Wina, tell me about your vision.
Oh, OK.
So my vision for my company and everything that I do right now
really involves a lot of legacy planning and legacy building.
More importantly, because I'm in the real estate private equity
space, there's not a whole lot of women and minorities
at the top levels operating at the deal size that I'm doing.
And I am really passionate about making sure
that we change that narrative and that there are opportunities
created, not just in finance, but in business in general,
for women and minorities and people who don't come
from wealthy backgrounds and people who don't go to Ivy
Leagues.
Not your typical old boys club.
I want to expand that so that when my daughters go out
into the world, I have twin 5 and 1 half-year-olds.
When they go out into the world, I
want them to know that they belong in these rooms
and they deserve to be in these rooms.
Wow.
What an amazing vision.
Tell me more about that.
Where did that all come from?
You know, it stemmed from my children
and now just having something that's
more important than my own goal and my own vision.
And look, it's a lot easier to look to legacy planning
and to want to make a big impact when
you've achieved the financial success
that you're looking for.
So that was when I first started out, my initial goals
did not have these lofty or selfless, if you will, ideas.
And I didn't have those visions.
I didn't think that big.
I didn't care as much about impact
because I was just looking to build financial wealth
for our family first.
And so when I started, my vision was like,
I want to be a millionaire before I'm 30.
And then I said, OK, wait.
I met that goal when I was like 26 and said, OK,
I want to be worth $5 million.
And then you meet that goal.
And then you go, OK, what about 10?
And then it comes to a point where you're like,
when is enough enough?
Right?
When do the goals shift from being money driven
and financially driven to lifestyle driven?
And then they shifted to being lifestyle driven,
which meant, OK, I want to be able to hire housekeepers.
I want to be able to have someone come and make
my bed every day.
I don't want to do laundry.
It's like all the lifestyle things.
I want to travel when I want.
I want to travel in first class.
I want to take my kids on vacation.
So that was kind of like the second phase of success.
And now that I've done both of those things
and I've done it comfortably and successfully,
now I'm at the third phase, which is impact.
And that is the thing that lives on beyond Vina Jetty, right?
It lives on in other people.
And the best reward I get now is not money.
It's not any gift anyone gives me.
It is when someone comes to me and says, because of you,
the entire trajectory of my family tree has now changed.
And I'm doing something that I never thought was possible.
Or I come from this background, and because of you,
that didn't stop me from doing X, Y, or Z. To me,
that's like a drug that's intoxicating.
And that's what I chase now.
I would love to hear those stories.
Yeah.
I'm sure that pertains to your why.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, so actually, I have a great story.
It's so fresh for me right now, because I just
got this message day before yesterday I got this message.
So I have a community called the Multi-Mastermind Community.
And it's a group of people who are
in various fields of business and primarily real estate
and multifamily focused.
And one of our members, his name is Janek.
He is 23 years old.
He is an immigrant and came to this country by himself.
No parents here, no siblings, nothing.
He came here by himself.
And I remember about a year ago almost,
like eight months, nine months ago, he approached me
and said, Vina, what is the fastest or the shortest
amount of time someone in the community has done a deal?
And I said, look, multifamily is a slow burn.
So probably like six and a half months, maybe seven months
before they actually got a deal and did a deal,
like got it under contract.
He goes, as soon as I get my work permit,
I am going to do it faster.
And I said, great, I hope you do.
You know, he's 23, so he's like fresh.
He hasn't gone and worked like a decade in corporate America
or anything like that.
So comes back to me about two and a half, three months
after he got his work permit.
And he said, Vina, I have 86 units under contract.
And this week, this is so timely because this week,
he just told me two days ago that they are closing
this deal this week.
And so at 23 years old, he will have 86 units.
And he came from such a hard system to overcome, right?
Like he immigrated from Africa by himself.
He's young.
He hasn't finished college yet.
And he's buying 86 units.
And it's all from partnerships within the multi-community,
from the strategies that I taught him,
all of the time that I've now spent pouring
into the community.
Like when I hear stories like that, it feels worth it.
Wow, that's amazing.
Yeah.
Wow, I love that story.
It's so special.
Yeah.
And how long have that been going on?
That been going on with your community?
Like how long have you been doing that?
Not very long.
So I started my community in October of 2023.
So it's been just a little over a year now.
Wow, that's awesome.
Where do you see yourself going with this vision?
That's a good question.
I'm actually getting ready to do my goal setting
for next year, which I have not yet done.
I really enjoy public speaking
because it gives me an opportunity to meet more people
and share more information.
So I am gonna try to speak more on different stages
than I've been on the last couple of years.
I spoke on hundreds of stages over the last two years.
And so I plan to continue doing that.
That's something that really fulfills me.
But I also plan on doubling down into the community
and providing more information, time, value,
and just improving the things
that we've already built over the last year.
I wanna keep getting better.
That's awesome.
Thank you for sharing that with us.
Yeah, for loving you.
Yeah.
I have so many more questions for you.
My next question, I mean,
there's obviously entrepreneur side to things
and there's obviously business side to things
and leadership side to things.
What do you think, in your opinion,
defines a great leader, Lina?
Okay, this is a great question.
And I think it's very timely
because I'm starting to see a shift in how leaders show up.
And I actually just did a call with my mindset coach,
Rosie Noel, yesterday about this exact topic.
And one of the things we talked about
was in corporate America or in the business world,
the entrepreneurial world,
there's a lot of emphasis on technical skills
because those are very tangible.
It's easy for me to say like,
oh, do you know how to underwrite?
Yes or no, right?
And that's a technical skill.
Where I think that we have historically most of the mark
is around emotional intelligence.
And I call it soft skills, but then Rosie was like,
I call them behavioral skills
because you don't wanna lessen their importance.
And so around the behavioral skills of leaders,
I think that that is what makes you a great leader
is when you go beyond the technical
and you really invest in yourself, your own mindset,
your ability to grow, your ability to remain curious,
to be self-aware, doing all of those things.
And it makes you a valuable leader
and it makes you a great leader
as opposed to someone who shows up transactionally,
somebody who shows up with a scarcity mindset,
somebody who comes and just takes and takes and takes,
or a lot of leaders, I've seen this very up close.
I've seen leaders that show up
and manipulate the people around them
and step on other people to get to the top.
And I just think that seeing more women in leadership,
we're seeing more emphasis and more valuing
of the behavioral skills than we've ever seen before.
And I think that the men that also possess
these behavioral skills and also rise to the occasion,
I think they make great leaders as well.
Thank you for sharing that.
Yeah.
What if you take someone who's not a great leader,
but it has great work ethic,
and someone who has is great leadership and great work ethic.
What do you see the difference in success in that?
Look, not everybody wants to be a leader
and not everybody is a leader.
It is hard to lead because you now have the responsibility
of the people that are relying on you.
Work ethic, I think, is separate from leadership.
You can work really, really, really hard.
You can outwork everybody in the room.
And that is a major value add.
And I think that great leaders have to have good work ethic
in addition to behavioral skills,
in addition to decision-making skills,
in addition to empathy and awareness and curiosity.
Like all those things have to be present in great leaders.
They don't have to be present
in somebody that has strong work ethic.
That could be the only skillset
that someone who doesn't want to
or isn't in leadership possess.
In your experience, Vena,
what would you say that great leadership
are things you could have avoided
if you were a different person,
or things you could have done better
if you were a great leader?
Maybe you would have seen some years of your life
or some things you would not have missed out on.
Yeah, look, I am not the perfect leader right now, right?
And part of being in an abundant mindset
is the idea that we can always continue to grow.
We can always do something different.
We can always do something better.
And as I continue to learn and grow,
I implement that within my team.
I think if you were to ask my team
some of the things that make me a great leader,
I think one of the things that they would tell you
is I'm not afraid to own up to mistakes.
I make mistakes all the time.
And it gives my team permission to be human
and to try really hard things.
And I do the same thing with my children too.
I ask them to fail at something every single day
because I want them to try things.
I want them to try new things.
They don't know what they're gonna be good at
or not good at if they never try them.
And when I make a mistake, I show up for my team
the way I want someone to show up when they make a mistake.
I want to say, hey, I recognize that this is a mistake.
Thank you for bringing it to my attention.
I didn't consider that or I hadn't looked at it that way
or this is how I had thought of it.
I now see another perspective.
Here's what we can do to change it
or here's what I wanna do to make up for it, right?
Or I don't know how to move forward.
Can you help me?
I oftentimes ask my team for their input
or their expertise because they know more
about their own field than I do.
And if I didn't believe or trust in them, why hire them?
So I think that that's something
that defines great leadership
is being able to uplift those around you,
being able to show up vulnerable, right?
Being vulnerable is a behavioral skill.
It took me a long time to learn that.
And I'll say the one thing that I did
that turned me from a good leader,
like I was always an okay leader because I was bold
and I am good at bringing groups of people together.
But the thing that has turned me into territory
of being great is self-development, personal development.
And I can't stress this enough.
So I told you, I worked with Rosie.
It wasn't until after I started working with her,
I did my largest deal that I've ever done.
We bought a deal for $131.5 million.
It wasn't until I started coaching with her
that I was able to really leverage the strengths
of my immediate team members to the highest level.
It's because of her that I had a shift
in how I lead our teams.
And I'll tell you, I just got a message a couple days ago
from my right hand, my absolute, absolute wonderful employee.
His name is Fadi and he sent me a message and he said,
Vina, I've been working in corporate America
and private equity for a long time.
I've never been truly fulfilled and happy where I'm working.
And I feel that with you.
So thank you for that.
And I was like, what a compliment.
Like that is the utmost compliment
because I came into this thinking,
I am a woman of color in this space.
I want to change the way it's always been done.
And I wanna lead differently.
And I wanna do things the way I wanna do them.
If I wanted to do them the way they've always been done,
I would have stayed at any of my corporate positions,
but I didn't want that.
I wanted to change them.
And so knowing that I not only have changed that for myself
and for my team, but especially for the people
that are so invested in our company
from like a emotional standpoint,
they give up so much of their time and energy and effort
to our company and to serve our clients and our investors.
And that reflects in how they treat customers.
Wow, there is so many things that you said in that,
that I can repeat, repeat, repeat,
but I think it'd be best interest if people
actually listen to this.
Because there's a lot of things you said,
all the way from scarcity mindset to abundance mindset
to hiring the right people, trusting the right people,
empowering those people, leading by example.
Too many times, I mean, and this is a different tangent
from what you just mentioned, I think,
but I think it could be a part of it.
Too many times on the show,
there's solopreneurs that show up, right?
And they wear these multiple hats at the same time.
They don't even know how to hire people.
They don't know how to fire people.
They don't know how to train people.
And this took me a while to learn too.
Like, just because good CEOs, good leaders understand
I can't do this right, that's why I had the people
to do it for me because they can do it better than I can.
Saves me time, money, effort, and energy, and so much more.
100%.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is gonna get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.