Ana Sierra

I always knew I wanted to make a difference somehow, and that has never changed from the get-go. I'm inspired by my community, the Latino community, and just how resilient they are and how much love there is for people to have to travel from other places to come here, to give their kids a better life, to build something that is good. Immigrant communities do that a lot, and I'm part of that community. I'm an immigrant myself, so I've seen how much positive can come out of that. But I'm also looking at the inequity out there in many systems like the educational system, mental health, and healthcare, and how much need there is for representation in leadership roles. I think I'm committed and inspired by the community's potential and strength, but also that we need people to be leaders in our community and inspire others as well.

To not allow other people to define your ability, your capability to do things, or your potential. Being a Latina student, I've had numerous experiences of people that are in leadership roles, in teaching roles, in high roles like professors and high school counselors, people that I looked up to for help, that would tell you things like, oh, you don't know enough English, you probably won't be able to go to college, or you really can't do that because you don't have money to go to school. So don't let other people define it, especially if you're a person of color and female, because you have that double layer of microaggressions that you have to deal with. Take other people's comments as a point to think about, but not to take in and make it your own. Don't let others define you.

I would say that you have to find out what you're passionate about. Sometimes we see somebody successful, and we think, oh, they're making money, let me do that. But that path is not necessarily what is going to make you successful in that space. You can copy and paste and replicate something that somebody else is doing, but if that's not your path, it's not going to be fruitful. So don't lead with, I want to make money. Lead with, I want to follow the things that I'm passionate about, because when you find that, work does not feel like work. It feels like you're having a good time all the time. I'm having a good time all the time, and people always tell me, you must be so busy, and I'm like, I don't feel busy at all, honestly. My schedule is full, but I just don't feel busy. I feel like I have so much time, and I have a lot of time in my hands.

I have a very good problem right now. It's so busy that I need to grow a little bit faster than what I'm doing. I'm the only person that I know in my family to hold a business of this magnitude, so I've always had to rely on people to teach me, other people that are doing what I do. The problem is that I also have a lot of people at my level that actually look for me for advice, and I'm like, wait a minute, none of us know what we're doing, in a sense. I don't come from families that own businesses or have a lot of money, but I created that for myself here. So now that I have this, I need to learn how to keep growing. That's why I go into conferences, women-based, business-minded women that can teach me a lot. I think the challenge and the opportunities overlap. It's like a challenge full of opportunities. I don't see them as separate. This is an amazing, exciting opportunity to learn and to be the point person that people go to, and that's been surprising to me. It's been amazing. I see them both at the same time as an exciting challenge.

Being just, fair, and honest are important to me. In my practice, we practice with compassion. There's an entire worldview that I have created in my own practice where, yes, we have a very successful business, but we also do not lose track of ourselves and maintain compassion when we have different situations that need that. Not that we're not compassionate with all of our clients, we are, but in a sense, we do deal with very vulnerable populations, and so we balance out business and compassion very well in our practice.