Yessenia Yesse Rodriguez

I would say it's a combination of definitely the purpose that God instilled in me, and my family who provided that support at a young age for me. And then also to myself for being gentle with myself and not being so hard on myself. You have to be kind and gentle to yourself. Nothing is going to come easy, and that's okay. And yes, you may have large and big emotions, but one, how do you process that? And then two, how do you move forward from that, because again, you might want something so bad, and it may not even come, and that's okay, because it's not your time. So again, being gentle with yourself, and being kind to yourself, and understanding that whatever happens, that's okay. As long as you know that you tried and you gave your best, that's okay.

Don't be hard on yourself.

First, I would say don't be hard on yourself, be gentle with yourself, because this industry is very, very difficult. There's not gonna be people that are nice. Accept the no's, because they're gonna come, and that's okay. That's no reflection on you as a person or if you did something wrong. You need to filter out opportunities, because not every opportunity that sounds gold is going to be gold. There's gonna be some that are not genuine. I've heard of situations where people were either trafficked or something unfortunate happened, so be mindful and trust your gut. It's okay not to just say yes to everything. Study the craft and get better at it each and every day. The same way people invest to go to school and get degrees to get these high-paying jobs, you have to make that same investment for acting classes, modeling classes, and continuing to grow your portfolio. That's definitely key as well.

I think being just one person and wanting to do it all, but you can't do it all. It's a good thing when you have all these opportunities knocking at your door, but then you have to really be strategic to say, I can't stretch myself thin, because my mental health and my physical health and my spiritual health is important to me. Definitely balancing multiple roles and passions is a challenge. Also, scaling a vision while managing limited time, because again, with a lot that I do, I don't have a lot of time, and I have to figure it out, so I often find myself staying up late at night, not getting a lot of sleep, even though I really love and value sleep, but it's one of those things like, nope, it has to be done, you gotta suck it up type of thing. And also breaking barriers in the competitive industry, because navigating the industry, especially in this field, and me speaking Spanish, I'm a bilingual Latino, presents unique challenges.

I would say I definitely lead with faith and integrity and purpose. I'm grounded in service, community, and empowerment. I do value authenticity and the continued growth process. I believe in excellence while remaining committed to being kind and having humility, and making a meaningful impact in people's lives. I also value having respect, accountability, having the heart for service and community, having that growth mindset, and while you're growing, making sure that you become better each and every day. You don't want to just grow, but then you're not really seeing yourself grow. It's like, how did I grow today compared to yesterday? Also, resilience and discipline. A lot of what I do does take discipline. You have to learn how to balance and once you know that this is your purpose and you've identified that, then it's more about just continuing on and being resilient with it.