Episode 105 - Zarif Sahin - Leaders on Leadership
If there is one thing true leaders know about leadership, it is that being a leader is not all sunshine and butterflies. You have to pay the price to earn your position, and no, it is in no way monetary or power-related. Sharing her own share of struggles as a leader and how she rose above them all, Zarif Sahin, the founder of the American Dream Team at Keller Williams in Dulles, joins Dr. Tracey Jones in this episode. Together, they explore the many ways loneliness and abandonment can be felt in the leadership role and how one can get past them with communication, humility, clarity on vision, and more.
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Episode 105 - Zarif Sahin - Leaders on Leadership
Our guest is Zarif Sahin. Zarif is the Founder of the American Dream Team at Keller Williams in Dulles. She's one of Northern Virginia's most trusted top-selling real estate brokers. She has been featured on numerous podcasts and publications. She's a TEDx speaker and won many awards. We are excited to have her share what it takes to pay the price of leadership.
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I am tremendously excited to introduce to you my newfound friend, mentor and sister, Zarif Sahin. She has been serving local and international real estate clients since 2007. Zarif shares her insightful analysis, laser-focused business skills and roadmap to creating your dream. She is a strong advocate for women's empowerment. She has received many awards, including the Top 100 Women Who Mean Business by Loudoun Business Journal, the International Women's Leadership Award by the American Turkish Association and the Top Real Estate Agent by Smart CEO Magazine. Zarif is a TEDx speaker and has been featured in publications and podcasts such as Huffington Post, Loudoun Times Magazine, The UV Effect, and True Conversations. Zarif, thank you for agreeing to be on my show.
It’s a pleasure to be here, Tracey. Thank you for the opportunity. It’s always great to talk to you ever since I met you. I love the energy and I enjoy talking to you.
Thank you. Right back at you. We connected on another show that I did for somebody else and you listened, and it was during this whole pandemic time. My dad always said, “The people you meet in the books you read.” We can still be meeting incredible, tremendous people, even in the midst of this.
It was funny how we met. I didn't see your face. I only heard your voice but I could catch the energy that you were vibing off. It was an amazing energy. I have to meet you. I reached out to the owners of that show, a host of them. I said, “I have to meet her. I would like to talk to her.”
We are looking forward to many more interactions in the future. That's good for our audience too. If you do hear a show and you listen to somebody, reach out. They'll share. None of us is famous enough yet to be like, “I can't share their personal email.” I'm glad you did that, Zarif.
Thank you.
Our audiences are leaders at all different stages of their life. My father was known as a great humorous, exhorter and motivator, but he also was pragmatic. He told people how it was, tough truth and tough love. He has a speech called The Price of Leadership, where he says that there are four prices that you have to be paying in order to truly call yourself a leader. We're going to unpack them with you so we get your input because you are an incredible leader in many aspects.
I’m interested to hear about your journey to going through these four prices. The first one he talked about was loneliness. Loneliness isn't fun. It's lonely at the time. Especially sometimes, as women, we want to please or we need affirmation. We need a lot of it. Can you explain to me, Zarif, what loneliness in a leadership capacity means to you? Maybe when you've been in a season of loneliness, and anything that you would share with our audience to encourage them?
Tracey, I'm glad that your dad wrote this book. First of all, I want to say thank you to you for sharing this with me. Thank you to your father for putting out the ugly and uncomfortable side of leadership, which I don't get to read a lot about. When I read this book, it was easy to read. I was like, “We needed to hear that.” He did touch on everything that I felt and lived through. It was nice to read that I wasn't alone in this.
For me, loneliness began when I started going into business and becoming a little bit more successful. I'm going to touch on the real estate and coaching part, instead of the other management jobs that I had. It does relate to a lot of leadership positions like management, owning your own business, going into corporate, or any of that. For me, I started to feel it more in the real estate business as a leader, especially when I was a coach. I realized that I am a friendly person. I like to talk to everybody. I'm an outgoing person.
I look at everybody as a friend or I'm inclusive with everybody but when I started becoming the leader and the coach, I realized that the people that I used to be friends with were no longer looking at me the same way. That was a shock to me because I felt like, “I can't share my secrets with them anymore. I can't share my true feelings with them anymore because I have to put this successful or capable exterior upfront.” I felt like, “I am drifting off from that friendship.”
It wasn't drifting off. It was just me getting to a different level and them seeing me differently. It wasn't me feeling different. It was them seeing me differently or the small things that they said would make me feel I am no longer like them. That was a lonely place to be because I stopped talking about the true feelings to my friends or to the public or to the audience that I had. I felt secluded or isolated because when you keep feelings inside, it festers. It explodes in another area of your life. You have to learn how to treat those feelings.
I realized that leadership comes with loneliness and I had to find a channel to release that feeling of loneliness. I don't know if you feel like that. I didn't read it in your dad's book, but he did bring up those feelings for me. I revisited those feelings. I chose to go into running. Running was a way for me to disconnect, take a little bit of time and recharge myself. Otherwise, those feelings were festering. I felt like nobody understands me anymore.
As leaders, that's a natural tendency. It's not just you, but it’s how your teammates or your followers see you. They're going to see you differently because it is different.
It's different because you are no longer just responsible for yourself. You're responsible for other people's lives, careers or jobs. That was the hardest part because I had to put my expectations or my own desires on the backburner. That part was a little hard. It was also a rewarding part of the leadership because you were helping somebody else become who they wanted to be. That comes with responsibility as a leader. That's where the loneliness comes in again. It's funny that you encouraged me to read this book because my middle daughter grew in her position.
Finally, during the pandemic, the way she’d showed up for work and the way she filled in the leadership position when they were going through some leadership changes made her show up better. It was not easy. During the pandemic, a lot of changes happen. They promoted her to be the director and I'm proud of her. There was a day when she came home and I could feel it in her energy. I could see it in her face. I said, “What's wrong? Did you have a bad day?” Initially, she didn't want to talk about it because she had that feeling of, “I can't talk to anybody about my feelings.” I was like, “I'm your mom. You can talk to me about anything you want.”
She opened up and she said, “Mom, I feel like I don't have friends anymore.” I was like, “She's going through that stage of moving into leadership and going through these uncomfortable feelings.” I said to her, “Yenda, being a leader is a hard-earned privilege. However, it's also rewarding. You just have to realize that you are transforming.” I said, “You're no longer the Yenda that used to be. You are transforming into a calling that expects you to step up both through an uncomfortable period of time, and that's where growth lives, in the uncomfortable territory.”
For your daughter and for the audience, the people that are looking at you differently, you have to remember, the expectation is that you do now act like a leader because otherwise, they're going to go, “Why did she get picked for promotion?” You put it right in there. I love the sitcom, The Office. I think about Michael Scott and how he wants to be one of the people. People see you differently and the expectation is, I know that's hard because they look at you differently, but they also expect you to act like a leader. You're not one of them anymore. I can remember being in the military. When you were an officer, you had the enlisted. We were all soldiers together, but there also was this boundary between us and them. Not in a bad way, but in a good organizational way that otherwise, you get too colluded and you start losing respect because you don't act like a leader.
Price Of Leadership: Leadership is different because you are no longer just responsible for yourself. You're responsible for other people's lives, careers, or jobs.
It creates mutual respect. I'm glad that you brought that up because I finished a book that I read previously, but when I read it again, it made more sense to me at the state of my life. It's called The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. One of the things that they touched about in that book, which resonated with me, is there are two types of people. They're the proactive people and reactive people. The proactive people have the leadership quality.
The people that don't get involved in the daily gossip or the, “Poor me. Because of this person, that happened,” those are the reactive people blaming circumstances or other people for what's happening to them. The proactive people take charge. They show up. They try to put together something to help another. What they're doing and what they're working on is not for themselves, but for the good of the greater. That's how I personally identify leaders. Are they proactive or reactive?
That happens and when I meant you no longer have friends because at some point, the group of people that you used to hang out with each event, they used to say things about maybe their bosses or their co-workers, and you were part of them. At some point, you get away from that and you start taking charge of your own life making better choices. That's where you feel lonely because they're no longer looking at you as one of them. “We can't vent to her anymore.”
When you work for somebody, work for them, speak well of them, and don't drag them down. I tell people, “Disengagement at work in this modern society, that's as old as human nature.” My dad and the leadership literature will tell you, “I love people, but people.” Your greatest joy and your greatest heartache. Only 10% are going to show up and are going to be proactive. That means I claim ownership, take action, don't sit back, don't accept blame, and ask a bunch of stupid questions.
That's the whole premise of that. That is not the norm because as humans, we're coded to be selfish and lazy. It’s the way we are. That’s human nature. I'm not laying something on mankind that's anything new so it's something intrinsic in us. For leaders, as long as you realize, you are going to be in the minority. As a leader, number one, because if leadership was easy, everybody would do it. If everybody was a self-leader, you wouldn't need a leader because everybody would just do what they think because they'd be self-autonomous, self-regulating, self-motivated, but that's not how it happens. You need leaders to do the bad stuff and ignite the greatness within. I love that she's seeing that and to let her know you're going to be one of the few, but the world is run and changed by the few. The few are who changed my life and made me who I am. All you can do is maybe ignite a few others and the world will be a better place.
I love that you are talking about your military background where discipline, this hierarchy, and the boundaries are well defined. We tried to define those boundaries, but in the military, it's well defined. You don’t cross those boundaries. I'm glad that you brought that up. One way I learned how to deal with leadership or loneliness is to have certain expectations and communicate those expectations. Communication is key in leadership. Communicate your expectations well and also put yourself in the other person's shoes and listen to their expectations of us as a leader.
It shouldn't just be us as a leader expecting things from people, but we should also try to truly understand what they expect of us in their growth journey. If you have that in writing and if you agree on that, if there's any disconnect there, just sit down and revisit that and maybe readjust that. That's an important part. Like the military, have those boundaries and have those expectations. Everybody knows their position, duties, and responsibilities. One of the ways that you can create a new relationship could be a friendly leadership relationship. It doesn't have to be disconnected. You can have that connection still with expectations.
We had to have that in the military. We were separate but when we were doing our job on the flight line, or we deploy or go to war, we were all together. You did still have these boundaries. I love that you said to have expectations. I know this was tough for me because I'm like, “Leaders, we do stuff.” “Make it happen. You got my orders.” It is important for leaders to have expectations of their followers and their team members. What is the expectation? They're not mind-readers. I tell people that complain about their bosses, “Your boss can't read your mind either. Speak.” Communicate them well and then listen.
One of the things that I mentioned to my daughter is, “You have to learn to listen differently. You used to call them friends. Now that you're a leader, you listen differently. You don't listen to respond. You listen to understand.”
What a privilege to sit there and have a leader. I can't think of the people that when I thought, “It's over. I screwed up. I did it wrong,” and they're like, “No. Just give me that little bit of insight, a sentence or two.” How beautiful that she is teachable, humble, and open to receive.
Initially, she wasn't. It took her a while to open up because it's a whole new world for her. I'm a mom before I'm Zarif or anything else, but I'm loving sharing these experiences with her as she is taking this journey.
She did catch on because initially when we're young leaders, they think we know it all or we think we know it all. I have to tell you a military story. The military will not let that happen to you because as a second lieutenant, you are to be seen and not heard. If you are an officer and you outranked 100 unlisted people, you'd be quiet because you'll know enough to say anything yet. It was good that for 4 years, 2 years as a second lieutenant, and then maybe when you're a captain, then you can ask a question or two. It taught you humility. “Just because you have the rank or the title, that doesn't necessarily mean you absolutely have any grasp of what is going on.”
Your dad touched on that in the book, and it gave me goosebumps when I was reading it. It wasn't an entitlement or endowment. It was still being humble that leadership comes with a little bit of an ego but being able to be better than your ego, you still have that humility. Humility is key in leadership. If people can connect you and feel like you're humble, talkable and approachable, then you can achieve or you can fuse inspiration to anybody that you are meeting.
I love that you said, be better than your ego because I did a podcast on humility and one of my takeaways was, “Check your ego at the door.” I kept saying that because we can't check our egos at the door. It’s part of us, but I love that you said, “You're going to bring your ego into the room.” No matter how much serenity, meditating, and praying I do, all I need is the wrong word or phone call or the wrong eye roll. I love that you said, be better than your ego because it's always there.
The higher you rank and the higher you step up, the bigger the bubble of your ego gets as well. There is a sense of gratefulness for the achievement, but there's a fine line between gratefulness and ego so we have to be able to balance the two.
We've unpacked beautifully loneliness as a leader. The next price that he talked about was weariness. He talked about, “If you're going to be doing anything worthwhile, you know this working with people. You got some people that give 1,000% and other people that you're like, ‘Did you get anything done today?’” How do you replenish and stay refreshed and strong as a leader? I know you touched on running in your last part, but how do you self-care first so you can be good for your people?
It has a couple of different parts. I love the fact that these different levels of the price of leadership is coming up because I'm in a different place now than I was a few years ago. One of the things that I used to do is running, connecting with nature, disconnecting with the decisions that I have to make every day. Getting that nature in and doing something good for myself to replenish my energy. However, I figured out that there are four different levels that I need to recharge in order to be a better leader.
One of them is the physical. What you put in your body matters. If you feel bloated, nasty, or bad about what you ate, it's going to reflect in your attitude. What you put in your body is important as much as exercise. Those are two things in the physical part, what you put in your body and how you replenish your energy. For me, it was making better choices in eating, even that's organic or home-cooked meals, or exercising more.
The other thing is social and emotional. I'm a social and outgoing person. I need to be around people, I probably would do poorly if they put me in a big acreage. I love that for a little while, but I miss my people. I need to be around people. For me, it was like connecting or surrounding myself with like-kind of people or even people that I can learn from or people that I want to become like. I need to continue to connect and continue to grow. That gives me a sense of self-fulfillment. In a way, I could say, I need to sharpen the saw. I need to constantly better myself every day so I can lead the people that I lead better too.
Price Of Leadership: Leaders are transforming into a calling that expects them to step up through an uncomfortable period of time. That's where growth lives, in the uncomfortable territory.
Social and emotional, and then there is a spiritual aspect. The spiritual aspect is I'm into the Divine God. I do my prayers at different times of the day. One of the things that I persistently and consistently do is my nighttime journal. There's a reason why I do that because I believe in how the mind works. If I journal it at night, I give my brain the ability to process that overnight, and the next day, everything becomes easier for me. The first thing I do when I wake up is I connect with God.
God is the first thing that is in my life. The sense of belonging to something helps me become a better leader. There's one more and that is reading. I read so much that I barely ever watch TV, Tracey. I like to fill my mind, body, and being with information that I can pick and choose whatever works for me and what I'm going to use to better myself. It goes into, what are you feeding your mind? What are you feeding your body? What are you feeding your spirit? Those are the three things on how I deal with weariness.
You hit the nail on the head and people think growth is draining. No, growth is rejuvenating. Growth is pruning off to prepare for the next level. I will speak for myself. When I have personally been the most depressed, ready to quit and hang out is when I have been eating a diet of trashy TV, toxic people, and just sitting there wallowing and not growing at all. You have to feed your body, mind and spirit. A lot of people are like, “I couldn't do what you do, Tracey, because I don't have the energy.”
I'm here to tell you if you don't do it, first of all, you're not only not going to be like me, but you're going to slowly die on the vine. It's the burden that kills the kings. You're going to disassociate yourself out of the land of the living and your body will catch a disease of the mind. It's like a semantic. It's clear. When I tell people that are in that rut, I'm like, “Get out. You've got to start growing.” That's what my dad would always say, “Read books and meet people.”
At the least, even if you have the worst problems in the world, can you reach out to somebody, meet somebody new, or read a book? Yes and yes. There's a price to leadership and then there's a price to also non-leadership. That's not good at all so I love that you hit on all that. Almost 100% of the leaders have said, “Up in the morning, the first thing is meditation, prayers, and getting right with the universe before I even hit the ground.” That’s universal.
Back to your father’s book about how he shares books. I love the fact that he mentioned the books because, in my opinion, the world evolves, we evolve, and people evolve. If you don't feed the right information in your mind, what you're doing is allowing your circumstances or other people to feed information into you. That’s why I don’t watch TV a lot. I'm selective about what I watch. I can probably watch a movie here and there and I'll probably fall asleep towards the end. My girls always make fun of me for that, but I choose to lose myself in a book. I choose the information that I'm going to allow into my being.
You're going to develop a taste for the good. I hear people say, “Tracey, you don't understand, I'm addicted to this.” I'm like, “Like any other addiction, you can stop that.” What I used to watch, I would never watch it now. I'll sit there and walk into a room and hear them say something, and I'm like, “Either I'm leaving or turning this nonsense off. We're not going to have it.” Before, I’m like, “What's the big deal?” It's a big deal. It all lands in here. You take it with you to bend yourself consciously, roots in your heart, and you’ve got to weed. Weeds typically grow. “I don't have to plant weeds in my mind.” The whole world does that. TV is good at planting weed, but you’ve got to guard against it and only grow the great stuff.
If you listen to any good leader, you will understand that they're selective of what they let in. What you said the analogy about the grass and the weed, what grows worse? What kills the other? Weed kills grass. That's why I'm selective about what I watch and what I listen to. I choose to also speak words of encouragement and speak the right kind of words so I can give off that energy to the people around me.
I got goosebumps when you said that. I need to work on that. Thank you for that word to remind me of that too.
Leadership is not about status. It's about how you choose to behave, talk or lead people. It's a sum of choices. It comes with responsibility. Choosing the things that you let in and choosing the words that you speak takes practice. It didn't come overnight to me. Like exercising every day, I had to work on it every single day until it became automatic. Once it became automatic, I detected like, “That word does not go into my brain today.”
That goes beautifully into the next topic. The next price is abandonment and this is your hyper-focus. My father would say, “You need to abandon what you like and want to think about or eat or watch in favor of what you need and ought to think about.” This is where self-discipline gets in because as you grow, you're going to be in different parts of the journey. What worked here is no longer going to work here. Tell me about abandonment and how you stay hyper-focused because I'm sure if you're like most of us entrepreneurs, we love all these ideas. There are many ideas and there's not enough time. That's the curse of being an entrepreneur. Stop. I pray for silence, solitude, and singularity. How do you maintain focus?
I wanted to touch on my first marathon. That was a life-changing moment for me because I got thrown into it. I was running smaller races. I never ran a marathon before but I got talked into it by my friends and I said, “Whatever. Let's do a marathon.” I had a friend who was a Marine. He gave me a piece of nugget. He said, “How do you feel about it?” I said, “I don't think I'm going to be able to do it. I'm going to die.” Because everybody was at home. My daughters were like, “You're crazy for doing it without training. You're going to die.”
This is what I was taking in, and I said that to my friend. I said, “I'm probably going to die. I don't know why I signed up for it.” All the negative stuff, and he said, “Mind over matter. You have to be able to focus on the end result that you want to have instead of the pain that you can experience.” I was like, “That's powerful.” The one sentence he said, “Mind over matter,” helped me in life. I took that and I expanded on and I want to learn more about it. Finishing that marathon taught me how to have mind over matter, possibilities over fear.
I started studying the mind, studying the fear and researching. It's all about abandoning the sense of fear. There's a way to abandon it, and laser focusing on possibilities. Both of them are invisible, Tracey. Both of them are something that you create in your mind. Why not focus on the possibility? It's because our human nature will take you back into the experience or observations that you've already experienced, or what people thought. Being able to focus on the possibility requires you to step out of what you know and step into the unknown.
That's here for people. People are afraid of the unknown but they're not afraid of how their fears are holding them back. I had to teach myself. I need to abandon my fears. My fears are only holding me back. I wanted to do many things, but then I think like, “What if I'm not good enough? What if I can't do it? What if I'm not fast enough? What if I'm not leadership material?” All these things that were in my mind before started bubbling up so I started telling myself, “I would try to catch myself and I would try to focus my attention on the things that I can control rather than the things that I cannot control.”
I can't control what happened in the past. I can't change that, but I can change what I can do in the future and focus on that only. I'll give you an example. There was a time when I tried to make a career change, going from coaching and building a team, and it was scary. There was the nonsense feeding my mind saying, “What if you can't do it?” There were some comments. There were some naysayers saying, “We'll see how that turns out.” That hit me in my core like, “Am I not good enough? They don't believe in me.”
This fire started inside of me. I started focusing and thinking about the possibilities. “What happens if I make this team work? What if I grow the team? If I have this much volume, how many people can I help?” I started focusing on the possibilities, not just for myself, but for my family and for the people that are going to be around me. I would say the one thing that helps me overcome the fear is focusing on the possibilities.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
I was married a long time ago. It didn't work out so I don't have pleasant memories of it. Fast forward, I'm single for many years and never want to get married. I have nightmares about getting remarried. My now husband who I got married to, I'm like, “Nope,” because all I kept thinking of is what's going to go wrong. Finally, somebody looked at me and said, “What if it goes right?” Thank God we got married, and it's crazy. We sit there and go because of what we know. Like my dad would say, “Make a decision, make it yours and then work it.”
The decisions that you want to die for.
I'm like, “Whatever else happens, I am a different person now. I'm going to be the best wife that I can in every way and every day.” We'll make it to that. It's funny you said that because what can go right? Stop focusing on what can go wrong. You did the marathon. You did 26 miles?
I did the 26.2.
What was that like? What did your body do?
A lot goes through in a marathon. In the beginning, there's the excitement, energy and crowd. There's so much energy, pumping music, all kinds of energy, and you start out strong. If you don't focus on preserving your energy, you’re out of energy by mile ten and you're done. You can't even go further. Not getting caught up in that energy and trying to still tell your mind to, “Slow down. Don't get caught up in this energy and you need to pace yourself.” I know a lot of people say don't pace yourself, but there is a correlation in the mind work that you have to put in.
The first twenty miles, I would say, it goes great. Each challenge, you have a little bit of pain here and there. It was great, but at mile twenty, you hit that wall and it's the proverbial wall. There isn't a wall but from everything that people said to me, I hit a wall. I don't even see a wall and I'm like, “This is the end. It's hard. I can't go on anymore.” It's a nonstop mind game in the whole marathon. It took me about 4.5 hours, maybe a little longer, but during the 4.5 hours, it was constant self-talk. The mind wants to drag you down. The heart wants to finish. It was finding that connection between the heart and the mind.
It’s like reconciling between the heart and the mind and being able to still focus on finishing it. If you hit the wall, you hit the wall hard, but then being able to tell yourself instead of saying, “This is hard,” you can say, “I went twenty miles already. I only have six more miles. I can go another six more miles.” It's what you're saying to yourself that will get you to the finish line. Once I got to the finish line in the first marathon, I was bawling and I didn't expect that feeling. It was a feeling of being run down to the ground, lifting yourself back up during that marathon, and finishing it. It’s that sense of achievement.
We get hooked because you want to taste that feeling over and over again. It was amazing. What you said about marriage and stuff, I went through an almost twenty-year terrible marriage. I don't get too much into details anymore because I'd like to focus on better things. I still need to work on that fear, too. I relate to you for many years. We got divorced in 2005 so since 2005, I have a guard up. I am not allowing people to get into my soul or my being. I need to work on that so I'm glad you brought that up.
You're welcome. If it’s going to happen to me, I'm like, “I'm married to God. This is over.” If somebody’s like, “You can’t be married to a man and God and still have a wonderful life,” I'm like, “Really? Who knew?”
It’s not my priority I should say.
I know. We've been friends for years and didn't even think about it. That's when it sneaks up on you, which is a plus way to have it happen because if I would have had to define it, I would have been like, “I can't process it,” but it just happened. It unfolded as all the beautiful things in life do.
When you're open to receiving and living it, it comes to you.
I want to say that, too, for leadership, as well as love. My husband told me that. He's like, “Tracey, everybody has a desire to love and be loved.” I'm like, “I don't. I got to leave. I got a business to run.” I was not open to it. You miss out because at the heart of leadership and everything is that love. I had closed off a big area of myself and opening up to love is maybe a much better leader in a lot of different areas.
Onto the last one, vision. My dad talks about vision is not like you have to be clairvoyant or have an IQ of Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking. My father always said because I definitely attended school in eighth grade. He's a common sense, salt of the earth guy but he said, “Vision is nothing more than seeing what needs to be done, and then doing it,” which is where a lot of people tell you, “This is where we need to go,” but then they don't do it. Zarif, how do you get clarity on your vision or where to keep building your organization?
I was surprised when I read the book that your dad put vision last. That was different to me. It triggered and sparked something in my mind. I've always put vision first, and then the steps or everything else that comes with the vision or that journey last. Your dad put it last. He wanted to talk about them. He had a mission in this book. He wanted to talk about uncomfortable steps first and then the possibilities. For me, over the years, everything I read and everything I practiced or fed to my soul and mind was being able to see what you cannot see with your eyes first. That is vision to me. Having a good sense of being able to visualize or create in your mind that possibility is important. I like that he mentioned that in his book, and it comes with a lot of doors that can open up. I believe that we are human beings in two parts. The first part is the human part, the physical part. The second part is the being that you cannot see with your eyes. It's the energy or the spirit, or whatever you want to call it, but there is a being in us that you cannot see.
In one of the books that I read, it said, “Every creation has two parts, the physical part and the mental part.” Vision is creating what you want in your life or creating the future as you want it in your mental energy first, in your mind first, and then what happens is it sparks some energy and excitement. If you can visualize it often, it sparks in excitement. That excitement will lead you to see the opportunities and you start grabbing the opportunities taking action.
The Price of Leadership
There is a good correlation between visualizing, which I call intention or imagination, which will spark you into action. Being able to see the possibility, “If I can create this in my mind and get excited about it.” It’s finding a connection between the mind and the heart. The mind is the visualization part and the heart is how you feel about that vision. If you feel excited and good about it, your body and mind want to feel good, but it doesn't know how to feel good so you have to create that possibility. For instance, for all these years, you didn't feel good about getting married. All of a sudden, your husband may have asked you a question that created an image in your mind, it got you a little excited, and you took a step towards that marriage.
I opened myself up to it. When you open yourself up to love, it’s the greatest force in the entire universe. It can even be in love for your business or whatever it is, not just relational.
I don't share this a lot. Your dad touched on this book. This book hit home for me. He touched on the uncomfortable part of leadership. For me, when I started becoming a successful real estate agent, there was a part of my life that I didn't share with people anymore. That part was how I got married at an early age. It was an unconventional marriage. My parents and his parents arranged the marriage. It wasn't forced, but it was an arranged marriage at the age of fourteen.
When I came here, got out of the marriage, and started becoming something that I wanted to be, I was ashamed of that part of me. I hid that part of me and I didn't want to talk about it until some of my successful friends said, “Zarif, that's inspirational. You have to take the stage.” They threw me onto the stage to share my story, but it was uncomfortable and vulnerable to share that part of me. I always felt like, “What if people don't like me? What if people judge me? What if they judge me based on my past? That's not who I am now.”
Anyway, your dad talked about these uncomfortable feelings. I always thought, “As a leader, I'm not supposed to show my vulnerability. I'm not supposed to show my uncomfortable feelings.” He talked in his book about how those uncomfortable feelings make you a better leader. It comes with those feelings. For me, opening myself up by visualizing what life would be like outside of that terrible marriage and getting excited about it. When you get excited about it, that energy lifted me up, and I wanted to become something. I started picking up books and things that I wanted to read and feed my mind.
The more I learned, the more encouraged I felt. Over time, that development led into the courage to stand up and say enough and walk out. I don't encourage anybody to do this, but if you're in an uncomfortable, bad situation and you don't know how to get out, feed yourself, feed your mind, soul, and body with information or things that will inspire some action in you and you can get out of the situation.
For everybody reading, you sit there and go, “I couldn't do what she did.” Yes, you could. These are universal truths. You said the heart and the head part of it. In leadership literature, that is grounded theory. This isn't just, “Zarif is different. She's not like me.” The leadership literature says that. Number one, you have to see value in it. You’ve got to feel in your heart. You knew this happened to you when you were younger and you had something else.
You were like, “This is not a congruent fit for me. I see value in a life outside of this situation.” Number one, people have to see that. A lot of people don't take action because they don't see it. They just are content in the drama or they don't want to leave it. You and I can't get that because that's foreign to us. That's where we used to be. The other thing is number two, do you have a reasonable expectation of success?
That is where the books, resources and feeding yourself. People asked, “How do you do it?” I read non-stop. I don't do it. I pick bits and pieces from everybody else, the great minds that went before me, and the wisdom of the ages. They helped me figure out how to do it. You’ve got God scrambling up there. I love that for leaders. It is a step-by-step path to getting what you want out of life. I love you for sharing that.
Thank you. It didn't happen overnight. It's not some piece of information that I landed on. It developed over the years. Here's the good part. When I was living through my challenging times, I never thought I would say this, but I am super grateful and there's gratitude. Your dad said that in the end, “An attitude of gratitude is important.” I am grateful for everything that I lived through, good or not so good. I didn't say bad because I'm keeping it positive, good or not so good. All those experiences are part of life. I am life. Those experiences are part of my life that served as stepping stones to become who I wanted to be or who I am now. All of those experiences, I don't have any feelings of resentment anymore towards the people that hurt me or pushed me to things that I didn't want to do. All of those experiences created who I wanted to be now.
I know we have touched on so much incredible, beautiful insights and heartfelt wisdom and your experiences. Anything else you want to share with our leaders that maybe we haven't covered in the price of leadership?
We touched on a lot of things. I recommend people read this book, The Price of Leadership because it is the other side of leadership that it's not known for a lot of leaders. To me, it is to learn and love the process, not just the good days. Anybody's happy. You can feel euphoric about any success but you don't get to that successful part before the process. The process is what your dad is talking about, the uncomfortable steps that you need to learn to embrace the practice, and learn that there are uncomfortable feelings but focus on the possibilities and where you want to be.
Zarif, how can people get in touch with you and stay connected?
There are three different ways. They can get into my website, www.AmericanDreamTeam.biz or they can email me at ZSahin@AmericanDreamTeam.biz. I'm going to give my cell phone. They can call me anytime they want or text me (571) 278-1894.
Zarif, thanks for bringing up The Price of Leadership too. We have it on our website. We sell thousands of those. You can pick up a PDF or a little booklet. It's wonderful to hand out and even read with your team leaders or your family members. Zarif, I can't thank you enough. I cannot wait until we meet in person. You're not that far for me. I'm going to send you an email. I'm blessed to have you in my life.
Thank you, Tracey. I feel the same way. I love the energy that you're giving off. I love what you're teaching people and leaders. I enjoyed that book. I cannot wait to read your new book.
Thank you. Zarif and to our tremendous readers out there, if you like what you’ve read, please hit the subscribe button and do us the honor of a rating as well wherever you follow us on Stitcher, Spotify, YouTube, iTunes. Also, please be sure and reach out to Zarif and get in touch with her. She left her cell phone too. Please pick up a copy of The Price of Leadership and share that with your team. To our tremendous tribe, we couldn't do without you and you will be the same person five years from now that you are now except for two things, the people you meet and the books you read. I hope you enjoyed this time of sharing great books and reading about the great people that have made Zarif be able to pay the price of leadership.
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About Zarif Sahin
Zarif is the founder of American Dream Team at Keller Williams Dulles and one of Northern Virginia’s trusted and top selling real estate Brokers. She has been providing expert real estate services to buyers, sellers and investors since 2007, resulting in hundreds of satisfied clients. Her business is built 90% on referrals which speaks volumes about her integrity. A resident of Loudoun County for over 30 years, she is deeply connected and has vast knowledge of the DMV market. Zarif Specializes in Luxury Home Sales, earning widespread respect of distinguished local and international clientele. She is known for her incisive business skills, hard work ethics, and her unwavering devotion to her clients’ best interest. Her strategic counsel and insightful analysis help her be successful but her strong proficiency in negotiations is ultimately what sets her apart. Zarif has been recognized as 'Top Real Estate Agent' by Smart CEO Magazine, ‘Top 100 Women Who Mean Business’ by Loudoun Business Journal, and recipient of ‘International Women’s Leadership Award’ by American Turkish Association. She has been featured in publications and podcast platforms including Huff Post, Loudoun Times Magazine, The UV Effect, and True Conversations. Zarif takes pride in giving back to the community by advocating for women’s empowerment initiatives. Her TEDx TALK presentation has gained attention globally and aided legislators in changing laws to protect young girls. Her volunteer works include serving as board member for the Loudoun Abused Women’s Shelter, Final Salute – Homes for Homeless Female Veterans, Virginia Women’s Business Conference and KW Agent Leadership Council, as well as coaching new agents towards their successful careers. In her spare time Zarif likes traveling, spending time with her three daughters, reading, and running marathons.