Women On Success

By MOHAMED ISA and AMAZING WOMEN FROM AROUND THE WORLD

This is a book by Amazing Women to Inspire More Women around the World.

The world is full of stories of successful women, and we need to capture them, or they will evaporate over time. These stories must be documented. And they must be shared to inspire the next generation of females. Stories and experiences move and motivate. They provide us with a boost to face our challenges head-on.

The 37 contributing authors of this book come from 18 countries. We have 13 contributing authors from the Kingdom of Bahrain; the rest of the authors come from Canada, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Lebanon, Malaysia, New Zealand, Oman, Russia, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, and Venezuela.

In essence, the book covers the six continents of the world. Through out the book, there is one common theme: When there is a will, there is a way. Let the authors of this book guide you to the way of success!

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781456634582

Book preview

Opportunities

Introduction

What Empowerment

Although my mom has always been a housewife, I grew up in an environment with empowered women all around me. My aunt had a business management degree, my cousin was studying accounting, and my other cousins were into healthcare, education, telecommunications, and banking. In 1998, I worked briefly at Gulf International Bank. My two supervisors, Forough and Souha, were both females. I learned a lot from them. In fact, female employees were working across all the departments of the bank, and they were very powerful and commanded respect. So, who needs to be empowered?

Jeddah is Different

Fast-forward to August 2002, I relocated to Jeddah in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to work in the Regional Headquarters of Unilever. I was delighted to see that Saudi females were working closely with us, and I am not talking about employees who were handling purely secretarial and administrative chores. They were occupying more essential functions like market research, product innovation, brand management, and promotions. Besides, they attended meetings, not just for the sake of having female representation, but also to voice their opinions, share their ideas, and make a real impact on the business. They were empowered.

The Atlanta Experience

In September 2003, I traveled to Atlanta, Georgia, United States to join an intensive course and prepare for the grueling Certified Public Accountant (CPA) Exams. More than 150 participants attended from the United States and around the world. More than 50% of them were females studying mundane subjects like Auditing, Accounting, Taxation, and Regulations. It is also worth noting that we had four instructors – three gentlemen and one amazing lady. She made us laugh and learn. She was a phenomenal, a CPA, engineer, and attorney. She was in a league of her own and a truly inspiring woman.

The Line Producer Experience

In 2005, I met Art Jones, an American film director. He introduced me to the world of women empowerment. He discussed his ambitious project called Models of Success. He wanted to showcase the stories of successful women from the Gulf to the entire world. He asked me to join him as a line producer, and I did. We met many high profile executives, pitching our idea to raise funds. Many said no. A few said, yes. These grants made our dream a reality. Not only did we produce a documentary film, but we also created a stunning website and published a book featuring many successful women from the Arab States of the Gulf.

From 33% to 100%

I felt great when I contributed to "Models of Success. I experienced the same feeling when I was in the middle of publishing On Startups. One-third of the contributing authors of the book were females. They contributed their thoughts, perspectives, and opinions on what it takes to run a successful startup business. I thought, why not publish another collaborative book written only by women for women? The idea of Women On Success" was born in February 2019. I invested significant time to create the book proposal, the writing guidelines, the topics prompts to inspire the contributing authors to focus on their mission: to write.

Why another Book on Empowerment

My answer is simple: Why not? Firstly, the world is full of stories of successful women, and we need to capture them, or they will evaporate over time. These stories must be documented. And they must be shared to inspire the next generation of females. Stories and experiences move and motivate. They provide us with a boost to face our challenges head-on. Secondly, books spread happiness and positivity. We have 37 contributing authors in the book. When it is published, their family members, friends, and work colleagues will be happy and proud. And, who knows, this might inspire them to embark on their own writing journeys.

Female Power

On 24 February 2020, I was driving and listening to the BBC World Service Radio when the news anchor announced this: Pioneering African-American NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson has died at the age of 101. NASA announced her death on Twitter, saying it was celebrating her life and honoring her legacy of excellence that broke down racial and social barriers. Ms. Johnson calculated rocket trajectories and Earth orbits for NASA’s early space missions. I am confident; if we research history, we will find many powerful women like her. This shows you the importance of documenting our failures, achievements, and life-lessons in books.

Six Continents in One Book

The book went beyond my wildest imagination in terms of the countries represented – 18. We have 13 contributing authors from the Kingdom of Bahrain; the rest of the authors come from Canada, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Lebanon, Malaysia, New Zealand, Oman, Russia, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, and Venezuela. In essence, we cover the six continents of the world. And this is a great lesson to take from the book. We truly live in a Global Village. Technology has enabled cross-border collaborations. Take advantage of this.

Beyond the Book

Let us take it beyond the book. I view this book is a platform for building knowledge and relationships. Read and connect with the contributing authors. Share with them your thoughts on their chapters. Pick their minds regarding the challenges you are facing. Invite them to speak to your community, whether in schools, universities, or otherwise. They would be more than happy to do that. We are on a mission to empower and inspire. Together, we can make the world a much better place. Shall we?

Vote of Thanks

First, I would like to thank the contributing authors who poured out their hearts on the pages of this book. Secondly, my thanks go to my long-time business associate Hamza Al Ghatam, Picasso House of Art, for introducing me to Amina Al Ghamdi of Stella Polare Boutique Events. Amina, the authors you brought to the book, made it more colorful. I am grateful for that. Thirdly, Cartoon Planet, you delighted me with your design concept. I cannot wait to work with you again.

Happy reading!

Mohamed Isa

Editor-in-Chief

Chapter 1: Lost and Found in the Rocky Mountains

By Amal Al Saffar

As we started hiking up Torreys Peak, a famous 14,267 feet mountain in the U.S. State of Colorado, the elevation gain was almost a thousand feet. I could truly feel the pressure on my lungs, making my breath weaker and slower. I paused and said to my hiking partner Quinten: If I am going to summit Torreys today, I must take slower steps to keep up with my breath, which is not ideal for you time-wise. Diana is waiting for us back at Grizzly Peak. Why don’t you continue, and I wait for you here? Quinten responded: If you are comfortable that we split up, I can do the final push alone and catch you on my way back.

As he continued going up, I could see him fading away. Soon he looked like a tiny black dot on a massive whiteboard. The moment he disappeared, the wind became wilder, and I began to feel insecure, as I feared that falling rocks could hit me from any side, at any second. I decided to head back towards Grizzly Peak and wait with Diana. The half-circle shelter there was our original assembly point, and Quinten is not going to miss it.

Walking back, I struggled to climb up the steep incline that Quinten and I descended after we left Diana. I thought to myself, it is impossible to climb up the same path against gravity. There must be a smarter way to go around it – it will be a longer loop, but safer. Though the route I took wasn’t as steep, I soon found myself exposed to a higher volume of winds. I suddenly started to feel dizzy and lost my sense of orientation. I found myself in the middle of a chain of similarly different mountains. A deep hunch inside me alerted me that this is not going to be a good day.

Despite the bad signal, my phone’s battery was almost dying at five percent. I purposely shared my location on the phone’s GPS with Diana without notifying here that I could be in danger. I thought it wouldn’t be wise of me to give her a false alarm – she is already alone up there! I also left a voice mail for my Bahraini friend Kholood who lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, which is near the area where we were hiking. My message said: This is briefly my situation, if you don’t hear from me by 5:00 pm, call 911, and my phone died.

At this point, I realized I was heading south instead of the west because I can see tiny Quinten descending from Torreys and heading towards Diana in a different direction than mine. I shouted at Quinten at the top of my lungs, but he was too far away. My voice just echoed back to me because the winds were strongly against my sound waves. As I started to run towards Quinten, I lost my footing and started rolling down the mountain like a snowball. The backside of my pants was completely torn, and I could feel the back of my thigh hurt and bleeding. I solidly nailed my fingers and nails into the dirt as I was crawling downward.

My food supply was not promising – barely half a liter of water, an apple, some pieces of dates, and chocolates. With only a few hours left before dark, I decided I must find shelter because it was becoming clear that I would be spending the night in the mountains. Parallel to my vision, in the southern horizon, a silver lining sparked to me, a crystal shining turquoise lake! Two hours later of following an improvised trail, I made it to the lake.

My spiritual instinct made me first approach the water for fresh ablution, then bow on my knee to thank the Lord for protecting me until that moment. Because I did not have a map, I looked over my right shoulder and took a mental capture of my surroundings. It was important to memorize the path that brought me to the lake because I knew I would need it the next day. Using my personal sense of scale, I started distantly envisioning unique landmarks and ordering them in my mind. For example, the rock with a snail shell looks approximately 700 meters away would be my point A and the nose shape cliff above it would be point B and so on.

With no sleeping bag nor camping gear, I put on my extra tight pants and five top layers. I protected my ears, rolled my arms in, and hugged my knees. I felt like a shrinking shrimp. Despite the darkness, the spectacular shining stars were my only stargazing entertainment to stay awake. I had an unusual feeling of bravery. I was not afraid of being alone at all, but I was terrified of the possibility of an unexpected storm hit the place overnight. I looked at the clear sky, and all I could think of was my family, particularly my mother. It had been over a year since I last saw her and I did not want to be the reason for her misery if I died.

I made sure to keep constant movement – shaking legs and arm rotations – to avoid hypothermia or being frostbitten. When I woke up, 18 hours had passed since I first lost my way. I slowly opened my eyes and witnessed the rise of dawn, followed by a gradual sunrise. An adrenaline rush went through all my veins, and I set my intention to either get up and fight for life or sleep forever. It was unquestionably risky to walk a path I was not sure where it would take me, but I thought making my way towards an area with a higher probability of meeting other hikers would increase my chances of survival.

My instincts were right. After two and a half hours of walking a clueless trail, I miraculously glimpsed a small green body moving downhill. However, I was soon to be disappointed. The hiker in a puffy green jacket did stop when I called out to him, but instead of letting me accompany him, he simply gave me a snack and then walked away. While I was processing the shock of how a cold-hearted man could leave me behind as he did, a miracle came from the sky, a helicopter!

At 10:00 am, I saw a flash orange rescue helicopter with a black printing Flight for Life. I could not believe my eyes when the pilot recognized my gesture and turned around. It was my first time ever in a helicopter, and never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined it to be that way. I was silent the entire time, observing the landscape from the window, and massively overwhelmed. It was not clear to me if I was supposed to enjoy a panoramic view of the Rocky Mountains and shimmering Aspen trees or burst into tears for gratefully still having air running through my lungs.

As we were touching down, I recognized a silver SUV vehicle from the top among the police cars that could be Alexis’ – a Belgian friend who is stationed two cubicles away from mine at work. While answering the investigation questions by the police officers and medics, I realized that Alexis was the key person behind my rescue story among an army of friends and beloved ones. I walked towards Alexis and hugged him, crying as if I was a five-year-old child that had broken his toy. I thought I am not going to see my mother again, I mumbled. I know… I know, it is alright Amal, you are here now, we are so happy that you are back safely, Alexis replied.

As Stephen King once said: Every Story has a Backstory. Apparently, when Kholood received my voice mail the day before, her protective instinct pushed her to dig for solutions. She happened to be acquainted with Irina, a Russian girl that moved to Colorado for work and coincidently became my coworker. Irina was aware of Alexis being involved in some professional skiing training on the mountains that weekend, but the shocking part is that he was on the same mountain spot where I was lost. As soon as he received the news, he dynamically mobilized every person in his network and spent the night volunteering with the search and rescue team in the face of cruel winds.

Meanwhile, in Denver, Jim and Kim, my American sweetheart parents that I used to live in their neighborhood and already had them as my emergency contact, were spending their night praying with their Church Community and constant follow-up with the Sheriff Office. After I was found, Kim gathered me with my friends at her house at night to honor my survival. I received a lot of hugs, flowers, and chocolates whereas I was almost dying in the mountains the same day in the morning. It was a surprising United Nations celebration with eight nationalities in my house, Kim said.

In the end, this experience taught me countless lessons. It made me realize that to save my life, an entire army of different people, age groups, ethnicities, and beliefs got together. Around the table at Kim’s house, I had friends of wide range of backgrounds, including Christian Catholic, Protestants, Muslims, European, Middle Eastern, White American, Latin, and Russian. Those friends had their arms wide open for help when I was missing while the green jacket hiker turned me down as he saw me in front of him.

Additionally, I realized that some people cross the path of our lives for a clear reason while others, we only know why they exist to us in unexpected situations. What would have happened if I have not met Alexis eight weeks before the incident, or none of my other friends were there? I also learned to genuinely appreciate the importance of the smallest and simplest items that you should never take for granted before any mountain trip, such as a whistle, extra battery charger, mirror, flashlight or matchsticks.

My final lesson is that there are things in life that we can have control over when facing hard times, and there are things only God’s will and the nature of the universe can take care of. I can enhance my protection by always carrying the safety gear and sticking to the team and the plan, but I cannot stop a storm, for instance. I can also control my decisions when needed. Exploring the mountains is an addiction, but as much as the thrill of the adventure makes you feel great, you should always quit and rollback when sensing danger because the mountain will always be there next time.

Note:

You can read an expanded version of this chapter with pictures here:

https://tinyurl.com/amalislost

Amal Al Saffar is a young Bahraini woman with an independent personality and passion for adventure. She is always inspired by the cross-cultural interaction with people from different parts around the globe during her exploratory travels. Between 2013 and 2015, Amal became the first Bahraini woman to visit Antarctica and cross the Arctic Circle on environmental leadership expeditions. In 2014, she summited Kilimanjaro, the highest freestanding mountain in Africa. Academically, Amal is a Fulbright scholar to the United States. She holds a Master of Public Administration with a specialization in Environmental Policy and Law from the University of Colorado, Denver.

Amal has been a part of several exchange programs and conferences for women’s leadership and environment in England, Northern Ireland, Italy, Morocco, and Austria. In 2016, Amal won the Rising Star in Supply Chain Student Award under Gulf Petrochemicals & Chemicals Association GPCA (Dubai) for the best academic research. Amal is also a public speaker and educator in the art of effective communication. She has been a Toastmasters member since 2011 and held many leadership positions in Bahrain and the United States. During her spare time, Amal enjoys outdoor self-reflection writing, learning new languages, and doing different sport activities.

You can reach her on [e-mail].

Chapter 2: Failure is Not an Option

By Dr. Amany Shehata

Life is a journey enjoy the ride! Life is but a stopping place, a pause in what`s to be, a resting place along the road, to sweet eternity. Different journeys, different paths along the way. We all were meant; to learn some things but never meant to stay.

– Robert J. Hastings

I do not know where to start, but what I am sure of that I was longing to start this step one day. My hobbies were writing and reading; we are the generation of readers, as the TV was not very famous, we only watched it around specific times.

When I was approached by Mohamed Isa to participate in this book, he shared with me several possible topics, my eyes stopped at Failure is not an option. It resonated with me. Let me share with you my journey, highlighting six critical stations in my life.

My first station: Childhood

I am the only child of my mother. When my father divorced my mother, he married a German woman. He got four children: three boys and one girl. We became friends. When my father passed away, we regretted the time that passed without us coming closer, but I am pleased to have them in my life.

In Cairo, I was the only girl in the family with seven boys, my cousins, and this may be one of the reasons of my determination not to fail. In the late ’70s, men were dominant in families. They were vocal. Since my mother got divorced, I lived at my grandfather villa in Heliopolis, a big building with three floors, my uncles and aunts all lived in the same villa. Even when my mother got married later, she stayed on to prevent my father from taking my custody. Because of this, I met my father only when I was 10.

Living at the grandparents’ villa was not easy. The dynamics of having multiple families were evident. I learned to take stands, and this shaped my character.

Everyone was happy with me because of my charming compatibility and unconditional support. However, it was not an easy task dealing with seven boys. They were very competitive. I was very political and diplomatic. I practiced lobbying from a young age!

I was always the rebellion on the ground, taking care of all