Episode 10 | Become Uncomfortable to See Yourself Grow with Sana Saleh

Laura: 0:00

Welcome everyone here at Boss It. We would love to hear from you. Join us in our Boss It community by heading over to our website, bossitclub.com and join our mailing list. As we grow, we will be launching our community of fellow Boss It BFFs, and we want you to be a part of it. Okay. Sophia Noreen. Let's dig into this

Sophia Noreen: 0:19

Hello everyone. Welcome to another amazing episode of the Boss It Podcast. Today, we're going to have Sana Saleh on the show and we are so extremely excited to hear her story. She is a wife and a mother of two, and she lives in Toronto, Canada. She actually owned two businesses and started her entrepreneurial journey after she had her first child at the age of 25. She has an audience of over half a million followers now globally. And she continues to expand her business every day. Her vision is to bring empowerment and confidence to women and their families all around the world. So I'm recording this introduction after I've interviewed Sana. And I have to say she has truly shown how you can take your circumstances and make them into what you want them to be. So for example, Sana speaks about how after becoming a mother, she needed to change her entire career. She is actually a social worker by profession and her story just indicates how it's okay to pivot. It's okay to try things that are new and it's okay to be open to growth and change. You guys are going to love this interview. So guys, hold tight. Sana's coming on the show next. Before we get started, I want to give a shout out to suman_s who left us an amazing review. And this is what she had to say: I've been following Also Sophia's journey of starting out small and then having her products launched at a big box retailer like Walmart. Listening to their podcasts has introduced me to Laura as well. I look forward to learning tips on how to manage a business of my own while managing my family. Both Noreen and Laura are great entrepreneurs. to have started this Boss It Club to share their journey and knowledge with us. It's definitely not easy to start something without a clue where to begin. Can't wait for more episodes." Thank you so much Suman. We really appreciate your reviews. And guys, remember, we read every single one of your reviews. So please go ahead, go to iTunes, hit subscribe, and then leave us an amazing review. And we will be so happy and we will of course share it on our show. All right guys, let's get started. Welcome to the Boss It Podcast. My name is Sophia Noreen and I took an Etsy startup and launched it in big box retailers within 12 months. As a creative with an entrepreneurial drive, I left my full time career in healthcare to find better harmony between career, family and self care. We believe you can have it all. Yes, you can launch and run a successful scalable business while maintaining harmony in all aspects of your life. We believe we can learn from each other and draw on many experiences to create the best life possible. During each episode, we will share proven life hacks that will keep you on top and striving every day. There should be no hesitation. Make a plan. Take action. We are here for you. This episode of the Boss It Podcast is brought to you by the Full Focus Planner. Guys, trust me, it's super difficult to run a business, plus have yourself organized with everyday life. Trust me. I know. We have found that the Full Focus Planner is the best planner to help me and it's the best planner that will help you stay focused every day. What I love most about this planner is that this, it does a really good job of breaking down your quarterly goals. And then it helps translate them into weekly goals and daily goals. Head over to the link in our show notes to check out this fantastic planning tool. All right, guys, let's get started. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another amazing of the Boss It Podcast. And today we have Sana Saleh on, and as you heard from her intro, she is a very busy lady and we want to hear more about her story. But before we get started with her story, we are going to say, hi, Sana, and how are you doing?

Sana Saleh: 3:59

Hello, I'm doing good

Sophia Noreen: 4:01

We’re so happy to have you on today on the Boss It Podcast. So we're going to get philosophical. Can you tell us one personal mantra that keeps you motivated and going every day?

Sana Saleh: 4:12

That's a really good one. Okay. There's one quote that has always stuck to me because I really feel like my growth as an entrepreneur has really changed over the years. And I'm sure it's like that for a lot of people that start a business. They can be in one space one year and five years down the road, they're a completely different person. So for me, the quote that always sticks out for me is to do things that make you uncomfortable so you can see yourself grow. Because I feel like if we always stay in that shell of who we are, like, deep down, we're never really going to see ourselves grow. We're never going to blossom. We're never going to experience new things or try new things. So for me, yeah, that's, like, literally exactly my life, is four and a half-ish years ago. I wouldn't even take pictures of myself. Like I was, so... my self esteem was really low. I didn't really think people cared much or didn't think people would relate to me. There are so many things that I was, like, back then that I'm completely the opposite of, like, right now. So I'm so much more open. I'm outgoing. I share my raw moments of my life. So much has changed and I really feel like as an entrepreneur, you do have to get uncomfortable to see yourself excel. So that's my motivation. That's my inspiration for my entrepreneurial journey.

Sophia Noreen: 5:25

I love that. And I think a lot of people can relate because it is uncomfortable to put yourself out there. And as we heard from your bio, you are a social media guru. So you have 500,000 followers or has it grown since I last...

Sana Saleh: 5:40

Oh my gosh.

Sophia Noreen: 5:41

Yes.

Sana Saleh: 5:42

I would say like across all platforms, it's probably closer to 550, but we just surpassed the half a million. It's crazy.

Sophia Noreen: 5:49

It's fabulous to know that a few years back, four years back, you were shy to be on social media. And here you are now with half a million followers, plus.

Sana Saleh: 5:59

Yeah, my profile used to be completely private, like not public at all. So I had less than a hundred friends that were able to see my content. So that tells you how much has changed.

Sophia Noreen: 6:09

I love that. And so we're going to get into your story now and basically your story will highlight this transition and how you have gone from bBeing shy or being self conscious or more conscientious of being in front of the camera to now being able to get on. And so share with us. Start from the beginning or start from the middle. Give us the juicy parts. And how does it relate back to your mantra?

Sana Saleh: 6:35

Absolutely. Okay. So my professional background is in social work. I was a professional social worker. I worked in child protection. So as you can imagine, my life was very stressful. I, emotionally, I was just becoming very burnt o when I got pregnant a year into my marriage, very fresh. And I got pregnant. And being pregnant while you're on child protection and a social worker is a little messy. I'm going to be straight up honest. It's a little bit messy because people say, like, how are you teaching me how to be a parent when you're pregnant right now. And all those things. So it just added to the stress. So I mentally blocked out in my mind that I didn't want to go back to work just because I knew that when I was going to give birth and have a baby that I just needed all my attention to be towards my baby. So I mentally was preparing for that already, but I honestly had zero plan. I had no idea what that would look like .Like, owning a business just did not even cross my mind. And then I stumbled across it. After I had my first baby, she was about 17, 18 months, and I got pregnant with my second baby. My second baby, when I was pregnant with her, that's when I found my first official business. And like I said, I wasn't looking for it. I stumbled across it. and I've been running with it for almost four years now that same business. And, so for me, I just feel like When you see something or you find something that you just become passionate about, it just becomes part of your flow, like your everyday kind of life. And so for me, that's what it was like. It's not like I was looking for it. I wasn't out there searching on what to do. And for me it was my answer. It was my answer as to how to remain stress-free. It was my answer on how to stay at home with my babies, on how to bring an income. And to find something for myself. Find something that gave me passion. I found something that I really enjoy doing while I was still at home with my kids. So I've been running with that for four years. And, like I said, I completely started off with the most lowest self-esteem. I was like, no, one's going to listen to me. No, one's going to buy from me. This is going to be so weird for me. I've never been on camera. I was super shy. And lo and behold, like, here we are. So anything is possible over time.

Sophia Noreen: 8:43

Exactly. So your first business. It's YouTube. I just want to highlight for our listeners because you have a couple of businesses now. So the first one that you started after the birth of your second child, is that correct? Or did you start...

Sana Saleh: 8:58

It was hand in hand. My beauty business and my YouTube channel were like hand in hand. I started them at the same time. I figured if I was going to talk about beauty products, I might as well do it on camera and, like, share on video, like what I'm using, what my skincare routine is and what my makeup routine is and stuff like that. So that's basically how it started.

Sophia Noreen: 9:15

Nice. And that was four years ago. and since then you have expanded.

Sana Saleh: 9:20

I have expanded a lot. So I'm still continuing to do my beauty business. And then the, I would say the spring of this year, we started TikTok. Me and my husband started TikTok. And if any of you knew a little bit about TikTok, you'll know that it is a crazy, incredible platform for growth, and we joined it, not knowing at all what would happen. And we literally grew overnight. Like, I remember, yeah, we posted, like, maybe three or four cat videos. And then they didn't, they did nothing. Then me and my husband, like, sat down and we just made jokes with each other. And we grew like 50,000 followers, like, overnight. It was crazy. And so that's when we looked at each other, we're like, we could really do this. Like, this could really help us across all of our platforms. And that's exactly what happened. And, now here we are, nine months later, we were half a million on TikTok. It's... we are across all platforms. We've grown so, so much and we've started a new business now. So now we own a hijab company as well. So it's crazy. Honestly, like, you have no idea what your life is going to look like in a few years. If you asked me this, four or five years ago, I would probably laugh and say that would never happen.

Sophia Noreen: 10:26

Yeah, exactly. But you're open to the opportunity you saw that people were engaging with you and they were enjoying your company on TikTok, especially during the time of recording this at the beginning of October. We're hot in the mess of COVID and the pandemic. And when you started your TikTok, that was also the circumstances. So everyone at that time was looking for that social attraction. And then they found you guys and you guys are such a fun, bubbly couple, and you are entertaining. Like I follow you in TikTok and on your own social media as well. So I totally understand why people are drawn to you as being a social entrepreneur and now your hijab business. So tell us how did that start? And maybe give us some of the ups and downs and learnings from the hijab business.

Sana Saleh: 11:11

Yeah, so that exact same thing. It started out of quarantine, started out of boredom. I had a white hijab just laying around. I have a collection of like a hundred plus hijabs and everybody was doing tie dye. It was all over TikTok. It was all over YouTube. Everyone's sitting at home, I'm in quarantine. And so people were just tie dyeing their clothes. So it was like, no one has tie dyed a hijab. Like, I wonder what this would look like. So I literally went to Walmart, picked up some dye, brought it home. I grabbed a hijab out of my closet and I tie dyed it. And then I started wearing it 'cause I fell in love with it. I started wearing it on TikTok and people started asking, like, "Where'd you get your hijab? That is so cool. I've never seen a dyed hijab before." And I was like, oh, I made it. Like, I'm not selling it. It's... this was done just for fun. And so one day, me and William, we sat down and we looked at each other. We're like, do you think that people would actually buy tie-dyed hijabs? And we looked. And we honestly searched everywhere. And we looked over, all over the web. All over Instagram. And no one was selling them. No one was making them. So we're like, there's definitely a market here. This is a trend right now. People love it. Like, I think we could really run with this. And so we did it. We tie dyed probably close to 100 hijabs before I feel like we got it right and figured out how to do it properly. So there was a lot of failures. There was a lot of investing in terms of time and, scarves and finding the right material. And, oh my gosh, it took months and months of hard work until we found, like, the most perfect material to... we found the designs that we liked. The colors that we liked. We DIY basically everything. I did my website myself. We got our pictures done. We did everything ourselves, ground up. And even today, we tie dye every single day. We sell out and then we tie dye. And then we sell out, we tie dye. It's just been such a blessing. It's crazy. And like I said, you have no idea. Like this was completely spontaneous. Like, it was never in the cards. And years and years ago, seven, eight years ago when I started wearing hijab, I was like, how cool would it be to have a hijab company someday? Everybody has that dream in their mind. I would love to be a fashion designer. I would love to own a clothing label or whatever. So that was like in the forefront of my mind, but I never actually thought I could put it into action. And that's the thing is, like, when you have a passion for something and you just take those first few steps and you figure it out, even if you fail, you get back up. You try again, and eventually it just becomes a success. It's a pretty neat story.

Sophia Noreen: 13:30

They say, right, fall down seven times, get up eight. And I think you've done that in this story regarding the hijab company. And what's your hijab company's name?

Sana Saleh: 13:39

Lala Hijabs. My five-year-old named our up.

Sophia Noreen: 13:43

That is fantastic. And getting the whole family involved, that's your story as a family, Lala Hijabs.

Sana Saleh: 13:48

Yeah. I

Sophia Noreen: 13:49

like the fact that you guys are really bootstrapping this business, not just by finances, but you're also doing everything yourself. So you are hand dying all hijabs yourself. And you are obviously picking, packing and parceling out all the hijabs yourself, doing all your tech yourself.

Sana Saleh: 14:09

Yes.

Sophia Noreen: 14:10

It just shows that you don't need a lot of investment to get started if you have... Nope.

Sana Saleh: 14:15

Just willpower. Yeah.

Sophia Noreen: 14:18

Yeah. I like that. I like that a lot. We'll go at the end. We'll share all of your handle, social media and the Lala Hijab website so that everyone can go and check out these fantastic tie dyed hijabs. And then you have a fall collection coming as well.

Sana Saleh: 14:30

Yes, October 12th. Yep.

Sophia Noreen: 14:33

That's gonna be great. Oh my goodness. So...

Sana Saleh: 14:34

I know.

Sophia Noreen: 14:35

I think this episode will be released in the middle of the fall, so everyone, you can go check out that, the fall collection.

Sana Saleh: 14:42

Yay. Awesome.

Sophia Noreen: 14:44

So I love this story but now I want you to share some advice with our listeners. What is one thing that you wish you knew prior to starting off on your entrepreneurship journey?

Sana Saleh: 14:54

Okay. So probably one of the biggest hurdles that I had was the upsell and downs. You have to know that it's never going to be just an uphill thing. You can't expect to just make a whole shack of money overnight. You can't expect to have a whole bunch of customers overnight, or a whole bunch of followers overnight. Like I know it looks that way on social media for people, but I would say 99.9% of the time, that's not what it is. It takes a lot of work. It's going to look like a roller coaster. It's going to go up and down. And I wish I knew that in the beginning because I was very hard on myself when I would hit the lows. And I wish I just had someone to tell me that, like, you're in a low right now, but you're going to go back up. You just need to be consistent. It's about being consistent. It's about making sure that you continue doing what you're doing and putting your voice out there. And people are always going to eventually listen. But you have to be really firm in terms of being consistent. Being, like having your vision in sight and never giving up. Because if you give up when you're having one of those lows, like, you're never going to progress.

Sophia Noreen: 15:54

Exactly. I think you said it very well. I think that it's difficult. We can't underestimate how difficult it is to be your own motivator when it comes to picking yourself up in those low times.

Sana Saleh: 16:09

Yep..

Sophia Noreen: 16:09

And also having that expectation of yourself, some people think that, like you said, it looks like it's happening overnight, but it's not. Until you put this expectation on yourself, which is completely unrealistic. Exactly what you've said. if you're having a bad day, you need to still show up. And for you, being a social entrepreneur and being on all these social media platforms, you're showing up every day or at your consistency because that's what you've promised your followers, right? You've been showing up so many times before and they're expecting Sana to show up. And if Sana doesn't show up, then there's a question like, where did she go? And then...

Sana Saleh: 16:42

Yeah, something's wrong.

Sophia Noreen: 16:44

And then they're like, oh, they're probably DMing you and messaging you. And so I think that's very practical advice for everyone to just realize that it's not a straight line up.

Sana Saleh: 16:55

It's not a straight line up and it might look that way. Like, it might've looked that way. Like, when we started TikTok, like, how quickly we grew, like, overnight. But you have to remember, this is like years in the making. Like, this is years of being on social media, learning how to use it. All of those things. It takes time. It's going to take time.

Sophia Noreen: 17:12

Exactly. Okay. That's fantastic. Let's move on to how do you keep yourself moving? How do you go set and manage your time? We know you're busy, you have multiple businesses and you have a family with two young girls. So we know your time is very precious.

Sana Saleh: 17:26

Very precious. Yeah. So we actually homeschooled both of our girls to add that to the mix of everything. Do businesses, homeschooling, social media, TikTalk, all the things. We are very busy. And the biggest thing that keeps me organized is time blocking. So a lot of the work that we do, like the actual focused work, is when the kids are sleeping. So whether that's nap time, whether that's before they wake up or whether that's after they go to bed at night, and then when we are with them, we try to remain, like, laser focused on what they're doing so we can always be present. So that is hard. I'm going to admit over the years, I've struggled a lot with that because, my business is purely run on social media, right? Like, I rely on social media. So I, like, always have my phone in my hand, or I'm always checking messages or I'm always responding to emails. I'm trying to be really responsive to my audience. And I've had to really learn, like, when it's okay to do that, and when it's time to put the phone away. And that's a struggle I think a lot of people have.

Sophia Noreen: 18:21

Yeah. I love time blocking as well. Time blocking is definitely an asset everyone can basically utilize in managing their time. And I like how you've looked at how your day i s. for example, you have children. So you're doing your focus work during nap time and bedtime. And I think sometimes people don't realize that you're not isolated in a bubble. And so they'll say, oh, I have to do all this at this time. And they try to stick to that. But then they have a toddler that's turning around that needs their attention.

Sana Saleh: 18:50

Exactly

Sophia Noreen: 18:51

That's not gonna work. So I like that approach that you've taken. Yeah, it doesn't have to be a nine to five. It could be chunks of time, right? Like it can just be chunks of time that you've dedicated, whether it's, seven to nine AM and then, one to three PM or whatever, as long as it's laser focused time and you are very focused on your work. That is what's going to be valuable because if you're going to be working and you're going to be on your phone, scroll holding at the same time, it's not productive. So as long as you are laser focused on your work, you can get a lot done. Surprisingly, you can get a lot done in a very short amount of time, as long as you make sure that you time block

Sana Saleh: 19:25

One hundred percent. And speaking of phones, do you put your phone away when you are doing focus work?

Sophia Noreen: 19:30

Yeah. I do. Although I do a lot of content creation, so I use my phone for a lot of my work, whether it's recording video or whatever. But when we're packing orders, when we're dying jobs, things like that, we're always laser focused and have the phone away. Okay.

Sana Saleh: 19:43

Yeah, unless we're listening...

Sophia Noreen: 19:44

To a podcast, which I love. That's such a good segue. You can use your phone to listen. You just can't touch it.

Sana Saleh: 19:50

Yes. Always have the Bluetooth speaker on and listen to it.

Sophia Noreen: 19:53

There you go. Okay. That's fantastic. So everyone needs to try time blocking. We've talked about that in previous episodes, on the Boss It podcast about the value of time blocking and now Sana has basically shown you that it works for her too. So if you haven't started time blocking yet guys, go and block off a chunk of time in your schedule. I do about two hours at a time. I don't know about Sana.

Sana Saleh: 20:12

About two hours. Yeah.

Sophia Noreen: 20:14

Yeah, chunk it off and then make sure it fits with your day. Make sure that it's fitting with your lifestyle.

Sana Saleh: 20:19

Yeah.

Sophia Noreen: 20:20

Okay. So we've talked about the business. We've talked about the family. We've talked about your mantra, but we want to know now how do you manage your own mental health and your check-ins, especially knowing that you are actually a social worker. So this must be something that you're more aware of than most entrepreneurs.

Sana Saleh: 20:38

Yeah. like I said, when I was a social worker, I did struggle. I feel like it was because I was so new in the field and the work was so fresh. I was just newly married. I was pregnant. So hormones were kind of raging. So for me, I was emotional all the time. But I made sure that when I was at home, that I put my work away. Like, I just completely stopped thinking about work. Whether I was emotional or whatever, I would just try to turn that off. And over the years now, like, since my first daughter was born, she's five and a half now almost. And I've just learned that I need me time. Like, I need to have me time. Like, I absolutely adore my kids and love them. And I just like to take about 20 minutes or even a half hour at the end of the day. And I just take me time. So whether that's some self-care. For me that looks like doing a face mask. I'm doing my skincare. I'm listening to a podcast, catching up on YouTube, watching some Instagram stories. Like whatever it is, but, like, on my own that honestly recharges me. Like it really does. And it makes me feel good about myself. It makes me know that I'm taking care of my own body. I'm taking care of my own stuff and it just helps me recharge. So self-care could look different for everybody. It could be reading a book. It could be going out for a walk alone. It could be, I don't know, as adults ,even color at this point. Like, people would do anything for that little bit of relaxation time where you're just focused on something completely different and you're focused on yourself. So for me, that looks like skincare masking Just being away. A little bit separate for a little bit of time so I can breathe. And that keeps me motivated. It keeps me really fired up. And for me, I don't have any burnout anymore because I take that time for myself.

Sophia Noreen: 22:20

I love that. So do you do that every day, every other day? What's your frequency for making time?

Sana Saleh: 22:24

Every single day? Every single day. No matter how tired I am. I always, every single day, at the end of the day, I take that time.

Sophia Noreen: 22:30

Okay. And I love that. And I love how you have come to that realization. After going through the hurdles that you had gone through, about four or five years back. So that's something that we speak about a lot on the Boss It podcast about making sure you check in with yourself. Do your mental health check-ins. Making sure that you're taking care of yourself. Because if you don't take care of yourself, then you can't take care of anything else, including your business. So make sure you check in. And if you need a break, like twice a day, that's okay, too. Like, you do the frequency that you need. It's all about just trying to match up how your energy is with your time of your day. For example, for me two o'clock, I need to take, like, a break. Otherwise I might not be so happy when I pick up my kids from school. So everyone's different. And you just need to tune into that.

Sana Saleh: 23:15

Yes, exactly. this has been so fantastic, Sana. I know those are all the questions we have for you today. But we want to find you on social media. We want to find your website. So give it to us. Give us all the channels that we can find you on. Oh, wow. Okay. So let's start with mine. So if you want to find me on my personal Instagram account, it's sanasalahbeauty. S-A-N-A-S-A-L-E-H beauty. And then if you want to find Lala Hijabs on Instagram, it's just lalahijabs, L-A hijabs. If you want to find, we have two TikTok accounts. So we have the Salah family one mine and my husband's account. It's just S-A-L-E-H family. And then I started a separate account for Lala Hijabs, and it's just lalahijabs. And then if you want to find my YouTube channel, it's Sana Saleh beauty channel, youtube.com/sanasalehbeautychannel. And that's pretty much it. Those are all my socials. You'll find me everywhere. And you'll find, a lot of people are shocked. They'll message us on TikTok, or they'll message on Instagram. They're like, Oh my God, you replied. I'm like, we reply. We try to reply to everybody. Like we might get, we get a lot of comments on TikTok. Like, we can't really keep up on comments, but if you ever DM us, we will always respond to you. That is the secret sauce. So if you want to get in touch with me or ask any questions about anything, like I'm very transparent. I'm an open book. There's been so many people that have come out of the woodworks and asked us since we started our hijab company, they've been like, I've wanted to start my own. And like, how did you do it? And so we're totally open. If you have any question, feel free to contact us as long as it's a DM.

Sophia Noreen: 24:43

Yes. So DM them on TikTok or Instagram. Yeah. And so we're going to link everything in the show notes. So if you are driving right now, please, don't take out your phone, try to quickly put it in. If you're driving or doing anything, your hands are not free, we will have it all in the show notes and we'll hyperlink it. So you can just tap it. And it'll send you right to the pages and right to her website for Lala Hijabs.

Sana Saleh: 25:06

Awesome.

Sophia Noreen: 25:06

Thank you again, Sana. This was such a good interview. We've learned so much and you're such an inspiration for basically showing us that anything is possible ,even growing to half a million plus followers. So guys remember. Make a plan and take action. And yes, you can have it all.

Sana Saleh: 25:24

Love it.

Sophia Noreen: 25:25

Bye for now. So my fellow bosses, did you enjoy that episode? Now is time for you to make a solid plan and take action. But first, remember to subscribe and follow the Boss It Podcast so you receive a notification whenever we drop an episode. Remember to leave us a review on iTunes. Take a screenshot of your review and share it on Instagram as a post or a story and tag us @BossItclub. If Instagram is not your thing, no worries. Email your screenshot to [email protected]. As a massive thank you, we will be sending you our Top 50 Tips for Starting and Scaling a Business. This list is exclusively for podcast reviewers. So don't miss out. Now remember bosses: make a plan and take action in all aspects of your life. Yes you can have it all.