S2 Ep23. Luxury, Laughter and Rebellion: A Heart-to-Heart with Mikaela Ian Pearman

In this inspiring episode of ABWilson's Heart of the Matter, Aderonke Bademosi Wilson sits down with Mikaela Pearman, a bold, rebellious and hilarious storyteller whose journey is defined by courage, creativity and deep empowerment. With warmth and authenticity, Mikaela opens up about her personal philosophy on boldness, emphasizing that it’s not about being fearless, but about taking action in the face of fear. This powerful mindset guided her through pivotal life choices, including the brave decision to leave behind a steady corporate job to launch her own public relations business.

As the conversation unfolds, listeners are invited into Mikaela’s vibrant world of storytelling, where humor meets honesty. Her brand, Luxury Rebellion, is a true reflection of her spirit, unapologetically bold and deeply committed to helping women, especially women of color, live life on their own terms. Through stories grounded in real-life absurdities and relatable moments, Mikaela shows how humor can forge connection and joy, without the pressure of traditional joke-telling.

The episode dives deeper into what it truly means to be bold. Mikaela shares her personal mantra, “Bold women move before they feel ready” and recounts the leap she took into entrepreneurship during the uncertainty of the pandemic. Encouraged by her father and driven by a strong inner compass, she built her PR business through a blend of faith, vision and relentless effort.

Mikaela’s concept of rebellion is not just about defiance, it’s a form of empowerment. Luxury Rebellion challenges societal expectations, particularly those placed on Black women and encourages breaking free from limiting norms to embrace one’s full, authentic self. This theme of liberation resonates throughout her brand and message.

Listeners will also get a glimpse of Mikaela beyond the public persona. She shares surprising facets of her life, including her background as a competitive basketball player, her journalistic work covering high-profile court cases and her upbringing on the East Coast of the U.S. These personal revelations add richness and depth to her story, reminding us that everyone’s path is layered and multifaceted.

Despite sometimes struggling to acknowledge her own accomplishments, Mikaela takes a moment to celebrate a major win: securing four significant partnerships for Luxury Rebellion before the brand officially launched. Her humility and honesty make the victory all the more inspiring.

The conversation closes on a heartfelt note as Mikaela discusses her divorce and how openly sharing her journey on social media helped other women feel seen and supported. Her approach, centered on self-worth, growth, and resilience offers a message of hope and strength without blame or bitterness.

This episode is a moving celebration of bold living, rebellious authenticity and the power of telling your story on your own terms.

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Transcript

**Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (00:01.236):**  
Welcome to another edition of ABWilson's Heart of the Matter, a podcast that uses overwhelmingly positive questions to learn about our guests, where every episode uncovers extraordinary stories of triumph, growth, and empowerment. Hi, I'm Aderonke Bademosi Wilson. My guest on today's show is Mikaela Pearman. Mikaela is bold, rebellious, and hilarious. Mikaela, welcome to the show.

**Mikaela Ian Pearman (00:33.858):**  
Thank you so much for having me.

**Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (00:36.446):**  
And so, Mikaela, let's start. Hilarious, let's start there. That's where I want to start. Tell me about being hilarious.

**Mikaela Ian Pearman (00:45.070):**  
I like to crack jokes, shoot the ish, like as Bermudians say, chop it up. There's nothing that brings me more joy than just sitting off with people and talking about everything under the sun and just laughing and laughing and laughing. It's truly my favorite thing to do.

**Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (01:08.256):**  
So are you a joke teller? Do you tell stories? What does that look like?

**Mikaela Ian Pearman (01:12.790):**  
It's the storytelling, it's like lived experiences. I don't really tell jokes, I'm not good at jokes, but it's just the craziness that happens on a day-to-day basis. The things that people say to me, whether I'm walking down Front Street here in Bermuda or I'm traveling somewhere, like I was in Trinidad Carnival, just walking down the street with food and this man stops me and he's like, "red woman." And I'm like, okay, because in Bermuda, we don't say people are red, we say, you know, yellow, light-skinned, whatever. And he's like, "Your set so good, your shape so nice." And I'm like, my Trini accent sounds terrible, by the way. But like, I'm cackling, my friend is cackling. And so like, when I recount just the ridiculousness about my life, people just love it. And they always want to hear, okay, what happened to you today? What happened when you went to New York last weekend? Like all of that. So I just, I like telling stories. It's just a big part of my personality.

**Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (02:09.051):**  
And being bold. How does that show up?

**Mikaela Ian Pearman (02:10.861):**  
Absolutely. So a lot of people subscribe to fearlessness. I do not. And the reason I don't subscribe to fearlessness is because when we say that we are fearless, we are saying that fear doesn't exist at all. And I don't agree with that. I think that the smarter thing to do is to acknowledge the fear and push through it with a bold attitude. I think that being bold is showing up when you don't want to. I think being bold is about, you know, doing that thing, even if you're not quite ready. So I have a list in my phone. It's called, it's like my everyday list. It's called "get ish done." And at the beginning, I'm just pulling it up because I want to make sure I'm saying it right. At the top of the list, it literally says, "Bold women move before they feel ready." And that is my reminder every single day. I do the things even if I feel like I'm not ready, this is not what people want to see. I do it anyway, I put my foot on the gas, we get it done.

**Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (03:16.534):**  
Give me an example of something you did that you weren't quite ready to do, but you said, okay, I'm gonna do it. Let me just put my head down and get it done.

**Mikaela Ian Pearman (03:26.446):**  
I would say that the boldest thing that I did was quit my job. I resigned from my job May 31st, 2022. And this was maybe five weeks after I decided to start my PR business. And I had one client on the books. And then between the resignation and the actual leaving my job date, so a month, I managed to flip my job into a client and then I had another client. So really just moving by faith, but knowing that because I'm putting in the work, because I don't believe, you know, the whole "faith without works is dead," I subscribe to that a hundred percent. I have a ton of faith because God, universe, whatever you believe in, shows up for me all the time. However, I put in the work daily.

**Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (04:18.006):**  
Thank you for sharing that example. And I remember, I remember clearly when you left your employer and we actually sat down and had a conversation about it if I remember correctly. So again, as I would have said to you then, congratulations, that is indeed a bold move and not something that everybody could do. They may want to, but they don't necessarily have the inner strength to do.

**Mikaela Ian Pearman (04:46.478):**  
Absolutely.

**Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (04:47.530):**  
What prompted you? How were you able to do that? Because there may be somebody listening, then you may be able to say just the right words that help them to move forward.

**Mikaela Ian Pearman (05:00.824):**  
Sure. So I, and this might be slightly controversial. I don't think I was ever a good employee. If I'm being honest, I'm very bossy. I'm very, I know everything because I read a ton. I'm well-researched, but not arrogant, right? I'm not arrogant enough to think that I know all the things in the world. However, I read a lot. I research a lot. I do know about a lot of things. So climbing the corporate ladder was never appealing for me. I'm a creative at heart. I love to write. I love to do on-camera work. I create a lot of content. So for me, it was just like, how can I kind of create what it is that I want for my life? I don't want someone telling me where to be, when to be, like all of that. And I think the pandemic really drove that home for me. So I was working at the airport doing the marketing and the communications and it was fine because we were working from home. I'm very efficient. I like to get things done when I want to get it done. I don't subscribe to, I need to be at a desk from nine to five. Like that's just, I hate it. Always hated it. And I think that's why I was so drawn to being a journalist because you're out, you're about, you're talking to people, you're meeting people. So it's not like a traditional nine to five, if you will. And then, yeah, the pandemic hit, we were working from home. And then it was like February, 2022, and we were told that we need to be back in the office. And that really frustrated me because I feel like I had, you know, over a decade and a half curated a career where I could essentially work from anywhere, unless, you know, I needed to be on camera or I needed to be present. And so to have my wings clipped like that was just, it felt like punishment, you know, and I hated it. And I remember having a conversation with my dad. It was April 1st, 2022. My dad's an entrepreneur. And he was like, "Mikaela, go start your PR business." I was like, "I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that." He was like, "Mikaela, go start the business. You're very good at it. You might not necessarily want to do it, but it can take you to the level that you want to be at in other things." And I'm so glad that I listened to him. And I took that jump and I don't regret it for one day, even when client payments are late, even when my kids' tuition is late, even when my mortgage is a week late. I do not regret it and I, crossing fingers, will not have to go back.

**Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (07:40.694):**  
Thank you for sharing and Rebellious.

**Mikaela Ian Pearman (07:42.798):**  
Yes. So I have a whole brand called Luxury Rebellion and it's all about luxury being the standard, rebellion being the energy. I think that so many of us, especially Black women, we are taught or we have been taught to be at a certain standard. We're taught that we must be twice as good, maybe three times as good, especially if you grew up in a Christian background. It's this whole good girl image. We must do what society says.... And then if you decide to throw the book out the window and chart your own path, it's not really looked at positively. And I think I've always been rebellious. I went to Christian school from the age of four all the way through university. I had to go to church like twice a week. And once I became an adult and could do my own things, I leaned heavily into doing my own things. And so I really, I really try to inspire, I don't want to say empower, because I feel like we don't need to be empowered, because empower means giving someone power, we all have power. So I really try to inspire women, especially women of color, to really like do the things that they want to do with their lives, whatever that looks like. And if you need to, you know, embody a rebellious spirit in order to do that, then by all means, because when you tap into that rebellious side of yourself, that means you're doing the things that you actually really want to do, but maybe, you know, pushed in the background or like hid it because you were too much of a good girl or whatever. So I really, really resonate with rebellious. Yeah.

**Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (09:27.410):**  
Hmm, wonderful. Please share three interesting things about yourself that our listeners may not know and your friends will be surprised to learn.

**Mikaela Ian Pearman (09:40.980):**  
That's interesting. Okay. So the first thing that I don't know that a lot of people would know, I used to cover very high profile murder cases in the Supreme Court in Bermuda. I loved it. It was thrilling. It was challenging. And it really, I think, helped me get my journalistic chops going. Covering the courts, it's like a baptism by fire. You have to know what you're doing right away. And if you don't, you're going to be crucified. So that's probably the first thing. Because I've been out of it since 2014. So a lot of people that have been following me, Instagram has been around since 2012. And I've only been taking it seriously since probably, I don't know, 2018. So a lot of people don't know that. So yeah, that's probably my first one. My second one, a lot of people don't know this, I used to play basketball very competitively until I tore my ACL when I was 20. Yeah, 20 in university. And that kind of ended it. I did all the physical therapy, but I just, I did not trust my knee to not like do what it did again. When they went in for surgery, it was way worse than they thought it was. And it was just, it was a very, very traumatic experience. So that's number two. Number three, I grew up in Massachusetts. A lot of people don't know that either. I don't really talk about it much. So we moved to the U.S. when I was 12. I did middle school and high school in Massachusetts. And then I went to Andrews University in Michigan for college. And I did a double communications and journalism degrees, and I default into an East Coast U.S. accent all the time. And people think it's because I'm trying to talk proper. And I'm like, no, I love my Bermudian accent, but I go in and out of them all day long, not intentionally at all. So yeah, those are my three things.

**Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (11:56.214):**  
Thank you.

**Mikaela Ian Pearman (11:57.986):**  
Mm-hmm.

**Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (12:00.040):**  
Can you tell us about a recent accomplishment or success that you're particularly proud of?

**Mikaela Ian Pearman (12:06.254):**  
Oof, that's a good question. So I'll say this, I truly have trouble celebrating my successes. And one of my best friends and I talk about this all the time. I downplay the things that I do. I downplay, and I don't even like the word brilliance. Like I downplay, you know, my brilliance. But I will say this. I recently secured four partnerships for my new brand Luxury Rebellion. And I'm very excited about this because as we're recording this, it's May, the brand hasn't even launched yet. And I have brands and businesses that are believing in me because of my reputation and what I'm able to do and have said absolutely yes to partnering with me. And that for me is amazing. So very, very excited about that.

**Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (13:01.686):**  
Congratulations. Are they Bermuda based? Are they international?

**Mikaela Ian Pearman (13:02.670):**  
Thank you. So Bermuda based international brands. Yeah. Yeah, thank you.

**Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (13:09.012):**  
Excellent. And so how does it feel to be able to pause and celebrate? How does it feel when you can look up and say, hey, I did that, I did that, I achieved this and acknowledge it, not just for yourself, but others around you?...

**Mikaela Ian Pearman (13:33.646):**  
Yes, it's honestly, it's really, really tough for me. It really is. I have always been of the mindset that celebration has to be something grand when it doesn't. Celebration doesn't have to mean going out to dinner with a group of friends. It doesn't mean having to spend $400 at the spa for a spa afternoon. And so for me, I'm really trying to put more priority on small celebrations and not just like, okay, great. That happened. Amazing. You know, I'm not good at it if I'm being honest and I'm really, really trying. So what I do now, like I used to celebrate or reward myself with food because I love food. Now what I do is, okay, I'm going to buy myself a nice pair of sneakers because I'm really into sneakers right now. Or I'll buy myself, you know, a new lipstick, something that's not crazy, but something that still feels a little bit indulgent. Yeah, I'm working on it.

**Aderonke Bademosi Wilson (14:37.654):**  
Please tell us about a time when you made a difference in another's life. What were the circumstances? Paint a picture for me.

**Mikaela Ian Pearman (14:46.638):**  
That's a good one. Two years ago, yeah. So two years ago, I was going through a divorce and I'm very, I'm very transparent on Instagram, right? I maintain privacy because I don't tell everybody everything, but I am transparent. So I was going through a divorce at the time and I wasn't sure if I wanted to talk about it. And so I kind of put pause. And then once I was actually divorced in August, I started to talk about it in the content. Obviously not, you know, give away any information. I'm not going to ever talk about why or anything like that. But I started to talk about, you know, being divorced, what that looked like for me as an entrepreneur, as a mother, as someone who likes, you know, a luxury lifestyle and that sort of thing. And I didn't realize how many women were going through similar things, you know? And so I never position my content as if this man is doing X, you need to leave him. Absolutely. I would never, ever say anything like that. But the content was really focused on self-worth. It was focused on empowering women to, you know, bet on themselves and realize that they can and should have everything that they want in this life. And if their circumstances are, you know, not positive, are not, you know, uplifting them, et cetera, then maybe they need to look at what that looks like, you know, and be honest with themselves. Like I was honest with myself. And I got so many messages and emails from women, usually in the US and the UK, some in Bermuda. And I would say to people like, I'm obviously not going to give the details and do the blame game here. But if me sharing, you know, this part of my story can help one woman, then that's enough for me. And it helped way more women. And I was really taken aback by all the positive support because I was really hesitant to talk about it. And a lot of it was through my podcast. And it's always been under a positive umbrella. I'm never gonna get on and talk negatively. I'm never gonna get on and bash men. I'll never do that, regardless of whatever happens in my life.