TRANSCRIPT OF NATASHA FEGHALI | WHEN DOORS SLAM SHUT, NEW OPPORTUNITIES OPEN UP

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[00:00:00]
Again as we take the helm. If you are interested in exploring other options in your life, if you're one of these people that is a two or three year person and you gotta have a change, or you are interested in philanthropy, opening your own business, and coming to the realization that when doors close for you, new ones will open. If you have the right mindset, listen up. Our guest today is Natasha FeFeghali.

Music Intro Are you facing a crisis in your life or business? It's time to steer yourself in the right direction through the real experiences, passion and courage of our guests. We're taking the helm with your host, Lynn McLaughlin .

[00:00:46]
Now, let's do a little introduction before I bring Natasha on. Natasha FeFeghali is an award-winning Canadian awarded for her philanthropy and community and dedication to education. She is a recipient of the 40 under 40 United Way Leadership Windsor Essex Award the Sovereign Canadian Medal, the Odyssey Award from the University of Windsor. She owns her own business and is currently also teaching internationally. Welcome, Natasha, all the way from the other side of the world. [00:01:22]

I always remember seeing you at work, actually. Very often. No, maybe like not so often, but often enough. And I am also from southern Ontario. But now I live in Kuwait.

[00:01:40]
Let's make that connection then. Okay, so you're working with a public school board as I was as well. But now you've accepted an international teaching contract overseas. First of all, how's does that happen? There's a lot of new graduates out there or people who are saying, I want to try something else in my life.

[00:01:57]
How did that happen anyway that you are now over in Kuwait? And then I have to ask the second question of the same thing and why Kuwait when there are many other countries to choose from internationally? So it happened because in around 2014, 2015, I had kind of a life event happen. And so I wanted a change. I was also kind of wanting just a life change.

[00:02:28]
And I saw a show on TV about these people living in Kuwait and they had this very luxurious, glamorous life and they had a boat. It's so simple, they had a boat. And I was like, I'm going to go live there, I want to do that too. And as that happened, then my life event happened. Then my sister had a friend working here at the school where I start.

[00:02:54]
I got a job, I just applied and they were looking ironically, for a French teacher. But then when I got here, that kind of changed. I became like team lead for Junior. The whole thing massaged itself. However, I loved it.

[00:03:13]
And so I came back and there are so many reasons that I love it. And I think one of the biggest ones is that I kind of felt at home here, and I felt like I wasn't deviating too much from my regular life that I have in Canada. It's a really seamless transition. And the first time I came, I just connected with the principal or sorry, the superintendent of the family of schools, and they gave me a job. And then this time, actually, another life event happened.

[00:03:52]
And you'll never believe this. Lynn a headhunter found me and knew that I was already working in the family of Intervention instructional coaching itinerant, and found me and offered me a position. And it all kind of happened. Like it's as if it manifested itself. And that's how I got back here.

[00:04:18]
And it's as if everything kind of worked itself together so that I could come back, because it was always kind of in the back of my mind that I'd like to do it again and again and again and again. And then I don't know, it just all worked itself out and massaged itself. And I was on the path, and I got a leave of absence for the second time. I'm so grateful and blessed. I need to say that.

[00:04:49]
And I always say that. I'm so grateful and I was able to come back and work again. And I work in the same position, which I love. I love doing this. And it just worked out.

[00:05:03]
And I think it is easy for people to go abroad if you're open, you're open-minded, you're easygoing, and you're ready to be uncomfortable because there are things that are different. Well, I'll just jump in and share. My daughter is teaching English through English First, which is an approved agency through Canada. Actually, she's more of a teaching assistant, and she's in Indonesia. And, yes, it's a really, really different way of looking at things and living, and she's adjusting and she's doing okay, but being open-minded to that.

[00:05:37]
I love what you said, Natasha. If you're open-minded to those experiences and, you know, I said to her before she left, what's the worst-case scenario? You pack up and you leave. And yes, you have to end your contract. But you describe Kuwait as being similar to Chicago, which is very surprising to me.

[00:05:53]
Yeah, I would say that the Gulf countries, for the most part, so, like, you know, the Emirates and Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, they are very, very modern, opulent countries. And everything is functioning a lot like it would in any Western nation, if not better. And, yeah, living here is a lot like living in Chicago. We have really big, beautiful malls. We have main strips, we have a lot of shopping, we have a lot of beautiful restaurants.

[00:06:36]
It's really calm. There are some desert areas where I would say, like, some nomadic people might live, but you can't even really call them nomadic in 2020. They just have different attitudes and behaviors and say, we would have culturally however, very friendly. And we have all the same kinds of brands and restaurants. There's obviously like local business too, but everybody's really Westernized, I guess I could say, and everyone speaks English.

[00:07:17]
Not that that's a prerequisite. However, it makes it a lot easier and it's a very international community, all kind of a lot like Chicago. And it's got a great nightlife and it just has all the amenities that you would need in a big city, I guess you could say. But it's also kind of a small city because Chicago, although being really big, it's kind of really homey too, like different communities. OK, so when we had our pre discussion, Natasha, the way you described and we got to get into your property management piece as well, because I'm blown away that not only are you working full-time internationally in an educational setting, you also run a property management company here in southern Ontario, in Windsor, Ontario.

[00:08:06]
But you describe it as when doors have closed. You've seen it as actually new opportunities have opened for you in your life. Yeah, every door that's closed led to a new opportunity, I would say. I have to be fair, I was kind of born into properties. My grandparents did it, my dad did it.

[00:08:33]
I was kind of ruined into it. I would say that I started basically when my dad was like, my grandparents have passed on and all those properties got sold. And my dad was kind of at the tail end. And I had a life event. And I met a mentor at that time because I was doing makeup for free with the Windsor community for film.

[00:09:04]
They were looking for makeup artists just to come in. And makeup is kind of like I love makeup and hair as a side passion, you know, something I like to do. And I met somebody who was also in real estate. And he was like he made an assumption based maybe on my look. And he was like, you know, you're kind of going to be not maybe on the income that you want in your life.

[00:09:29]
And you look like you like to enjoy the finer things in life. So you might want to get a second income. That is easy enough to do because you really love your work as well. So you don't want to be so over-exhausted. And let me show you what I do.

[00:09:50]
And he managed to get to a point where he doesn't even work anymore. He just does film, his passion. And then he has so much property that he's just a full-time investor but does his passion as well. So he kind of showed me a little bit and then I would talk to my parents about it. And I bought my first property with my brother.

[00:10:18]
And I also had something happen where someone closed doors on me. I didn't do it. They closed doors on me. And I was like, I was so devastated. I felt like, you know, oh, my gosh, because I was on one trajectory, and then that person closed doors on me.

[00:10:38]
Obviously, they had a reason, but that wasn't a good reason. And then I decided I'll give it a shot. And within a month, I bought my first property. And then I've just continued to grow from there. And now you grow, you change.

[00:10:56]
So now I'm doing some other things, which is like, working with other investors, and then we sort of come together as a team, and we invest, but not exactly in brick and mortar. We invest in housing, but not in brick-and-mortar. And so in saying that, I've kind of been able to offload the arduous part of it on to, I guess you could say, my team, because I see them more as like family than my team because they do everything to help me and work together well. Because otherwise, it could become a 24 7th thing with your phone always in your hand, always putting out fires. I don't know how anybody could manage something like that.

[00:11:43]
And still we always talk about Natasha and still manage our own well-being with some level of balance. And we all have a different description of what balance means to us, but as long as we can get to what we believe is balance in our lives, that's the goal, isn't it? You know, Lynn, I've had to put up something that I'm very uncomfortable with, which is boundaries. I never really did that before. And I've had to explain to people in my life who I love that, and I do always have my phone.

[00:12:14]
I'm not going to lie. I always have my phone. And I've had to explain to them that we're all different and I have a different lifestyle, and it's not a bad one. I'm not doing anything to hurt or harm myself or others, and just please be accepting of this. And you know, as well, like, there are like, my family gets some benefits from this, you know, like, my nieces and nephews get some benefits, my mom gets some benefits.

[00:12:47]
So please just be patient with me. And I've had to just explain that I can't attend this right now because I have to take care of this. But I guess a gift that I was born with was I'm really organized. I'm very organized, which can be a. Wonderful thing or can be a detriment as well, when we only get back on those kinds of things.

[00:13:17]
I think being organized, but also being open and flexible. And any teacher, anybody who's in the role of education is definitely someone who's flexible, then you can shift, right? You can shift, but you've got that plan to always fall back on. I'm not wait too. Absolutely.

[00:13:32]
Yeah. And I see it a lot like teaching because it's kind of like, as we were sharing earlier, I have a lot of spreadsheets and I have a lot of different digital portfolios that I look at, and everything is digitized, and it's organized and everybody's color-coded, and everybody's got a number, and it's a lot like teaching. All you got to do what I realized very early on is you set up that these are the rules and regulations. These are the provincial rules and regulations, the municipal rules and regulations. So this is what we're going to do.

[00:14:18]
And if you're uncomfortable with that, well, then maybe this isn't a good fit. It's just like a classroom. These are my norms. I always kept a tidy, organized classroom. If you're not okay with that, well, unfortunately, you might have to sit out this activity until you're ready to join and participate.

[00:14:39]
And when I come to your room at your house, your parent's house, and you like, it messy, well, I'll just leave my plate and my shoes and my stuff everywhere. I've done party things. So it's like, people got to meet you where you're at. And obviously, kids are so beautiful. They are so flexible.

[00:14:58]
They start to become cleaner than you. I don't know.

And the tenants, well, they are also loving it, too, because they don't live in a pixel. Oh, boy. Okay, well, let's talk about something, another thing that we have in common, because we have so much in common, and that's early intervention, helping kids identify where they're having challenges early and getting in there so that we can change that trajectory to a positive one. So you also are working with ESL. I'm just going to throw it out.

[00:15:33]
I'm not the person who's at the board or anything, but having you come back to the board after your sabbatical, Natasha, you come with all these additional skills and levels of expertise, courses that you've taken internationally. My goodness, you scoop you up in a second. You should think about going into administration. I'll just put that plug in. Oh, my gosh.

[00:15:52]
Everybody tells me that a former colleague of ours would put the principal application on my desk every day. And I was like, oh, no, I. Tell you a story. I was in a different county, and my husband and I wanted to move back here. Both our families are very much in this area.

[00:16:09]
We wanted to move back here. I was pregnant with my third child, and I came down for a vice principal interview with the public school board in the area that we're at. And I wore a bright red dress, and that was in 1997, when, you know, you think that might not work in your favor. Yeah, awesome. I got a job offer for September.

[00:16:28]
I had to decline it because I had a baby on September 17, but we came down several months later and yeah. So you're moving from different boards. Moving from different yes. There's lots of opportunities, and I'm speaking to all of the listeners and the viewers who might be looking at, hey, I need a change. Right?

[00:16:42]
And you're not stuck with who you are. You just have to be saying, hey, what are some options I maybe haven't thought about before? So if you're a teacher and you think, I want to make a change, it might be to administration and then you can move to another board, right? Yeah. You know, Lynn, it's so interesting you say that.

[00:16:58]
And I have to preface this by saying that Lynn was always an amazing dresser. You always dress very elegantly and professionally. And I'll never forget that day when I saw you with that brown suit. It was just so beautiful and you had a little belt and she looks great. It's hard for us to take compliments, isn't it?

[00:17:1]

So, I mean, that's the other thing where in the past I would be embarrassed and now it's, you know, okay, thank you very much. If we did that more for each other, just imagine how we could lift each other up. Thank you. That made my day.

[00:17:30]
Yeah. I think that is part of our self-appreciation. And as we said earlier, self-forgiveness is to accept compliments because we don't see ourselves. And especially sometimes when you're very organized, you might I'm just saying people might be very A type. We don't see ourselves, we see our fault sexually and we think we're imposters.

[00:17:57]
And for a very long time in this job, in this role, I thought I was an imposter. And I would look around and be like, what am I doing here? I don't need to be here. And then I realized, no, I also come with skills and abilities. And one of them is ESL, because I'm really good at language, so I can speak to the families and explain to them.

[00:18:21]
Because part of our culture I am Middle Eastern as well, and part of our culture is that we're coming hopefully to terms with the fact that kids have special needs. And that's something that I do here as well in intervention, is I work with families and I explain to them that it doesn't mean that you did something wrong. It just is and it's okay. And it's a part of diversity. And your child will have other gifts.

[00:18:54]
And just because they can't read right now doesn't mean that in five years they won't be able to read that's right. We just have to look at it in a different way. Alright. I hate because we could go on with this forever, but we got to talk about philanthropy. You and I didn't discuss this before, but you are described as a philanthropist.

[00:19:13

So help us understand how did that all happen and what is it that you're doing Natasha?

So I've done a lot of work in the community. I still do a lot of work in the community. I don't give like I used to say, I kind of invented different good products. At one point I had a chapstick and I would sell that in salons and all the money I would donate to downtown Mission or different things.

[00:19:41]
When I started my business, what we were doing is taking 10% of the monthly rent and giving that to different charities or anybody who had a call out. So united Way would do a lot. We would give a lot with United Way. And I just felt like, you know, because I invest in Windsor, Essex and my tenants are living and working in Windsor, Essex and I feel like the more a community is supported, the better living they have. And if we can give back to the community, they're giving to us.

[00:20:14]
So I felt like as a business, we should give back to the community and support them the way they're supporting us. And because we invest locally, we should give locally. And so we were doing that and we still do it. We still do it whenever anybody contacts us or we see something. And when I say we, that's because I have accountants and lawyers.

[00:20:39]
So whenever something comes up and then so we just cut a check for whatever it might be. And I feel that it's really important because if you're blessed, then you should be a blessing to others. You know what? I need to have a sidebar conversation with you because my niece and I, who just published the children's book series right, we're on book three out of book five. We've been making donations to various places in the community, but we are looking for a not-for-profit that is not under a larger umbrella where we can do a partnership with some type of permanent partnership where a certain percentage of our sales or there's all kinds of different ways that you can do.

[00:21:17]
Right. I'll just put that out there for anyone in Essex County. Yeah, absolutely. Oh boy. And you're just going to have to model what we talked about earlier.

[00:21:29]

You've received many awards. I'll put you on the spot. Could you just speak about one in particularly? I'm sure they all move you in a different way. What's one you can focus on today?

[00:21:42]
I'm really grateful for all of them. I just think I'm kind of a hard worker and I'm a little bit ambitious and I like doing things and it's nice that people recognize that. But what I'm really proud of is I was able to go to Stanford this year and I did a fellowship at Stanford. So I'm a Stanford fellow and I did have a fellow in law and policy and I was there to defend the fact that we need to change that law and we need to change 100-year-old law that was under colonial rule and it's not okay in 2022 and it just is just not okay. And so I'm really grateful that I was accepted after applying so many times and I'm really proud of myself because there was a lot of very important people there.

[00:23:01]
And I'm proud that I was able to speak on this subject and let it be known that it's just not okay. Well, and so that leads me to another branch because I'm really proud about that. But in your professional speaking, too. So you're so busy right now. Are you still able to accept invitations to be a professional speaker at any forum at any event?

[00:23:30]
I do. I mean, I do accept, and I do like, workshops and talks and things like that. I slowed down a little tiny bit, only because I've had to focus a lot more on my work and my business. And I think I've kind of focused my lens a little bit more, and I think that that has taken up a lot of my time. But of course, I don't decline invitations.

[00:24:00]

And I also seek people out where I think their audience might like to know, they might feel uplifted. And everything is possible if you focus and you plan and you organize, and everything is possible, and you don't have to do it. All. I have to say, I'm not married and I don't have children, so of course I have extra time. I also live in a country currently where health is very readily available, and it's very cheap.

[00:24:37]
So I don't have to clean my own house, I don't have to do my own laundry. That buys me a lot of time. Yeah, but, you know, which goes to my mission to making conscious and positive choices. Right? So where do you spend your time? And some people don't have a choice.

[00:25:00]
They have to go to a job they hate, because there's just not an option for right now. They have to pay the bills out around the table, but that doesn't mean they can't start looking or keeping their eyes open for other opportunities. Those of you who are listening and watching, all right, we've got to jump over to something because you just had an experience. You weren't guitar for the World Cup games, for the FIFA games. All right?

[00:25:20]
So just give me a little bit. Where were we? Oh, I can't remember. Three years ago, four years ago for the World Cup juniors, and we were in Lisbon. And I'll tell you, the energy whoa, boy, do you fly off.

[00:25:33]
I can't imagine. What was it like?
I have never been to something like this before. I've been to games, local games, house games, school games, and stuff like that. I wasn't going to go, but my mom was like, this is an iconic game because A, Canada managed after 36 years to get back in. B, they're playing in Qatar for the first FIFA in the Middle East, and they're playing against Croatia, which is my mom's home country. And my favorite Premier League team is a Croatian team.

[00:26:20]
And so it was like, you gotta go. And at first, I was like, no, I don't have time, I'm too busy. And then a friend of mine from Canada is there for a month and he was like, you have to come. You are a 1-hour plane ride. What's wrong with you?

[00:26:41]
You need to be here. So I got it. I don't even know how I got a ticket and to that specific game. And then I went and it was from the moment I got off the plane, it was as if I was in a magical land. First off, Qatar is the richest country in the world, fuel and gorgeous.

[00:27:05]
And they have this thing organized, like down to the tea, nothing is missing. And it was phenomenal. Like, I've never seen fireworks.

[00:27:25]
You cut out there. Go back to I've never seen fireworks.

[00:27:31]
Okay? I have never seen something like this. Fireworks, people on stilts, bands playing. It was like a carnival dancing. And I mean, the opening ceremonies for this game, I didn't even know that they did something like that for a game. It was out of this world. And, you know, they had this, like, this World Cup, like, spinning in the air and I was just I was in awe for the last two days. In awe. I got back home and I was thinking, do I have to go back to work?

[00:28:12]
It was amazing. Amazing. As you know, you've seen it. Yeah. And we're hoping to go in 2024 or just you think ahead. Oh, well, you should start thinking about you start planting the seed right, to make it happen. Listen, we could talk forever. And I want to apologize to people who are viewing because we've had some ins and outs with the internet here. We're doing our best from two sides of the world. But do you have any final closing comments, Natasha?

[00:28:36]
And where can people find you if they want more information? Sure. So they can always find me on all my social media. It's all the same at Nefese Feghali and that's all my social media. Or Natasha FeFeghali on basically my name, you can find me online.

[00:29:01]
And I would say that when you don't think that you have any more courage left and you can't be brave, that's when you can be your bravest. And where you will find that little ounce of courage inside of you somewhere to push you to the next path or dream or idea. And even if the idea doesn't go anywhere, at least you tried. Who can fault you for having an idea? No one.

[00:29:37]
I just have nothing else to say because those are perfect and beautiful and inspiring closing contractors. And that's what you do. It just comes to you naturally. So thank you so much for joining, for joining us from overseas, and I wish you all the very best. Natasha thank you, Lynn, for having me.

[00:29:55]
And I feel like this won't be the last time. No, I'm very grateful. I'm very grateful to you. I'm grateful to you. Right back at you.

[00:30:05]
I just love it when there's so much energy and I connect with my guests. We just have this two-way connection. It's fantastic. That was awesome, Natasha. And our next guest will be Helen panels.

[00:30:15]
And Helen's doing some really fascinating things in the United States around advocacy for parents. She is the CEO of the Dynamics Learning Academy, and she and I have connected pretty well as well. So we'll see you in two weeks’ time. Stay healthy and safe.

[00:30:37] Music Outro
Thanks for tuning in and posting your review of taking the helm on your favorite platform. We'll give you a shout-out in a future episode to be inspired by people who are steering us in the right direction. Go to lynmclaucklin.com, where you can search previous guests by the topic of your choice. And while you're there, download Lynn's gift. There's more than one way to get through a crisis.

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