Life lessons: Noura Al Kaabi

The head of human development at Abu Dhabi media hub twofour54 offers her philosophies on life

1. Try to learn from all those around you, from the driver in your company to your colleagues, as well as the young. At some stage we all reach an age where we learn more from youth than from ourselves. They have more appetite than us; they are exploring everything around them, so learn from them.

2. Discipline and consistency are essential. My father was in the military for 40 years and my mother was a school principal for 30, so in my household you couldn’t escape it. I try to bring discipline and consistency to my working environment. Your company is like a household with parents and children. If there is no consistency and the children are not taught discipline, it will be a troubled household.

3. You have to do a job well to succeed, no matter how you got the job in the first place. And linked to this, transparency is the key to a successful working environment and home. Things will never go well until everyone is in a room together, talking and working through differences.

4. Remember that your friends are a reflection of you; they portray who you are, just like the list of those you follow on Twitter does. Friends define you, so it is important to be selective.

5. Give something back. For some people, being Emirati is a wonderful free ride until the day they die, but others understand that giving back is how we started, how we got better.

 

As told to Helena Frith Powell

Follow Noura Al Kaabi on Twitter: @NouraAlKaabi

Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

© 2023 Helena Frith Powell
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