By Matt Skoufalos
As a young adult, Sadia Nasir first arrived in the United States from Pakistan in the late 1990s. She began pursuing a career in radiology, eventually becoming an administrator, and opening the radiology department of a Children’s Hospital in Texas. After 15 years in a leadership role, she began searching for ways to explore her hobbies and interests outside of the office.
“I needed to do something else,” Nasir said. “I feel like my brain is too sharp to keep on doing the same-old, same-old. I wanted a hobby that is more exciting than just your profession.”
As recently as half a decade ago, Nasir said she might not have even been able to contemplate anything other than work. For the first 10 years of her career, she maxed out her paid time off allotment annually, some 350 hours of unused time – until a life event dramatically revealed that her priorities were overdue for an adjustment.
Nasir’s husband, a computer programmer, sustained a cardiac event driven by the level of stress at his workplace. It was the wake-up call Nasir hadn’t known she needed, but it changed her approach to work entirely. While her husband changed jobs, swapping out the high-intensity demands of software coding for the comparatively less strenuous work of a database administrator, she began finding ways to offload the workplace responsibilities that had kept her from taking any time away from the hospital. With 80-plus direct reports, the first challenge to address was the importance of delegating some of that workload to others.
“I started hiring managers,” Nasir said. “Now I have two managers, and I cannot tell you how much I count on these managers. I gave one manager the radiation department, and non-radiation to the other. Whatever I learned, I started teaching them.”
“That’s the best thing I did,” she said. “Having a strong team was the perfect balance I was missing five years ago. Radiology is my profession. How can I grow? These leaders are growing. Tomorrow, if it’s time for me to become something else, my radiology leaders will keep on growing.”
While she sorted out her coverage at work, Nasir and her husband took some time to travel the globe. The couple had always said that they would explore the United States when they hit their sixties; before then, they wanted to explore the world.
“We started our journey of traveling by connecting the countries we visited,” she said. “We went to Greece, Turkey, Switzerland, Germany, France, Scotland and Ireland. It was one of the most amazing trips, and you see how many different cultures you are touching.”
“While I’m traveling Europe, I learn about how the economy’s turning,” Nasir continued. “There’s so much to learn while you’re outside the United States. So, I started learning about real estate.”
Many Americans have a side hobby or a weekend pursuit, but not as many of them might describe a second career in that fashion as such – yet that’s how Nasir chooses to spend her time. With two children in college and weekends free, she began studying for her real estate license. Today, she applies her passion for organization and leadership focus to the residential and commercial real estate markets. She opened a small firm that focuses on helping buyers, sellers, and those whose properties are headed for auction or foreclosure to navigate the complicated world of property transactions.
“It’s all about work-life balance,” Nasir said. “You’ve got to do more than just a job you are doing Monday through Friday, 8 to 5. My husband’s heart attack really opened my eyes to the fact that I am too young to not enjoy what I’m doing in my professional job.”
What attracted Nasir to the world of real estate was the potential to work in the field on weekends. During the day on Saturday and Sunday, she connects with her clients, tours properties and sets up meetings. The hours she keeps are her own to set and the workload is as manageable as she wants to make it. In the evenings, she still barbecues with the family.
“My family is first, and my profession is second,” Nasir said. “I’m loving it. It’s not about buying and selling a house; it’s about helping others in a very different way.”
The real estate market in her home of Houston, Texas, is turning over presently, she said; a function of high-interest-rate mortgage foreclosures and increasing demand for new homes. Nasir specializes in working with owners of distressed properties to help them find buyers and stay out of the foreclosure process; she also focuses on working with Spanish-speaking clients who need extra help navigating the ins and outs of the real estate market.
“There are people in our community who have no clue how to start buying a home; the process and the paperwork are unbelievable,” Nasir said. “They are thankful that someone is explaining to them how to buy a house, or find a rental option while they are saving money for their first house.”
“The day we start thinking only about money, there’s no humanity; there’s no purpose in your life,” she said. “Real estate is about helping others. Money in business comes, but the satisfaction of helping somebody so they don’t have to put their house in foreclosure, or someone who is buying their first house and doesn’t know where to start, that is so satisfying.”
Nasir can envision her life as a real estate agent expanding in retirement, but for now, she delights in finding opportunities to help new clients relocate into the home of their dreams, without anxiety or confusion about the process.
“I hope that buying or selling any property, residential or commercial, would be so simple that anybody can do it,” she said; “right now it’s so complicated. There’s so many ways to help. Some people who have money are so lost they don’t even know where to start; I wish there was a simpler process so they could understand it.”
Nasir doesn’t know where her real estate career may take her; for now, she’s simply trying her best and working to improve every day. But she’s definitely having a better time of things at work, and stress levels in the household overall have improved dramatically.
“When I go home and I’m done with my day, I say, ‘Thank you, God,’ ” Nasir said. “Even if I’m doing five out of 10 things right, it’s such a satisfaction.”
