The month before the world began to lock down, I was in Istanbul doing the launch of the Turkish edition of How Women Rise. My sister, Cece Helgesen, who lives in France, flew over to meet me. As we were leaving the luxury conference hotel for the more modest confines of the tourist quarter, exhaustion overwhelmed me. My sister elected to stay with me in our windowless gilt room, confusingly described by the concierge as “Hammam concept.”
There we began a 10-hour conversation, in which my sister thoroughly reviewed and critiqued my marketing strategy and I gave her the courage to leave a job she had outgrown. The upshot of that day, which we’ve since referred to as Hammam Concept Day, is that we’ve continued a peer coaching as well as a sisterly relationship.
Cece also began to work with me and this newsletter is one result of that collaboration. Today, two and a half years later, we are meeting in Washington DC for a second Hammam Concept Summit. We have much to celebrate professionally and personally—and we are together again for the first time since November 2019. Fittingly, we are in yet another Islamic setting— the beautiful home of Cece’s dear Palestinian friend, Samar Najia—reminding us of our final day in Istanbul where we prayed at the Blue Mosque for the return of Cece’s dog Kimbo, who had wandered off into the night before she left.
He showed up the day after she returned!