We were lucky to catch up with Giselle Rodriguez recently and have shared our conversation below.
Giselle, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?
Developing my confidence and self-esteem was something that took time. When I was in college and after graduation, I struggled with breakouts that affected my confidence and took a hit on my self-esteem. I researched ways to figure out how to clear my skin and went on this journey of changing my diet, adopting a skincare routine, and taking supplements. After making these changes, I slowly started to see improvements in my skin that helped with increasing my confidence and self-esteem.
I have always been into style and fashion and modeled during high school and college. That helped with developing my confidence as well. Developing my sense of style took place in college. The main anchors that contributed to developing my confidence further were those that I surrounded myself with and whom I looked to as mentors. When you are young, your body is still developing and going through changes. Our brains are still developing and we are learning so much. It’s nice to be surrounded by people who have already experienced the things you have and provide you with pointers on the ways to navigate your experiences.
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?
Hello everyone! my name is Giselle and I was born and raised in Manhattan, New York! I was lucky enough to live in a few different places such as Washington D.C., Virginia, and London but now permanently reside in NYC. I have spent the past couple of years working across different industries including, eCommerce, Fintech, Fashion, and Non-profit. For most of my life, I have been exposed to different artistic mediums because of my father who is an artist.
At an early age, I became obsessed with streetstyle bloggers and then fell into modeling in school which led me to other creative pursuits such as photography and writing. I have been a part of a Luxury Street-Wear fashion brand for the past 7 years working closely with the CEO / creative director and designer on collection launches and releases.
This year and month we are approaching our second Fashion Show in NYC where will be showcasing our 6th collection. You can check out more of our brand here I am excited! that this is our second show and amazed to see how much we have grown as a brand. Last summer/fall we launched a new vertical–our basics line to cater to a younger demographic and allow more accessibility for customers to shop.
Historically we have kept our luxury line which are 1 of 1 pieces at a much higher price point. We realized that not everyone can afford these pieces so decided to expand our offerings and found ourselves surprised to see how well the market reacted and how it was performing.
This year we are looking to solidify some partnerships to drive more brand awareness and have the privilege of being featured in an upcoming magazine: Unfamous. They are an independent printed magazine dedicated to showcasing the work of emerging artists, fashion designers, stylists, and photographers on a global scale. Their upcoming release, “Streetwear Chronicles will feature Somniis.
Aside from having worked in a few different industries, I have recently picked up my old hobby of writing again. A few years ago I launched a blog where I would interview a range of different people across different industries and share their stories. A lot of them were mostly my friends. Recently I have launched a newsletter: (G) notices where I share anecdotes from my life, valuable insights that I have gathered from different moments in my life, and things that I am currently into. Every week a new post comes directly to my subscribers inbox. It would mean a lot to me if you subscribed 🙂
Stay tuned to the release of our 6th collection by following us on Instagram: @somniisbysj
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
That’s a great question!. Looking back, the three qualities that were most impactful in my journey would have to be, personability, open-mindedness, and curiosity. Personability because it’s important for developing relationships with other people. A lot of the people that I have crossed paths with or become friends with were either probably through mere chance or a mutual friend or being at an event.
To foster that relationship it takes not only effort and reciprocity but also personability in cultivating and sustaining those relationships. Reciprocity is the currency of social exchange and developing the quality of being personable will take you a long way with not only creating an audience but also connecting with others.
Open-mindness because the world is our oyster and we are students sitting in the classroom. We have to approach experiences and challenges with a fresh open mind that the possibilities are endless. If we shut off ideas or experiences that challenge us or may not align fully with what we are doing then we can miss out on a lot of opportunities.
I have learned that not everything comes wrapped in gift-wrapping paper. Remaining open-minded to the what-ifs and placing ourselves in experiences that might be uncomfortable is what will ultimately not only allow us to discover new things about ourselves but also potentially open up a door we never knew could exist.
Curiosity because I consider myself a lifelong learner. I am always seeking out new information and love learning from others. We live in a digital era where information surrounds us everywhere and has become more accessible now more than ever. When we constantly remain curious like when we were little kids and question everything, that is when we unlock new ideas and paths. Curiosity has led me to learn so many things, from taking certificates, traveling to new countries, and reading new books.
For folks who are early in their journey, I would say not to put too much pressure on yourself and enjoy and trust the process and journey. Put yourself out there, keep positive people around you, pick up new skills that you have always wanted, be curious about the world and others, know that things take time and that if we can somehow look back in our lives and see how the dots have been connected then we must trust that somehow they will connect in the future.
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
A book that has influenced my way of thinking and approaching life is Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from your money and Your Life by Bill Perkins. For a while, I have been interested in personal finance and find this to be a great book for anyone in their 20s. Bill Perkins highlights this concept called time bucketing where we essentially create different buckets for different ages in our lives and input the type of experiences we would like to have in each of those buckets.
His mantra is maximizing life experiences. I thought this was an interesting exercise/concept for us to think more about our life not only in how we would like to contribute but also in how we would like to have experiences. He also shares that the earlier we can have an experience in our life, whether that’s traveling to a certain country, learning a new skill, or picking up a new hobby or whatever it truly is, the longer we can relish it through what he coins a “memory dividend”.
Because many of us are either stuck in the past, replaying our experiences, or thinking about the future in the types of experiences we want to have, we rarely spend time in the present moment. He also says that the business of life is the acquisition of memories. The more memories we can create and collect, the more we can live a fulfilled life. I found this book to be valuable in opening my mind. I enjoy reading books that go against conventional ways of thinking and by no surprise, I was not disappointed.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://substack.com/home/post/p-141051042 | Somniisbysj.com
- Instagram: @giselle.r._ | @somniisbysj
