In this episode of Behind The Work, Jessica Santana breaks down the 10 most powerful lessons learned from over a year of interviews with successful executives, entrepreneurs and visionaries. These aren't generic tips. they're real principles that ambitious people are using to stay the course on their dreams and build legacies.

What you'll learn: 
✓ Why waiting for the "right time" is a myth 
✓ How to take bold bets on yourself (even when it's scary) 
✓ Why doing business with friends is actually a flex 
✓ The role of faith in entrepreneurial success 
✓ Why rest is the work 
✓ How to build something that lasts (not just trends) 
✓ The power of reinvention and bold pivoting ✓ How to love yourself when everything feels broken

Whether you're launching a business, pursuing a career change, or leveling up your mindset, this episode will challenge you to stop waiting and start becoming the person you're meant to be.

Key Takeaway: "You either win or you learn. Never lose."

Timestamps:
Connect with our host, Jessica Santana:

• Subscribe to the Behind The Work newsletter: https://jessworldwide.substack.com/
• Follow Jessica on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@behindtheworkshow
• Follow Jessica on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@behindthework

About Behind The Work: Behind The Work is the show for the ambitious person looking to level up their lives, their career, and their businesses. Hosted by Jessica Santana, Behind The Work goes deep with the executives, founders, and leaders who are building from a place of power. Each episode pulls back the curtain on the real work — the strategy, the setbacks, the pivots, and the purpose — behind the people, companies, and organizations shaping what's next.

Shawna Young has built her career around a simple but radical belief: that investing in underinvested founders isn't charity — it's the multiplying force that changes entire communities. It's not just about writing a check. It's about what happens when the right person finally gets the room, the resources, and the relationships they were always capable of using. This week, Shawna joins Jessica on Behind The Work.

Shawna is the CEO of Camelback Ventures, a New Orleans-based nonprofit accelerator committed to increasing access to opportunity for entrepreneurs of color and women — providing early-stage fellows with seed funding, mentorship, and community at the "friends and family" stage of their journey. She came to Camelback from Ada Developers Academy, where she served as interim CEO, and has held executive leadership roles at the Scratch Foundation, MIT, Duke University, and Durham Public Schools. She holds an MBA from MIT, a master's in science education from UNC Chapel Hill, and a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from Howard University. 

In this conversation, we get into what it actually takes to fund early-stage founders the system has historically overlooked — and why the gap between a good idea and a funded one is rarely about talent. We talk about what Camelback's fellowship model gets right that traditional venture capital gets wrong, what it looks like to build a startup ecosystem from the inside out, and why Shawna would take a Rolodex over a million dollars every time — because in underinvested communities, the missing ingredient isn't always capital. It's connection. 

We also get into her own leadership journey — what it taught her to watch her parents build and sacrifice for a business for over 35 years, and how that shaped the way she thinks about the founders she now serves. We talk about what she learned stepping into Camelback during a founder transition, what it means to honor a vision while making it your own, and what the hardest parts of this work have revealed about what she is actually made of. 

This episode is for you if:

- You're an early-stage founder who has been told no by rooms that weren't built to say yes to you — and you need to know there are people actively working to change that.
- You work in venture, philanthropy, or impact investing and you're ready to be honest about where the gaps are and who gets left out.
- You're building a nonprofit or social enterprise and trying to figure out how to scale without losing the mission.
- You're a leader stepping into an organization someone else built — and you're navigating the weight of legacy while finding your own footing.
- You believe the next generation of world-changing companies will come from founders who've been overlooked — and you want to understand what it takes to actually back them.
- You want to see what it looks like to build an ecosystem, not just a portfolio.

Connect with our host, Jessica Santana:

• Subscribe to the Behind The Work newsletter: https://jessworldwide.substack.com/
• Follow Jessica on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@behindtheworkshow
• Follow Jessica on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@behindthework

About Behind The Work: Behind The Work is the show for the ambitious person looking to level up their lives, their career, and their businesses. Hosted by Jessica Santana, Behind The Work goes deep with the executives, founders, and leaders who are building from a place of power. Each episode pulls back the curtain on the real work — the strategy, the setbacks, the pivots, and the purpose — behind the people, companies, and organizations shaping what's next.

Judith Martinez has built her life around a single question: what would you do if you were one percent more courageous? It sounds simple. But for the young women of color she has spent her career serving, that one percent is the difference between staying small and stepping fully into who they were always meant to be.

This week, Judith joins us on Behind The Work.

Judith is the Founder and CEO of InHerShoes — the modern woman's community for courage — a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit committed to catalyzing courage for young women of color around the world. She is a first-generation Filipina-American, an LA native, a Forbes 30 Under 30 nominee, a Vital Voices and TRESemmé Global Leadership Fellow, a United State of Women Ambassador for California, and a 2021 awardee hand-selected by Serena Williams and Stuart Weitzman for her work in cross-generational equity. She has spoken at the United Nations Youth Assembly, worked alongside Echoing Green fellows, and most recently served as Director of Social Impact and Inclusion at Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez — where her work helped earn the brand a 2023 Fast Company Brands That Matter recognition.

In this conversation, we get into where InHerShoes came from — what Judith saw in young women of color that made her say courage is the thing we have to activate. We talk about what it felt like to speak at the UN Youth Assembly in the early years, what traditional institutions are still getting wrong about developing leaders, and what she learned co-authoring the first book written by students, for students, on leadership in higher education.

We also get into the corporate world — what drew her to Rare Beauty, what social impact looks like from inside a brand versus inside a nonprofit, and how she navigates the line between performative and authentic impact when the pressure to perform is real. We talk about what the 2020 national awakening taught her about the relationship between individual courage and systemic change. And we talk about the hardest moment in her journey — and what it revealed about what she is actually made of.

This episode is for you if:

• You have an idea, a vision, or a calling you've been too afraid to begin — and you need someone to remind you that one percent is enough to start.
• You're a first-generation woman navigating systems that weren't built for you and trying to build something that will outlast you.
• You work in social impact — inside a nonprofit, a brand, or a corporation — and you're thinking hard about how to protect the integrity of the mission.
• You're a young leader trying to figure out how to build power without losing yourself in the process.
• You've been waiting for permission to step into the room — and you need someone to tell you the permission was always yours.
• You want to understand what it really looks like to build a movement from the ground up — the parts that worked, the parts that didn't, and the moments that changed everything.

Connect with our host, Jessica Santana:

• Subscribe to the Behind The Work newsletter: https://jessworldwide.substack.com/
• Follow Jessica on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@behindtheworkshow
• Follow Jessica on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@behindthework

About Behind The Work: Behind The Work is the show for the ambitious person looking to level up their lives, their career, and their businesses. Hosted by Jessica Santana, Behind The Work goes deep with the executives, founders, and leaders who are building from a place of power. Each episode pulls back the curtain on the real work — the strategy, the setbacks, the pivots, and the purpose — behind the people, companies, and organizations shaping what's next.

Charlotte Castillo was seven years old when she became the Chief Translator for her Dominican immigrant family in New York City. She didn't know it then, but she was already doing the work — figuring things out beyond her years, building courage in real time, and learning how to move between worlds. Twenty years later, she's still translating. Just on a much bigger stage.

This week, Charlotte joins us on Behind The Work.Charlotte is the Managing Director of Poderistas — one of the fastest-growing and most influential digital communities celebrating Latina culture in the United States. Before that, she spent over 14 years as an award-winning senior executive at ViacomCBS, and before that, she was the founding Head of Marketing at Latina Magazine — the first print publication ever created for the bicultural Latina. 

She is a first-generation college graduate from Wesleyan University, the proud daughter of Dominican immigrants, a New Yorker to her core, and a mother of a 16-year-old son.In this conversation, we start at the beginning — what it was like to grow up as the daughter of Dominican immigrants in New York, and how that environment shaped her sense of identity, resourcefulness, and ambition. We talk about what it meant to be part of Latina Magazine from the very start, and what drew her deeper into media and marketing for a community that had long been underserved and misunderstood.

We get into the pivot — what made her walk away from a long, successful corporate career, how she found Poderistas as a volunteer after being laid off during the pandemic, and what it felt like to step into something so mission-driven after 14 years inside one of the most powerful media companies in the world. We talk about why Poderistas works — why leading with culture, beauty, health, and entertainment creates the trust that makes civic engagement possible — and what she has learned about what actually moves people from awareness to action. 

We get into the danger of treating Latinas as a monolith, what it really looks like to correct that in media and politics, and what Latina power means not as a slogan, but as a real, lived practice in everyday life.

This episode is for you if:
- You've spent years building someone else's vision and you're starting to feel the pull toward something that actually reflects your values.
- You're navigating the transition from a corporate career to mission-driven work and want to hear from someone who made that shift and found her footing.
- You care about civic engagement but feel like traditional outreach has never spoken to you — and you want to understand a different approach.
- You're a Latina who is tired of being treated as a monolith and wants to see what it looks like when an organization actually gets the complexity of our community.
- You work in media, marketing, or philanthropy and want a sharper lens on how to reach communities with authenticity rather than assumption.
- You want to understand what it looks like to build power through culture — and why that approach is more durable than anything built on messaging alone.

Connect with our host, Jessica Santana:

• Subscribe to the Behind The Work newsletter: https://jessworldwide.substack.com/
• Follow Jessica on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@behindtheworkshow
• Follow Jessica on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@behindthework

About Behind The Work: Behind The Work is the show for the ambitious person looking to level up their lives, their career, and their businesses. Hosted by Jessica Santana, Behind The Work goes deep with the executives, founders, and leaders who are building from a place of power. Each episode pulls back the curtain on the real work — the strategy, the setbacks, the pivots, and the purpose — behind the people, companies, and organizations shaping what's next.

Dulce Vasquez was born in Mexico, grew up undocumented in the United States, and went on to study at Northwestern, UCLA, and Sciences Po in Paris. She served as a Los Angeles City Commissioner, ran for City Council in District 9 and State Assembly in District 57 — two of the highest-poverty districts in all of Los Angeles — and built a digital platform that turns complex policy into content that actually connects with the people it's meant to serve. She didn't wait for permission. She decided her community deserved better and showed up.This week, Dulce joins us on Behind The Work.

Dulce is a Los Angeles-based content creator, education leader, and former political candidate who uses digital storytelling to break down the issues that shape everyday life — housing, public transportation, education, mental health, and the rights of women and LGBTQ+ communities. She currently serves as Assistant Vice President at Arizona State University, leading strategic partnerships and public engagement. She is a formerly undocumented LGBTQ+ Latina, a five-time marathoner, and one of the most grounded, clear-eyed voices on what civic power actually looks like when it's built from the ground up.In this conversation, we start at the beginning — what she remembers most about those early years, when she realized education could change her life, and where her sense of civic responsibility came from. We talk about what it felt like to navigate elite institutions like Northwestern, UCLA, and Sciences Po as someone who grew up undocumented, and what those spaces taught her about systems, inequality, and who gets to be in the room.We get into the campaigns — what made her decide to run, what economic justice actually looks like at the neighborhood level in South Central, and what it feels like to put yourself forward in those spaces as a formerly undocumented immigrant. We talk about how her identities shape the way she leads, where she found the permission to take up space in a world that often tells immigrant families to stay quiet and be grateful — and what gives her hope right now about Los Angeles, civic engagement, and the communities she serves.

This episode is for you if:
- You grew up being told to be grateful, stay quiet, and not ask for too much — and something in you has always pushed back against that.
- You're a first-generation immigrant, a child of immigrants, or someone navigating systems that were never designed with you in mind.
- You care about civic engagement but feel disconnected from politics and want to understand what real community leadership actually looks like.
- You've thought about running for office, stepping into public service, or using your platform for something bigger — and you want to hear from someone who did it.
- You're building in education, policy, or social impact and want a sharper lens on where the systems are failing and where the opportunity lives.
- You need a reminder that your story — all of it, even the parts the world told you to hide — is exactly what makes you the right person to lead.

Connect with our host, Jessica Santana:

• Subscribe to the Behind The Work newsletter: https://jessworldwide.substack.com/
• Follow Jessica on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@behindtheworkshow
• Follow Jessica on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@behindthework

About Behind The Work: Behind The Work is the show for the ambitious person looking to level up their lives, their career, and their businesses. Hosted by Jessica Santana, Behind The Work goes deep with the executives, founders, and leaders who are building from a place of power. Each episode pulls back the curtain on the real work — the strategy, the setbacks, the pivots, and the purpose — behind the people, companies, and organizations shaping what's next.

Heidi Rojas has spent her career giving her gift away — writing the songs that made other people stars. Two UK number one hits. Collaborations with Pitbull, Kelly Rowland, Natasha Bedingfield, New Kids on the Block. Music on Pitch Perfect 3, Glee, American Idol, and Good Morning America. And for a long time, she stayed behind the curtain — because that's where the work was. This week, she steps into the spotlight on Behind The Work.Heidi is a platinum-selling, number one hit songwriter, solo artist, vocal and performance coach, published author, co-founder of an artist development company, and the founder of Madre Creator Collective — a community built to prove that motherhood and creative fulfillment don't just coexist, they deepen each other. 

She is a proud first-generation Latina, raised in Chicago by a Cuban father and a Guatemalan mother, who wrote her first song at eight years old and has never stopped.In this conversation, we get into what it actually feels like to be the architect behind someone else's number one — and what finally made her say it was time to tell her own story. We talk about the nearly ten years of therapy and healing that shaped her solo music, what it means to write from the most vulnerable corners of your heart, and why sharing that publicly takes a different kind of courage than anything she'd done before.We also get into motherhood — what it looks like to be deeply present for two toddlers while building a creative life that refuses to shrink. We talk about the bilingual children's book she wrote with Con Todo Press, born from her song about reconnecting with her heritage and her ancestors. We talk about the most common block she sees in talented artists — and how she helps them break through it. 

And we talk about what it means to carry the weight of first-generation expectations while still insisting on becoming fully yourself.This episode is for you if:- You've spent years showing up brilliantly for other people's dreams and you're starting to wonder when it's your turn.- You're a creative who has put your artistry on the back burner — for your career, your family, or just because life got loud.- You're a first-generation Latina navigating the tension between who your family needs you to be and who you actually are.- You're a mother who doesn't want to choose between being present and being ambitious — and needs proof that you don't have to.- You're in a season of healing and you want to hear from someone who turned that process into art.- You need a reminder that it is never too late, and never too early, to tell your own story.

Connect with our host, Jessica Santana:

• Subscribe to the Behind The Work newsletter: https://jessworldwide.substack.com/
• Follow Jessica on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@behindtheworkshow
• Follow Jessica on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@behindthework

About Behind The Work: Behind The Work is the show for the ambitious person looking to level up their lives, their career, and their businesses. Hosted by Jessica Santana, Behind The Work goes deep with the executives, founders, and leaders who are building from a place of power. Each episode pulls back the curtain on the real work — the strategy, the setbacks, the pivots, and the purpose — behind the people, companies, and organizations shaping what's next.

We need to talk about burnout. Not the buzzword version. Not the "take a bubble bath and drink more water" version. The real thing — the kind that creeps in quietly, disguises itself as dedication, and doesn't announce itself until you're already running on empty.

In this solo episode, Jessica Santana gets honest about burnout, what it actually looks like for high-achieving, purpose-driven people, and why the solution isn't another productivity hack or a long weekend. It's something most of us have been conditioned to feel guilty about: a life outside of work.

Because here's the thing nobody tells you when you're building something — the work will always be there. The emails will always be there. The to-do list will always be there. But the version of you that can show up with clarity, creativity, and conviction? That one has an expiration date if you don't protect it.

Jessica breaks down why detaching from work isn't a luxury or a sign that you don't care enough — it's actually the thing that makes you better at it. We get into why high achievers are often the most at risk, what it looks like to build a real identity outside of your job title, and why "I'll rest when it's done" is one of the most dangerous lies we tell ourselves.

This episode is for you if:

- You've been running on fumes for so long that exhausted has started to feel like your baseline.

- You find it hard to disconnect — even when you're technically "off the clock."

- Your entire identity is wrapped up in what you do, and the idea of slowing down feels like falling behind.

- You've been telling yourself you'll take a break once you hit the next milestone — and that milestone keeps moving.

- You're high-achieving, purpose-driven, and secretly worried that rest will make you less of all the things you've worked so hard to become.

- You know something needs to change but you haven't given yourself permission to actually change it.

Connect with our host, Jessica Santana:

• Subscribe to the Behind The Work newsletter: https://jessworldwide.substack.com/
• Follow Jessica on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@behindtheworkshow
• Follow Jessica on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@behindthework

About Behind The Work: Behind The Work is the show for the ambitious person looking to level up their lives, their career, and their businesses. Hosted by Jessica Santana, Behind The Work goes deep with the executives, founders, and leaders who are building from a place of power. Each episode pulls back the curtain on the real work — the strategy, the setbacks, the pivots, and the purpose — behind the people, companies, and organizations shaping what's next.

In this solo episode, Jessica Santana unpacks what Emma Grede actually got right, what the discourse got wrong, and what none of us are talking about loudly enough: proximity bias is not a remote work problem. It is a design problem. And in a world being reshaped by AI, it is becoming more urgent, not less.

This episode is for you if:
- You've ever been told your work is great but your "visibility" needs improvement, and you didn't know what to do with that.
- You're a woman of color navigating a system that wasn't designed with you in mind and trying to figure out how to build power anyway.
- You manage a team and want to understand the structural patterns that are quietly leaving people out — even when no one intends them to.- You're thinking about remote work, hybrid work, or returning to the office and want a sharper framework for what's actually at stake.
- You want to understand what proximity bias looks like in an AI-driven world, and why the relational gap is about to widen.
- You're in leadership and looking for thoughts on how to change things internally 

Connect with our host, Jessica Santana:

• Subscribe to the Behind The Work newsletter: https://jessworldwide.substack.com/
• Follow Jessica on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@behindtheworkshow
• Follow Jessica on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@behindthework

About Behind The Work: Behind The Work is the show for the ambitious person looking to level up their lives, their career, and their businesses. Hosted by Jessica Santana, Behind The Work goes deep with the executives, founders, and leaders who are building from a place of power. Each episode pulls back the curtain on the real work — the strategy, the setbacks, the pivots, and the purpose — behind the people, companies, and organizations shaping what's next.

Cheryl Campos has spent her career refusing to be put in a box — and building entire ecosystems so others don't have to be either. This week, she's sitting down with us to pull back the curtain on what it really takes to break into venture capital, build community from the ground up, and move capital to the people who've been locked out of it for too long.Cheryl is the Co-Founder of LaFamilia VC and VCFamilia — the largest global community of verified Latine venture investors. 

She's a Harvard economics grad, a former Barclays investment banker, a Stanford GSB alum, and someone who has modeled for Tom Ford and Christian Louboutin in the same breath as supporting $8 billion in structured finance transactions. She doesn't choose between her worlds. She builds new ones.In this conversation, we get into what it actually means to sit with the tension of being 40% of venture as a Harvard graduate — but 1% of venture as a Latina. We talk about what she saw missing when she joined Republic as employee number ten, why she built the Venture Partner Program that drove 600% year-over-year deal flow growth, and what the founding moment of VCFamilia really felt like. We get into the $2.7 trillion economic output of Latine-owned businesses, why only 2% of VC funding reaches Latine founders, and what LaFamilia is doing to change that — starting with the first-ever operational capital grant program for Latine emerging fund managers.

We also get into the future — what it looks like to shift $1 billion in venture capital to Latines, what unity and intersectionality actually mean inside a community as beautifully diverse as ours, and what Cheryl wants every first-gen Latina standing at the door of a room she's not sure she's allowed to enter to know.

This episode is for you if:
⭐ You're a founder, investor, or operator trying to understand where the real gaps in venture capital are — and where the opportunity lives.
⭐ You've ever felt like you were too much of one thing and not enough of another, and you're still trying to figure out how to hold all of it.
⭐ You want to understand what it actually takes to build a community-driven organization with two sides: one for investors, one for founders.
⭐ You're a first-generation professional navigating elite spaces and looking for someone who gets it.
⭐ You're building something and need a reminder that your presence in the room isn't accidental — it's necessary.
⭐ You want the kind of honest, fire-in-the-belly conversation about systemic change that goes beyond the talking points.

Learn more about LaFamilia VC and VCFamilia at https://www.lafamiliafoundation.com/

⭐Follow Cheryl on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cyc.nyc/ 
⭐Follow LaFamilia on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lafamilia.foundation/ 

Connect with our host, Jessica Santana:

• Subscribe to the Behind The Work newsletter: https://jessworldwide.substack.com/
• Follow Jessica on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@behindtheworkshow
• Follow Jessica on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@behindthework

About Behind The Work: Behind The Work is the show for the ambitious person looking to level up their lives, their career, and their businesses. Hosted by Jessica Santana, Behind The Work goes deep with the executives, founders, and leaders who are building from a place of power. Each episode pulls back the curtain on the real work — the strategy, the setbacks, the pivots, and the purpose — behind the people, companies, and organizations shaping what's next.

Jessica Santana has spent years building relationships that open doors — not just for herself, but for others. This week, she's pulling back the curtain on the proactive relationship-building strategies that have shaped her journey as a founder, leader, and connector. 

Jessica is the host of Behind The Work. In this solo episode, she's getting into the real, tactical side of networking — what it actually looks like to build meaningful connections with intention, and why most people are going about it the wrong way.

🎧 Tune in to learn:
☀️ The proactive relationship-building strategies Jessica swears by — and how to make them work for you
☀️ Why waiting until you need your network is already too late
☀️ How to build authentic connections across industries, seniority levels, and communities
☀️ Considerations for when you're building your network so you do it the right way

Connect with our host, Jessica Santana:

• Subscribe to the Behind The Work newsletter: https://jessworldwide.substack.com/
• Follow Jessica on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@behindtheworkshow
• Follow Jessica on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@behindthework

About Behind The Work: Behind The Work is the show for the ambitious person looking to level up their lives, their career, and their businesses. Hosted by Jessica Santana, Behind The Work goes deep with the executives, founders, and leaders who are building from a place of power. Each episode pulls back the curtain on the real work — the strategy, the setbacks, the pivots, and the purpose — behind the people, companies, and organizations shaping what's next.