We were lucky to catch up with Isabela Adao recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Isabela thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

When I finally started exploring a creative path I was 26 years old. I started competing in pageants after being discovered by a director at a Brazilian bakery, as I was watching a World Cup match, in 2018. I always dreamed of being on stage – it felt like home to me. However, as a Brazilian immigrant from humble beginnings, that never seemed like a viable option for someone like me. I always felt like I had to build a financially secure career and only then could I risk it all and be an artist (a pop star preferably, or a photographer). It never occurred to me or my parents that the same passion that would make me a successful doctor (the safe choice), could also make me a successful ANYTHING. In their defense, it was a different world then, in the 1900s. We had no social media, no personal brands built organically, no algorithms, no nothing. We just had to wish upon a star and hope someone noticed us. The chances of success truly were slim for a poor, Afrobrazilian girl with no connections.
Then it happened: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. Complete nobodies were becoming well-known and, most importantly, rich, right from their living rooms. But they were ready. From my perspective, they took the risk I was not willing or allowed to take: they committed to their passions and were being rewarded for it. So yes, there are plenty of times when I wish I had started taking art seriously earlier in life. However, be that as it may, I am also grateful that I didn’t. I am grateful because I was able to explore different facets of myself as I delved head first into science. I earned a B.A. in Biology and Psychology. along with a minor degree in Women and Gender Studies. I am so grateful for everything I learned, because today, I am able to apply it all to a medium I never considered, which is a film. After writing and directing my debut short film “Wake Up Call”, I was able to recognize how much that academic baggage has impacted, not only my worldview, but my process. I realize I now have a fortune no one can take away from me or replicate, but everyone can relate to: my story. So I guess the answer is that everything happened as it needed to happen for me to get to where I needed to get to all along.

Isabela, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

As a creative entrepreneur, my work is very multi-faceted. I work full-time as a Content Creator, nurturing a community centered around self-love, self-acceptance, and self-healing. Along with bodywork and mindset-shifting techniques, like affirmations, I also promote brands and products that help me achieve the positive change I am looking for.

In addition, I also offer web design and digital marketing services on a project by project basis. I am proud to say that most of my clients have been Black-owned businesses and cultural organizations looking to expand into the Brazilian market.

At the moment, I am working with incredible business partners on developing a cultural hub, based in New York City, where lovers of Brazilian jazz and American soul music can immerse themselves and exchange ideas through online forums and in-person events. I encourage you to look up our (free) online radio station: Cafe Soul Brasil on the Live365 app to catch the vibes!

Although one day is never like the other, everything I am involved with revolves around being authentically myself and representing where I come from with pride. With that said, one of my greatest achievements has to be winning the Brazilian Cellphone Film Festival Award, in 2025, with my debut film, “Wake Up Call”. This film talks about how my breast cancer journey awakened me to the gift of being alive, and this year I get to represent Brazil in Cannes, France, with this film. Of course I hope to bring home the gold, but more than anything I am just so grateful to have this once in a lifetime opportunity to inspire others with my story.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Take art seriously! Throughout human history, artists have been a crucial part of a healthy society, and that’s no coincidence. Art is not an add-on, or something some humans do while others watch. Art is actually a healing technology. There is a reason we dance: it releases stuck energy in our body that will eventually make us sick. There is a reason we sing: the vibrations our voice creates in our body is like acupuncture, if you really think about it. There is a reason we write: it helps create space in our minds for silence.

We are all artists in some way or another, because you have to necessarily create art to survive as a human. Even the way we love our families, feed them, clothe them, comfort them… it’s pure alchemy, and that is all art is.

So in my perfect world, practicing art would be sacred, and we would create space for it everywhere – in schools, especially. Art must be consciously woven back into our rituals and traditions for the health of our society and everyone in it. So if you’re reading this, next time someone tells you they want to be an artist, please don’t discourage them! They are trying to heal.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn my desire to be an expert. Growing up wanting to be a doctor was very stressful and confining for me. I was constantly being told, through conscious and subconscious cues, that in order to achieve success, I had to put all of me into this one identity: Doctor. So I looked at my aptitude and interest for other subjects like philosophy, music, photography, like a waste of time; a gross deviation from the curve.

In college, a recurring thought I had was that I felt like I was a square peg trying to fit into a circle. It got to the point where I began to loathe the fact I was multi-faceted and curious. It made me feel lost and confused, like I was never going to fit in anywhere, because I just could not stomach the thought of doing only one thing the rest of my life.

Fast forward to today, and I receive so much praise for being a “Jack of All Trades”. Deep down, I’m still making peace with it. It still stings sometimes, as if I’ve failed to master anything after all this time.

But I realized recently that by actually immersing myself in all these different interests – modeling, singing, web design, social media, podcasting, filmmaking, etc. – I have learned to master myself…

…now, if only I could say the same about my time management! I’m still a work in progress <3

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.isabelaadao.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theeisabelaadao
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theeisabelaadao
• Linkedin: www.tiktok.com/theeisabelaadao
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/theeisabelaadao