Sihame El Kaouakibi
speaker
330 appearances
6 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard May 2025
Sihame El Kaouakibi’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Yeah, I love the question again, because like you said, mental health is something a lot of people deal with today. It's not only about measuring mental health and having more assessments and having more people going to therapy or talking about it. It's really an issue that in this
difficult times where everything is a little bit confusing, where we have a lack of leadership as well, a lack of sense of belonging sometimes, that the things that are happening in the world also just weigh on people. And for me, politics was maybe ignited something that was, of course, leads to something from a young age.
And of course, as a child, OK, but it's the last four years that have been transformational. Like I said, I was always on top of my game, going like a high-speed train. I had these very short and long-term goals, high on the prize, accomplishment. And then when life takes an unexpected turn, for me, in just one day, I went from doing very well to hitting rock bottom.
And that confusion, stress, anxiety, but also the rejection that came with it had such a huge impact on my mental health, life, and career that, of course, when you slow down and dig deeper and do the work,
Yeah, of course, it's connected with who is Siham, who was Siham when she was like this eight-year-old child and then in her teenager time, what led Siham to this, yeah, to this time of confusion. So for me, for example, when everything happened to me a couple of years ago, like really the big, Clack. The doors slammed shut in my face. I really tried to solve the situation with coping mechanisms.
I knew. But it made things worse. So this really led to life-changing questions. It also led to zero self-belief and confidence. And you mentioned success. For me... I personalize myself with success. But when you personalize yourself with your success, you do the same with your failures. Without success, without my work, without external validation and recognition, I felt like nothing.
I felt a nobody. And this comes from someone whose work was empowering people until they could say, I am somebody. So this was really so painful. The rejection was, I couldn't get a grasp on my life again. So I really had to put in a lot of work. after I realized that rock bottom can become fertile ground. And it became fertile ground for me. But I couldn't do this by myself.
It was my support system. It was coaching. It was therapy. It was podcasts, books, going back to study, all these things, all these programs. I decided to use this rock bottom as a reset button. And yeah, I could just rebuild from the ground up. What are your values? Politics led me far away from my core beliefs and values, so I could align back with my real values.
I could rewrite my purpose, my ikigai. I could align them with what I was doing, with my action, and I could redefine success, health. And even though it's actually this period of struggling with my mental health changed my perspective on what it means to have a successful career and to be at our best in our health, at work, in our careers, in our relationships.
And that personal journey became just this transformation to let go of a lot of things, to let go of control, to let go of my ego, the ego of my past success, I call it. Do you really want to go back to the person you were, the situation you were in?
And no, embrace the privilege that maybe the fact that you can slow down can also has led me to realizing that I am somebody without accolades and achievements. So actually, my mental health today is better than before. But before, I didn't feel it because I was so busy in my head. I wasn't in my body. So today, it's really being aligned with your mind, body and soul. It's true.
And I had to experience it in a very hard way. But this healing journey is... It was an opportunity, is an opportunity to learn, to grow, to pivot. It's a journey to re-node purpose and direction. And today you just understand that you need to build your mental health and the way you approach life and projects or work or whatever, relationships in a more sustainable way.
And of course, it took me a lot of time. It took me three years. And so that's why I said besides consulting, I love coaching because I don't think it has to take three years and you can do this alone. So I'm so privileged that during my mental health crisis.
journey like going from rock bottom to where i am today and how i approach life today is of course because i had an abundance of love and warmth and grateful to have the health the physical health as well and to be able to cope with this very dark period to where i am today full of light
Politics is a difficult chapter in my life, so I'll take time to think about the lines that I want to share. And I think I have to start from the beginning and then go towards the lessons learned. So if I start with the beginning, back then I was 28, working at full speed as an entrepreneur.
Our organizations were making a huge impact on youth and people through empowerment, impact-driven consultancy. And actually, I never...
intended to run for elections really several party leaders asked me to join their party and run i always said no was my default answer because we had impact and freedom to speak up without political affiliation so we could advocate for change for equality and justice really but like the rest of europe and the west belgium saw the rise of extreme parties
for right, conservatism, we had this racism, sexism, name it, you name it. And social media, and I was a target for that, social media became a hotbed for hate speech, which of course hurts as a community builder and leader that what we were doing, bringing people together, creating sense of belonging, uniting people through projects, tangible achievements, youth centers, et cetera.
So when I saw that these elections In 2019, this was end of 2018, beginning 2019, these elections would be pivotal for the country. So that's where, when one of the, some people came to me from a certain party, that's the first time, it was the timing as well. I was emotional because everything was happening. I could see it in the news. I was like, well, what is this?
All these campaigns, anti-women, anti-migrants, et cetera. So I decided to run in 24 hours. I consulted, of course. People close to me, but like with everything, these people that knew me as a high-performing woman, always stubborn, just doing my thing, ego-driven decisions, they just, they couldn't hold me back. I know they wanted to do, but they couldn't.
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