Faviola ParraJaquez

I attribute my success to my upbringing, which was very humbling and very limited. When I was little, we needed to work to help our parents come out with daily needs. A lot of times, I would go and pick onions in the field, and it would be such an extraneous job, and you would get paid so, so little. But that showed me the value of going through school and getting an education. I really admire the people that make a living out of it, but I said no, I liked what I experienced because it made me realize what I wanted more in life. I don't think if I had gone through that, I would understand the value or my determination to follow that path. Sometimes life shows you many scenarios, and it's always giving you a choice - you can either go this way, or you can go your own way. Although it can be unnerving and unsettling to follow something completely different, you never know what's behind that. Curiosity is a great thing to follow, as long as you know that it's for your own good.

The best career advice I've received is that we are as successful as we believe that we are. Believe in yourself and know that you are capable of learning, and that there's no limit to what you can learn. This helps you be open to so many things. When I became a nurse, I never thought I would go into business, but we are so intelligent and we just need to be stimulated to understand how powerful our mind is and how capable we are to learn anything that we put our mind to. When I heard that advice, I said, okay, I can do this. Absolutely, I can do this.

Do not ever stay in an area that you don't like. In the area of nursing, there is a huge amount of things that you can do. If you are curious about one, do not listen to anybody. Go and do it, and experience it for yourself, and make a determination if that is a good move or not. It's not like you have to be in one position forever and ever. You can have your eyes on like 20 different things as a nurse. You don't have to stay as a nurse in a hospital - you can if you want to, but there's so many things out there.

There are so many opportunities in my field. I can continue this path and grow into leadership positions, or I can just decide to keep going the way I'm going. It's just a fabulous field because you are constantly learning. You have to be up-to-date on your skills because otherwise you cannot ask a physician a question - you need to know what you're asking. You need to understand precisely how things work in your body and whether things make sense, because you're asking the physician questions. It's a very rewarding field and very demanding. If you know how to do your job the right way, it's very well compensated. As for challenges, being a wife and having children and having to balance work and family life was my biggest challenge. As a nurse, you can work hours and hours, doubles and triples, weekends and holidays. Yes, you get compensated very well, but you're trading that for moments that will never come back to your life. You also want to provide for your family, focusing on what you didn't have when you were growing up. But those moments with the family will never come back, and that's something that you could never, ever buy with money.

The values most important to me are a sense of ownership, accountability, and honesty beyond everything. It doesn't matter - owning your mistakes can only make you a better person because you learn from those mistakes instead of not facing them, instead of blaming others.