At the age of 18, Sadaf Sara started working hard and attended college for a short period of time. Her interest in banking began shortly after attending community college and she slowly started climbing the corporate ladder. During that period of time, she had a dream of success. She got married at 21, had her first child at 22 and a year after that, she had her second child. At 25, she became a homeowner and purchased her second home at 28. 

Sadaf’s personal journey in the corporate world was successful and she started climbing up the corporate ladder quickly. When she had transitioned from retail to banking, she learned quickly and understood their expectations, resulting in her receiving her first promotion within the first four months of working there. She did not stop there — she kept getting promoted within the first two years of working there. At the age of 21, she was already an assistant manager at her bank, saying that “the corporate world just matched my hustle.” 

When her company had asked her to meet certain expectations, she never failed because of her strong belief in herself and her ambitions. 

“You know how some people say they can’t do something?” Sadaf says. “They really can’t because they don’t allow themselves to. I never had that. I was like, I can do this.”

Later, she became interested and passionate about becoming a life coach. She was drawn to this career path as she began to grow as a person in all aspects of life. In the past, she had sought out therapy, but it never really worked for her. Unlike traditional therapy with a psychologist, Sadaf says she admired the fact that with life coaching, “you focus more on how you can control the now” as opposed to solely addressing the past.

As she continued to focus on her journey of self-growth and discovery, she saw how her new perspective affected her relationships with others around her. In fact, she quickly differentiated between her authentic and inauthentic relationships and saw how different her journey had become.

For Sadaf, life coaching helped her through difficult times. 

“Life coaching came after my brother died and I separated with my husband,” Sadaf says. “I don’t know who I would be if I didn’t have a life coach.” 

Eventually, Sadaf realized that life coaching became something bigger than herself. She realized that she could use the tools and skills she learned on her journey to share with others on a larger scale. So, Sadaf became a one-on-one and couples’ life coach.

Q&A

Q: What advice would you give someone who is considering becoming an author and a podcaster?

Be fearless at everything you do. Don’t worry about how others perceive it. Life is too short to pursue a dream. What you put out, you get back in believing in yourself.

Q: Who are your biggest role models and why?

 I do a lot of work with my current life coach, Nicole Zeola, and I did a spiritual academy by her that was created a year ago that I have been in for a year now. Before that, I did one-on-one sessions.

I got linked with her in some way and she’s the one that inspired me to do life coaching because it changed my whole entire world. God’s pushing me towards doing this. It reminds me that I can make a difference.

My role model is JLO. Growing up for me it was like, how is she doing all of this stuff? It’s one person. She’s from the Bronx, she’s in tip-top shape and she just had everything. She embodied that a woman can do it all. She wanted to be a singer, people talked about her in a negative way and she was like, “I don’t care.” She already has like eight albums. She didn’t care if people didn’t like her singing. She wrote a book after her divorce, which is a great book. So, I just feel like I can do it because I am no more, no less than her.

Q: What kinds of accomplishments tend to be valued and rewarded in both of your careers? What skills, abilities and personal attributes are essential to success in your job/this field?

Being relentless and not caring what people think. Two things: don’t worry and don’t care what people say. My quote for life is, “You could be the juiciest, ripest peach in the world and there will still be somebody that doesn’t like peaches.”

Q: If you could do it all over again, would you choose the same path for yourself? If not, what would you change?

If I could do it all over again, I would. If I could change one thing, it would be  to have better money management. My debt has always motivated me to work harder, but I think at some point, in your 30s, you’re just like, “OK, I should have had better money management.” That’s the one thing that I would do differently. 

Q: Please tell us a fun fact about you!

I am a world traveler and I’m very proud of it. When I was little, my mom traveled a lot because she had 10 siblings. So it’s crazy — I’ve been to Pakistan,  India and Germany three to five times; France, Spain, Denmark and Australia twice; and of course Canada, Mexico and Turkey.

Q: What does “she can be both” mean to you?

I’m not going to put myself in a box. I’m going to be whoever I’m going to be. And it’s a praise because when you look at your life and you look at all those people who have made something of themselves, they’re not just doing one thing, they’re doing multiple things, right? 

Follow Sadaf on Instagram @sadafsarainc, and check out her book, “Confessions of a Bossette.” You can also listen to her podcast of the same name.