Deborah Martins Germano

I think what has made me successful is not being afraid of adapting, adjusting, and changing things around, even changing myself if needed for a better cause. I have empathy and understanding that people are different, but if we can change something to be better, we can do that. I'm open and flexible, and I try to be real when I'm working. I have the quality and capacity of dealing with difficult situations and people's emotions, and this helps me a lot because when I have people working with me, they actually believe what I'm telling them and they follow me. I'm not the type of leader who asks people to do things but doesn't do anything myself. They literally see me working and doing it, and then they start doing it because they see me doing it, not just because I asked them to do it. I know how to do it, I do it, and then they follow me because they see that happening.

One of my oldest bosses told me once to not be afraid of being myself and to not be afraid of standing up for myself. He said to not listen to people that don't have any facts to prove anything against me. He told me to just believe in myself, do my hard work, and move on, and the outcome is gonna be good for me no matter what. Since then, I've been learning how to deal with people, even though I know that those people are trying to hurt me in some way at work. I try my best to not let that affect me and just believe in my goals and my hard work, because when I'm working, I'm just doing my job. I don't want to hurt anybody, I don't want to get in the way of anyone. I just want to finish whatever I have to finish to get the job done.

I would say to not give up, because it's not easy. The world is still very protective of men in those terms. If you talk about salary, for example, it's the same position but different salaries, and that can be very frustrating. You can feel not motivated to keep doing it. Sometimes you're gonna be around men and they won't be listening. They don't want to listen to a woman, mainly if you are young. But what I say is just keep going, and the best thing to do is just ignore them. If they tell you that you cannot do it, but you believe that you can do it, then you can do it. Believe in yourself and ignore people who try to stop you.

My long-term goal is to open my own restaurant, which is why I've been working in the restaurant industry. I took that decision as soon as I started working in this industry because I could literally use all the theory that I learned in college about food and food processing. I still need that in the restaurant because I'm actually making food and selling beverages all the time. I could use that knowledge, and it's still dealing with people, so that goes into hospitality, which is what I like to do as well. I know that I'm still in the process of learning, so that's why I'm taking the path of taking the managing position and at some point going to a GM position, because then it's gonna open a little bit more my eyes and my vision about the whole business in general. I'm gonna have access to more things, and in the meantime, I'm preparing myself to be my own boss at some point.

For me, the most important thing is honesty. I hate lies. Transparency and communication in general is the key for me. People are so afraid of talking out loud and expressing their feelings, and I think that's one of the biggest problems, if not 90% of the problems at the work environment and also in your personal life. It's because we don't know how to communicate. You don't know how to communicate, and then you say something, but the other person is not receiving the message maybe the way that you wanted to deliver it, and that is already a problem. No one wants to talk it over and find a solution, a real solution for it. Then people don't talk and they just go separate ways. They just fight each other. I think communication is the key for me, and I try my best, I've been trying my best to learn every day how to communicate in the best way to people in general.