IAM908- Podcast Host Discusses About the South Asian culture

Disha Mazepa is the host of But What Will People Say? a podcast about South Asian interracial relationships and other topics the South Asian culture doesn't like to discuss. In her every day she is an occupational therapist and provides design services for customized gifts. She's a multi-hyphenate who wears a lot of hats.

• CEO Hack: Having things organized and working smart
• CEO Nugget: All success is a matter of consistency
• CEO Defined: Being driven by purpose and doing things that bring an impact

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dishesbydishes/

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Transcription

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00:11 -Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:39 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. Abdisha Benzepa of But What Will People Say podcast. Disha, it's awesome to have you on the show.

00:50 – Disha Mazepa

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

00:52 – Gresham Harkless

No problem. Super excited to have you on as well too. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Disha so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. And Disha is the host of, but What Will People Say? A podcast about South Asian interracial relationships and other topics the South Asian culture doesn't like to discuss. In her every day, she is an occupational therapist and provides design services for customized gifts. She's a multi-hyphenate who wears a lot of hats. Disha, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:22 – Disha Mazepa

I'm ready.

01:23 -Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Well, let's do it then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to hear a little bit more about how you got started with all the awesome work you're doing, your podcasts, and all those awesome things you're working on.

01:33 – Disha Mazepa

So the podcast got started. I've always had a little Instagram side blog, you know, how everyone has that second Instagram, and I've always had it. And 1 day I ended up, you know, randomly posting about my, I think it was wedding planning. And I like posted about wedding planning and my husband, I'm Indian, but my husband is not, he's Italian. And suddenly there's all of this interaction happening that I didn't, I mean, I had engagement on my Instagram, but it was just a hobby. It wasn't something I took too seriously.

And suddenly just out of the woodwork, like people asking very invasive questions about my relationship and just like pure curiosity. Oh my God, how did you tell your family? How did they react? How is your wedding planning? And when we were out and about planning for weddings, shopping with vendors and stuff, we would get a lot of the same questions, strangers asking about, oh, who's that guy? And in our culture, I grew up in a very conservative Indian household. I was raised Hindu and the idea of an arranged marriage is still very common.

And also, even if you don't do that, you're still expected to bring home someone not only who's like Indian, but the same religion and sometimes the same cast depending on your family. And so I realized there was like this huge market and like need that was not being met. And I thought you know what we need to we need to talk about this. Like clearly people who don't even know me, like how many times do you have strangers walk up to you and ask you personal questions about your life? Like it doesn't happen every day.

So it started to stand out that this was kind of an issue that needed to be dealt with. I was part of this 1 little group of women who were dating outside of South Asian culture. We had each other, and there weren't many of us. It was like a few hundred of us. And these topics that I cover on the podcast just constantly came up. And so that's what led to the podcast. And I used my Instagram to kind of help launch it and like push it out into the world. So yeah, that's how that got started.

03:40 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. Well, I appreciate you for doing that as, as you say, seeing some opportunity or some problem and, you know, I always say in true entrepreneurial form, decide to create something to solve that. And I think so many times the medium of being on a podcast is at its heart, like having a conversation. And I love that you took those probably conversations you were having when you were asked those questions and decided to do that, you know, within the podcast medium, because I think that's at the heart of what allows people to learn about different things, have conversations that they might not be comfortable having on a regular everyday basis.

04:14 – Disha Mazepa

Yep, that's pretty much it. And it's been growing ever since when you found out you're not the only one who did it.

04:20 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And you're not the only one that's interested as well too, because I think that's the kind of beauty of creating something you do for yourself. And then so many other people are interested in it. So I know I touched on a little bit you did as well too. What are some of the kinds of things you can find and listen to on your podcast? And also could you talk a little bit more, I know we talked offline about your design services and how you incorporate that into what you're doing.

04:41 – Disha Mazepa

So on the podcast, all of my guests are in interracial or interfaith relationships. They're usually South Asian, but they're not always sometimes it'll be their partner who is South Asian, but they come on to talk. And we discuss all the different very unique human experiences that come with that, not just bringing them home to your family and what happens in the worst case scenario where you get disowned or the best case where your family was open to you dating and was okay with you having a boyfriend or girlfriend. To things like fusion wedding planning, that's really very new to the market and is like, how do you incorporate all these different cultural aspects?

We discuss things like raising kids, just dating in general, and having conversations about even within the interracial dating world. It's different for me to bring home someone who is white as opposed to if I brought home someone who was black or Hispanic or whatever, and there are still different tiers within that. And so we try to cover as many things as possible.

There's lots of stuff coming out and different types of guests who have had different experiences. We have a Bollywood actress coming on this month and she is more in the public eye. And now you have a country with a billion people who now see you dating someone now being married to someone who is 90 and now everyone else's opinion is mixed into this experience and so it's been interesting and then from there. And from there, I guess we have wandered into the realm of, I have a sort of Etsy shop, I do design services, I love art and creating, anything creative is what I thrive on. Another need in the market that wasn't being met is there's a huge South Asian population in the United States.

And as much as there are lots of fun, quirky things on Etsy, it's still really hard to find custom things or things that are targeted to a South Asian culture, right? Like there are lots of witty sayings for brides, right? But a South Asian bride isn't the same as your typical American bride, right? They might not have a white dress wedding. So then suddenly all those white sashes are pointless. For South Asian weddings, actually, you don't wear white because that's what we wear to funerals if you're Hindu. We wear red dresses.

So now what if we made red sashes? And we grew up in a world where we never found our name on keychains and cups and things in gift shops. So now I can sit here and make you like you put your name on a shirt or your branding or you know right now it's Valentine's Day so like custom cards for people if they bought a specific gift for their spouse and like I really want it to make it special, right? So if you buy something: like this one woman bought a vinyl record player for her husband and I made all the, I made the card to go with it. I made the gift tag to go with it and I like all the little details that make something special as well as the digital prints and designs that I've created. And yeah, that's, that's that.

07:55 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I appreciate that. And, fortunate I'm not, you know, I'm not South Asian, but I've never seen aggression key chain either. So I still have that struggle as well. But I love again that you have that creativity you decided to create something, especially for the brides. You mentioned the phrase, you said fusion wedding. Is that when the 2 cultures are fused? And so 1 ceremony Is that exactly what that is?

08:17 – Disha Mazepa

Yeah, it's like how do you have a wedding when 1 person is Christian and the other person is Muslim or Hindu or Sikh or whatever mix you got in there as well as meeting family expectations and wedding planning is already hard, And when you're trying to mix in two cultures, it's a whole other ballgame.

08:36 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. But I almost feel I don't know, I'm sure you probably would agree. As a designer as well, too, that's when to me, beauty happens is when you take to what seems like dissimilar things and able to merge them into something beautiful. See the things, but the ceremony itself is huge and unique.

08:54 -Disha Mazepa

Yeah, absolutely. It's a different kind of experience. But like you said, It is really beautiful to see 2 different cultures and ideas come together. And then you see how much commonality there is too. I feel like our, especially my culture is so focused on pointing out how different you are. But when you see it all come together, you're like, oh wait, it's, it's not that different.

09:16 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And so I was going to ask you for what I call your secret sauce, and this could be for yourself personally, or your business, or a common area podcast, or a combination of both. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

09:29 – Disha Mazepa

I think for me, I'm I do everything that gives me joy, but also it gives me purpose. Those are the things that drive me to do the things that I do even professionally as I work in pediatrics. And as long as I have that everything I put out will be something that I think is worth putting my name on. I am a huge quality-over-quantity person. And so I will not, you know, put my name or my branding on anything that I'm not genuinely proud of, that I wouldn't use myself or see worth in myself. But that's just me.

10:10 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, but I think people appreciate that as we talked about, you know, from the, you know, Fuse wedding, I think when you have that kind of uniqueness and you put your heart and soul into what it is that you're doing, whether it be something that's going to be at a wedding or your podcast or each of the things that you work on, it shows itself when you have that care, attention to detail, and kind of pride in what it is that you're creating and doing.

10:35 – Disha Mazepa

Yeah, definitely. That's definitely some of the feedback I always get from people that I work with is like the attention to detail, the things that you probably wouldn't notice unless you really stopped and looked and you're like, oh wow, I wouldn't even think to like include that, you know, like those details in a gift tag or, you know, putting someone's name in just the right spot or the date that meant something to them.

10:58 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. So when in your process just I guess generally speaking, do you usually do a fair amount of, I guess, interviewing like you do on your podcast, where you really get an idea of if that name was in this specific place, then it might trigger or it brings up something that maybe came up in a conversation.

11:14 – Disha Mazepa

Yeah, My method primarily has been through design consults. I prefer that people will reach out to me and say, hey, I have this idea or I know someone who's getting married or someone just had a baby and I want to make something special for them. Let's take that idea and we're going to bring it to life and it's going to be unique and special to that 1 person. So that's where like my quality over quantity comes in. I don't want to make 10 of the same things. I want to make 10 different things that are perfect for the person there.

11:46 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, that's that's extremely powerful I think people feel like they get a unique gift and the gift is a representation of whatever event might happen or whatever is going on and they can look at each unique aspect of it and it reminds them of that.

11:58 – Disha Mazepa

Yep, exactly.

12:00 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome.  Awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what do you feel is something that makes you more effective and efficient?

12:12 – Disha Mazepa

I'm an organizer. I work, My brain is always working smarter, not harder. And so I like having things organized and color-coded and in the calendar with times, dates, everything. I find that the more organized you are, the more effective you are. And that's how time management works. I don't believe in being busy. Like people who say like, I'm so busy. I'm like, no, you're bad at time management. You're not busy. Everyone has the same amount of time in a day. You know, you do what you want to do and you do the things that are priorities, right? I still get to the gym 3 to 4 times a week. I still make dinner at night. I still do these things. Granted, I don't have kids and all those other time-consuming priorities, but the things that I do have going on, I make sure there's enough time for all of them.

And, you know, sometimes it is a matter of making a sacrifice, right? Maybe it is working a little bit longer, like Sunday night, I usually come in and I set up my week, I have like this calendar where I'm like, all right, this is my week, On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I go to the hospital, and I have to go to work. On Mondays, I do podcast things. On Friday afternoons, I do podcasting. Somewhere on Wednesdays when I do design things. It's all mapped out. And so come Monday morning, we're here to hit the ground running. I get up, I know what I have to do, what I have to wear, depending on where I need to be, what I have to pack if I need to throw anything in the car, I'm ready to go. And I genuinely enjoy everything I do. So it doesn't feel like work. I know that's cliche, but it's true.

13:48 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, appreciate that hack. And so now I want to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something if you were to hop into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

14:01 – Disha Mazepa

Consistency. All success is a matter of consistency.

14:06 – Gresham Harkless

Exactly. Well, awesome. Well, so I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on this. So Disha, what does being a CEO mean to you?

14:16 – Disha Mazepa

I think it's being driven by purpose and doing the things that bring you joy and make an impact, whatever, no matter how big or small the world around you.

14:27 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely, and I think that that brings everything home. I think so many times we get caught up in all the different aspects of business or creating or so many things. But I think if you have a strong purpose, then not only does it help you on the, you know, the great days, but also on the not-so-great days when, you know, things don't go according to plan. If you have a strong purpose, you can always look at that kind of North Star and that continues to kind of help align your steps and what you do.

14:50 – Disha Mazepa

Yeah. It's

14:51 – Gresham Harkless

what are you willing to do for free?

14:52 – Disha Mazepa

If you're still willing to do it when there's $0, you found it.

14:56 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And that's, it's extremely powerful to kind of keep that in mind. So Disha truly appreciates that definition. I appreciate your time even more. What I want to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best they can subscribe to your podcast, see about all the awesome designs you're doing, and find out more about what you're working on.

15:17 -Disha Mazepa

I don't have much for words of wisdom. I just turned 28, so I always say I'm too young to be much of a life coach. But keep doing what you're doing. Don't let social media tell you that people became famous overnight because they went viral on TikTok or whatever. And you can find my podcast on all major streaming platforms. It's called But ‘What Will People Say.' You can also catch me every Sunday at 10 am on Ruckus Avenue radio, which is a part of Dash radio. So if you are an online radio listener and on Instagram, That's it. You can find me at Disha.Mazepa.

15:55 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much, Deesha. We will have those links and information again in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can follow up with you. But truly appreciate all the wisdom you did provide, even though you're not a life coach, loads of wisdom that we need to kind of keep in mind. But thank you so much again. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:12 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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