Dima Ghawi, a motivational speaker and career coach in Baton Rouge, never imagined that she would have been selected to speak at the TEDxLSU conference in 2014. Especially after growing up in a conservative household in Jordan, Ghawi, as a woman, had become accustomed to withholding her voice. But after moving to the United States and realizing that her equally restrictive husband—the product of an arranged marriage—would never allow her to live the independent life she dreamed of, she broke off the marriage with the help of her mother and sister, whom she helped escape from Jordan when her father began making threats against them.

Formerly the talent development manager for IBM’s Baton Rouge center, Ghawi now uses her past to expedite her future, telling the story of her life as away to inspire other career women to challenge the status quo. In January 2017, she plans to publish her first book, Breaking Vases, followed by a second about lessons in leadership in June 2017.

To learn more about Ghawi’s incredible life and and her path to success, check out our article in the November issue of inRegister, available on newsstands now.