1. 😊Hi Bita,
Thank you for accepting our invitation to answer some questions as an international woman of our network! To start with, tell us a little about yourself, the work you do, your hobbies, the most remarkable place you have visited abroad, things like that.
Bita- The pleasure was all mine.
I am Bita Roshandoony, and I am a professional fulfillment Coach. I am trained by Tonny Robbin's and CoActive institute.
I help women in their thirties to find their passion, develop their goals, and get on the path that makes them happy.
I believe all of us have the right to follow our dreams.
I invite internationals to my house and showcase Iranian cuisine as a hobby. I have asked people from South Africa, The USA, The Netherlands, Turkey, etc. I also love to connect to new people, go to different restaurants, and read insightful books. I have visited Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, Turkey, and England.
2. How do you manage to cope with your visual impairment so gracefully?
In other words: How does the resilience you've built personally impact the work you do?
I face my challenges as adventures and the opportunity to grow. As a blind person, challenges could be even small things that prevent you from doing what you want to do. Like; walking somewhere you don't know or using the favorite and useful websites that are not accessible whatsoever.
I am very optimistic and believe there is always a solution for everything.
In my business, I have challenges like not being able to make videos or put pictures on social media, understanding people's body language, etc. However, resilience helps me fight for my dreams and not give up on these challenges.
3. How has been your experience empowering women as a coach so far?
I always coach them toward messiness. Life is messy, and so is entrepreneurship.
You have to value your dream so much to be able to strive for it.
We have an Iranian saying: "If someone wants a peacock has to accept the suffering of going on a voyage to India."
Because in the old days, we didn't have a peacock in Iran, and the people who wanted to see this bird had to go to India on foot or by horse.
4. Where do you come from, and why did you choose Amsterdam as your new home?
I come from Iran, and the reason we chose here was my partner getting accepted to Booking.com.
5. How long have you been living here, and how is it adapting to the multicultural Amsterdam style? Do you see any differences between here and your hometown?
It's been five years that we have been living in the Netherlands. So naturally, there are a lot of differences. The most popular one was the frankness of the Dutch people or not making Dutch friends without speaking their language.
As a person from an Islamic country, we had many cultural shocks first, like; people have children before getting married. Then we could adapt slowly.
6. Socially: Do you hang out mostly with fellow Iranians, or is your social life more multi-culturally oriented?
I have both communities. I love communicating with internationals, because of learning from them and their countries.
I also love to hang out with Iranians since I can talk in my language and present more emotion.
Long story short, I love to hang out with everyone.
7. How did you get to know the Amsterdam International Women, and how has been your experience with the network so far?
I knew it from this group on Facebook called "Amsterdam | Girl Gone International."
I recently joined and attended the Thursday walking event and loved the atmosphere.
All women were empowering, and despite being a bit far from Amsterdam, I will attend more of these events.