Beyond Culture

Beyond Beautiful: Disability, Liberation, Love

Season 2, Episode 5 — Beyond Culture

🎧 Listen to the Episode

🧭 Episode Summary

In Beyond Culture, Mandi is joined by Urmi Hossaim - author, speaker, podcast host, and finance professional - for a rich conversation about identity, third-culture experiences, and the quiet labor of self-definition. Together, they explore culture through a disability justice-informed lens, unpacking how systems, norms, and expectations impact whose identities are affirmed and whose are questioned. This episode invites listeners to reflect on migration, belonging, and the courage it takes to define yourself on your own terms.

🎙 Guest

Urmi Hossain is a self-published author, speaker, podcast host, and finance professional based in Canada. She holds the CFA and CAIA designations and works in the financial services industry while actively advocating for women’s empowerment, identity, and self-leadership.

Her book, Discovering Your Identity: A Rebirth from Interracial Struggle, explores her journey as a third-culture woman navigating belonging, culture, and self-worth. Urmi also hosts Stories Beyond Borders, a podcast amplifying diverse voices on identity, migration, language, and the meaning of home.

She serves as Co-Chair of Women in Leadership’s Montreal Chapter and is passionate about public speaking, mentorship, and continuous growth.

💬 Key Themes

• Identity & Belonging

• Interracial & Cross-Cultural Experience

• Self-Leadership & Reclaiming Narrative

• Voice, Visibility & Representation

  
  

📜 Full Transcript

Mandi: Welcome to Beyond Disability Liberation Love. I'm Mandi, your Queer Christian Disabled host. In this episode I am interviewing Urmi Hossain, a self published author, speaker, podcast host and finance professional based in Canada. She holds the CFA and CAIA designations and works in the financial services industry while actively advocating for women's empowerment, identity and self leadership. Her book Discovering youg A Rebirth from Interracial Struggle explores her journey as a third culture woman, navigating belonging, culture and self worth. Urmi also hosts Stories Beyond Borders, a podcast amplifying diverse voices on identity, migration, language and the meaning of home. She serves as co chair of Women in Leadership's Montreal chapter and is passionate about public speaking, mentorship and continuous growth. Throughout the interview we discuss culture and the connection between culture and disability. I hope you enjoy today's interview. Let's jump right in.

Mandi: Welcome Urmi to Beyond Beautiful. I'm really excited to have you on the show today. How are you?

Urmi: I'm doing good, and you?

Mandi: I'm really good. It's very cold here in New York and I'd love for you to introduce yourself to our listeners in whatever way you are most comfortable with.

Urmi: Yeah, for sure. So my name is Urmi. I am based in Montreal, which is also really cold. I think we have like minus 20 and tomorrow is going to be like minus 30. So it's really, really cold. And I am a proud woman in finance. I work in a corporate job, but I also am someone who wears many hats. So I'm a published, author, speaker, YouTuber, mentor, blogger, new in the podcast world as well. And I am a big advocate of women's empowerment. I am indeed the co-chair of Women in Leadership organization for the Montreal chapter.

Mandi: Wow, you do wear many hats. And congratulations on joining the podcast world.

Urmi: Thank you.

Mandi: What is your podcast called?

Urmi: It's called Stories Beyond Borders and it's a podcast about stories of immigration.

Mandi: Oh, amazing. So we are going to be talking a lot about culture today. So I'm really glad that you brought that up. I'm wondering how your cultural background and your lived experiences have shaped the way that you move through all of these different professional spaces that you're in.

Urmi: I think they allowed me to be very curious in a way and also very open minded. I think the fact that I had exposure to so many cultural background, the fact that, you know, I was born in one country, I was raised in a certain way at home. I moved around in many places. I went to the UK, I came to Canada, I lived a big chunk of my life in Italy. I think they shaped me to be really curious in many, many ways and also to explore different routes. I think at some point I thought that you could only have one job and you just had to stick to that. But then I feel like with technology and with the advancement that we have, I also had the chance to explore different, you know, different ways and to also, like, explore a little bit of my creative side, which is also why I do all these things outside of my nine to five.

Mandi: I love that. So it sounds like your culture and all of these different cultural experiences have really been an asset for you. I'm wondering if you have experienced a moment when your culture or the different cultural backgrounds that you have might have felt like a barrier?

Urmi: Yes, I did. At some point, especially with the South Asian background, I feel like it was. I was raised to think that I was only limited to do certain things because that's what the South Asian culture sometimes dictates. Sometimes it says if you're a woman, you're not allowed to do certain things. Men have a lot more freedom. And so I grew up thinking that I was just limited. And there was at some point that I was like, I don't think I want to be associated with that identity of mine. I didn't want to be South Asian because there were so many limitations. But then with. With the years, and I think also with the fact that when I, you know, I grew up and I learned a little bit more about my cultures and things like that, I started to see both of my identity identities, Bengali and the. The Italian one, more like a strength. And I just choose the good things that I want to take from each culture, basically.

Mandi: Yeah, no, that makes so much sense. And you kind of talked about some of the gender things as well, so that's really interesting. I am wondering how you navigate cultural expectations in the corporate and leadership environments that you're in, especially as you shared that in some of the cultural experience experiences you've had, you know, men have more opportunities than women do. So how do you kind of navigate that code switching and the cultural expectations?

Urmi: Yeah, you're totally right about that. I think in many cultures. And it's not just mine, I do think that in many cultures, expectation is that the man will be the leader, whether it is in a company, whether it is in the household. Men are typically leading everything, pretty much. And because of that, I also sometimes feel like women are never given enough credit. We're not, you know, encouraged to advance in our career. We. We're always like, put second place no one gave us the same importance as the men would do. And so one of the things that I do typically is really rely on building partnership and allies within the corporate job and also finding mentors and speaking to the right people. Because I do see, especially the finance world, I do see that it's very, very male dominated. But I think it's important to make some of this male dominated figures like your allies and ask for questions and, you know, if you find the right person, they really guide you. And I was lucky enough that I went to some random coffee chats that we have like at work. And I just opened up to a few of the coworkers, colleagues about, you know, things I wanted to do, how I wanted to advance, and they always gave me good advice. So I really rely on, like building, you know, a good network of people and find good people who can give me good advice.

Mandi: Yeah. And this is why I really love talking about intersectionality and how important it is, especially in the work that I do in disability justice. But it really crosses over into so many other equity spaces because that idea of community and interdependence is really important. Not trying to do things just on your own, but building a good community around you. So that really connects to a lot of the work that I do. And I want to know, in your extent and experience in connecting this to disability justice, how do ableist productivity standards show up in hiring, workplace culture, or performance expectations that you were just talking about?

Urmi: So let me tell you this. I think when we talk about disability, we do get a lot of training about it. But at the same time, I also feel like it's not enough, the training that we get, because I had a lot more awareness when I was in university about disability and how to approach it when you are in contact with someone. And I feel like it made me really aware. When I was a student, I used to be a note taker for someone in my classroom. And I didn't know who this person is. And till now, I still do not know who this person is. But every time I looked around and tried to guess who, who could this person be? And what made me realize about this is this sometimes we make assumptions. We just make assumptions about people. We just think everyone is perfect, everyone is like fine because we are fine. Right. But I think it's important to be aware that there's always an internal battle that someone is fighting for and to be mindful and to be gentle towards the other person. Because I also think that disability sometimes is not physical, is also Mental. And I also met a girl in my school and she was like a close friend of mine and she still is, but I didn't know that she had a cognitive disability. So she was like, yeah, I also like need help with things and there is someone in the class who helps me. And I was like, oh, really? I didn't know that. And so it just made me realize that there's so much diversity around. But I think we need a lot more conversation about it. A lot more.

Mandi: Yeah, I love that. And I agree, I think you and I both agree that storytelling and being able to share our experience experiences is one of the best ways to really have these kinds of conversations and for people to learn and also break down barriers. So I really appreciate that. I want to go back a little bit to something that you were talking about specifically around the work that you do with empowering women. So I wanted to know what cultural myths or limiting narratives you see women and maybe some women with disabilities even carrying into their careers.

Urmi: So I feel like there are so many challenges that I see when it comes to like, like women wanting to feel empowered and women wanted to be in leadership position. And I think one of the recurring theme that we have is that women often feel like they're an imposter. We, we always feel like we're not good enough. We always feel like we don't deserve this. We are always, always second guessing ourselves. Always. And I was just having a convers friend and she was like, you know what? I feel like I deserve this promotion, but I did not get it. And she like, like she went on and on for 30 minutes talking about this, how she's like, I don't know what's wrong with me. And, and again, I always feel like there's so much expectations put on us on like things that we are meant to be doing, but no matter what we do, it's like never enough. And the imposter, the imposter syndrome is always, always hitting us. And like, I feel like I'm a guilt at it as like, me too. Sometimes I'm second guessing and I, and I think I let it go. Like I'm. If someone says, oh yeah, like I'm just gonna give you this. Let's say I had a conversation as well where I felt like I deserved more. But then I was told that I'm getting the same as everyone else and that was okay. I just let it go because I was like, that's fine. But now when I think about it, I'm like, no, it wasn't fine. I should have fought for it, you know, and so I feel like no one ever teaches you about, you know, fighting for your things, whereas I feel like if he was a man, he would just go for it.

Mandi: Yeah, no, I. I 100% agree with imposter syndrome. That's definitely something that I struggle with. And I think you're right. I do think that it disproportionately impacts women because of some of the cultural things even that you were talking about. And, you know, I'm in the United States, where we talk a lot about everyone being empowered and having equal rights, but we experience. Experience that still here in. In our country, too. So I think that is definitely something that is global. The. That sense of, do I really belong in this space? Am I really good enough and kind of waiting for things to happen or people to provide that validation? And that can be really difficult. So I know you mentioned mentorship as kind of a tool that can be used to work against this kind of negative thinking. So how feel that mentorship could be more culturally responsive?

Urmi: It's like it can. It can play a humongous role in someone's life. And I do think that, especially in the corporate world, I think we should have a lot more mentorship program implemented. And I think we should have mentorship program. There are also targeting, like, certain different kinds of groups, because the way I like to see it is that I can mentor someone really well who comes from my own cultural background, for instance, because we probably went through the same thing. I think it's always fundamental to have that same educational background or maybe the same cultural background, that same personal background, because you understand each other. But I feel like sometimes some mentorship program are lacking that. They're just lacking that. They're just putting you randomly with someone, and I feel like sometimes the other person is not able to help you. And the same applies with, you know, people with disability and stuff like that. You know, only certain people can understand how the other person is feeling. And I think mentorship, I would say, like, one place to start is from your workplace. But luckily, we do have a lot of nonprofit organizations out there that do have mentorship program. And I found very good organizations that are targeting women of color, which is what I like. This is what I like, because I am myself a woman of color, and I found good mentorship program that are just addressing those specific needs. So I would say, like, find programs that are, you know, targeting your specific needs. So if You're. If you identify yourself as a woman, then find an organization that is, like, looking for mentors or mentees who are women. If you are a woman of color, then do the same thing. And I feel like there's so many out there and where they have, like, mentorship program, cohort program, where you can sign up and find the right person for you. So I feel like mentorship, it's a good place, and you don't necessarily have to start from, like, the workplace. You can find it in your, like, local community.

Mandi: I love that you're sharing that there are opportunities even outside of the workplace, because you're right, not every workplace has that set up. And then especially for some people with disabilities who may not be working for different reasons, there's still opportunities to be. Be a mentor and to be a mentee. And in learning a little bit more about you, I learned that you live by the philosophy invest in yourself, and I would love to know more about what that means even beyond just money or career. What does that look like?

Urmi: So when I think about investing in myself, so I definitely do think that I got this philosophy of life, because I do come from a finance background, but it's not necessarily about investing, you know, your money and becoming rich, but it's more like becoming a more fulfilled and satisfied person by doing the things that you love doing. So for me, when I think about investing in myself, I think of myself as an asset, and I think about how can I nurture my mind, my soul, my body? It's by doing the things that I love. So I am generally, like, naturally, like, a very curious person. So I like to read books. That's one way that I'm investing my time. I like to listen to podcasts. That's a way, one way that I like to learn. I like to, for instance, do certain type of workouts. So I like to box. I like to do hiit workouts. And that's also like me using my time to invest in myself, in my body. And I realized that, you know, by doing these little things, you are becoming richer as a person. For me, investing in myself also means, you know, taking time to give back to the community. And I do this through volunteering. I do this by mentoring people. I do this through the work with women in leadership. So for me, really investing in myself is really. It just simply means just living a happier life by doing the things that you. That you love.

Mandi: Yeah, I think that's so important. And I love that you're sharing this even as, you know Someone who doesn't have a visible or physical disability. Because we talk a lot about this in the disability community, that rest and joy and having self care and self compassion is so important. So with all of the things that you do from a professional space and all of the things that you do to take care of yourself, how do you balance your ambition with rest and cultural expectations and self compassion?

Urmi: Let me tell you this, the cultural expectations part, I think I just let it go because I realized that we're so conditioned to like live a certain way and to live up to those expectations that sometimes it's just never enough. It's never enough. Whatever we do. It's like never good enough. So just let it go. And I also think that there are cultural expectations, but are they really set in stone? So I always think about that. And when it comes to like finding a balance between my ambitions and getting rest and stuff like that, let me tell you this, I really had to learn it like the hard way because I feel like at some point I was just doing, doing, doing, doing, but I was never really taking time to rest. And then I realized that by actually taking rest, I was doing good to my, like, to myself. And like me, you know, getting a good night's sleep, not scrolling over my phone. And it's something that I'm still working on, like not being on Instagram and stuff like that. But I do have like, my Google Calendar is my best friend, as I always say. So I, I really put everything on my calendar. Like I, you know, when, like there's my nine to five, of course, and there's my five to nine. But everything that I do in my five to nine is like pretty spread out and I do one thing per day and I make sure that, you know, by a certain hour I stop everything and I go in and take time, like actually go, go to bed. And even on the weekends now I really take, try to take time to disconnect, to disconnect and not do like my personal work, but really just, you know, bake, maybe, you know, turn on the infused infuser, maybe, you know, put a candle on, you know, maybe cook something. Like, I feel like those things really make me connected. And I think I also like to explore that side of myself where I'm like baking or maybe cooking, maybe something that I wasn't doing before. But I feel like that is also part of, like investing in yourself and learning new things that maybe you wouldn't do before.

Mandi: Yeah, I appreciate this so much. And one of the things that I Enjoy. Most about this podcast and doing these interviews is seeing that no matter where you are in the world or what different experiences you have, we all do share some similar experiences. So I'm very similar to you. My. My Google calendar is, you know, kind of the master controller, because if it's not in the calendar, I don't remember to do things anymore. There's so much to do, and just your way of learning balance sounds very similar to my own story. You know, I'm a mom. I work full time. I, like you said, have my five to nine where I'm trying to do side projects. So I really appreciate that the experiences are similar, even though we're so far apart and so different. So it's nice to always see how we are just as. As humanity, still connected and similar. Yeah, I do want to talk a little bit more about your work. You mentioned that you work with immigrants and multicultural communities, and I'm wondering what stories about multicultural communities do you wish were told differently or maybe told more often?

Urmi: There are so many things, and I think we just take things for granted because I do think that there is still a lot of discriminations against, you know, immigrants. And I was just telling this story the other day. Like, I was saying, you know, like, it never happened to me that people discriminated me, like, no matter where I went. But I know that people from my circle, I know that while they were, let's say, growing up in a certain country, they were always being discriminated because maybe they were smelling of, like, they had the smell of curry, for instance. So in the South, Asian culture is very normal that we use curry and spices, and it's normal that our clothes smell. Okay. But sometimes, like, I remember people commenting on. On people's smell because of this. But then I'm thinking, why are we not going, like, back to the roots and try to understand where it's coming from? Like, it's not the person. It's not that. That the person did not take a shower. It's just that, you know, at home there is a strong smell of curry because maybe the mother or the father is, like, cooking or something. And so I feel like we need to bring awareness about these little things. Like, people are so quick to make a judgment, but sometimes we don't realize that, you know, it's coming from other things, you know, so that's one thing that's a common one that I. That I. That I heard. I think also sometimes we do make judgment based on people's accents. We just tend to, you know, come to a conclusion that, you know, this person is an immigrant because he has an accent. But sometimes a person has an accent because, you know, like, it just means that they speak multiple languages. It could be also that they have some disability, but we're not aware of it. So that too, I feel like we don't speak enough of it, for instance, and much more mindful of it because I feel like I also have an accent. And it did happen sometimes that people would come to a conclusion and I did not like the conclusion they would come up with. So we need to have more conversation about these little things that happen and not just assume they don't.

Mandi: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And again, connecting it to the work I'm doing in the disability space, it's very similar. People do make a lot of assumptions. And I think some of what you're talking about, like, kind of the microaggressions or the dating to day things, you know, discrimination is not always this big act or something that's publicized in the media. Sometimes it is just in the smaller conversations or interactions that you have that can really make a big difference for a person. So I really appreciate you bringing that to light. And I know we talked a little bit about the power of storytelling, and I'd love to know more from your perspective, how you feel that stories help us move from tolerance to genuine belonging.

Urmi: Honestly, I love. I love storytelling. I think they are the best way to connect with someone, and I think they're the best way to connect with someone's pain, but also happiness. And I think when it comes to storytelling, the person listening, they have to be really open to listen to the person's story, why they're coming, like, why they are coming from a certain background, why they went through a certain thing. And I think story storytelling is really powerful. So I'm just going to give you one example because it happened to me, really, like yesterday where one of my coworker was asking me, like, why I am in Montreal. And she was trying to also know why my parents moved from Bangladesh to Italy. And I was telling her that my parents were not like, you know, millionaires or whatever. They were just normal people who left their own country to go to a completely foreign country and just, you know, build a future there. And I was also adding that my parents did not speak a word of Italian. They had no connections over there. They didn't know one person. And. And in that moment, I could see in my coworker's eyes that she was looking at me. With empathy and compassion, which is what I was trying to do. Like, I'm not. I wasn't trying to, like, sell you anything. I wasn't trying to be fancy about it. Yes, I moved around, but there was nothing good about it because I just kept moving around. My. My parents were trying to make a l out of everything that we're doing. And so for me, like, when I think about my parents story, it's a story of courage because they just moved from one place. They went to a completely foreign place where, you know, I don't think I would be able to do that. Like, if I do not know the language and I'm going to a random place, I don't know if I'm going to survive. And so I always say, like, stories are so powerful because they just create a human connections and they create a deeper connection that you're just showing your human side to the other person.

Mandi: I agree, and I think that's why I love the idea of podcasting so much too. Just being able to both share my own experiences and my own stories, but also creating a platform for other people to be able to share their stories. Because I do think it shows our interconnectedness and especially in some of the challenging times that we're facing both here in our. In my country and also just globally, I think seeing how we're connected is so important and being connected to each other is so important. So I agree that the power of storytelling is so important to keep. Keep doing and keep going. As we start to wrap up, what advice would you give to someone who feels that they have to shrink or separate parts of themselves to succeed?

Urmi: My advice would be never change yourself to fit someone else's idea of what a role or a person should be. I'm all about, you know, authenticity and showing yourself as your most, you know, authentic self. And I feel like sometimes because we're so conditioned to see things a certain way, and we're so conditioned to think, you know, this is what normal looks like, we need to be aware that there is a lot more diversity to it. Even when you do not see it, there is some sort of diversity. And that could come from, like, religion, culture. It could be, you know, country. It could be like, it could come in many ways. And I feel like sometimes we as a person, we're just adjusting ourselves to be closer to what normality looks like. But we can create our own normality as long as we are being honest to ourself and we speak more about it. We just have to have more Conversation. I think about diversity, any type of diversity. Like, I support a certain type of diversity which comes from culture and stuff like that. You support another type, but we should not change for someone else. That would be my advice. Always be yourself.

Mandi: I love that. And I love when you said to create your own normal. Right? Because we have this idea normal doesn't really exist. I mean, every. Everyone is different. Even if you take twins, those twins are still different. They can have different personalities and want to do different things. So really there's no two individuals who are exactly alike. And you're right. Diversity means so many things across different spectrums. There's diversity in culture, there's diversity in our appearance and our skin color and our abilities. So I love that you're sharing just how all of these different forms of diversity still intersect. And at the end of the day, we're all people and we all deserve the same opportunities and the same success. So I really appreciate that. So I want to leave our listeners with hope. I always want to leave them on a high note with hope. So when you think about the future, what gives you hope about leadership, belonging and justice?

Urmi: I'm just hopeful that people would do the right thing for our world. I know there is so much chaos right now, a lot of chaos in every sense, in every part. But I do stay hopeful that good people will be there to run the world in the proper manner. Yeah, we just have to stay hopeful and be positive about it.

Mandi: I love that. That good people will step up and do the right thing. That's amazing. I think that's very hopeful. Urmi, it was really great talking to you and having this conversation. I really appreciate you sharing so much of your experience and your culture and your own stories with us. So thank you so much and I look forward to staying in contact and having future conversations.

Urmi: Thank you.

Mandi: Thanks so much for tuning in to today's episode. To grab a copy of Udni's book, please check out the show notes and find a link to her Amazon author page. You can also follow her podcast, Stories Beyond Borders, linked in the show notes. Next week I'll be talking to a neurodivergent multi hyphenate self advocate and together we'll be busting the capacity myth. So be sure to tune in. If this episode resonated with you or you would like to support the accessibility features of this podcast, please click Power the podcast on my website at mandiboxbeauty.com your support means everything. And remember, disability, liberation, love are always beyond beautiful.

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