Speaking and Communicating Podcast

Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating Podcast.

I am your host Roberta.

If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast that you should be listening to.

Please remember to subscribe, give a rating and a review by the end of this episode.

Today, I have the privilege of being joined by Urmi Hossain.

Listen to this.

She is Italian by birth, Bengali by blood, and Canadian by law.

What an identity, huh?

And before I go any further, please help me welcome Urmi.

Hi, how are you?

I'm very glad that you are here.

Tell us a little bit about your background.

Yes.

So as you mentioned, my name is Urmi.

I am Italian by birth.

I am Bengali by blood and Canadian by law.

So I was born and raised in Italy.

My parents are from Bangladesh.

I lived my whole life in Italy.

I have done my pretty much my whole education in Italy until I moved to Canada, where I did my university in finance.

I graduated from a bachelor degree of finance and I've been working for about six years in the financial services industry.

And in my free time, I like to do a lot of volunteering activities and support causes that are really dear to my heart, where one of them is women's empowerment.

And I have my own YouTube channel.

I also have my own blog where I try to educate people about public speaking, finance, lifestyle.

I talk about about different things that I do in my own life.

So I would say that's who I am in a nutshell.

You say your parents moved from Bangladesh to Italy.

Yes.

Usually people who are not from any of the European countries, they usually move to an English speaking country.

Do you know any reason why your parents picked Italy?

Funny story, before they moved to Italy, they had other two countries in mind.

They had actually Canada and they had UK along with Italy.

I do not know why dad did not choose the other two countries, Canada or UK.

And he has of course chosen Italy.

And I think he has chosen Italy because it was easier to move to Italy back in the days.

So basically when he moved, he moved to Sicily, which is in the south of Italy.

So it was much easier for him to move there.

And of course, like you mentioned, it's always hardest when you do not know the language.

And my mom and my dad, he learned Italian and he was like one of the first few many Bengali people that have moved to Italy.

So because after that, other Bengali people started to like move as well in Italy.

And he was sort of like a point of reference for the whole Bengali community.

Like people would go to him every time they had questions or every time they had to like fill up some paper because he was the only one that knew the language properly.

He has such a big reputation in the community that everyone knows who he is.

And he often also tells me like, oh, you know, you're the first Bengali girl to be born in Italy.

So I guess I would brag about it because people moved either to Rome or in the south and he actually decided to go through Sicily.

So he moved to Palermo and then decided to have a family, to have his own life there.

And then we had a very, very big community of Bengali people back in the days.

Did your parents ever mention to you how long it took them to learn the language?

Never.

And you know what?

I never even asked them.

Actually, it's only my dad who learned the language because my mom, nowadays, she still doesn't know the language.

She never forced herself to learn it because she has been a housewife for her whole life.

So she was with me and my sister.

Whereas my dad, he was the one working, learning the language and things like that.

Did you have experiences that made you be constantly reminded that you're different?

Yes.

And it basically happened in two settings.

So when I was at school, I was always super conscious that I was not Italian because everyone around me was Italian.

Did they say something to you or you just felt that way by yourself?

No, I just felt it.

It was just my feeling.

And I was very much aware that there were not that many immigrant kids.

And only when I was doing my high school that I started to see a few people, we had one Chinese student in the whole school.

And then we had one girl from Ecuador.

So I was super always aware that, you know, I don't look Italian because you can see it from my features that I don't.

But then when I would start speaking Italian, people were like, she's easy going.

They would always make me feel at ease.

And I always felt very much myself when I was around them, because I also grew up from this Western culture.

But at home, I felt a little bit uncomfortable where I felt like sometimes I was not myself.

Because yes, I look very much Bengali, but then inside of me, I always felt very much Italian.

And I feel like my ideas often were in conflict with the ideas of my parents because they are like Bengali.

So they have that whole cultural thing that comes with it, where women have to be a certain way, they have to do certain things.

So when I was growing up, I felt there were a lot of restrictions around me, what I could do, what I could not do.

And sometimes they mix it up with religion and culture, telling me that, oh, it's in our religion that tells you like you cannot do this.

But in reality, it's like a cultural thing.

Let's say I wanted to go out for a movie and couldn't because they're so worried about it.

Or they would say, you know, girls do not go to movies, like, why would you want to go to the movie?

So they were very, very strict because they're not used to seeing this because when they grew up, there was no one in their family who went for movies.

It was different for them, too.

Yeah.

So the cultural adaptation for them.

And in addition to that, when they have this new baby who's Bengali by blood, but they're not living in Bangladesh, they still have the Bengali culture and perceptions and way of raising kids, but they're not raising the kid in Bangladesh.

Yes, I know.

They're now in Italy.

And you live in this Italian life.

You got Italian friends who go to movies.

That conflict in the two generations and the two cultures must have been something quite challenging.

Yes.

Unlike other parents, I feel like my parents, they have never really progressed in terms of culture.

Yes, they did have doubt, but not completely because I think they still wanted to keep their Bengali roots and they wanted to transfer to me as well.

But sometimes I feel like as a parent, you cannot expect, especially when you're moving to a different country with different rules and people are brought up in a different way.

And this is also has been a topic with my cousin as well.

He was telling me that, you know, our parents, they cannot expect us to be like a typical Bengali person.

We are different.

Like we just have that added culture, that added view that they did not see.

So they should just be OK with how we see the world and how we want to live the world.

For my parents was a little bit different.

Even nowadays, they still haven't changed much.

Here what you're saying, let's try and have a bit of compassion for them and see things from their perspective.

First of all, your country, your culture, your language, your roots, they're a huge part of your identity.

Who you think you are is usually rooted in that.

So if you go to a different culture and they do things differently compared to where you come from and who you know yourself to be, there's always that thing of, am I still Bengali if I do this thing now instead of what I was raised to be?

From their perspective, I think even though they've been there all those years, there's always that cool of, I don't want to forget who I am.

I don't want to be lost in this Italian maze and not know who I am anymore.

Yes, yes.

And I do agree with you.

And it's because they just love so much their own home country that they don't want to lose that.

They wanted both of their kids to also have that.

The way I like to see it is that you cannot force that on someone.

Because sometimes I feel like because of these cultural barriers, I didn't like being associated to the Bengali identity.

I did not at some point.

Have you ever been there?

Yes, four times.

Do you speak the language?

Yes.

Because that's the other thing as well that is hard for them to understand is you didn't grow up in Bangladesh.

So you don't have the affinity towards it that they do.

That connection, that attachment to it, to the level that they do.

And I think that's the part they struggle with.

Yeah, I do agree with you.

Look how global the world is.

You have people moving like your parents to different countries and having kids in a different culture.

You have people getting married from completely different parts of the globe.

And do you understand my culture?

And I need you to understand my culture.

And we raising kids in a different culture.

It's a whole other dynamic to deal with based on your experiences.

What are some of the things that you can share that can help people in those situations?

For me, it took a lot of years.

And I would say my whole identity crisis.

It started from when I was a kid.

But then I feel like it was always being reinforced when I was a teenager.

I struggled a lot even when I came to Canada with my whole identity.

Because at least back in Italy, no one was ever asking me where I was from.

But in Canada, people do ask you where you're from.

I struggled because I was like, what do I say?

Do I say I'm from Italy?

Do I say I'm from Bangladesh?

And people questioned no matter what answer I was giving.

Like if I said Italian, people did not believe me.

They were like, you do not look Italian.

People questioned it a lot.

And when I would say Bengali, people questioned it regardless.

Because they were like, but you have an Italian accent, you know, you have a Spanish accent when you speak English.

Again, everyone questioned that all the time.

And I didn't like it when people were questioning my identity.

And I'm talking when I was like, 2022.

I still didn't know how to answer this.

And it was only after five, six years that I'm like, I embraced both cultures.

I know that my parents were like super hard on me when they raised me.

But they were still like a beauty.

We have beautiful traditions.

We have beautiful clothes.

We have very good food.

People are warm and welcoming.

I also love the whole Italian culture because that's where I feel like I belong.

People made me feel like I belong to them, even though I knew that I was not looking like them.

I mean, all my friends, they always made an effort to understand me.

I know how hard it was for them to understand why I could not go to their house or why I could not be outside for longer.

9 or 10pm, they always made an effort to meet me halfway.

They tried so much to understand me, which is something that I'm super grateful for.

But I think it's sad that people should actually, whatever answer you give them, they question you.

How do you know me better than I know myself?

I think there's a soccer star, his name is Mario Balotelli.

He is African, but he was born in Italy.

He's a soccer star, he scores goals, he wins matches for his team.

To this day, you still have Italians shouting at him on the grounds and doing bananas at him and saying, go back to Africa.

I know, I know about the whole story of Mario Balotelli.

Interesting.

So how did you decide that you want to study finance?

It was just like that, like I never had in my mind to study finance.

So my major was actually international business.

And then I was like, I don't like this subject.

It's so boring.

I don't know what I'm going to do with it.

So then I took finance courses and I was like, that's it.

I'm in love with this.

I'm going to make it my major.

And this was the best decision ever.

I remember like taking so many classes.

I even extended my stay in the university actually, because my grades were pretty good and they allowed me to get into the honors program in finance.

I wrote also thesis about the art and wine investing.

It was just a subject that I always loved because it's so dynamic and it's so rich.

There's always something happening.

There are always something new in the whole financial industry.

And everything is connected to finance.

Like you have accounting connected to finance, you have fintech.

So you have technology connected to finance.

You have economics connected to finance.

So basically finance is at the core of everything.

You know what I mean?

Of course, the world is run by money.

Exactly.

And that's exactly my point.

Like everyone needs to know about finance.

A quick one here, because I'm Salarifican.

I heard you mentioned the honors.

In America, they don't have an honors program.

So after your bachelor's, you go straight to master's.

So we do bachelor's, honors and master's back home.

Is that the same thing in Canada?

It's actually part of the undergraduate in Canada.

Usually people just do the bachelor of finance.

But if you have Curtin GPA, then you can take an extra year just to do some research on a topic that you choose.

And then you write your thesis.

It's also one year to do honors back home as well.

How long have you been working in finance?

Six years.

What made you start a blog?

I want to say it was my sister two years ago.

And then we were just talking and then she was like, Oh, you know, I have a blog and I was like, a blog?

What's a blog?

I write articles and stuff like that.

I should just have a blog too.

So it just purely started from there.

So I created my own blog.

I have so much that I can offer to the world.

And I have so much knowledge that I want to share.

So I'm just going to create this blog.

I'm like, I'm going to target women.

But I noticed that a lot of the people that read my blog are men.

I think my content is pretty interesting to them because I share pretty much everything.

I share books.

Is it finance related?

Some of them, yes.

When I created my blog, I struggled a little bit because I was like, I don't know how much I want to say about myself there.

Initially, I was not comfortable talking about myself, putting up pictures.

But then a friend of mine was like, you know what, if you want people to relate to you, to your story, you have to say there.

You have to have a picture because people want to see who's the person behind this.

So then little by little, I started to be comfortable.

And I know that my story is something that people cannot relate to.

People are always super curious about my story, you know.

Bengali, Italian, things like that.

And that's how I created it.

And now I'm very much more comfortable writing on my blog.

And I also use it to work on my writing skills because eventually I want to be able to have my own book.

So so far, it's been amazing.

I get a lot of feedback.

Do people give comments?

They cannot leave comments, but they can send me a message directly.

So that's how you're able to connect with them.

And you get the feedback on how what you're writing has touched them.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Why is your mission women empowerment?

It came from like different places.

But the main one, it was mainly from my own personal experience and how like women are seen in the South Asian culture.

There is a lot of double standards and gender stereotypes like in other cultures.

But because I felt it really on my own skin that I was, you know what?

I want to do something where women can actually have the freedom to choose.

You know, I want to create a blog where I talk about my own ways and how I choose my own things.

And also, I support this cause by volunteering activities.

So I mentor women who just want to learn a little bit about me.

So they want to learn things like public speaking or they want to learn like how do you work to get a promotion or they want to learn about finance or simply they want to learn how to create a blog.

It is something that I feel like it helps them to empower themselves just by sharing my whole story.

So hoping that they can get inspired and they can start their own thing, their own journey to be able to choose for themselves instead of having the society dictating their life.

I'm trying to make a distinction between your parents being strict just because they were protecting you as their child versus that being a cultural thing.

And the reason I'm asking is because I was born in 1976, I was raised in the 80s.

My parents were strict as well.

I was not allowed to have a boyfriend until only start thinking about having a boyfriend when you finish high school.

And my parents are strict as well.

If I wasn't home by 3.30 because the school finishes at 2.30 and then time for the bus almost an hour.

They were strict in our household in that regard, but it didn't necessarily mean that our society was that way.

Am I making sense?

Yes, maybe for your case.

So do you feel like your parents weren't just strict just to protect you, but you feel it was a cultural, societal expectation on their part?

It was both, but the cultural part really played a lot because the whole South Asian community, we really care about what people think.

People like to gossip a lot about it and it's very important to have a good reputation.

People really care about their reputation more than anything else.

So that really was important for them, you know, to be able to keep their reputation.

So if I did anything wrong, that could have had consequences.

Because then people turn around and say, who raised you?

And then they'll start naming your parents.

Yeah.

Now they were in a Western culture where things are different.

Women are not as restricted as you were explaining just now.

So the conflict between the two must have been very hard.

It was.

It was pretty difficult and still is, honestly.

It hasn't changed much, at least from their side.

Here's what I've always wondered.

As in Western countries, we always talk about some of the countries where the culture is still that way.

And I say, oh, no, they need to be free.

They need to be this.

I've always wondered, do they want that for themselves or are we looking from our perspective?

For instance, let me give you an example.

A few years ago, I think only then were Saudi women allowed to have driver's licenses.

Uh huh.

Yes, I remember this.

Before that, we used to think, oh, my goodness, all the world governments should go there and make sure that this country gives women their driver's licenses.

This is not right.

It should not be happening in 2022.

You know how we are.

My question was, do those women want that for themselves?

We look at them as oppressed.

Do they feel that way about their lives?

Right.

And I think as a woman, you want to have options.

This is how I see it.

You think that way about options just because you grew up in Italy.

Freedom and it's not like the Nali culture.

But when that's all you've ever known, do you think to yourself, I'm oppressed?

Some of them say, why are you feeling sorry for me?

I don't feel oppressed.

I'm fine with my life.

To answer that point, that particular example, let's talk about the hijab, for instance.

I know people that were wearing the hijab and then decide to not wear it anymore.

In both worlds, I've seen it.

So that's where I think the option comes where you can choose.

You are a proponent of the power of choice.

If that's what you still want, do it because you still choose to want it.

Exactly.

Not because someone is telling you.

And there are other women who decide to wear it because they feel good and comfortable with it.

And that's the choice that you do.

For you, it's choice, not that we should change them and make them think like us.

Because I think that's the trap we fall into thinking, Oh, we have freedoms, we have democracies, we are better.

So we should convert them to become like us, which I'm not a proponent of.

No, me neither.

Because I think there is no right or wrong answer.

It's whatever you choose to do with it.

And that's okay, too.

I fully agree.

I'm on board with that.

Let's talk about your journey at Toastmasters.

Yeah, I actually joined Toastmasters in 2015.

Same year as me, I joined in 2015, August.

After eight months, I left it.

But then in 2019, I was like, I want to go back to it because I told to myself that I want to do a tech talk eventually and I need to work on my public speaking skills.

And that's how I joined Toastmasters back again in 2015.

I'm still part of this club.

And initially, when I joined it, I was scared to death.

It just happened.

Hold that thought, because we talk about it in this podcast.

When you feel that fear, what is it that you're feeling and what is it that you're telling yourself?

I'm telling myself that I can do it.

It's not the end of the world.

What are people afraid of?

We're afraid of being judged.

At least that's how I felt about it.

The moment I went there and they made me talk for two minutes asking me, why are you here?

I was super nervous, but then I felt good.

I was like, you know what?

I'll be back there.

And for a couple of months, I still felt super nervous every time I was going there.

But then, little by little, I started to become a bit more confident.

And I think because of my confidence, they asked me if I wanted to be the VP of Education.

So I did that for two years.

I love this role.

And then the year after, they asked me, do you want to be the president?

I was like, yeah, I think I'm ready for it.

So I like taking on these leadership skills because they really helped me to work on my skills, became much more confident, increase my self-esteem.

I feel like the whole Toastmaster community is like a family because they all support you.

They're all encouraging you.

And no one is judging you the way I used to think.

I always feel like Toastmasters brings out the best in each person and that's where we connect.

And that's why it's the kind of community that it is.

Just for the benefit of our listeners who have never been part of Toastmasters.

So when you said that made you speak for two minutes, is that you introducing yourself?

Yeah.

So if you are going there as a guest, they will basically tell you like, present yourself, tell us why you're here.

You're seeing how you speak for the first time.

I want to say it's intimidating if it's your first time because you do not know anyone there.

But that's not the end because you speak again when you have the table topic session.

So that's the impromptu speeches where you have someone asking you a question and you have to come up with this mini speech right off the butt and for two minutes.

And honestly, the table topic session is probably the scariest part of the whole meeting.

But I would say it's the most rewarding because it's because of the table topic session that I'm able to handle all this conversation with people that I need for the podcast shows.

I also have my own YouTube channel and I saw how Toastmaster really helped me to come up with the content.

And usually I don't have a script.

It's like an impromptu speech.

I don't know.

So table topics is yes, an impromptu speech of two minutes.

The rest of the speeches, the speakers were told the previous week or so to prepare and they know exactly what they're going to say.

Yes, that's it.

It's scary at first, but it's good practice and the more you do it, it's actually a lot more fun.

Yes.

And you cannot just be silent.

You have to speak.

You have to.

People are there to support you, like I said, support, welcoming, there to help you.

It's a wonderful community.

And then you mentioned you were VP of Education.

Please explain in layman's terms what that is.

So basically for every Toastmaster club, you have an executive team.

These are people that are designated each year to basically run this meeting.

A group of people behind the scenes that are doing all this work.

Like, how do you make sure that these meetings are run efficiently?

And then, of course, we have the mentor program where basically you can get paired up with someone that is a bit more experienced and they can help you or guide you through your journey at Toastmasters.

That is an amazing explanation.

And mentorship is so important because when you are new, it's so overwhelming.

Yeah.

And you want to make sure that you're doing your projects and presentations the way that you've been given guidance in your manual.

So it's really good to have a mentor.

What are some of the things that you've learned or have improved about yourself since joining Toastmasters?

I think there is always this misconception about Toastmasters.

Like, everyone thinks it's just for public speaking, but it's really not.

You get to learn all these other things like communication skills, teamwork, organizational skills, time management skills.

And you also get to improve your English because there is a grammarian role, critical thinking skills, because you have to give constructive feedback.

And you use this not just at Toastmaster, but everywhere.

And I feel like that has been super, super helpful for me, especially when I work in a team or give them a feedback.

There is a proper way of saying it.

On this podcast as well, we emphasize the leadership skills.

Vice President of Education, Vice President of Membership, President.

I think when they nominated me to be president at the time I was in South Korea, I had been there for less than a year.

Can you imagine how nervous I was?

As president, you have to learn to delegate.

You have to learn to trust that they will do what they are supposed to for the club to run.

You are literally thrown into the pool and you must learn to swim.

But people like that just support you and they do their best.

Don't pass the buck as president for the club to run and for everything to get done.

Yes, and you have trainings, have a very rich experience there.

That's how I see it.

And after being president, you can go back to being VP of something else.

It doesn't mean it's a demotion.

It benefits you to have all those different experiences because all the leadership skills, the communication skills, delegation, negotiation, motivating people, all of those things come together the more you volunteer.

Definitely.

Urmi, this has been such a wonderful discussion.

You have so much wisdom for somebody who's young.

Thank you.

I like that.

Urmi, Italian by birth, Bengali by blood, and Canadian by lore.

Any last words?

Be comfortable with uncomfortable.

Words of wisdom from Urmi.

Please tell us where to find you on social media.

I have my own YouTube channel.

It's called Urmi Hossain.

People can connect with me on LinkedIn.

It's called Urmi Hossain.

And I also have my own blog.

It's called MyWays.ca.

Please spell Urmi Hossain for everybody.

U-R-M-I and my last name is H-O-S-S-A-I-N.

Urmi Hossain.

Thank you so much for sharing so much wisdom with us about identity, finance and the benefits of being a Toastmasters member.

Don't forget to subscribe, give a rating and a review of this episode.

Thank you.