We were lucky to catch up with Dalia Sherif recently and have shared our conversation below.
Dalia, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you share an important lesson you learned in a prior job that’s helped you in your career afterwards?
There are numerous lessons I learned and each of them has an enthralling backstory. Perhaps the most important of which is that ‘comparison is the thief of joy’. As someone once put it, “popcorn is prepared in the same pot, in the same heat, and in the same oil, yet the kernels do not all pop at the same time, your turn to ‘pop’ is coming”. Upon my graduation from college, I chose to be a stay at home mom for 3 years just to witness my baby’s developmental milestones and enjoy my early parenthood. I was able to do some work from home, however, the minimal room to grow crushed my ambition. When I was finally ready to re-enter the work force with full momentum, I found my classmates to be miles ahead of me. This could have been a major frustration for me but I took it as a minor setback for a major comeback. I defined my key strengths by understanding what I enjoyed doing most at my first job. I used that to start building my brand and hone my skills. Five years later, I landed my dream job, marking my first kernel to pop. It takes strategy, patience, awareness, and aligning your dreams with your rational goals to find true fulfillment and success in your personal and professional journeys.
The second lesson I learned is to match your goals with the size of the opportunity that unfolds. In other words, how much the opportunity can advance your career at one specific moment. It is always about the timing, type of opportunity, and your fit. For an anecdotal example, one of my biggest dreams was to be part of a diplomatic mission. I was always intrigued by the distinguished and rewarding world of diplomacy. I applied for positions in the field countless times, hoping to become involved in any of the numerous diplomatic missions in my home country, Egypt, including the American Embassy in Cairo. Various people, including family and friends, warned me about the fierce competition and difficulty in even landing an interview. When my countless hours of preparation met the presented opportunity, I experienced the magical moment of luck. Possessing the unique set of language skills that the position required, I was offered a job with the U.S. Embassy through the US Department of State. The job was an entry level interpretation job. However, the moment I received the offer was a blessing intertwined with a curse. The job required constant traveling around the clock even during weekends. It sounded counterintuitive and even border line foolish to turn this opportunity down—but I did. I knew that the size of the opportunity was just not fit for a mother of three young children at that time. Similar to how people think lightning cannot hit the same location more than once, people thought that I had discarded the opportunity of a lifetime and that I would not be granted a second chance. Nevertheless, as I traversed forth with another offer, I unlocked a door leading to a hallway full of more doors. Fast forward a few years, when I was ready to move onwards, I was offered a job in the U.S. Embassy again. On the other hand, this position held a focus on marketing, my niche, alongside more stable working hours and five times the pay grade of the first one.
The last story I want to share is related to value and worth. These are commonly misconstrued as the same thing, but they are truly two different measures. Value is the importance people assign to something but worth is the greatness or merit of that same thing being judged in a specific context. No matter what value people assign to your work, remember that the same stone can be worth a few dollars if sold to a builder as one of many other stones, but it can be worth millions if sold to a collector for its rare elements. Make sure to maximize your worth. I wrote a manuscript based on my dissertation findings and submitted it to a journal that was not specialized in that area and it was denied at the desktop review level. The feedback I received was extremely critical to the point that I almost gave up and started working on a new one. Because I believed in the worth of my manuscript, I took it to a more specialized journal. As a result, it was fully published and continues to be highly cited by fellow scholars all over the world today.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My story is about how determination, strong will, and focus can help you achieve even the toughest of goals in spite of adversity and setback. Born in 1975 Cairo, Egypt, the world around me had healing to do after the 1973 war. The British school near my house was interviewing children to accept a cohort of 20 and although I was six months younger, my parents took a leap of faith in giving me a shot at the interview. The moment I went into the room, I gave the principal a big hug and offered to sing a song or paint with her. She was startled by my extraversion and friendliness and she immediately signed off on my admission. On top of this, the principal told my mother that I will do great things when I grow up, whether I will be an educator, a journalist, or a doctor. I had expressed all the early traits of a very successful leader. Fast forward many years and I graduate from the top university in Cairo having been awarded a merit scholarship. Afterwards, I stayed home for a few years to take care of my young ones. Despite this gap, I made a very strong entry into the workforce backed up by my innate marketing skills and my education to quickly regain my edge and be one of the most sought after marketers in the country. I earned a trade promotion job with the U.S. Department of State at the American Embassy in Cairo and I was seeing extraordinary results in the field with export successes topping 30 million dollars a year which supported the U.S. economy during the 2008 recession. This resulted in being awarded 6 meritorious honor awards and extra mile awards by the U.S. Departments of State and Commerce. When I got my industry portfolio, I was told there is no way you can make good export success dollars from it. Taking the negative feedback in vain, I believed in my abilities and took my portfolio without any complaints or doubts. I helped launch Discover America initiative to boost tourism and Study USA to boost education in US colleges and universities. I worked with Disney Imagineering to facilitate the production of aerial shots of the pyramids to be used in the Soarin’ around the world attraction in Epcot. Subsequently, I helped Michael Bay during the co-produced DreamWorks Pictures, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, when they were shooting at the Pyramids of Giza and needed special permission for Megan Fox’s wardrobe and for two GM cars that were produced for the movie and were not permitted into the country (the model was not yet mass produced). Because life can give you lemons and you have to turn them into lemonade, the Egyptian revolution broke out and I packed my life in 10 suitcases and left the best job in the world with my husband and three kids. I had to start again at the entry level to be able to enter the workforce in the US. When my colleagues in my first job in Houston were shown my pictures with Secretary Clinton and other dignitaries, my colleagues thought “that must be at the Madame Tussauds wax museum, right?” Aware that my colleagues did not know the backstory, I smiled and took the comment with a grain of salt. All along, I knew this was a step back for a leap forward. At this point, the power of mentorship came into play. My mentors encouraged me to pursue further education as it is the quickest way to break the glass ceiling and make a major comeback. I had a head start on my Master’s in Egypt although I was only able to study during the grueling plane trips.. People were always looking over my shoulders and trying to figure out what the thick textbook I am engrossed in is all about. Because of this, I always say “I earned my MBA on a plane.” I proceeded to earn my PhD with two jobs, numerous hours of community volunteering, and three kids. It was hard but not impossible. I printed a quote that became my slogan, and I still keep until today “No matter how much it hurts now, one day you will look back and realize it has changed your life for the better forever.” On days when I would almost drop the ball, I remember my dad’s words, “no matter how stuck you feel, just keep going.'” I wouldn’t be where I am today as an Executive Dean helping students break their own glass ceiling without the education that helped me break mine. Education is the most powerful weapon to change the world and change lives, one at a time.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
A Doll’s House by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen is an excellent depiction of societal gender biases and how they affect one’s agency in love and marriage. Reading this story has changed me in countless subtle ways. First reading it at 21, then at 25 and once more at 46, and every time, I learned something new. However, this is just one of the numerous books that have taught me great life and leadership lessons. In the professional realm, The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky is one of the books I read multiple times. In The How of Happiness, Sonja Lyubomirsky draws from empirical research on thoughts and behaviors and provides a very scientific guide to becoming a happier person. Her findings included that 40% of our happiness rests in our internal state of mind while 10% is circumstances and 50% is genetic. In that sense, happiness is a choice that you can boost through thoughts and behaviors. Similarly, in the book, the Happiness Advantage, Shawn Anchor talks about how happiness doesn’t come from success. In fact, quite the opposite is true: your success depends on your happiness. Luckily, finding happiness doesn’t require you to make huge changes in your life. Simply, adjust your perspective and focus on the positive things that are already there.
From a leadership lens, the book, Resilience, by Rick and Forrest Hanson discussed that resilience is about making use of your own strengths and resources; your innermost powers. The book articulated building your secure inner core by creating positive experiences and incorporating them into your daily routine. Through this, you can develop your mind’s powers to learn how to deal with adversity, stay calm, thrive under pressure, and grow the confidence and the right dose of grit required to pursue your goals.
Similarly, in the book, The Leader in You, Dale Carnegie discusses building one’s inherent strengths, and honing communication skills. He talked about detailed listening, empathy, voicing appreciation, and empowering others by making room for mistakes as well as growth, being enthusiastic, and always acting with respect. Whereas for one’s peace of mind, be sure to keep priorities very clear to prevent getting overwhelmed and to balance work with play. Once a person embraces these behaviors, the true leader within emerges and success follows you in every aspect of life.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
As you all know, public speaking has been described as the world’s most dreaded task. Over 70% of people have the fear of speaking in public. This Staggering statistic leads to public speakers constantly focusing on the content of the presentation at hand and spending long hours learning the topic and expecting hundreds of questions when in reality only a few questions are asked and many audience members are simply uninterested. When I honed my focus on this fact, it helped me improve my communication skills and I even received numerous teaching awards and excellent presentation trophies. The book Communicate to Influence by Ben Decker and Kelly Decker was extremely influential in my public speaking journey. This book provides a detailed guide to being an effective communicator and debunks the myth that content is the number one priority. The book presents the most derailing mistakes that impede effective communication including too much focus on content, lack of authenticity, being underprepared, lack of self-awareness and getting stuck in status quo (your comfort zone in this case). For the sake of brevity, I will discuss eliminating an over focus on content. The book details a study that found that content counts for only a small percentage of effective communication while mostly the delivery, strategy, voice and non-verbal communication are what make or break the presentation. The book also held an emphasis on storytelling, inspirational communication, and conveying authenticity and warmth as emotional triggers to captivate an audience rather than perfecting content. This is why a well-structured unscripted lecture will go a long way due to what the book referred to as the ‘attention economy’ where people focus on mobile devices when presented with non-emotional triggering content.
The second habit I eliminated the hard way is to drop the ball on a project if necessary. This is because rather than demonstrating a lack of persistence as well as grit, giving up a project will make room to sustain relationships as well as other projects in life. A good rule of thumb is to keep a checklist of ambitious goals but prioritize accordingly to prevent being overwhelmed by more than 10 goals at any given time. I navigated life with an overwhelming amount of goals which was not a glaring issue until my ambitions rose and my goals’ complexity did as well. The motto that ended up forming my unhealthy habit was that a task will expand to take up the time allotted for it so you can keep adding more tasks to make the most efficient use of your time. This rule, although still holds, has a threshold. As I was trying to live with two jobs, three kids, and 6 volunteering board roles and a balanced social life, I was trying to add an intense study component on top to try to earn my much desired Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology (EPPP) license to become a practicing psychologist. This was the literal straw that broke the camel’s back and everything that had lined up nicely fell apart. That moment, I had to compromise and hold off on my license project until my time allowed. Even overachieving requires compromise to keep your momentum and avoid burning out. Dropping or postponing one of your goals doesn’t mean you are not succeeding or progressing as you should.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.daliasherif.com/
- Instagram: @ddaliasherif
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-dalia-sherif-3aa26921/
- Twitter: @Dalia_Sherif_
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