Sandra Rascon

I attribute my success to my strong work ethic and dedication to what I do. I truly believe in the work I'm doing and I'm passionate about it, which makes everything come naturally. I make sure I'm always supporting the organization and being respectful to my colleagues, my family, and those I work with overall, which has built trust with everybody. That respect and trust has given me what I have now. I'm also grateful for what I have - I can say I'm content, but I'm always going to be grateful for what I have or for what comes next. Having a positive mindset and gratitude towards what I have has really helped me throughout my career. My work ethic, being respectful, having respect, being able to trust others, and just being grateful and having gratitude has naturally given me all the success I've had throughout my career.

Someone told me a long time ago that in my professional career, I should always be two steps ahead of everything and be able to read the room. Always be two steps ahead, kind of forecast what's gonna happen, so that way I'm always prepared. That stuck with me to this day, and I love that because it gives me that extra stepping stone of being able to be prepared for whatever comes my way and not feel surprised so much by whatever the situation might be. I can say, you know what, I was prepared two steps ahead, here it is, or you were asking for this, here is this, or what's plan B? I already thought about it, this is it. That leads into other things like taking initiative in the professional world, which is also a great leadership type of skill set to have. I love that I do that, and to this day, I always tell my daughter to ensure that she's always two steps ahead of everything to make sure she's prepared for whatever comes her way.

I would say, coming into this nonprofit field and this industry, find your true passion, find what you believe in. Because when you find what you believe in, this does not become a job - it becomes contributing to a cause. You're adding value to what the cause is. So just finding what you're truly passionate about and what you feel like you're making a difference in will really guide your path or guide whoever goes into this field into contributing and providing for what the cause is. Find your true passion because it will guide you to the career path and what you truly believe in, to make a difference in the lives of people. That's what's driven me - I want to make a difference in the lives of these individuals. I come home knowing that I did make a difference. It might have not changed right away, but because of the added value to them in their lives, the hope is that they will get to where they want to be eventually. Just believing in the organization and adding value to the work that they're doing and just being passionate about what they do.

The biggest challenge in this field, from my experience working at Toberman as a social service agency, is that you want to eradicate whatever the organization is working towards, but it's not like a one-time solution. It's always a challenge to think, yeah, we're providing these services, but how are we really stopping people from being hungry? With working with youth at eXp, it's a challenge in that I would love to be able to connect with a lot more industries and a lot more companies so that they understand what we do, so they can also believe in the work that we do and be able to provide the support for students to be able to learn about their companies. Overall, I feel like just being able to bring people to understand the work that we do is challenging. Not a lot of people know what we do as an organization. So it's a little challenging to get people to know what we do, just being able to connect with a lot more people so that way we can find opportunities for the individuals that we're working with and supporting.

Having a really good work ethic is most important to me - believing in what you do and ensuring that you have a really good work ethic in order to be able to do 100% in your work and in your life. When you truly believe in what you do and you're passionate about it, naturally everything comes to play. I make sure I do things the right way so that things come to me the right way. I love what I do and I make sure that I'm always supporting the organization and also being able to support in my day-to-day life. My work ethic has naturally given me all the success I've had throughout my career. Being respectful to my colleagues, being respectful to my family, being respectful to those that I work with overall has built trust as well with everybody, and that in turn has given me what I have now. Definitely my work ethic, being respectful, having respect, and being able to trust others are key values. Also, just being grateful - gratitude towards what I have has really helped me because I can say that I'm content with what I have, but I'm always gonna be grateful for what I have or for what comes next. Just having a positive mindset as well is essential.