Podcast Episode 1

Ladies, welcome to the first ever episode of the Anna Bey Podcast. I am Anna Bey, as many of you probably know. And ladies, I am so excited to finally, finally have launched this podcast. Now, it’s been a very long time that I have been talking about having a podcast. I think, officially, I kind of announced it about six months ago, something like that. It was beginning of 2020, if I remember correctly.

But before that, the whole year of 2019, I actually was thinking about starting a podcast because I didn’t want to only be on YouTube, I also wanted to have a different platform that could also show a little bit of a different side to me. So the reason to why I decided to finally go ahead and launch this podcast is really because I want to have a place where you, my ladies and my entire audience can get to know me on a more personal level.

I feel like YouTube is a wonderful place and I will forever continue YouTube. I love my YouTube channel, but it’s more kind of educational entertainment. It’s a little bit more formal. I feel like there, I’m much more in my kind of teacher’s role. And surely, Instagram is the place where I’m a little bit more personal in my Instagram stories, in particularly. But I just want to have a place where I can chit chat with you properly, and podcast was the perfect place for that.

So what kind of the podcast will be about is it’s going to be basically a very casual place. It’s going to be the place where I’ll really let my hair down. You would basically get to know me more as my friends get to know me. The kind of more casual Anna. The more, I would say relaxed Anna. Maybe the more vulnerable Anna. I want to have more casual conversations with you. Think about it this way, and I want you to really imagine because this is kind of the ambiance that I want to create.

Imagine, you come home to me. And that’s some very personal experience. You step into my home, I welcome you at the door and I say, “Hi, ladies. Welcome. Come in.” And I’m standing there. Okay, I imagine it this way. I’m holding a cup of tea… No, a mug. I’m holding a mug like one of those that you actually hold with your two hands. Especially when it gets a little bit cold outside and you just want to curl up on the sofa type of thing. I’m standing there in my more casual outfit. I’m wearing my indoor shoes, which is actually at the moment as I’m recording this, I’m actually wearing these shoes.

It’s my favorite Gucci slip-in loafers in white. And I don’t know why, but I love wearing these outdoors, but I also love wearing these indoors. And for those of you who wonder, yes, we do wear shoes indoors because it’s a little bit different in some cultures, but here we do wear indoors shoes, which I actually like. So I wear my Gucci loafers and I say to you ladies, “Come, come. Let’s go to the living room and let’s catch up.” Then we sit down there on the sofas and just start chatting with each other and just start hanging out. And that’s kind of the experience that I want you to have with me here.

One of the things that I personally thought was a little bit funny is my podcast name. And the reason why I think it’s pretty hilarious name is because it took me so long to actually decide on this name, ladies. I’m sorry I had to laugh. Anna Bey’s podcast. I mean, yeah, I know. It’s fairly simple. I don’t know what to say about it. There’s a little bit of a story behind, and this is the story.

So in February 2020, I started brainstorming about the podcast name because I wanted to create a podcast. So I announced to the people who are following me on my Instagram stories, and they suggested some names. Loads of great names. But as the overthinker I am, I couldn’t decide on a name. Fast forward six months forward, I now, again, ask my Instagram audience, “Ladies, can you please help me come up of a good podcast name because I was still so indecisive.”

Loads of great suggestions came in. And once again, I could not make up my mind and I was overthinking and overthinking for weeks, and weeks, and weeks to the point that I needed to follow my own advice here because I’ve all the time spoken so much about like don’t overthink it, just do it. Don’t paralyze yourself, et cetera, et cetera. Obviously, this advice comes from the fact that I can be a bit like that myself from time to time, and something that I’ve been working on a lot and had progress in.

But unfortunately, as nobody’s perfect, we sometimes fall back to our kind of bad habits or parts of us that we have been working hard on getting away from, right? So one day I actually stood and looked at myself in the mirror and I was again thinking about this podcast name. It was literally driving me mad. I looked at myself and I said, “You know what, snap out of it now. Snap out of it. I’m telling you.” And I was telling myself this.

I just said to myself, “Okay, you know what, I’m going to follow my own advice. I need to wake up and I’m just stepping into something that I used to do in the past, but I don’t want to do this again. I need to just let go. Let go and not to try and be like a control freak and just over analyze it and, et cetera. To cut the story short, I told myself that, “You know what, just do it. Just don’t think about it. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just come up of whatever name. Who cares at this stage? Just have Anna Bey’s podcast or something like that. It doesn’t matter.”

The name or whatever doesn’t really define the journey. You can figure this out later. You can change later, if you want. Life is flexible. Nothing is set in stone. Just do it, don’t think about it. So that’s how I overcame my podcast name paralysis due to being an occasional overthinker, still unfortunately. But I am working on it. So that’s why I thought it was a little bit of a funny story because after over six months of plotting and planning the name, and trying to come up with the picture perfect name, and it has to have a red thread, and it has to be catchy, and it has to be like such a cool perfect name. I was not able to create a perfect name.

So I took a decision that I was not going to be perfect, and this whole podcast is not going to be perfect. That is my mission with Anna Bey’s podcast. I want the space to be kind of the whatever zone, or the everything zone. The kind of place where there is no particular red thread. I don’t want to overthink this space. I want it to just be okay. I want to have conversations like today with myself, but ultimately it’s a conversation that I have with you. And also sometimes I want to have guests. And we’re going to talk about everything.

So in my other channels, I talk a lot about elegance and affluence since that has been a big part of my journey and my life today. And also, that has been a big part of my transformation. So all of my platforms are pretty much based upon me being an educator, and I love it. Content creation is by far one of the most fun things that I know to do. But I don’t want to only talk about elegance and affluence. There is just so much more to life and there are so many more kind of nuances to me as well as a person. Because elegance and affluence, it is part of my life, but it’s really not the entire picture.

Maybe some people think that I’m like some obsessed person about elegance and affluence, but actually that’s just far from the truth. I am just a regular person who had a transformation, who tapped into a lifestyle and the community and I’m just sharing my experiences, right? But there’s just so much more to me than just that, and I feel like I want this podcast space to be this place where we’re going to talk about everything. But at the same time, it’s of course going to be interesting everything. I’m not going to sit here and bore you to death.

I also want to be more personal. The educator, Anna, the formal Anna that you know me so well from YouTube and Instagram… Well, maybe not Instagram stories. Like I said, there I am a little bit more personal. But from everywhere else, I want to like, yeah, that’s one side of me, but there are more sides to me. And like I said before, I want you to come out and kind of hang out with me here in the podcast as you would come and hang out with me in my living room, as my friend.

Because my friends, they see a different side to me and it’s not because I’m a totally different person or anything like that, but because each person has different sides to them. The way I am at my work is not the same person that I am in private, is not the same person that I am with my friends, et cetera. We have so many different nuances to us. All of these nuances, I believe are the true sides of you because you can’t just be in one way the entire time.

The public you, the formal you, the work you, the private you, the personal you, it’s never going to be the same person. So in this podcast, I therefore want to open up the new avenue that I don’t think. I mean, some of you probably feel like you know me like that already. Maybe. I don’t know. Because I still feel like I come across very honest, very open, very transparent in all my content, so it’s not really like something totally different is now going to appear in front of you.

Not at all. But I just want to be a little bit more personal with you. I want us to catch up, let’s say. What has been recently going on in my life. Maybe share a little bit of details about that. Maybe I want to share with you some personal aha moments that I’ve had lately. I want to definitely do a little bit more storytelling about my life and so on. Story time is always fun, and of course also have guests that come who I chit-chat with. Some of these people I know from my personal life, some I don’t know at all.

So it’s really going to be a total mix of everything. So that’s kind of the introduction to the podcast. I can also tell you one thing is that I am a big fan of podcast in general. I love listening to them and I have been a podcast listener for many, many years. I would personally even say that I have been a regular podcast listener since probably the beginning of podcast existence. I’ve always been listening mainly to business podcast, marketing podcast because it has been a way for me to grow in my line of work, to educate myself and to just, I mean, invest in myself in terms of my career.

But I also listen to other type of podcasts. I listen to a lot of Swedish podcasts. The Swedish podcasts are actually quite nice for me to listen to, because it’s the only kind of connection that I still have to Sweden where I’m from and it’s just nice to sometimes hear your native language being spoken and kind of connect with that energy, and that culture as well.

So besides Swedish podcast, I also listen to a lot of international podcasts. I don’t really have any favorite in particular, but I personally like listening to podcasts because I find them relaxing. It’s almost like instead of listening to an audiobook where you really have to focus and really pay attention especially if you’re listening to a non-fiction audiobook, I don’t find often that audiobooks can be very relaxing or to some degree, maybe, but I find podcasts to be very relaxing.

I love multitasking when I listen to my podcast. I love, as an example, listen to podcast when I go power walking. Very relaxing. Or if I’m just doing some things around the house. Maybe I’m reorganizing my walk-in wardrobe or something like that and it’s just nice to have something on there in the background that is very casual, non-scripted. It’s not something that you really have to be very alert to what’s going on. You can just relax your mind. You can relax yourself and just follow along in whatever chit chat they’re doing.

So that’s something that I personally enjoy doing and who knows? Maybe you will also enjoy doing this. But I do want you though to let me know where you are listening from right now, because that’s something that I’m really curious about, and I’m going to actually describe where I am recording from because I think that’s pretty funny. So I don’t have a podcast studio yet. Maybe I will build one in the future, but one thing that you need to know about recording podcast is that you need to think about multiple things like the room that you’re sitting in cannot have echo, because it’s not going to sound good. And audio quality is really important when you have a podcast.

As I don’t have a proper professional studio for this, I decided that I’m going to record, at least this episode, we will see in future episode, but this episode, I’m recording it from my walk-in wardrobe. And actually, I am sitting literally inside where my clothes are hanging. I don’t really sit inside with my head, but, my microphone is very close because I want my clothes to absorb all the echo and that the sound is as good as possible. I’m by the way going to upload a picture on my new Instagram that is specially created for my podcast.

So you can go to Anna Bey Podcast on Instagram and subscribe or follow me. And there, I will put up pictures from like, let’s say my first ever recording, because I think it’s definitely going to be a significant one as I’m sitting here in my working wardrobe surrounded by all my clothing and just recording this little episode for the first time ever. And also, this Instagram account is going to work as the official podcast discussion forum. Because each episode we are going to have different topics and I will be talking about different things that is definitely going to be worthy of a discussion after.

Maybe you want to share your experiences. Maybe you want to talk about something. Maybe you want to hear other people’s opinions. Whatever it is, that’s where you go to discuss. So remember, Anna Bey Podcast is the Instagram handle. Now, I want you to also tag me in your Instagrams whenever you listen to my podcast, because I want to see what you ladies are doing when you’re listening to me.

I want to see are you out power walking? Are you multitasking? What are you doing? Are you cozying up? Are you drinking a cup of tea or a glass of wine as you’re sitting there in this kind of sofa environment that I just described to you. Come and hang out with me because I really, really want you to take this time and just chill with me type of thing. So tag me and you can tag either Anna Bey podcast or you can tag my official Instagram account. That is up to you.

But ladies, let’s start with today’s topic. And as it is the first ever episode, of course, it just makes so much sense that the first episode is going to be kind of a get to know Anna episode. I want to really go back in my past, in my history and share with you a little bit of my timeline because a lot of things has of course… I mean, I’ve done so many things in my life. It’s been a really an adventurous journey. Let’s put it this way.

I’ve had my ups and downs and I’ve spoken so much in my content already about my past, how I’ve not been a picture-perfect person, how I was not born this way, that I’m not somebody who was born in a rich family. I’m not somebody who was born elegant. And I’m just somebody who I’ve had my shares of mistakes. That’s part of who we are usually and that’s part of life and learning is by making mistakes and having aha moments, and learning from our mistakes, moving on, being better and transform ourselves, which is the foundation to what it is that I do today. I teach transformation.

I help women become the best version of themselves and I tap into elegance. I tap into affluence, femininity. I tap in a lot in to personal development. So self-improvement is a massive topic of mine. It’s a big passion of mine and I’ve done a lot of self-improvement of myself. So I want to actually, in this episode take you back, already back to my teens because a lot of the things that I’m going to talk about today, you’re definitely going to really understand why I became the person that I am today and how it is tied into the transformation and probably will also make a lot of sense for you why I became so passionate about transformation, because I’ve had my shares of ups and downs and I’m going to talk about this today.

So let’s go back to my teenage years, and this is definitely a very important detail in my past because it really played an important role into how my journey developed. And you’re going to understand as I’m gonna go through everything. So I grew up in Sweden, and I wasn’t really a cool kid in school. I was a bit of a nerd and I was somebody who spent most of my days in the stable. I lived in a suburb outside of Stockholm. So I was surrounded by nature. Horses was the only thing I cared about and it was my passion in life. I came in contact with the stable when I was around seven years old because we live there, and my classmates, she was going to that stable herself.

So one day, I tagged along with her and I went myself and I fell in love with all the animals and horses. There wasn’t only horses there. You had pigs, you had sheep, you had goats. What else did we have? Rabbits and all kinds of different animals. So it was like a proper farm, I would say. I fell in love with this so I became literally obsessed. Whenever I wasn’t in school, I would always be there all the time. I spent most of my days, evenings, weekends there. And that of course resulted in the fact that I became a little bit of a nerd in school plus my parents were very strict with me because they wanted to really protect me.

I was the only child. They were really just being careful with me. So I wasn’t allowed to do a lot of things. I was living under strict rules. So my teenage upbringing wasn’t really like the regular teenage upbringing. A lot of the friends in school when they were teenagers, they had freedom of… I don’t know. Sweden is kind of a liberal country. So teens there, I don’t know, maybe it’s the same in the states, et cetera, but I know in some cultures it’s absolutely not like this. But in Sweden definitely, all my classmates, they were out partying. They were having sleepovers. They were young and dating each other and things like that.

That was so foreign to me because I wasn’t doing almost anything of that. Maybe a little bit once in a blue moon because I managed to come up with a really good, I don’t know excuse or plan or lie to fool my parents so that I could somehow stay out, but I definitely didn’t have the regular teenage adventures that I know all the teens had back then. So that obviously put me in as the late bloomer and also as the person who weren’t at all part of the cool kids. So I was the nerd in school. The person who were never around at the parties. The person who was all the time spending time with the horses. The person who is not even interested in boys up until maybe I was 18, 19.

So I was truly a late bloomer, which in one way I must really tell you, from an honest perspective that looking back, I am so happy that it happened. Happy, yes, but also a little bit like, okay, maybe my household shouldn’t have been so strict with me because later I had to rebel against everything, and we’re going to talk about that in a second. But back then, I mean I’m happy that I had a childhood for so long that I had. And I’m happy that I didn’t grow up so fast like I have friends who lost their virginity at the age of like 13, 14, 15. And I’m just so happy that I didn’t have that experience.

I mean, by the way, absolutely no shade or judgment if you had that experience. I’m not talking that it’s wrong. I’m just saying from my perspective, because I know that the season of my life when I was obsessed about horses and being just like not thinking about boys, only thinking about horses and animals and cute cats and dogs. I’m so happy that I had that phase for so many years because it’s not something that I will ever have again. Because obviously, since the age of 18, my life changed. I started to become interested in boys.

I started doing loads of other things. I even stopped going to that farm. So that’s what I’m saying. I’m not saying my childhood or my teenage year was perfect or better than yours or anything like that. Not at all. Plus I also had my difficulties, right? I’m just happy that it happened. The only thing I’m not happy about is that I wish my parents could have been a little bit more free with me, not holding me like they were so worried for me and thinking that they were protecting me all this time because…

Well, okay. We’re going to get to it in a second. Okay, let me just continue because I feel like I’m gonna get off topic otherwise. At the age of 15, I started working. I started working in the stable. I wasn’t really making a lot of money. It was really something small, but I had very strong worth ethic and I loved working hard. I don’t know why. It’s always been my thing. I’ve always worked a lot in my life. At the age of 16, 17, I can’t really remember exactly when it was, then I got my first ever part-time job, which was in a restaurant, in Stockholm.

So I was working there as I was going to high school. And that’s when I started making money, like proper money. I mean, not a lot. We’re still talking $5 an hour type of salary. So I wasn’t really being rich or anything like that, but I definitely… I was able to finally save up money. As soon as I realized that I’m able to work. I am able to save up money. The more I work, the more money I have. And what does that mean? Money means freedom. Money means that actually, I can do whatever I want. I don’t have to ask my parents for permission anymore.

If I want to leave, I can leave at any point and that kind of inspired me to… I started daydreaming about, “Okay. What is it that I really want to do.” And one thing that I knew that I definitely didn’t want to do was to go to university straight after high school. I need to also explain to you that in Sweden, it’s very, very common that people don’t immediately go to university or college after high school.

I mean, surely you will have those who do, but a lot of people are encouraging Sweden to take a sabbatical year and go travel. Maybe go to a foreign country and learn a different language or something like that. And that kind of felt interesting to me. As I was kind of daydreaming in my teenage room about what it is that I wanted to do, I knew my parents would absolutely hate the idea for me to take a sabbatical, skip university, go to a random new country and do whatever. I knew they were not going to support it. But at the same time, I knew that I was now… I’m talking now that I reached the age of 18 when I was at my legal age, I knew that actually now, I can do whatever I want.

For me, it was a very powerful feeling because I grew up in a strict household. So that’s when the beginning of my feeling of needing to rebel started. So I wouldn’t say I left Sweden because I wanted to upset my parents or be like wild and crazy. I just wanted to finally live my life the way I wanted to live because before it was just so restrictive even though I still had my stable and all of that, that gave me a lot of happiness and joy, but of course I always felt like I was missing out a bit especially in my teenage years when everybody else were doing what they wanted and I was not the person who was doing anything, literally.

So I managed to save up money thanks to the restaurant job where I was working at. I decided that I wanted to go to Italy and study Italian because me and my parents, we used to go on family vacations and Italy was one of the places that we went to, and I really liked it so I wanted to go back. How did I go about moving to Italy? Well, fairly simple. In Sweden, we get student loans if we want to study something, and I found an excuse to leave Sweden by going to another country to study. So I applied for a student loan. I found a language school. I went on Google and I found a school, and also found the accommodation where I stayed in, in the beginning of my journey in Rome because I ended up going to Rome in Italy.

So all of that, I found on Google. Nothing complicated. I didn’t know anybody in Rome. I didn’t know anybody in Italy. Nobody helped me. Only uncle Google helped me. It really wasn’t very complicated. I must tell you. I mean, yes, I had to apply for a student loan and I send in some papers and wait and apply, and then pay my course fees, et cetera. But that was pretty much it. Once that was done, I bought my one-way ticket to Rome and I said sayonara to my parents and left. And that’s where my journey really started.

The beginning of the Anna that you have today. Although, I must say though that I think that that Anna was already in making even when I was newborn. I think everything of who we are today is connected to every single year of our life because everything has influenced us to the person that we are today. So before I continue to talk about Rome, I need to just mention that the reason to why I didn’t want to go to university straight after high school was also because I really had no clue what I wanted to do with my life.

Back then if you would have asked me during my teenage years what I wanted to do in life, I would have said that I wanted to be a writer. But my parents always told me that you cannot make a living being a writer, and I guess then it made me just lost. I didn’t know what else I wanted to do. My parents of course pushed me to do university to maybe study something like law, but that wasn’t who I was and that wasn’t something that I was interested in.

And because I started rebelling towards my parents, I decided that I was never, ever going to listen to whatever they said or told me to do because they had already been telling me what to do for 18 years and I was tired of it. I was going to set myself free. I was only going to listen to myself and nobody else and I’m going to do what on Earth I wanted to do even if it ends up being stupid things, but I just want to be free. That was my motto back then.

So let’s talk about Rome. And I feel like I’ve already spoken about my experience in Rome on my YouTube channel, so you can definitely go to my YouTube channel to check out the video called How My Luxury Lifestyle started. And I will touch upon that in just a second, but I want to just mention a little bit about my arrival in Rome because that was actually quite significant. Why? I was free now. I could do whatever I wanted. I was by myself in a brand new country. I didn’t know anybody. And yes, I know. Majority of you probably think, “Oh my gosh. Isn’t that really scary?” And the truth is yes, it is really scary. But I believe that at that point, I was so eager to just break free from the strict household where I grew up and just kind of do my own thing that I didn’t really care whether it was scary or not.

On the opposite, it gave me this massive high that I can do whatever I want that I have this freedom and let me just have one big adventure of life. So I really remember the first day in Rome, the feeling of freedom. I was so high on life. I just remember walking around on the streets because I arrived, I went straight to the accommodation that I booked. I rented a room and a flat chair. Luckily, they didn’t scam me because I was a little bit worried that they were going to scam me, but they actually kept their word. They kept a room for me and I was so happy.

I paid my rent and said hi to my flatmates and then I took the bus into the center of Rome because my apartment was in some little neighborhood right outside of Rome obviously because I didn’t really afford anything better back then. I was just walking around on the streets of Rome and just be like, “I can’t believe I am by myself in a city where I have never been before.” And it was crazy. It was crazy. Especially, I’ve never traveled by myself before ever in my life. So this was my first ever solo travel. Obviously, it was a solo travel with a purpose because I was going to study, but still I was by myself, and it was exciting.

I saw it as excitement. Maybe some people would see it as something that would be just too much to handle. But I guess people are different, but now as you understand, my background and where I’m coming from, maybe you can put the puzzles together to why I had the courage to just go. So I remember the first day. Really interesting. Why? Well, you’re going to find out now. So I was walking around in the center of Rome and I remember arriving to Piazza Navona. If you’ve ever been in Rome, that it’s a very famous sightseeing place in Rome. It’s a beautiful square with beautiful fountains and you have ice cream shops there and beautiful terraces.

Yeah, there’s always a lot of people there. And what’s nice about Rome is that in the evenings people just stroll around on the streets there. And that’s exactly what I did that evening. So I arrived to Piazza Navona and there are always kind of musicians there or entertainment, people who you can give them some… You can throw like a few coins into their hat, whatever they’re called. I don’t know how to explain this. So there was a guy, kind of this rock and roll guy who was playing his guitar and he was playing Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here.

I remember sitting down and listening, and I was just taken away by him. He was also kind of cute. Long hair, the rock and roll type, of course. So he was like the street musician. And to cut the story short, because I really want to move ahead in my story time here and not get too stuck here, but we ended up dating, okay? So I remained there sitting and listening to my music and when he finally wrapped up, I was still kind of sitting there. So he started talking to me and we started talking. I told him that I had just arrived to Rome and he basically took me under his wing. He said he was going to show me the city, fabulous. I also found him to be attractive. So then we started seeing each other. I mean, very plain and simple.

But what’s really funny in this whole thing is that he was a street musician. Total average Joe. So what was he doing for a living? Nothing much besides playing on streets collecting money and then he was kind of playing music during the day, doing some other projects. But he was a total average Joe. And when I say average Joe by the way, for those of you who do not understand, I am not throwing shade. I am just trying to explain a certain type of persona because there is a contrast that I’m now going to refer to. Me and this guy, we were seeing each other and of course, I got so infatuated by him, but that didn’t work out.

So we broke up, and what back then felt like he broke my heart. So I really have to laugh, because when you are 19, I mean, gosh, all of this always feels like they break your heart. I mean, I was so naive back then, but luckily that’s not who I am today. After he broke my heart, I ended up meeting the total contrast to this street musician. I ended up meeting the rich kid. So I’m not really going to go into that story because I have been talking about the story so much on all my platforms, on YouTube as well. So if you want to really go deeper on this story in particular you can do that.

However, just to give a quick summary is that then I happened to meet this guy who was young. He was three years older than me, in a nightclub, in Rome, in this kind of affluent nightclub and we ended up having a relationship. He was definitely somebody that I did fall in love with a lot. He was also the person who opened up the doors for high society to me and showed me this world and introduced this world to me. Because prior to that, I had zero experience with anything of luxury or affluence really. I mean, I wasn’t even like thinking too much about it, but during our relationship, I definitely got flavor for it.

So in the end, our relationship also ended, but that’s when I understood that, wait a second. Let me compare the average Joe experience that I had in Italy with my rich kid experience in Italy. Totally different experiences. And I understood that okay, well, both of them anyway broke my heart and I am going to usually use the cliche here. Why cry in the Volvo, when you can cry in the Bentley? And for us in Sweden, a Volvo is like a really average car and the Bentley is more of an affluent car. So for me, I felt like, okay, I experienced myself to these two total polar opposites of men, but which one did I have the most fun with in the end? And it was the affluent one. I’m not going to lie. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the world that he showed me. I enjoyed elegance. I enjoyed the lifestyle. I wanted more of it. There’s nothing strange about that especially if I compared it to the street musician that I was dating right before him.

S0 that started my interest in high society in also analyzing high society and how it works and how to get access to it. I started researching elite women. I started befriending some in Italy and some in later in the countries that I lived. So that was like the beginning of the niche that I later developed. But it was also the beginning of my own transformation. So as our relationship ended, I decided that I wanted to leave at Rome. I felt kind of done with it and I wanted to continue my journey. I wanted to also get back into high society again and have that experience. And I found out that Ibiza was actually a pretty good place for that.

Plus, I was young. I was still on my rebellious path and I wanted to rebel, a little bit against my parents. So now I decided to go to this party island of Ibiza. So I moved there and I spent one of the best summers of my life there. That is for sure. I was 20 years old. I mean, to cut the story short, I think I’ve also spoken a lot about my Ibiza experience. I would probably reference to it probably more again in the future, but there I ended up working as a dancer in a nightclub.

And dancing is a big passion of mine. I’ve been doing ballet since I was young, but I only did it like four. I don’t know, five years maybe. Four or five years. And then I continued doing Latin dance and so on. So I was very passionate about dance. That was a hobby of mine. Then I got this opportunity to work with my hobby in one of the most respectable and coolest nightclubs in Ibiza, which is called Amnesia. It still exists and it’s still a very happening place, during summer. It’s very popular with celebrities, with affluent people, billionaires, millionaires, high society, you name it. And also with the top DJs in the world.

So it’s a very cool place to be in, and especially if you are 20 years old and you have all access, because you happen to work there. Now, I’m not going to get in too much about Ibiza. Let’s talk about that in another time. So in Ibiza, I ended up having all these experiences and access. And then I ended up meeting my ex-boyfriend who was a DJ from Malta. When the summer ended, I decided that okay, I’m in love with this guy. I’m not really sure what to do next. I kind of thought about it maybe I wanted to go back to Italy. I wanted to perhaps try to move to Milan. But then I decided, “Okay. Let me try Malta. Malta is also like sunshine and nice. Yeah, why not?

So Malta was a very interesting experience on its own because I don’t know how much you know about Malta but it’s a very small island in the middle of the mediterranean and it’s also kind of like a tax haven. So it attracts businesses and some affluent people who go there because the business tax is incredibly low there. So I got to know affluence from a very different perspective there. And what was also quite interesting, getting to know affluence in Malta is that you understand that when you are located in a very small place like Malta is, it’s actually easier to access certain communities because people are more connected to each other, everybody always knows everybody.

Think about it as like a small village type of thing, although it’s a country, which is pretty bizarre, but you still have a lot of people there and you have a lot, a lot of foreigners, expats and also you have these people who come there for tax reasons. So I kind of had that access and I was with this Maltese DJ, boyfriend and he was really well connected. We were always at the best parties. We always met the top people, local celebrities, foreign celebrities if they ever happen to be there.

So it was an exciting experience, but it was also the beginning to my big decline. So let me talk a little bit about this decline because this is really significant because this is kind of what really started my interest for transformation. So remember, that I went to Rome at the age of 19 then I got flavor for the good life. I started working on improving myself and research high society and understand better how did they do it, how can I apply it to myself. And I wanted to be part of all of that. I also was in Ibiza, hanging out with celebrities, billionaires, et cetera.

Up until then, I was kind of working on my transformation. I didn’t really get far at all, let me tell you, but I was doing bits and pieces. So I was exploring the field. In Malta, because I got sucked into the whole DJ lifestyle. When you are a DJ girlfriend, and you’re all the time in parties, and ultimately what happens is that I turned in to become a massive party girl. Up until Malta, I was a non-drinker. Surely, I was a heavy smoker, which unfortunately was a really nasty habit of mine that I luckily stopped doing. But in Malta, I really got dragged into the party lifestyle and that stayed with me for X amount of years, and that’s where my decline started.

So what happened exactly? I started putting on weight. I developed adult acne. My lifestyle was so poor. That’s why all of this happened. I was now drinking and I was now partying like crazy. And I really began to lose myself. Surely, I was still living a normal life. I was working in an office. I was working back then in the online gambling industry, et cetera, but I was really not going upwards. I was actually going downwards. And then me and my Maltese boyfriend, we broke up, and I left Malta immediately because I knew that this wasn’t the place where I actually wanted to live. I literally only hang around there because of him and also because I was kind of lost in myself.

So I went back to Sweden temporarily and I got this fabulous idea that I wanted to be part of this reality show that was scouting for people. I colored my hair brown. I had a total identity crisis and I ended up going even deeper in this decline. I would definitely say that, that time, it lasted around two years, I would say. I think one, two years something like that. It was by far the darkest time of my life, for sure. Because all I was doing, I was all the time partying. I was part of the Swedish reality show. Nothing really severely happened there, but I was just drinking all the time, smoking, acting super trashy. Oh my god. I was so trashy back then.

I don’t even understand why. I still believe that it’s probably something that led because I picked up bad habit after bad habit. And because I was on this decline, and I also was still kind of rebelling towards my parents, putting all those bits and pieces together, it just turned out to be the worst version of myself. And it was the darkest time of my life. Definitely, the time when I was in the reality show, was not a happy place for me. And my escape from my own misery was me being out partying all the time. Probably just tried to forget.

I was so lost in myself and I would definitely say at that point, I had hit a peak of the person that I decided that I wanted to grow away from. Ladies, I’ve spoken about so much about when I was trashy, and this was definitely the peak of my trashiness. I mean, just to give you a few examples. I mean, back then the way I used to speak… Oh, if I look back at it, it’s so, so, so horrible. Oh, it really makes me embarrassed even to think about it. I used to swear a lot, and I used to think that if I speak in a vulgar way, if I joke in a vulgar way, if I have inappropriate jokes, I thought I was being funny. I thought I was being a comedian. I thought I was… I don’t know what I was thinking to be honest with you, but all this time I really thought I was being funny.

And I was also like being really direct. At times, I could also be aggressive in my demeanor and it did cause me problems. But I did also have some occasions where I had some really rude and inappropriate jokes that I know sometimes hurt people and I know sometimes even cause me problems with my friends. I just thought that I was being funny all this time, and I didn’t understand why people didn’t get my jokes. But I was so out of tune with myself and for some reason, I thought that everything was acceptable as long as it was a banter or it was jokes. But those things, they were not funny. And if I look back today, to how I was behaving, absolutely, not okay, not appropriate. Not something that I am proud of. Definitely, something that I feel embarrassed about.

But the thing is that this is part of my past and it’s part of who I am today. And this was also the beginning to why I really began focusing on transformation because I started feeling embarrassment about myself to a point back then. I started to realize that some of the things that I was saying was horrible and I can’t continue like this, and I need to do something about it. When you feel shame about yourself, I think that starts triggering you to create a change.

So I decided to start working on myself. At that time, I actually went back to school. I also started therapy for the first time. But it wasn’t with the therapist that I work with today. It was back in Sweden. I did it for a short amount of time, but it was the first time I had ever done it. I did want to really better myself and it did work to some degree, but it was the beginning of my transformation. And transformation doesn’t really happen overnight. Taming my tongue, let’s say, I mean that didn’t happen overnight, but gradually I was able to stop doing certain things that I was doing, and get rid of certain bad habits that I had accumulated.

Then I finished my studies. I finished my therapy. Just as a reference, during this time I had also been in a relationship. I was also working full-time, believe it or not. Yes, I was studying full-time and I was also working full-time. This is what I refer to when I say that I’ve always been a very hard worker. So my job while I was studying was, I was… It’s called personal assistant in Swedish, but I’m not sure it’s called the same in English.

I think in English it’s something like being a caretaker. So I was being like a caretaker for people with disabilities. And for me, I must say, ladies, that by far it was one of the most meaningful jobs that I’ve ever had in my life. I was helping another human being because that person was not able of doing certain things because of their disabilities. And for me that felt very powerful. The fact that my job actually had a meaning. It wasn’t an academic job or anything like that, but the fact that I was somebody’s hands, I was somebody’s feet.

I don’t know. I was so intimate with somebody helping them. It did really give me something that I still hold on to today and I think that also led me to wanting to help people worldwide, which is that I do today on my platforms. But that feeling… If my nightclub dancing job was for sure the most fun job that I’ve ever had because I was dancing and doing my hobby and passion, but this job was definitely incredibly meaningful.

That job luckily, you were working shift so I was working a lot of night shifts, evening shifts. So I was able to actually puzzle together with my studies. That’s why I was able to work both full-time and study full-time, but at times it was a bit hard. I’m not going to lie. I was all the time either working or studying. There wasn’t really much left in between. But I also had a plan because I wanted to leave Sweden once again. I came back temporarily after my multi-experience. Of course, also, because of a reality show and I was also traveling a bit while I was in Sweden.

So I wasn’t just in Sweden. Then also I met the Swedish guy that I was seeing. And eventually, our relationship wasn’t really the greatest. And I had a plan that I was going to leave. Regardless if we were in a relationship or not, I was going to leave because it was far more important for me than being stuck in this relationship that anyway wasn’t working out. I was able to save up money because of my job, and then as soon as I got my diploma in digital marketing, I was on the plane, again, literally the next day.

Yes, I had my graduation the day before. The day after, I was on a plane to, boom, boom, boom, El Salvador. Okay. I just feel like… How long I’ve been talking now? Oh my gosh, I’ve been talking for so long already. Okay, I really need to wrap this up ladies. But I have so much to share with you, which is probably why I decided to create this podcast from the very beginning. There are so many stories and things that I have done in my life, both funny, both kind of cool, both also a bit like, “Okay, Anna. You’re too crazy. You’re too adventurous.” And of course, my shares of mistakes, okay? And I want all of this to be of meaning to you because I think that everything that I’ve done can be learned from, and I have learned from it, and I want to share these learnings with you.

So I’m not really gonna go into part two, which perhaps should be another episode, I guess. So basically what happened after that is I began traveling again, then I moved to London at some point. Gosh, there are so many things that have happened, but what was important in today’s episode is to really understand the beginning. Because I told you, I want you to get to know me so that you understand kind of the bits and pieces like the strict household that I grew up in. Yes, it was to some degree a good thing, but it was also a difficult thing for me.

It resulted in me becoming a certain way and applying a certain mindset to my life that I actually still have today. But unfortunately, it also pushed me to do some things that I definitely think was a little bit exaggerated that I’m not necessarily proud of. I think my party days was a bit like, “Okay. I would not do that today. I think that was far too much. I feel like I got sucked into it for too many years. I could have definitely gone back to study way before I did.” But hey, now, I’m being a perfectionist. But it also made me realize so much about identity and personal branding and transformation, and the power of becoming who you really want to become and not being stuck in your past.

Because my personal brand back then was that I was some crazy party girl, not very serious. And the reason why I’m mentioning this is because I knew how it can really put you in the wrong direction. But the direction doesn’t necessarily have to define you. I’ve definitely done my share of transformation and had my wake-up calls and aha moments, and pulled myself together. And this is what I really want you to pay attention to, and where I feel like I want to inspire you. If you feel at any point that you are going down the wrong direction, it’s okay.

Not okay perhaps, the things that you might have done. We all do our mistakes. We all perhaps have done things that we are not necessarily happy about, but every day can be the day where you can change. And you can become a better person and you can learn from this experience. The worst is if you’re continuing to just do it over and over and over again. That’s when you are stuck in something that is destructive and horrible, and ultimately that’s going to end up being who you are today.

But you don’t have to be that person today. You can become whoever you want to be today. Your past really does not define. Your past creates opportunities for you to do better. And that’s what I want you to take away from today’s episode as I kind of gave you the introduction of me. Anna Bey is not some picture perfect girl. I am not somebody who was born an elegant lady or an affluent lady. There is so many more sides to me than my interest in affluence and elegance.

Ladies, I am so excited that we have this podcast where I can share all of this with you and you get to know me more. You can come here and hang out with me. I am going to wrap up now because I know that I’m talking for far too long, but I hope you enjoyed this introduction. Let’s now hop over to Anna Bey Podcast Instagram account and let’s discuss does your past define who you are today? And have you, ladies actually had the experience that you felt like your past perhaps was holding you back or maybe even sabotaging for you? How did you deal with that? Maybe some of you ladies are really worried about this. And maybe some of you are feeling a little bit insecure, maybe having a little bit of an identity crisis, not really understanding, “Okay, well I do like certain things, but that’s not where I’m from. It doesn’t make me an imposter. It doesn’t make me a hypocrite. It doesn’t make me a gold digger. What does it make me?”

I want to really start debunking all of these insecurities because they do not belong in reality. Ultimately, we create our own reality because every day is a day to start fresh, to be reborn, to create the life you want to live. Just because you were this or did this or had that experience yesterday, today is a new day, and today can really be the beginning of your journey. I hope you enjoyed this podcast. Let’s connect on my Instagram. Don’t forget to tag me also on Instagram so I know what you felt about this episode and how you listen to it. Like this, I feel connected to you as well. Thank you, my dear ladies. I will now talk to you in the next episode, so don’t miss that one. Bye for now.

Anna Bey is hosting a FREE Workshop! 

“10 Brutal Mistakes That Show You’re Not Elegant – And How To Fix Them!” 

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