Hala Fadel is chair of the MIT Enterprise Forum of the Pan-Arab region and has laid the efforts to organize the MIT Arab Business Plan competition, which is now in its fifth year with over 3,000 participants every year from 17 Arab countries. She is also a European Equity Fund Manager at Comgest. The Group has $13bn under management, all run for institutions in Europe and the middle east. Comgest is characterized by a tried and tested management style, focused exclusively on the investment in a limited number of quality growth listed companies. Hala also runs the Islamic funds practice within Comgest. Prior to joining Comgest, she was an analyst and associate in mergers and acquisitions at Merrill Lynch in London.

Hala has a Bachelor degree from HEC and holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
At MIT, she participated in and was among the winners of the MIT $100K Business Plan Competition, following which she started a telecom software company, Booleo, in the Cambridge area, which she eventually sold.
She is married and has 3 kids.

This post was originally written by Chris Brogan on Google+.

I have been thinking a lot about which roads I travel lately, the metaphorical kind. For the last few decades, I’ve become quite a people pleaser, in the worst sense of that, in an unhealthy sense. I’m working on learning how not to do that. Part of that is avoiding. Avoidance. I try to avoid ucky feelings and conflicts.

I hate arguing. I’m not good at it. I get hurt too simply. I fight back at the wrong times.

But I’m trying to learn. I’m just a learner. Every day, I work on parts and succeed at parts, even when others don’t see it. And I get stronger, a little bit at a time, and I make better choices, a few more each day.

I prefer quiet roads. I prefer it when there aren’t so many conflicts. But evidently, I’m not choosing the right road, if I want to get to my destination, because selecting only quiet roads means that I’m letting the roads choose where I go, instead of choosing myself.

Extracted from Steve Jobs Commencement Address at Stanford University, delivered 12 June 2005, Palo Alto, CA

Sometimes life’s going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love.

And that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking — and don’t settle.

As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.

So keep looking — don’t settle.

“You know, I do believe in magic. I was born and raised in a magic time, in a magic town, among magicians.

Oh, most everybody else didn’t realize we lived in that web of magic, connected by silver filaments of chance and circumstance. But I knew it all along. When I was twelve years old, the world was my magic lantern, and by its green spirit glow I saw the past, the present and into the future.

You probably did too; you just don’t recall it.

See, this is my opinion: we all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand.

But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age. Told to grow up, for God’s sake. And you know why we were told that?

– Robert. R. McCamman

Read Full Blog Post: http://krix.me/hbYCrn

Sometimes life’s going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love.

And that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking — and don’t settle.

As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.

So keep looking — don’t settle.

Extracted from Steve Jobs Commencement Address at Stanford University, delivered 12 June 2005, Palo Alto, CA

Full video, audio and text can be found here

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