International Women's Day

Outside of my sisters, mother, grandmothers, there are a few women who keep me motivated to achieve my goals and dreams. This past week, it was Trudy Forsyth, veteran small-wind expert who functioned as my chief motivator and coach.  The way in which she guided me on showcasing my work got me thinking of other women out there in the world sharing their passions, work and ideas.

In celebration of her support, the pioneering women in my own family, and women all around the globe, I bring to you three stories of women who also inspire me and model Courage, guide my inner Compass and push me to Charge forward. Yassmin Abdel-Magied, an Oil & Gas Drilling Engineer; Tererai Trent, an Education Advocate and Carla Harris, a Wall Street Executive. They are authentic and more importantly, stir-up in me a sense of urgency and a kind of "second-wind" similarly experienced by ong distance runners close to the finish line of a marathon. When you listen to their stories, you will be inspired to share your ideas with too. 

Yassmin Abdel-Magied
a young Muslim woman who work as a Drilling Engineer at Halliburton Inc. and the Chair of Youth Without Borders in Australia.  She grew up there after having migrated from Sudan with her parents. At 16 years old, she started a youth organization then moved on to leading her college motor club in designing a Formula One car;  then became lead Engineer on an oil rig. She achieved all these milestones, while also honoring her traditions of wearing the Hijab (head covering). This sparked many discussions and stereotypes in her organization. Today she challenges us to look beyond our initial perceptions, and to open doors to new ways of supporting others. She shared her experiences at a talk on TEDSouthBank, which have been viewed more than 1.7M times.

 Tererai Trent, Ph.D        

a Zimbabwean Evaluator, Writer, Advocate and President of the Tinogona Foundation. She came from a society that believes in the ritual of burying ones umbilical cord under a rock, so it led her to do the same for her dreams. Dreams that she kept coming back to until they were all achieved over a 25 year period.  Tererai was married with three children when she started getting an education at age eighteen. After being denied by her father the opportunity to attend school as a girl, he married off at age 11 to a man much older than her. But Tererai's mother helped to birth an unlikely goal of becoming well educated. Her mother declared it as Tererai's inheritance that she would past on for generations to come. She became notorious after being featured in the book, "Half the Sky" by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn and being on the Oprah Winfrey television show in 2009. Her goal was to transform women and girls in her community and recently connected business leaders to the cause of education at the Global Impact 2030 conference.

Carla Harris 

is a Writer, Speaker, Singer and Vice Chairman of Global Wealth Management at Morgan Stanley Inc. Carla was also Chair of the National Women's Business Council  during President Obama's Administration. Hailing from the deep south in the U.S, Carla arrived in NYC with a goal of working in the stock market. While climbing the corporate ladder, she had some personal missteps amidst numerous victories, so she vowed that when she reached senior management level she would share the tools, strategies, and pearls of wisdom honed by her own experience. Her motivational talks is where I first learned three critical concepts to aggressively navigate my career path, those are: (1) "perception is the co-pilot to reality", so I had the power to change the way others view me in the workplace, (2) "all of who you are can exist at work", so I need not hide my other interest (3) "advisers, mentors and sponsors serve distinctly different purposes but ones career would not thrive without the sponsor relationship", so an executive level colleague at the decision table had to champion my advancement when I wasn't in the room. She communicated her advancement ideas at a 2016 visit to Medgar Evers College.                    

  

Happy International Women's Day/Women's Month. May your courage, inner compass and charge in be a blessing to other women.