so that you can develop those relationships that will help you once they do. To dismantle all of this privilege, that is how you can succeed in this career is still very much about who you know. The goal of these in-person gatherings is that people would be able to get to know you and your team. So how we bring it in-person is by really taking this element of The Bloom, which is storytelling, and pairing that together with practical opportunities. That has always been the sweet spot of The Bloom. It is like. We don't just highlight stories. We also share a lot of practical resources, but do that in a way that is very spicy.
You’re someone curious about the spaces in between — ideas and people that do not neatly fit into “one side or the other”. So many people are curious about the space in between, but may not feel as armed with experiences and eloquence — to make meaning of what they’re seeing. And that can feel like a dangerous space to explore. Do you have advice for people who want to wander into that space, but might not feel as adept at talking about what they are seeing, feeling, or learning there?
Jasmine: My heart calls me to say that the most important thing in this is community. That we all have this amazing superpower in life, which is that we don't have to go through it alone. Realizing that should empower us to seek out those who we can go through things together with and to be able to let go of people who don't necessarily align with this. I am Egyptian, Italian, and American, as well. When I say this, many people say: “Oh, how long did you live in Egypt?” My family were refugees on my dad's side, so I never learned Arabic and actually, I never lived in Egypt. “Oh, so you're from Italy, but you don't have Italian name or accent”. The second important thing is to have boundaries. Unfortunately, we do live in a world where people need to classify others. This has been a thing forever and it is still now. How do you resist that is by meeting the right kind of people that can sit with the ambiguities that many of us represent. Ambiguity is a very normal part of being a human. That discomfort with ambiguity often comes from a place of fear and ignorance, as well as the lack of experience. It is important to learn that it is not your job to explain your existence to people, but actually find the people who you are not explaining and you're just being with. So that's the phase of my life where I'm in now, and I have arrived at that by being able to let go of when it is not the right relationship for me, like friendships or romantic relationships, it takes a lot. The path towards being comfortable in our ambiguity is exhausting. But it's possible.
Finding one person whom you don't have to explain yourself to and knowing your boundaries is essential on the path of vulnerability. It is just about being able to be vulnerable with the right people. Just like plants have defense mechanisms for a reason. It is important. They need that just like humans do. Nature can inspire a lot of my understanding of this.
The theme of this month’s newsletter is the importance of creativity. I’d like us to discuss its role in the age of climate crisis and wars. How do we give ourselves room for creativity amid disaster? How do we stay creative in times of turmoil?
Jasmine: One of the things that I feel we are missing in creativity is words. I think that the way that we speak to each other, in day-to-day life, lacks creativity, and not because there is not a desire for creativity. It is just because, at a most basic level, we have never been taught how to connect more creatively with the people right in front of us. I think how you stay creative is by not thinking of creativity as this really big art project - I have to start a podcast, a social media account, or a newsletter. Just the way that you see the people right in front of you can be extremely creative. If you ask yourself what are the questions that I most ask myself in my day-to-day life? What are the ways that I reflect and how can I be more creative? One of the ways we can find creativity in times of crisis is by meeting ourselves with more compassion, and not putting so much pressure on creativity, needing it to be in big things, but just in the way that you treat yourself. Like when I show up on a call, how am I thinking of myself in relationship to the other? That's literally something so simple, but just a creative reframe as well can be so inspiring to yourself and the person in front of you. Creativity is in the small and simplest moments. On an elemental level, that's what inspires me the most - realizing that is a creative process and it can be leveraged to inspire more joy to us and to the people who surround us.
How has your perspective on entrepreneurship changed over time? What are some of the key lessons you've learned?
Jasmine: So much! Lesson number one on entrepreneurship is you do not need to read all of the stupid white boy books. Do not pick up Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, or Simon Sinek. If you go to a bookstore and look at the entrepreneurship section, it is so boring. You can be an amazing entrepreneur and never go to a business school, never pick up an entrepreneurship book. I think some of the coolest entrepreneurs I know don't read. The best way to be an entrepreneur is to just do it.
The biggest blocker for entrepreneurship is overthinking. Unfortunately, overthinking is something very gendered. The patriarchy wants us to live in our heads. But successful entrepreneurship is about the heart.
So much of my work is intuitive, grounded in authenticity and chill routes. It's not necessarily about having the most intricate business model. No, it's about: do you love what you sell? If you sell it with your heart, people will buy it. That's also something that translates into the digital realm. If you feel it, others will, as well. You don't need to sell it to the whole world. You just need to know who you're speaking to. Another big lesson is about understanding who is it that you're speaking to and why. People always connect with why you're doing what you're doing more than what you’re doing. So, not focusing so much on the product itself, but the story. Entrepreneurs all need to be storytellers, and it's not about coming up with the perfect fluid flow. I’m a mess in conversations, I go all over the place, and that's fine. As long as the essence of what someone is trying to say is clear.
Storytelling is about speaking from the heart. But getting to that place is hard. The world doesn't want you to speak from the heart because then you will be influential and patriarchy and systems of oppression don't want people to be influential. The heart is very influential. Once you know your heart, you will know your power.
This is the biggest entrepreneurship lesson. Not conventional, for sure. No entrepreneurship book will tell you that. I am exploring, and writing one myself, which will be an anthology of lessons on entrepreneurship from unconventional entrepreneurs. And it's not the CEOs of unicorn businesses but a successful head of a restaurant, a free diver, for instance. An entrepreneur is not just someone who has a six-figure business. If you're able to live off of what you love and you are building something creative, it doesn't have to be new, just building differently, then you're an entrepreneur.
What is one experience or advice you would like to share with our readers?
Jasmine: To ask ourselves why is it so important to us to show up on calls like this? For me, it's because it doesn't matter at what stage of my career I am, it's extremely important to always, always, always be ready and available to speak to the communities that I care most about. So I think staying connected to the people you want to support and also to people who are aligned with your values is the most invaluable thing you can do. On this journey, if we are talking about entrepreneurship and leadership, I think the reason why we are here is because of our relationship at the heart of everything, whether it's business leadership, its growth relationship, etc. Getting good at relationships is so important.
But the first relationship is with yourself. Honor that relationship and never feel guilty about taking time to nourish your own soil because that is where everything will stem from. And if you don't take care of your own soil, then others won't be able to see how beautiful what you are blooming into is.
The time that you invest in stepping away or leaning into yourself is crucial. Lastly, I would advise for a lot of self-curiosity. The relationship you have with yourself is the longest one that you'll ever have. So, meeting yourself with curiosity is the best thing you can possibly do. And curiosity will help lead to a lot of vulnerability and courage.
I love the sentiments shared by Jasmine here. Leading authentically with the heart is so powerful!