We recently connected with Alex J Nakamura and have shared our conversation below.
Alex J, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
I get my resilience by asking myself in tough moments: “What is the other option?” and painting a clear picture for myself of what the road ahead might look like if I don’t make the hard choices. That image always end up being scarier than whatever intimidating challenge is in front of me at any given moment. But it’s not only about scaring myself straight; I also look into the positives of what taking the difficult road would look like and if I can muster some excitement out of it I’m golden! More often than not life has rewarded me whenever I’ve made those leaps so that gives me the confidence to keep going.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
For some years now I had been wanting to run my own business and sustainability had been on my mind for a long time. As a child I was brought up away from the city and we would take care of our own trash, had a rain water reserve and lived in close connection to nature. My mother is japanese so it was already in her culture to recycle and because she was brought up by parents who had lived through a war it’s in her DNA to have an aversion for waste and excess. On the other hand, even though my father was brought up in Colombia with very little means, he was able to overcome scarcity with the help of his family who pushed him to study hard, had an appreciation for beauty, arts and cinema and did everything in their power to send him to study abroad. My father has a great appreciation for beauty in general, be it design, music, movies, or the arts. He was the decorator in our house, the one who would take us clothes shopping, to fancy restaurants and traveling to exotic places at an age other people would deem too young for a child to appreciate. But me and my siblings have vivid memories of those trips and are very fond of those experiences. So I’m a combination of love for beauty while at the same time being mindful of waste and unnecessary things.
During the pandemic I started conceiving Sumiye Co. I opened a small shop on Etsy with a few sustainable items from brands owned by women who had respect for the planet and the work of artisans. Little by little I started finding more amazing brands that fit the bill. I was so excited to come across so many wonderful independent companies ran by women producing beautiful items sustainably and in a socially conscious way. My list of brands kept on growing so I launched my own website at the beginning of 2022. Today we have more than 2,000 products, from women’s fashion accessories to skin-care products, baby and kids clothing as well as bedding and bath & body products. We also have a large line of everyday zero waste, plant based products for cleaning that are both durable and beautifully designed. All of our products are made as naturally as possible and in healthy work environments. Our imported artisan products are fair trade and our vendors provide not only sustainable living wages to these artisans but most of them go as far as offering educational programs to help improve the future for the artisans, their families and communities.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I think transferable skills are a powerful concept to keep in mind. Any job you do, no matter how insignificant it may seem or far removed from what you would really love to be doing, can provide you with important transferable skills that you can apply to your dream job. So for folks who are early in their journey I would say do your best wherever you are and learn as much as you can! Not only will this mindset make that seemingly uninspiring job more enjoyable but you never know what skill may come in handy in the future. I now use so many skills I learned at jobs that were difficult. Another important reason why I believe you should do your best wherever you are is because you never know who’s watching. I’ve had several doors open for me due to opportunities offered by people who I wasn’t aware where watching what I was doing at any given point.
Staying curious is another quality I deem important. I don’t really know if this is something you can teach someone or how to develop it but it’s a quality I appreciate in myself and has propelled my journey. Being curious not only keeps life interesting but it will also help you connect with people from all walks of life, it’ll make you appreciate different cultures, genres of music, movies, books, foods, professions, etc. Being curious will keep you in a constant state of learning which I think is very important in life.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
When I feel overwhelmed I have several tactics to help ground me depending on the situation. If I’m feeling that there are more tasks than I can handle I make lists and prioritize. More often than not things are not as pressing as they feel once I see everything laid out & organized. If I’m overwhelmed because I’ve been sitting down for hours working on a big project I go outside & take a deep breath, work on my plants or do a quick stretch. If I’m overwhelmed because of something emotional I go for a long hike or drive. If I’m angry about something I go for a run at the gym. If I just need to quiet my mind down & I have the time I cook.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sumiye-co.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sumiye.co
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sumiye.co
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sumiye-co-boutique
- Other: https://www.pinterest.com/ethicalshop
