Today in Delightful Wonderful Things, we have a very special guest interview with Paula Otero at www.mujerescaminoalexito.com, a website and blogazine that’s the “crossroad for ideas, inspiration and peer learning on our road to success.”

I met Paula through a mutual friend from college, and I love how her website and podcast series specifically targets Latinas in business. We all have ways to support each other’s work, and I’m looking forward to finding ways to support Paula’s work in building up a list of stories to inspire, educate, and empower me and other entrepreneurs.

Tell us a little bit about Mujeres camino al éxito. What sets you apart or makes the website unique?
Mujeres is that place where you go to feel inspired by someone’s story. Women are amazing in that we overcome challenges, play multiple roles in our lives and make amazing things happen but we don’t really talk about it. When we share our experiences we become a mentor to someone and that is an area lacking among Latinas. We have some great media outlets like Latina Magazine and Latina Style but what is missing is a forum where women who are on their journey to success can be showcased and share their experiences from the point of view of someone who is learning, growing or reinventing herself.

Mujeres is all about that journey, the journey to success and every woman defines her own success, whether it is to start your own business, find a life partner, get promoted, attend college or even have a baby.

What motivates you in your work?
Knowing that what I do can make a difference in someone’s life and also in my life because I am as inspired by my guests as hopefully my readers are.

A Successful Woman is devoted to women’s success, especially in the face of obstacles. Tell our readers about one of your biggest challenges, and how you overcame it.

There are many ways to feel successful, every small step, every accomplishment gives you joy and confidence and you build your character from there.

I’ve faced many challenges, the biggest was when I arrived to this country in 1985 from Mexico. The transition was painful for many reasons: you miss your country, you don’t feel like you belong here. The toughest part was finding my new identity. Who was I if I was not Paula Otero the teenager in Acapulco who loved school, the beach and her friends, whose identity was cemented in being from a family everyone knew? Here I was nobody, knew nobody. I knew I wanted more from this new life, I saw the many opportunities available to me in the US. Today, I’m grateful for having gone through that because it gives me a very unique perspective on life. I don’t measure success with money or credentials– I measure it with the life experiences we’ve had. Those are what make us truly rich.

Share with us a story of your personal or professional success:
There’s many personal goals I’ve met in my life but I can honestly tell you that launching Mujeres is my greatest accomplishment. I broke out of my comfort zone to do this, I followed my heart and tapped into the love I’ve always had for writing, for doing community work and for just getting out there and doing something that mattered without having to get approval from five layers of management or having office politics take a bite out of a spirited idea. There is such freedom in doing this but also a great sense of responsibility. I am accountable to my readers and to the people that collaborate with my site. There is a trust factor there.

What’s your advice for women in business?
Surround yourself with people you trust and trust your gut instinct.

Learn more about Mujeres camino al éxito:
Mujeres camino al éxito
www.mujerescaminoalexito.com
E-mail: mujerescaminoalexito (at) g m a i l (dot) c o m

Thanks to Paula for sharing the story behind the scenes of Mujeres. The site has a great assortment of audio from real women in business, as well as articles on work, living, money and finances, health, arts and culture, and book reviews and other “cosas.”

Paula also shared a little more about how she’s making her own success as she moves forward: read on for a story of how she started her podcast series, even in the face of technical challenges!

Getting to the “showing up” part

- by Paula Otero

In January of this year I launched the Mujeres camino al éxito website www.mujerescaminoalexito.com in its new format (blogazine) which allows me to make updates without relying on my web developer. By March I decided to conduct my first interview using the pod cast technology a fellow blogger turned me on to.

I decided my scheduled interview with talk show host Malin Falu, from HITN-TV would be the perfect to package in this new medium. Malin has a wonderful on-air personality; I’d been a guest on her show Dialogo de a Costa twice already and knew a live format would best capture her thoughtfulness and intelligence.  I outlined the questions I’d be asking and sent them a day before the interview along with the details to call into the pod cast. All was going as planed: I had a fantastic guest lined up, perfect vehicle, a great topic to discuss. Oh, but it all fell apart very, very quickly on the day and time of the interview.

The thing is, I was not yet well versed on the how-to’s and overlooked one minor detail. We both had to dial in at exactly the same time. Instead, I treated this like a normal conference call where the host dials in minutes or seconds before the call. When Malin dialed in she was blocked from entering my “session”. We tried it over and over again using cell phones to cue each other but I always called in at least 15 seconds before her. After 30 minutes of this I was embarrassed but grateful that she never lost her cool or her willingness to work with me on this one.

As a last resort I asked Malin if she’d record the episode on her own and just answer the questions I’d sent her with a conversational tone, as if I’d just asked the question. I figured my audio guy, Don, could piece the segment together later. A true professional, Malin agreed! I later recorded the intro and closing.

I learned that day what many entrepreneurs already know, when running your own show and things don’t go as planned, you’re on your own. It is here that being resourceful; winging it, tap dancing or whatever you want to call is a must in order to land on your feet. The famous Woody Allen quote “Eighty percent of success is just showing up” tells me the other 20 is all about jumping those hurdles that make it possible to “show up” even if you lose a shoe and scrape your knee in the last lap.

I’ve now mastered pod casting and have interviewed five more women without a glitch. So, perhaps I am now ready to upload video to Youtube and set up my profile on Linkedin. I hope these first experiences will have a better outcome, but just in case, I’ll plan test-run time into the schedule.

For today’s Delightful Wonderful Things, I wanted to call your attention to the lovely Divapreneur^TM community, a project of Divapreneur, LLC and founder Elaine Biss. The community is focused on women entrepreneurs and includes articles, postings, and advice. It’s now online at www.Divapreneur.org.

We had the opportunity to chat a little bit with Biss about the launch of Divapreneur. She’s an amazing, inspiring woman who’s building a community dedicated to those of us who are in business for ourselves!

Tell us a little bit about the Divapreneur community. What makes this community unique?

Divapreneur is a free online community dedicated to empowering female entrepreneurs by providing them the support, resources and networking tools they need to succeed in business. While we put no age limit or “type-of-business” restrictions on our invitation-only memberships, our primary demographic is 24 to 55+, and our members businesses range from home-based and small business all the way up to multi-million dollar corporations. From mothers, designers and manufactures to actresses, e-commerce gurus and CEOs, each of these women have the drive and mentality required to achieve their dreams.

What motivated you to start this community?

After seeing the WAHM (Work-at-Home-Moms) boom and subsequent related websites and networks that surfaced thereafter, I felt the need to target women who were not defined by life events or just work-at-home professionals. I also felt that age, ethnicity and education should not play a part in the ability to become a member of Divapreneur, thus creating a very diverse network of female entrepreneurs.

A Successful Woman is devoted to women’s success, especially in the face of obstacles. Tell our readers about one of your biggest challenges, and how you overcame it.

Like so many women who start businesses, in my first few months I became very overwhelmed. Household chores were piling up, the kids were always interrupting with something they needed or wanted, and my husband would come home from work wondering what I was doing all day sitting at the computer.

Having to stop in the middle of my work day to do laundry or dust the coffee table was not what I had envisioned as part of my career. So, after the money started coming in, I hired household help and my husband stopped wondering how I spent my days. I also moved my office away from the main area of the house to ensure I don’t get interrupted during my work day.

Share with us a story of your personal or professional success:

As far back as I can remember, I have always had my own business. After I became a single parent in 1999, I had to rejoin the work force to support my family and chose to go back to college to become a nurse. That decision weighed heavily on me, because I love art and already had a certificate in Commercial Art.

After remarrying, with the support of my husband and family, I changed my mind and decided stay in the art field. Also, as a web-designer and graphic artist, I found that breaking through the barriers were hard, as there are many established female web designers. I also found that very few of them create partnerships or work together. I currently network with about 5 web designers directly, and Divapreneur has over a dozen.

What’s your advice for women in business?
Go out and try several careers and professions on, find your niche. Always do what you love, but above all, do it for yourself.

Learn more about Divapreneur:
Divapreneur^TM
http://www.divapreneur.org
Phone: 888. 441. DIVA (3482)
E-mail: hipelaine-diva (at) y a h o o (dot) c o m

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Thanks to Elaine for letting us know about Divapreneur. I am always interested in the stories of other women in business, especially where people are able to come together, connect, and support one another. I visited the Divapreneur site and really liked the layout and the variety of women who are currently in the community (it’s growing fast!). You may preview existing entries through the community, but you must sign up and be accepted as a member to access all the features of the site.

Learn more about Elaine:
International designer and founder of Divapreneur, the online community that empowers women entrepreneurs, Elaine Biss has built a long-standing creative design career by following her intuition and playing the game her own terms. Known best for her feminine graphic designs, websites and brand identities, Elaine has been using her artistic ability to create vintage and French inspired designs since she graduated from school with a certificate in commercial art. Her capacity to modify artistic perspectives and work in various mediums, as she has also worked in jewelry, fabric prints, stationary and created stylized fonts, has kept her in high demand with an array of clients from varying industries.

Highly influenced by the style and sophistication of her mother’s fashion designs, Elaine was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, but moved to the states at the age of 12 to further her artistic education. After high school, Elaine was hired by a successful commercial design company, however, along with the recession of the 90’s, Elaine’s career crashed hard when the company went bankrupt. Just 23 years old and the single mother of four young boys, Elaine faced the possibility that her artwork would not financially sustain her family, so she began taking nursing classes through Penn State College Annex.

With the strategic placement of her artwork in various art galleries and markets, by her then agent, that career path was cut short, as Elaine was provided with the much needed visibility to win commercial graphic design contracts in Paris, London and China. Following her passion, and business savvy, Elaine saw the need to create corporate identities that featured a softer, more artistic side, so she worked on creating illustrations, namely fashion, artistic scenes, characters and accessories. As her business grew, clients esteemed her unique designs, as her work as led them to be featured in People Magazine and the StyleBakery.com, as well as garnering them invitations to participate in the Grammy gift baskets.

After experiencing a certain level of success, and becoming happily remarried, Elaine wanted to be a ‘work-at-home’ mom, but she also wanted her work to mean something more. It was then that she began to take note of the phenomena that the female entrepreneur’s success was on the rise. She also became aware that there was no place on the Internet for the less competitive or smaller woman business owner to connect and network in a supportive atmosphere with other women entrepreneurs. From this, the brainchild for the Divapreneur online community was formed.

With a desire to empower other women towards achieving their professional goals, and still pursue her own artistic passions, Elaine founded the Divapreneur online community. Throughout the Divapreneur website, and her design blog, Girly up the Web, you will find her girly illustrations, business advice and informational discussions meant to inspire and engage other women business owners to “go-big”, “reach for the stars” and pursue their passions.

To learn more about Elaine Biss and view her portfolio, please visit her website at www.elainebiss.com.

Happy February 29!

If you’re interested in technology, entertainment, or design and the intersection of the three, the TED conferences are for you. For all who don’t have a chance to go to these events in person, every speaker has been recorded, so you may see their TED Talks, which are 5 to 20 minute presentations by scientists, authors, visionaries, entrepreneurs, and entertainers from hundreds of disciplines.

You’ll see J.J. Abrams, the founder of LOST and other commercial television shows, planetary scientist Carolyn Porco on the Saturn mission, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a director of the World Bank and Nigeria’s first woman Finance Minister.

You’ll hear talks on ants and bees, DNA and double helixes, the science of love, and business and web innovations, and the next best things…. Take a look at their site to get a sense of the different themes covered: http://www.ted.com/index.php/themes, categorized by technology, entertainment, design, business, science, culture, arts, and global issues.

You may also search to see if one of your favorite role models has given a talk.

I’ve enjoyed going to their site on Wednesdays, when they update, to see some new videos. You may also receive an e-mail reminder of new video postings and announcements about the actual conferences.

Happy TED’ing!