State of Latinas: Professional Work Advice for Every Boss Babe

Continuing with our State of Latinas series, the next stop on the Worthy Women tour was San Francisco.

I stepped off the plane in misty San Francisco, excited and completely unsure of what I was going to find. Worthy Women has been L.A. based for the past year and a half and the thought of hitting a different market had me with butterflies in my tummy.

I went into our first San Francisco Summit with no expectations – it sounds silly but as long as I do my best I don’t consider anything I do a failure, even if no one showed up, I planned the hell out of that summit. Fortunately it went great. We heard from a lot of awesome women who are doing amazing things with companies like Like Code 2040, WFF Connect, Stitch, and InspiredLuxe.

Here are five of the main takeaways from all the knowledge our amazing panelists dropped on us at our SF Worthy Women Summit.

1. “Always know when your ‘walk away’ is.” Karla Martin who is the CEO of Inspired Luxe reminds us that knowing when to walk away is just as important as knowing when to stick it out. As women we’re afraid to say no, in deals, in business, in life, sometimes we want to people please even when we aren’t 100 percent on something. All of our speakers in one way or another reminded the audience to know when to walk away gracefully from a situation that does not serve us.
2. You need to value yourself and your time. I constantly see women accepting less than they are worth because of fear. Fear of being rejected, fear of missing out, fear they they won’t ever get the same opportunity or offer ever again. Deldelp Medina of Code 2040 reminds us that “we need to understand what our skills sets are, what they’re worth, and how the world perceives them.” If someone doesn’t value what special skills you have, don’t do business with them, period.
3. Trust in your own abilities. Deldelp Medina of Code 2040 reminded us that “It’s not that women lack skill, there’s a disconnect with how we see ourselves in the world.” Don’t sell yourself short and don’t discount all of the unique experiences that have taught you things that make you an invaluable team member and/or business woman. Kristina Bedrossian shared some of her own self doubts. “When men know 20 percent of something they act like they know 100 percent. When I know 120 percent of something sometimes I don’t speak up.” She said that as women we need to trust what we know and be confident in ourselves especially as WOC. And Karla Martin added, “Sometimes women will value their time at zero, but men never do that; they always overvalue their time.”
4. You don’t have to play big in every area of your life. It’s impossible to give 100 percent in every area of your life and it’s a myth that we can have it all! We exhaust ourselves trying to do it all instead of picking what is most important to us and focusing on that. Several of our panelists spoke about knowing where to give in and when to let go. Deldelp explained, “I don’t think there’s a such thing in playing big in everything, I think we have seasons.” Erica Diaz shared that she chose not to go to every event because she wanted to see her nephews grow up. “I’m trying to work smarter, not harder.” And Kristina Bedrossian told us to “figure out what you want to be achieving right now and what can wait.”
   
5. Get Support. All of our panelists made it a point to tell us to get support on our career/entrepreneurial journey either through therapy or through surrounding yourself with other likeminded women who want to see you succeed. Carine Schneider told the audience to “Get a dog or get somebody to talk with about your problems as a CEO. And be careful what you say.” Most of the panelists agreed that therapy is always a good choice when navigating your own self doubts and Erica Diaz reminded us that “it’s important to have a tribe full of women and that are invested in seeing you win.” Isolating yourself when you’re feeling stressed out can be really hurtful to yourself and to your business. As WOC we tend to not ask for help and there is such a mental health stigma in the Latinx community that it might be hard to talk about your problems with just anyone. It’s okay to feel overwhelmed and it’s okay to get help.