Juneal Holder is a BA-1 IBCoM student from Curaçao who is a positive influence on all who meet him – especially me. But getting to IBCoM wasn’t the most linear journey for Juneal.
“I moved to the Netherlands in 2013 when I finished high school…after a “spiritual awakening” in 2015, I quit my previous studies, International Business and Management Studies. After than, I wanted to take some time to get to know myself better before I went back to school. A few months passed and I applied to study International Psychology at Erasmus at the beginning of 2016, but was not admitted into the program. This led me to look for other alternatives and I saw a big potential in Communication studies. Because I was not allowed to enrol in an international communication program in English that year, I settled to study in Dutch. This did not last long as I never wanted to study in Dutch in the first place. By quitting the program that did not fulfil me, I went on to looking for a proper international communication program – and that’s how I found IBCoM. It was not easy for me to get in, but I’m here now. And I love it!”
Being the influence he is, I asked him about the kind of people he looks up to; “[I love] Authentic people – people that are not afraid to know themselves, deal with themselves and express themselves are my biggest role models. People who don’t let situations define them serve as role models to me. People who, when the world told them ‘no’, responded with a ‘watch me’ inspire me.” That is the kind of person we should strive to be.”
All those who have met Juneal know him best for lifting everyone’s spirits just by being there, and his well deserved accolade for being so at the IBCoM Awards. “[My] Secrets to happiness? Gratitude and appreciation. Appreciate as much as you can, as often as you can. This will lead to contentment. The more moments of contentment one has, the happier one will be. Other practices such as developing myself, not taking things people do or say personally and doing what I love also help me with a more happy life.”
Juneal is also a blogger, and has recently started writing again. His inspiration for publishing his work again came from a very interesting source, “Emptiness. I had a very low period last year. This low period made me feel empty many times. The emptiness is what got me back to writing. I wanted to be more in alignment with a more purposeful version of myself and I am finally getting back there.”
“My writings at the moment include Notes To Self and Songs For Soul. The Notes To Self are kind of like conversations I have with my Higher Self; that part of me that has wisdom that I can tap into at any time. I give myself advice in these Notes To Self. Songs For Soul are songs that inspire me. I have compiled a playlist of over 100 songs that have helped me, inspire me, or just make me feel good. I pick a song or two every week and write about them and include the lyrics in the blog posts. I also do amateurish photography. I see my blog evolving as I also evolve. The next thing is to get back to creating videos that can also be found on YouTube and on the blog.”
“For the people that visit my blog, I want to create content that makes them think for themselves, some food for thought, a source of inspiration in my content, a reminder that we can be as amazing as we want, with unlimited potential, able to express ourselves in many ways, and the heroes of our stories.”
You can visit the blog at https://junealholder.blog/ for some uplifting content from Juneal!