Embracing Transitions: Growth, Grit, and Gratitude

Life as an entrepreneur can be a rollercoaster of emotions, and this week was no exception. I faced unexpected personal health challenges, navigated significant national events, and made crucial business pivots. Yet, amid these hurdles, I found reasons to celebrate. New clients have joined the Cafecito con Jefas family, and the unwavering support of our community continues to be a guiding light. By consciously choosing to keep politics and religion out of my platforms, I've cultivated a safe and welcoming space for all—a sanctuary amidst the chaos of small business ownership. Personal loss has reshaped my perspective this year, reinforcing my commitment to financial goals while staying anchored in my values.

Reflecting on the Jefa Journey, it's hard to believe it's been a year since our first Peva experience. While the future of these holistic entrepreneurship workshops remains uncertain due to my focus on selling the business, the commitment to nurturing our community through strategy calls and accountability stays strong. Building this vision with my husband and business partner over the past decade has been a testament to resilience and determination. Despite the mixed emotions of excitement and fear, the goal remains clear: continue pursuing our vision and making an impact. As we navigate transitional times, prioritizing self-care is key, and I encourage you to do the same. Let's embrace the numbers game of online presence together, showing up in ways that matter most.

Transcript

Welcome Back to Cabecito Con Jefas

Speaker 1 0:00

Hi, jefas, welcome back to the Cabecito con Jefas podcast. I'm your host, kita Zuleta, a brand strategist, jefa coach and photographer from LA. It's season two and, whether you are a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting out, this season is packed with powerful conversations, actionable strategies and the realness that Cabecito con Jefas is known for. My jefa journey has been anything but linear. I've pursued entrepreneurship in many forms over the past 15 years and I'm excited to share my knowledge and use my podcast to host conversations about real life and entrepreneurship, aka Jefa Life. While our paths may vary, the emotions and experiences we share unite us. We're all the same, same but different. So grab a favorite mug, pour yourself a cafecito and get cozy, because these conversations will ignite your passion, spark creativity, elevate your thinking and fuel your determination. I see you, jefa. Keep going. Welcome to the Cafecito con Jefas podcast. Hi Jefas, welcome back to the Cabecito con Jefas podcast. I'm your host, gita Zuleta. Today, I'm going to be doing a bit of a heart and life update, and how that all applies to my business and our community. This past week was heavy y'all. There has been big change for our country, major change for my home, updates to my health and how I take care of myself, as well as major pivots and adjustments to my business. Last week was filled with hard, stressful, real-life things, while also celebrating getting to connect and onboard seven new clients and two returning clients. What an honor to be trusted by my fellow jefas to guide them and teach them what I know about growing their business or creating imagery to support their growing brand's presence. So, with life being so full and the world feeling so heavy, life being so full and the world feeling so heavy, I decided to practice what I encouraged us all on Wednesday, which was to allow showing up that day to be our win for the day. I mean, what a privilege it was to hold space that day. I'm so grateful for the FFAs who showed up and shared their hearts. We got to sit and simply be together, which I know helped me through that day. Also, speaking to the big heavy that came with the election, this transition will be hard, I acknowledge it, because it's too big to ignore, but mostly to take this moment to pintar mi raya. This is not a political platform. Ccj Quita Zuleta, all the things that I have come to create, especially in the last three years, I have actively chosen to exclude speaking to politics and religion inside of my spaces and platforms.

Speaker 1 3:30

Some of you may know that I started my photography career alongside my husband in the political world and I got to document pieces of history, big events, big names in public service. It's the world where we were in for a solid five, six years, where we learned hands-on and up-close the power of personal branding and how to create the visuals needed for successful campaigns and showcasing brands. So we learned all about branding hands-on in that world, as well as recognizing how much our community of small business owners that look like us needed that same information about how to show up online and definitely needed accessible imagery and visuals to be able to promote themselves. So, having had started in the political world, it was kind of like a two-sided privilege being actively behind the scenes. Like a two-sided privilege being actively behind the scenes during parts of the chaos and also getting front row seats to some hate spread and division that's caused with just having two major parties and not everyone's going to agree and get along with these things, parties and not everyone's going to agree and get along with these things. So, because of all of the hate, all of the division that simply comes from the not sharing the same values or same belief systems or X cosa.

Speaker 1 5:24

When we rebranded our business, especially as I took on Quita Azuleta and what eventually became CCJ, when we relaunched in 2021, I have actively not promoted my experience in the political world, as I don't prefer to be in those battlefields like speaking to my opinion or what can. Should. Whatever be done, I have my opinion. I will be keeping it to myself as, again, this is not a political platform. The conversation as a whole has plenty of scars, just for yours truly. Maybe a little bit of ptsd kidding, but not kidding. Um. So really, this is the only time I I really intend on addressing this um, because obviously there was such a big, major event for our country, and so all of that, to say that I have my beliefs, I stand on my values and my heart goes out to each of you grieving the results from Tuesday, but beyond this moment, I will continue to exclude politics and religion from the topics of conversation on this podcast and also any of the spaces that I host. So I hope that y'all can understand and respect that I want y'all to continue to feel welcome and safe inside of all of the CCJ spaces, especially Café Cita and Coworking, which is our free space to open to the entire community. So I want you to know that you can step into CCJ knowing that you're surrounded by love, kindness and peace. The world as a whole will continue to be messy. Vida es vida, siempre pasa algo, pero we gotta keep going, pasito a pasito. So this shift is going to be felt by our community and our small businesses.

Speaker 1 7:39

As jefas small business owners, we may not have the luxury of allowing ourselves to pause or slow down for long. I know I don't. I've already lost four months of this year to grief for a loved one. So that unexpected pause and lack of launch this summer has transformed into pressure to generate income, the way that my bank account currently works. I literally can't afford to allow external factors to deter me from working towards my goals and generating income for my family. It's because I'm so familiar with this intense cycle of life that I'm the kind of coach who, when working with my clients, make sure to check in with your capacity before simply pushing you to add more to your plate. Pero if you happen to be in a season where a spoonful of hustle is necessary, join the club. Your girl is doubling down on this hefa life and the vision I see in my head. But in order to make that work I need to to generate income. The quote unquote. Easiest way to do that is to up my marketing and jumping into show up Hefa mode to get in front of those Hefas who don't yet know who I am Really just put myself out there on the algorithm and to get in front of the people who are ready to work with and looking for working with someone like me.

Speaker 1 9:11

So my business, my half of the agency that my husband and I have the strategy, the photography side of things are my income generators. It's always been my business. Ccj is simply a community that I started cultivating and that I've been funding since the beginning, which means it's money out, not money in, and that creating CCJ was never to have it be a money generating thing. It's really just a community thing. But now there are actually expenses to keep the casita open and our website up and our DIY course available and our podcast on the airways. So I'm so grateful and shout out to the Casita Jefas, whose subscriptions help cover a portion of the cost to keep the community tools up and running. But I still have to clock in and I'll need to be pouring the majority of my energy into my business and all the ways to generate income. So when it comes to the community, I'll be focusing on serving the jefas inside of our casita with our schedule of events like book club, our biweekly cafecitos, our weekly hyper focus sessions and our monthly group strategy calls for the podcast. I'm grateful we already have Hefa interviews to share through going into the new year. Yours truly is going to use these next seven weeks to flex these muscles. It's been a while since I've been consistently on the mic, so I'm excited to pour love into y'all and pour love into this podcast We've worked so hard to build so we can soon start seeking out sponsorships and next year actively pursue grants for CCJ. So there's quite a few things still in the works that we are working towards. So how this season is going to look for the community's transition. Wednesdays, capacito and Coworking will remain free for the entire community. As long as you are on the CCGA email list, you'll get those invites directly in your inbox.

Speaker 1 11:46

Exactly a year ago, we were at the very first show of Peva experience and I want to invite you to listen to last year's panel conversation. It is on our podcast and I'll be sure to link it in the show notes. It was a great conversation, an awesome event. We danced until we needed to pack up to go home and shout out to DJ Vinnie Mac for providing those tunes. I've been asked by many different HIFAs if we're going to be doing that show up HIFI experience again and as much as I wanted to make it an annual thing, it's looking like it won't be happening until the beginning of next year, 2025. So it's coming just a bit more time before we announce those dates.

Speaker 1 12:34

We also launched the holistic entrepreneurship workshops to bring the community knowledge that some of these HIFAs are teaching major corporations and bringing that knowledge to the community. They also served as a fundraiser in attempts to cover the cost of last year's events. So I first launched these last year and I genuinely wanted to host these again this year. I did what I could to coordinate and I'm so grateful to my fellow jefas who agreed to facilitate a workshop for the community. But, as I stated before, I need to focus my energy on selling my business to keep funding CCJ instead of using my marketing efforts aka my personal selling energy to sell workshops and other jefas when I need to book clients in order to keep it all going. So, in order to streamline the process and preserve that focus, we'll be pausing the workshops until further notice and hopefully being able to bring that back again, also at the beginning of next year or maybe in the spring. So, again, ccj will still be here. We'll be getting together every Wednesday, I'll be hopping on the mic on Tuesdays and I'll get to introduce y'all to fellow jefas on the podcast on Thursdays. So I'll be pouring into the jefas and the casita doing lots of work, generating income through as many streams of revenue as possible.

Speaker 1 14:09

So the main objective currently is to keep a roof over our heads, keep the lights on food on the table and simultaneously being open to abundance. I am preparing for the harvest. I am preparing for the harvest. There's been a lot of seeds that have been planted and watered and relationships that have been nurtured, and lots of previous manifesting and ideation and hard work behind the scenes to get to where we're at today. To get to where we're at today and although we may not be where we want to be, we are in a much, much better place than we were five years ago, three years ago, four years ago, and again I say we, speaking to my husband and I, who is my business partner, and what we get to do here within our home, in our agency, and how we're going to be moving forward.

Speaker 1 15:18

We've been pursuing this dream, a version of what y'all are experiencing today. We've been actively building it and pursuing it over a decade now. Cumplimos los 10 años. I want to say it was in September of this year, and so We've been pursuing this for 10 years and we still are having people tell us you may want to pursue something else, and I'm the kind of person I don't know about y'all, but tell me I can't do it. Tell me I can't do it and let me show you Challenge accepted, let's go. And let me show you Challenge accepted, let's go. So, as I mentioned earlier, your girl's going all in.

Speaker 1 16:04

I'm going to be keeping my head down, focused, working and just trying to push through the hard that is showing up online, because, as much as y'all know, I acknowledge the heavy lifting that is showing up online. Because, as much as y'all know, I acknowledge the heavy lifting that is showing up online when it comes to sales and generating income. Bottom line is it's a numbers game. The more we show up, the more chances we have of being seen, being found and getting in front of those ideal clients that are ready to work with us and willing to pay for our fee in order to get the service or product that we're providing. So show up, jefa, let's get in these trenches.

Speaker 1 16:55

If this is the season that you're currently in and needing to add that spoonful of hustle, join me and your fellow jefas inside the casita. We get together every month for strategy calls, every other week for cafecitos to check in, and we're learning from those who are going ahead of us by actively challenging ourselves to learn and grow in the book club and making sure that we can hold each other accountable and literally come together and body double through some of our sessions. So, y'all, I'm looking forward to what this season is going to look like. It's different than what I had imagined we'd be walking into right now, but at the same time, I'm grateful, I'm excited, I'm looking forward to it. I'm scared, shitless, like there's all the emotions happening, but I'm so grateful to be in the position that I'm currently in, knowing that there is a business multiple businesses here that I can pour into and it will generate. And it's math, it's science, it's all of the things combined, and as long as I keep going, as long as we keep going, we will see a result. As long as we keep going, we will see a result. It won't be perfect, it won't be linear, it won't always look like good days and haters are definitely going to hate, but the goal is to actively pursue the vision that we see in our heads in order to make the impact that we know we are called to make. So I'm just here to encourage y'all to keep going. Let y'all know that I'm still here. We're still here. We're going to continue to be here.

Speaker 1 18:52

Juntas, and although seasons of transition are hard, ensure that you're taking care of yourself. Do what you need to relax your nervous system, to wind down, to make sure you get your rest, make sure you get your fuel in order to be able to keep going and be strong enough to push through all of it. Porque es un chin, and I want us to be able to know that there is going to be challenges ahead. It's not going to get easier, it's typically going to get harder, and so we need to build that strength. We are resilient, and the more action we take, the more reps we put in, the stronger we get. So let's do it scared. Let's do it, juntas. Show up, jefa. Las amo Until next time. I'm your host, quita Zuleta.

Speaker 1 19:49

Thanks for listening to the Cabecito con Jefas podcast. Well, jefas, that's a wrap for today's episode. I hope you're leaving with fresh ideas, encouragement and inspiration to keep going. Being a jefa isn't about having it all figured out. It's about showing up, learning, growing and taking imperfect action towards our vision. Remember, jefa, you are not alone. This community is here to support you, cheer you on and celebrate your wins, because we go farther together. So let's do it scared. Pero, juntas. If you enjoyed today's episode, show some love by leaving a review and sharing it with a fellow jefa, be sure to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss the incredible stories we have in store.

Speaker 1 20:32

If you're looking for a space to connect and focus, join our cafecito and co-working sessions. Sign up to our email list to get those invitations directly to your inbox. So come as you are when you can and surround yourself with your fellow jefas. I can't wait to connect with you at a future cafecito. Connect and follow along with the community on Instagram at cafecito con jefas, and you can reach out to yours truly directly at la jefa quita. If you're ready to grow your brand online and looking for guidance, book a free consultation with me and together we'll develop strategies that are in alignment with the season you're in. I'd be honored to walk with you on your jefa journey. Before you go, remember that being a jefa is an ever evolving journey. There's no rush and no finish line. Just keep going. Pasito a pasito Until next time. I'm your host, gita Zuleta. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Cafecito con Jefas podcast.