Lydia Khalil

I'm a very religious person. I feel like God and my family really helped me go from one thing to another. My success in my career goes straight to God, and me praying, and seeing what He wants me to do, and then I just follow. I value trust, respect, and communication in everything I do. Without communication, everything falls apart in my home and in work. I would rather sit and talk about something really small for five hours and fix it, rather than not fix anything and have that something small turn into something huge that is not fixable. Hard work and dedication are really important too. I'm not saying to overwhelm yourself, but put in what you could, and then everything will fall into place. I also value time with family and friends.

I heard this from a really dear friend of mine. He told me, don't let everybody's opinions influence what you think is right. Do whatever you think is right, whether it's right or wrong. He's basically saying, whatever you believe, go do it, and forget about everybody else. I took that to heart, and I actually did it, and it was a no-brainer for me. This advice was especially important because I come from an Egyptian family where you're either a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, or you're a disgrace to the family. When I chose a different career path, there were a lot of no's. I wanted to please my parents because they worked hard for me, but at the same time, I'm the one that's gonna be suffering throughout all my life. So I had to follow what I believed was right for me.

It's tough, it's hard, but focus, grind, pray, and trust me, magical things happen. Your work and hard dedication never goes unseen, no matter how long you think it does go unseen. Eventually it will not go unseen. So put 110% in, and trust me, you will get 110% back.

The biggest challenge right now is that we need more marketers and more financial advisors. There are a lot of new businesses opening, and they all need financial care and marketing care, but we can only handle so much. Finance itself has seven or eight mini things you need to take care of, and marketing requires a clear mind to think, analyze, and try new approaches. At the same time, this creates incredible opportunities. It's a non-stop growing industry. Take Walmart, for example - they're a big global company, but they will always need some type of marketing. They can't go back to their old marketing strategies, they need new marketing strategies, new fun ideas. So it's always gonna be in demand. Everybody needs marketing and finance - if you're gonna have a business, you gotta have both, period.

I value trust, respect, and communication above all. Communication is a big, big key for me. Without communication, everything falls apart in my home and in work. I would rather sit and talk about something really small for five hours and fix it, rather than not fix anything and have that something small turn into something huge that is not fixable. Hard work and dedication are really important to me. I'm not saying to overwhelm yourself, but put in what you could, and then everything will fall into place. I also value time with family and friends. In my leadership style, I practice these values by being very open and flexible with my staff. If somebody is sick, please take off. If you're late, send me a text and that's cool. I'm very flexible with my staff, and because of that, I see the return from them in their work and dedication.