Thunderbird hosted 28 women entrepreneurs from Indonesia, Malaysia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tonga, Samoa, Kiribati, Palau and Papua New Guinea. They arrived tired, unsure of what to expect, anonymous, maybe even a little nervous.
They spent 2 weeks learning business skills from our best faculty. Thunderbird School of Global Management was (again) ranked the #1 International Business School in the entire world. So... our faculty are legit. :)
We bonded, laughed, shared successes and failures, best practices and heartbreaking stories. We met local business leaders, national public figures, and inspired and empowered each other.
The women left feeling validated, empowered, driven. I'm excited to see what they accomplish. What they give back to others. What they learned and want to implement. What a life I have... to have a "job" where I am able to feel inspired every single day. But, although I'm inspired, I know I have been totally missing in action over the last 3 weeks!! I have a great excuse though. Here's my evidence (atleast of the last few days of the 2 weeks.... the fun stuff):
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| Our guests of honor: Executive Director of Thunderbird for Good, Kellie Kreiser. Arizona Supreme Court Justice, Rebecca White Berch. Thunderbird President, Angel Cabrera. Amazing crowd!! |
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| Trying not to cry after hearing Jolene speak. However, standing up there and seeing the entire audience with tears streaming down their faces, and coming to the reality that my 28 ladies were leaving.... ok. I failed. Tears. |
Eleanor Roosevelt understood that every one of us every day has choices to make about the kind of person we are and what we wish to become. You can decide to be someone who brings people together, or you can fall prey to those who wish to divide us. You can be someone who educates yourself, or you can believe that being negative is clever and being cynical is fashionable. You have a choice.
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| Our tech savvy President is live-tweeting it. Love it!! |
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| One of our beautiful 28 from Malaysia |
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| You did it, ladies!!!! |
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| Ok, a little more restrained in this photo... :) Each and every one is honestly stunning. Intelligent, fun, loving, kind, motivated and FABULOUS! |
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| Rawhide for our "final dinner". It's a traditional Old West Cowboy town!!! So much fun - line dancing, beer drinking, yeehawing, Doc Holiday chasing, gun fight watching ladies. They had every right to 'let their hair down' after 2 intense weeks of study! |
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| Line dancing, Samoan style!!! |
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| Inspirational day spent in Sedona with Sarah McLean of the Sedona Meditation Center. "Love yourself, despite your humanness". Wise words... |
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| It was cold on our Pink Jeep Tour!!! So, I wore my Halloween gloves. They fit with the scenery nicely. |
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| We all suddenly became tall, lanky girls |
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| What a ride!!! 6 pink jeeps filled with screaming, laughing women. Haven't had such an amazing day in a while! My ab muscles actually hurt the next day from laughing so hard.... It was either really funny stuff, or I need to work out more. |
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| Best photo of Gbemi in absolute HYSTERICS. Love this laugh!!! |
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| We got home to campus after a beautiful day sightseeing, learning to mediate, driving through vortexes...and headed to the only logical place for dinner: The Pub!!! Like any good graduating Thunderbird class, all good nights end at The Pub. |
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| Group hugs are the best |
Hillary Clinton said: "It Takes a Village -- I'm obviously not talking just about or even primarily about geographical villages any longer, but about the network of relationships and values that do connect us and binds us together."
It takes a village to empower a woman - but once she is empowered....Watch out world, because you will all benefit from this change in her.
Proud of you ladies. My forever friends!
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