Transcription
I was 30 years old, running my own beauty business, working six days a week, but I still didn't have the life that I wanted because I was burned out, underpaid, and I secretly wished that my life was different. 18 months later, I live in Dubai and my brand makes more in a month than I used to make in a whole year. And I promise you, this isn't another influencer story. I didn't go viral once and disappear. I made sure that I learned the skill set that actually works whether the algorithm likes me or not. I've helped thousands of women all around the world build their brand and make money from social media. Not getting famous, but actually making real money from their personal brand. And what I've learned throughout the years is you don't need to be young, connected, or born in certain places or even find a rich man to actually build real wealth. All it takes is actually refusing to stay exactly where you are. I'm going to show you exactly how I went from an underpaid entrepreneur to building a brand that pays me seven figures and how I helped thousands of women all around the world do the same. And this isn't just my story. This is the exact road map for every woman who's tired of working hard and staying broke. So, let's get right into it.
Okay. So, I was torn in between two worlds and honestly, I've always felt like I don't belong anywhere. I am from the Middle East, but I also grew up in Europe. I was raised by a single mom who is literally my whole world. And I have a younger sister. She is 6 years younger than me. I was raised by the strongest woman that I know growing up. I didn't really have a male figure. I just learned very early on to work very very hard and survive on your own because that was what I was taught from my mom. Being the eldest child, everyone who is the oldest know what I'm talking about. You almost grew up with your single parent and you learn very early on to take on a lot of responsibility even if they don't tell you. I saw my mom work so hard growing up. I was 15 years old the first time I saw my mom struggle financially and I was asking what's wrong, what's happening and she was like no everything's fine. I understand like we are actually struggling financially. So I remember a week later I asked can I get a job? She was like, "No, you're too young. You need to focus on school." I was like, "Yeah, but I can do both." So, I almost had that feeling of responsibility in me even though no one told me to start early. All I ever was taught was to work very hard in life because if you don't, no one's going to hand you anything. I saw my mom raising us the best way she could possibly do all alone. If you don't want to be a victim of your story, you need to be the hardest worker in the room if you want a different life. So that was the mentality that I grew up with and I'm honestly I'm very very thankful for that. I'm very thankful for my story and I never see my story as a failure or a weak side of me and I never like to say that I come from a broken home. I always say that I come from such a strong home and everything we went through literally shaped me to the woman that I am today.
>> Can I ask what happened with your dad?
>> My dad is still alive. Him and my mom got divorced when I was very very young. So young that I honestly didn't understand who who my dad is or I don't have a lot of memories of him. Growing up, I always heard nice things about him from my mom and my mom's family. So when I grew up, I actually contacted him. When I contacted him, that was the last time I ever spoke to him. It was just a one-time thing and I got the answer to all my, you know, questions. Growing up, that took a toll on me as a woman, you know, uh you see other girls with their dads and you don't have that. But growing up now, it just taught me to choose a partner for myself that I know can be an amazing dad to my daughters. If I had a very good dad, I might have been almost like reckless choosing a husband. I don't have kids yet, but I just know that my husband is going to be an amazing dad to our kids. And that was also one of the reasons why I I married him because I just know how he is and how his heart is around kids. So, that's very important to me. It just shapes you to uh be very independent. So, I'm actually happy that happened to me because I think it blessed me in so many ways. For any woman watching this right now who grew up without the debt, don't make your sad story your whole life story. Use this as fuel and as strength to do amazing things with your life.
So basically I lived in Sweden up until I was 23. I graduated as a building engineer and then I moved back to Kurdistan and I lived there 7 8 years until I was 30. I'm going to tell you all about those years. Let me get changed and let's go for a ride.
>> I went and bought me an outfit today that costed a lot of money today. You know what I mean? Cuz I figured that tank was going to win.
So after I moved back to Kurdistan, I was freshly graduated as a building engineer and I took a 9 to 5 as an engineer. I was working at an office with all men and I hated every minute of it. So I didn't last very long there. And then I was like, "No, I'm going to open my own business. I'm going to build my business empire." So, I got into the beauty business because my family was already working in the beauty business. So, it was a very natural transition for me. I'm 23. I'm going to build my business empire. By the time I'm 25, 26, you know, I'm going to have everything that I want. But I was actually building my own prison. I opened my beauty clinic and then I opened an academy and then I became the official distributor to a very known skincare brand. So from the outside I was doing everything right. I was always very quiet about how I felt and what I felt was oh my god is this it? I'm literally working seven days a week. I'm nowhere the financial freedom that I actually want. I don't want to work in between four walls. Seven days a week like this can't be my life. Every time I expressed my feelings, everyone around me like my family and friends would be like no honest. That's you know more than a lot of people can say especially in Middle East. So I was honestly suppressing these feeling for 30 years. I had so much self-doubt thinking okay Hanya but you want to do something else but what is something else this is everything you can but then something happened that led me to the breakthrough where everything actually fell apart it wasn't do you want it was I have to so let's park up and let me tell you more about that.
My life hit rock bottom when I turned 30. I remember I was single and so heartbroken and I was so devastated in all areas of my life. I remember one day I was looking at my bank account and I was like, wait, is this my life? I worked since I was 15 and I worked harder than everyone that I know and still this is nowhere near I want to be in life. When I was already at the bottom like questioning everything in my life. I woke up one morning and I checked my Instagram account, my business accounts, they were all gone. Someone hacked my beauty accounts. Everything that I worked for for the past 10 years were gone. I remember I crashed down mentally so hard. I was like, "God, why are this happening to me? I'm already questioning every single part of my life. I'm literally 30. I'm single. I'm heartbroken. Everything I do does not work. And now I lost all of my account as well. It came to a point where I almost wanted to give up on everything honestly. But then I was like, I'm a woman of God and I believe that everything happens for a reason. And I know that God literally took that away from me. He knew that I needed that last push to actually do something about my life because for 30 years I was living a life that looked good on paper. I was living for everyone else's validation, everyone's approval and how everyone wanted me to live my life. I made a decision that if I want a different life, I need to do things that I've never done before.
So, I remember one night I was scrolling on Instagram and I was always following the people where they inspired me and I wanted their life. But honestly, I was just following them, liking their stuff and I was thinking, "Yeah, one day." I never did anything about it. But it was 2:00 a.m. and I was scrolling on Instagram. There was this girl that I loved and I loved everything that she said. I was everything that came out of her mom. I was like, "That's me." I decided to actually talk to her. 2 am I asked her, "Hey, how do you make money online? I want to learn more. What is it that you're doing?" And she was actually very nice explaining everything to me. She got back to me very, very late at night. And I remember I was like, "Listen, I'm going to buy your program." I just took out my card and I took a shot that night, 2:00 a.m. And the rest is history. There was no going back after that. I was looking at this girl's social media and I was like, "Okay, this girl, she is smart, but I can do what she's doing. She's not special." And also, after me talking to her, I just realized, wow, she learned the skill set to use social media the right way. So, if she can do it, why wouldn't I be able to do it? So, I got started. It was not perfect. It was very, very messy. I remember recording my first videos and posting them on social media. Looking back now, disaster. Somewhere along the way, at the beginning, the guilt also kicked in. I'm not going to lie. What are they going to tell my mom? What is your daughter doing on social media? She's literally 30 years old. She's an entrepreneur. She have her beauty businesses. Why is she on social media doing these videos? I was like, I hope no one from the city that I live in see my video. I hope no one that I know will find me because it was so cringe coming to social media doing talking videos like everything was so new to me and so cringe and no one that I knew from my family or from my surrounding was doing this. I kept it very very safe for a good couple of months and I still lived in Kurdistan back then when I opened my social media. So I was like wait if I keep living here and if I surround myself with these people and if I live in this environment I will never be bold and I will never get to where I want in life. I need to actually surround myself with the right community with the right woman with the right people with the same mindset that also shares the vision that I have for myself. I decided to make a very bold move and moved to Dubai with literally 1,000 followers and I was not making a lot of money. But I actually took a very bold move. I sold my businesses. I can could not believe that I was actually signing my whole life away. Everything that I work for, my beauty business, my academy, my beauty brand, I sold them all and I took that money and I moved to Dubai all alone to the unknown and started over at 30 and that became the best decision that I made for myself.
I moved to Dubai 2024 September October 2024 my first video went viral. It got a million views, two million views, three million views. It got over five million views. And I'm like, what is happening? After that video went viral, I made my first $10,000 online. Honestly, it felt like me doing a million dollar because I've been doing $10,000 before in my business, but this was the first time I did it online. It was such a big breakthrough for me because I knew that if I can do it once, I can do it every single month. Once I understood the formula, everything changed so fast. I literally went from a thousand followers to have a million followers in under a year. I started posting consistently every single day. But not just posting anything. I was posting with intention. I knew exactly what would work and what is not going to work and what can build my brand and what is going to differentiate me from anyone else on social media. I started be not perfect. I started becoming more real, telling my story, telling my journey, my process, my thoughts, my values, and people actually love that. And one thing that I really want to point out to everyone watching right now, English is my third language, which means that it's not perfect. And that was such a big insecurity of me to speak English. I almost did not speak English. And imagine I would not have such a big community if I only kept it to Swedish or Kurdish. So I'm very very happy that despite my accent, despite me saying all the wrong words every single time, I still kept going because I kept it real and people ended up falling in love with me because of my accent. Literally every other video the comments were, "Oh, we love your accent. and we love how we speak. So sometime the things that we are insecure about is actually what differentiate us from everyone else. So when I figured out the money formula which is staying consistent and learning everything about building a personal brand and social media, I started making consistently 10K, 20K, 50K, even over 100K thousands dollars a month, which is absolutely insane. That is what I honestly make in a very good year in my old business. And I need you to understand that all of this was never luck. I made sure that I always backed up my delusional and my dream by hard work and consistency. I just knew from day one if I don't change the way I show up for myself, no one is going to hand me the life that I want. And success stopped being just about me. When I saw what's actually possible, I started helping women all around the world. Everyone was messaging me, "Oh my god, Hona, you're growing so much from social media. You're literally blowing up." When I started helping women and literally seeing them transformed their whole entire life in just 90 days and then go to this confident woman that takes back her power, shares her voice and her truth with the world. It is the most beautiful thing. Another woman having a breakthrough like I did. And I realized, wait, this isn't just about money because you can make money from social media in other ways. But this was always about the women taking back their power, their voice, and their freedom. I think the biggest blessing that I'm having right now is that I'm actually able to witness in real life women having their biggest breakthrough. So, I'm very very blessed that I have the chance to change so many people's lives.
Growing up the way that I did with a single mom, the thing that people take for granted, for me, it is the biggest blessings. Not a long time ago, I had the blessing to be able to gift my mom a very expensive watch. It was a Rolex. And it's not even about the watch, but I remember when I gifted her the watch, I ended up going back to my car and literally cried. It's not even about the materialistic. It's just about, oh my god, I am able to give her everything she ever dreamed of because it's also her first time to live. The best thing about having financial freedom is that you can actually take care of your loved ones while they're actually alive, while they're still young, while they can still enjoy it. For me, that is the biggest breakthrough that I not just change my whole life and I live a very comfortable life and it's all thanks to God, but I can also take care of my family. Even if they don't need me, I can give them the whole world without ever checking my bank account. It was all thanks to one decision that I made two years ago, which was to start social media. But I'm saying it again and again. Not social media the way you are used to seeing it. Social media the right way as an entrepreneur as a smart woman who is sharing her voice her power and her truth not through dancing videos but through her voice and through her values.
>> So if you'd have the ability to go back in time and talk to your younger self, what would you tell her?
If I could go back in time and talk to my younger self, I would tell her, "Stop caring so much about other people's opinions because their opinion does not pay your bills. Stop seeking validation from people who is not living the life that you actually want. Stop living for people's approval because trust me, once you go after all of your dreams, they're going to laugh at you. They're going to judge you, but then they're going to ask you, "How did you do it?" That was the same people that actually doubted me at the beginning. So, it always repeat itself like that. If I could go back, I would tell her, "Listen, all this analyzing, what are people thinking of me? What are they going to say? Oh my god, do I look cringe?" Stop. Just stop wasting your energy on that because trust me, when you succeed, none of it going to matter. What matters is that you chose yourself. If I could change anything, I would literally go back and choose myself way faster. I would make sure that I don't waste 30 years living a life that people think it's right for me, not what I think is right for me. I would remind her and tell her, "Hona, you come from women with so much strength. You have the same power in you as them. And they survived so much. My mom, my grandmother, they survived so much in this life." Use that power as fuel to be the first woman in your bloodline to actually go after everything you want in this life. You know, when you're always feeling growing up that you're different, that you want too much or you are too much. So you always you are shrinking yourself just to make other people comfortable. The feeling that you have that you're too much. That's actually your superpower. Use that use that superpower. God gave you that power to go and use it because you have that feeling for a reason and that is because you're not average. So stop forcing yourself living an average life, living like everyone else. When you feel it in your heart that wait this is not the life that I am supposed to have. Listen to your inner voice and listen to your gut.
So that's my story guys. I'm just a Kurdish girl who grew up in Sweden with a single mom with all the odds stacked up against me. But I made sure that my sad story is not going to be my forever story. And if I could start over at the age of 30, so can you. Everything that I've shared with you today, the mistakes, the fear, the doubts, everything that I've lived through, let this be your reminder that the life you're living right now that you're not happy with, it does not have to be your forever life. Everything is possible. And if you just allow God to actually lead you and follow his plan, I am sure that your next six months will look very different if you actually decide to do things differently. The only difference between me and you right now 18 months ago is that I actually tried. And that is the most powerful thing you can do in this life. That is trying. Because I know a lot of people are not trying in life. The worst regret that you can have when you're old is that you actually didn't live life to its full potential. Let this be your lesson that if you are living a life right now that you are not happy with, it does not have to be your forever life. You can change it at any time. You just have to start and make yourself proud. Make your parents proud. Make your future kids proud. That is the best feeling you can have in this life. And remember, if you did not come from a rich family, make sure a rich family comes from you.