Hi everyone, this is Kate Snow, and I'm so excited to share a conversation I had with Zaynab Salby, a humanitarian author and TV host.

We met for Turkish coffee at Café Mogadour in New York City.

It's part of my series The Drink with Kate Snow, where I speak with innovators, influencers, and industry leaders all about their success stories.

You can find more of these

conversations at NBCNews.com slash the drink. I meditate a lot. That's sort of what keeps me

stable. Yeah. That in Turkish coffee. And Turkish copy after the meditation, never before,

you know.

Zainab Salby, you are a human rights advocate, you are a commentator, you are a woman who interviews others, I mean, you're so many different things. You're from Iraq originally.

How did you get from Iraq to the life you have here

in America now? My story started with my family knowing Saddam Hussein. My father was his personal

pilot and the head of Iraq aviation. His personal pilot. Commercial pilots, yes. You have a story about making coffee for Saddam Hussein.

Yes, yes.

So the relationship was not by choice.

When he chooses a friendship, you have two choices, basically, to say no, is to be killed.

One day, the president shows up in front of our house. I make coffee for, I thought,

not only the president, but for all of his entourage. Right. Anyway, I go put the best tray,

silver tray with like engravings in it and the best coffee cups and I enter the room thinking that I'm serving

coffee for someone I don't know and he looked at me and he said Zanuba. This must be Zanuba,

which is my nickname, what my parents call me. And I was just like, the president knows who I am.

Oh my God. You end up in the United States. Oh my God.

You end up in the United States, you end up coming to Chicago, right?

Being sent out of Iraq to Chicago for an arranged marriage.

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