Shining Bright: Navigating Life's Challenges with Lia Valencia Key

Welcome to the Amberly Lago Show, stories of true grit and grace. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Amberly Lago Show. I am so excited because I have one of my most favorite humans on the planet with us today. Leah Valencia Key is here with us, y'all. She is When I think about joy, I think about Leah. When I think about true grit and grace, I think about Leah. When I imagined the kind of person that I would want to have on the show, I think about Leah. And I'm wearing her necklace now. She gave this necklace to me. I'm trying not to move too much, Jordan. That's my producer. Trying not to move too much. She gave me this necklace off of her neck, y'all. She's an entrepreneur. You have probably seen her on QVC. She is— she went from homeless to this entrepreneur that has a jewelry line, Leah Valencia Key Jewelry, that is like— and her bags— that is booming all over the internet, all over the world. And so I want to get right into this conversation. Leah, thank you so much for being here on the show.

Thank you so much for having me. I get emotional hearing that because I'm just so honored. I love you so much, and I'm excited for us to share our hearts today.

I am so excited to share our hearts. Okay, so I have to say, when we first got to meet, like, and hang out a little bit, I remember I was going to meet you. You were having a— at the Dallas Center, was it the Marketplace? You were doing—

The Market.

You were doing it at the Market. And I was going to go help you set up your shelves and jewelry and everything. And I texted you from the emergency room and I'm like, Leah, I'm in the ER. I just want you to know I'm going to be there to meet you tomorrow, but I'm going to have stitches and I might have a couple of black eyes. And you were like, oh my gosh, what happened? And I'm like, no, no, no, no, I'm going to be there. I just want you to know I might look a little scary. It was the most amazing time getting to spend time with you and like, Be in the trenches, like building shelves and putting stuff together. And the way that you accepted me and loved me for just showing up the way that I did with stitches and black eyes and everything. And then you gave me the necklace. I was like, oh, I love your necklace. You gave me the necklace off of your neck, which I'm wearing now. It says worthy. So So thank you.

Thank you. Oh, I— our way of connecting, I think, is the most purest, beautiful form of living in your heart and through your heart, and like a true example of what love looks like in the world. I literally put a social media post out. I was going to the Dallas show by myself, and My heart called me to go and at least try that experience as an entrepreneur, but I had no one in that first part to really help me. But it wasn't going to let that stop me. That's what we talk about, grit, right? Like, you have obstacles in your way, you know you're supposed to be there, so you just move anyway. But then I believe in sharing my heart with the world of what you're doing and where you're weak. And I promise you, loving hearts like you will show up and help you be strong. And you immediately replied to my social post saying, I'll help you. And I'm like, really? And not only did you help me, you persevered through pain, through emergency room, and you showed up and you stayed and built shelves, the most unpretty part of any part of a business. We were sitting on floors and I think if anything, this is how we become growing together, just showing up for each other. When your heart says yes to something, showing up no matter what obstacle jumps in your way.

I think so too. And I just, something just popped in my head. I remember I was like, hey, do you want to, why don't I go get us some coffee? There's got to be coffee around here somewhere. And I remember going I found a Starbucks that was on one of the levels, and the lady in the line looked at me and she goes, what happened to you? And I said, well, I was wrestling with my daughter and my— I did a face plant into the coffee table. We were just horsing around. And she goes, well, if you look like this now, you just wait, it's going to get worse. And I was like, Wow. Okay.

Thank you for this energy. Thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I was just glad to have— I was just glad to be there with you and have some fun. And I have watched your journey for a long time. I've— you're an amazing speaker. In fact, you're one of my most favorite people to— like, I could listen to you all the time. When— and when I said, I think when I think of the word joy, I think of you, um, you just exude so much joy. And there are so many people right now that are really struggling. And I just want to go back and could you share a little bit of your story? Because Things, well, things weren't always so easy. I mean, you went from homeless to where you are now, but not even that, Leah. I think that in the entrepreneurial world, it's not always easy. It does take courage. It's all hard.

And then you get to see a little glimpse of the pretty, but it's all hard. The behind the scenes is so hard.

It is. Yeah, it is so hard. But I would love to share, like, how did you go from being homeless to saying, no, my life is going to be different. I am going to make a difference. I'm going to make something of my life. What is something that you can share with the audience today that you can give them a little bit of hope or maybe even some action steps to start moving in the right direction?

Yes. Well, one, thank you. I love you forever for just being with me on this journey. And 2, life will give you so many things, even if your life hasn't presented itself in what I experience or have experienced. We all have obstacles and challenges that come our way. What I realized is, and I, and I keep tweaking this, but when we talk about joy, thank you so much for saying I embody joy because it's one of my prayers that I live embodiment of joy. And I start thinking about, well, what is joy? You know, because I've, I've lived— I was born in poverty to a single mother, 3 children. I'm the youngest of 3. as being paralyzed by society's stereotypes and generational curses, which means my grandmother was born into poverty, and it just kept going and going. And so how do you find joy in circumstances that don't seem favorable? Well, one thing, joy is not happiness. Happiness is fleeting. And I consider joy— so if this will help my heart— I looked at joy as being evident of having faith, belief, understanding, and clarity of what my future truth is, all while having gratitude for my current predicament. So For example, understanding that where I'm at is super hard, but appreciating that it could be worse in some situation, but also knowing that this right now is not my predicament. I love sharing that my mother was trying to work so hard, but she broke her leg in several places, and that stopped her from being able to do the little work that she was able to do to afford this one-bedroom basement apartment that was in an impoverished neighborhood. And when she broke her leg, that led us to a woman's homeless shelter. And I share this part of my homeless shelter journey. We stayed there for several years.

How, how old was your mom when she broke her leg?

Good question. I black all of this out. So my mother passed before I was 21, I believe. So she was in her 40s when she passed. I'm 44. So she had to— and I was, um, age 8 when we made land to the homeless shelter. So she was super young, right? She's a, she's a single mother, 3 children, um. in this young age of her life, and she has 3 children. She has just lived in poverty, and now she has no place to actually call home for her children.

Wow.

So in the homeless shelter, I remember 2 things that I love sharing, and this, this adds to like, well, what can you give us to think about when we're in the trenches or going through or knowing that a dream is for us? Well, we landed in a homeless shelter, and we went in the midst of crying, sorrow. If you think of a gym, this homeless shelter we landed in had small cots, 1 foot apart, filling the gym room. And each mother had 1 cot to an entire family. So that means we are balled up— my mother, my sister, my brother, and I— balled up on 1 cot. And the whole gym is filled with families in the same predicament.

Wow.

So the sorrow and the horror and the hopelessness that you hear in the room, but in the midst of that, my mother looked down at us, her 3 children, and said, your predicament doesn't determine your destiny. Oh, those words are powerful for anyone that's listening because it means that when I think of joy, I think of that I understand my predicament. I don't discredit it. I find some form of gratitude in it. But then I know, I look inside of me and say, but what is my destiny?

Yeah.

And that's what joy is. Joy is being so clear that this right now is not me. It's not for me. It's— I have somewhere else to reach. And then the second part I love sharing is we stayed in a homeless shelter for several years. And so I grew up and I started to become very negative. I started to become— my environment. what I was around.

Mm-hmm.

And my mother— I was failing every grade in school. And I remember this one day vividly. I'm coming back from school to the homeless shelter, and my mother's standing at the head of the homeless shelter door. And she looks at me, and as I'm walking toward her, I'm like, oh, this is not going to be good, because I didn't know what it was. And she says, Leah, I have a question for you. Do you want to be a follower or a leader? And so I didn't understand that. It was confusing. She said, because right now you're following, you're following your environments. And guess what? You'll become exactly what you see in your environment. Or, Leah, you have the choice inside of you to lead.

Wow.

You can lead your life, not other people's life. You can lead your life. There's an inner light, there's a divine whisper, and there's a divine destiny for you. And all you have to do is choose it. And that was the light, I would love to say, that was turned on in my life to understand that inside of you is your truth. Inside of you is where your joy resides. And the whisper that is telling you that may look real crazy if you compare it to what's happening in your current life.

Mm-hmm.

It's where you walk towards every day. And I like to call them millimeter actions. That's how I do it. I decide like, what is my inner whisper saying? And I'm going to follow through consistently with that journey.

Oh, you can see I'm getting all emotional.

Yeah.

I just love you so much. And I love when I remember when you spoke on stage at Align at our dear friend Brooke Hemingway's event, who I'm so excited that you and Brooke are speaking at the Unstoppable Success Summit, and I can't wait to be together. Trent Shelton will be there, Renee Rodriguez, Tamara Andres. Like, it's going to be so much fun. Oh, so good. But I loved when you shared about just taking that 1 millimeter step ahead again and again and again, and that adds up. And I think that that's hard for sometimes people set these big dreams or big goals, but they forget just take the baby steps to get it done. And so that's one thing that you share that I really love. And I think it's so important, especially for entrepreneurs. And we have a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to the show. But I want to go back to the joy part because—

Yeah.

Like when, When I think of you, like, I think of you, the— I think of yellow. I think of joy. I think of bright. I think of love. And I was writing my new book that's coming out March 2025, and it's called Joy Through the Journey.

Hmm.

And I'm like, man, I need to, like, get some advice from the joy queen over here. How, how would you suggest somebody tap into their joy if they're just feeling hopeless and they're feeling like they're in despair and they're like on the verge of giving up? How do they tap into that joy that's within them?

Yeah. See, joy lives. Thank you for that. Oh, Joy lives in truth, but not in truth of the negative, the truth of what's possible for you. Uh, depression and the anxiety and the, the fear comes because of the experiences that were— these life experiences that we're having. But I'm able to consistently, and I, I truly feel that we all can tap into joy If we first take a breather, uh, and quiet the external noise— because external noise is even the negative things that are happening in your life. It becomes noise in your head because it starts to tell you a story, right? It starts to say that you can't, you'll never be, look what happened, see, you're failing again, see, that didn't work out, see, they said no.

Mm-hmm.

That's all noise, and we take it as truth because it's an action that's happening. It's just a part of the journey. That's why I love the title of your book. The journey has experiences, challenging and positive, but the joy lives in your truth. But it's your future truth that what you know is possible for you and how you tap into it. Is if none of these negative things were so, what would you be doing? If if these experiences that are causing you this anxiety were to vanish, how would you feel? And then I acknowledge that, and if that's whatever comes to me, then that is my clarity of my truth. And then when I am able to see truth because vision. vision is power. Like, uh, when we lose our vision, we lose all hope, we lose all faith, we lose all belief. But if you are able to just visualize the clarity of what's true for you, then once you're able to visualize it, now you have a big picture. You have a map or something that's possible. And now you take it all the way back and then you say, okay, if that's true, even in the hardest part of my life, what's the smallest thing, and I call it the millimeter movement. Millimeter because a millimeter is the smallest metrics on a ruler, meaning what's the smallest thing that I can do toward that truth that I know is for me? Sometimes it's just saying, I'm gonna get out and get around positive people.

Yeah.

It's joy in that, and, and the joy moves you forward and doesn't hold you backwards. And so where I know I'm living in joy. Even if it's hard, I'm moving forward. I'm doing an action towards it. I'm moving towards my dreams. I'm moving towards my vision. That's when I'm living in a joy state. Joy doesn't mean it's not hard. Joy doesn't mean it's always going to work out perfectly. Joy means I have a vision for what's true for me. And I'm consistently moving in small actions, small millimeter movements towards it. And so you'll always be able to smile. And joy also is— this is a hard part— accepting all of you, realizing where you are weak and saying, okay, I'm weak at that. And no longer holding your weaknesses or what the world may say is a disability or what the world may say is a negative, not holding it as a negative in your heart, holding it as, okay, this part of me is true. For example, I have challenge spelling, I have challenge reading, I have challenge with organization. Those are my truths. And instead of me holding that as me saying, oh, because I don't read well, I'll never do a business. Oh, because I don't organize well, I'll never do a business. I own that as my truth, and then I just speak out on it. Okay, if I don't organize well, then how do I get help organizing? And then I start looking for support.

Heck yeah. And you know what? I always say, you know, work on your strengths and hire your weaknesses because— Yes.

And if you can't hire them, right? If you don't have money—

Barter. Like, they're—

Barter. That's my jam.

But like, there is a way to help each other out doing stuff. I mean, always.

You showed up for me. You didn't ask me for anything. I didn't have money to give you, but I honored my weakness. And sometimes I think joy is released when you vocalize your challenges. A lot of times where joy is suffocated because we're holding our weaknesses, our inadequacies, our challenges to ourselves, and we're, we're allowing it to be a weight in our lives, so we're not able to radiate. Well, the way I've shifted it is I speak them out and I share them with the world, and I can't be embarrassed by it because I've owned it as not a negative thing in my world now. I've owned it as something I need to get through.

Mm-hmm.

And I need to learn, learn how, or things like that. And so now you take the power back. So now no one can talk negative about you. Exactly.

Acceptance is freedom. And I remember there was one time my husband was giving me a hard time. He goes, oh, what? You just wait. Let me just tell everybody the real you. I'm like, Johnny, they get the real me. Like, I Share it all. Like, I'm open and honest about like all my struggles, my weaknesses, what I've failed at, what I mean. And you know what? I feel like that when you can be in complete acceptance for where you are, you can take the right action steps to get to where you need to go. You know, so even though my husband was trying to give me a hard time, I'm like, go ahead, whatever you got. I've already—

That's the perfect example. Like, okay, you know, like, and even me with joy, you know, sometimes I had a conversation and someone was like, oh, you're not being joy now. I'm like, hey, the cool part about it is I tell people I'm human. There are trigger zones where I go in and out. And but what I, what I've owned my power in is to be able, be able to know Who I want to be in the world and reset back to that. And and that's the power when you really start to look at yourself, not in comparison of what people have said about you or what the world experiences have given you, but just you as a pure individual, and you accept all of you. You love all of you, and you've just you decide to be a certain way. Like, I've rooted— I created a collection called Rooted. It was my second collection because I was realizing, like, in this entrepreneur journey, it's very hard. You get so many nos, you get so many defective items that you paid so much money for, and by the time it comes to you, they're wrong and there's no money back. And, and that's just so many weights that come, and I was having these storms blow. But my inner peace was so powerful, and I had this resonating joy that even in the hard anger or disappointment, I had a resonating joy within me. And that was very interesting to me. And I was like, what is this? How do I define it? And I realized that it's rooting, meaning decide if you think of a tree. And the tree roots go really deep into the ground, right? So no matter when the storms are blowing, yes, leaves blow off, branches blow off, but the tree trunk is still standing and growing strong. Well, that's the power of when you decide to be certain things in the world for yourself.

Mm-hmm.

To me, you're rooting in it. And even when you're not that, you claim it for yourself. So you know how to get back to that action. For example, I decided to be rooted in perseverance, meaning no matter what is thrown at me, I'm gonna get back up. No matter what is happening, I'm gonna see my truth, my future truth.

And I've seen you do that. I mean, look, I know it wasn't easy coming to Dallas with— I was like, Leah, you, you flew with all these suitcases and boxes and This is a lot of work.

I had like 10 bags, right? By myself.

I was like, dang, that's impressive. Like, I see what you do and I see the energy that you give and your energy is just magnetic. I mean, people love you. When people—

That's a good compliment.

I mean, people talk about you and they light up. because your energy is so amazing. And, you know, whether you're in the room, in the back of the room with your jewelry and selling stuff, or you're on stage, people feel that energy. And I will never forget, I mean, just how gracious you've been to me. And I mean, you know, Goldie, our little 2-pound dog sleeps on your dog bed. She's got really cute dog beds. They're the best, by the way. If you see my stories, you know that's Leah's dog bed. I never got to sleep with your blanket. My, my client and friend Jana bought me a blanket at one of the conferences that we were speaking at. She bought your blanket. I've never got to sleep with it because Ruby stole that blanket. It's the most comfortable blanket in the house. I've got your necklaces. I've got several necklaces. I'm buying necklaces for all of my mastermind people for the next event. But I also just want to say, like, the intention behind all that you do is what I think is so beautiful. Because you're not just creating jewelry just to create some beautiful products. They mean something. And every time I put my necklace on and it says worthy, and just knowing that you gave it to me, it makes me feel better. It makes me feel empowered. But you just did— well, I don't know how— it was a video I saw you do. a Reels that you did on Instagram, and you have these earrings, and I usually don't wear earrings. Actually, though, today I'm wearing frog earrings because I like frogs, because it reminds me to fully rely on God. Frog. Fully rely on God.

Oh, that's good.

Maybe we need to have some hoop earrings with a frog on them. I don't know, Leah.

Please.

But I love that you said with your earrings, just in case you need that whisper in your ear, you need a little whisper or you got a big hoop. It's a big whisper that you are worthy, that you're enough, that you are confident, that you can go after your dreams. I love the messaging that you have behind all your jewelry and all your pieces. And so what's the best place for people to get a necklace or an earring to whisper in their ear?

Oh, thank you so much. I think— and thank you for speaking of energy because that is power. I think energy connects to joy and we get to choose within what type of energy we put out intentionally in the world. And that's what Valencia Key, uh, my creations are all about. Valencia is bravery and courage, the definition, um, in a Spanish diet like I found on this journey, and which is my middle name, which is interesting. And key, as we know, a key unlocks. So wearing Valencia Key jewelry or any blanket or pet bed, my intention is that you are surrounded with these tangible wearable pieces that help remind you to unlock your bravery, unlock your light, unlock your joy. And the keys are always inside of us. All we have to do is consistently choose it. And we need that in the world because the world goes in ebbs and flows. And when you are able to look at something and that reminder you know that, yeah, I'm quitting right now, but it reminds me to get back up and go again. And I'd love, uh, Four Hearts to wear Valencia Key for their reminder and just to be a light in the world to remind others. And that's on valenciakey.com, um, or Instagram. You'll see, like you said, see my stories, Valencia Key Design. Where you can see all different hearts truly radiating light and joy in the world, no matter what the situation is, because it is possible to do.

Oh, I love that. I love you. And I know we're— our time's coming to an end, but I want to talk to you about that beautiful bag behind you and the impact that you're making in Africa. Can you tell us about what your mission is with that?

Yes, thank you so much. I feel, um, I created Valencia Key. I call it we're blessed to be a blessing, so everything is a flow-through to help ourselves but also help others. And, um, the truth is my father was from Angola, Africa, and, um, he wasn't a great father, so I always share that part. But when we were in the homeless shelter, he would pop up randomly and visit me in the homeless shelter. And he would say that, uh—

Is he around?

No, he's deceased as well. I lost my grandmother, my mother, my aunt, these 3 pillars. You'll see 3 of my designs, um, of strength. And then I lost my father, um, in this series of time. So I'm not familiar— I'm not unfamiliar with loss, but I'm still familiar with having joy through loss and understanding how to keep people's light within. But what I remember my father saying, which I thought was really harsh at the time, he said, um, oh, this is not poverty, when we were living in a homeless shelter. Poverty, if you've seen somewhere where I come from in Africa, that's poverty. Like, you— it's, it's unmatched to what poverty looks like. And he was like, I'm one in a million to make it here to to America to try to have a better life. And so I remember hearing that and I thought, oh my God, if there's a place of poverty worse than where I live, one day I want to help. I was thinking of it as a young child.

Wow.

So 2 years ago, my dream came true of, A, going to Africa and seeing what my father was speaking of. And he is so true. I cannot discredit levels of poverty because what I lived in was very challenging. But it is a different type of poverty on a different form that us in America will never see.

Oh my goodness. I was just telling, well, we were talking before we started recording and how my daughter just got back. She was, this is her second trip to Africa. She's studying infectious disease and the videos that she sends me, it's like, wow, like poverty. They don't even have shoes.

No, sometimes you won't have shoes. Um, if you do— and I'm talking in the villages, so these handbags are, um, made— when I got there, I saw that truth that my father was speaking, and I said, oh, how do I help? Like, I dreamed to help.

Wow.

And I realized, like, well, there's an artistry in the culture of Africa, and beadwork in Ghana is a cultural art norm that it's such a beautiful craft. And I was like, well, how do we bring income to the villages?

Mm-hmm.

And these bags are hand-beaded one bead at a time. I designed the bag shape and style, and they hand-bead these bags one bead at a time in the villages of Africa. And what it does is the income helps support their families for food. In Africa, you have to pay for education, so it's sometimes very hard for you to even get an education, to help send their children to school. One of the artists who beaded actually this bag, her name is Diana. She's supporting her whole entire village family unit. So when you purchase a bag made in Ghana from Valencia Key, you're actually changing the world. And you're— it's beautiful. I mean, I get compliments every time I wear them. That's That satisfies me, but my heart radiates because I know that income is actually going to a person in a culture who has very deep limitations or how much economics that they can get in their village environment. And so I'm, I'm destined to be a funnel to keep helping education and help poverty in Africa.

Oh, you never cease to amaze me with all the goodness that you do in the world, the person that you are, and the joy that just comes out of you that you radiate into the world and the good energy. And I just really, I feel so blessed to have you in my life. I'm so excited to have you be one of the speakers at the Unstoppable Success Summit in April. I am like so excited about it. I can't tell you.

I'm excited for that.

It's— I, I, I, you're— everybody listening today, you're— they're the first to know that you're one of the speakers. I haven't even announced it. So you're the first to know that Leah Valencia Key is going to be a headline speaker. And I will make sure to have all of your links, in the show notes. So if y'all are listening to the show and you're like, oh, where do I get her jewelry? I want that dog bed. I want that blanket. I wanna support Africa. I want that necklace. I want that whisper in my ear. I want those earrings. Go in the show notes. You'll be able to find all the links there. And also, if you found a glimmer of hope and joy in this episode, take a screenshot and tag us both @AmberlyLagoMotivation and @LeahValenciaKey. And when I see that you've shared it, I always share it. But anyway, Leah, thank you again for being on the show. One more time, the best way to reach you, just so everybody can hear it.

Yes, thank you for every heart listening. I pray that you shine your light so bright that not only do you radiate yourself forward, but you inspire others to shine with you and join Check out Valencia. That's with a V, ValenciaKey.com, and get a piece of light in your life. In America, my help mission is I go into homeless shelters and schools in impoverished neighborhoods, and I speak on the power of unlocking your light because here in America there's possibility. But if you don't know that it's possible to unlock your light, then your light stays dim. And so that is my, um, mission in America, to just travel to different places where they may not be exposed to what's possible and share what's possible in the world. So thank you for joining me in all these beautiful missions. I love you.

You are the brightest light ever. I love you so much, y'all. Thank you so much for Thank you for tuning in to the Amberly Lago Show, and we will see you next week.

Thank you.