How to Build Yourself When You've Been a Version for Everyone Else | Saina Babaee

What if your life looks good from the outside but still doesn't feel fully yours? This episode is for anyone who has achieved everything they were supposed to achieve and found themselves quietly asking: why do I still feel like something is missing?

Erika sits down with Saina Babaee, VP at Siemens, founder of her own fashion label, and mother of twins. Someone who followed the prescribed path with excellence and then had to find herself inside it. This is not a story about burning everything down. It is about what it actually looks like to stop living for everyone else and start building a life that is authentically yours.

If you have ever caught yourself thinking:

"I'm successful but I feel empty and I don't know why." "I want to start my passion but I don't know where to begin." "I have a good life. So why does something still feel off?" "I keep waiting for the right time to build something on the side." "I'm scared that wanting more makes me ungrateful for what I have."

Then this is the episode is for you.

In this conversation, Erika and Saina cover:

*Why feeling empty despite your success is not a failing but a signal worth listening to *How to identify what you have been carrying since childhood that was never yours to carry *How to break long-held patterns without dismantling your whole life *Why you do not need to quit your job to start building your passion, and how having a 9-5 can actually make starting easier *How to build something on the side while working full time using a structure that fits around your life *What becoming a mother did to Saina's ambition and why it made her more driven, not less *How to lead with heart in corporate without losing results *How to navigate friendship grief and the loneliness of outgrowing people who no longer fit who you are becoming *How to reconnect with the creative, feminine side of yourself that high performance has pushed aside

The version of you that has been waiting is not a different person. She is simply the one who finally has permission to exist.

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Ilai Sarai

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(0:00) Introduction

(07:35) From Engineer to Fashion

(14:34) What have you Been carrying thats not yours?

(18:01) Don't be who you are at work in your relationships

(20:37) How do you break year long patterns?

(25:13) Can you start something while you have a 9-5?

(28:06) People romanticise taking the leap

(31:06) How to get creativ