Meet La Carmina

We were lucky to catch up with La Carmina recently and have shared our conversation below.

La Carmina, 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 have a favorite quote that comes from my bestie Yukiro (a leading drag queen and Goth performer in Tokyo). We love to hype each other up by saying: “Always go forward, but never straight!”

I feel this sums up my approach to resilience. No matter what happens, you’ve got to keep on going, one day and step at a time. However, the journey will never be a linear, upward one. There will be twists and turns, disappointments and surprises.

Our attitude is to not just accept this reality, but celebrate it to the max — I mean, who wants to walk a predictable and dull path? Rather, we want to strut forward with confidence (like we’re on a catwalk) and have adventures around the world with our fellow subculture club kids and artists… Let’s just say none of us ever aims to “go straight!”

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?

Growing up, I was naturally drawn to things like Japanese street fashion and Goth culture—anything that was a tad morbid and outside a “straight and narrow” path. I started exploring Japanese / Harajuku fashion when I was a teenager and blogging about it on my La Carmina Blog (lacarmina.com/blog) around 2007. At the time, there weren’t a lot of people doing what I was doing, but I kept at it every single day. Readers who shared my love of alternative fashion, travel and lifestyle started finding my site and reaching out. Eventually, I began collaborating with brands, traveling worldwide for different dream projects, and even writing several books and doing TV shows on networks like ABC, Food Network and Travel Channel. It’s been a wild ride!

Today, I work on a variety of projects in different media. I write articles about travel, food and culture for publications like The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Time Magazine, and National Geographic. I work with tourism boards and companies on showcases (such as airline and hotel features), which have taken me to over 70 countries to date. I love collaborating with creative people worldwide, such as by hosting travel television episodes and speaking on panels. You can always see my latest Gothic travels and adventures on my Instagram @LaCarmina and site LaCarmina.com

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?

As I mentioned, “going forward but never straight” means that even if the path is unpredictable, you’re always making consistent efforts to learn and better yourself for the future.

First, I feel it’s important to prioritize disciplined, healthy habits, as these pay off in innumerable ways (especially for your future older self). Everyone knows we should eat well, exercise, sleep, drop toxic habits… but how many of us truly dedicate ourselves to making these changes?

Which comes to the second tip: rather than aiming for perfection, just keep showing up and being consistent, and don’t let setbacks get you down. For example, if you get sick and have to take a few weeks off from working out, it’s okay to let yourself rest and start it up slowly again. It’s the long term, cumulative picture that matters.

Third, keep on learning and experimenting. Careers and tech change faster than ever these days — I started by coding my site line by line. There were no smartphones, and my only social media was MySpace (how that has changed!) To anyone starting out, I’d advise: the more you stay open to new media and perspectives, the better you’ll be able to weather these inevitable changes.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?

I’m always down to take on new projects and challenges, as long as they are a great fit for my niche and audience! I want to keep exploring the world, meeting creative people, and helping others feel inspired to be themselves — whether they gravitate to Goth or other off-the-beaten-path underground cultures. It’d be great to keep on doing TV shows — I recently was on a reality competition game show, and have hosted food and travel television episodes in Japan and worldwide. I’m also a proud Canadian and keen to keep highlighting unusual destinations in Vancouver, BC (where I live) and other parts of Canada. You can connect with me through my site lacarmina.com (my email is listed there) or on Instagram @LaCarmina.

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La Carmina

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