50. Why Wait? Just Create It!

Episode Transcript

Alisa Manjarrez: (00:00)
Hello, rule-breakers, change-makers, and category creators. This is the What Rules!? podcast. My name Alisa Manjarrez. I’m a vision producer and executive coach at The Happy Cactus. I’m here with my co-host, Rosa Santos. She is a talent management executive and leadership expert. And today, our guest is celebrity Chef Marcella Valladolid. And we are talking about breaking the rules, surprise, surprise. I hope no one is hungry when you’re listening to this because today’s episode is how enchilada can lead you to success.

Chef Marcela: (00:41)
And I have some here.

Alisa Manjarrez: (00:43)
You what? Did you deliver them? Wait a second.

Chef Marcela: (00:48)
Open your bag.

Rosa Santos: (00:50)
Yeah. We should.

Alisa Manjarrez: (00:51)
Underneath your microphone-

Chef Marcela: (00:54)
Right. Under your chair…

Alisa Manjarrez: (00:54)
Everybody gets enchiladas. Today, we’re talking about how taking things that are simple, and leveraging them to make an entire career, can lead you to success. I’ve had clients come to, me over and over, saying, “I don’t know what I can do with my life. I’m a mom and I’m really good at finance. I’m in tech, but I feel like it’s just easy for me.” There’s a lot of things that come easy to people and they don’t realize that those strengths and talents that they have, can actually become something. And you, chef, have become a lot of things. You’ve been all over the television circuit, you have pivoted a million times, and one of the things that I love about you is that you are a rule-breaker, you’ve broken rules throughout your career. So, first of all, do you consider yourself a rule breaker?

Chef Marcela: (02:01)
I do. I do consider myself a rule breaker. I don’t think I started off thinking that was my goal. Honestly, when I began this idea that we’re discussing today, the rule-breaking idea, it all happened for me when I was really, really young, so it wasn’t a conscious effort to break down any barriers. Honestly, all that I wanted was to leave Tijuana and that very patriarchal society that I grew up in. And I love my hometown. All my friends are there, there’s no shade, but I grew up in a specific cohort that was very patriarchal. It was what it was. My family was the same way. And I’ve tried so hard, I’ve done so much work, alternative methods, and traditional methods. I’ve done so much work to figure out where the seed was planted, that I was like, “I will never be financially dependent on a man.” I don’t know when exactly that happened, I don’t know how young I was, but I remember having those thoughts since I was really young.

Chef Marcela: (03:06)
So, that tiny seed grew up into a whole bunch of rule-breaking in terms of how I behaved, the role I took in relationships, how I wanted to leave home. My dad, [inaudible 00:03:22], the most wonderful man in the world, had a very clear message; “You leave here when you are married.” That’s just what it was. So, for me, it was just very clear that that was not going to be my path. And it was painful to break through and leave, and it took a few years to find my own way. But it was established when I was very young, that I wanted something different to what I was exposed to in my hometown of Tijuana.

Rosa Santos: (03:52)
With what you’re sharing with us, it’s interesting, you’re saying is that your dad said to you that you leave here when you are married and-

Chef Marcela: (03:59)
With a ring.

Rosa Santos: (04:01)
With a ring. My parents said to me completely the opposite, and I think I’ve talked about this before, but I thought everybody else around me had received the same message. So, when I got out in the world is when I realized that the way I was being perceived was not the way that I had been brought up or what I had been instilled in my upbringing. How have you coped with that a little bit, in terms of, as you went and started to break rules, to take on the path of becoming who you are today, what about those other things that people put on top of you? What does that look like for you, has looked like for you?

Chef Marcela: (04:41)
You know what, I have a lot of negative traits just like any human being. There’s light and there’s dark, yin and yang, that’s just part of the human experience. And I am proud to say that one of my attributes, one of the things that I am most proud of as a person or as a human living in this experience, is that I’m able to completely tune out opinion. And I think that’s been my most powerful weapon in all of this. The hero’s journey, which is the path to finding yourself, can be incredibly lonely. And for people… That’s what I read now. I’m so analytical of the journey now, but back in the day, I didn’t know what it was. I was just living my life, trying to survive and trying to break free, but looking back at it now, it was clearly my hero’s journey when I left my home and I said, “Thank you for everything you’ve done. I’m going to go do… I don’t know what I’m going to do, but bye-bye.”

Chef Marcela: (05:41)
But some people described that hero’s journey is very lonely, but because I am an introvert and because solitude is my recharge, I was actually set free. So, in that hero journey, when I left my home and I was looking for my path and I was trying to establish what I want to do with the rest of my life, and all of this was happening with 25 cents in a new bank account that I just opened the day before, I actually experienced and tasted freedom. And I say this a lot to my younger followers, which is kind of a difficult piece of advice to digest, but I love my friends. I’ve had the same friends, literally since kindergarten, and our moms were friends. And for some of us, our grandparents were friends. So, those relationships runs super deep, but at the same time, I had zero issue with saying, “Bye, I’m not going to really be in touch with you guys for…”

Chef Marcela: (06:46)
I didn’t know this, it wasn’t pre-planned, but I basically was out of touch with my community, with my family, and my friends, for probably like six or seven years. I went out there to look for my place in the world, but to me, that tasted like freedom and adventure. I can understand how that can be an incredibly difficult road for somebody that doesn’t have that mentality. But for me, that ability to literally [foreign language 00:07:14] the horses, to just have forward-vision, that was me back then. There was nothing, there was no one, but my path forward.

Alisa Manjarrez: (07:24)
And going back to being different from all of your friends, were the relationships tainted during that time because you were so focused? How did that affect all your friendships?

Chef Marcela: (07:38)
Not at all because there was no judgment. And some of my friends became career professionals. Most of them did get married and decided to be stay-at-home moms. And I think the reason that our friendship has worked is because both sides are equally respectful of the other’s journey. I have always been very guarded with my personal choices and my family life and my information. And as deep as my friendships are, it’s kind of the same with my sister. People comment a lot about my relationship with my sister. My boundaries are super, super clear when it comes to relationships and what I allow in my space. And this may sound kind of horrible, but I rarely lean on other people for opinion or advice, unless I go specifically to seek it from a person that has been down this specific path or has some expertise in the area.

Chef Marcela: (08:33)
I’m very careful about what opinions and advice I allow in my life. And my friendships are there to be friends, not to have an opinion about my career path or my relationship or my children, or where I choose to make my money or how I choose to spend my time. And that’s why I adore these women because I will not speak to them for months, and then in the WhatsApp, we’ll see each other and we’ll have the time of our lives. And I think for me, that is a healthy relationship. There’s no codependency in the sense that I need them to survive and they don’t need me to survive, and I don’t need their input to move forward. They are my friends, they’re with me on this journey from a space that I’m comfortable with. And there’s so much trust, but more than anything, there’s just a lot of respect. So. There was really no fallout. There was nothing, there was just like, “I’m going to go do my thing.” And then I came back and it’s like, nothing happened, and that’s why those friendships are true.

Rosa Santos: (09:37)
That’s amazing. Actually, it sounds simple, but it’s challenging to get there because we are so used to being judged and also being judged by our loved ones as well. And sometimes, that could be a barrier on its own, that somebody else puts on us and it makes us self-doubt. So, having that set of friendships that are there for truly unconditional support, is vital and fundamental. Hey, you talked about, you were going like a horse looking forwards. Tell me a little bit about that experience, and where did you get the energy to do that, just to just say, “Hey, this is me. I need to find my path. I’m moving forward. Tell us a little bit about that.” And did you ever get deterred? And if so, how or why?

Chef Marcela: (10:35)
Oh my gosh, I got deterred so many times. I’ll tell you my food network story. It took me 10 years to get them to look at me. And 10 years of me stalking them, 10 years of them saying no before they said yes, but I think I had this conviction and belief that I had something to offer that didn’t exist. That is the right to any human being because if you are authentic to yourself, you have no competition. I knew that I was the only Marcela, that was like if I run down the list of what makes me me, of course, I’m unique because nobody has lived my life. I was the only Marcela that was fluent in two languages, that crossed the border every day to go to school in San Diego, that had studied pastries in Paris, that had… You know what I’m saying?

Chef Marcela: (11:25)
If you just write down the bullets of the special things that make up your life or your experience or your journey, you have no competition and you have to seed your path in the strength of that. And I think it was so clear in my head. I was like, “Well, there’s no [foreign language 00:11:45] out there talking about really beautiful Mexican food that lives on the border, that can do it in English and can do it in Spanish.” And I was just so sure that I had something good to offer. And no matter how many times they said no, I’d come back and be like, “No, but listen, this is good.” And I still do that. They just told me no on something huge. And I’m like, “Yeah, they don’t get it. Next. I got something good.” So, I think it’s just that unwavering conviction that I have something good to offer.

Rosa Santos: (12:17)
It’s just the power. I think that power of believing in yourself and what you have to offer. And you said something so beautiful; the bullets that make up your life. I just want to write a book now about that.

Chef Marcela: (12:32)
It’s the attributes that make up your life. And how many times have we been told, in order to be successful… Especially in what I do, when you’re trying to connect with people, authenticity is key. And the only way to get there is to truly… For me, I’ll tell you when I figured that out. They asked me to be the keynote speaker at my high school graduation at a women’s symposium they were having like four years ago. And I hate public speaking, believe it or not. I can’t stand it. And I was like, “I’m just going to bullet my life and read my bullets. I’m just going to tackle this like it’s like… I’m just going to…” And when I read the bullets, I was like, “Oh, this is pretty cool, man. These bullets are cool.” And unknowingly, I had been navigating through my journey, my entire life with those bullets, very clear in the front of my head, but actually writing… And what I wanted to get to is, as an exercise, write them down; what makes you, you. And it’ll make it incredibly clear what you have to offer that nobody else does.

Rosa Santos: (13:30)
And it makes you, then to your point, gain that confidence about who you are, what you have to offer, what is your worth, and then how you put that worth in the marketplace, so then you can get at it. And despite how many times you may have been told no, to your point that you were making, and just continuing and continuing and continuing, and talk about resiliency as well.

Alisa Manjarrez: (13:59)
We were just talking about this on the last episode. There’s an exercise that I like to do with my clients, where you draw a circle with your name in the middle and you put, that’s like, little rays of sunshine. And these are all the things that make you, you. And you use it as an anchor. And it’s so amazing when someone looks at themselves on a piece of paper. It separates them from all the emotions, and they see how beautiful their accomplishments are. And you also start to look at yourself with a new lens. And I think that when you can look at your experiences and even the pain with a different perspective, even just putting it on a piece of paper, you build resiliency in that moment because you look at everything that I’ve overcome and all of the barriers that I face, but I’ve still done all these things. And that’s what I hear Marcela saying, and that’s what makes you so strong. You’ve built that muscle over and over again.

Chef Marcela: (15:12)
But it doesn’t mean I don’t get exhausted. And I was thinking about that… I told Rosa that I just got a big fat no from something that I was sure was going to be a big fat yes. And I definitely have… And that’s really important to mention because I feel like sometimes I’m in these podcasts, but I really try and post the dark side of this journey as well on my social media. I was literally in the car driving back and I got this news that it was a big fat no on this thing that I’ve invested a bunch of time in, that I thought was going to be like a sure hit. And my first thought was like, “I’m so exhausted. I keep doing this over and over and over again.” But then I have to remind myself that I keep doing it over and over again. I literally probably have 10 balls up in the air right now, and maybe two of them will hit. And that’s how Marcela operates, that’s just how I operate.

Chef Marcela: (16:07)
Sometimes, for so long, I judge myself as a scatterbrain because I had so many different things going on at the same time. And that’s just my defense mechanism, so that I don’t have a plan A and B, I have a plan A through Z in case plan A doesn’t work out. So, I have little areas of business popping up all over the place, and that’s where you’re like, “You’re everywhere.” And it’s like I think it’s conscious effort and a fear to, “I’m a hustler, man. I’m a hustler.” And I have those moments where a massive door is shut in my face, and I will have those moments where I’m like, “I’m exhausted. I want all the balls to drop and I want to move to Hawaii and have a sugar daddy.”

Alisa Manjarrez: (16:54)
I hear that.

Chef Marcela: (16:56)
I have those moments where I’m exhausted with three kids. One is a teenager, two babies, a dog. I have six different jobs right now. Believe me, there are moments when I want to move to Mars and not do any of it. And I think it’s important to mention that there’s no superheroes, it’s all of us just trying to figure it out as we go. And I still get a ton of rejection. I got an email. I remember before pandemic, on another project that I was so excited about, they were like, “You’re not good enough on camera, you’re not organic, you’re not authentic.” And I was like, ” [inaudible 00:17:33]” Could you imagine? They’re just writing their analysis, they don’t care. It’s a two-second email. Oh my God, it-

Rosa Santos: (17:39)
You’re not authentic. What is authentic? It is super interesting that you’re saying that because I feel, for us especially, multicultural and women of color, it’s interesting how sometimes we are forced to fulfill a mold of others that others have of us or the category in which we are being placed. And then all of a sudden, to your point, you look at the bullets of your life and you say, “Look at me. Look at how much I have to offer and what I’ve done to get here.” But then that doesn’t fit that so-called mold. And it’s interesting because we’ve had this conversation many times before and we had a guest who said, “Go create your own. Create your own mold and your own space and make it happen from that end.”

Rosa Santos: (18:41)
But to your point, even to put yourself back together after all of that, and then even having the mental wellbeing and overall capacity to even think about like, “Okay, where do I go and build my own space and how I go about it?” I still have to count on people who trust me, who believe in me, and all that you have to do to be able to have that large network of folks that when you need them, you can count on them, maybe to lend you a hand, lend you some money, to really put you in the right path to be able to create your own.

Chef Marcela: (19:28)
Absolutely. I’ll give you a brief story. When I started this career, the first time that they… Well, they didn’t fly me out. I flew myself out to New York to do a screen test for a production company, to hopefully try to sell a show to the network. And I was doing the cooking segment, and I was coming off of being a culinary instructor. That’s what I did; I did cooking classes in Tijuana right after I got married the first time.

Chef Marcela: (19:55)
So, my goal with my students was takeaway. I want them to learn something, I want it to be worth their money. If I’m teaching them, I want them to be able to make this at home. This isn’t like a party, this isn’t a girlfriend get-together. I want solid recipes and I want them to learn, and I want them to be able to make this at home. So, I went and I did the screen test with that mentality, like I was truly teaching, and I was stopped in the middle of it. And they were like, “Well, can you be more Mexican? [inaudible 00:20:21] could you move more hands?” They wanted me to be like a mariachi band in a chef, basically.

Alisa Manjarrez: (20:27)
Oh my gosh.

Chef Marcela: (20:28)
And my response was no. And that was a no. That was one of my first nos. And believe me, it’s really, really hard to not give in and say, “[inaudible 00:20:44].” You know what I’m saying? Especially, I was so young, I was probably 25 years old. I was unemployed, being possibly offered an opportunity on national television. Believe me, there was a part that was like, “Okay, fine. Give me a [inaudible 00:21:00].” Believe me, there were many a time that I was like, “I will succumb to this stereotype so I can be employed.” Many times. And when I would push back… And we didn’t have social media back then. When I would push back, but then I would tell someone, obviously, not post about it, and the reaction was of pride, of like, “Good for you that you did that.”

Chef Marcela: (21:24)
Someone in my community, a leader in my community, or a mentor, that was the fuel for my fire. And now, I get that on social media. Now, I’ll do a national segment and I’ll be like, “No, I would prefer you not use that decor. I would prefer you not put donkeys on set. Love me some donkeys. They don’t exist in my house, so you don’t need to have them on the set. I would prefer you not open with that music. That is a hundred percent traditional music and I did grow up with it, but that is not reflective of my journey right now, so you don’t need to play that music.” I’m incredibly clear. And that is fueled by the response I get from people that really appreciate a… Not accurate because the stereotypes are there for a reason. A lot of them are actually very true, but people appreciate just a different perspective and representation of us and our culture, and that’s what I try to offer.

Rosa Santos: (22:15)
That’s amazing. And in fact, you’re talking about our first rule here for us, which is own your power. And in doing that, you’re owning your power, and in saying no, you’re owning your power. So, is those moments where you say to yourself, “This is where I am going to own my power and this is where I am going to say who I am, what I am about, and what I am really ready to do or not to do.” Those are what I call the no moments. And sometimes it’s like the strategic no moments because you know that if you cave in, you will cave in further down the line and you’ll end up doing things that will make you unhappy and will really detract you of your own path, of what you don’t want to do, and you’ll find yourself in a position that then you have to really rethink, or maybe after a lot of frustrations and a lot of time, probably not being spent in what you really wanted to start with.

Chef Marcela: (23:12)
Oh, I did that for a decade; taking jobs that I wasn’t completely happy with. And at the same time, it’s boot camp, man. Even in those jobs that sometimes I hated with a passion, you have to, at least, be willing to take a step back and see what you’re learning there at least. Take it as a learning experience. But there were many a times that I just kind of… And that’s just an honest response. I did what I needed to do, and that’s okay. And I learned so much and it all led me to this place that I’m really happy with.

Rosa Santos: (23:50)
And by me saying that, what I don’t want our listeners to hear is it’s okay to say yes, but know why you are saying yes to certain things that you feel uncomfortable with, because, you might be saying yes to do what I call business development. And that business development might be, “Oh, I am gaining a relationship that I’m going to need for the future.”

Chef Marcela: (24:12)
Exactly.

Rosa Santos: (24:12)
Or make sure that, actually, you articulate like, “This is something that I don’t do, but I respect your perspective or I respect you as a person, and this one time, I’m going to do it.” So, use it in a way that truly makes you own that power of yours, and it’s going to help you in the longer run to really fulfill the goal that you are striving for yourself.

Chef Marcela: (24:40)
A hundred percent. And I’ve done that many times. And we laugh about it here, because, without getting into detail, Philip, who’s my partner and my manager, he knows the stuff that I hate to do, and he’ll be just like, “Remember, exposure.” And I’m like, “Yeah, I need to build the brand.” And I’ll go do the thing that I hate doing or that I don’t love. So, I’m thinking of myself and my business in the long run. And my feeling about opportunity is if it’s being placed in front of you, it’s for a reason.

Rosa Santos: (25:07)
For a reason.

Chef Marcela: (25:07)
So, really, at least look at it and see how you can benefit, before you’re like, “No, that’s… no.” So, at least get into that process of analyzing how this could benefit you because there’s a reason it’s being put in front of you in that moment.

Rosa Santos: (25:23)
Absolutely.

Alisa Manjarrez: (25:24)
At the end of the day, it’s all about choice. And you can choose what you’re saying yes and what you’re saying no to, and that’s how you own your power.

Chef Marcela: (25:33)
Yeah. I think in many times… And this is also reality or my reality. I was a single mom when all of this started, and a lot of times, I honestly felt like I didn’t have a choice. How am I going to pass up on this contract for this product, that perhaps I’m not a hundred percent behind, but I need to pay the rent and feed my kid. And I took many of those jobs, I took many of those contracts, and you know what? My kid was fed, he went to a nice school with all his cousins, we lived in a decent apartment that was safe, and I have no issues that I had to hawk mayo for a couple of years so that I could get that done. You just do what you got to do and you do it honorably and with pride. And in that moment, the priority was not to establish myself as a brand. The priority was to survive and for my son to survive. You know what I’m saying? So, you just need to be at peace with the whys.

Alisa Manjarrez: (26:31)
One of the rules that I also heard, or a guiding principle, I guess we could call it, is this idea of creating what doesn’t exist. And that’s a theme that I’ve also seen with you, Chef Marcela. You talked about getting some nos for television. And we know that you have been on television many times and on many shows, but today, you are making your own magic with your sister on Zoom. And I would love for you to tell our listeners a little bit about how that got started, because, you’re creating your own show or you have created your own show.

Chef Marcela: (27:13)
Yeah. That’s a great example of that, because, before that, I did do the rounds with an idea for a show that was turned down for a good reason. It sucked. But that’s another podcast. We need three hours for that one. But the point is, at the end of the day, we were mid-pandemic, and I did a live with my sister that got a huge response because she doesn’t cook, and it was just super silly. And I was trying to teach her to roast a chicken and she doesn’t even eat chicken and she doesn’t touch raw protein. She’s very high maintenance. So, we did it, and I had noticed… I actually wrote about this in an article the other day.

Chef Marcela: (27:55)
We saw, in the beginning of pandemic, that Philip’s yoga teacher pivoted to online classes. And just by doing simple math, we’re like, “This guy’s making 10 times more money than he ever made in the studio. And he doesn’t have any overhead costs, he’s definitely not paying the rent he was paying in Beverly Hills. There’s something here.” So, Philip was like, “You need to do Zoom cooking glass.” And I was like, “No, that’s not for me.” I was like, “I don’t feel good about the quality, I don’t want to put anything out there that isn’t a great production. This is my name. I don’t want to be doing Zoom classes.” It was like, “Ugh, not for me.” And then Selena Gomez invited me on her show, Selena + Chef, mid-pandemic. This was like November. It was still pretty crazy, and I was like, “We’re going to do this?” And they’re like, “Yeah.”

Chef Marcela: (28:36)
So, they sent a production crew of four people. And usually, when it’s a show like this, it’s at least 20 to 25 people in my house. We do that a lot, that we shoot stuff here. And with four people, they came in and they built this thing in my kitchen; an overhead camera over the stove, a wide shot, a median shot, a monitor while I was talking. She was in her home in Los Angeles. I’m not sure where she lives, honestly, but she was in LA, and obviously, I was in San Diego. And the whole thing was so smooth, so perfect. The quality was so great, it was authentic, it was in my house. The kids came into the show, the dog stole some food from the counter. And it was thanks to that woman and her invitation to her show, that I was like, “I can totally do this and I can do this in good quality.”

Chef Marcela: (29:25)
So, in that moment, I was like, “Philip, you ask these people every damn question of how this thing was set up.” We got phone numbers, we got names of equipment, we ordered Amazon, and in that moment, that became school, that became my school of how those Zoom classes would exist in my life. And I called my sister afterwards and I’m like, “We’re doing the first class.” And that was Thanksgiving of last year. And now, we’re six months in, we do two to three classes every month. Every class is sold out, at least a thousand people there, but with Zoom. It’s always family, so statistically, we’re cooking with two or 3000 people every class. So, it’s been like the most amazing ride of my life. And it’s done 1000000% my way, because, because of COVID, there was…

Chef Marcela: (30:19)
When we started, there was nothing. I was doing the photographs of the food, the editing, the recipes, writing the recipes, testing the recipes. I usually have six people doing all this stuff for me while I’m traveling or shooting a show. There was nothing, there was me. And it was also a godsend. I lost half my hair, but I really, really got back into owning every inch and corner of my business, and that was the most beautiful part of all of this. Now, we’re starting to expand again, but I got so into the nitty-gritty in recipe development, photographing my recipes, editing my recipes. All 1000 students get a very detailed document with how they need to become prepared to class. Ain’t nobody writing that stuff, that’s all me. And it’s just been so helpful in my journey of taking ownership of what I have to offer. It was like a rejuvenation of that feeling.

Rosa Santos: (31:22)
Wow. Sounds so inspiring, honestly. So, as Alisa said, I’m in the business of helping folks really rethink about what can they do to grow and get better. And sometimes we are so constrained about what we think we can or cannot do.

Chef Marcela: (31:44)
That’s so important.

Rosa Santos: (31:45)
Right. And that’s so rigid in our thinking and the way that we think and how we expand our brains, even to consider the possibility that you can create something that somebody told you some time that you couldn’t do it. And there you are, all of a sudden, you are everything to make sure that you did something that you’re so passionate about and things that probably, you didn’t know perfectly how to do today.

Chef Marcela: (32:14)
Yeah. And that you bring up, it’s so funny because we’re always looking… People are like, “We need to offer women more tools or business tools or accounting.” And I’m like, “You need to go like 10 steps back and talk about mindset and culture.”

Rosa Santos: (32:29)
Absolutely.

Chef Marcela: (32:30)
The difference between having a growth mindset or a set mindset is in how you were raised. It’s in your relationship with your mother and father when you were a child. And I think that with everything that I say about my dad, about him being like macho [foreign language 00:32:47] old-school, every single day, he would tell me that I was the most amazing, the smartest, the most capable [foreign language 00:32:59] . It was just, every day, hammered in, “You’re special, you’re different, you’re great, you’re special.” And as much as I’m like, “I ran away from this person at some point because he was so old-school macho Mexican,” it’s those words that he uttered when I was very young, that stayed with me.

Chef Marcela: (33:17)
And I think that’s what, as women and entrepreneurs, sometimes it’s left out of the conversation. And I’ve done it myself. I’ll scroll past somebody that owns a huge business, and I’ll be like, “That’s not for me. That’s too big.” And then I’ll be like, “Scroll back. It is for you. Scroll back.” I think we need to… We place these limits on ourselves, and we immediately scroll. And I say scroll because that’s all we do anymore these days. We’re like, “No, that’s not for me. That’s very cute, but that’s not for me.” And we need to really be able to see ourselves as capable.

Chef Marcela: (33:50)
I think in our prep call, I told you the stat about how Latinas create more businesses than any cohort in the United States. Latinos and Latinas, but only 1 to 3% percent of us go over the $1 million mark with our businesses. We are incredible creators. We are in [inaudible 00:34:09]. We figure shit, excuse my language, out. We figure it out.

Rosa Santos: (34:16)
Things out. Yeah.

Chef Marcela: (34:17)
We just don’t know how to grow these businesses. And I think a lot of the times, it’s not so much about tools. Tools are important. We need to be educated on finance, like on all those things, but I think it’s a cultural issue with not having a growth mindset that is stopping us most of the time.

Rosa Santos: (34:32)
Absolutely. Growth mindset. And I mean, although we’re talking about in terms of… This is a clear, what I call, self-limiting belief, that one may not realize, but the power that that self-limiting belief has in your own growth potential, it’s way too much. And we need to interrupt it. And I think the one thing that we brought we can do and we are doing, and you’re doing, is really talk about it, because, to your point, it’s… And again, I go back to the cultures that we bring to the table. The way that we’re brought up, what others might say to us, again, what we can or cannot do, really has an impact in that we see possibility. And sometimes, you just need to think possibility and then go do it and create it.

Chef Marcela: (35:31)
And not be afraid to fall on your face 700 times in the intent. I think that’s the most important thing; that for what determines your success, and I think you said this before, is resilience. Because there’s no way to get there in a straight line. It’s going to be curvy and messy, and good and bad and dark and light. If you expect it to be a straight from A to B, B being success, you’re going to give up very quickly. I think there needs to be a lot of training, like you said, build that muscle, and understanding that to get to be, there’s going to be a lot of rejection and a lot of failure and a lot of lost time and money. I didn’t realize until very recently, how the universe functions in that sense. So many projects that I was so passionate about, it can be incredibly heartbreaking when you create something and are so passionate about it, and somebody says no.

Chef Marcela: (36:27)
And then so many times, that happened to me and I would look at it and I would be like, “I cannot improve upon this. I gave this my all, and they’re still saying no. I don’t know where to go with this.” Because a lot of times, you can go back and you’ll be like, “Yeah, this is why they said no because this sucked,” or you weren’t good enough or the colors weren’t right, or the food wasn’t good, or the project wasn’t solid. And there were many times where I was like, “I cannot improve upon this. This is good.” But many of those projects are solidifying now, 10 years later, 8 years later, 7 years later, 20 years later. The box thing that I’m doing right now, that began probably six years ago. And I was like, “But this is so beautiful, and I can’t figure it out.” And it was by the time I got to the partners that I have now, I was like, “This is the idea, these are the colors, these are the products, this is the concept.”

Rosa Santos: (37:20)
You knew exactly.

Chef Marcela: (37:21)
It was like all of that failure got me to a place where everything just started to come together so easily. And I think that’s what we need to realize, that when somebody’s telling you no, whatever happened in that moment, just take a lot of notes, because, if it’s something that you are truly passionate about, it’ll resurface, and all of it is just training for that moment when it does resurface.

Rosa Santos: (37:46)
Marcela, don’t you think there is something that we live in the moment of the now? I think there is… I shouldn’t necessarily generalize, but I get the impression there’s very little patient. I think there is very… And we all have very little patience, and I think we should allow ourselves for the patience to grow, and to put in the time. This idea, you put in the time, you need to put points on the board before you can actually have a pure sense of clarity of being absolutely prepared and ready with your expertise and your confidence, that this is it, because you know exactly now when you can actually launch it, with whom, and how. And it’s going to be perfect because you’ve been preparing for it for the last 10 years.

Chef Marcela: (38:42)
Yeah. But it goes back to that muscle, because, that patience that you’re talking about, easier said than done. I did not have it back then. I would have like a total breakdown that would last for like two weeks, where I would feel like I was a failure and then I was worthless. And I would get back up and do it all over again. But now, with the nos, because there’s still many… Like I said, I just got a big fat one yesterday. I am very relaxed into this idea that everything that happens, happens for a reason. And just because that door’s closed, it doesn’t mean that something else won’t open up.

Chef Marcela: (39:17)
I am also in a much more stable situation in my life, where those nos don’t bring me into sweaty, like in the middle of the night, thinking, “How am I going to pay my mortgage?” Thank God there’s that stability, that a no doesn’t bring a lot of anxiety. Now, a no is different. Thank God. But for many years, those nos, it wasn’t so much about being impatient, it was absolute fear of where’s the next thing going to come from? And that’s why I’m always… I think that part of me is always very much alive. I need to have so many balls up in the air just as like a plan B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, all of them.

Alisa Manjarrez: (40:03)
That’s the beauty of entrepreneurship.

Rosa Santos: (40:05)
Saying it just brought this thought to me, because, even… So, obviously, in my case, I am not an entrepreneur. I work for a company, but I consider myself kind of stable, there’s stability. But I don’t know whether it’s… My father was an entrepreneur and we lived through that every day. But there’s this part of me, always in the back of my mind, “If this doesn’t work, if I lose my job tomorrow.” You are always thinking and you’re always getting ahead of yourself, which sometimes I think that’s why I’m so tired every day. [inaudible 00:40:45]. Because you’re thinking all the time.

Rosa Santos: (40:48)
You have all of the other projects and you want to help this and that and the other. And then at the same time, it’s just making sure that you always… I loved what you said at the beginning; is, for me, it’s very important also, financial independence. And just making sure that there’s always a plan somehow. Lisa knows this about me. There’s always a plan somehow that I need to have there in case you have to pull it. But, again, it goes back to what we started to talk about the energy and whatnot and having all those balls up in the air, knowing that not all of them will materialize, but you can always pull one down just in case you need it.

Chef Marcela: (41:26)
Exactly. And you know what? We’re hustlers. Some people are just hustlers. And I say that about myself all the time. I’m a hustler, man. I’m a hustler. It is what it is. But at this stage in my life, I’m 42 now, my hustler mentality lived in me 24/7 when I was younger, and it did so for 20 years. Now, I am fully capable of completely unplugging and not caring what happens. And I was able to do it with my babies. Even if it’s a national TV appearance that people pay gazillion dollars to be on or wait their entire career, if my kid has a thing, I’m going to the thing with my kid.

Chef Marcela: (42:08)
Now, it’s much easier for me to step out of the hustler mentality and enjoy the stuff that I’ve worked so hard for. It’s very easy for me to disconnect. If Philip is like, “We’re going to Cabo,” I’m like, “See yah. Wouldn’t want to be yah. I’m out.” Phone is off. I’ll post on Instagram. I don’t care if I miss The Today Show appearance, Good Morning America, The Talk, I don’t care. I’m leaving for a week. And I think the hustler mentality has learned to be able to take a vacation, and that’s important.

Rosa Santos: (42:37)
Yeah. That’s so nice.

Alisa Manjarrez: (42:39)
Another part of owning your power.

Chef Marcela: (42:41)
Yeah. I think there’s definitely… Especially in our culture, we put martyrs on a pedestal. We glamorize suffering, especially in women. We glamorize women suffering as greatness [foreign language 00:42:57], or she had six jobs, you know what I’m saying? And then eventually, we become matriarchs because of all the suffering. And I think I was a part of that mentality, and I’m like, “No, I don’t want to be forged in so much fire anymore.” I want to just gracefully move through my life, and I don’t want to be put on a pedestal because of my pain and suffering. I want to be put on a pedestal because I have tried to be an example of living a joyful and fulfilled life where you have family and you have relationships and you have time for that, and you have time for joy, and you are respected fully and you’re embraced fully as yourself. I’m not into that suffering mentality anymore.

Rosa Santos: (43:47)
I just watched a movie actually, that actually encapsulates what you are saying. It’s called Rosa’s Wedding.

Chef Marcela: (43:54)
Oh really?

Rosa Santos: (43:55)
Rosa’s wedding, you guys.

Chef Marcela: (43:56)
Oh my God, let me write this down. I need to watch this.

Rosa Santos: (43:57)
I was just Googling it. It was from 2020. I think a lot of us actually get ourselves very much represented in that movie. So, I thoroughly recommend it. Rosa’s Wedding. Marcela, is there anything that we haven’t talked about that you think it’s important that we talk about, or that you feel really passionate about that we should contemplate?

Chef Marcela: (44:20)
More than anything, I just want to tell people about that importance of the growth mindset. I think a lot of women, with their businesses, with their small businesses, and I try to push as many as I can on my social media, like small local women doing their business, their craft, their jewelry, just so many things. And I think a lot of them perhaps see the stuff that I’m doing or that other women are doing, and they think that it’s not for them because they’re not organized enough because they didn’t go to school, because they don’t have the right accountant. I just want to let people know that this journey, especially the entrepreneur journey, is super messy. It’s a shit show. It’s incredibly messy. It’s not clean for me, it’s not clean for any entrepreneur. [inaudible 00:45:10] said that to me.

Chef Marcela: (45:12)
I called her crying one day because I was so confused about a deck that I needed to present, and she’s like, “Nobody tells you how much we cry in this process, nobody tells you how messy this is, nobody tells you that when you’re in the beginning, nobody knows what they are doing, nobody knows how to scale their business. We’re all learning as you go.” And that’s what I really want to tell people. It’s super messy. I keep messing up every day with accounting, with the decks that I put together, with the recipes. I send out recipes to a thousand students that are filled with mistakes. These things still happen. No operation is flawless. And I think that’s what I really want, especially the women small entrepreneurs to understand; is that don’t think that because you’re not fully experienced or your operation is small as it may be, it’s not perfect, it doesn’t have a chance to grow into something that could really be financially successful for you.

Alisa Manjarrez: (46:17)
At the end of the day, we’re in this for the long game. You can succeed with patience, you can succeed with perseverance in the myths of the land of the nos, because we’re all rejected, from time to time, in any areas of our lives. We can look at stories like Chef Marcela’s as inspiration for all of us to keep going. It does get better. There will be trials, we’re not going to be shy about that, but you can own your power in the process. And you’ve got this. Want to know how breaking the rules can help you level up your career game? Search What Rules!? podcast on any social media platform and join our members-only group on LinkedIn, where we discuss rule-breaking strategies for multicultural women. What Rules!? is a production of Color Forward? The show is produced by me, Alisa Manjarrez, with editing and fabulous sound design by Mathr de Leon. Visit colorforward.com for more stories, events, and of course, all the episodes of What Rules!?.