Georgina Parra

I think it all starts with my family. I was very lucky. My mom was a very good mom, and since I was very little, she helped me develop a sense of discipline, of responsibility, and just setting goals and committing and doing what I have to do in the moment - not skipping school because I felt like it, or stuff like that. In my opinion, the foundational values I received growing up from my family just kept stacking, and each stage things got more difficult, perhaps, but I had that foundation, and it's helped me along the way to overcome any challenges and just keep growing in general.

The best advice I've ever received is to get a mentor and to get a community to help. It doesn't mean that you are not capable of doing things on your own, it just means that you're saving yourself a lot of issues that have already been solved by others, and just having the support is different. Definitely, especially when someone is doing an entrepreneur path, like the notary business, it's something that is more important to have someone to guide you, because things get difficult, and solopreneurs can get very lonely. With a community and a mentor, it just makes a lot of difference. I'm very lucky to have one community I'm part of, led by my mentor Bill Soroka, and the name is High Performance Notary. That community has just revolutionized everything - it's a professional community of fellow notaries, but it also helps when you are feeling the support, that need for support in personal life and everything.

I think just believing in themselves. Because a lot of times, we don't think - when things get hard, we're like, oh, maybe this is not for me. But just keep believing in yourself, and keep going.

I think this might be affecting all areas, like a lot of professionals in different ways, and definitely is artificial intelligence. In the notary public profession, we are the last resource to protect the public against fraud, and there's just been a bunch of different scams that involve this aspect of new technologies. The good thing is that, at least here in California, we still rely a lot on physical presence, and that's a big one that is helping us here. But it's something that has been - in the National Notary Association, some colleagues have come across major attempts of fraud, impersonating, and so on. So I think we just have to keep on top of it, and also improve our own technological skills, our own sense of that sixth sense to figure out when something's not right.

I think the most important thing is staying true to myself, to those values. The ones that I have all the time are integrity - just being true to my word. If I make a promise, if I say I'm doing something, I will do it. And just being honest, that's definitely something - it reminds me of a book I read a long time ago, and it's something that if I keep being true to myself, I will have a heart at peace because I know I did the right thing. So yeah, definitely that, and definitely loyalty and family are the most important.