Baton Rouge motivational speaker, leadership coach Dima Ghawi releases memoir

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    Dima Ghawi’s memoir Breaking Vases—the story of a Middle Eastern woman’s journey toward self discovery and shattering limitations—is now available for pre-order on Kindle and can be downloaded Saturday.  

    Ghawi, a motivational speaker and leadership coach in Baton Rouge, tells her story of growing up in Amman, Jordan, where cultural expectations constrained women to live quiet and subservient lives. The book follows Ghawi as she marries and moves to the U.S., only to find she is still bound by the same cultural limitations of home and of her marriage.

    Breaking Vases “captures the terrors and joys of escaping confinements” as Ghawi changes her circumstances and embraces a new life, according to the book.

    “Even though the book is a memoir, it has deep messages that apply to everyone,” Ghawi says. “Even as a story about a Middle Eastern woman, the principles can apply to anyone.”

    Ghawi came to Baton Rouge in 2013 as the talent development manager of the IBM Services Center, which she discusses in the book, after she left her marriage and pursued a career. In 2015, Ghawi left her position with IBM to start her own motivational speaking and leadership consulting business.

    She was inspired to write her memoir after she delivered a TEDxLSU talk in Baton Rouge on her life experiences and decided to branch out on her own. She says Breaking Vases is not just about her own transformation, but about inspiring others to shatter their limitations with the courage to create better lives for themselves.

    “I realized as I was writing that we go through multiple stages of transformation—some personal, some career focused,” Ghawi says. “We continue to go through transformations in order to grow and learn and build confidence. That gave me the assurance that this story is ready to come out.”

    Breaking Vases is available for pre-order at a promotional price of 99 cents on Kindle today only, along with a bonus gift. After today, the price will be $9.99. Readers can purchase and download the book on Kindle starting Saturday. By Jan. 1, physical copies can be purchased on Amazon for $18.99, and an Audible version will be available Feb. 21. Read an excerpt.

    —Annie Ourso Landry

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