Susane Zeledon

I attribute my success to myself. My faith is strong for me, but I'm the one who's getting up in the morning and saying, you gotta do this. Come on, Susie, let's do this. It starts with me and it ends with me. I'm the one pushing myself forward every single day, telling myself to keep going no matter what challenges I face. After everything I've survived - abandonment, rape, third-degree burns, domestic violence, and cancer - I learned to become a warrior and a go-getter rather than staying in fight-or-flight mode. I use the skills I've developed not just to survive but to help others, and that internal drive and self-motivation is what keeps me moving forward.

Throughout my career, I've been told that I'm really organized with my documentation, which has helped me surpass audits consistently. People have always recognized that I keep things very honest, especially when I worked in the prisons. One of my mentors, Mr. Howard Mathis, taught me a lot of tricks about how to maneuver different types of inmates' behaviors during the 5 years I worked by his side. He would guide me, saying things like 'Z, don't let this one get to you,' and I would do the same for him, reminding him to use people's names rather than just calling them by numbers. That mutual respect and learning to stay honest and organized while managing difficult situations has been some of the most valuable guidance I've received.

If you're going in this business for the money, you're going in for the wrong reasons. You have to care about people. Don't be afraid to be rejected. Don't be afraid to be offended - just push through it. If your heart is in the right place, you are in the right field. If your heart is in the money, you're definitely not built for this field. You need to have compassion and bedside manner. You can't have a wall up in these situations. In order to truly help people, you need to understand their tears, their anger, their frustration - not because a book tells you to, but because you genuinely care about helping them heal and become better.

One of the biggest challenges I face is dealing with people who have higher credentials like PhDs or doctorates who try to make you feel some type of way about not having the same level of education. My thing is, credentials don't mean anything to me if your heart is not in the right place. I've come across people who are very egocentric and it's all about what they've accomplished, but I always ask, what have you done with that to help other people? Another challenge is the language barrier - I speak two languages, Spanish and English, and sometimes people who only speak one language make fun of you if you pronounce a word wrong. It can be hurtful, but I've learned to brush it off. As for opportunities, I see the possibility of eventually opening my own practice, and if I could dream big, becoming mayor of Jacksonville to make even more of an impact on helping people in my community.

My moral values are very important to me. I'm not a follower - I like to keep things honest and I try to do my best to stay as honest as I can. I believe in loyalty. My grandmother used to say that you reap what you sow, so you treat others how you want to be treated. The way I live my life is, even if you treat me badly, I'm still gonna treat you with respect, morals, and good manners. If someone feels like they gotta do something behind my back, that's gonna be between them and whatever they believe in, because life is short. I don't want to leave my life stressing out after everything I went through as a survivor. It's not easy to turn the other cheek, but it is possible. I believe in having manners and being respectful of other people's emotions and feelings. If something doesn't follow my morals, I wish them the best, but we just can't sit and eat at the same table right now, especially if the person is too negative or recruiting other people to be negative. I don't believe in recruiting people to attack another human being.