Helen Nonini, brand advisor

THE PERCEPTUAL SHIFT

H.’s dream is a profession in the world of diversity—a role where she can see herself reflected as a unique and authentic individual, free from external influence.

Her journey of self-exploration began in childhood. In an effort to overcome difficulties and feelings of self-doubt caused by bullying, dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia, H. began to develop an unconscious mechanism of perceptual reversal. She not only flipped letters, numbers, and symbols to view them correctly and make sense of reality but also applied this approach to situations and problems. Over time, she learned to do this consciously and with a neutral attitude, preserving a sense of exploration and assigning the right value to things.

She describes feeling like Carroll’s Alice, constantly having to rediscover her original dimensions after growing and shrinking to adapt to the various environments of Wonderland—a journey filled with fantastical characters such as the Mad Hatter, a symbol of the diversity of the mind.

Like Alice, she moves from one experience to another, starting afresh each time in a different profession: from the financial world to marketing; from problem-solving to fulfil the desires of the super-rich, to working in India’s slums; from Ambassador to brand advisor, entrepreneur, and CEO.

All these experiences embody a reversal between the possible and the impossible, head and body, mind and spirit, the ordinary and the extraordinary, conformity and authenticity, the outrageously wealthy and the unjustly poor, genuine surprise and manufactured wonder, disguise and self-revelation. These are worlds that might seem mutually exclusive, yet through her ability to reverse perspectives, H. becomes fully aware of her dream: to dismantle stigmas and behaviours of exclusion.

For ten years, she has worn a turban, integrating into her identity an unconscious symbol that connects her to her Persian family roots. The turban became a means of expressing her diversity while simultaneously challenging prejudices and promoting the inclusion of those who wear it due to medical treatments.

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