"Did you hear the latest? Mindy Grossman -- ranked by Forbes Magazine as one of the most Powerful Women in the World -- is leaving Nike to go to the Home Shopping Network." For some of her fans, like me, who have been tracking...

Dozens of books and hundreds of blogs are written expounding the secrets of happiness. Well, who wouldn't like to learn some "secrets" to unlocking their inner happiness?

At a recent Looking Beyond charity luncheon, I got the opportunity to ask two very special people what their secret...

I first heard about Somaly Mam and her work of rescuing young women and girls from the horrors of the sex traffic industry when I was doing research on visionary women for my last book Pioneers of the Possible: Celebrating Visionary Women of the World (2012). I was...

It is said that pound for pound, jockeys are the strongest athletes in the world and women are thought to be physically weaker than their male counterparts. Now just imagine that a woman decided stereotypes and odds were not going to get in the...

Today Milken Institute's Global Conference was launched in Los Angeles bringing together over 3,000 of the world's brightest minds in business, finance, policy, education, health, energy and philanthropy for prestigious two day event off educational lectures, panels and interviews on various topics affecting our world today.

I had the privilege...

My second book, "Pioneers of the Possible: Celebrating Visionary Women of the World," is due to launch in conjunction with the celebration of International Women's Day.

My hope is that the stories of these visionary women present to us the flame of the passionate life, the knife of insight,...

I was a tearful mess the entire summer before my son, Phillip, went off to college. I couldn't help it. I would come down to the kitchen in the morning and see Phillip sitting in the family room watching ESPN, and I would sigh to myself, "Oh, he won't be...

I will never forget that Wednesday afternoon in my writing class where a group of us writers were editing each other's work. Samantha, a gorgeous woman with an effervescent personality, was sharing a chapter in her memoir. Heads turned when we stumbled upon a paragraph describing her family life and...

It is early October and hundreds of wide-eyed freshman girls are criss-crossing UCLA's grounds on their way to classes or meetings of the student groups they've just joined or gatherings of new friends. I take this road often, and each fall I am reminded...

The first time I saw him on stage three years ago, I was mesmerized. His long jet-black hair lashed to and fro with each spin. At this particular performance some dance pieces seemed to magically suspend and stretch in time, while other pieces seemed to zap me and vanish in...

We all have heard it when we talk to our girlfriends, somehow in mid-conversation the cursed word slips out -- "I feel like I am not good enough". While in the gym, we are fretting about work, while working we are thinking about how we missed the last bake sale...

I only had 48 hours to spend in one of my favorites cities, and I already knew how those two days would play out. Imagine, The Great Race, only with no other contestants but me, and the great wilderness -- the bustling streets of New York with its legions of...

You never expect to run into your mother in certain places: a nightclub, a concert, or at one of those juice-detox bars that are springing up everywhere in Los Angeles. But how about in the middle of an intersection on Crescent Drive in Beverly Hills? I mean, I really ran...

While the Middle-East is rocked with unprecedented unrest, Los Angeles seems to have welcomed goodwill ambassadors from Iran -- well, that is, in the form of an alternative-classical Persian-jazz band by the name of Dang Show.

"The peace and liberty that we all...

Last week I was having lunch with a longtime friend, who happens to be a professor of Political Science. We chuckled over how differently we register the world around us. "I look at things more from a broad, economic or political angle, you know," she said, tapping me on the...

When she wasn't giggling, she talked in a rapid-fire, sing-song register. And her voice -- her voice carried a slight raspy edge. We constantly whispered in each other's ears and wrote notes to each other in the middle of class.

Although the courtyard in front of the strict and...

The subject line in the e-mail read, "Flamenco Dance Show -- Come at Your Own Risk!" That is exactly how I sent my digital invitation to my upcoming flamenco recital. And of course, there are other liabilities that my friends and family have to consider with me in the performance:...

If the Mediterranean Islands were members of a family, Sardinia would be the glamorous one whose personality overshadows all her siblings. Saying, "I'm spending my summer holiday in Sardinia" definitely carries a certain cache of sophistication. Indeed, many tourists are willing to spend over two thousand dollars a night to...

I hadn't felt this way about a film since I was 10 years old, sitting in a packed and darkened theatre, watching Stars Wars. At that moment, even as a little child, I felt I was witnessing a story that was larger than life. Yesterday, I was once again stunned...