58: Stepping Away From Hustle Culture To Make A Bigger Impact, with Manuela Barón

<p class="p1">“There is value in the things that don’t always get rewards. It’s not up to you to save the world, but the little things you do really can save the world.” - Manuela Barón, The Girl Gone Green</p> <p class="p1">Manuela is a sustainability activist whose goal is to communicate how everyone can help the planet. In her travels, she realized the problem the world faces – trash. That was the trigger to her lifestyle change. In this episode, Manuela maps out the path she took towards the sustainability agenda.</p> <p class="p2"> </p> <p class="p1"><strong>Eye-Opening Experience</strong></p> <p class="p1">At 18, Manuela transferred to Paris to figure out what she wanted to do in life. In her mind, the decision to move abroad was romanticized, but the reality was far from the expectation. Manuela was exposed to the minimalist lifestyle, from fashion to meals. She noticed that Parisian women barely wear makeup and can whip up elaborate four-course meals using a single pot. Her observation made her look inward, and that was the moment Manuela decided to explore and learn from other cultures through travel. From that, she was able to pinpoint a recurring problem wherever she goes – trash. There was plastic pollution in Morocco; cigarette butts were scattered in Paris; Vietnam has a headache with soda cans. That made Manuela think of going for sustainable living as her own initiative to lessen her impact on the global trash crisis. It was a process of trial and error, but in the end, she successfully spread her advocacy through her social media platform.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p> <p class="p2"> </p> <p class="p1"><strong>Keeping It Balanced</strong></p> <p class="p1">Obsession for her newfound purpose was the flame that kept Manuela working on her advocacy. Then, a day after her college graduation, she flew to Bali, Indonesia, where she saw firsthand the plastic emergency happening there. Manuela secured a discourse with someone related to the Indonesian president regarding the situation.