I don’t have any words to express my bundle of excitement when I received a mail from Thrive Global, asks to write about a woman in my life who has inspired me. I am following an influential woman entrepreneur who also plays a pivotal role in being a guide, guardian, and philosopher to many individuals who seek strength and guidance to do their entrepreneurial debut. So I am delighted and have many words to depict my heroine.
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I couldn’t sleep that night.
Not that night; it was sleepless nights for a few months.
I became an entrepreneur despite avoiding all the opposition from my family.
I didn’t even know how to get the courage to oppose them?
As from a bureaucratic family and the first businesswoman for whom it isn’t easy to convince the family and society that a woman can handle business, those people usually believe that a government job can only ensure financial security. I was fed up with the emotional trauma from all sides.
The journey of an entrepreneur was exciting in the initial stage. I had enough funds and resources. I have the belief that
“It is vital to start and implement. There may be chances of failure, but failure is not the opposite of success; it is part of success.”
I was confident on those days despite the criticism I faced from my family members.
The situation started to change as the days passed. I faced many challenges in my start-up. Slowly, I realized that my power to meet the challenges deteriorated as I was continuously humiliated and was in the hot chamber of mental pressure and strain from my office and home. I mentally made the verdict that my family members were right; I was incapable of handling the business.
This was my story, and the sad and depressed state of mind made me insane that night.
I could not sleep. I really wanted to have a good sleep and wished to escape from all these headaches. What to do?
I have swiped the mobile lock pattern.
The diminished pale yellow light peeped against the dark of my room. The home screen was filled up with hundreds of notifications.
I was astonished; how did I make a random click among that bunch of notifications!
The page was opened. I was not too interested initially and merely went thorough it.
It was a surprise. The image of that confident face with a bold attitude attracted my eyes to that page and letters.
A page on the most famous ‘YourStory’ website and the magical letters depicts an influential woman entrepreneur. She is Anooja Basheer, who opened my eyes and filled me with much confidence to move forward and fight against my weakness.
This is true that I couldn’t sleep the whole night. But I was optimistic and hopeful; the story of Anooja has entirely changed my attitude. Her story profoundly influenced me, and I curiously googled ‘Anooja Basheer’ and tried to learn more from her eventful journey as a powerful entrepreneur.
Anooja Bashir, Founder & CEO of Ourea into a 360-degree company that is successful and is into marketing, HR, training, and IT solutions, started in 2012 in Kakkanad, Kerala. The endeavor of Anooja with Ourea started with ambition, hard work, perseverance, optimism, motivation, and of course, with her never-giving-up attitude.
I realized that there is nothing more powerful than a woman who is determined to rise. The determination to succeed and the perseverance is the strength. Social stigmas, stereotypes, patriarchy, gender pay gap, glass ceilings, and just male privilege, and many other challenges dot a woman’s path to success. Still, Anooja Bashir has taken on such situations to set an example of admiration. She is a multi-talented personality who is passionately involved as a Brand Strategist, Marketing Consultant, Business Coach, Corporate trainer. She took strenuous effort to upgrade and sharpen her skills from a civil engineer to a successful entrepreneur.
Her venture Ourea, deals with branding and designing. They develop and shape products giving them a brand identity, brand strategy, brand implementation, typography, finally setting the product into a brand. They also design works with a team of experts having a digital marketing wing that handles all kinds of social media, SEO, and other digital-related services.
I recognized that Anooja’s success is rooted in the way she leads. I started to follow and learn from her experience, where she pathetically failed two times but never gave up and emerged a successful entrepreneur like a phoenix from ashes. Anooja is an example of women empowerment, and her inspirational story encourages me to solve real-world problems and discover myself.
I tried to connect with her through social media, and I got an opportunity to talk with her. She is one of the most powerful women I have ever known. I was happy to have a conversation with Anooja Bashir, the lady with creative vision, having the courage of convictions, and unleashing people’s power, which shows the impact on the success that entrepreneurs genuinely have.She is very confident in her entrepreneur journey and has high clarity on what to do and what not to do.
She is very busy with her professional and personal life, though she found time to speak with me and encouraged and inspired me. This hardcore fan of Paulo Coehlo strongly believes that the universe conspires to get it when you have an intense craving.
She motivated me,You have to toil emotionally, physically, mentally, and soulfully. There is no dream that a human can’t achieve.
In the fruitful conversation with Anooja Bashir, her advice to me as well as all young woman entrepreneurs, “Never ever give up no matter what.”
She gives me a ray of hope, one day my dreams will come true, and I will bring the best of me, surviving my fears and demons and come out as a successful woman as my role model Anooja as she has already given me a living testimony.