Inspired by Poorva Misra Miller

Outside of family, a common place you can get exposed to inspiring people is at work. With the amount of time you actually spend at work, you naturally get to know your colleagues, beyond their roles on the job. You learn about them as humans- what they are passionate about, what they value, and how much joy their cute little pets bring to their family!

Poorva Misra Miller is one of those inspiring colleagues I had the pleasure of meeting at work. Now based in Costa Rica, Poorva is an entrepreneur, writer, podcaster, digital-marketer, and founder of Women in Our Town.

From my experience, more often than not, when colleagues leave a place of work, they do so to join another company. Other times, they go on to accomplish great things on their own. Poorva is an example of the latter. After leaving the corporate world behind, she founded Women in Our Town, a content platform dedicated to amplifying the voices of unsilent women (more on this below), especially women of colour. On top of that, at the beginning of 2021 Poorva did something else that is quite inspiring- she picked up her life in Toronto and moved to the sunny shores of Costa Rica.

It’s been almost a year and a half since Poorva launched Women in Our Town and about 9 months since she moved to Costa Rica with her husband and adorable Boston Terrier, Hudson. I caught up with Poorva for a well overdue catch-up to discuss her inspiring journey to-date. It’s times like these that I really value and appreciate technology for providing us with the opportunity to connect with people far away.

GET TO KNOW POORVA MISRA MILLER

When we worked together, I distinctly remember you telling me how much you loved writing and wished you could do more of it in your role at the time. Would you say your passion for writing ultimately inspired your path to where you are today? Was it something you always enjoyed?

For as long as I can remember writing has been a way for me to retreat and make sense of my active imagination. I’m introverted (a lot of people don’t believe me when I tell them that!) but I am most at home, alone, with my thoughts, buried in a good story. As a child, reading was a way for me to lose myself in beautiful worlds with characters I wanted as friends, and writing was a way for me to create those worlds for myself. As I grew older, writing became more serious, but I’ve always managed to stretch my creative muscle through storytelling. For the longest time I wanted to be a journalist, before eventually choosing marketing as a career. Either way, writing has played a role in my professional choices and sort of been a guiding light. I’m at the outset of a second career right now and writing plays a big role in where things are going to go.

“Writing has played a role in my professional choices and sort of been a guiding light.”

You’re no stranger to moving to a different country. In fact, you’ve lived in 9 countries to-date! That’s already inspiring. Initially, as a child, you moved around a lot because of your father’s line of work, but later on in your life, you also made these decisions to live in different places on your own. Where does your desire and passion to explore different cultures stem from?

Growing up I had the privilege of being able to travel because of my parents’ line of work. We moved every few years and I was exposed to many different cultures. It was a very nomadic childhood and I think that played a big role in my desire to explore different places. I also think it is somewhat generational. My entire family from my grandparents on are spread out across various continents. All my aunts, uncles and cousins live in different countries. In my own family, I have a sister and between her and my parents we are spread across four countries (my parents split time between Austria and India). More personally, I think living and being able to interact with people from all over the world has broadened my perspective that there really isn’t a single best way to live or do things. I’ve lived in Asia, Europe and North America and I’ve seen many differences and many commonalities in how we do things. We can all learn from each other and that’ a driving force in wanting to explore more.

Now that people know more about your background, moving to Costa Rica may not sound as extreme. Some people dream about doing what you’ve done and experiencing life in a different place. However, sometimes fear gets in the way and people get overwhelmed by all the risks associated with moving away from home. What advice do you give to those individuals who are on the fence about making a life-changing decision like this?

Fear is natural when doing something new. I had a lot of fear and anxiety moving here (having never even visited!), especially during a global pandemic. I think when it comes to fear we need to ask ourselves if our fear of the unknown is bigger than the regret, we will almost certainly feel at missing out on a new opportunity. If the answer is no, then I think you can move forward knowing you don’t have a lot to lose. The other thing that helps me with new situations is to prepare. I did a lot of research on Costa Rica, from the weather to housing to political situations in different parts of the country to even mapping out grocery stores! In the 6-7 months leading up to our move we read every blog, talked to as many people as we could and watched every Costa Rica vlog out there, so we had a pretty good understanding of what to expect. We live in a time when we have the world at our disposal through the internet and using it to prepare for a life-altering change really helps alleviate anxiety. Think about it this way — people made these changes 30-40 years ago with less information and fewer resources readily available!

“We live in a time when we have the world at our disposal through the internet and using it to prepare for a life-altering change really helps alleviate anxiety.”

For the last 8 years of your career, you worked for someone else. Although, these experiences helped shape you and provided you with an opportunity to build and strengthen your skills, what finally triggered you to start your next chapter outside of the corporate world?

I think 2020 was a very reflective year for all of us. So much of our time is spent going through routines and paces that it’s easy to fall into a rhythm. In 2020 we were all jolted out of this rhythm and forced to confront some very real and troubling truths. For me this forced me to come to terms with how I had been living my life up until that point, whether I was living in alignment with my values and if maybe it was a time for a reset. I think that was the trigger to start a new chapter outside the corporate world. I’ve also always had faith in my ability to figure things out. Even if I don’t know the answer, I won’t get up from my desk until I’ve found it. Working for myself has been a new challenge in so many ways. I’ve learned a ton of new skills, met incredible people, found new mentors, and brought a lot of what I learned in my corporate career along as well. I believe that if I’m in a career where I’m constantly learning, (whether that’s working for someone else or myself), I’m winning.

When a person has a light-bulb moment, I think another common feeling that is experienced is the feeling of ‘what now?’ or ‘how do I start?’. In your experience, once you had your moment of inspiration to create Women in Our Town, how did you figure out what you needed to do to bring your idea to fruition?

It’s funny, I originally conceived of Women in Our Town as a mentorship platform (I still hold that idea close and may bring that in at some point). I followed the Ikigai method, which quite literally means “reason for being.” It’s a simple premise — that our professions lie at the intersection of what we love, what we are good at, what the world needs and what we can get paid for. My starting point was writing since that’s something I love, there is a demand for it, and I had a fair bit of experience doing it. Funnily enough, people really responded to that, and I quickly found my voice, so I decided to expand it into a content platform to inspire women and tell their stories. I started getting interviews with women I never in a million years thought I’d be talking to so early in the journey and things sort of grew from there. I think there is something about storytelling that we all respond to on a human level. It’s our connective thread, our “through-line.” You and I as marketers are both familiar with the fact that nothing quite sells like a good story.

“I think there is something about storytelling that we all respond to on a human level. It’s our connective thread, our ‘through-line’.”

I’ve told you before that I like to give credit where it’s due. Poorva, you truly are one of the people who inspired me to create my website. At the time, I felt overwhelmed. How do I even start? Domains and hosts…huh?? It was a foreign language to me. What you don’t know, is that I had to build up the courage to just ask you to share your knowledge. You were more than happy to help me. This got me thinking- why was I hesitant to ask for help?

Helping others is what Women in Our Town stands for. You’re essentially using your platform to help amplify the voices of women who are making a positive impact in the world. Tell us your thoughts about the stigma surrounding asking for help and building a community that empowers women.

Well first, thank you and I’m honored and blown away by what you’ve created! Secondly, I think we are taught from a young age that asking for help equates to an inability to do something or even incompetence when the reality is it’s how we’ve progressed as humans for hundreds of thousands of years. I think this fear of asking for help is learned behavior. North American culture is more individualistic and that can breed a great work ethic but also an inability to seek help. One of the things that has amazed me about life in Costa Rica is how communal it is. Everyone helps each other — expats, locals or ticos as they are called and as a result everyone benefits. I know a single mom here whose landlady takes her baby for an hour or two every day to swing him in a hammock so that my friend can get some work done. It’s amazing because this help is offered without expectations and free of charge! I’m familiar with that fear you describe but funnily enough, every time I’ve worked up the courage to ask for help, people are more than willing to offer it. I think this is something we simply need to let go of as society because really, we all win.

I love the term you’ve come up with about Unsilent Women, which is also the name of the podcast you host. Tell us more about this concept and how it came to you.

I think the idea that “being silenced,” or being forced into a state of silence is something I’ve always found unsettling (I had this mental picture of a woman with her mouth taped shut). Whenever I would read anything about empowering women, whether it was online or in books, it would be about how women were no longer being silenced. I thought, hey why not reclaim that word! After all, when you reclaim something, it no longer has the power to hurt or oppress you. I had to have it make sense, so I came up with unsilent (the opposite of a silenced woman) and it’s amazing to see more women around the world become unsilent everyday.

A common question that is asked when somebody creates a business or launches an idea is, ‘what differentiates you?’. In my case, with my website, some people may think the internet is oversaturated with inspirational content. My perspective is that first, it’s the internet, of course it’s going to be ‘oversaturated’ with millions of people having the ability to post something online. Content aside, I think it comes down to the connection the audience has with the person delivering the message. I always think of how there are hundreds of YouTube channels about a topic. Let’s take baking, for example. At the end of the day, all these people are baking, but some of these bakers may have more subscribers than others. What are your thoughts on this and how would you answer the question, what differentiates Women in Our Town?

Thank you for saying that things are oversaturated on the internet! It literally contains content from billions of people around the world! I think we often mistakenly believe that if we need to create something it needs to be the first, most original of its kind. But very few ideas are like that. Everything we know is a recycled, upgraded or differentiated version of something that was done before. The internet at the end of the day is simply a faster and easier way to communicate information, but the core idea — human communication and connection isn’t new. Even among contemporaries we can differentiate ourselves. I think we need to start thinking beyond competition and start thinking about collaboration. That’s what sets Women in Our Town apart. It’s a platform to hear from women and tell their stories. My website is simply the vessel that brings that story to life. When I’m not writing stories, I write about topics that question prevailing narratives— many of them harmful. People really respond to that. I’m simply vocalizing stuff we are all already thinking. There are a lot of websites that write about women’s success but fewer that might question the emotional, environmental, and human cost of that success.

The other thing that sets me apart is that I am relentlessly focused on my craft — writing and podcasting. I believe that good writing will always find a readership and so I try to differentiate myself through writing instead of worrying about other things. With the podcast, I’m currently writing season 2 and sourcing and recording interviews. I really want to bring certain themes out and my focus is to create an educational, inspirational, and entertaining experience.

“We need to start thinking beyond competition and start thinking about collaboration.”

I also think the internet gives us a warped sense of success, because it’s quite literally an aggregator of everyone in the world. You only see a handful of very successful people and a number like a follower count. You don’t see the years, months, and hours they put in before they got there. Even if they blew up online overnight, they were probably baking for years and perfecting their craft before ever putting up their first YouTube!

There are so many incredible women writers, thinkers, businesswomen (I count you among my many inspirations) that are bringing their own, unique brand of work and personality to the table. In the name of competition and “winner takes all,” thinking we’ve listened to the same voices for far too long. It’s time to start listening to new voices that have something new to say and find ways to be allies and collaborators with these voices.

And finally, do you have a quote or mantra that you live by, that keeps you motivated?

Poorva Misra Miller is someone who inspires me because she has pursued something that she is passionate about. She proves that sometimes, in order to get rewarded, you need to step outside your comfort zone and take a risk. Next time you’re at work, get to know your colleagues a bit more and you might just meet someone who inspires you.