Victor: Do you listen to all the experts on podcasts and think, "no wonder they're experts. They're awesome. They're smart. They're..." -- stop right there! You're awesome. You have a story to tell, and there really is no one like you. Fellow normal humans Dalia Ramahi and Jordan Drayer share what they've learned in hopes of inspiring you to find your unique voice. This is the Blooming Voices Podcast. Go to bloomingvoices.com for more information. Now let's get to it.
Dalia: Hi guys. I'm Dahlia Ramahi.
Jordan: I'm Jordan Drayer. Nice to meet you.
Dalia: And we're really excited to have you guys here starting in our podcast.
Jordan: Yes. This will serve as an episode zero. So any listeners that are new can always come back here, and if you forgot what we're all about, you can always come back too.
Dalia: Exactly.
Jordan: So --
Dalia: So Jordan, do you want to get us started?
Jordan: Okay. So we're going to talk about who we are a little bit, what this podcast is about. Why do you want to listen to us, and what can you expect? So I'll start with me. Um, my name is Jordan. I'm 30 years old. I have lived like everywhere -- it's, whenever people ask, where are you from? Where's your hometown? It's so hard to answer because how I was born in Texas, I was a little kid in Las Vegas from like three to 10 years old. And then I lived in Orlando for 15 years. So that's where I've lived the longest. I went to Florida State and then moved back to Texas. And now I'm in California. Uh, so I've traveled a lot. I consider myself a citizen of the world.
Dalia: Nice.
Jordan: I don't really have a hometown. I, uh, I, I'm a twin and you're going to find out Dalia is also a twin, and I have one younger brother, and I speak French pretty fluently. I am a game --
Dalia: This is a bilingual duo.
Jordan: Yes. Yes. I've. I've been learning Japanese for a while, Spanish. I want to get into so many other languages and uh, yeah, gamer girl totally. I love RPGs for the most part and musician. That's what I first went to college for, and reading, and painting, and pretty much anything artistic. So I don't want to talk too much more about myself. Say, say some things about you.
Dalia: Oh, well, uh, that's awesome. So, um, I'm Dalia Ramahi and, uh, uh, I'm mm years old. It's, uh, I'm still young, you know, like 20 something. So, but anyway, I'm just kidding. But anyway, um, I am originally from Palestine, Middle Eastern Arab roots. I've lived here my whole life. I have a twin sister. We're identical twins. She's three minutes older, and I have three really cool older brothers, and we're a close family. So it's fun. We have a strong, animated family dynamic. I have family all over, but for the most part, I've lived here in the Northern Virginia area my whole life, but I do travel a lot, and I've seen so many things. And, um, Jordan and I have so many similarities. It's amazing. It's like really interesting. We're both twins. We have both traveled. We're both bilingual. And, um, I play musical instruments too. I've played piano since I was a little kid. Um, and I love reading and I'm a huge movie buff.
Jordan: Oh yeah. I mean, that's another thing.
Dalia: And one thing that Jordan forgot to mention about herself is that she's a professional voice actor. And so am I, so --
Jordan: Yes.
Dalia: -- ta-da! So we're both twins on this fun mission called life, just to share our perspectives and see what comes of it. So we're excited that you guys are joining us today.
Jordan: Yes. For me -- well, one of the things we do want to talk about with this podcast is really being yourself and owning yourself and not apologizing for yourself, but also questioning, oh, why, why do I believe that? Every now and then questioning your beliefs. And if it's something that maybe your parents taught you and it worked for when you were 15, but now you're 25 and what, wait, why does, why do I think that? So that's something I've worked on for the last, I don't know, like since middle school, 15 years, working on becoming a better person and more tolerant and more open and everything.
Dalia: Absolutely. I mean, and that's what's so awesome about our podcasts because we're going to scratch beneath the surface. We want to, you know, tackle things such as -- or not even tackle. That's such an aggressive word, right? But like, we want to talk about identity, what it means to be an individual, how you define who you are, what your experiences are, and how it shapes your perspective, and how you can push past certain limiting beliefs, right? So it's, I think for me personally, I love the quote "you're either green and growing or ripe and rotting," right?
Jordan: I'd never heard it.
Dalia: Life is all about experiences -- yeah. I heard it. And I was like, oh my God, that makes a lot of sense. The more we learn, the more we grow, the more we expand our horizons, the better perspective we have on who we are. And I think questioning certain aspects of that are -- is important to having a well-rounded perspective, right?
Jordan: Or even, I guess not, not being afraid --
Dalia: Yes.
Jordan: -- to change as well. Like I, for, for a little background, I went to Florida State for music. My, my first dream was to be in the London Symphony Orchestra. And then I, I was like, oh, I'm good, but not that good. And also, I don't want to practice six hours a day. And so after college, I was floundering that summer of 2013. And what do I do? I thought about going to the army. And it was then that I decided, well, why not voiceover now? 'Cause it's something I've always been interested in. So I started getting into that. And now recently I'm getting more into teaching, teaching English. I've been in France for a few months teaching. So never being afraid to change as well or reinvent yourself.
Dalia: Oh, I, I completely agree. I think it's awesome that you explored those options because you got to see what you really wanted to do. And you wouldn't have done that if you didn't question where you were at and reassess, you know? I think that's -- being uncomfortable is the best thing you can do for your life because it's through that discomfort that we can find some really awesome things that we didn't explore or think about considering before. For me, I was in the corporate world, and after college, I got my first corporate job, stayed at the same company for almost 11 years. And I was doing really well over there, but I knew I needed a change, and I got that courage to start my first business. It was a pet services company, and I never looked back. And then I explored voiceover and dove all in with that too. And now I'm a teacher as well. So I teach English to Chinese kids in China. And it's awesome. So the more we, the more we make ourselves uncomfortable, I think we find so much more that we're capable of.
Jordan: She wakes up really early for that.
Dalia: Yeah. Very early. Yes.
Jordan: So, yeah --
Dalia: But I'm a morning person. So it works.
Jordan: Oh yeah. I can do that sometimes. I don't know. Uh, I'm better at night, but yeah. So yeah, you can expect, you can expect beliefs, you can expect inspirational stories. We might talk about books and movies that we love every now and then, uh, our travels definitely. Uh, we would like to focus too a little bit on, um, some minority religions, if you can call them that, minorities in the US perhaps. So, uh, that'll be interesting.
Dalia: Yeah. Like -- like social issues, um, you know, uh, how these, uh, how the, how beliefs shape us, whether, whether you're -- you ascribed to a certain belief system or not, right? Yeah.
Jordan: And, uh, yeah. The differences between religion and culture, differences between lots of stuff. So, yeah, there'll be some random stuff, I'm sure. I hope that we don't ever ramble too much. And, uh, keep you interested and energized, that you come away feeling happy.
Dalia: Oh, they will Jordan. They will. They're going to love this podcast.
Jordan: Yes. Yes. New perspectives.
Dalia: Yes. Oh, exactly. I think that one way to sum up this podcast is new perspectives --
Jordan: Yes, yes.
Dalia: -- challenging old ones.
Jordan: Yes, and there is a hope to have guests on every now and then as well.
Dalia: Yes. And they're going to share their inspirational stories, how they overcame certain things. I mean, it'll be so fun. I really, I just can't wait for everybody to hear what we have in store.
Jordan: With an emphasis too on normal people. Like, they're not, I'm a CEO of blah, blah, blah. No, it'll be normal people, just like you and me and Dalia, who just do what we can. And we don't always have the right answers. And well, I just do things because it seems interesting. And so, yeah, that's how it happens.
Dalia: And it's through those everyday things that you can like really strike gold or hit something magical and just create that momentum that propels you forward. I mean, that's how it all starts. So we're really excited about it.
Jordan: Yes, so thank you.
Dalia: Thank you, guys. I can't wait for episode one!
Jordan: Look forward to it.
Dalia: Yes. Take care guys. Bye!
Jordan: Bye!
Victor: That's our show. Didn't get enough of the twins? Go to BloomingVoices.com for more information and let us know what you thought of the episode. Twitter, Instagram, email, we've got the works. We'll see you next Wednesday.
