Unbound Ambitions; Career. Relationships. Wellbeing

Anum Farooq on How to Balancing Life, Pursuing Ambitions, Avoiding Burnout and Dealing with Emotions

June 14, 2024 Penelope Magoulianiti Season 3 Episode 2
Anum Farooq on How to Balancing Life, Pursuing Ambitions, Avoiding Burnout and Dealing with Emotions
Unbound Ambitions; Career. Relationships. Wellbeing
More Info
Unbound Ambitions; Career. Relationships. Wellbeing
Anum Farooq on How to Balancing Life, Pursuing Ambitions, Avoiding Burnout and Dealing with Emotions
Jun 14, 2024 Season 3 Episode 2
Penelope Magoulianiti

What happens when an accomplished professional seamlessly juggles a dynamic career and family life? Meet Anum Farooq, our extraordinary guest on this episode of Unbound Ambitions. 

As an educator, entrepreneur, environmental advocate, artist, and mother of three, Anum shares how her neurodivergent perspective and holistic approach to motherhood have guided her through various challenges without succumbing to burnout. 

  • Gain insights on integrating personal passions with professional duties, and learn the significance of exposing children to diverse endeavors for a well-rounded upbringing.
  • Discover the transformative power of trusting your intuition, embracing gentleness, and maintaining vulnerability in our conversation about life skills.
  • Anum enlightens us on navigating life's inevitable naivety and innocence by harnessing self-awareness, empathy, and understanding. Reflecting on personal experiences, she underscores why respecting others' perspectives, even when they differ from ours, is crucial for meaningful interaction and connection.
  • Motherhood comes with unique struggles, and societal pressures often exacerbate these challenges. Anum discusses the emotional and physical tolls that women endure, from hormonal cycles to global events. Through her experiences, we advocate for a more empathetic and supportive environment for women, urging listeners to recognize their emotions instead of dismissing them. 

This episode is a heartfelt call to foster resilience, determination, and a balanced approach to life. It offers invaluable lessons to anyone striving for balance amidst their ambitions.

Learn more about Anum Farooq and her projects:
https://www.anumfarooq.com
https://www.anumfarooq.art
http://www.odysseyglobalmedia.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anumfarooq1

Don't forget to take the assessment and find out if you're Balancing or Burning Out. You can take the assessment on this LINK

Enjoy!

Enjoy the Show?

Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

What happens when an accomplished professional seamlessly juggles a dynamic career and family life? Meet Anum Farooq, our extraordinary guest on this episode of Unbound Ambitions. 

As an educator, entrepreneur, environmental advocate, artist, and mother of three, Anum shares how her neurodivergent perspective and holistic approach to motherhood have guided her through various challenges without succumbing to burnout. 

  • Gain insights on integrating personal passions with professional duties, and learn the significance of exposing children to diverse endeavors for a well-rounded upbringing.
  • Discover the transformative power of trusting your intuition, embracing gentleness, and maintaining vulnerability in our conversation about life skills.
  • Anum enlightens us on navigating life's inevitable naivety and innocence by harnessing self-awareness, empathy, and understanding. Reflecting on personal experiences, she underscores why respecting others' perspectives, even when they differ from ours, is crucial for meaningful interaction and connection.
  • Motherhood comes with unique struggles, and societal pressures often exacerbate these challenges. Anum discusses the emotional and physical tolls that women endure, from hormonal cycles to global events. Through her experiences, we advocate for a more empathetic and supportive environment for women, urging listeners to recognize their emotions instead of dismissing them. 

This episode is a heartfelt call to foster resilience, determination, and a balanced approach to life. It offers invaluable lessons to anyone striving for balance amidst their ambitions.

Learn more about Anum Farooq and her projects:
https://www.anumfarooq.com
https://www.anumfarooq.art
http://www.odysseyglobalmedia.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anumfarooq1

Don't forget to take the assessment and find out if you're Balancing or Burning Out. You can take the assessment on this LINK

Enjoy!

Enjoy the Show?

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Unbound Ambitions, the podcast where aspirations meet action, dreams fuel drive and every ceiling is just another floor to break through. Here we celebrate the power of persistence, explore the art of balancing career and personal life and unlock the secrets to growth and fulfillment. Whether climbing the corporate ladder, navigating entrepreneurship or finding harmony in your daily life, unbound Ambitions is your companion in journeying toward your highest goals. Join us as we get real about challenges, present valuable information and equip you with insights for a life that's as thriving as it is grounded. Because here we believe your ambitions are just the beginning. And now your host, penelope Maguilniti.

Speaker 3:

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Unbound Ambitions, the podcast dedicated to career-driven women who are navigating the complexities of balancing work life and everything in between. I'm your host, penelope Meglianiti, and today I have a truly inspiring episode for you. My special guest is Anoum Farouk, a remarkable woman who is a successful professional and a dedicated mother raising a young family. Anoum's journey is a testament to the power of resilience, determination and the ability to pursue one's ambitions while nurturing a growing family, avoiding burnout and managing the emotional rollercoaster that comes with it all. In today's episode, anoum Farouk on balancing life, pursuing ambitions, avoiding burnout and dealing with emotions, we will explore Anoum's experiences and insights. She will share how she balances her career goals and family responsibilities, the challenges she's faced along the way, and the strategies she uses to stay motivated, focused and emotionally healthy. Get ready to be inspired by Anoum's story and gain practical advice that you can apply to your own life. Whether you are juggling a demanding career, raising children, or both. This episode is packed with valuable lessons and empowering insights. So grab a cup of coffee, sit back and let's get started with Anoum Farouk on Unbound Ambitions.

Speaker 3:

Farouk on Unbound Ambitions. Hello, anoum, and welcome to this episode. Thank you so much for agreeing to be here with me. I am having with me Anoum Farouk. She is an incredible woman. I'm going to read a little bit about her, just a bit, from her biography that she sent me and I will let you decide how incredible she is. So, anoum, she is a diversified neurodivergent professional with an extensive skill set across education, entrepreneurship, environmental and youth advocacy, as well as the culture and arts fields. She is an award-winning international artist whose work has been published around the globe, and she has also built a career as an educator. She currently serves as a director of Odyssey Global Media and Neurodivergent Synergy. And, if all these were not enough, she's also an active member of the UNICEF Youth Constituency and also United Nations mentor. And in 2024, this year, anoum was named a Max Tapiso Edkins Climate Ambassador. Anoum, oh my God, did I get everything correctly?

Speaker 2:

my pronunciations and everything absolutely wonderful to have a conversation and I look, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. Um, I'm a unfcc constituent, um and hopefully in the future, you know, it would be great to work with unicef as well. And I think it's just being neurodivergent, you know, once you find out how your mind works and who you are, I think that then allows you to kind of tap into your passions. And I think being neurodivergent um, just being able to work on these wonderful opportunities that present themselves thank you.

Speaker 3:

So today's topic I've announced a series last week on my podcast about and it's around burnout, overwhelm how women, we end up feeling so tired all the time, and I was reading a statistic a while ago and it said close to 50% of women are reporting that they are burned out. That's a big, big number. So I would like to concentrate around this. With you holding so many roles and we haven't said maybe one of the most important role and that is you are a mother of three young kids Three, correct, yes. So having a family with young children and holding so many roles, and the art that we are seeing behind you is your art I would like you to tell us how do you manage all? What do you do?

Speaker 2:

I think it comes down to a lot of faith, discipline. But we'll start with the role that you mentioned. You know motherhood it's a 24-7 job with no days off and I think, out of service and out of duty to my children, I showed them to have a fulfilling life, because I have seen mothers that have been repressed, that have been seen to be sensible and it's affected them internally because they haven't been able to express themselves. And so I. My philosophy as a mother is that you're also a human being and to show children and the opportunity to make the choices. Now my children, when they see that, they say mommy, I would like to do some art so they might partake in some recyclable art. They have their own art materials, they have their own art stations.

Speaker 2:

One of my daughters has actually written a book. She knows that I like writing, I like poetry, so she writes and she would like me to publish the book, knowing that I'm the Director of Odyssey Global Media. With my son, you know when we go out to the conservation centre or whether I'm teaching them how to swim in the ocean or in the sea, and they gain confidence from that and all these experiences, so I take them with me. So, um, you know whether that's sort of work for artistic level media, they're part of that journey and they see that and they learn from that. They might not necessarily be, uh, in all the conversations, but they see that process, which I feel is important for them because it gives them exposure. They're also on the autism spectrum and this is, in a way, I'm I wouldn't say training them, but it's a pedagogy for life for them, looking at independent skills, skills that they're learning to be confident children and they are, which I'm really incredibly proud of. That they're happy. But having said that, there is that element of tough love, there is that element of discipline. You know, you've got to tidy up, you've got to uh, look at putting your things away. Uh, and and and. Research is now backing this up. You know, in the newspaper they said children that do chores are much happier because there's delayed gratification. They learn resilience, when we even look at, for example, the Japanese pedagogy or elements of the Dutch pedagogy. But there is a little bit more philosophy in terms of raising children. You know, because I'm relaxed about their grades, they do a lot better. At the moment they're not doing the GCSEs, I'm not too fussed about them. But already, you know, one is already quite gifted in the way she writes, in the way she sort of works. And my son, verbally, is um, you can write sentences only five years old, but even when he expresses themselves.

Speaker 2:

Now, coming back to that, last winter I found out I was neurodivergent and that just put everything in, everything fell into in its place. Um, my son said to me a few weeks ago he goes, mommy, I can't switch my brain off when I go to sleep. Well, neither can I because I'm constantly thinking. You know our brain patterns are different, so I think I'm able to cope with that and it's an individual choice. I you know the mothers that stay at home, that focus on the children. They're doing an excellent job, they're fulfilling themselves. This is brilliant. You know the mothers that choose to go out. Same goes for them. Everybody has an individual journey. We all have our struggles. We all have, you know, things that we go through and I think finding out that I'm neurodivergent that helps me.

Speaker 2:

For example, if I'm working on my art, I might be thinking about ideas for odyssey. So then, as a brain from the art, I might work thinking about ideas for Odyssey. So then, as a break from the art. I might work on something for the Odyssey. That will be kind of refreshing for me.

Speaker 2:

But you have to have certain elements. I feel. For me it's faith. Spirituality is incredibly important. I don't think I can do all of this on my own.

Speaker 2:

A good physical exercise regime is quite important For me. It's sporadic. Yes, I walk a lot. I might have moments where I feel like, okay, now I want to go on a horse, now I want to go cycling, now let's go swimming, but we're doing something that really works. Diet is something that also plays a part. But I have to be very honest.

Speaker 2:

Penelope, I felt I've been trained as a child with tools to help me. But I have to be very honest with Penelope. I felt I'd been trained as a child with tools to help me. But I have a very good team. You know, in all the spheres that I work with whether that's academic, whether that's art, whether that's the business side of things the people that I'm working with. You know some people. I don't see them every single day but, to be really honest, in all the different projects that I work with, I have fantastic teams.

Speaker 2:

You know, um, that kind of support that and things do go wrong. You know, obviously we've had lots of things go wrong, but I have good people around me that can say, okay, this is not working out, let's do this. Or okay, I might, I might have made a mistake, I might have forgotten to do something in Odyssey and um, you know they would. They would sort of kind of work around that. For example, we have a presentation in World Conference Center, bonn in Germany tomorrow and Odyssey being accepted onto the ACE Gallery amongst world governments and organizations such as UNICEF. Now, little details, like getting the poster physically there there, having the presentation, getting the badges for the presenters you know I am not doing that all on my own the people that I work with, the team members I work with, so there's a lot of gratitude to them and for accepting that I'm on the autism spectrum and working around that.

Speaker 2:

So I have to say all that I get done.

Speaker 3:

It's a unified effort and what you just said, and I don't want to interrupt you. It shows a great trait of yours you are able to do what you're doing because you are gifted. You are disciplined, you are a great mom that you do your best to support your kids, to teach your kids life skills. The most important lesson that we all need to give to our kids is life skills. And then you praise your team. It shows what kind of a leader you are and what kind of a person you are, and I will ask you later to tell us a little bit more about Odyssey, because it's a great project and I would like our listeners to know and learn about it.

Speaker 3:

But for now, following this trait, apart from discipline as a gift, what other two gifts, three gifts, do you have that help you be the person that you are today? That, yes, life is difficult, life brings lots of challenges, but there is a big difference between the person who has challenges and never gives up and the person who has challenges and says that's it, I'm done, I'm out of here. So tell me about two, three gifts that you have um, do you know?

Speaker 2:

I would say that maybe their strengths or weaknesses, that I wouldn't know where to put them. Um, I would say intuition, instinct and being gentle or vulnerable. So I'll start off with intuition and instinct. Um, I think, because of the neurodiversity I mean, I'm also an only child and I've spent a lot of time in nature observing I wouldn't just say just pattern recognition, but there is that intuition, that instinct to.

Speaker 2:

I listen to my instinct a lot. I'm very attuned to myself and in knowing yourself and listening to listening to that, that does guide me. My instinct, my spirituality, those instincts, they are a guiding force. They help me make decisions, they help me see patterns and often than not, you know, even when I'm in difficult situations, and my instincts are saying okay, and this is, you know, I see it. I literally see it before my eyes, later down the line, it might not happen straight away, but maybe in the future. And I see it. And my eyes later down the line, it might not happen straight away, but maybe in the future. And I see it and I think okay, and I find that comforting, you know. So I, and I think, uh, for women and men out there, you know, trust yourself, have that instinct and intuition.

Speaker 2:

It's, it's incredibly important, um, in the modern world that we live in. You know, we have a lot of noise around us, we have a lot of external stimuli around us and you know people go in their bubbles. Sometimes people are hurting, or sometimes you're going through something difficult, or sometimes they also need a way to communicate, but we're affected by that because we can't see their perspective. You know, our own understanding is limited to our own senses. So when we really spend time to focus on ourselves and I would say, in a way, mind our own business and look within and really spend which is something, penelope, I know you advocate for as well then we gather that strength to trust our instincts and our intuition and that becomes a guiding force.

Speaker 2:

The other thing I would say is gentle, I'm very vulnerable, um, I'm growing up. You know I've been called out, you're naive or you're innocent, but I don't want to change that. I think now I'm becoming a little bit cynical and maybe behind the humor that I have, the sarcasm that I have, this pain behind that because of you know what you go through in life. But I'm a gentle person, you know, and I let things go. I move on from things, I let things go. I'm learning to be more gentle with myself as well, but I'm gentle with other people. I can be strict at times, I can be very principled at times. I think, you know, having that neurodivergent mindset, I used to think life was what you would read in books. So I would kind of not know the difference between books and real life in the sense that I would think, okay, the rules that I read in the books, that's what's going to happen in real life. And I think that's where that naivety and innocence comes from of not having that under conceptual understanding, do you know?

Speaker 2:

um? But equally, that's where that gentleness comes from. I am very soft-hearted. I do let things go, I do let things be. Um, I don't hold grudges, you know, I I don't, even if I've heard about something, I think okay, you know, we're human, we're all humans. At the end of the day, I make a million mistakes. You know hundreds of things that I get wrong, hundreds of things that I don't understand. I've read, I've read a few things that really help me understand, because I work. I work with children for such a long time. Even when I was starting, I was tutoring work with children. I've a long time. Even when I was studying, I was tutoring work with children. I've got my own children. So one thing I read about child psychology was that children sometimes might not listen to you or they might seem to behave in a negative way because they don't understand. It's simply that their understanding is not there and that really stuck with

Speaker 2:

them. So even when I look at adults I think, okay, maybe it's actually they're not actually understanding, they don't have that understanding. And our experiences, penelope, are kind of very varied. I've gone through a lot of things in my life, because I'm an only child perhaps. I've been brought up across cultures, I've gone around the world, I've had a lot of life experiences. So sometimes my own experiences don't resonate with other people because they might have just stayed in their own town, for example, they might not have that exposure, or they might have had a different set of experiences which doesn't allow them to have that perspective. But equally, then I also don't have their perspective. So now I kind of think, okay, maybe that understanding isn't there. Maybe what I'm seeing, because my brain works really fast, if I go into a situation I can look at okay, this is a problem, this is a solution, oh, here's the idea and right before my eyes it's like a computer screen and it goes.

Speaker 2:

That might be too fast for some people which is all right, you know, and they're not able to, and then find over time then it kind of gets taken on board. So having that gentleness I find is very important and that's something that now I'm intentionally practicing, whereas before I thought, okay, I'm vulnerable, I'll get eaten alive. But then I think at the end of the day, if your heart's clear and you have good intentions, I believe in my creator. He's not going to let me down. You know, at the end of the day, holding on to that gentleness, being good to people, being kind to people and having good intentions for people, it's important.

Speaker 2:

I always think if a person is happy, if they're settled, whoever they are in the world, they're less likely to cause chaos in the world, they're less likely to damage themselves and damage other people. So I don't understand this concept of having competition with other people. I don't understand this concept of um trying to, you know, kill your competition or put people down to get one up on them, because I always think when somebody's hurting and somebody's miserable, that energy is going to radiate onto you.

Speaker 3:

So you have to make everybody happy so you know they're busy in their own lives and they don't other people um, which is such a simple concept.

Speaker 3:

But again, it depends on the understanding, so be gentle and it shows the work, the inner work that you are doing. Yes, because many times competition comes from scarcity, scarcity, mindset. But we all know that there is abundance out there and the more we work on ourselves or our inner world, that's why you have so strong intuition, because you have done the work, you are open, you have an open heart, an open mind. You don't get involved into all this noise that there is around us, all this negativity, because when you shut out the noise, it's the negativity and the fear that we project many of us and it put, it puts blocks in our lives.

Speaker 3:

And I was going to ask you another question, but I took a note here. You said I'm learning to be gentle with myself the same way as I am with other people. And isn't it interesting and I know we had this conversation when we first met while I was again interviewing you, not in the limelight, if I may say, but for another project that I'm working on and it's interesting the women of any culture, any background, we always, always, always and this is one of the results that I got from this research we never put ourselves first, never About you telling me why. Why do you believe we always try to give to others first, to be gentle to the others first, to do whatever we can for the others first, and then we can look after ourselves.

Speaker 2:

I think it's sacrifice, penelope, I think as women we have been sacrificed many times. When you become a mother, it's a sacrifice. You know the process of motherhood as well and it's you. You know there's constant critique and all mothers get this and they get. And I often think you know, uh, when I've got friends that are mothers, who I see mothers around them, I think we all know how difficult it is to be a mother. Why do we need to criticize a? She is the primary caregiver for those children. If we are negatively impacting the mother, then we're negatively impacting the children. You know you're criticising the mother. The love children have for her is not going to decrease, it's just going to add to her stress.

Speaker 2:

And I think, because of also primary traumas and secondary traumas as well, then we kind of because we've gone through suffering as women, then we just want to take care of everybody and we might do it with the best of intentions, but then that kind of gets, I think. I think, unless you have strong boundaries, then that kind of gets looked at in a different way and in a way it gets manipulated, which is really sad because you know, then you have to become this alpha woman and I think we talked about this and you have to become this alpha woman. And sometimes I feel like I am becoming that alpha woman when I'm being sarcastic or when I switch my emotions off, or when I'm going to survival mode and I think, okay, now I just need to switch my emotions off. Because what's the point of me as a woman, working mother, you know, in my nearly mid-30s, 34, having emotion if that emotion is going to get ridiculed, if that emotion is going to get laughed at, if I'll get told to you know, put myself together. Or if that emotion doesn't have a space in this world? You know, there was a wonderful poem that I read as a child in school if this and I think it goes along the lines of if this is not the place and one of the few verses if this is not the place where I can cry, where my tears can be heard, then where can I go? Wow, this is not the place where I can cry and be heard. Where can I go?

Speaker 2:

And we demonize this, we demonize kind of this act of having an emotion. You know, when we kind of look at this concept of sacrifice, we need to look at women holistically. Okay, let's start with the physical side of things. Women have a hormonal cycle. Now, this is in the holy books, even in the quran, you know, god talks about women every month. Women get affected psychologically because of the hormones by this happens, you know, since the teenagers right up to a certain age. So that's that physical thing that they have to deal with, okay, um then, secondly, when we talk about secondary trauma, when you look at the news and what's going around us, that happens as well then we need to look at toxic femininity, the relationship that women have with each other and something that I think in the future I'd be aggregating for against is the tall poppy syndrome.

Speaker 2:

When a woman is doing really well, there is this thing to hammer her down, to cut her down, and this tall poppy syndrome. It's not opinion, it's fact, there's been research being done on that that women that are successful, that are intelligent, that are doing well, they are cut down. And that cut down and that cut down might come from constraints such as financial constraints. It might come as constraints, from gaslighting, for instance. It might come across different things that they encounter, and these are kind of you know, both internal factors, like the physical side of things, or external factors.

Speaker 2:

All of these things affect a woman's mood now I would find it incredibly scary if you don't show emotion, if you don't show anxiety and if you don't get sad, just living in in 2024 today, with all that's happening around us. But the minute we begin to express emotion, any kind of emotion, let's take negative emotions.

Speaker 2:

Feeling sad oh, you're depressed oh, you know, and it's like no, you're not going to depression, you know you're not going to depression at all. And it's like it no, you're allowed to feel. You're allowed to feel irritated, you're allowed to feel. If you talk about women all around the world, they don't need to be sacrificed, they don't need to be pitted against each other. No woman is in competition with any other woman. I personally believe all women are daughters of Adam. Whatever faith they come from, they're daughters of Adam and Eve. So treat them gently, be kind to them. Don't sacrifice them. Don't sacrifice your daughters. Don't sacrifice these mothers. They don't need to be sacrificed. You know when people respect their elderly mothers knowing what their mothers have gone through.

Speaker 2:

It's the world that has put them through this but it doesn't have to be like the same.

Speaker 2:

It really doesn't. It can change. We can all kind of, you know, and I think over time what happens is when women face this trauma, then they start building this defense mechanism or they start building walls around themselves and it changes their character. For me, I know I'm becoming more cynical, I know I'm turning more emotions off, but that's not necessarily a healthy route and and a lot of women I've seen this they they become jaded in the outlook yeah, they don't see how how lovely and sunny the day is, or how bright the flowers are or the center of the garden, it to them it's.

Speaker 2:

That's it because they've gone through, and rightly so. Because they've gone through so much, how do we have to put them through this?

Speaker 3:

yes, and this is the important part, and is you said they shut their feelings. And I've been there. I've been there and this is what makes us angry, and this is what makes us cynical, and this is what makes us stiff. And there is this stiffness If you watch, if you observe women, there is this stiffness in their bodies. It's like they decided that the feminine body is wrong and I need to put it in a box in a way and not allow it to breathe. And then we wonder why we are so angry and so judgmental and so resentful with ourselves. First, because a woman that judges and ridicules and, you know, say bad things about another woman, it's not about the other woman, it's about her. She projects how she feels about her and it's my, my mission is to create a community of women where there is safety, there is gentleness, there is support, there is, you know, an environment as you said to that poem, that is safe to cry and nobody will judge me.

Speaker 3:

And actually I've been crying a lot over the past two months because, ironically, those emotions that I buried 30 years ago, they surfaced two months ago and I was on an emotional roller coaster. I was watching a movie and I was crying, someone was telling me something and I was starting to cry and, for the first time ever, I said okay, welcome, what's the lesson? What I need to heal. It took me two months and this is what we need to do, and thank you for bringing this up. It's so important. It's so important. So tell me what are the next steps for you, and also feel free to talk to us about the art that you're doing the odyssey project. Give us, you know, an, an idea. Give us a breakdown of what you are. What are your next steps?

Speaker 2:

absolutely well. Firstly, thank you for another people sharing your journey. You know I can see it in your eyes that you're still going through that process, that journey, and it's incredible that you're doing that. The more compassionate we're towards each other, we can guide each other through that. One thing I noticed is a mockery between women. That's something that you know and this is something even from a spiritual context, down ancient history and in spiritual books. It does talk about the people that mock or or the mockery that occurs, and again, that is a self-projection because they're able to. You know, being a spectator and being a commenter and being able to mock is very easy to do, rather than being a doer and doing that in a work like you're doing as well. So I think part of my art relates to that.

Speaker 2:

In healing, you know, I focus on my own healing and I talk about my own life and perspective in the hope that it might resonate with somebody else. So one of the projects that I'm working on it's called have you lost your mind, and it was inspired by me looking at the neurodivergency and sort of kind of working towards that. Another thing that I'm exploring is looking at the bedouin desert culture globally. Um, I'm also looking at environmental, eco-arts as well. I've always been inspired by nature. Nature has always calmed me and comforted me and healed me. But we didn't have those words such as, you know, as sort of like an environmental champion in in that, in in that perspective at that time. But it's always been something I feel very protective of nature. So with the odyssey um as well, it kind of stems with that. We have a very strong sustainability ethos, again being with the corporate social responsibility, with the ACE Gallery, the conference at the World Conference Centre in Bonn that's happening as well. Then we've also been encouraged by the UN Global Compact and UN Women Affiliated Women's Empowerment Principles, wep. We've been accredited with those which we're really kind of proud of, and then we're offering opportunities for authors to publish their books. We have a Blue Planet Global Grassroots Art event happening in July.

Speaker 2:

So I think that every day has a lot of extraordinary and I feel it's really important from a media perspective to give people those opportunities so we get rid of this tall poppy syndrome. You know the people that are living the reality, that are working really hard, that have those ideas, that have that insight, and you know everyday talented people that you meet. There is no difference between them and any other person on the planet and they should have that opportunity, regardless of geographical location, regardless of socioeconomic status. You know the circumstances that we get around us. We don't control them. You know. What we control is what's within us. So when somebody has got something within them, I think they should be given the opportunity. So obviously we do that because we believe the local narratives do change the global landscape.

Speaker 2:

Now, somebody just being inside a building and not having a practical insight of the challenges of everyday life, of what people are going through every single day, you know the ones that have got a job, the ones that have, um, they've got children, the ones that are you know or not, you know whatever kind of life side they're living, their every day is actually informing the global landscape.

Speaker 2:

This is what's happening and so it's providing us opportunities. With that, we've set up a sister company called Heal Earth Education where we're looking at environmental education, sustainability curriculum for children, taking apart my background in education. So you know, everything's kind of coming together. So we're developing on that and hopefully, you know, if anybody would like to be a part of that, they're more than welcome to get in touch with us. But I think, deep down, everything is coming together, and especially from the arts perspective. Art has always been a passion and I've subdued it for a very long time and I think you know now, in in the coming summer, it's something that I'm going to be led by my heart. I think it's very important. We cannot be anything more than human, and carrying the human narrative forward is part of the ethos of Odyssey. When we do it.

Speaker 3:

Wow, fantastic. So our listeners won't be able to see what I am uh watching right now behind you is your art, but I will have all the links your website link, odyssey link, everything that you mentioned that you have information for anyone that wants to learn more. I will have them in the show notes, so I would like I could listen to you forever. I love our conversations always. I would like to thank you for doing me the honors. Thank you so much for your insights, for your knowledge, but most of all, thank you for who you are.

Speaker 2:

It's really appreciated. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Speaker 3:

Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us today on Unbound Ambitions. I hope you found Anoum Farouk's insights as inspiring and valuable as I did. Her journey of balancing life, pursuing her ambitions, avoiding burnout and dealing with all these emotional challenges along the way is a powerful reminder that we can achieve balance and success in all areas of our lives with resilience and determination. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to Unbound Ambitions and leave us a review. Your feedback helps us to continue bringing you inspiring stories and practical advice from remarkable women like Anoum.

Speaker 3:

Before we go, I have a special call to action for you. If you ever find yourself feeling overwhelmed or unsure about your balance between work and personal life, take a moment to visit our website and complete the assessment Are you balancing or burning out? It's a quick and insightful way to understand where you stand and get personalized tips to help you improve your balance. Remember, achieving balance is a continuous journey and you don't have to do it alone. Stay connected with us on social media for more tips and updates and to join a community of ambitious women supporting each other. Until next time, stay ambitious and stay balanced.

Balancing Career, Family, and Ambitions
Gifts of Intuition and Gentleness
The Struggles of Womanhood
Achieving Balance and Success in Life