Look within your inner world to recreate and transform inner design. When you question what you’re doing and why, you’ll discover so much about yourself and your path. Find the best version fo yourself by adding value from an authentic place. Whether through reading, observing, coaches, or meditation, you can elevate your level of growth. This way, you can feel your vision and mission in your heart, and soul.

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Being feminine is like a gemstone. Everyone can see that it’s sparkly, but not everyone can see the true value of it until they pay full attention to it and embrace it.

Personally, growing up in the Middle East, I faced a challenge I think many other women there struggled with. I absolutely loved the fact that I was a woman, but I wished I had more power and more freedom.

As I grew up and moved to the United States, I realized how much power I had as a woman. Being a woman gave me the unique gift of looking at challenges a certain way, having natural emotional intelligence, and having a sophistication and maturity within me.

As a female entrepreneur, there are so many amazing ways you can channel your gifts as a woman. Your power comes when you accept who you are and what you have to offer, and nurturing your confident and feminine self.

In business, I make sure to be firm and kind while maintaining my feminine energy with all the businessmen I work with or have as clients. It’s a huge advantage because I can connect my mind to my heart and create something new or creative with the power of my femininity.

Being happy with image of who I am, embracing my feminine power and identity, and practicing self love are a huge part of who I am as an entrepreneur.

However, embracing my femininity and confidence is a daily practice. It sounds silly, but I literally look at myself in the mirror every day and remind myself I am awesome, beautiful, and powerful.

Regardless of what standards people have for women or for beauty, if we emphasize our own ideas of what is beautiful, we can lift each other’s up and make ourselves stronger.

Finding my voice as a woman came with practicing, experiencing life, and facing challenges head on. To me, the power of femininity is about accepting all humans, men and women equally and seeing the best in ourselves and others. Being a woman has allowed me to influence others in a positive, accepting, and loving way.

Once we realize the power of femininity, we can live as the best version of ourselves and help others from the bottom of our hearts. Embracing and being proud of our femininity helps us be empowered, strong, and resilient. Although the stereotype is that women are submissive, we can prove that is not true when we allow our self-love and femininity shine through.

We can create a strong sense of female empowerment by working on our self confidence, using positive affirmations, taking care of our body and mind, and practicing self care. We can learn not to let people’s negative opinions of us affect us because they are just projection of who they are. As long as we are striving to be the best, most loving, and kind version of ourselves as women, that’s what matters most. Most importantly, we can look for strong female role models to inspire and empower us. Maya Angelou and Oprah are two of my biggest female inspirations because of their strength, wisdom, generosity, and grace.

Just like embracing our crazy side, embracing our femininity is not something that happens once and goes away. It’s a daily practice - something we must dedicate time and energy to it, every single day. Over time, we will fully grow into the beautiful and strong women we are meant to be.

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Entrepreneurs need a special set of skills and tools in order to thrive. I like to refer to these essential tools as the “Startup Toolbox.” Keep in mind this is not an all-inclusive list; however these are qualities that I’ve found helpful in my own journey, as well as the journeys of my peers.

The first quality every entrepreneur needs is patience. Patience is an absolute must, especially for those starting a business for the very first time. Entrepreneurs need to be patient with themselves first and foremost, allowing themselves to make mistakes and grow from them. They also need to be patient with the process itself. Success and results will not happen as fast as you would like, and it often feels painful waiting for the seed you plant to bear fruit. However, the more you nurture yourself and your business during the growth process, the more fulfilled you will be.

Another tool you need as an entrepreneur is your “why”. In other words, why are you choosing the route of an entrepreneur despite the challenges it may bring? Are you looking for more freedom in your career? Do you want to help people? Do you have an idea you want to execute that you just can’t stop thinking about?

The answers to these questions will help you shape your core story and capture the essence of who you are and why you’re passionate about building something amazing. This is another non-negotiable all entrepreneurs need to have solidified in their toolbox.

The next quality will seem like a no-brainer - however it’s important to mention it nonetheless. It is great communication. Great communication is key in every aspect of the professional world. Whether you are networking, talking to prospects, or delivering your sales pitch to investors, you must be able to clearly communicate what you can bring to the table and WHY. If you can show that you care about your business through your passion and your words, others will believe it too.

One tool that I found particularly helpful, and still use years later is to have a business coach or mentor. They are able to give you unbiased opinions and advice to improve the way you run your business. They work through problems with you and ultimately want to help you succeed. It’s really valuable to be able to see your business from a different lens, because we often get stuck and only see it from a very narrow perspective or from inside the cup.

Having a complete startup toolbox is important because it will save you A LOT of time and keep you prepared when challenges arise. For example, you might find that your sales pitch isn’t converting. If you have a business coach or mentor, they can help you figure out why it isn’t working and how you can make it more effective.

You might have started your entrepreneurial journey with some of these tools already. That’s great and gives you a head start! In order to develop the other tools that may not be as strong, you need to go out there and develop yourself. Read books about business, entrepreneurship, and self-development, talk to other entrepreneurs, or find a mentor or business coach. Once you successfully gather all these tools, you’ll find you have much more momentum carrying you forward and bringing you toward your goals.

My challenge for you is to focus on one of the tools that is weak or that isn’t in your toolbox and put your intention toward creating it. No matter how far along in your journey you are, each of us has areas we can improve on and work on it every day…

“There has never been and never will be another you. You have a purpose – a very special gift that only you can bring to the world.” – Marie Forleo

I love this quote because it reminds us to always be unapologetically ourselves. We are put on this earth for a reason, and if we hide or change our vibrant, beautiful personalities, we are not living to our full potential.

Learning to embrace my own crazy has been challenging. I was always afraid people would judge me if I showed the less serious side of my personality. Through years of mentorship and personal and professional development, I’ve been able to embrace my wild and goofy side more. I learned that your true self can only blossom when you are aligned with your passions and purpose in life. The most beautiful thing about embracing all of our own qualities is we’re no longer preoccupied with what we say or do in front of others. Instead, we are able to live, speak, and act in the essence of who we are.

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When you plant a seed in your garden, it doesn’t become a tree and grow fruit right away. It takes rich soil, frequent watering, sunlight, and TIME for the tree to grow. If we planted a seed and immediately started to poke it to try and make it grow faster, we would disrupt the beauty of the natural growth process.

When we plant the seed in our entrepreneurial journey, we are planting a thought, idea, or a dream that we want to blossom and bear fruit. It’s easy to keep checking on its progress and spending time uncovering it to see if it’s really growing. However, instead of focusing on its growth day by day, we should be patient and focus on elements that will bring it to life and allow it to thrive in the long term. In business, these elements include developing our professional relationships, learning new skills, and investing in our team dynamic.

It’s important to practice stepping back and trusting the process instead of getting caught up in all the little details. As we talked about in the Design to Heal episode, the first step to success as an entrepreneur is trusting in your own ability. If we give too much energy to trying to make every part of our journey perfect, we are not able to truly enjoy the beauty of it. The more we are able to be patient, accept our mistakes with grace, and be thankful for each moment of the journey, the more we will grow as an individual and entrepreneurs.

Communication is the cornerstone of daily life for entrepreneurs. Whether it is networking events, meetings, close a deal, dealing with your team, or presentations, everything you do revolves around communication. Success in the professional world relies heavily on your ability to connect with and create relationships with people. This means you need to be able to express your thoughts and opinions clearly so they are easy to understand.

One of the times I struggled to communicate to my internal team was because I thought they knew everything about the tasks I gave to them. I assigned the tasks through our project management software, so to me, the tasks seemed straightforward. However I realized my team had a lot of questions because I didn’t provide them with crucial information like the purpose of the task and the deadline it needed to be achieved by. It took a long time for me to understand that something that makes sense in your head may not be clear when it’s translated into writing. Now I make an effort to break tasks down as clearly as possible, as if I were explaining them to my grandma.

In this episode, I’ll talk about a Harvard review article that covers the three biggest problems with communication. I’ll also bring up ways to fix these problems.

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One of the most important lessons being a female entrepreneur taught me is that creativity takes time. When I was in the early stages of building my business, I intellectually knew about this concept but I didn’t necessarily practice it fully. I was setting extremely tight deadlines for myself and the rest of my team to complete our projects because I just wanted to move faster and get everything done. I realized I wasn’t being patient enough when my team and I started to burn out. Our creativity didn’t show the way we wanted and overall, our end product was not as amazing as it could have been. We ended up having to keep revising and redoing about 30% of our work because we tried to rush through it just to meet our deadlines.

As great as it would be, success doesn’t come overnight. Producing quality takes time. There is so much value in simply being patient and not rushing through your life. In the long run, you’ll save time by going at your own pace because you will be acting with intention and purpose rather than just going through the motions. Rushing through our lives often causes us to make careless mistakes and waste energy.

Intention makes inner design healing. Make an effort to catch yourself when you’re rushing through something. We get caught up in our daily routines and the stress of meeting deadlines that we forget to live in the moment and enjoy life for what it is. There are so many ways to make your life more healing and I encourage you take the first step.

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Today we are going to re-visit what we talked about in Episode 2: Our Inner World in which I shared “Research shows that we spend around 93% of our time indoors.” In other words, we spend a majority of our lives indoors, but we don’t usually think about the effects that can have on our health. If our indoor surroundings are not healthy, fresh, and vibrant, our inner world will not be able to thrive.

Something that has a huge effect on our indoor environment is known as indoor air quality. Indoor air pollution can come from anything like chemicals and gases, to mold and smoke that enter our home, office, or car. But one of the most common sources of indoor air pollution that most people don’t think about is air fresheners and cleaning supplies.

We mostly use air fresheners in our homes and cars to make them smell better or to create a better experience, whether it’s in the form of plug-in air fresheners or sprays. Uber and Lyft drivers almost always use air fresheners in their cars, hoping to improve their customer experience. However what people don’t know is that air fresheners are a major contributor to indoor air pollution. They have chemicals in them that can lead to immediate effects like irritation of the eyes, nose, throat and other side effect like: headaches, dizziness, and fatigue. When we experience these symptoms on a daily basis, it makes it much harder for us to focus on what’s important to us and what we need to accomplish.

Being aware of the risks of indoor air pollution and pollution caused by air fresheners is very important. We are so used to being around polluted and impure air that we may not realize the effect it is having on our inner world and our health. Physical, mental, and emotional health are the foundation for a healthy and abundant inner world. When our health is out of line, we are not able to create our best work.

Those of us who spend most of our time indoors and wonder why we have respiratory irritation or other symptoms may not understand where the symptoms are coming from. In many cases, eliminating products like air fresheners may help alleviate these symptoms and help us become healthier and happier.

The first step to creating a healthy space is mindfully selecting what we put into it. This means using natural essential oils to freshen our indoor environments rather than using air fresheners that are full of harsh chemicals. To further purify our space, we can use certified air cleaners and purifiers to filter out the dust, dirt, and allergens that are floating around in the air we breathe.

I’ve added links in the description for a natural air freshener and air purifiers that I highly recommend, as well as a list of CA certified indoor air cleaners for your reference.

Air freshener: https://amzn.to/2HoPDDR

Small air purifier: https://amzn.to/2J4pIhU

Large air purifier: https://amzn.to/2EUjWgp

CA Certified Indoor Air Cleaners https://www.arb.ca.gov/research/indoor/aircleaners/certified.htm

BBC Article:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35281338

I want to challenge you to let go of the items in your indoor space that are polluting your air. That includes air fresheners, artificially scented candles, harsh cleaning supplies. Replace them with the healthier, more natural alternatives mentioned in this episode. You will start to notice that you feel more refreshed in your space.

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We often have a hard time saying no. It’s sometimes seen as a weakness. Or We are afraid to say no out of fear. However, saying no is actually powerful. Having confidence and firmness in your decisions help you keep your intentions clear. I call it “No by Design.”

Let’s imagine our inner world has a dedicated space, if you keep saying yes to everything then what would happen? We might be saying yes to things that don’t serve us, heal us, or make us happy simply because we feel obligated or we just don’t know how to say no.

Saying no creates openness and space for growth. If you say yes to everything in life there will be no room for growth because you will be overwhelmed by all of your obligations. Top leaders have explained that saying no is a form of nurturing yourself. It’s okay to put your needs as a human first and to say no to anything that doesn’t provide value to your inner world.

Say no to whatever items or people who are not serving you or healing you. Be mindful of what and who you’re welcoming into your space. Give away or donate anything you don’t need - healing begins with decluttering your inner world, how awesome is that, so simple. Evaluate everything that you have a relationship with (like a piece of furniture or something sitting in the closet for many years). Find the power to say “I am fulfilled to let this go.” Recognize that not all none intentional new things will serve you, but can actually end up overwhelming you. If you already created a nicely flowing space, firmly and consciously stop buying something just because it’s new. Instead, let go of one thing and then bring one more thing into your inner world that has a true meaning for you or simply making you feel awesome.

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As we discussed in the last episode, people spend a majority of their time indoors. Part of being intentional about designing our indoor spaces is knowing what is worth keeping and what we should get rid of. When you select and resonate with an item, color, or piece of furniture, it speaks to you. The item is, in a sense, alive. You exchange energy with it and interact with it every time you are near it. When designing doctor’s offices for my business, I focus on creating harmony and flow to the space by carefully selecting each element that goes into the room. Everything from the wallcovering to the lighting has intention and purpose behind it.

What kind of story you’re creating in your inner space is the kind of story you’ll create by interacting with your surroundings. When you heal your space and bring flow and harmony to it, you are then allowing it to heal you.

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