WELLTHY Generation Podcast!
Welcome to the WELLTHY Generation Podcast - I am your host - Naihomy Jerez.
Your Bronx raised dominicana, wife, mother of 2, new BFF, AND Food & Holistic Health Coach!
I went from living a surface level healthy life, to learning FIRST HAND how to live my BEST life rooted in wellness and get my sass back!
Whether you're a wellness enthusiast, a food lover, or simply curious about creating a healthier, more vibrant life, this podcast is your guide. We're going to dive deep into topics that will inspire you to make positive changes and elevate not only your WELL-being, but those of generations before and after you.
Stay tuned for exciting conversations, expert interviews, and a whole lot of inspiration that will lead to ACTION. Welcome to the WELLTHY Generation Podcast, with me, your host Naihomy Jerez!
WELLTHY Generation Podcast!
26. Entrepreneurship, Career, Wellness, and Meltdowns: Carla and Naihomy Tell All
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Hey friends, welcome back to the wealthy generation podcast that is W E L L T H? Y. Today you're in for a real treat. Uh, it is a crossover episode. I feel like I'm on TV with the crossover shows when the actors like jump into each other's shows. Well, today I have that last Santa Maria from the First Gen Podcast. So if you listen to her, if you listen to me, you can find this episode available in both. If you are on my end, welcome back to Wealthy Generation and Karla, take it away.
Speaker 2:Thank you, naomi, and hello First Gen friends, welcome back to the show, or welcome to the show If you are new here and you are finding us on wealthy generation, I also feel like I'm on TV. This is so much fun. We should do more crossover episodes. Yeah, this is fun.
Speaker 1:Um. So we decided to unite forces due to a very extensive conversation that we had over voice notes, and we were like we should talk about this publicly. And then God was like, maybe you can string all our voice notes together. And I'm like, uh, let's, let's just do a podcast, because I don't know if I'm that tech savvy. Um, but I'll share why we decided to do this episode together, what the topic is going to be on and what happened. So today we're both going to be talking about entrepreneurship, career and health and wellness all of it wrapped together.
Speaker 1:And this conversation happened because I had a very big meltdown in our mastermind and something triggered me. Something triggered me with my business and the finances of it, and every time I've gotten so much better at it, but every time I would have a meltdown when it came to my business and finances, the first thing I would say I needed to do was go find another job. If you don't know, I spent 12 years in corporate America. I worked in digital advertising. So I went on our mastermind Slack channel and I requested peer coaching from Soledad, from Wealth Para Todos and Carla at the same time. I'm like I need to meet with the both of you at the same time, because I need help and I was just really spinning out and it just so happened that we couldn't make the schedules work all together because I was asking for a lot. So I ended up meeting with Soledad first from Wealth Para Todos. So I ended up meeting with Soledad first from Wealth Para Todos, who she also happens to be my money coach, and we spoke about my money and all of that and towards the end, I realized what my triggers were and what I could do about it. And then Soledad is like go tell Carla that you don't need to meet with her anymore.
Speaker 1:Because I told Soledad my plan was to talk about my money and then immediately talk to Carla about fixing my resume and helping me find a job. And I know I need to know what to do because I have not applied for work in I don't know like a lot of years, maybe like almost nine years now, more or less. Wow, so, yeah, because I got my last corporate job I think it was 2017. Because I was there for about five years and then I've been four years an entrepreneur. So I sent Carla voice note and I'm like hey, Carla, we don't need to talk anymore. I figured myself out, so let's talk me off the ledge. And then this beautiful conversation happened about entrepreneurship, and the one question Carla asked me that turned into this conversation was what was my first experience with entrepreneurship as a child? I don't know if you want to jump in or say anything else.
Speaker 2:I love that because I think that actually kind of brings me to a little bit about my perspective of entrepreneurship and I'll definitely let you share in just a second of what your experience with entrepreneurship was as a child. But I think it was very similar to mine and I've had to do a lot of unlearning and relearning and a lot of just like thought work and mindset work on what it means to be an entrepreneur and who gets to call themselves an entrepreneur versus who gets to call themselves like a street vendor. You know, like, why is somebody with? Anyway, that's a whole other conversation. Yes, so let me like reel it in for a second. You know so, for those who may not know me, my name is Carlos Santamaria.
Speaker 2:I'm a career and mindset coach and the host of the First Gen Coach Podcast, so I help first gen professionals job hop to six figures. And so, naomi, when you said that you know like some of that talk you off the ledge, one of the things that I'm coming to my mind, I'm like, yeah, this is why I have a sales calls with clients, because sometimes there's this urgency of like, oh my gosh, something else is broken and you think, or not broken, but, like something else in your life, needs attention and you think that the magic bullet is going to be getting a job. And listen, no, there is. I mean, even if the thing that's going on is that your job is messed up, getting a new job is not necessarily always the solution, so that's a whole other thing.
Speaker 2:But to go back to this question, that kind of spawned this response, you know, and I you know this, this conversation, I mean you said what was my question to you was what was your experience with entrepreneurship, and I think the reason that I asked that is that my my experience. So both of my parents are entrepreneurs. My dad has a construction company that focuses on like glass and mirror shower doors, like glass railings you know things like that windows. And my mom has had a lot of different entrepreneurial pursuits. She is a realtor and a life insurance agent now been doing that for several years, but growing up she was always like selling something and I used to think that that was, quote unquote, wrong, which is so like I just it feels so mean to say out loud you know, but it was my parents who were telling me go to school, go get a good job so you don't have to be working like us.
Speaker 2:So I grew up thinking that going to school, getting an education and then getting a quote unquote office job was making it like. I thought that was it. I thought just having an office job was making it. Can't believe what a kind of a low bar.
Speaker 1:that was yeah.
Speaker 2:So my perspective of entrepreneurship as a child is that it was, it was what you did when you didn't go to college. You know, and so, and, and that's why I never I mean, I never thought I'd be an entrepreneur. I thought, yeah, like I have an office job I wanted. I remember, because for some time I had worked for my dad and I remember thinking I just want a job where I can do the job and not worry about paying the bills, where I can just get my paycheck and somebody else worries about paying the bills. Like that is what I all of in my mind.
Speaker 2:That's what being an entrepreneur meant, and not even an entrepreneur Like that is what I never. Even now that I'm saying this, like I just realized it's only in recent years that I'm starting to think of my parents as entrepreneurs, because before I was like, oh, they just have their business. Because the framing of like get an education and get a quote, unquote good job the underlying theme of that is like get a good quote, unquote good, because I believe that a good job is a myth, but get a corporate job, so job, so that was my experience with entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I realized you introduced yourself that I didn't do the same for your audience. You have no idea who I am.
Speaker 1:I'm Naomi Jerez and I'm a food and holistic health coach and I teach women of color how to use food to heal their bodies, lose weight without dieting, while you also live your best life. And I never, ever, chose to be an entrepreneur. I didn't know I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I was embarrassed to be an entrepreneur, like all of these things. I went through all these emotions. I went through all these emotions and, carla, when you asked me that about what was my experience with entrepreneurship? As apartment, like that's how we grew up Like my home was literally a daycare center and it's your business to run, even though a lot of things are managed by the city. So, but I didn't think too much of that one. It was more of the selling um, pastelitos and pantyhose, and it was mostly at the places where I used to dance. So my mother had me in dance class and she would sell these things at the dance class, and one time she also sewed all of the costumes for the girls and myself for the performance.
Speaker 1:And I told you, oh my God, first of all, I didn't set out to be an entrepreneur and second, there was always like this little uneasiness that I felt about it and I didn't know exactly what it was until I spoke to you about it and it was because and it was that entrepreneurship was for poor people.
Speaker 1:And every time I tell that to somebody they're like what? And I'm like, yeah, because my perception was that if you didn't make enough money at your job to pay for things, then you had to go hustle to make up for that. And I didn't see anybody else at the dance studio or anybody selling anything. And I would be like, oh, we're just so poor that my mom has to sell empanadas and so and do all these things in order to be able to afford things. For me, because, let's say, my father's salary or whatever couldn't cover the extra things, cover the extra things. And that was such a mind blowing moment for me because if you ask, maybe like, let's say, like white people or something, it's like an empowering thing, like you're your own boss, you're creating something. This is how you build generational wealth. But for me it was kind of embarrassing where my parents had to do this because they couldn't make ends meet at a regular job or they needed the extra cash.
Speaker 2:So that was very like a pivotal moment for me, I should say as an entrepreneur myself yes, I remember, like I think you actually said oh, selling things is for poor people, like not? Even like this concept of selling things and the way that you described it.
Speaker 2:It just like when you said you know like your mom needed to sell, like you know like pastelitos, or you know she needed to sew the sew the costumes, like all of that makes your mom sound like such a badass but I know you know, but similarly I, the reason that I had this thought of like I just want to work and not have to worry about paying the bills is that when I worked for my dad, every Friday was like payroll, you know, and every Friday we would have to hustle.
Speaker 2:And this is something that my sister said when she also worked for my dad. Like she was like, oh you know, it's the Friday hustle to try to get money to, you know, like to try to get, try to get money to meet payroll, and I always, like was filled with dread. I was like, oh my God, like it's Friday, like we have to go hustle, we have to go collect checks, and like it's this dread of like are we going to get the money to to make you know, to like make payroll, to, like, you know, pay the my dad's employees and and I and I maybe, like two years ago, I was like wait a minute. Every Friday my dad would wake up and said, well, time to go make money happen. Why did I think that was a bad thing?
Speaker 1:I know it's just such a I don't know like what the conversations about money were. I mean, I can probably think of a few things, like you can't waste money. Like you need money for essentials, and I ended up feeling very guilty of seeing my mom work so hard for something, for giving me this gift of extracurricular activities, right, so it brought brought on like a whole other set of feelings, but it really made me have to reflect and redefine my thoughts on entrepreneurship and what I was actually doing and if this was really a bad thing and did this really mean it was hustle, and what are the natural ebbs and flows of entrepreneurship and what do I like about this and how did I create this versus being in a corporate job? Like, is that really what I want?
Speaker 1:So it was just so multilayered because they paint career, which I'm, and Carla and I were just talking before we press play on how grateful I am for my 12 years in corporate and, who knows, like you never know if I have to go back or not, but for now, like this is where I am, uh, everything that it gave me, because to me, being in an office job was just painted as so safe and where you want to be and you got every and this is what you work so hard for similar to what you were saying, where you made it like you were in this office, but still it came to a detriment because I had no idea how to behave in a corporate environment and I feel like I did a lot of things wrong because I didn't know and I didn't have mentors.
Speaker 1:I didn't have somebody like Carla telling me how to negotiate or how to do my annual reviews or how to do any of that. So, with what I knew, I think I got so much out of it. And still, though, I am grateful that I had to transition out. But there's just so many paths to career and entrepreneurship where they all have their plus and minuses, and just because you're in a corporate job doesn't mean that you're 100% safe either. Doesn't mean like you still have to deal with so much on either side of those areas.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, absolutely so. It's interesting because when you said that being in an office was like safe, my thoughts. What safe? Do you have any idea the kind of microaggressions that you can experience in an?
Speaker 1:office like safe financially right, like oh, you'll get your paycheck and you have health benefits and that kind of stuff. But yeah, I totally agree with that shit yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker 2:That's why I talk about workplace boundaries and we'll talk, you know. I know we'll circle back to this in a minute because in my perspective actually, I mean it's not even my perspective this is like my truth, this is like the ground that I build my business on. Workplace boundaries are to protect your physical and mental health, like they are literally like a protection. I'm like you need to protect yourself in the workplace, Like it is not necessarily safe. So we'll come back to the health and wellness about that in just a second. But I did want to touch on something that you said, or maybe it just reminded me. You know, like all of the selling stuff, and it also reminded me of my mom and prior to my mom doing her current, you know, like as a, as an insurance agent and as a real estate agent, she had a drop shipping company. Like my mom was drop shipping before. It was cool, right, and I just I never.
Speaker 2:So here's the thing. So she had a page on Facebook. So we're from Honduras, right? So she had a Facebook page where, cause, there's some products that you can get in the U S that you can't get in Honduras, so my mom would buy them and then she would sell them to people in Honduras Like and that's, and that was like her entire business model. And she had this Facebook page. I think she grew to like 200,000 people on her Facebook page, right, and in my head I was always like, oh yeah, this is like. Oh, my God, this is going to sound so mean, I'm sorry, mom. In my head it was always like oh yeah, that's just what she's doing, cause she doesn't have a job.
Speaker 1:And I'm like this is literally her job.
Speaker 2:My mom made a job for herself. She created this. She made a job for herself and in my mind I saw it as something wrong, like I saw it as something that was bad. So, again, I really, in the past few years, have really like spent a lot of time shifting my perspective of my parents. I'm like, why did I think so little of how they made their living and like how they pursued entrepreneurship? That was their only option. So, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I think about um, my story that my mom always says you know, like, when you know my, my mom's mom so I didn't get to meet her, she passed away before I was born, but in Honduras she had a pulperia, which is kind of what is like I think the equivalent of the US would be like a bodega. You know, um, and my grandma would make these. They're kind of like popsicles. So whenever, like for Christmas or for birthdays, or for back to school, whenever she needed to make extra money, that's how she would do it. And just this conversation is making her like, reminding me that, like it's in my blood. You know, like people have always, like my family, my parents, their parents have just always used and leveraged entrepreneurship and marketing and selling in order to increase their income and, like, buy what they needed for their family. And it's so, so empowering. Why did I not think it was you know?
Speaker 1:I actually want to ask you that like what? What do you think the stigma is behind somebody just making a business? Versus like what is the status thing of? Like oh, you work in a bank and you wear a suit, or like you have a freaking dropshipping business that you just get, and like you're helping people or you're providing a service. Like what is it? I mean your opinion, I don't know. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:I actually I'm trying to to think about this because, yeah, this dropshipping business, like my mom, had employees in two countries.
Speaker 1:Yeah, seriously International business.
Speaker 2:Right, and again, and I maybe it's because I didn't have that term for it dropshipping, because she did this years ago, and so maybe it's because I didn't know the term, I don't know. But I also wonder if the stigma is maybe a stigma, maybe that they felt for themselves, like my parents were the ones who told me go to school, so you don't have to work hard like us. So I wonder if, and also, even as I say that, I realized that yeah, corporate is freaking hard.
Speaker 2:I'm saying like you still have to work so hard in corporate, Like you don't even know yes, and so I wonder if maybe it was just their way of saying the grass is greener and they wanted better. You know, I mean, my parents moved to the US so that we could have a better life, right? So I imagine, similarly like that might be your, your parents immigrant story, and so I wonder if they, what they consider better life is just different than than what they?
Speaker 1:yeah, what they know. What I'm assuming is that another way to look at it is like less physical labor, like I know a lot of the entrepreneurship journeys that maybe, like our parents took and the generation that immigrated to the US, is like very labor intensive work, like very hard on the body, like maybe, cleaning and factories although we are talking about entrepreneurship, but, like my mom, even taking care of kids, that was a lot of physical work, making empanadas, that's a lot of physical work and things like that Whereas if you're in an office space it seems a little bit more prestigious and luxurious and like, oh, you just sit there and like type on your computer but, like you mentioned, there's so much, there's so much more, um, mental, I think abuse with the microaggressions and like a lot of. It's not necessarily physical because you're sitting, although, as a health and wellness coach, sitting all day is really bad for you.
Speaker 1:So let's just let's just put a pin on that for a second. I think that our parents and past generations were probably a lot more healthier because they really had to move their bodies to work and they were consistently moving and then we kind of got the short end of the stick. Having to be so sedentary. So that's another point. But having to dress up, not having dirty fingernails, like not having dirt on you, Like maybe there's a stigma of of prestige when it's like that, instead of being like, oh no, a construction worker, a plumber, um some, you know, someone who takes care of children, like that's also very lucrative because you have this skill. That's very specific, you know.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think about again, like so many small business owners that I know, first of all, like small business owners are the backbone of the economy. So shout out to small business owners everywhere. You know and I even like doing things like landscaping, like my dad would like construction even folks who have like housekeeping businesses your mom with the daycare business, like these are these can be very, very lucrative. Yeah, and it's, and it's the difference between like being an employee and a worker versus like being a business owner and the decisions that you have to make and the growth that you have to to go through. And I think maybe this is what can transition us into sort of what we want to talk about next, because the reason that entrepreneurship has kind of exposed the our wounds, you know, not just our money wounds, but all over like that's right the wounds yeah.
Speaker 2:So much, but I think it's that we have the privilege of having had access to like mental health, of having access to coaches, of having access to or maybe being the ones that are breaking like generational curses, and so I I wonder if it's not necessarily the stigma, but also the fact that we have been able to do a lot of inner work in and that has allowed us to see entrepreneurship differently.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that the main thing that I think before before therapy, before personal development, like I didn't really know about any of that until maybe when I started my thirties I'm 38. So, like eight years ago, maybe that's when I started to learn about personal development and all that. But what I did have access to that my parents did not was growing up in New York city, which is very, very, very diverse. My I'm Dominican Um, and my mom came with me to the U? S when I was almost two years old and I grew up in the Bronx. So I? Um, I had the I guess the luxury of being around different cultures, even in high school, like, yes, I grew up in mainly Hispanic, african-american neighborhoods, but there was also Albanian kids in my school, there was also Greek kids in my school.
Speaker 1:There was just so many different cultures. And then when I went to work in corporate there was, I had also access to Caucasians and white community, right. So I just got to see the and and I know I skipped a whole part college too like college, I went to college in Massachusetts, in a not Boston, in a very, very small town called Norton, and a bunch of the students there were were from the North Northeast, so Maine, new Hampshire, vermont, massachusetts as well. So I'm very curious and I pay a lot of attention. So I started to notice the differences in cultures and what they would do as a family or wouldn't do, what they would eat what they wouldn't eat.
Speaker 1:So the access to multiculturalism that I was exposed to was what started that trend for me of like, wait a second, what's going on here? Wait a second. Why do they think that way? Why do they do these things? How does their family do this? So that started to open up the doors for me. And not comparison in a bad way, it's just like curiosity of oh we do things this way and you guys do things that way and it still works, and why and why do you think like that? So I know that's not everybody's experience, cause I think New York city is like a pretty unique place when it comes to diversity, but I think that opened the doors for me personally, uh, but I think that opened the doors for me personally.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. Thank you for sharing that. And yes, I think New York city actually is a diverse place. Like people think of Miami and South Florida as diverse, and I'm like, first of all, we self-segregate and I don't mean we self-segregate like the history of redlining, like you can tell me a zip code and I can tell you the ethnicity that someone is likely to be there, just because of how not just how human nature works where you build communities with people who look like you, but also because of the history of redlining. With that being said, miami is not diverse. 60% of people are Latin American, you know, and there is a lot of diversity within Latin Americans. Specifically in South Florida, cuban Americans have had a head start, let's say, in terms of building businesses and in terms of climbing up corporate ladders, but there are folks from different parts of the world, and I love how you approached this with curiosity, because I know that that's part of your health journey too.
Speaker 1:You were like wait, what are they doing Interesting?
Speaker 2:Let me try it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. Just quickly to touch on what Carla said, it's like I'm a mom of two, so I would see the white women go to. I actually I made this real on Instagram saying how I started my wellness journey because I was. I was being petty and I wanted to know more, but I would see them, you know, pregnant, go on maternity leave and then they would come back and it's like nothing ever happened to them. And I was very curious because that's not what I would see in my community, like women would have to work very hard to lose weight or to feel good in their skin again, or they totally let themselves go.
Speaker 1:And it was just very different. I wasn't like judging one side or the other. I was just like what's going on? Like what are they doing that we don't know? Like what's happening? So I just started to be very aware of their habits. I would pay attention and something that people would tell me is like oh, just breastfeed and you'll get back to normal. That shit did not work for me. I blew up like a balloon and it wasn't like everything people told me would work did not work for me. So I would just notice what they were doing and I would see like they would come to work with wet hair because they just went to a workout, or they would leave early in their gym clothes or they were eating these certain kinds of things.
Speaker 1:And it's also, uh, I think, a level of access number one culture, because I would see, especially in college and things like that, like multi-generations of family were exercising together. It's just something that was normal to them. Also, like they had nannies where they can have that time for themselves in the morning. Where I had to drive my kids to daycare, like I just had a lot less time. I couldn't pay a nanny a full-time salary, like a living salary, whereas they could. So it was just like a lot of little differences.
Speaker 1:And I would think to myself where there must be something I can do about this, like what can I do with what I have, the time I have, the resources I have and all that?
Speaker 1:And that's how I started like little by little, making a change. And this is not to say like, oh, you know, if you have a baby, you have to get back to your pre-baby weight, or you know, like you must be thin again or anything like that, but there's something to be said about a woman going to. Although many consider it beautiful, it is also a very traumatic experience for your body and for your self image and for your mind, and there is zero. This goes back to corporate and personal like regard to women who choose to have a baby, and like the care that they're given between maternity leave, between paid leave, between just having a support system, is very, very lonely. So that like encompasses a bunch of stuff in one. But having access to different cultures really helped me see and distinguish, like what else can we do to help ourselves, what resources are out there that we can also take advantage of that we might not know about?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing that story, and you and you kind of reminded me of something that I've never really reflected on before, but I, yeah, so interesting, right? So I mean, there's part of me that I have always I've always been the person that came to me for you know, like people have, I've always been like a teacher or an educator, and people always came to me for like career guidance. I thought that's just what everyone did, communicator, and people always came to me for like career guidance. I thought that's just what everyone did. But when it came to like salary negotiation, I actually this is so like it's like a little embarrassing, but whatever, it's part of my story. When it comes to salary negotiations, I learned a lot of the stuff from Reddit.
Speaker 1:It's so embarrassing. There's no shame there's no shame.
Speaker 2:Yes, and the reason that I'm saying like, oh, like, you were kind of like observing the white women and I'm just like I'm realizing that just because I was like in a personal finance uh, como se llama subreddit, or, like you know, a forum, yeah, the the much like the average reddit user is like a white guy, a white guy in his twenties and thirties, and you know like, and it's event ended up being like super toxic. Definitely. Do not take investing advice from Reddit, by the way. So, but anyways, that was like, yeah, cause I my first investment was meme stocks. That was such a mess place.
Speaker 2:I whatever it is what it is I learned, but even when, in terms of like asking for what other people make and things like that, just talking about salary, that was, um, and I, I was kind of just like exposed to those conversations. I was like a lurker. I kind of just go in there and read the comments, or at least that's what I did in college. And so by the time that I was graduating from grad school and graduating, I mean even from undergrad, and I knew like I had been exposed from there. You know, like I did my, I go on tangents, I've done my research. I, you know, leverage the career center.
Speaker 2:I leveraged so many places, but I realized now that, yeah, that that might've been where I picked up some of it, and I'm going to do, I'm going to post this on Instagram because I just I haven't, um, haven't talked about this yet, but I, randomly, I was looking for something in a conversation with my friends and, uh, so I was searching my texts and I came across a text from years ago, and it was a friend, let me see if I can read it to you. Um, it was a friend telling me, see if I can read it to you. Yeah, it was a friend telling me, oh, like, my boss is always trying to sell me Shakeology. And then, right, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:But then here's the kicker in my mind. I was like, wait, your boss so-and-so, she made 75k last year. What, why is she trying to sell you? What does she? What does she need to sell Shakeology for? And my friend was like how do you even know that? And I was like how do you even know what she made? And I was like public records. So, oh my god, you can look that up.
Speaker 2:So when you work for the state of Florida, you do. Florida has like broad sunshine you know, and I realized and I can't find the text message, otherwise I would read it to you but basically what I said to her and I took a screenshot, but I take a thousand screenshots so I can't find it but what I said to her was I looked up everyone's salary to make sure I wasn't getting low balled, so freaking smart.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile. Meanwhile, my mentality is I thank you so much, I'm so grateful. Whatever you give me is good enough. You see, everybody, why I should have worked with God way back thank you right. I tell her all the time yeah, thank you, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:And just for the record, it's like gracias, adios what, oh, I said for the record. I worked with Naomi last year. Definitely recommend her all day, every day.
Speaker 1:Yes, God knows my client, Um, talking about that, let's we. I think we glossed over the trauma of entrepreneurship, but we're laughing about it now, but we cry a lot.
Speaker 1:Just know that entrepreneurship is not for the weak, and not to say that anybody that's that's not an entrepreneur. It has an easy life or is any easier, but it just brings up so much personal development that you must address if you want to keep moving in your business, because it will seep into it right, um, and maybe we will get into it our entrepreneurship stories. But something I wanted to mention from when carla said, like she worked with me and just uh, career and wellness and all that is how important it is to take care of yourself, to either be a successful entrepreneur or somebody in a career. Because what tends to happen is that we totally not take care of ourselves because we think everything else needs our attention, is so much more valuable.
Speaker 1:But the truth is, how are you going to take care of your business? How are you going to show up in your career without totally burning yourself out when your body's like, oh, you're not going to listen, then I'm going to knock you out with the flu or whatever for a week and consistently happening. So it's become such a toxic culture where people don't even take lunch breaks, like there's no boundaries between work and home, so everybody's taking the work home with them and working super late at night, super early in the morning, and then there's like this guilt trip of even taking a break throughout the day or at night or something like that, and I think we're both here to remind you how important that is, and maybe Carla can give us some tips on how to approach that when you feel like you cannot do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So a couple of things. There's a part of me that wants well, it's not true, like. First, I want to start by acknowledging that women of color, and especially children of immigrants and daughters of immigrants who are women of color, are socialized to do this. We are socialized to be self-sacrificial. We are socialized to put ourselves last. We are socialized to support everybody else's dream but our own. Oh my God, my god. Quick mini rant, because as much as I love the hot cheetah movie and as much as I love, like, the astronaut movie, in both of those movies the wife gave up their dream to support their husband. And I'm like, can we?
Speaker 1:not. I don't even know what the movies are the, the movie about the.
Speaker 2:So the hot cheetah movie about, anyway, whatever, I just uh, it was like Avalon, korea, and as much as I love the portrayal of, like you know, latino grits and hard work and making it, I'm just like these are two Latino men whose wives gave up their dreams. So, anyway, that's just like my irk in both of those movies and I think I watched them back to back or something and I'm like can we portray Latinas in any other way, please, other than like being self-sacrificial to their husband's dreams? Not to discount whatever, don't come at me. The movies were great, their stories are inspiring and also I'm sure that the women had more to do than just like sit in the back and say like, yeah, I'll support you, honey. So, anyway, all that to say is that daughters of immigrants are socialized to put themselves last and that seeps into our career.
Speaker 2:There is such a thing as, like office housework or office chores who is the one planning the baby shower? Who is the one taking meeting notes? You know like, who is the one you know planning? Or like you know, calling to make a reservation? If there's not a dedicated administrative assistant, who is the one that's like ordering copy paper, or calling maintenance, about something like all of these tasks that are required tend to fall on women, and it's it's terrible, it's like an inequitable structure. You know it absolutely.
Speaker 2:It's by design that we feel like we can't take a break, because not only are we socialized to be self-sacrificial, but then we get to the workplace that sees women as like you know, like the, the housekeeper, the office housekeeper, and you know, and then we end up doing all this extra work that isn't actually related to our job. So the Harvard Business Review actually came out with a study a couple of years ago that it said that women, on average, spend 200 more hours a year on office housework than men. And it said women. So we know that there is that not every woman's experience is different. So we know that there is that not every woman's experience is different. So maybe a white woman is spending 180 hours a year and maybe a Latina woman is spending 240 hours a year, and this is a non-promotable work.
Speaker 2:So I just want to acknowledge that if you feel like you're not getting, like you can't take a break, just take a look at, like, what actually is happening. Like, first of all, just be graceful with yourself and acknowledge that you are in an oppressive system. The workplace is an oppressive system. You have been socialized to put yourself last first, and then, after all that socialization, you enter an oppressive system that makes you like, gives you all this extra random stuff that isn't even part of your job. But you'll get the stink eye or you'll get passive aggressive if you don't do it. I remember one time this mediocre white male colleague was like Carly, you're not being a team player and I was like, yeah, but this is.
Speaker 2:I don't even remember what I said, but I was like fuck you guy.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I don't know if I'm allowed to curse.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just did not like him, anyway. So that's the first thing just like acknowledge the socialization and the oppression and then take a step back and say, like you know it's, you have to create time, you have to make time. It has to be a conscious effort for you to put yourself first and even, um, even something like okay, I'm going to step away for lunch, even if I can't step away for a full hour, or you know, quote can't then yeah, then then at least start by 30 minutes. And here's the other thing you know how. You said that you got healthy because you're being petty, like I think I started doing workplace boundaries because I was being petty too.
Speaker 2:Yeah so my old boss. Yeah, like sometimes you just have to realize it's like wait a minute. So my old boss, a few, a few jobs ago, he would be at the office until six. So I thought that I had to be at the office until six too. And then one day I was like wait, do we only get paid until four, 30? You know? And I was just like, am I working an hour and a half extra a day? I went and did the month, did the math and they ended up working like almost an extra month for free and I was like no, like ever since.
Speaker 2:I thought about it like that and I was like I am not going to work if I am not being paid Like I just I absolutely I won't. And you know, with salary, jobs, the ebbs and flows there's sometimes when you're going to have to like work a little bit longer hours. It should not be the norm whatsoever. So if you feel like you can't take a break, first of all be graceful with yourself and then, second of all, you can just be petty and say I'm not getting paid to do this, and then you can, you know, take it from a place of like I'm actually better at my job when I'm well rested and better at my job when I take a full lunch break. I'm better at my job when I get up every two hours to go on a five minute walk.
Speaker 1:So yeah just like.
Speaker 2:Those are the things that you have to remind yourself you can use which one you know. If you feel, if, if knowing that you're better at your job helps you, do that. If knowing that you're not getting paid to be there past five o'clock, do that. But just know that time off and breaks they're kind of built in into your workday. You are expected to take them, especially if you're an exempt employee. You are expected to take care of yourself, like in terms of your compensation, but of course no one tells you that right.
Speaker 1:They want you to feel like you can't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think when you say like you're better at your job when you're well rested and you take a break, I can totally relate and agree to that, because there was one job where I would go to the gym during my lunch hour and I would work out for 30 minutes and then at the other 30 minutes I would take the shower and pick up lunch and things like that. And at another job I would eat in the office and then I would go out for a walk at least 30 minutes, and both of those in those positions I felt like when I came back to the office to work, I was just able to focus so much better and get a lot more done, without like having to put myself off on coffee or dozing off on my desk, because I just had a natural sense of like renewed energy and focus, because one I was feeding myself, like I was. I was basically meeting my basic needs of feeding myself and taking a mental break and getting some fresh air, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Isn't that interesting. It's like huh, Capitalism wants us to think that we are like the least important, but I'm like actually capitalism. If you want me to be better at my job, then I need to meet my basic needs, such as eating and resting and moving.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and in other, like I don't know, I've spent certain like amount of time in DR and you see, everybody, like everybody takes a break. That I see. I mean maybe not everybody, that's like a big generalization, but essentially people are just more relaxed, they take it a little bit more easy. They do take their lunch breaks. Like this hustle culture here in America is not built for maximum health, and especially like cities in New York where everything is just needed, needed to be done yesterday. Everything is so fast paced, everything is an emergency, like nothing can wait and it's like no, no, no, wait a second. Like you, you can build that in within you, taking care of your basic needs of resting and connecting and moving your body and eating and doing things like that yeah, absolutely thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so do. We want to talk a little bit about trauma, how we became entrepreneurs, what we've learned about ourselves, so like.
Speaker 2:I love the implication there is that like, oh, trauma led us to entrepreneurship, which is not like not how I would frame it. But when I look back, I'm like, yeah, it is. I always talk about how I became an entrepreneur. Actually, how did I become? Let me tell you, okay, yeah, there is some drama involved. I don't know. I mean whatever, we'll see, we'll let the listeners be the judge.
Speaker 2:So I remember it was 2020 and my student loans were on pause and I had just finished grad school. I was at my higher ed job and I was making $51,000 a year working in Miami, by the way, like it was. I remember I looked at the federal guidelines for assistance and my income at the time was $200 above the threshold and I was like, wow, like I make so much little money that if I made $200 less, the government would be like here, carla, you're struggling. And I was like I have a master's degree and I was like, how can it make such little money? Anyway, so that was. I started that job in 2019. 2020, you know, I transitioned the whole thing into virtual. Like I transitioned all of our campus programming related to voter education, civic engagement, into a virtual setting.
Speaker 2:I remember 2020 was also an election year. It's not like we can just cancel everything. It's like, no, we needed to reach people and I at that time, my partner and I decided that we wanted to buy a house. And I remember I was like, well, you know, like I looked at my budget and I remember thinking like, oh, I just need to.
Speaker 2:I remember thinking, well, if I sign up for an income driven repayment, income based repayment plan, income-based repayment plan, that I'll save $200 a month and I can move that for my student loan bills to my mortgage budget and we can actually like afford the houses that we're looking at. And then I thought, wait a minute, what Am I actually like? Trying to extend my loans? And like, am I tying myself to a low paying job? No, I just need to make more money.
Speaker 2:So that was kind of like the initial seed that was planted sometime in 2020. And I remember, you know, like that summer in 2020 as well, I hadn't made like zucchini bread and I was thinking like, oh, maybe I need to go get an MBA to, maybe I need to get an MBA so that I can get a higher paying job, so that I can be done with this. And then I thought so. First of all, notice how the thought there is that an MBA is going to lead me to a higher paying job, which is a lie by the way, MBAs yeah, MBAs are a scam.
Speaker 2:So I remember sitting there thinking, no, I can't get a degree to pay for my previous degree, Like that is ridiculous. And I worked in higher ed so, like, getting more degrees was just like the norm. And I was like I just want to like quit my job and go sell zucchini bread at a farmer's market. That was the first inkling that I had about entrepreneurship. It's just like I just want to quit my job and go sell zucchini bread. Mind you, I made zucchini bread at a farmer's market. That was the first inkling that I had about entrepreneurship. It's just like I just want to quit my job and go sell zucchini bread. Mind you, I made zucchini bread one time. That's how unhappy I was at my job, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So a few months later, we'd been quarantined for like six months. My plants are like thriving Cause. That's. All I did was just, like you know, tend to my balcony garden and I was like, oh, maybe I'll sell my plants on Etsy. You know, I was like, maybe that's how I'll make money. And then I looked into that and I'm just like what? No, I'm not going to do that.
Speaker 2:And then, in 2021, I know right Like all of these things and, by the way, I didn't notice this at the time. I'm only able to tell you this in hindsight. I'm only able to tell you this in hindsight. I'm only able to tell you this in hindsight. So in 2021, you know, still, this is pre-vaccine it was Valentine's day. You know, my, my partner had this like fruit and chocolate delivered, so I made like chocolate covered strawberries and chocolate covered pretzels and I was like, oh, maybe I'll have like a food business and so, yeah, so so these are all these are kind of. I realize I realized this about a year ago that I was like, wait, I kind of had had the inkling to be an entrepreneur, even though I didn't call it that. I just knew that I needed to make more money, and so my mind was kind of like chugga, chugga, chugga, chugga. You know like it's like, my mind is kind of like spinning those wheels. So, all right, then April, april 2021, I I had spent I had made this joke many times throughout the previous years that I was like, oh, I should be like a career consultant, ha ha ha, because students were always coming back to me.
Speaker 2:Remember my backgrounds in higher ed? Students were always back to me and asking me questions. They were like you know, carla, I don't know if you remember me, but I was in your program at IATA and I'm like you came to my office every week for a year. How do you think I forgot you? Anyways, very sweet, even my boss was like Carla, this person is trying to pivot into higher ed. You know, are you able to talk to them and give them some career advice? And so I was doing that so often that I was like ha ha ha, I should be a career coach.
Speaker 2:And then it was April of 2021. And I was having I was having the same conversation with. I had just had it with like one of my direct reports. Then I had it with a different direct report direct report. Then I had it with somebody else on my team that reported to somebody else, and I kept on having the same conversation over and over again, and it was about their career and grad school.
Speaker 2:And then it was like, huh, I should be a career coach. So, yeah, it went from like ha ha ha, I should be a career coach. And then I think about that because I just like, wow, I've literally been doing this for years. Naomi, even my landlord asked me to career coach his daughter, of course, right. And so I remember something that our business coach, katlil Carmen, says she said at one time. She said you had demand for your services even before you started your business. And I and I remember that I'm like, yeah, I, people were always coming to me for career coaching, you know, um, and so that's when I finally decided I had a lot of drama around the term, like life coach, whatever I had to like kind of overcome it.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, me too. I did not like that I was a coach.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, there are. There are a lot of people in the coaching industry that are not actual coaches and they're kind of just there to scam people. So I highly encourage folks who, you know I mean people who are listening to this podcast are brilliant and are smart and are nuanced and can spot a scam. So I'm not worried about you all, but, yeah, about listeners. But anyway, I had a lot of trauma I mean of drama with the word career coach, and I was helping people, you know, and I. What's interesting is that I started my Instagram in 2020, april 2021. And then I didn't post, I didn't do anything until like two months later, in June, and you know why. The thing that stopped me was that I didn't have a picture Like that was the entire thing Stopping. But I hear you right, you see. So anyway, like, definitely like a learning experience. I made 182 dollars that year because I had no idea what I was doing.
Speaker 2:In January of 2022 is when I invested in my first business coach and that's when I actually started finding clients and you know like it been. It's been a lot of a learning journey and a lot of growth, but definitely it was rough at first, but it's, you know, I'm so kind of, I'm kind of not kind of, I'm definitely proud of, like little baby Carla, who even she had this like inkling in her mind of like I'm going to make more money or like, oh, you know, like, oh, this is fun, maybe I could do this. And then it's like, wait, no, these are actually my skills, I could do this. And then I'm so scared and I can't even look at those posts from 2021. But, but, like I think that I I don't know like I really I started coaching legitimately and consistently. I mean not legitimately, but I started having consistent clients in April. I mean January of 2022, but I took my first step towards starting my coaching business in April 2021.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful. I love that story and I love it that you know the signs are there. It's like those memes on Instagram now where it's like I won't tell you, but you'll see signs, you know, when they do that I never set out to be an entrepreneur either. I just started my own health and wellness journey and you know, after I thought that you know it's similar. Like I started health and wellness, I had my second kid.
Speaker 1:I wanted to lose weight. I started going to the gym, yada yada, I ended up losing 50 pounds and then I was like you know, all this is fun, like everybody loses weight and then they gain it back and then they're back where they started. So I was like, oh, I'll just enjoy while I last. And after two years I was like, oh, wait, wait a second, like I'm actually feeling amazing. Like sure, the weight was one thing, but I was feeling really, really, really good and I didn't notice till a few years back that I was also pre-diabetic when I started my journey and I was able to reverse that too. But anyway, um, people in my community started noticing it. It was like obvious, right, like that I was changing and my energy, and I also had two little kids and they wanted me to show them or teach them what I was doing. So I started to do that in 2018.
Speaker 1:I started to do that and I told my partner. I was like, oh, like, maybe I can do this as a job, but it was kind of a joke and I thought of a name. I printed out business cards, I opened up a Gmail, I bought the domain Remember, I worked in digital advertising so I was like I need to have my website. I opened up an Instagram that I put nothing on, similar to you, I had like one or two food pictures on there. That was it. And at two years so that was 2018, 2020, um, about a year before I started, my friend sent me a podcast on Oprah and I never, ever, listened to podcasts. I thought they were the silliest thing. And here we are, both on a podcast and we both have podcasts.
Speaker 1:So, you know, the journeys are funny and it really opened up my eyes of what she was saying. And then I went into this rabbit hole of listening to different podcasts and I started to listen to a lot of people's stories and how success came to them and it was always like, you know, they, their life was a little crazy. Then they went through this like, um, what's it called Like bottom moment, like completely yes, yes, yes, that that like they hit rock bottom and then they had this like revelation and they started their life over again and that was like the gist of everybody's story. So in 2020, um, for the yearly reviews at my job, they put a bunch of stuff in my yearly review that I didn't think was accurate. I even called HR into the meeting and I asked them for proof of everything that they were saying and they couldn't really come to anything. And I was just so sick and tired saying and they couldn't really come to anything, and I was just so sick and tired.
Speaker 1:So, because I kept fighting this so much, the HR lady was like look, we can give you a package. You just like let this shit go. Basically, because I was like I'm not letting this go, like y'all are messing with the wrong version of Naomi right now. And then I reached out to another friend who used to be in HR that company and she was like, look, either you take the package or they already put you on the road to getting fired later on. But they're just like trying to build a case on you. And I was like, oh okay, this is what they want to do, all right. So I was like F this, this is my. I legit was hysterically crying in the lady's HR office and she was looking at me and and cause? I was like, literally my mocos were like rolling down and I told her I looked at her dead in the eyes and I said, don't worry, it looks bad, but I'm really not that sad, I'm actually happy. Can you imagine? Oh my gosh, she really thought I was crazy.
Speaker 2:I'm actually happy, can you imagine?
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. So I was hysterical because I didn't realize, like, first of all, this happened from like one day to the next. I did not plan on anything on any of this, so I was really hysterical. But in that moment I was like God, is this the rock bottom that people talk about? This must be it, and I'm like it's so sad, but it's only up from here, like I don't know what it is, but I'm done with this crap, like I am not willing to keep risking my mental health and my relationship and all that because I was so miserable. So I I really told her I'm like it looks bad, but I promise you is not that bad. I think that's exactly what I told her. And then I ended up like quitting instead of them firing me. And then I hired a career coach, which I recently had learned about coaching, and I gave her my resume and then I told her this was 2020, march 2020. Oh my gosh, it's like literally like four years ago that I quit my job. Happy birthday.
Speaker 2:Happy birthday.
Speaker 1:Happy business birthday. So she's like well, what do you want to do? Like I gave her my resume and then I gave her the business idea I've had for two years and how I had already been helping so many people, just like in whatever time I had. And she goes, okay, well, how do you want to move forward? And I said, well, let's fix my resume. And she goes, why? She's like, after this story, you told me about this business idea that you have and how literally you have everything set up already and you've already been helping people. Why do you want to still pursue your resume? And I said, or no? She said, why wouldn't you want to pursue this business idea? And I said, well, because I'm really scared. And she said, okay, fair, everybody feels scared. What about if I help you? Just launch it? And I was like, okay.
Speaker 1:And here we are four years later I've had to come to terms with the fact that I'm a coach. I was super embarrassed. I didn't want to be called a coach. I thought it was a scam and what people did when they didn't want to work? People did when they didn't want to work. I was so, just yes, and then I ended up enrolling and being certified in integrative nutrition and hormone health and all that. So, as you can see, there's no linear path, especially when you think entrepreneurship is for poor people or what you can't make ends meet and like you need to figure all this out.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, yeah. So I first of all love, love, love that story too, because I've heard you tell it in different, you know like cause we've known each other for over a year, so I've heard you tell the story in different contexts. I had never heard you talk about crying in the hr ladies office, so I I think one of my most like shared posts was when I said you should, your job shouldn't make you cry. I was like, oh my god, I might just reshare that this week you should need to know.
Speaker 2:I actually yeah, like the thing is, yeah, your job shouldn't make you cry. I remember, because I only talked about like the entrepreneurship side of it. I didn't talk about all the BS that was going on with like how underpaid I was at my, at my higher ed job and I oh my God, it was so bad that the time that I was crying, this woman said to me she was I think she was the employee relations woman. She said well, if you didn't like the offer, you didn't have to take it. And then she said I know, and then blah, blah, blah. She was like well, feel free to quit. And the thing is I was trying to buy a house, like I hung up the phone and I'm like rage crying, and so my partner was back at the office but I called him and I'm like rage crying.
Speaker 2:And I'm like oh my God, I just want to quit. And he goes please don't quit. We're trying to buy a house. You just need to stay there for just a little longer, and I was like can you believe they said that to me Like it was so awful.
Speaker 2:And this is the job that, like, I poured myself into after my grandmother passed away and I'm like I really gave so much to this job for you to turn around and say that to me like it was awful. And, of course, this was also around the time. Uh, you know, if I were to look at my calendar, like those two like my personal development of like oh, maybe I should you know, like be a career coach was also around the time. Of like I freaking hate all of you people and this job and I'm going to burn it to the ground and I'm going to go to the Miami Herald and I'm going to put a case against it. Like I, oh my gosh, it was so bad.
Speaker 2:You know the line in Mean Girls like raise your hand if you've been personally victimized by Regina George. Like I literally had that before. Like my boss, I was like I'm going to make an article about him and I'm going to interview all of the women of color who have been victimized by this racist man. It was just such a hot mess, I know, but again.
Speaker 2:so when you said like, oh, a job is safe, like safe financially, but my mental health was not safe Like my emotions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mine either.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That mine either and it was really, really hurting other areas of my life because I was just so unhappy and I felt like the microaggressions just grew. I had switched teams recently and I just felt it. What's really funny and we'll wrap up soon but there's two things that I want to bring up. One, that you're just keep trying new things to see what hits, because I remember, um, while I was in this position that I did not like I got the opportunity to be on Instagram lives and do like little cooking challenges at the company that I was in for fun and I loved it so much and I would tell myself, man, what about if I could just do this? Why can I just do this kind of stuff for work, right, and and look at me now, like that's a lot of what I do which is like wow, I just I thought that that could never be a reality and I would just say it, making fun of it, like kind of Carla, you did about career coaching, and then look at that.
Speaker 1:And another thing is you had mentioned before we hopped on to mention like not everybody should quit their job and become an entrepreneur, and I just really want to be very clear that I felt comfortable actually going through with what I did because I had also set up, um, basically an FU fund. Like I was financially in a place where I could support myself for a certain period of time, where it was safe to do that, and I was also in a two income household which, you know, don't go crazy and be like, oh, like there is some sort of safety net that you should build for yourself, just in case you want to take this action and this is the way you want to move, because financial safety is also important and then that translates into your health, you know.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, absolutely, and and yeah, I mean I've been, I, I I have been saying lately that I was like well, in my this morning I had lunch with someone, I mean breakfast with someone, and I was like she was like oh, carla, so what do you do? Cause you mentioned blah, blah, blah and then you mentioned that you have clients at night and I was like yes, so in my nine to five, you know, I'm a DA practitioner for a tech company and I do X, y and Z, and then in my five to nine, I'm a career coach.
Speaker 2:So I have my clients in the evenings, you know. So I have been able to build my business on part-time hours, like it's very much like a solopreneurship, like it's me, myself and I, me, myself, and I, me and my, you know, like my handful of clients and it's it is a small right now with the case. You know, like right now, where it is and it's okay and it's okay. You know, like it's, it's the business that it that that I need and for for me to think about leaving my nine to five that pays me six figures and that gives me stock options. Like I would need a long on ramp for, you know, like a long runway.
Speaker 2:Excuse me for having like this, this business and and maybe that'll be something that I do, but for now, like it's, it's like, no, I am comfortable building my business while having a nine to five. Like just quitting my job and doing this, like I can't imagine putting that much pressure on my business. And again, like just to one more thing, with this myth of like everyone should quit their job and become an entrepreneur. I love how we started this episode with the mental breakdown that you had in your business and we're ending it with, like the mental breakdowns we had at our jobs.
Speaker 1:So yeah, if you're having like it's, apparently that just happens everywhere yeah, yeah, entrepreneur is not gonna no, it's not gonna solve things, and I think that that's something that, um, we're making very clear.
Speaker 1:Like you, you, you can, you can choose many different paths and, like Carla, she's able to build her business and have a full-time job. I've had to get coached a lot and the current season that I am in because I am a mom of two and my kids are young and growing quickly, so the time freedom that I have with with my job and just it having growing like it, growing a little smaller or not having, um, uh, like a regular job or like a corporate job, because it will take a lot of time away. So I think that's something I have learned recently with my entrepreneurship journey is identifying the season that I'm in and what the season needs from me, and maybe later on that of course not, maybe, of course this is going to change as the seasons change but being okay with the season that you're in and not like striving for something else, having that be very clear is important.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely, and thank you for naming like the freedom that you had and you said you mentioned that you were in a two-room household and how now the time freedom is something that you really value.
Speaker 2:One thing that I have thought to myself a lot and I don't know if I've talked about it on the podcast before, but my partner and I we've been together for five years and if I were single and wanting to date, I don't know that I could have both a business and a nine to five, because I guess I work in the evenings and, like I am very protective of the time that I have with my partner. I try to make as much time with like my family and my friends, and I know that like if I were in a different season of my life, and when I think back to like times when I would go to like happy hour two or three nights a week, or like go to events or like drop everything, it's like, hey, do you? You know, and I would do all those things because I needed to like prioritize socializing. Let me tell you I'm not prioritizing socializing right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's just the season, yeah, it's just like a different season and if that you know, like I'm child free and like very, very intentionally so, so having a business and having a nine to five and then also, like you know, being trying to like you know, like date or meet new people, like I don't even know, like I don't, I definitely would not, that's not for me, and then you know, just, it's not even like. I guess what I wanted to really make clear is it's that privilege, not just in terms of like you know I'm in a thriving, happy relationship, but also the fact that I don't need to like you know, I'm not prioritizing socializing, I'm not prioritizing meeting new people, like there's different seasons in life. So thank you for saying that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I wanted to bring it up because it was something that was that I had to get coached on by multiple people because I'm like I should be doing this and I could be doing that, and they're like Naomi. But you need to realize, like what's the most important thing in this season for you right now and what's at risk, and, and for me, like the part that's at risk, is like my kids are going to grow up and I I can never get that back. But doing different things in my business, traveling, all that I can, I can definitely do that later on. And, yes, trust me, we can go on for three, four hours on everything we've had to learn on entrepreneurship, but maybe there'll be a part two.
Speaker 1:What's it called? What do we call it? Oh, crossover podcast event, because this is so good and I love the different perspectives, just like from what we have in common, like first gen Latinas being raised in the U S, but also the many, many differences that are between Carla and I. That can apply to so many different women out there and they can, like grab a little piece of what they need at the moment.
Speaker 2:Right, yes, absolutely so, Naomi. Can you tell folks where they can find you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was going to ask you the same thing, oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Well, if you want to, I can start. So, yes, I, yeah, I absolutely like, have loved this conversation. I really I think there definitely should be another like part two crossover event. So, as I mentioned before, I'm the host of the First Gen Coach podcast, so you can find me wherever you're listening. Just search for the First Gen Coach and then I'll be there. You can also find me on Instagram at the First Gen Coach, and if you click on the link on my bio, I have a whole bunch of freebies. Kat's always telling me Carla, you need to clean up your LinkedIn bio, but I'm like, all my freebies are so good. So, anyway, so you can get a training on how to land a high paying job, you can get a resume template. So I've got a whole bunch of freebies, and you can also just DM me. I am always happy to chat and I will turn it over to you.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you. So, yes, you can find me right here on wealthy generation podcast. That is W EE-L-L-T-H-Y. You can also find me on Instagram at Naomi Jerez, in the link in bio. I also have two freebies. One is my very, very, very new ultimate clean grocery list, where you can just not worry about your groceries anymore, learn more about clean products that are out there and the list of ingredients that you should watch out for. So, again also, you can feel free to DM me. I am very friendly on social, on social media, and, yeah, I hope to see everybody again soon. All right, likewise, bye, everyone. See y'all next week. Bye.