Welcome to Elevate with Elsner. Join us for inspiring conversations with individuals who have transformed their lives and are making a difference through the work that they do. And now, Welcome back to Elevate with Elsner the podcast where we explore the stories and strategies of individuals who are making a significant impact in their fields. I'm your host, Blake Elsner and today we have the privilege of speaking with Faye Saad, A seasoned sales leader and co-founder of Athena Business Group, Faye's unique approach encapsulated with her E3 strategy has empowered countless professionals to achieve sustainable growth. So let's dive into a remarkable journey. Faye, Hey, how's it going? I'm really excited to be here. Thank you for having me on the show. Um, I'm just really excited to share my story and really just help whoever can take little Yeah, absolutely. So early in your, you know, early in your career, um, With the journey to Athena and that process, what are some of the pivotal moments that led you? I guess you're the co-founder, right? You have a partner. So what Yeah. Um, so I'll kind of rewind back and, and bring up kind of what brought into the E3, what brought E3 strategy into my life and then how Athena was born. So, um, in 2013, I started noticing some weight gain and, you know, at first I checked it up to maybe I'm just not as active, even though nothing had changed. And so I had gone to doctors, kept getting the shrug, Hey, it's fine. You're fine. But over time I kept getting really weird symptoms. And one of them particularly was a pulse in my ear. And I was like, what is that? And at the time I was working in a really high intensity job. I was in corporate. I had a store and I was managing people and hitting awesome numbers and stuff like that. But what What happened was is I remember on New Year's Eve 2014 going into 2015, I looked at my partner and I was just like, something isn't right. And because I was in retail, I had scheduled this doctor's appointment, it kept getting rescheduled because of my schedule. So I ended up just kind of sticking to it. And they did ask me to change my shift. And I was like, Nope, I can't do it this time. So I walked into the doctor's appointment that day for what I thought was just routine. And they ended up finding a lump in my throat. And here I am 29 year old Faye, just on the brink of her career moving up in the corporate world moving up the corporate ladder and multiple developmental programs, mentors, being a mentor myself. I was just really struck with that. Prior to that, I was just so on it, right? Like I had studied the Brian Tracy's, the Zig Ziglar's, Grant Cardone's, and you're not leaving without signing something with me today. And it worked, you know, but it's kind of old school. And I'll kind of get to that here in just a minute in terms of how Athena incorporates the day to day, but 2019, January, I was diagnosed with cancer. Within a month, I had had a full thyroidectomy. And then two months later, my birthday is in April, I ended up having to go undergo, you know, radiation. And I remember like, when you look at your life, and you're like, you're faced with mortality, like, I don't know if I'm going to come back from this. you kind of just start taking a look at things way differently. Like I couldn't figure out why I loved my job so much, but I wasn't happy. And so I ended up just taking a risk and I quit my comfy corporate job where I was making great money and I had amazing benefits dealing with cancer by the way, and took a job as a 1099 doing door to door sales and went out there that summer. I ended up getting even more sick with a compromised immune system and Obviously, the thyroid regulates your hormones, right? So I had continued to gain more weight. And I had other stuff that I was like, something just doesn't feel right beyond this. So going through the motions, I still got up every day, I still work, but then the worse the pain got, even after cancer, the more I felt like I needed, I wanted to give up. You know, there were days, I'm talking 10 out of 10 pain every single day, couldn't get up, couldn't move. There were days I couldn't get up off the floor. My partner would sleep next to me on the floor. And so, I just kind of knew within that something was wrong. I ended up getting, beyond that, I ended up getting diagnosed with pseudotumor cerebri, which is a condition in your brain where the cerebral fluid doesn't drain appropriately due to clamped veins at the back of your head. And so I ended up having to undergo surgery to get stents put in into the veins behind my brain to drain all of that. And still the pain was there after dozens of procedures, after dozens of tests. And I ended up looking at myself and I'm like, there's just something not right. Just last year, I ended up finding an integrative health doctor who finally diagnosed me with late stage Lyme disease. And it was just, it was the biggest relief that I've ever had because I was like, now I know what it is. I know what caused all of this. So kind of looping back around to kind of how it brought me here and how Athena was born. I decided I had gained a hundred pounds. I wanted to give up on life. I didn't really see any point of moving on because I just felt like trash all the time. I was like, how can I, how can I survive cancer and still not want to do this anymore? But once I had that answer, I was like, Holy smokes. Now I have some hope. And so kind of forward over the last year and a half, I slowly started to, you know, kind of take my life back. So that lens that I started looking through when I got diagnosed with cancer was what have I been feeding my mind energy? What have I been feeding my body that caused this? empathy, right? How do I lead my day to day? Am I doing things that serve me? And how does that impact my relationships with people? And then execution? I mean, I got up and showed up anyway, I didn't take any time off. And so what a lot of people don't realize is forward movement is forward movement, even on autopilot, right? And that's kind of what I had to do. So I ended up, you know, kind of going through the door to door sales as a top performer, as a woman in sales and business, I had dealt with some things that weren't very pleasant amongst male counterparts. Of course you can imagine. And, um, I just made that decision. I came across this quote that said, whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right. And so that just shifted everything for me. And I ended up, we ended up, uh, opening a solar sales org, made my fair share of mistakes. Um, you know, learned a ton and decided that. When I was so sick that I was just going to give up, like I'm going to close the business down. I couldn't get it going in the direction I needed to. And I took some courses. I'm like, how do I reinvigorate my mind? How do I feed my mind something that gives me more excitement? Well, a different take on sales. I've always loved it. So I took Jeremy Minor and APQ. And then I found just a normal sales gig. I was like, let me bring some stability. Let me have a seat. Let me stop going so hard. And, uh, I ended up taking a sales gig and then naturally getting back into leadership, just as a top performer, you start getting asked. And then just last year, I started prospecting the idea of consulting and helping high ticket companies grow their businesses by sales trainings from obviously things that I've invested in myself and my experience. but also KPIs, metrics, operations, stuff like that. So I've implemented some stuff that have helped transform some teams. And that's where Athena was born when I finally got to a point where I was just like, hey, I did have some resistance working with men and that my idea was not necessarily an idea they agreed with until their idea didn't work. And then my idea was the good idea again. And so, you know, over last summer, I took a look around and I said, how do I change this? And so I was talking about it with my partner and the idea of Athena came from wisdom, strategy, right? And that just that leadership that you can go to, we'll call it battle, right? Cause life is, you can go to battle, but with the right army, with the right support group, with the right mindset, strategy, wisdom, the leadership that it takes to transform lives, you can transform lives. And in that, I've completely taken my life back with energy, empathy, and execution, and that's the approach I take with people. I don't get on and try to make those assumptive statements, yes, the nods to try to get people to say yes to me. I just get to know people, and it's completely amplified the way I teach. It amplifies the way I lead. It amplified my conversions, right? I wasn't bad before 30, 40 closing percent, not bad, but then I started Achieving 60 70 75% close rate and then teaching people to do that with what I've learned of course through Jeremy minor Cole Gordon's trainings which are great. And then just incorporating my personality into it, and how you communicate with people. on a deeper level and connecting with their energy. Why are they where they at and how is it impacting them? Who are they showing up for and not showing up for? Does it serve them? And then how are they getting up every day and moving towards those goals? Are you executing or That's, that's pretty neat. And that's obviously a lot of emotional intelligence that you possess to be able to combine all that, but to go back a second here. So when I heard you say you got rid of your day job, as we would say, and while you have cancer, right. And you're have full benefits. So you just. Did you just start paying So, there was a little bit of that as a 1099 contractor for the first few months. I didn't make very much money. And I don't know how much you know about real, not real estate, obviously real estate. I saw that. I don't know how much you know about solar, but it is kind of a nightmare just to get paid in general. So, I ended up qualifying for Medicaid. And so, it helped me get through that little slump. Then we opened up our solar company. started making some more money, ended up getting marketplace insurance and just continued my, and I knew it was a risk, but it was a risk that I'm a resilient person and I'm determined. And I knew it was something that, you know, with the right mindset, Yeah, that's a hell of a risk and clearly that, I mean, it's paid off, so that's pretty awesome. But then it turned into Lyme Well, so the doctor thinks that I've had Lyme disease for a very long time. And Lyme disease, depending on how long you've had it, it can be curable. And not to say mine isn't curable, we're not there yet. but it's managed and I'm able to, I've got my focus back, my mental clarity back, I've lost 70 pounds and just kind of on this like mission to regain my life and I've taken it all back, I've taken my power back and I'm here to help other women do the same. So I love that because I do know another lady that has Lyme disease and she's has kind of been on that same journey. I follow her on Facebook. It was a former colleague of my wife's and yeah, you see like it's very far and few but like the symptoms of what you're saying and like same thing that she kind of experienced. It's interesting because It's kind of a small group. I don't want to say small group of people, but it almost is like you have to communicate in some Yeah. I haven't quite gotten that far in the support group. Luckily, one of the companies that I worked with, I had no answers and I wanted to give up because I'm like, man, I've had these surgeries. The doctor's saying, we've cured your pseudotumor. The doctor's saying, okay, cancer. I mean, we still get the normal testing and stuff like that. That's looking good. Thank God. But the integrative health doctor was like, do you understand the toll that Lyme disease takes on your thyroid and your brain? And so he suspects, and you know, The medical field has all kinds of facts and not facts and conspiracies and not conspiracies, so we won't get into that, but he definitely was just like, I'd be willing to bet anything you've had this for a long, long time, maybe even as a kid, it's just wreaked havoc on your body the last 10, 15 years, and then potentially could have been linked to the thyroid cancer as well as pseudotumor cerebri. And does it only stem from like a tick bite or There are different bugs you can get it from, not just ticks, but it's generally where it comes from. However, there is some studies that show that it can be passed down. Now that's kind of one of those things that how do you prove it, et cetera. But when my doctor told me that, we tested my mom and my mom also has Lyme disease. Yes. And so, yeah, we tested my mom. My mom also has Lyme disease. And after doing some extensive research, because I'm like, there's so much conflicting opinions, I ended up seeing some articles that said, while the womb is strong enough to protect it, there are some cases in some of the research that I did that has linked the I mean, the coincidence would be incredible. I mean, yeah, that almost seems scientific that it would be passed down. I mean, that's, I mean, unless you, yeah, I mean, there's really nothing to say that could link that. I mean, yeah, besides some type of a pass down. Well, that is, so obviously you came up with the E3 strategy, which is energy, empathy, and execution, right? So what's your, obviously you like all three. What's your biggest one? I guess you start with the That's really tough. They're kind of equal. I think where it really stemmed from though is empathy. So while I don't necessarily have my favorite or the strongest one, because I think they're all essential to live the best version of yourself and interact in a way that serves everybody that you serve. But as a kid, I always felt really intense emotions. And I mean, I can go into a room, I don't even have to be in there for two or three seconds before I'm like, there's something off and this person's probably feeling this way, this person's feeling, I just feel it. And so, I mean, that's why you can watch a movie and cry. I mean, energy that way, right? The emotional energy is transferred, right? So I think that that's kind of something that I've always grew up with. And that like, everybody always asks me, why are you so forgiving? Why do you give so much, you know, so much space for error and how people treat you and this and that? Now, don't get me wrong. I have learned in my life how to have boundaries and what I will and won't accept. But that element came from a mindset I've always had is that perception is reality and reality is subjective. So how can you look at someone and don't get me wrong, I've definitely been mad at people, but how can you look at somebody and assume their intentions, right? And then internalize that, that somebody had a specific, you know, feeling towards you or meant to do X, Y, Z towards you. And so I think that was where it kind of came to light in that, why am I so hard on myself? I mean, it all started like it literally started with 10 minutes of yoga per week. And I couldn't even do that every week. But I had to treat myself with empathy. And I had to start rewiring and thinking about the way I treated myself. Because if I was down, then how do I treat people around me? And if I was down and having this negative self-talk, how do I expect myself to get up and try again tomorrow? And so I started making it a rolling seven days versus just during the week. And so these little micro habits that just sort of stacked and I started to feel a little bit better with the treatment. And then, okay, I think I can do 10 minutes of yoga twice this week. And then after a month or two, I think I can maybe bump up to, you know, three days, and then eventually, it was 20 minutes of yoga. And then, you know, I had to start something very low impact, just because my body was just in so much pain. But little by little, like it started with empathy, and how I treated myself and how I felt every day. And then I started looking at what am I feeding myself? How am I managing my energy? What am I feeding my mind to keep my mindset strong, right, that energy you show up with? And then even through cancer, I was like, I'm going before I die, I'm going to achieve my goals. Right. And so I was at like 1000 miles per minute. And you know, like, obviously, there's still a lot and goals change over life. But that was just kind of like how I embodied it. And it's just become a lens in every interaction and how I sell and how I coach and how I consult and how I interact with people that are not even on a business level. Obviously, my focus is business because I'm very passionate about it. I grew up in an entrepreneurial household. Every single one of my aunts and uncles, and there were a lot of them. My dad was one of 13, my mom was one of 12. They all had businesses. And so, you know, as four or five years old, I was going to work with my dad, 14, 15, I was working in the office, making sure all the numbers were right, everything in operations was working. And it's just something I was passionate about. And I just kind of went all the way with it. In fact, I went to school, I was going pre-law, I ended up getting my degree in criminal justice and then went to grad school for mental health, alcohol and drug abuse counseling. and which I think really contributed to my ability to connect with people emotionally and understand the way they think and how it impacts their lives. However, I just could never get away from the business aspect of it and I'm really excited to start helping other women feel more empowered and really work on that. How do you show up to your business and serve your people, serve your reps, serve the people that That that's, you know, that's so true and solving those bottlenecks is seems like what you do, but going back to the, I guess, so there were two of 25. Wow. That's incredible. I, I, uh, like if you combine your, your mom and your dad, you that, right. There's two of them, there's 12 and 13, right? So. I was always, you know, my dad had one, he was one of nine. So I always, you know, you see these big families back then, you're like, wow, a lot of them do own businesses. And it's, it's pretty, pretty crazy to hear about that. So obviously you're the best case in terms of what you're teaching, but is there like another case, you know, that stands out to you that, you know, where you've implemented this and it, it really changed, I don't know, maybe an entire, you know, team or something that really, you know, one other case beside yourself that really stands Yeah. Look, so even in corporate world, right? Like, so that empathy, while the formal energy, empathy and execution was born through the last couple of years where I was just like, what is this? What do I lead by? All these thoughts, all these approaches, I need to package it up so people understand, so I can present it to people. But when I got into leadership in corporate, I would come in and I would see reps feeling deflated because their numbers weren't where they wanted them to be. And somebody would try to teach them their way and their other way. And we would start with, okay, what mindset did you have coming in today? Why? And then when you're talking to people, do you understand their problem? Are you providing a solution to their problem? Are you earning the right to provide a solution to their problem? And then, you know, what a lot of people don't realize is leadership, your customer is no longer the prospect walking into the store, your customer is the sales rep is the operations person is everybody beneath you, that makes the system run. And so what are you doing? What's the goal? And how are we executing every day to get towards that? And so we won a bunch of different, like top performing as a, as a store, we were, we won a bunch of awards and stuff like that. And then getting into, you know, the high ticket space as well. I mean, in our, you know, I'd go into these sales meetings and, you know, I always, when I took a job, when I decided to get out of entrepreneurship for a little bit to kind of take a seat and figure out what's going on with me. I'd go into these meetings and I'd see some people high and some people low and some people deflated and some people not. And I started just kind of reaching out to them and just saying, hey, is there anything I can help you with? And then with that little bit, it turned into mindset coaching just by asking if I needed to help them or if they needed any help. And then my most recent company that I was working as a fractional CSO for, When I first came on their close rate, I remember one girl in particular was at about 15%. And within seven months, she was closing at 55%. And so I did that by coming in and evaluating. She was afraid to look at her metrics. She didn't know which ones, why? I don't, I feel bad. I hate looking at these ones, but it's that mindset shift of how you're showing up, how you're viewing it, and how does it actually move the needle forward to those goals? And so, I mean as a, as a team collectively, that last fractional CSO company that I had been working with. We had tripled revenue by my second month there. Just by coming in we held team meetings, you got a win, professional win and a personal win so you can start building a family like culture. People start caring about each other. We would have breakouts where you would have, you know, the closers and the setters go out, share best practices, do some role plays, celebrate the wins. I would have people listen to a win at the beginning of the week, one of their calls, everything should be recorded. A loss in the middle of the week to show what you could have done, but it needed to be a sale from that week. and then a win at the end of the week. So you go in with that mindset of high energy, I'm the shit, I know what I'm doing. All right, what can I improve on? So you watch a sales call of yours that you didn't win and figure out what went wrong and I'd have them self-diagnose. I'd also do call reviews with them. And then at the end of the week, you need to end your note, whether you had three sales or whether you had 10 sales, you need to end the week with that mindset of, I did well. Cause it's all averages, right? So, you know, it was just really cool seeing when I, uh, really created this, you know, Athena business group, which business group, because it's going to be a collective. Um, when I created that, just the transformation of implementing these E threes, cause it's personal and business, right. And if you're not implementing in your personal life, you cannot implement it in your business. Right. So, yeah, I mean, there were some really cool transformations. And then I had some personal development coaching that kind of came along with that where people would say, Hey, can you coach me on the side? And I love that because I always say that's like a positive sandwich, right? Yeah. You ever heard that term, right? That's the old teacher term, right? Positive sandwich. You know, start with a positive. negative and then end with a positive. So no, I think with, you clearly, I don't want to say probably part of your success through a criminal justice degree, which I'm not biased because maybe I have one too, but we learn how to get into people's, as I say, kitchen. It's almost like that CIA method. And that's a big part of kind of breaking someone down to the core, as I say, right? And that's, you can tell you're very, very talented at figuring out somebody. So I appreciate it. It's something I'm really passionate about. And I love seeing the transformation. You know, when you come in and you see somebody's dream and they say, I don't know, I'm trying. And I don't know what's wrong. Just come in and say, all right, well, let's look at the whole picture. And you identify these gaps. And a lot of times they're just low hanging fruits, but they boost that serotonin, that excitement, that energy, because now you're getting small wins without having to change much. It's just a little shift. And then, you know, you start to see it grow in scale. It's really incredible. It's really incredible. And you're helping people change their lives and achieve things that they never thought they could achieve before. Yeah. And the awesome part is they get to look at you and when you, you know, they, they're getting to learn from somebody that literally has done this and lived it and, and lived more than a lot of people will ever have to, um, fight through. That's for sure. So I, uh, I really think this conversation is going to inspire a lot of people. So if anyone wants to follow you, what would you say the best way? I mean, I know you got a website, you got Instagram, you're on Facebook. Um, to start to learn about that E3 method if somebody wants to sign up and get a coaching call. Where Yeah, absolutely. So I do have a coaching call link. I always do a free strategy session every time whether or not we do business together. I'm there to give value and help contribute to any positive changes in your life. Our website is athenabusinessgroup.com and my socials, you'll be able to find me. I wanted to be careful with the ads because I do run some ads right now. Uh, so I went to my government name, which is Fatima. But so you look me up as Fatima Saad, but I'm actually Faye. I go by Faye. Um, my links are in the bio. I put them in on LinkedIn, Instagram, uh, X, so Facebook. So, you know, you can find me all over, just look up Faye Saad. And I actually have an E3 strategy workbook that, you know, anybody that watches this video, just have them tag, you know, just say, Hey, I watched, uh, Blake's. you know, Blake's episode with you and I'll just give it to them for free and just want to make sure that they can actually read it and understand how they can transform their lives and hopefully feel a little bit more empowered in that, you know, some of us start at zero, right? And some of us start really high and go down to zero, right? But no matter what, there is always hope coming from somebody who literally felt no need to continue to live. there's always a reason to keep going. And so the E3 strategy, anybody that hits me up that wants it, just let me know in the email, faye.athenastrong.com. And happy to send over that free book, that workbook for them to help them get some value and change their lives. Oh yeah, that's incredible value right there that you're offering. So I'm sure somebody will take you up on that. I always say, as long as one person it look just and I'll send it over to you. But yeah, as long as even if you get just a little nugget that improves your day, or just some inspiration to give you a reason to get up that morning and work towards your goal. That's all I that's all I ever hope to do. In fact, my long term vision for Athena business group, I ended up buying the Athena strong domain is to just help women for free. So that's going to be the long term goal. We're building up Athena business group right now, but I want to give people that support in business and the personal life that I didn't have, that I had to just muster up inside. And I don't want to take any credit away from my incredible partner. I couldn't have done it without her. But with that being said, It is this E3 strategy completely gave me my life back along with figuring out what was wrong with me, of course. And, you know, at the end of this, hopefully I can just be there as a mentor for people that are saying, Faye, I'm really struggling with my life. I'm really struggling with finding the strength. I'm really struggling with giving myself some some grace. And I'm really struggling with reaching some of these goals. And I want to be there to help change their lives and support them Yeah, that's truly awesome because a lot of us are always, you know, wanting to help people, but it's hard for us sometimes to raise our own hand, right? And ask for help ourselves. So that's awesome that you're out there doing that. And I appreciate you sharing that knowledge. And if anybody wants that E3 book, she'll Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you for having me on. I hope you got some value and everybody that's on here at least got a little glimmer of hope if they're going through something that just keep going. Any Amen. Thank you for joining us on this episode of Elevate with Elzner. And remember, challenges are opportunities in disguise. With the right strategy, you can turn any setback into a comeback. Until next time, keep elevating Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcasts. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review and tell your