What Will I Do Next?
Dr Zareen Roohi Ahmed shares her emotional journey of loss, starting her own social business, her James Bond dream and period poverty activism!
Dr Zareen Roohi Ahmed shares her emotional journey of loss, starting her own social business, her James Bond dream and period poverty activism!
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So sorry about your brother-in-law. I know. But it's just been a really weird, kind of surreal time. And my father-in-law's here. So, you know, ours was the only safe house kind of thing. And he's happier because, you know, we get on really well. And he's… really chat when he got here he was very quiet and you know what the hell's going on and you know he'd take me out of my own house and this and that and now he's really chatty and really kind of you know relaxed and he's a different person from when he got here.
So did you bring your, you brought your brother-in-law and your father-in-law to your house because of Covid? Not my brother-in-law, no. Just your father-in-law? My father-in-law lives with my brother-in-law, my younger brother-in-law normally. Okay. Well, my brother-in-law lives in my father's house. So they're still there. He's a teacher, he's a chemistry teacher. I think that's what the problem is, because there's a few frontline workers in our family, on my husband's side of the family here in Derby.
All on my side of the family are fine. Like, no one's had any problem at all. And so on this side of the family, there's someone that works in a COVID test lab, who's just finished his masters and he's working there in Nottingham. There are two teachers and there's someone that works in the mosque. So between them, they had a lot of exposure, I think. Especially the teacher, my younger brother-in-law who my father lived with, or my young brother-in-law who lived with my father, he's a chemistry teacher in a secondary school.
And they're saying that secondary schools have been the worst hit from all the schools. So 95% of the staff in that school had COVID. Wow, really? Yeah. And he basically went in just before Christmas into hospital. He was in intensive care and he's recovering now, but they're saying he's got long COVID. His legs are like jelly still and he's, you know, he's just, and he's, I think it's the lack of oxygen going to his brain and stuff has made him very kind of, his behavior is weird as well.
So, you know, just praying that he recovers completely because he's all over the place at the moment. And then… And then my older sister-in-law, it's her husband, our brother-in-law, who's just passed away. And then my sister-in-law in Pakistan, she died at Christmas. It's just madness. It's just madness. And I know that I'll crash at some point. It's inevitable, isn't it? You know, I need a holiday. It's an effing holiday.
because there's no sun either. But I was telling one of my Dent colleagues yesterday that from Dent Global, the business coaches and all of those guys, I was telling, they asked how things were and stuff. And I gave them a rundown and I'll just pull it up on my phone. And this was off the top of my head. So on top of on top of the day-to-day running of the business and two charities, the Period Poverty stuff and the Halima Trust, obviously.
I've got actually three product launches coming up this month, this month and next month. I've got a 40-foot container arriving that needs to be sorted out. I've got a TED Talk, a TEDx. talk in March about period poverty and the last taboo and the gift of, you know, all this stuff. And then there's the new, that smart grant that we're talking about, the new tech project. And I've got the university on board now as well.
So LSBU is on board a hundred percent. They absolutely love it. So there's all that. I've got a Facebook campaign running that I have to oversee. I've got 28 Kickstarter recruits starting next week. And then I've got my big major period poverty campaign launching now as well called Red Rebel Day, which I have to tell you about because it's… It's a rebellion. It's Red Rebel Day is the logo and it's got a red feather in it.
And the slogan is war on period poverty. So we're all going to be wearing like the native American red feather with war paint. And it's going to be like comic relief type of 36 hour marathon event. on the 21st and 22nd of March and in the run-up to it people will be fundraising and there'll be teams all over the all over the world hopefully and yeah so we're just launching that right now so yeah just and then I've got and then I'm cooking shakshuka and bulgur rice in between and you know biryani and parathas, aloo parathas yesterday
And saag and things like that. Yeah. Well, you know what they say. They, I don't know who they are. If you need something done, ask a busy woman. I love that you're still laughing. Let me ask you this. You said you need a holiday. And of course, all that's very difficult right now, if not impossible. But if you could go somewhere, where would you go? Turkey, Çalış Beach, Fethiye. It's like my favourite holiday destination.
It's quiet and it's, you know which beach it is. So have you seen, I don't know which James Bond movie, it was one of the recent ones. I don't know if it was the last one, but the one before, the one where he's on the beach and he does that thing with the scorpion and there's the grass huts and he walks out to the sea, you know. Oh, yes, of course. How could you not remember that scene?
So that's where they filmed it. So is that your vision to be on the beach with James Bond? They're waiting. Is that all of our visions right now? Yeah, I go every year. My last holiday was 2019. And I'm one of those that needs the sun, I really do. Ash bought these LED light things for the plants so that they get sunlight when it's dark. And I'll point them all to me.
Because I need the sun, I just crave it.
Oh, you have so many things. Take us back, though. Take us back to where all of this started. It started with Halima. Because, you know, me and Halima, we had a pact. Like, we always knew that we would, as soon as she graduated, we were just together all the time. And as soon as she graduated, we were going to do some kind of adventurous project together and we love things like the body shop model and you know anything that involved sort of cottage industries or social entrepreneurship and things to do with the environment and whenever there was a you know whenever there was a disaster around the world an earthquake or something she would She would be fundraising for it at school.
She'd bake cakes and take them in and I'd come down and she'd be making cupcakes. And I'd say, you know, holy moly, you know what you're doing? You're making us cupcakes. And she said, no, I'm going to sell them in school and raise money for that disaster. She got onto her dream course of doing a third world development and international relations. at Nottingham Trent down the road from us and we got her a car and everything and basically she six weeks into her dream course she was abducted and murdered on the way to by a stalker who had mental health problems and failed asylum seeker and she just disappeared all of a sudden you know.
the night before we'd been in London at the Excel conference centre and I was speaking because I was in a job leading, I was the CEO of a national organisation that was set up after the 7-7 bombings and it was all about peace and reconciliation and it was a global peace and unity event and Halima was there. on the front row cheering me on and manning my stand and looking after my volunteers and things and uh you know it was the whole weekend and we came back um on the sunday night and uh you know i remember that car ride coming back because Halima and Fezzy were Fazani is my son, we call him Fez, and they were sitting on the back seat and Ash was driving and I was exhausted in the passenger seat.
And I looked in the mirror or I looked back and I saw they were both asleep and Halima's head was on his shoulder and his head was on her head. And I said, look at them two. I said, they worked so hard this weekend. I'm so proud of them. They've had fun as well. And then we got home and Halima gave me a hug and said she was proud of me. And I said, I was proud of her.
And, you know, you know, she said, love you, mom. And, you know, went to bed and that was the last face-to-face conversation I had with her because the next day I went to work and she had lectures in the afternoon and was going to meet a friend on campus and stuff.
She texted me. No, she called me while I was in the office and it was just a very hurried call. And she said, she said, Mom, can you pick Fazana up from school? Because I'm meeting Rosie on the campus and then I'm going to end up, you know, and it happened on the way. So the next day, you know, by then, because she'd, she would text me, you know, dozens of times during the day. um you know she what should we do this evening or should we go to town or you know what's for dinner and you know she'll sometimes she would pick me up from work and things like that um and um yeah so so you know we were looking for her we contacted the police on Monday night and uh they they were checking the hospitals and things like that and then the next day obviously it was a horrible night and then the next day in by about we'd been to the university that morning the next day tuesday morning putting up posters of her and saying have you seen Halima and contacting everybody that we knew who knew her and it was a nightmare and And then my nephew in Leicester saw something on TV on the East Midlands News to say that they'd found the body of a girl and they'd found two bodies.
And the address was just a few streets from where we were. And we thought, there's no way it's gonna be. but we just needed to rule it out, you know. So we drove down there and it was kind of twilight. It was evening, almost dark. And we parked away from where the incident was because there was a house that was all cordoned off with the police, you know, kind of tents around it and stuff and forensic stuff and crowds of people outside.
And Ash. asked me to stay in the car he said let me just go and see what's going on you stay here and he went with my nephew and uh and across the road from the incident there was a car park and he went into the car park and well he said i'll go in there her car won't be there and um and then we'll know that it's it's nothing to do with Halima so
A few moments later, I saw him kind of staggering out of the car park. And so I got out of the car and walked towards him, and from the corner of my eye, I saw Halima's car in the car park. That was the worst moment. That was the worst moment. And, you know, my kind of legs started to give way, and Ash kind of held me, and then we… found a police officer there, well, they found us.
And we said, look, you know, our daughter's missing and that's her car over there. And so they sat us in the police car and basically what had happened was that she was about to leave from her phone, her phone and everything. And you know, all the, there was a coroner's inquest afterwards. And what they found was that she'd been contacted by this asylum seeker guy who knew a friend of hers who lived on his street and they went to school together and he'd contacted her friend and said, and he'd seen Halima with her friend. in town or something.
And he said that he wanted Halima's number because he was a Muslim and she was a Muslim and she would understand the problem that he was having. And, you know, could he, you know, advise her on something? And Halima was just never, was not gonna say no to anybody. Cause that's what, who she was. And so her friend had given Halima's number to him and… and he'd called her to his house.
He'd said, you know, yeah, yeah, if you can pop over. And she'd left her phone, her bag and everything in the car. So, you know, all she was going to do was knock on his door and say, you know, how can I help you, you know, on the way to university. So she wasn't going to stop or anything. But from the evidence, they found that she'd been dragged in from the bruising on her arms. well, that was most likely what happened was that she was pulled inside and then there was a struggle and she was hit on the head with something blunt and then she was suffocated with a cushion.
And then he hung himself. So, you know, he was very disturbed and, you know, we see him as a victim as well.
you know, he was, and we really challenged the mental health services. He'd been, he'd got three, two section two orders on him a few weeks before, three in total, and they'd never sectioned him. So, you know, that means that they, he was supposed to have been in a hospital, you know, because he was so disturbed. He was an Iraqi Kurd. who'd seen his family getting killed and things like that in Iraq because of the Iraq war.
You know, ironic that that's what I was trying to do in my job was to create peace, you know, and addressing the issues that came out of the Iraq war. I know now why that whole sequence, because that whole sequence of events has led me to where I am now. And the work that I'm doing now is more than it would have exceeded mine and Halima's expectations in terms of what we wanted to do together.
And, you know, at the time obviously, and still it's hard, you know, but whenever I feel that pang, you know, that pain is just, it's a fuel to me.
You know, it fuels my work and it gets me up in the morning. You know, it makes me want to do more. And so after, you know, almost straight after it happened, you know, after the funeral, we were talking about, okay, so what are we going to do now? And, you know, we have to do the work that she said she was going to do. You know, in her second year, she was going to be in Ghana. she was going to spend the year there out of from her course doing kind of building schools and water projects and you know digging wells and things like that and she was so excited and you know she was really coming into her own she'd just turned 19 a few weeks before well two weeks before it happened and So, you know, we set up the Halima Trust almost straight away.
And our first project was to build a school in Pakistan where my parents are from. And we put it out to tender to different charities and projects. And that was the one we chose to work on. And so, you know, it took three years and… The Halima School of Excellence was built and we inaugurated it in Pakistan and met all the girls there. A lot of them were from the earthquake region.
There was an earthquake the year before that Halima had been fundraising for. The big Kashmir earthquake.
And then on our way back from there, I was sitting in the airport lounge in Lahore thinking, you know, right, you know, I haven't worked for three years. I haven't earned anything for three years. I need to do something. And I'd reached that milestone and I was ready to kind of take something on, but I knew that I'd never worked for anybody again. And whatever it was, it had to link with the charity in some way. it had to link with that vision of what me and Halima were going to do.
It had to be that, you know, it had to be what we were going to do. Before you carry on, I have, I mean I don't know how many times it is I've interviewed you now, maybe it's four or five times, I don't know, but every time, and I've never heard so much detail from you about Halima, it's the first time you've really taken me through the story of it, the unimaginable pain of that. and that you've just come from a death in your family and you're dealing with so much, but still, and that's this week, still you say, I'm going to do the podcast and I want to do it.
And you're still able to talk it through in that way. You're so strong. The strength of you is phenomenal, just phenomenal that you can do so much. You've got all that big list that you've just given me of all the things that you're doing.
And I love you so much, Zareen. I can't even tell you. It's just so difficult, what you've done. You know what? The reason why I agreed to do this podcast today, you know, straight after the funeral yesterday, and I was thinking, you know, I can't think of a better distraction from everything than talking to you. You know, because I love you so much. We're both snotting and crying and just… Oh, I mean, and it's like 5.34 in the morning for me.
But I wanted to do this so much because I just wanted, I just wanted to do, I really wanted to do this this week with you. I don't even really know why. It just felt so important. And Jake, you know, Jake, my son Jake, I made the mistake maybe last night of telling him, I've got a five o'clock call. Jake so I won't be able to do your breakfast and we made his breakfast last night he's very very adamant his breakfast is very important to him he came up he came woke me up at four o'clock and said don't forget you've got that podcast and you let me make you a cup of coffee at four o'clock this morning so for some reason we all knew I don't know intuitively that this was very important because he's never done that before normally he's just you know focused on his own things he's only 12.
Yeah. For kids, right? I mean, for Halima to be 19 and for that to happen and for you then, I mean, dealing with that is so difficult, but you decided to instead fulfill her dreams, that you wanted to make sure that her path still continued. That's what I'm hearing. Absolutely. It was… But the thing is, it was my dream as well. that's what we'd we were planning to do and and without it what would i have done i don't know i don't i would have been an empty my life would have been empty because i wouldn't it would have been unfulfilled and the thing is i don't feel like i'm without her i feel like she's more alive than she ever was right now because she is in everything that i'm doing and i do talk to her And I do silly little things that don't make sense.
But for me, it's my connection. And some of them are quite physical things, like when I'm driving. We used to hold hands when I was driving. I used to drive with one hand, and she'd be holding my hand on the other, and kind of her fingers in my fingers. So when my bag is on the passenger seat, my handbag, I'll wrap the strap of my bag between my fingers and hold it as if I'm holding a hand when I'm driving, still.
It's just one of those little survival strategies, I guess, but I just do it kind of automatically, you know, when I'm driving. And I know I should be doing a two o'clock and ten o'clock, but you know… It's not all the time, it's just like when I feel like holding her hand, you know? And I'll still, you know, when I'm coming home from somewhere, I'm still very aware that she's not at home, you know?
That's still there. But, you know, it's my faith as well, you know, because I completely…
submit to my faith and I believe and I know that this is a temporary separation and that there was a reason for this separation. And the reason is the work that we're doing. You know, if Halima had been here, we would have done something fun together, definitely. We would have done something. But I doubt if we would have had the Halima School of Excellence and the College, the Halima College next to it. over 850 girls from orphaned and needy backgrounds from all over Pakistan absolutely thriving and loving it and a lot of them you know their lives have been saved because of that god knows where they would have been they would have been on the streets or dead you know I don't know and and that's because of what happened you know they're so I have no doubt at all that this was the best plan for Halima to fulfill her dreams.
You know, for the work that she was so, you know, she was so, it was very visceral to her. She, you could see it in her face and when she spoke. That's when she wouldn't talk very much. She wouldn't get involved in pointless banter very much. Apart from with her brother, they were just laughing and screaming all over the house all the time. When we talked about important stuff or career or anything like that, that's when she would really light up. start getting creative about about what we're going to do when she once she's graduated and where we're going to travel to and and things like that so you know it's a it's um it's happened very organically and automatically for me it's not been i haven't had and it's it's happened um i haven't had to go out looking for things like
I was sitting in the airport lounge on the way, like I was saying, when I was sitting in that airport lounge in Lahore thinking, what am I going to do next? I picked up that magazine, Time magazine or something, and I read the article about women in refugee camps who have to tear strips off the bottom of their clothes and fold it up to use as sanitary pads. And like… I completely, very clearly visualised myself giving pads to those women.
And as far as I was concerned, I was doing it already. I'd already started doing it, sitting in that airport lounge. And nothing else could enter my head other than doing that. So as soon as I got back, I'd never been in business before. I was, you know, from public and charity sector background, so career-wise. So I had to just, I just threw myself into it. I didn't know how it was going to happen, but I knew it was going to happen and it had to happen.
So I taught myself how to do everything, you know, websites and marketing and everything. And I'm still teaching myself everything. And, you know, 18 months later, my first container of stock arrived at my gift pads and Gift Wellness was up and running. And the first thing I did before I sold a single one was I contacted a local charity that was taking a container of aid to Syria, to that same camp, the Za’atari camp on the border of Jordan, I think it is Jordan and Syria.
And I contacted them and said, come and pick up a few pallets of stuff. And that was my first shipment. They didn't agree straight away because he said, he said, oh, sister, you know, I'd love to, you know, but maybe in the next container, cause this one's nearly full now and we've got really important stuff in it, like food and medicines and clothes and stuff, you know, so, you know, this sort of thing, you know, we'll make space for it next time.
I said, I said, brother, where are you? And he, I said, you know, I need to, I need to let me come down and see your container and let me see what, what stuff you've got. So I went down there and I sat him down and five minutes later, he was in tears, you know, and I told him, you know, why this was in, I had to explain to him why menstrual products were so important for him to take.
And, you know, I said, you know, imagine if your mother, your wife, your daughter, your sister were homeless all of a sudden, and they're going to get their period. And it was like, oh my God, the girl in the scarf just said, the headscarf just said the P word, you know? And I said, you know, but… you know, it's the, it's, can you imagine how, how, how they would deal with bleeding, you know, and not, you know, each month and having their periods and not having sanitary pads, what would they do?
They've only got the clothes on their back. And I said, you know, these women that you're taking this stuff to are mothers and sisters and daughters of somebody. And that's what they're having to deal with as well as
I mean, the things that they had suffering those refugee camps, honestly. I can't read it. I can't read about it. It's so painful. A lot of people will read these things in a magazine and will go, oh my God, that's terrible, and then move on. But instead, I love it that you visualized it and you could see yourself doing it. And you had never run a business before. And I say a business. because you started a business, a social business, where you produced your Gift Wellness products.
They became a bestseller in Holland and Barrett, as I recall. And this model of making money and giving back, making a social difference at the same time, you were inspired by Anita Roddick and The Body Shop. and this was your and Halima's dream and you made it happen. So you developed this business and not a small business, a big business where you were giving back at the same time and you gave to the refugee camps.
And I love that you had never, you know, this was all completely new to you. So you learned it all yourself. And I think this is such a strong message for women right now who in the depths of despair. can do something and no matter who you are or where you are doing something that is fulfilling and also is something that can make money at the same time and I think that is a fantastic lesson and this developed and where are things now?
Tell me about what you're doing now. So I mean it's been a really strange 12 months hasn't it?
everything, everyone has changed in some way. Everyone's thinking has changed, thought processes. And what happened to me in the first lockdown was it gave me a chance to step back a bit. And it made me think about, okay, so this thing, period poverty, that I wanted to address, going back to that refugee situation and wanting to help women like that. Obviously, after the refugees, from my research, I found that there's also a terrible problem with period poverty.
We didn't call it period poverty then. That phrase was coined later, wasn't it, by the media and Plan International when they did that big research in 2018. I realised that it's also a big problem here in schools even. in Western countries, people are suffering period poverty. And then during the lockdown, I was thinking, but why is, you know, I'm given these pads and for every pack I sold and giving pads and things like that, but why is there still such a big problem?
Why is it getting, why does it seem to be getting worse? And especially during the whole COVID crisis, it's been a lot worse because people haven't got money. you know like the asylum seekers and refugees in this country and again the irony of that is just crazy because you know the person that murdered Halima was an asylum seeker refugee but that community are getting more help from Gift Wellness and the Gift Wellness foundation than other communities and the reason why is because when asylum seekers arrive into this country they're given like an allowance of like five pounds a week to get their food.
Or is it five pounds a day? I don't know. But it's five pounds. And that even if it's a day, you know, to feed the family, and, and they, you know, women, if they can't feed their family, their kids properly, they're certainly not going to splash out on sanitary products, are they, you know, and
even though it's an essential and they'll just make do. And so during that first lockdown, I started kind of peeling the layers off these issues. And I thought, well, one of the things is that girls in schools, you know, why are they still being bullied? You know, why aren't… I came to the conclusion that the reason why there is still a problem is because it's such a big taboo still. If people talked openly about it, if we were allowed to say in the workplace or at home or at school that, you know, this is a problem for me, you know, I need to talk to you about this, you know, I'm in pain or whatever, you know, I need these products.
If we were allowed to talk normally about it,
then it wouldn't be a problem. There would be no period poverty. A product that I came up with from that thought process in the first lockdown was the period gift box, which is a box full of lovely things. These are the boxes behind me. In the box, you get a beautiful… This is a hot water bottle, Sam. I'm holding up a rice bag and it's got French lavender, organic French lavender in it.
So it's cotton bag and you put it in the microwave and then you put it on your stomach and get all the aromatherapy from it as well. And also with it, you get a gorgeous little, it's not a perfume, it's a pure essential oils roll on. It could be nice for Grace when she's ready. And you get a pad pouch that you can put your pads in to take to school. And you get a bar of chocolate and you get the sanitary products and you get an intimate wash bar.
You've had these, haven't you? I sent you some. an intimate wash bar that's organic apple cider vinegar and Epsom salts. And you get all these lovely, lovely, comforting things in this gift box called the period gift box. And the idea is that parents buy it for their daughters when they're ready. And oh, and the most important thing that you get these cards that are, you get one for dad.
one for mum, one for fam which is the siblings or your friends and you get one that is like an introductory one for the girl and it's got do's and don'ts on it so it's it's got you know do's um hi mum and so it's in the shape of a of a mobile phone, so it's like sending a message to your mum. Hi, Mum, since you've been through this yourself, I thought, who better to help me tackle this brand new phase of my life than a period pro?
So, do's. Please remind me that periods are normal, because like all things new, I may find it daunting at first. Also remind me that periods are awesome. nothing to be ashamed about and I can talk about them if need be. And then, you know, it goes through a few dos and then a few don'ts as well. Don'ts. Let me find a cheeky one. Please don't give me tampons, period devices that may have to be inserted into my body.
I'm new at this and sanitary pads are the easiest solution for me right now. Oh, that's not very cheeky, it's quite factual. And then don't focus on negative symptoms like cramps, bloating, breast tenderness and mood swings. Just help me address these issues with a hot water bottle and a positive attitude and other tools and tips I may need. It's just a sharing is caring, let loose on those period stories, mum, and personal experiences to give me an idea of what to expect in the most relaxed way possible.
We may just have a giggle or two. And then the dad one's really funny. So it's got things like, you know, dad, you know, if I accidentally forget to flush the loo and you walk in the bathroom and it looks like a crime
scene. You know, just be cool with it, OK? Oh, Zareen, we've just got a couple of minutes left, my love. Yeah. What's your message? What's your message to the world? What do you want to let people know that are listening to this? Look, I mean, like you said, you know, right now people are anxious. But the fact is, is that, you know, women are resourceful, you know. Everyone is resourceful when put under pressure like this, like we are at the moment, whether you're a man or a woman.
And right now, because a lot of the shops have shut down and the big organizations are struggling, there are lots more opportunities. So it's actually a good time to just have a go at something because you'll be surprised You'll be surprised how easy it is with all the technology now. You can set up a business with virtually next to no money at all. You can get most things very cheaply or free online.
And, you know, just trust yourself. You have to go with your instinct. Well, I believe you do. You know, the whole period poverty stuff. I'm sure I read about other awful things as well, but that was my calling that I just knew. And you will know, each individual knows what their calling is. You just sometimes it takes something to wake you up to it, I think. But you have to trust yourself and you have to trust God or the universe or whatever you believe that it will, if you just make that Take the first step.
You know, for me, it's God. And if I know that if I take one step towards Him and towards what I'm doing something good, I know that He'll take 10 steps towards me. And the same applies to whatever you believe. You take one step and it'll come to you. Well, I'm glad I got up at five o'clock. Well, it was more like four.
So for people interested in finding out about you, Zareen, and about your Period Poverty campaign and about your products, what's the best way? So periodpoverty.uk and we're about to launch our Big Red Rebel Day. So our big campaign, so it's a perfect time to get involved. get, you know, get family and friends involved and organize, get a little team together and organize a fundraising event or a fundraising project and we'll support you in all of that.
It's going to be really fun with the put your war paint on and get going and for Gift Wellness it's giftwellness.co.uk for all of our products and our lovely eco-friendly natural products.
Well, thank you so much and and I know you said you like the Sun and I know you said you that you wanted to go to that that beach in Turkey with James Bond and I'm all in but hopefully one day we can get together and you can come over here and we can have a little bit of of Los Angeles Sun together and walk along the beach and and talk about Halima and talk about changing the world and social products and social justice and social business and and and we'll eat and we'll drink and and then we'll look out into the ocean and then and James Bond you know I like I like to say James Bond because I wanted to be in character he'll he'll you know he'll come out of the ocean and we'll be like oh yeah okay cool but we'll keep walking because we'll have more important things to talk about but it will be what it will be thank you so much my darling I love you intensely I love the work that you're doing.
It's so important, but it's such a great model for so many that so many women that might aspire to do something like this or might have started or might be sort of in the middle of it and a bit stuck. There are so many women that wouldn't know about it, about my work, if it wasn't for your work and your work. It was like the missing link. to, because, you know, remember how shy I was to talk about it at the beginning?
You know, your, the sort of speech that I gave at your event in 2018, I think it was, was the first time that I'd spoken publicly about, about, about my work. And, you know, I'd been beavering away for sort of six years. and you've helped me to, which is really important nowadays, you have to be a kind of, you know, that's a thought leader in your sphere, your industry. You have to be, you know, a person of influence in your industry because there's so much noise out there.
So you are my kind of my vehicle for doing that in so many ways. So, you know, thank you. I mean, I can't thank you enough. And now you're doing a TED Talk. You're all grown up. I know, I'm all grown up now. So I've got a TED Talk and that's all your fault. Oh, Zareen, thank you so much. We'll speak soon. And lots of love to you. Lots of health, wealth, energy and sunlight.
Please. Speak to you soon. Take care. Bye. Lots of love.
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