Sara Safari

Leading an organization is similar to climbing in extreme environments. As an electrical engineer who had never climbed any mountains, I had to learn quickly how to push myself out of my comfort zone and train for the highest mountain in the world. I learned many valuable leadership skills by climbing mountains and surviving a 7.8 earthquake at 20,000 feet on Everest. Using these new learned skills taught me how to be a better leader, professor, board member and daughter.

Every day we are dealing with different obstacles to reach our goals. Sometimes, these hurdles look like huge mountains to climb. Getting a promotion at work, achieving your educational goals, and maintaining good relationships with our loved ones are examples of challenges we deal with on a daily basis. We are all capable of overcoming our fears and climbing all these mountains if we believe “there is no limit to human potential, there is only limit in human belief!” This is a motivational talk to empower and inspire people to look at life differently and positively.

Growing up in Iran, I experienced first-hand the oppressive and restrictive environment that makes gender discrimination possible. This gave me an incentive to climb Everest to raise funds and awareness for the girls who become victims of human trafficking or are forced to get married at an early age. Coming from a patriarchal culture myself, I experienced discrimination such as “women shouldn’t climb mountains.” In this talk, I share personal stories of breaking the glass ceiling and climbing some of the highest mountains in the world.