“If there is one message that I’d like to share with others, it’s to “invest in you without feeling guilty about it.”  You’re spouse, children, employer, colleagues, friends and those around you deserve the best version of you.  So don’t feel guilty about taking the time or energy to do something that you enjoy or that enriches your own life, because you’re actually investing to become the best version of yourself.”

~Mona Tavassoli

Mona Tavassoli is a mother of two, a successful entrepreneur and has lived a life full of adventure. Mona prides herself in setting more and more challenging goals in every chapter of her life and in being able to achieve them. Throughout her life, Mona has learned the secrets of how to set ambitious goals and how to make them a reality. This adventurous lady challenges herself on a regular basis, skydiving, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, under the banner of “World Peace Through Women’s Empowerment”, and even fire walking.

Mona is the CEO and Founder of Mompreneurs Middle East, a B2B platform that caters to female entrepreneurs in the Middle East and enables them to promote and grow their business. The organization believes in women’s empowerment in the region through entrepreneurial education and mompreneurship.

Mompreneurs Middle East strives to educate women to raise thriving families and build successful businesses through self-mastery and self-discipline. Mona has been featured across a number of different publications and media outlets including Sky News Arabia, Dubai Eye Radio, SME Advisor, TEDx UOWD, Arabian Business, The National and many others.

Mona’s research has taken her right across the globe, and she has studied under numerous experts and mentors. She has taken part in programs led by all the greats, including Tony Robbins and Brian Tracy, and has been presented with the Young Alumni Award by the University of Wollongong in Dubai. She is an NLP practitioner and has combined her learning from all of these numerous sources into a refined program that has one single purpose: How to Have it All, through Time and Energy Management.

You can learn more about Mona at www.MonaTavassoli.com.

Enjoy the show!

Posted on April 30, 2018

Show Notes:

  • 1:15 – Mona’s background in Marketing & Advertising
  • 1:45 – Mona’s first foray as an entrepreneur in 2011 in France
  • 2:30 – Mona’s second startup and her first in the UAE … Polar Bear Creative
  • 3:00 – How Mona’s child’s party led to the idea for MomSouq.com
  • 5:00 – How a simple request from another Mom entrepreneur resulted in launching a new platform and venture … Mompreneurs
  • 7:00 – Mona launched three startups in three years!
  • 7:30 – The business model for Mompreneurs when it launched in 2013
  • 8:00 – How Mona started digging deep to analyze her own personal values and driving force
  • 9:15 – How Mompreneur Rising served as an educational platform to accelerate the growth of other Mom Entrepreneurs in the UAE
  • 10:45 – How Mompreneurs connects startups with a network of experts to help them develop various facets of their business model and plan
  • 11:15 – How and why Mompreneurs Rising was taken “digital” by creating an online course supplemented by a two-day Bootcamp
  • 13:15 – A great example of a success story who has participated in Mompreneurs Rising … a chiropractor!
  • 15:15 – A GIFT that Mona would like to give to all listeners, so you can get started right away on your entrepreneurial journey
  • 16:30 – How the UAE startup ecosystem has developed in recent years
  • 18:30 – How entrepreneurs have matured in the UAE over time
  • 19:00 – How Mompreneurs has bootstrapped (and won grants) to be successful … not raised any investor funds to-date
  • 21:00 – Mona’s current perspective on the UAE economy and opportunities for entrepreneurship
  • 22:00 – An opportunity for the Company Licensing process and fees to be simplified or reduced to encourage entrepreneurship in the UAE
  • 23:15 – Mona’s WHY for starting Mompreneurs … “empowered mother’s raise empowered leaders”
  • 24:00 – Mona’s personal development exploration that led her to believe that we all can “Have It All”
  • 25:15 – Why we should have crystal clarity on what we really want … you should know what your “All” really means
  • 26:30 – How climbing Mt Kilimanjaro is an analogy for the journey we are each experiencing in business and our personal life
  • 28:00 – Why we should focus on developing our identity instead of our behaviors and habits
  • 31:30 – Mona’s meditation practice
  • 32:15 – The best book Mona has read recently … “The Power of Full Engagement” by Tony Schwartz
  • 33:15 – Mona is writing her own book!  “You Can Have It All”
  • 34:30 – How the upcoming Mompreneurs Forum will help to develop the community in the UAE
  • 37:00 – The message Mona would put on the SZR Billboard to share with all of Dubai
  • 37:45 – Who inspires Mona…
  • 38:30 – What Mona is excited about in the next 12 months
  • 38:45 – How Mom’s can integrate their professional and personal lives

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