Choosing Yourself and Redefining Success with Angélica Fuentes | Building the Best You

Welcome to Building the Best You, a destination for you to reimagine what is possible in your life and then create it. Welcome to the show, everybody. I'm your host, Jean Collins, and today we have Angelica Fuentes here. Oh, and I'm gonna have her say her name just so you can hear how incredibly beautifully she says it. I wish I had an accent like she does, but this woman is so incredible. She's the founder of 2 different organizations. Her company right now that we're going to focus on is Nowful. And I'm going to read something before we start, because when I was doing research to prep for this podcast, I was on her website learning about her, about her mission. And there were 2 things that she's quoted as saying on her website that I think will 100% capture your attention as to why you wanna stick around. So here we go. She says, and I quote, the most important journey is the one within. I fully believe everything about that. I can't wait to talk about that. And your second one is wellness isn't something I buy. It's something I practice. I'm so excited to talk to you. So Angelica, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much, Gina. I really love being here today with you.

Oh, thank you so much. And can you just do me a favor? How do you say your name? It's so beautiful when you say it. I don't even wanna try because I'm gonna mutilate it. It's not fair. But the way you say your name is Gorgeous. So please share your name the way you would say it. I think it's so beautiful.

Angelica.

Ah, so beautiful.

Angelica is perfect too, so.

I know, thank you for that. I wish I learned how to like roll my Rs and stuff. But anyway, all right, let's talk about your background first because, you know, becoming an entrepreneur is a journey and I would love to share some of your background and some of your experience. You also are the founder of a company called Mission Moms, which I also really think is so important and I know you're still involved in that. So would you mind sharing your little bit of a background about how you got to be where you are now as an entrepreneur?

Sure. I have been a businesswoman, an entrepreneur, a woman who advocates and works with and for women for the last 40 years of my life. I have run 2 very large corporations in Latin America. I started working when I was 11 years old at a gas station in the summers, mind you. I know, I mean, this was so long ago. That you could work in Mexico when you were 11 years old. And I did what an 11-year-old does at a gas station. You pump gas, you check tires, you check oil. Back then you would check the oil in the car, clean the windshields. And this is very interesting because maybe not consciously, but somewhere within me, that was the first time I realized what it felt like. To right on your face have gender discrimination. So for like a week or 10 days, the other people that tended to the cars besides me were men and they would get tipped and I never did. So one day I gathered the strength the night before, I went on my bike with my dog, you know, parked it outside the gas station, did the service to a car, and I said, why aren't you tipping me after I did the service to the car? And the guy looked at me and he said, well, Because you're a woman. And I said, so? Why do you make a difference? Juárez at the time was so way smaller than it is today. We had a line of cars waiting every day because there was this young girl who dared ask that, you know, helping the people, you know, fill up their cars. 'Cause back then it was all full service. And I realized a little forward. From that, that nobody was going to ask anything for me. If I didn't raise my hand, if I didn't raise my voice, I was going to be stuck sitting back there. As they say in Mexico, calladita te ves más bonita. While you're quiet, you look prettier. And then from then on, I started working every summer. For the first 3 summers, it was at gas stations. And then I was somebody's secretary and then an accounting assistant and then another accountant assistant. And surely but slowly, I climbed from the very bottom. of a group until at the age of 29 years old, I became the CEO of one of the largest energy groups on the northern part of Mexico. And I was usually the only woman sitting at the table and more than not the youngest person sitting at the table. But that didn't stop me because the energy sector still today is controlled by men. And I also realized that I could not compete against or with men, especially not women, that the only person that I could compete with was me. Today, better than yesterday. So there's all these amazing, beautiful teachings that life has given me. From there, I went on and became the CEO of Family Life Chivas Aquelísima, which was a company that was in 17 countries. I implemented way back in the energy sector and then this other company Policy. I was a precursor in that policy that, you know, had breastfeeding infrastructure. We made sure, or I made sure that flex time and home office way before COVID was implemented, way before it was even talked about. It was important for me to have equal pay for equal work, executive positions all the way down to the men and the women who clean the offices. So I believed in that. And when the head of any corporation believes in it, An amazing thing happens. The companies transform, productivity shoots up, and things, you know, are taking from a different space within the people that are working there. They're no longer a number or a position. They become a person that you require for them to help you move along. So I've been doing that on top of working, you know, with women, which has been my passion, my purpose, my mission. In life. And that's what I've been doing the last little over 40 years of my life, Jean.

Which is so beautiful. And as you're talking, ironically, one of my big platforms outside of my podcast is really about self-first living and self-first leadership, which is acknowledging employees as people first. And things like making your child's birthday a mandatory day off and ways to acknowledge them and spend time with them and get to know them as people first and value them as people, because when People feel like people, they actually perform better. They're happier and they stay longer and you have less turnover. There's so— it's so simple when you think about it. It's like, why doesn't everybody get this? But yet they don't. And I think for women in particular, when you start to treat women as equals and treat women as people, since we've been raised to not be equal, And not be the same, the benefit is like almost double, I would say, compared to the men, because the men expect to be treated greatly and like they're so valuable and worthy and pat them on the back. But when you do that for a woman, it's such an aha that I think you get so much more when they can actually step into being themselves as a woman first, and then they show up and they're greater in every asset of their life. So I am so connected to your mission. I think that's incredible.

I think that women, or as women, we need to understand what you said. First and foremost, I'm a woman, and then everything else that I want to do in my life. And I believe that when you change that type of policy, and companies do not need any laws to change before you implement the policy, it doesn't just benefit women, Jean, it benefits men as well. It benefits their families. It benefits everybody in your, you know, In your surroundings. You have no idea how hard it was for me for men to take flex time and home office. I said, okay, take flex time once a week. I almost made them. I said, home office once a month until they started realizing how good they felt about doing that for themselves and their families. I implemented friendly family policy. The women could go to the birthdays and usually the soccer games that the children were playing. And I told the The minute I said, go enjoy your child's game, your child's birthday, they became more responsible with their responsibilities that they had. Yeah. And like I said, productivity just skyrocketed.

It does. And you're also trusting them. I think we live in a culture that's like, It's sort of like innocent until proven guilty, but it's not trust until you lose the trust. It's like trust has to be earned in corporate culture. And I don't understand why that is, because if you trust your employees to do a good job and, you know, and you're a good leader and you communicate and you're clear about your deliverables and what you want, you have reasonable expectations. If you trust your employees that they will do a good job, that they will put in the hours that are necessary, that they will complete the project when they need to, even if they're not physically under your microscope and on Slack every second. that you're looking for them. If you give them some trust, I think people just appreciate that and they respect that, and then they value the time that they're given outside of the office even more so.

I think that is very true, and I believe that sometimes the younger generations expect things without putting the effort and the time in. I believe that what we do also need to Do as, as, as, as people is if they're trusting me with this, if they're respecting me by allowing me to do this, it's not just about them, it's about you. If I respect me, I can respect your time, my deliverables. If you're trusting me, it's because I need to trust me first and understand. That I have a choice. And if I have a choice, am I going to choose the lazy choice? Am I going to choose the choice that is going to make me be better, that is going to make my growth allow me to shine even more? So everything in life starts with those opportunities we are given, but what are you going to do with it? Is what matters. Yeah.

Beautiful point. And if you're not given the opportunities, then you need to go find them because they do exist. You know, it's not to say that they don't exist. They exist.

You know, the other thing, going back a little to what you were saying, I was going to say, but then I, you know, my mind got off on other things. I have been saying for a very long time that companies were built by men for men for centuries. We need to change that mind frame and build companies by men and women for men and women.

Yeah.

And when we understand that, things will truly redefine themselves. Men usually, and that's, this is why we need of both. Men usually look to benefit and better the shareholders of any corporation. Women, on the other hand, usually work and bring everything in to benefit the stakeholders. But you need both in order for, you know, companies to thrive. So we need both minds. We need both different ways of looking at things. Just as smart, just as wise, just as intelligent, just as amazing, but we are different, and that's why we can work. 2 heads definitely think better than one, obviously. I mean, we've been hearing that, but 2 different visions resolve complex situations way better for everybody.

Very much so.

Yeah.

I always say the best leaders are the ones that hire people that fill their weaknesses and that they're not intimidated by the people that fill their weaknesses. They recognize that they become that much better and that much more successful and can do a better job if they find people that can complement them. If you're just trying to surround yourself with people who look like you, which goes back to your same point, if you're a male-run organization where all of your leadership is men, you're missing the other half of the equation. And there's so much research out there about male energy and female energy and male way of creativity and female way of creativity.

It's—

that's so proven. And recognizing that You need all of that, especially now with the movement for gender equality. And, you know, why do you have to associate with a him or a her and you want to be a they or whatever you want to be? Does it really matter?

You know, it's like, can we just find complementary people that are going to bring complementary things to the table that will make the organization and the culture I think that when we finally realize that talent, wisdom, intelligence, love, resilience, strength, real power, the one that comes from within, and all of those things that one requires to get ahead in the business world, but also in our personal lives, once we realize that none of that has a gender, we're just born with it. Then maybe we can change our focus and the way we view what surrounds us. There are so many times that I've heard, oh, there's not enough women. Oh yeah, there are. There's a lot of talent out there. Are you willing to give them an opportunity? I do not believe in just because you're a woman or just because you're X, Y, or Z, you should come here.

Hmm.

You should be where you are through meritocracy because you do have the knowledge, because you do have the willingness, because you are willing to put in the effort, because you are responsible enough, because you are somebody that follows through in everything. Whatever color you are, whatever gender you are. That doesn't have it, you know, that, that, that doesn't define you by a gender. It just defines you by how you want to show up and be and how you wanna achieve things. Yeah.

Oh, I couldn't agree more. And I think it's also, you know, to tie this back to some of the work you're doing now and where we started talking about wellness, things that I look for in people that I want to collaborate with, work with, coach, Hire, whatever it is, partner with, I'm always drawn to people that have a similar value that I do, that your wellness starts within. And if you are not taking care of yourself, mind, body, spirit, like that doesn't mean you have to be rail thin, but it means you have to be thinking about your body, mind, body, spirit. Are you sleeping well? Are you eating well? Are you taking time for yourself? Are you exercising? Are you spending time with friends? Are you valuing community? How are you giving back in society? It's like, I am drawn to people that have that. And that for me is actually as important as your background. It's like, if you have that and a passion and a desire to learn, then you are a step ahead of someone else who doesn't have that. It, to me.

Oh no, I definitely agree with you. I think, for example, you know, that exact same thing that you said, that's why I'm Wellness means to be. To me, it means balance. It means being connected with my mind, my spirit, and my body. It means continuously learning so I can be better. It means continuously being connected with myself and continuously learning how I can no longer carry a mask that usually we put on to survive through life. It means taking care of my body. How do I take care of my body? Well, Working out, eating, you know, as healthy as possible. Doesn't mean that once in a blue moon I don't, I'm not going to have something that's unhealthy, but, you know, then I go back to my routine to take care of my body. And our slogan for Nowful is wellness is not a luxury, but your superpower. Wellness is the base of everything else in your life, how you want to live it, what you want to build, how you want to build it. We live in a society that makes burnout be worn almost like a badge of honor, where today is about the notifications and the performance and the achievements and the comparison and the productivity. And it's just go, go, go, go, go. We do, do, do, do, do. And when you only do And you don't know how to be, you miss so much of your life in between. And one day you wake up and look back and think, where did all of that go? I believe that we are so disconnected from ourselves that we are absolutely out of balance. And when you're out of balance, you are not Well, you are really not as healthy as you can be because health is not just physical. I think we have been, we've bought into health equals physical health. It equals mental health. It equals spiritual health.

Mm-hmm.

And the disconnect from within makes everything else kind of go a little, you know, sideways and Not where you need to be. You can be amazingly healthy in your mind, but if your body is sick, that's, you know, that's unbalanced. If you, the only thing you take care of is just your spirit and you want to sit for hours and hours meditating, what happens to your body? What happens, you know, to your mind? I mean, we have to balance it. You know, that's one of the reasons now, oh, you were mentioning it. Nowful is for that. Nowful is to learn to rest. Nowful is to learn to reconnect with yourself. Nowful is all about being present with your presence. We invented the word. Mindfulness has been around for hundreds of years. We've only been using it more often, I think, during COVID and especially now, which I find it amazing. You know, as a whole, because, you know, the spirit world has been using mindfulness forever. But I want to create something that would allow people to understand that we cannot continue living in the past and carrying that, you know, on our backs constantly, because you can't do anything about the past other than shed masks and push forward. And you cannot live in the future with so much stress and feeling like, am I going to achieve it? Am I going to get there? And we need to live here now, today, present with our presence, which is very different than just being here.

Yeah. Well, and being present, quite honestly, most people are terrible at it. I know when I worked in corporate America, I was terrible at it. I was never present with my daughter and I didn't figure out how to be present until I left corporate America because being present was never part of the life. It was just go, go, go, go, go. And I wore the badge and I worked 80 hours a week and I made all this money and I managed this many people. And I look back at myself and I think, what was wrong with you? Like, there is no pride in that. The paycheck was great, but you were literally killing yourself. I was literally dying from the stress and didn't even know what it felt like to actually be present or to actually tap into myself. I had no idea until 6 years ago what that even felt like. And like you, now that I know what that feels like, it's like everyone, this is the drug of the century. Why are you not getting on board? Because everything in life is so much easier when you have a calm within yourself that you control the gauge of. And so I love what you do. So can you share with everybody? What are some of the ways that you help people with NOWFUL?

So I'm just going to tell you a little story and it has to do with what you were doing. I come from a very entrepreneurial family. I'm third generation. My grandpapa and my father worked every day of the week, including Saturdays and Sundays. They would still kind of go out to see certain things, even on holidays. And it was just like a go, go, go, go, go nonstop. And that's how I grew up with. And so I felt guilty when I rested. I remember a few times I would come home every Monday, whoever was around our house will come have lunch at my parents' house. And I remember a few times I would like just be exhausted and I would rest and I would fall into a deep sleep. For 10 minutes. And I would wake up after that and my mom would say, oh, it's okay. You can rest. I said, no, no, I gotta go. I gotta go. So I would brush my teeth, my face, and go back to the office because I felt guilty. I felt guilty resting. So because of that, later in life, it passed me the invoice to where I was having a hard time sleeping at night. Because how dare you sleep when you got so many things you need to do? I mean, I would go to sleep late, but I would get up first thing in the morning, go to the gym, do everything.

Right.

And I believe in taking natural things. So I was putting all these, you know, magnesium on my feet, but in a spray, lavender on my feet, rosemary on my pillow, taking passion flowers. And, and I said, there's, there's, there's got to be something that's easier and natural for people to relax. So I went to a laboratory in Florida and they created this amazing magnesium cream. That you put on your feet. And then later I found out that, oh my God, this is also so wonderful for, you know, for, for muscle aches after working out or playing tennis. And my age is not like the best for my lower back. So rub it on before and after and it's like amazing. So I wanted to create products that allowed people to rest, to rest naturally, not just to rest the body, but to rest the mind. When you wake up in the morning and you have not had a restful night, both emotionally and physically, you cannot think clearly. You cannot make the best decisions because you're stressed, you're tired, you feel a little upset about things, just little things that sometimes life gives you. So we are putting products out there for rest, to sleep. To come back to you. But my favorite is the affirmation cards that we have. It's, uh, something that we're patenting. Very, very, very little, I started writing little phrases, things like yo, which meant me, things like love. I'm talking when I was a very little girl, I would hide in my closet and I would write little notes to me. Things like, aquí estoy, I am here. I did not know I was writing affirmations. An affirmation can be as short as me, as short as love, as short as I am. And I've written over 10,000 affirmations. And I realized very early on how powerful words are. So I'm constantly reminding my daughters and people, don't say that. We become what we think and feel about one another. About yourself. And I wrote 30 cards with 30 themes with one affirmation per theme because I wanted people to reconnect with themselves. You tap it on your phone, the app opens up. By the way, we're one-third below Gaia and Calm, above Headspace and Alo. And we are not even a year old for mindfulness and wellness. Because what it does, it then takes you into your own journey after you answer certain questions based on cognitive behavioral therapy, gives you a psychological profile of today, how you feel. And then you and I can get the same affirmation card, but then it goes deeper into what that means specifically for you. It gives you actions to take during the day, simple things, yet very powerful, like breathe, get up. Walk. I mean, can you put a notification, write something down and it guides you to what it is that you need to write so you can read it again and figure out why you're going through what you're going through. It lets you journal. I've been journaling for more than 40 years. And how many of us want to go back? Oh my God, how I was feeling a year ago, a month ago, 2 months ago. And you don't, yeah, you're not going to go back through all the pages and Find it. So we put in our app, it's powered by AI. We put in our app that you're able to track your journaling and how you were feeling at the time. My favorite is the vent and the chat, especially with my teenage girls. I, I ask a lot of questions. I, I vent a lot of things that I'm going through and it's just so amazing how I read what I need. Mm-hmm. And it's not that AI knows me, it's not that AI has the answers, it's It knows where I'm at because of everything I've written through my journaling and my venting that I'm actually answering me. But AI has a capacity and the ability to put all of that in such a perfect framework that you can read it in seconds. And I think we've all heard about all the answers are already within you. You've heard that, right? I mean, I'm not inventing this. Christ said thousands of years ago, the kingdom is within you. Rumi, one of my favorite, everything you're seeking is already seeking you. Carl Jung, you know, everything is already within you. I mean, even Steve Jobs said, follow your intuition more than, you know, your thoughts or what you're doing. So everything that we need is already here. We just don't know how to, how to bring it down and read it for us because we have not awoken that tiny little more of our mental ability and capacity that we do have. So I love our app. It has meditations and meditations are also powered by AI. So depending On the card you got, on how you're feeling at the time. That's how your meditation is going to be guided to you personally. You can choose the same meditation 2 days in a row, but if you get a different card, the meditation is going to be directed to that specific thing that you are going through that you need to, to do today. So that excites me a lot, as you can tell, because I really wanted to give back to the universe, to people, what I had and what I had worked within me for the last 40 years. When I was like 17, 18 years old, a friend of mine asked me, we were at the lockers at school and she looked at me and she said, how can you be sad when you have everything? And I looked at her, Jean, and I looked at her and I said, Her name was Miriam. I said, yes, I have everything, yet I have nothing. Because there was this huge, dark, black emptiness in here because, yes, I grew up in a very privileged family, but there were so many things that I lacked. I wanted love, protection. I grew up with a lot of fears and a lot of lack of those things that are so important for humanity. And so I started on my journey, on my journey to understanding that no one was going to feel any of that within me but me. So I wanna give this back to, to people. All that journey of mine is now literally at the tip of your hands to find, to reconnect, to reconnect and feel fulfilled and understand you're never alone. And understand that you do have somebody that can accompany you always, as many times and whatever time of the day you need it. And that's you through our app.

Which is so beautiful. And I love that. I think so many people don't know what they don't know, and they're super intimidated by concepts such as affirmations and meditating and journaling. And, you know, people like, I can't write, I can't silence my mind. I, You know, I can't remember the— what am I supposed to do, walk around all day saying, I am wonderful, I am wonderful, I am wonderful? And it's like, no, no, no, you just don't even get it. You know, people don't get it. So I love that you've sort of like packaged it in a way that makes it really easy to consume, ingest. I totally love how you're using AI because I think a lot of people are scared of AI, and I think there's so much value in AI if you use AI the right way. And so congratulations to you for finding that. Thank you. Finding a great way to incorporate AI into the wellness space because wellness is still very personal. And that's where AI gets a little, you know, in the coaching space, we always say to people like, AI is not gonna be your coach. You can learn a lot from AI, but it's not necessarily gonna be the same. So I love how you have adapted AI to provide such incredible value to people. That's beautiful.

Yes. Yes. That was very important for us to use AI with a very positive light. And as you said, AI can be used for destructive, not positive things, or it can be used for amazing things. AI has the capacity to gather all that information and put it right back onto you, and it's you Answering you. You know, I've never been to like, like a, like a normal therapist. I've been working a lot within me, more on the energetic fields, more on the connection here than here. And, and at the end, this connects with here. That's even better. And I have heard that, for example, when you go through therapy, if the therapist can't cure you, you just talk and you talk.

Yeah.

And you talk and the therapists are amazing because they are knowledgeable enough to stop you at a place and ask you a question so you can go back there and find even more and more what it is that you are in need to bring out. But it's you answering you with somebody guiding you. That's what we, that was one of the things that I, that I set out to, we talked for hours with my team. They call themselves architects. Which I did not know either, the AI. And so they really came up with amazing solutions by doing a lot of research on cognitive behavioral therapy, like I said. And so I, I, I just love it. I just love knowing that we call it your wellness companion because you're never alone. And so many people are so lonely today. Even if you're surrounded with many people, you can still feel Extremely alone.

Oh yeah. And social media makes people feel alone too, you know, because we're in the comparison game that we're all playing. You're comparing yourself to what you see on social media. And the majority of people are just putting their best light forward and they're not actually being vulnerable and they're not actually sharing what, what they're doing. And I don't know if you found this with some of your content and social media, but I think I tend to talk a lot about mindfulness and wellness and spirituality and meditating and journaling. And yet I get much lower engagement than some of my other content creator friends that are talking about fashion and food and restaurants and travel. Because, and I really think this is true because I've had people say to me all the time, oh, I follow you. I love your content. And I'm like, but you've never commented. You've never liked, you've never shared, you've never reposted because for some reason. As a society, the majority of us have decided that talking about this stuff is not cool. And saying that you need help and that you need an understanding, or you don't understand these modalities to wellness feels like a weakness. And I don't know if you've seen this in trying to grow your platform, that it is a more silent kind of upbringing of people that are following along quietly in the background and not as many people are stepping forward with it.

Oh, I definitely feel that as well. But you know what? I'm a firm believer that when you have something that is important for you to share, you need to keep going. Ever since I opened my Twitter account in 2000, I think '11, around there, I posted one of my affirmations on a daily basis. So there's thousands of positive affirmations as the only thing I ever posted. My Twitter, not a lot of comments, you know, a lot of likes, but not a lot of comments. And that's what I do with my social media. I, you know, I can continuously post things that matter to me, things that have helped me, things that I know somebody needs to hear. I believe that, you know, as a woman, when I open a door for me, then I gotta leave that door open for all the women that are behind me. If I can take one rock out of the way and cut one branch out of the way, that's one less they have to cut. So if I can have a positive impact on one person, then my purpose, my mission, what makes me wake up with a beautiful smile every morning because of my work has been achieved. Yes, I agree with you that people like The external, the easy, the things that you don't think or feel that you see. And that brings me to another thing. I believe that one of the things that I've changed in my life throughout my 40-year history of being a businesswoman is how I view success.

Hmm.

I used to view success with The achievements that I've gathered, with the positions that I've held, with the invitations that I would get, with the boards that I belong to, with the accolades that I received. And yes, all of that is amazing. And yes, I have welcomed and I still do all of that. But I realize that real success over the last Probably 15, 18 years of my life has to do with how comfortable do I feel walking in my own shoes? How comfortable am I in my own skin? I'm no longer a 20 or 30 or 40 or even 50-year-old, but I'm a wonderful person. I love what I see every morning when I look at myself in the mirror inside and out. I had to restart my life at 52 when my then husband, my then business partner as well, found out I wanted to get a divorce. And in 24 hours, I was stripped of everything. People say, oh, that is not true. How can somebody take— well, in Mexico, and I think a lot of news are coming out and people are finally understanding how corrupt Mexico is, a judge received a lawsuit against me 24 hours later. It was already answered, obviously. He signed off, found me guilty of everything without me even knowing that I was being sued, and stripped me from everything. The judge ended up, you know, being nicely taken out a few years later. And it was hard. It was painful. having to start again at the age of 52 after accomplishing everything that I've accomplished in my life. And, you know, he almost took my daughters and my motherhood away from me too. I mean, the most horrendous, violent smear campaign against me. And I was thinking, okay, life, the universe, or God is asking me, are you willing and able To walk your talk. I've been telling women for many years where real power lay, where real success lay, which was here. Not in what we have on the outside, but here. And I was faced with all of it in 24 hours. And you know what, Jane?

Yeah.

They could not break my spirit. I could still stand up and choose me. I was nobody's victim, my, neither my circumstances nor my ex-husband's nor mine. I chose, because we always have a choice.

Yeah.

I chose me, my daughters, and my life. I chose to get up again, dust my knees. be as resilient as I always had and even more. I chose to be able to walk what I have been preaching for so many years of my life. And I did. And I'm still here. It's never why me. It's always, what is this for? What do I need to learn from this?

Yeah, very much so. You're so inspiring. First of all, I don't wanna move on without acknowledging the inspiration that that story is for people. And sometimes when you lose everything, all that you do have left is yourself. And it is a beautiful thing when you can get to the point of recognizing that you are proud of you and that you're not looking on the outside for validation of your worth. And your worthiness and your contributions and to feel whole and to feel good. And so that is, I think, just such an important message to convey because at the end of the day, if you don't take care of you, nobody else is going to. And if you can't be proud of yourself, and if you can't look in the mirror and say, I am a good person, then it has to start there. Then you need to change something about your life to make it so you can look at yourself and feel good. about who you are in the present moment also, I think, is incredibly important to circle back to where we started, because I think so often we live in a society that's like, I'll be happy when I lose 10 pounds. I'll be happy. I'll be happy when I can pay for this. I'll be happy when I get that next promotion, right? I will be, I will be happy when I feel like I can fit into my skinny jeans. And it's It's like, no, you have to find a way to be happy with today. And it doesn't mean that everything is sunshine and roses, folks, because it's not, you know, it's— but when you can have a peace within you, like you talk about and what you advocate for, that allows you to handle the situations like your background and those 24 hours when everything's taken away. If you don't have that to begin with, everything becomes that much harder. So I thank you for being vulnerable and sharing that story because I think it's a really powerful message.

Yes, I think that that's one of the things, and that's one of the reasons, you know, that I wanted to do the app the way we did it is because of that, that you just mentioned, you know, just now is that I've met so many amazingly powerful, successful women and men, obviously, but my work has been with women and, you know, we constantly say, okay, I'm here. But when I get here, then I'm going to spend time with my family. Then I'm going to feel good. And they get here. It's like, oh no, no, no. When I get here or I buy this, then I'm going to take the time. Then I'm going to, you know, blah, blah. And you end up climbing and climbing your ladder and you get up here and you're still as empty and as lonely as you were when you started here.

Yeah.

That's why I'm one of those lucky ones. To find at such a young age, how could I fill that void that I had in here that I was filling back in my 20s with clothes, with my horses, with a nice car, with the parties, you know, that me and my friends were getting invited to. None of that fills it. It makes you happy for that little moment, and then you go back to wherever you were before, and it's like, That emptiness again. And that's why we have to continue sharing in our social media and every other way possible we can, what truly matters. Sadly, when you're very young and I have 2 teenagers, they don't get it. But someplace we touch a little space within them, a little spark might be ignited. You know, and that's all we can do. That's all we can do. Continue our journey inspired by what we've traveled to wake up a little, you know, spark of something in other people. Because we do. I bet you that whoever reads you or reads me or, you know, there's a lot of people that I think now more than ever are sharing Of themselves and not of the outside. There's nothing wrong with that, but people, I think, are, yes, they don't reshare. Yes, they might not make a, you know, a comment. Somewhere inside, we either make them feel uncomfortable because that's where they want to be, or we want to make them want to feel something. Because they can perceive our energy. And that's important. It is.

Oh yeah. And I also think, you know, consistency of message. I think I'm a huge believer of, you know, sometimes if I hear the same thing and it's like kind of the third time, I've learned to trust my intuition. Like, I think the universe might actually be talking to me here for a second. And because I keep, you know, getting the same email or seeing the same post or seeing the same, you know, someone mentions the same book and I'll be like, that's the third time in a week someone's mentioned the book Heaven to me. I think I'm supposed to read the book Heaven. So I just went and bought it. But I think a lot of people aren't as in tune to their intuition. And one of the gifts we can give them is the repetition of the story and the repetition of the way that we walk the walk and talk the talk and the way that we live and how that looks and what that looks like. And I think when you talk about your daughters, I, so I have like 3 more questions, which I have to cram in before I run out of your time. I am so curious because I do believe I find my daughter who's 19 now and lives on her own. Every once in a while she does something and I just smile because I'm like, oh my goodness, she learned that from me without like really me teaching it. It's like the stuff I was doing just sort of sunk in a little bit, you know? And even it's like journaling at night every night, and she does it religiously now. And I was like, I didn't teach her about journaling or buy her a first journal or anything, but now she does it as a ritual to her going to bed routine. So how do you transfer this down to your daughters?

I believe that there's a saying that says, words move, example leads. So do I talk to them about things? Yes. Do they look at me like, oh my God, mom, again? Oh my God, mom, you're annoying. It's just part of, you know, growing up. It's part of trying to find their own identity and their own independence. And I get it, but not that I always get it at first, you know, but, but I get it. But it's how we live. It's what they see. You said you didn't teach her how to journal, but she probably saw you doing it and now she does it. And then she started realizing how good it made her feel.

Yeah.

She needs to try that. And because everything is in there. And I'm going to tell you something that, that happened that I had not realized. I've been, you know, speaking publicly for that long of a time, but especially the last 30 years of my life. And they saw me since they were very, very, very, very little. And I was given a recognition here in New York a few months back, and they asked me who I wanted, you know, to receive the recognition from. And I said, my daughters. 13 and 15 at the time, still are. And they said, okay, are they okay speaking in public? I said, I would think so. I mean, you know, I asked my girls if they were willing to and they said yes. So we get up there and I was sitting while they got up to say some words of me. They had their little, you know, what they wrote, but there was a teleprompter and they have never, ever, ever even heard of a teleprompter, used a teleprompter ever. So my little one is the first one that starts, and I guess she reads this teleprompter there with the words that she was going to say. And she starts reading and I'm like, oh my God, with such poise and such good diction and, and, and really meaning what she said. And then my other daughter gets up and does the same. And I could barely hold my tears back. So then I got up there, then I spoke, and then I hugged him and I, I I said to myself, I said, I must have done something good all of this time for my 2 girls that they had the courage, the poise, and the confidence to get up there in front of 300 people who had them never seen except the table that we were in ever in their lives, all adults, and do this the way they did. And I've been a single mom for 11 years, and that's all I could think about. Something they've seen, they've felt, is with them.

Mm-hmm.

And that's all we can do, you know, cuz when they're very little, I think it's important to guide them, to talk to them, to tell them. One of the things that is key for me in life is being grateful. So for years and years and years and years, since they were 2 and 4, when I first Separated from their father. Every single morning, I taught them to give thanks for 3 things. When they were 2 and 4, I said, Mommy, what, what, what are we grateful for? I said, why don't you say you're grateful for the toy that you like the most? Why don't you say you're grateful because sometimes you can have cake and bake it? Why, you know, little things that they would be literally grateful for. And with time, without me telling them, they started being grateful for The family, for us, for their horses, for dogs, for their school, for what they were learning. And, and things like that, I think, is what shapes our children. What we teach them when they're little, and then what they see as they're growing up.

Yeah. Such a powerful story. Ah, kudos to you. I've been a single mom for 19 years, so let's go single mom.

Uh-uh. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

And it is, it's, it's so cool when you're really Believing and living what you're passionate about, it does rub off on them. It does. All right, before we run out of time, because you are a busy lady, I would love to know if you have a book or books. Some people can't narrow it down to a book, but if you have a book or books that you'd like to recommend to people, I would love to know what it is.

Oh my God, books I would love to recommend to people. Every single book by Gabriel García Márquez is amazing.

Okay.

Living in the Times of Color is great. Ojos de Perro Azul, which he discusses About death is amazing. But if there is an author and 2 books of hers that I highly recommend is Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and The Virtue of Selfishness. One of them, obviously Atlas Shrugged. It was given to me by 2 friends and they dedicated for our Dagny. I said, what are you talking about? I said, read the book. It's a book about resilience. It's a book about believing in yourself. It's a book about Understanding that not everything is from the outside, but what you have in here and your, your, your capacity to achieve what you want and push through no matter what everybody else is doing, saying, or feeling. It's what you, you want to do. It's what you believe. It's never stop believing in yourself. To me is believe in you. I can believe in you, Jean, but if you don't believe in you, doesn't matter. So that's Atlas Shrugged. So it's a fiction. She writes always about capitalism. She came from Russia, so which is amazing. The other one is a nonfiction called The Virtue of Selfishness. That resonates so deeply with me because as a girl that grew up in a Catholic religion, we are often taught, and by society too, we are often taught that We need to sacrifice. We need to do for others. And then we grow up as women thinking we need to take care of our parents and our significant other and our children and this and that. And then one day we wake up and, what about me?

Yeah.

We forget me, how to take care of me. That book is amazing because it talks about the positiveness of being selfish with you, with your time, with your love, with your respect, with your confidence, it'll start with you. Because once I understand that, then I can change. And if I change and that changes that little, then nobody else can relate to me the same way they used to because I'm no longer the same person. But it has to start with me. It is okay to love me, take care of me, have confidence in me, Respect me. Because once you have all of that in here, then you give it with so much more strength and love and power. So those 2 books and many other ones, but those 2 are, oh my God, just amazing.

I love her so much. Oh, I love that. I'm gonna link everything in the show notes and I am a huge believer. I, I think selfish shouldn't even be a word, to be quite honest. And I always say, I kind of joke about this on social media, but I'm like, why is it so common on an airplane? We all understand And the concept of you have to put your oxygen mask first on, on first so that you can then help whoever's with you. That is, everyone knows it, everyone would follow the rules. Everyone knows that that's the rule. And that's what you're supposed to do so that you are best equipped to help someone else. But why, when it comes to life, are women not able to do that same thing? It's like, we just have to be able to do that. So, Angelica, I could talk to you for hours and hours and hours. I thank you so much for your time. I love your mission. And I'm going to link in the show notes for everybody how they can find you, how they can follow you, how they can get your website, how they can find your app, everything that you're doing so that they can support your mission. And I thank you so much for your time and for your gifts. You are a truly special woman with amazing energy. So I thank you for sharing your story as well.

No, thank you so much for having me today, Jean. I really, really enjoyed our conversation.

It's been a pleasure. Have a beautiful day.

You too.

Thank you for joining us for this week's episode of Building the Best You. If you are ready to take a deeper dive into transforming your life, check out my Empowerment Fundamentals course on my website, houseofgermar.com. Thank you, and I will see you next week with another inspiring guest.