Supported by Texas Mutual Workers Compensation Insurance Company.

All are welcome to Salud.

Celebrating South Texas Latina leaders.

I'm your host, Melanie Mendez Gonzalez on this episode.

We'll see how two women found their niche.

Sometimes it's not the path they expected to take.

And then we'll hear about why those small things you might not be noticing could have a big impact on your success.

Salud.

Starts now.

With the path to finding what you really want to do can be long and winding with some interesting stops along the way.

Maria Tori Escamilla joined the U.S. Navy as a young woman and then served our country for ten years.

But that was just the beginning of her incredible story.

She went on to get two degrees, worked as a Tejano radio dj, hosted a podcast, and now serves on a nonprofit board that helps U.S. veterans.

As she isn't done yet.

My name is Maria Victoria Escambia.

Some might know me by Tori.

I am currently serving in the United States Navy as a prior service recruiter here in San Antonio.

We focus on, veterans who are interested in coming back.

And we really work on them trying to not only continue getting their VA disability, but continue helping them get their retirement points through the reserves.

I always wanted to join the military.

When I was younger, my uncle, my great uncle, he was actually a Green Beret in the Vietnam War.

He was a tunnel rat, and I just thought he was the most coolest person alive, that I always looked up to him.

And I always told myself that I was going to join the army.

And I attempted to in 2005 when I graduated high school and I was 17.

So my mom was like, definitely not.

So I attended college and at that time I was over 18.

So I figured, you know what?

Let me give this a shot again.

And it just so happened that maybe it was the route that I went.

So I went to boot camp in 2009, in Great Lakes, Illinois, and from Great Lakes.

I was on the USS Constitution in Boston.

And from there I went to California.

I was in a combat battalion for five years.

I did three deployments with them.

From there, I went back to Great Lakes.

I worked at the VA hospital, and then after that, my grandfather got sick and I was able to get orders to come help him.

And I worked over here at Lackland at one of our technical schools.

The military has taught me many things in regards to leadership and even being a follower.

I think a lot of times people want to be the chief and they forget that sometimes they need to be an Indian.

And I feel like when you're a good follower, you're able to take orders, you're able to get the job done from the very beginning, and you slowly learn your way up.

And I feel like a lot of leadership means that, you know, if you know everything, you know your people, you know the job, you know how it feels to be in that position.

It actually helps because you've been there.

The military is very much a blunt and outspoken group of people.

So you have to be, you know, straight to the point.

Talk about what the issue is preferred.

We have a solution.

And, just work it out.

And, you know, unfortunately, if you continue to hold a grudge, if you continue to not say anything, if there's a problem, it's definitely going to explode after a while.

Sometimes it's a little hard, especially being a woman.

We kind of get that bad rap for maybe being a little rougher, when in reality we're really just doing the same thing the men are.

I can definitely say I didn't have a lot of friends a lot of times because I was considered high conflict, but really, I just didn't feel like if I had something to say, why not just say it so we can figure it out?

I definitely intended to only do four years.

I will be the first one to say that I intended to do four years to get money for college, to be able to use the benefits of getting the VA loan, whether it be for business or for a house.

I grew up with the tough love.

So for me, I thrived.

I would say in regards to mentorship, definitely my my mother, my grandmother.

And so I think that's where, like I said earlier, I got that, you know, suck it up, keep it pushing, take one day to feel sad for yourself and move on, because the world is not going to worry about what your problems are.

And so I definitely kept that mentality.

I did luckily have a lot of mentors throughout the years who helped me with my career.

I think they saw the drive.

I think they saw that I had that potential and they continue to what I've continued to pass on, that mentorship that I've gotten women were not as empowered as they are now.

I had, quite a few risks with older women in leadership.

You know, they definitely felt like they had to almost like put me in my place or pay my dues.

I didn't feel you had to humble me for me to figure it out.

And so as I got older, I told myself I didn't want to do that to another woman.

I never had really felt like a mentor per se, because I feel like I was just living.

But I have had a lot of women come talk to me, ask me for advice, ask me about my experience, ask me about a lot of things in general.

And so I think unconsciously, I became a mentor just by figuring my own stuff out.

I am the host of the Chicken Achievement Podcast.

I had started the podcast when I moved back to San Antonio in 2018.

I received podcast from California from, you know, new York, Miami that were in like Hispanic spaces and at the radio station here in San Antonio just so happened to have gone from PM to Am.

I sent them an email with the recording of the podcast and I said, look, I have no experience whatsoever.

I love the music.

My grandfather played it for me all the time.

If I can even just help you guys start up the station, I would love to to work for you guys.

And they called me in and I was actually one of the first females they hired when they, you know, began the station here in San Antonio.

I had a show on Wednesdays and it was women of the Wednesdays.

So we tried to showcase all the women who are in the genre, who are trying to come up into regional.

And so we specifically played women on my show.

The great thing is about being in the military.

I was able to get two bachelor's degrees, I'm working on my masters, and I was able to buy a house by the time I was 30, which was great.

You know, coming up, I never really had big aspirations for myself.

Honestly.

I wasn't a smart kid.

I passed high school with maybe a C plus, and I would definitely say, young Maria Tori is definitely an all of the woman that I currently am today, and it's been such a great stepping stone that the military has provided me.

The best advice that I did not take was not to date that man, and I learned the hard way.

I have been given so many great little pieces of advice throughout the years.

I would definitely say, live like you're going to die tomorrow.

I feel like I have wholeheartedly continued to aspire to live that up throughout my life.

And so I definitely try to tell people, you know, what's going to make you happy if you die tomorrow.

Is this going to fulfill you?

Is this going to work for you?

Is it going to continue to push you?

Is this the legacy that you want to live?

Aside from currently being active duty as a recruiter, I'm actually on the board of a local organization here in San Antonio, Combat 22, and we are trying to help veterans with their mental illnesses and any kind of mental health.

I know right now in this climate, we're having a lot of issues in regards to women joining the service.

You know, unfortunately, we had the incident with Vanessa Guillen and the most recent one with Angelica that was here in Brownsville.

And as much as I know people are anti-military right now, it honestly provides so much benefit.

And it is unfortunate that these things happen.

But for myself, I've been very blessed to have had a great career.

It helped me, build myself up more.

It gave me a whole lot more confidence, gave me more discipline.

And and for people who maybe don't know what they want to do, I always say, just do four years, just do the reserves.

So that way you kind of at least, you know, to stick your toe in a little bit, see how it feels.

If it's for you, great.

Stay with it.

If it's not, get out and still use those benefits.

Once I retire because I am at 16 years, I definitely intend to continue doing things within the community.

It's just where my heart is at.

As a society, we've definitely gotten bigger into individualism and we forget it takes a village to help people, to help the community.

And I feel that when we don't put our hand back and help the next person, that we're just hurting ourselves.

Try to be something that that has a purpose and not just be famous or not.

Just make money, be of service like I consider myself to be what's called a service, a servant leader.

My leadership is more of a transformational type of leadership.

And, it's it's about respect.

It's about giving value to, to people what they can do.

Communication.

And so for you to be really happy, really happy, what you do have something that has purpose.

Laura, Barbara and I was the first person in her family to get a college degree.

And with that degree, she expected to become a filmmaker.

However, on the path to following that dream, she sidebar into doing a campaign ad for a politician named Bill Clinton, and that path has led her to fantastic success.

My name is Dr. Laura Barbernea, and I'm a political consultant.

I always love when I introduce myself to people and I say, what do you do?

And I say, I'm a communicator.

I'm a political consultant.

And you're like, And I'm like, no, it's not that sexy.

What I love about what I do in my career is that I feel like I'm serving democracy.

What I do is important in helping people keep that faith, that democracy is good, democracy is worth it.

And that when we all participate, we can make the world better for everyone.

I started off as a theater major in college.

I was, start off acting, and one thing led to another.

I ended up in the film department.

So my goal was to become a famous filmmaker.

But I ended up becoming a creative director for a advertising firm in Albuquerque.

One thing led to another.

And the first campaign I ever worked on was in 1996.

I worked on the Clinton Gore campaign, doing all of their Latino outreach.

So I ended up kind of in a backwards way where I wanted to become a filmmaker, and I ended up making films, but they're 30s long and they're about politics seem to take.

But I'd always been interested in politics.

In high school.

I, you know, was very involved in my government class and things of that nature.

I didn't really consider myself political.

So my parents, didn't come from a strong educational background.

My mother actually dropped out of high school.

She was born and raised here in the United States from Mexican descent.

My father migrated from Mexico.

He was born and raised in Mexico, and completed high school in Mexico, but didn't ever do any college.

So he came to the United States.

And interestingly enough, and I love telling this story, is that when I was attending high school, my parents went to my high school to earn their geds.

So my parents actually got their geds at the time when I was going to high school, and my grandfather was the janitor at my high school.

I was in my 20s when I worked on this first campaign of my life, and it was a presidential campaign.

So you can imagine how nervous I was.

Prior to that, I hadn't done television and film commercials and things of that nature, but never in politics.

And so it was, it was a nice, rude awakening.

And I learned that there were a lot of attorneys involved in the actual work prior to us working on the campaign.

There never been a line item budget for Latino outreach at the national level.

At the DNC.

So this was the first year it was being done.

So time in a good way.

We weren't following in anyone's footsteps.

We were breaking ground.

But at the same time, when you're breaking ground, that ground is very uncertain.

It was a great way to start off my career, which is funny because most people get into politics and they start local and work their way up.

I actually started national and worked my way down, but it was, quite an interesting time.

And I had been working in politics for a while and then decided I wanted to go back to school.

But I knew that if I went back to school, I would want to go all the way to get a PhD, because, you know, there's so few Latino PhDs.

And I just knew that I wanted to do that.

I always tell young people that you, you may have a plan, but it's not always going to end up the way you plan it to be.

So just understand that sometimes getting from point A to point B, there might be an A 1 to 3 before you get to B and that that's okay.

Right?

And to relax in the struggle, I always feel I have a strong belief in faith and that we're supposed to be at the moment where we're supposed to be, and that there are reasons beyond our understanding of why we need to be where we need to be, when we need to be there.

If you continue to to really desire and want it to work, really, really hard to try to get that, you know, sometimes you work hard and you don't get it.

It happens, I get that, but that might just mean that you need to try something else.

Oh my God, I'm an imposter.

They're going to discover at any moment that I'm not supposed to be here.

You know, I think the best advice I've ever gotten was just to be authentically me, to not try to be someone else, right?

To understand who I am and what my strengths are and not try to take on or be someone else.

So I think the advice that my parents gave me that, that I still carry with me is really ganas, which is, you know, just give it your all, give it your gusto, no matter what it is that you're doing, give it your all.

Whether you're your sweeping the floor or writing a proposal or doing your presentation, you know, just give it your all and that's all that that's that's the most important thing as we try to tell these stories, we often come up with challenges on how we can get past certain roadblocks.

Working in politics is extremely challenging.

I see a lot more women joining into the space now, and we see that in terms of candidates as well as on the consulting side, which is a great thing.

And it's also dominated by males who have power and money and so a lot of women, we come to this space and we haven't either.

So it's like how to make your voice heard?

I tend to cuss a lot, and I think that that's one of the ways that I'm adapted for the gammas fundraiser for Ivelisse last time, we really didn't have to do a lot of heavy lifting.

My leadership style is to lead by example.

You know, I feel like I'm never going to ask someone to do something that I'm not willing to do myself.

I also try to listen and to understand what people approach it from, like a perspective of compassion and empathy.

Right?

To understand that people are coming to my world with all of their family, their background, their daily life, and just to me to be sensitive to that.

We got stars to let you know what your voting location is.

You gotta know your body location.

And I think we have to work at democracy.

This is not something that we can take for granted.

So I'd like to see myself ten years from now.

Being a thought leader, being a little bit more vocal about what we can be doing as on a local level to ensure that, we maintain our rights.

And I'd like to be able to continue to work on campaigns to get good people elected who believe in the same things that I believe.

I often think about my grandparents and my grandmother and my my mom's mom, as well as my parents.

Because, I mean, certainly the sacrifices they made have allowed me to be where I am today.

All my brothers and sisters, we all have some type of degree, which is a testament to who they are.

You know, my grandparents, my mom's parents met while they were picking cotton.

So all those years ago, they met in a cotton field and they didn't have an education.

So, you know, when I look at the journey of my family and the opportunities that I was given, I 100% believe in, like the American dream.

But I had some great business partners.

I've always, teamed up with someone that is not like me, but that we complement each other.

And that's why we've been successful as business partners.

And, and so that's how we work, is we appreciate each other.

We acknowledge that we need each other.

I think the minute that you find that you don't need someone, it's no longer successful.

Any successful person will tell you.

Sometimes it's the little things.

For example, a lot of business etiquette.

It's part of the bigger picture.

Getting the deal or not.

Jessie Decker talks with etiquette expert Diane Gotch.

Them about those small things that make a big impact.

Just for you.

So good to see you.

Thank you.

Happy to have you.

Please have a seat.

Well, we have a lot to talk about, but I think what impresses me most about what you do is that you've been very successful talking to others, educating others about etiquette.

Yes, etiquette.

And there's a stereotype that goes along with that word etiquette.

And oftentimes people think it's stuffy or judgmental or inauthentic.

And what I teach is how to be comfortable, compassionate, respectful, and make people comfortable to be around you.

Etiquette is much more than just learning to say please and thank you.

That's right.

It's leadership skills.

Could you expound on that, especially again for women?

Anyone really in the business world or getting into the business world, something as basic as walking into a room?

Everything speaks even before we say a word.

People are judging us, but we get to choose how we want to be perceived by others.

And so what etiquette is corporate etiquette is making others comfortable to be around us.

So that takes work.

Again, when you think of manners, etiquette, it's cotillion classes or what our grandmother taught us, and that's all great.

But as an adult, it's our responsibility to be our best.

So corporate and social etiquette overlap, which means that who we are in our personal world goes into our corporate world and vice versa.

Again, walking into a room, yes, people are going to look up and they can look away, but if you walk in a certain way, they'll say, whoop, is that so?

The way that you walk into a room matters.

You know, we walk in, we if we're let's say we're at a, a chamber mixer or a networking event or a career fair for those who are in the university level, we go in, we stick to the people we know.

We go and grab a drink of some kind because that makes us feel comfortable, and then we stay in a corner and not talk to anyone.

What we all should do is we walk in with confidence, even when we're not feeling confident, because we have two choices.

We can feel uncomfortable looking bad, or we can feel uncomfortable feeling confident.

Even though we feel it, we can exude a certain level because we have the skills.

Meaning you walk into a room, you step to the right, you scan the room slowly, confidently, deliberately.

You find some people that you see that you want to reintroduce yourself to.

Don't go straight to the bar or to the buffet table, and you introduce yourself.

And the way that we introduce ourselves.

So we've we've walked into the room, but now what do we do once we're in?

First of all, we put on our nametag because a nametag goes on the right side to follow the line of sight of a handshake.

That means that, Jesse, if I see your name tag but I can't remember your name, or you've introduce yourself and I don't understand your name, I can look briefly and say, oh, yes, Jesse, it's good to see you.

Or oh, Jesse, tickle your photo.

Yes.

If I cross your body, if I do this with my eyes.

Did you feel that disconnect?

It went across your body.

So those 2 or 3 seconds matter.

So we use our name tag.

We extend our hand for a handshake.

So do you see how my hand looks?

It looks like a torpedo.

So what you're doing is you're slightly sideways, straight up and down.

This is what I teach people.

It should look like a torpedo.

But you shouldn't go in like a torpedo.

So we we greet with our feet.

Meaning when we shake hands, you never shake hands.

Sitting down.

You always greet handshake standing up.

It shows respect for yourself and the other person.

And what's interesting about this is probably you and I.

You heard this when you were growing up, I certainly did.

We learned that little girls stay seated and little boys stand up for introductions, because that was the polite thing to do.

Today.

Everyone stands, everyone social, corporate.

Everyone stands.

Because when you extend your hand, you don't want to be doing this.

You want to be standing up.

It shows respect for yourself and the other person.

Now let's go from entering the room to actually being in the room.

Yes, be it a corporate boardroom, be it a meeting course, you know, these are formal settings, yes, but not all business is done in a corporate setting.

There's dinner, there's lunch, there's coffee.

So what should we keep in mind when we're in a more informal situation?

I think it's so important to just be authentic, to be yourself, number one.

But we have to figure out who we want to be, you know?

So I think it's important to think of a word you want to be described as.

And then you build on that word, which means that you're building on that word personally, professionally, socially.

But when you sit down to that table, whether you're having lunch or dinner, it's not about the food.

So second, interviews are conducted over a meal nationally.

So it's important to know how to navigate that dinner table.

And we all experience it.

We go to fundraisers, weddings, social events.

You never know when you're going to meet your next client, your mentor, a new friend because business and social overlap.

So you're not putting on an air.

You're truly learning skills that are going to help you in life.

Be more comfortable.

So at the dinner table, for example, it's important to sit down and then find your position, which means that you're not going to sit back like this.

You know, you're not you're not resting on your comfortable lounge chair at home.

You have an imaginary basketball behind you, a little mini basketball behind you and the back of your chair, and you're sitting alert but not afraid.

So you're engaged.

And when you sit down to the table, do you know which is your water, glass and bread plate?

And I'm not going to ask you specifically, but most people do not.

And it's okay.

So there's a little tip.

It's a B and a D. Your bread plate is always on the left and your drink is always on the right.

And that makes it so much easier to navigate the table because you don't look like this.

You're not.

Which is my water glass, which is my bread plate.

What do I do next?

Because when you're uncomfortable, it shows.

And so what do we have to keep in mind just in our everyday lives?

Yes, in how we conduct ourselves, be it professionally, personally or just over a cup of coffee.

Right.

Well, I think the most important thing to keep in mind is you.

You must be authentic.

So we want we truly want people to engage with us and like us.

You know, we all want to be welcomed and we should want to welcome other people.

But we are so nervous and self-conscious that it's difficult unless you have some of these skills I'm talking about.

So I think in life it's important.

And I created this acronym, but it works with everything.

You aim high, which means a authentic eye, intentional and memorable.

So if you are authentic, if you are intentional with your with your mannerisms, your your work ethic, your character, and it doesn't mean we're perfect, it just means we do our best.

Thank you so much.

You have really enlightened us.

It's my pleasure, Jesse.

Thank you.

But we need to be comfortable being uncomfortable.

And what I mean by that is it's, you know, first of all, it's where we perform at our best, but it's also where we learn and continue to grow.

And the second that you feel like you're not challenged, you're not growing.

The winding road to success and fulfillment.

Aren't these women amazing and like they have done?

Remember to enjoy the ride.

Thank you for coming along with us and we'll see you next week.

To celebrate more Latina leaders, I'm Melanie Mendez Gonzalez.

Nice demos.