Julia makes reinvention look easy. And she credits it to staying curious, believing in people, listening to herself, and cultivating optimism.

Growing up in the Soviet Union around the Black Sea, Julia’s curiosity, intuition, creativity, and tenacity eventually led her to local fame in Moscow as a music journalist for MTV Russia and early pioneer of internet television. She then reinvented herself as a techno dj in Berlin. In 2013 she moved to New York with no local community and without a strong grasp of English. She navigated this challenge by throwing herself into music production and launching her own record label, Jujuka Music.

Today Julia is renowned internationally for her innovative sound; The New Yorker called her music beguiling. She’s a regular at Tresor in Berlin and holds a residency at Public Records in New York where she also does programming focusing on modern techno and obscure club music.

She’s also currently realizing a long-held dream of having a space where she can host friends, create events, and pour people drinks as the managing partner of the artist-run bar E-Flux Bar Laika in Clinton Hill in Brooklyn.

In this episode, we get into:

• How curiosity and tuning into yourself is the foundation for your evolution

• The power of optimism and seeing life as full of possibilities

• The opportunities created from seeing the good in people

• Managing multiple major life transitions at once with no safety net

• Julia’s philosophy on the duality required to be a strong artist

• How experience helps your course correct in a more aligned way

• Navigating an industry that will judge you first on your looks

• The magnetic power of having character

Julia is warm, funny, and honest about her journey and what it takes to build a life with character, one that takes you to places you would’ve never imagined.

If you’re considering a new transition, building a career based in creativity, or navigating a hard moment, this episode is for you!

Timestamps:

00:00 – Listening to Yourself & The Challenge of Transition

01:49 – Childhood in the Soviet Bloc & Identity Shifts

02:32 – Success vs Experience: Julia’s Reframe

03:15 – Intuition as a Superpower

06:00 – Reinvention Series: Journalist → MTV Host → Blogger → Producer → DJ → Cultural Curator

09:14 – Anger, Negativity & How to Avoid Getting Stuck

11:43 – From “Somebody” in Russia to “Nobody” in NYC

13:09 – A New Poem for a New Chapter

14:47 – Looking Back at the Years of Disguise

15:42 – Toxic Work Environments & Energy Absorption

18:56 – Style as Practicality, Comfort & Movement

20:31 – The Pressure on Women in Electronic Music

22:47 – Collaboration, Trust, and Creative Partnerships

23:38 – The Hard Work Behind a “Lucky” Career

24:56 – Community, Dance Floors & Cultural Responsibility

27:24 – What She’s Working On Now

28:15 – Advice for Anyone in a Transition

29:32 – What Character Means to Julia

Do you ever feel like the career you built is the one you thought you wanted - but then you wake up one day and realize it’s no longer clicking?

That’s where Caroline Witmer found herself. Brown grad. Columbia MBA. Wealth management. Private equity. She’d ticked all the boxes, jumped from chapter to chapter with ease, externally she was ‘crushing it’… but never looking inside to ask herself, are you happy? Is this really what you want?

In this episode of Character, I sit down with Caroline—who's actually a former coaching client of mine—to talk about her journey from finance to founding Tuck Shop, a handcrafted chocolate company capturing the spirit of your happy place.

Caroline shares how she’s building something meaningful while raising three kids under four without the pressure and intensity that colored her career in finance.

In this honest conversation about career change and building a life with character, we explore:

- How do you know when it’s time to leave a career that looks good on paper?

- Letting go of other people’s opinions.

- Giving yourself permission to play.

- Building a business while raising babies.

- What it takes to let go of the pressure and hold things looser.

Connect with Caroline and Tuck Shop:

Website: https://shoptuckshop.com/

Instagram:

@shoptuckshop https://www.instagram.com/shoptuckshop/

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction & Early Aspirations

01:33 Path into Finance

03:38 Finance Career Growth

05:15 Business School & Transitioning Roles

07:04 COVID & Life Changes Triggering Reflection

09:08 Coaching & Transitioning Mindset

12:43 Shifting from Finance to Entrepreneurship

16:25 Founding TuckShop

20:01 TuckShop Growth & Operations

24:24 Learning Operational Skills

27:14 Spirituality & Grounding Practices

29:18 Balancing Motherhood & Entrepreneurship

32:38 Impact of New York City on Career & Creativity

34:53 Advice to Younger Self & Key Takeaways

SUBSCRIBE NOW:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@characterpod

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/character-with-anne-benveniste/id1645863102

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63UcUnBWGGxAjTiX9Q2RnN

FOLLOW ALONG:

Substack: https://annebenven.substack.com

Website: https://www.annebenveniste.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/annebenveniste/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/characterpod

What happens when you build something you thought would work and then it doesn’t? And there’s no plan B.

Sutian Dong, Partner at Multitudes and Co-Founder of Global Women in VC, is fascinated with creating products, technologies, platforms, services, and communities that move humanity in a positive direction by not changing how we do things, but the way that we think and feel.

After years of lucky breaks and things always just working out, Sutian found herself in uncharted territory when her original concept for Multitudes failed and she had no idea what came next. That moment of disorientation became the catalyst for profound self-inquiry that ultimately sparked the insights that created her new venture, Multitudes, which invests in and incubates ideas that explore the edge of human consciousness.

On this episode of Character, Sutian joins me to talk about:

- Why running a business is one of the rawest forms of self-expression

- The modalities Sutian used to move through processing failure and figuring out what came next

- Navigating discomfort to support your growth

- The relevance of spirituality in the modern world

- Using tools like astrology, tarot, and aura photography to access self-connection and build community

- The second-order effects of AI

- Multitudes’ approach to investing in initiatives at the edge of human consciousness

This episode was recorded at Love Letter, an aura photography studio, on the Lower East Side.

Learn more about Sutian’s work: https://www.sutiandong.com/

Learn more about Love Letter: https://www.loveletter.nyc/

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 — The Power of Pause

00:52 — Meet Sutian Dong

02:10 — Childhood Dreams

04:17 — Growing Up Entrepreneurial

05:30 — From Structure to Self-Reliance

07:34 — When Success Stops Working

09:56 — Forced Introspection

11:50 — Feeling the Feelings

13:57 — Tools for Healing

16:35 — The Gradual Sunrise of Change

19:16 — Compounding Change & Self-Advice

20:58 — Redefining Venture Capital

23:01 — The Power of Belief Systems

24:08 — Following Curiosity

25:57 — Flux and Rebirth

27:10 — Searching for Meaning in Chaos

SUBSCRIBE NOW:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@characterpod

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/character-with-anne-benveniste/id1645863102

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63UcUnBWGGxAjTiX9Q2RnN

FOLLOW ALONG:

Substack: https://annebenven.substack.com

Website: https://www.annebenveniste.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/annebenveniste/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/characterpod