Transforming a Personal Business for Good ~via @mendezgonzales
A Network gives you Reach; A Community gives you Power! Networks Connect... Communities Care.
Well done Melanie, thank you for sharing.
Return on Relationship #FollowThePath #RonR... #NoLetUp! -Ted
A business coach once told me that my business wouldn’t change until I changed. It wasn’t until a decade ago when I became a digital media entrepreneur whose business revolves around creating content about my own life that that advice began to resonate. Because of the pandemic, it’s loud and clear.
Like many business owners, everything changed for me because of COVID-19. Events were canceled. Budgets were nixed. Everything was on hold. I spent that time investing in my education with intense online entrepreneurship programs. Although that served me well, education was not the most impactful change on my business.
By the fall of 2020, I had readjusted and knew it was time to get back to business. Instead of just my own story, I shifted my platforms to incorporate content focused on Latina leaders. Through an interview series on Facebook Live, I was able to talk with leaders locally and nationally, from award-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa to San Antonio Hispanic Chamber president and CEO Marina Gonzales. I wanted to empower other women to see themselves as leaders by highlighting the different ways to be a leading Latina CEO, elected official, author, community leader and much more.
My business was changing because I was changing. I found myself revisiting an empowering book club of chingonas that I had joined earlier but, before the pandemic, hadn’t made time for. If we get inspiration from reading books, we get empowerment from discussing personal takeaways with our hive, and these women had the same interests in book topics and authors as I did. The book themes often challenged the expected narrative of our identity.
From that group, a smaller four-person set formed. We started meeting together through an instructor-led vision board class and have since grown into a peer-to-peer support and accountability group. Our sacred space is based on vulnerability, growth and respect. Months later I realize that it’s not what we do that makes this group special; it’s what we don’t do. We have unspoken rules of no gossip and no judgment—two unfortunate things found too often in women’s circles. Their absence has changed me and allowed me to stay focused on the positive impact my business can make when sharing the stories of Latina leaders.
