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Inspiring Women in Food: Overcoming Challenges, Finding Success

This article is more than 4 years old.

Happy Mother's Day to all our female readers! In this article the stories of  four inspiring women who model the strength and courage women show in the face of adversity is shared. These women overcame challenges  and went on to build thriving  companies. 

Chef Lisa Dahl is the executive chef and CEO of four restaurants in Northern Arizona’s red rock country. She founded her first restaurant, Dahl & Di Luca Ristorante Italino, in 1995. According to the company, Dahl Restaurant Group has since expanded to become the largest restaurant group in Northern Arizona serving nearly 400,000 guests annually. 

Chef Lisa Dahl

via Dahl Restaurant Group

Julia Olayanju : You suffered an unimaginable loss several years ago, could you share your story with us?

Lisa Dahl: After  the tragic murder of my son Justin, I sought healing and moved to Sedona, a town famous for its metaphysical energy and healing powers. Through my tragedy, I had the realization that if I was going to get back on my feet, I had to do something that brought me back into life’s daily rhythm to fulfill a higher good. Starting my life over again allowed me to reflect deeply on this and unearth a passion I once shared with my son - cooking. By immersing myself in the kitchen and working with my hands to create food that fed my soul, I began feeling the love that I had been missing. I was able to open my first restaurant, Dahl & Di Luca Ristorante Italiano in 1995, which I turned from a small, shuttered drive-through restaurant into one of Sedona’s most cherished fine dining establishments serving classic Italian dishes. As demand grew, I expanded my presence in Sedona by opening Cucina Rustica in 2003, followed by Pisa Lisa in 2013 and Mariposa in 2015.

As a female chef in the male-dominated culinary world, it wasn’t easy to buy out my original partner, go out on my own and expand my brand. Throughout the first eight months of opening, I thought a lot about giving up and questioned if this was the path I was supposed to take. One day, a friend of mine came to me to tell me about a dream her son had the night before. Although he never knew my son, he dreamt that Justin appeared and told him, “Tell my mom I’m with her.” From that point on, I rolled up my sleeves and worked in the pizzeria every single day. On the eve of our one-year anniversary at Pisa Lisa, the once-struggling concept surpassed $1 million in business. If I didn’t hear that spiritual voice from my son, I don’t think this would ever have happened. It’s been 24 years since the death of my son and I still don’t consider him gone. The more I believe that he is here, the more lives I am able to touch through my cooking.

Julia Olayanju: Could you share the  most important strategy that helped you get through difficulty and create the success you desired?

Lisa Dahl: Changing my perspective of problems versus challenges. 

Everyday you are going to face challenges, but I’ve found that it’s all in how you perceive them that matters. Everyday you are going to face challenges, but I’ve found that it’s all in how you perceive them if you’re going to get through them.
The more that I’m in present in my restaurants, the more that these challenges are put on my plate. With an employment group of more than 250 people, how are we going to fix these things? If you look at them as problems, they will defeat you. If you look at them as challenges, it’s how you rearrange the pieces of the puzzle to somehow trick your mind that you will overcome it.   

Reem Rahim Hassani is the Co-Founder and Chief Brand Officer of Numi Organic Tea, a leading producer of certified organic tea. 

Reem Hassani Chief Brand Officer Numi Tea

Numi Tea

Hassani  is a mission-driven entrepreneur who strives to foster a healthy, thriving global community via her work with Numi and the Numi Foundation. Through her work with Together for H2OPE, an initiative of the Numi Foundation, Reem works to provide clean, safe drinking water access to Numi’s farmers around the world. In 2018, she embarked on an education and infrastructure program in Assam, India to bring clean water and sanitation to Numi’s 6,500 farming families in the region.

Hassani has faced her fair share of challenges. Prior to starting her company with her brother, she came close to losing her life in a car accident.

Julia Olayanju: What happened to you and how did you get through the difficult time?

Reem Hassani: It was the end of the summer and I was entering my senior year of college studying Biomedical Engineering. One sunny day, I was on a road trip from Cleveland to New York City. I was a front seat passenger and the driver lost control of the car. The car flipped over twice, the door was swung open and my legs flew out getting crushed between the car and the ground. Both my knees were completely dislocated and the arteries behind my knees were severed. I endured eight surgeries within a month.

For years, I had the uphill battle of simply accepting my accident. I gave up on my engineering career and pursued art which was a long time passion and hobby for me. It was really the only time I felt okay, absorbed and out of my own head. It became my outlet and road to healing. I pursued art school both in the States and in Italy for 2 years where I studied under two mentors who took me under their wing and literally helped me get on my feet again. They gave me the permission to paint as a cathartic means to pour all my feelings and thoughts out on the canvas. Having that as a mirror for myself allowed me to witness my anger, confusion, hurt and self-pity. Along with years of therapy and healing retreats, I was able to move through the pain, accept my limitations and feel grateful for what I have.

Julia Olayanju: Could you share the most valuable strategy, that got you through the tragedy and helped you create the success you desired? 

Reem HassaniI have  learnt the power of gratitude.   "Appreciating what I have versus focusing on what I’ve lost, knowing there is someone who is always worse off" Appreciating what I have versus focusing on what I’ve lost, knowing there is someone who is always worse off than myself. This perspective has helped me feel blessed for who I am in the moment and being able to live day by day. Only when we can live in the moment can we make it to the next and for me, that is success - being able to be present with what is, not denying or avoiding it; accept what is given to me as my fate, as a teacher to challenge me to make the most of who I am and my capacity to self-reflect and be better. Having a sense of perspective continues to be a guiding force for success.

 Meenal Lele is the founder and CEO of Lil Mixins. Prior to starting her current company, the University of Pennsylvania alum was part of a founding team that built  a multi-million dollar healthcare company from the ground up, a company that was later acquired.

Founder & CEO Lil Mixins

via Lil Mixins

Julia Olayanju: Tell us your story, what led you to starting your business?
Meenal Lele: After the acquisition of my first company, I started working on another technology in blood collection. My role was to build the clinical data, showing evidence that our products worked before market introduction. Less than a month into this second start-up, my son ended up in the emergency room from a reaction to eggs. Over the next year,  my son was hospitalized multiple times with issues stemming from his food allergies.
Considering all that my son went through, It struck me that so many children had the chance to avoid such a medical-heavy future.
 So I leaned on what I had learned over the previous two ventures and decided to create a line of baby foods that help parents introduce allergens early. They are wholesome foods, not a medicine, but they have the power to prevent food allergies. The trick again will be to help people learn about   leap study  and find the parents, nurses, and pediatricians, who will see the most benefit from it.
Julia Olayanju: Could you share the most important strategies that helped you get through difficulty and create the success you desired?
Meenal Lele: The most important strategy might be to periodically take a break. Everyone wants every problem solved yesterday but when nothing seems to be working, you often just have to step away from the problem for a day. Often that leads to a new thought, new options, or simply time to let go of the frustration and get back at it.

Sylvie Charles MD, founder of Just Date Syrup and a former University of California, San Francisco (USCF)  physician. Charles  grew passionate about refined sugar over the course of her career. Ultimately, she left medicine to follow her passion of bringing healthier, natural sugar alternatives to consumers, especially those who need it most- people with or at risk for diabetes

Julia Olayanju: Tell us your story, what led you to starting your business?

Sylvie Charles: While working as a physician at UCSF, my focus was always integrative medicine - combining eastern and western medical practices with holistic nutrition in treating my patients. Then I got  injured with a debilitating spine injury and had to take a medical leave of absence. It was during that time that my passion for cooking healing food became stronger. I decided to leave medicine to bring refined sugar-free chutneys to my Indian community that was often riddled with diabetes. While working on the formula for my tamarind date chutney, I created a syrup out of medjool dates. Almost instantly, it struck me that this is what my community needed - an absolutely delicious natural sweetener that had the low glycemic index and nutrient content of medjool dates. Retailers quickly agreed and Just Date Syrup was born. I worked incredibly hard for a year to recover from my spine injury while starting this business. After a year, I became pregnant- a feat that my spine doctors didn’t think I could handle. But now, here I am, with an amazing six month old baby and a two year old business, and we are all thriving!

Julia Olayanju: Could you share the most important strategies that helped you get through difficulty and create the success you desired?

Sylvie CharlesBreaking the big vision into small steps. I immediately had a vision of what a Just Date Syrup could be but had no business experience. I had to take every day and focus on achieving all the little moves that could lead to the larger execution. The most important step here was to talk to and learn from as many people as I could with experience in consumer packaged goods.

 

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