When you meet Anna for the first time you see one kind-hearted girl with beautiful blue eyes and a lovely smile but what you don’t see is the brave spirit she has and the strength within to follow her dreams.
1. How did you come up with this idea?
The whole concept of culture exchange came from so many people and I had so many inspirational characters that influenced everything I am doing now and everything that I have done in the past. I would never say that the whole idea was mine but I did certainly have the passion to bring it to life. Since I was a little girl I wanted to own a café or manage one, I remember always noticing cute places and thinking of how mine would look if I did have one. When I was about 16 I made a vision board, which is a pin-on cork board with pictures of ideas or dreams that you have. I hand drew a picture of a café and called it ‘the little love cup’, 6 years late I had the opportunity to with a group of friends bring that to life, combining it with the ideas from the rest of the team to create a bike store… we decided to call it Culture Exchange
2. What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome to bring this idea to life?
I feel like the biggest challenge that I have and most likely always will face was self doubt. I had many breakthrough points where I overcame my lack of confidence in my abilities but somehow it does always come back. I remember specifically when we were about to open the place in Novi Sad that I was really stuck on my fears, somehow I felt that if it didn’t work out I would be considered such a failure. I felt like everything hinged on this and I didn’t think I could do it. Just as we were getting ready to open I got hit with it really hard and I thought ‘who am I to think I can do this?’. I couldn’t sleep well, I was crying at little silly things, and my stomach was always having problems. I went to sit by the Danube late at night and I would just put on my music and try to get out of the situation and force some belief in myself. I remember reading a quote that said ‘once you have learnt to trust yourself, you will have learnt how to live’. However I just didn’t see how to trust myself when I felt I had seen no proof of my abilities. When I had lived in the UK a few years before, I had always hosted events and parties for different reasons, sometimes nobody attended and I remember that I felt so discouraged and like nothing I tried made any difference. I felt so small in the world and that there was nothing I could do to break out of my prisons of doubt. The only thing I could do was to go ahead and try despite feeling the way I did, and for this courage I was rewarded, I saw that I could do so many things I did not expect. Culture Exchange taught me that even if you do have fear and even if you doubt yourself, you sometimes need to simply face it and go ahead anyways.
3. Have you ever felt confused or afraid at some point of your journey?
Yes, so many times, and I still do. It’s a part of the journey and especially when you try something new there is so much unpredictability in it. It’s natural to worry and especially with the society we are brought up with, we feel that anything less than perfection is a failure. But everything that happens to us is experience and whether it turns out how we expect or not, it’s all good for us.
4. Was there a moment when you were ready to give up and what kept you going?
So many times I wanted to give up. In Serbia I had a really hard time to believe in what I was doing, I was earning almost no money and working all the time. My happiest moments were seeing Culture Exchange affecting so many people positively and that it was bringing something new and unique to the city. I remember one time talking with a friend about if it was worth it to stay there and work on it and what it meant to my life. For sure I could have better quality of life if I moved to another country and even worked a menial job, I would get more money, have more holidays and be able to save to travel. I remember that he told me about a lady who had opened a little spa in a very quiet and deserted part of the city and it was a struggle for her, when he asked her why she didn’t move that business to the bigger city where it would for sure earn more she told him ‘its like opening a well in a place where there is a lot of water, people won’t appreciate it because they don’t need it, but when you open your well in the desert, people really need it and it can even save their lives’. I always thought of Culture Exchange in Serbia in this way, it was in a place where it was needed and I wanted to do whatever I could to keep it there.
5. What did your family and friends think of your decision to create “Culture Exchange”?
I got of course a lot of support from friends and family during the whole project. Of course some of them were concerned about my sanity as the stressful parts were really hard and they saw me suffer and struggle. Every time any one of my friends would visit in Serbia they always loved it and were really impressed with what we had built there.
6. Has anything surprising happened while you were working on achieving your goal?
So much of what has happened has been a surprise. I never expected in the beginning that it would run well and that we would even think of expanding, let alone to another country. The whole journey and the twists and turns that happened to Culture Exchange always kept me on my toes; they have given me a rich library of stories, funny memories and emotional moments. One of the biggest surprises came when my friends and the other owners of the business got kicked out of the country; they had their visas denied. We got accused of building a cult organization and somehow got really attacked by the media. This was something none of us were prepared for and it was pretty scary to see pictures of yourself in the newspapers and on TV. Because of the crazy accusations and the storm of events that happened, I faced the new challenge of staying in Serbia without my co-workers and running Culture Exchange alone. Although this seemed to be a very difficult and rough time, in the end it made us stronger and without this I doubt that CE in Graz would be open.
7. If you had to start over now, would you do so?
Building the project in Serbia has been one of the best things I have ever done. I am so proud of myself and the rest of the CE team. I would say that even though at some moments I felt a lot of regret for choosing this path, when I look back now I feel like there is nothing I would rather do and I am deeply thankful for it.
8. What do you do to keep yourself inspired?
I am a very emotional person and have a lot of highs and lows. Sometimes it is hard to inspire myself and I always need to have people around me that do lift me up and give me faith in myself again. Being surrounded by people that believe in me and who trust me is something that really gives me courage. However when that isn’t possible, or when that route is tough, I like to read things that can give me courage, or when I do get a chance, I write my blog about the stories of my life and l also read the articles I wrote at different phases of the café, when I look back I see that everything makes sense now and it gives me some stability.
9. What do you dream about?
That’s a tough question, although I do have accomplishment related dreams and I want to do more things. Most importantly now I want to be happy with the people I am with. I also want to ride my bike more and travel by bike, I want to see more of the world and grow in love and compassion. I want to be more open minded and caring. I want to be the best version of myself that I can be and I want to help others as much as I can. I learnt a lot through striving to work a lot and in the past I put a lot of pressure on myself, I got depressed about my own abilities, looks or personality very often. I don’t want to base my happiness off my success anymore, or however I was defining success. I want to learn more about myself and the wonderful world around me and live a happy life.
10. Are you working on some other projects now?
Sure, I am that kind of person, there is always a project brewing in my mind and I always seem to take on something new. Right now I work on getting sponsorship for my bike messenger company. I also want to do something with cooking and baking as it’s something I love doing. In the future I would love to open another small café and business with a group of people that would form a collective, with real equality and a very free and open minded environment. Right now the ideas are only forming, something I learnt was that everything that happens is starting in our minds, first you think it and then you dream it and then you do some small actions and then it starts to happen. The journey of 1000 miles starts with the first step and for now I keep these ideas close to my heart and slowly being to dream them up.
11. What are your other passions or hobbies?
As for passions and hobbies of course my main one is cycling. I also work as a bike messenger and love to improve my skills in this.
12. What advice would you give to all the other brave people out there?
Oh well as I said before, I often feel that I am not brave because I do have a lot of fear. I guess the only advice I would say is to go for what you want and not be intimidated by your lack of self confidence. Walk out on the water and see it hold you. Everything I have done up to this point I would have never said in the beginning I could do and I would have never known I could do it until I tried. Trying and striving is the brave part and all the battle that goes on in your mind and heart is something that you have to get past and go on despite.
