Today, I want to talk about something that often comes before success, and that's failure. Like, for instance, even kerl Gee, She's broke so many records, She's amazing. Sometimes we often forget what they had to go through in order to get to this point in their life. But I'd rather try something and fail at it and know that I tried, instead of living with what if I would have done it? Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Cheeky's and Chill.
Today's show is a special one because it's part of Iheart's International Women's Day initiative. We're calling it Women Take the Mic. And if you didn't know, this Friday marks International Women's Day, so be sure to show the incredible
woman in your life a little extra love this Friday. Okay, And speaking of incredible women, I'm not sure if you guys knew, but Shakida broke records last year and check ya by the way so much and now she has twenty one Guinness World Records, which makes her the Latina solo artists with most records, which is awesome, And of course I applaud her for her success, and I think it's a beautiful thing to admire someone for their accomplishments, for sure, But today I want to talk about something
that often comes before success, and that's failure. The thing here is that we can see, like, for instance, even Carol G she's broke so many records, she's amazing in the music industry, She's done so much, but we don't know, and sometimes we often forget what they had to go through in order to get to this point in their life. And of course I don't know a lot of their
personal life. But again, they have both been and they have both been very open about certain things that have happened in their life, and they've expressed it through music, which I think is awesome. As women, and I'm not just trying to be a feminist here, but as women,
we go through a lot. I was just telling my friend the other day, I was like, girl, it is so hard to be a woman, especially a woman talking now personally woman in the industry that I'm in, where it's you know, mostly male dominated, which I mean, they're doing their thing, but I do feel that we're criticized for either the way that we look, if we're not
thin enough, if we're not wearing the right thing. And a guy can be super big, and they don't say anything like he's still successful, that he's still doing his thing. And for women it's harder. And I'm not trying to sit here and cry because it's not about that. I'm just saying that even though we have it tough, we still find a way to keep our head held high and say we have no other choice, mamoserlo. We are going to be successful one way or another. I mean,
now that we're talking about music. For me, you know, it took me a long time to get the respect that I feel like now I have in the music industry. I now have two Latin Grammys. But even when I won the first one, I mean, so many things were said and it sucks because maybe they didn't take the time to listen to my album and how good it was and how well it was produced. And that's what the Academy, the Latin Grammys or the Grammys, that's what they look at is the production is how much you invest.
And I'm not talking about money. I'm talking about in every way. There's ways to tell and that's what they're looking for, and just the things that were said is just crazy. But then I won the second one and still they were kind of like, okay, certain comments, But now I'm starting to get the respect. But it took a long time, you guys. And of course I've gotten a lot of comparison and stuff like that for a
long time. I think that was my biggest mistake, is listening to those people that were saying, Oh, you're not like your mom, Oh you're not like your uncle, blah blah blah. And and that was my biggest mistake. When I finally just said, let me just block these voices and just focus on myself and better myself and better my craft, things changed. But let me remind you guys about Patama Blanca. That's my very first song. And I always say my career started ass backwards because it was a song that
wasn't ready to be launched. I wasn't ready to be launched as an artist. But I'm not upset at anyone or at that situation anymore because it taught me to be a better artist. I heard what I didn't want to hear, and I learned what I wanted to hear in my music and how involved I wanted to be that Now it's like I don't I'm like, okay, everything
happened the way it was supposed to happen. If I sat there and just felt sorry for myself after hearing everything people were saying, I would have never made it to this point. I would have never gotten my Latin grammy, my second one. I'm going for my third. Y'all, pray for me, Pray for us. I was like, no, I know that I meant to do this. I know that God put me here for a reason. I know that I want to do this. I've heard it in my dreams for so long, and I know this is it.
But imagine you guys, if I would have just stopped, you know what I mean. Or for instance, when my first live performance, and I'm not talking about lip syncing, because you know I did a lot of that in the beginning of my career, but when I first went on stage at an award show and I sang live, which is so scary, and my management was like, don't do it, don't do it because you know anything can go wrong. And I was like, I want to do it. I'm ready, I have to do it. And it wasn't
the best, but it taught me. Once I heard it, and once I saw myself, I said Okay, I still want to do it. I'm not going to shrink back and say, Okay, let's go back to lip syncing. No, because that's the easy way out, and we don't want the easy way out. The way we grow is by putting ourselves in circumstances that are going to make us uncomfortable. And that's what I did. And now I'm like, I
don't want to do anything other than sing live. And I'm talking about award shows because that's where it's a little tricky. You don't have a lot of control. And when I heard that first performance, I was like, damn. I was like, I should have listened to them, and I should have. But also it taught me. I'm like, Okay, then I need to go back to vocal lessons and I need to do these things. And it wasn't as horrible as it could have been, but it wasn't as good as I know I could do it, you know,
as good as I know it could be. All those things like have not stopped me. And basically, what it is that I want to tell you guys, more than anything, like don't let what other people say, what other people tell you should do. It's what you're meant to do, like focus on what you're meant to do in this world. And I think that's what's gotten me to this point in my life. Then now I look back and I'm like, damn, I'm proud of myself. I've made it this far despite
the adversities, despite all the people that talk shit. I was like, well, whatever, I know who I am, I know what I want to do, and I use that criticism as a way to grow and better myself and I haven't stopped. What I'm trying to get at is that it's not always peaches and cream. It's not always glitz and glam and the pretty. Like there's a lot that goes into what it is that I do. And I think a lot of women can relate to this and take away let's take away the music, let's put
that on the back burner for now. I started off with my and I've talked about this again before on the podcast where I mentioned my first business, my first love, which was Blow Me Dry, and why I opened it and how I opened it, and it was through Chige's and Roxy and then I Love Jenny and then I had my spinoff. She is in control and I saved my money, and I was like, I want to build something for myself. I had built so much for my mom and I don't regret it. But I was like, Okay,
it's time to build something for myself. And which is why I always loved anything beauty. The beauty industry has always caught my eye. And I said, okay, I was so in love with the blow dry bars and all that stuff. So I said, I want to like start my own business. And let me tell you, guys, I invested so much money. Now that I know about business, I'm like, okay, this is where I went wrong. First of all, I shouldn't have spent so much on building.
I wanted the best floor and the best chairs, and I investaged so much money that I didn't think about, Okay, what if it doesn't do well the first three months and I have to put money out of my pocket. And let me tell you, I had it for four years and I never made a penny off of it. It was always my numbers were always red and it was my pride that kept it open. Because at first I wanted to tell my mom, look, I can do it. She was very proud. I'll never forget the words that
she told me. But then my mom passed away and I felt like, well, now what am I like? I just felt like, oh, I have to keep it open because she was proud of me. And I just left it and kept it open for the wrong reasons. And I was afraid of failing. I was afraid of people saying I told you so, because they told me, don't do it in that city and Nsino because there aren't enough Latinos. And what I wanted was to build something
on my own. I wanted to just show the world that yes, I had a famous mother, and I could have done it in a Latin where there was a lot of Latinos, but I wanted to do it where maybe they didn't know who Shiki's was or Jenny Rivera were. That's what I wanted to do, so I just kept it open. Finally I closed it, and I learned so much from that experience, you guys, because of course I cried.
It wasn't easy to close the doors, but I had to stop the bleeding and say okay, janoo, and it was very difficult, and I think it like hurt my ego, but I learned the importance of failure, which is the whole reason after I said all of that, the whole reason I wanted to talk about this was because so many people, and I was one of them, were afraid
to fail, and now I embrace it. Of course, I want everything that I do to be successful, but now I think what failure is is not doing something out of fear, not doing it because you're afraid of what people are going to say, or because you're it's not going to be as successful as you had anticipated. But I'd rather try something and fail at it and know that I tried, instead of living with what if I
would have done it. And again, this is stuff that I talk about all the time, but now that we're celebrating women and I'm sitting back and watching all these women breaking records, selling out these stadiums, it inspires me and it empowers me. And that's why I kind of want to talk about that to all the women that are listening to me that want to start their own businesses, that want to I don't know, sing that want to
be influencers, like you just have to try it. You have to just take that risk and try it and not be afraid or stop yourself from doing it. Because you're afraid of failing. There is so much to learn from failing from saying you know what, I'm going to pick myself up. I'm gonna learn my lesson because now you better believe, if I were to open up another blow dry bar, it'd be very, very different. I learned from it, and I know that it was going to take a lot of my time and time that I
didn't have. But now I know if I want to open up a business, I have to be very present. And I learned everything I had to learn from that. And now with my businesses. You know, I have my music, I have shapewear, I have nutrition, I have my skincare, so many things in the works. Also understanding that you can't do it all on your own. You need to have a team. You need to learn to delegate. You need to be able to say, hey, I can't handle this all by myself. Let me get myself some help.
Let me be okay with giving a percentage of my business to someone that you trust, because again that's another thing, partnering up with just anybody who isn't good. You have to make sure who you're going into business with. But being okay with that because that's what I learned. I'm like, you know, I can't handle it all myself, even if
I wanted to. But going back to this whole thing with not being afraid of failing, I think that's when you learn the most, that's when you grow the most, and not letting that change your ambition of wanting to still be successful. If one business didn't work, if this thing didn't work for you, you got to keep going. You got to learn from it and learn what you're supposed to learn for the next season of your life.
That's what I see when I see Shakira and I see Caro, and I see all these women that are just doing their thing, and even in acting. I was watching Grisela, you guys, I was watching Grisela on Netflix. I don't know if you guys have watched it six episodes, and mind you, there's a lot of things that I was like, Oh, I don't know if I would have done that. But the gist of it is she would
not take no for an answer. It's like she wanted something and she's like, I'm going to do what I gotta do, which, again, there are a lot of things that I was like, I don't know if I would have done that, that's kind of harsh, but it was no man can get in her way. I mean, this has been happening for so long. I was watching Viking. It happened in Viking, like, oh, how is a woman gonna I don't know if you guys know what Vikings is. It's kind of like Game of Thrones. It's like this
whole thing. Anyways, I'm so stuck on it right now. Even then in the eighteen hundreds, it was how is a woman? How is she gonna rule? How can she be the queen? Like? And it's just so many things like that that it's like, wait a second, we can do it. F what anyone says. And if if any man ever says, you guys that we couldn't we shouldn't do I'm sorry. But if we can make a baby in our body and hold the baby for nine months and push it out of her hour of vagina, I
think we could do a whole lot of shit. Ask me if a man can do that. I think there are wonderful men that celebrate women, but there are a handful. And I'm telling you because I'm in an industry where it's kind of like, no you shouldn't do this, You shouldn't do that, You shouldn't sing this type of music. Oh, women shouldn't sing corridos. I'm sorry, Like why not? Why
can't we sing corridos umbos. There's this girl and I forgot her name right now, but she was on TikTok and she was singing Corrido belico and in the comments, men even some women were talking crap to her, and I'm like, wait, why why can't she sing on carrillo bellico? Why because she's a woman. And that's what it was. It was because she was a woman that she didn't let that stop. She came out with another one on TikTok and I said, girl, yes, yes, let's celebrate that.
And it's just not caring and not letting statistics stop us from doing what we're meant to do. And for those of you listening, and again it is we're all talking about women here, but I'm sure there are some men that are listening. So this is for anyone. If someone has told you no, you can't, you shouldn't do it, if someone has closed a door on your face, and I've had that plenty of times, even from people that
I absolutely love. Maybe and I don't love them the same anymore, but that I love and that they're my blood. Have told me that I couldn't. You know what. It's not like my pride. It's never been that. And I want to tell you guys this because I think when we do things with the wrong intentions, things don't turn out the right way. So for me, it hasn't been like, let me show you what I can do. I'm going to prove it to you. It's been a feeling within me that it's like, even when I've wanted to stop,
it's like, Okay, no, I'm meant to do this. This is what I am meant to do, and I want to prove it to myself more than anyone else. I don't want to look back at life and say, damn, I stopped it because they said I couldn't or I shouldn't, or that I'm not capable, I'm not good enough. You know. I've heard that, like someone that I like is my family that's supposed to support you, said you're never going to be your mom, and it hurt me because I'm like, okay, damn,
I want to be as successful as my mom. But then I'm like, wait, I'm meant to do what I'm meant to do even if I'm not gonna fill up a stable center. Who's to say I can't, first of all, But what if I'm meant to do other things? Like what if even through my podcast, I'm meant to touch people's hearts, Like I'm not gonna stop because this person said I'm never going to be my mom. I don't want to be my mom. I want to be myself. That's the biggest thing is wanting and embracing yourself and
what you're meant to do, and not compare yourself. I always say this because it's so important. It's something that I learned the hard way. Is comparing ourselves to anyone. Anyone else's progress or their success or whatever the case may be, is the word thing that we can do for our self confidence and for our growth. So that's for everyone out there. Don't worry those nose and those closed doors is God's protection. And I always say this too,
but rejection is God's protection, you guys. And if that is something is not happening for you, it's because it's not meant to happen for you. And don't force your foot in a shoe that doesn't fit you, like, you can try it and if you keep trying. Okay, I'm not saying not to try, not to try, but I'm just saying, like, you also have to get to a point where you're like, wait a second, is this causing me more pain? Or is this going to be something that's going to be good for me? Not only for
me but for others. You always have to have some type of reason and a good reason behind it. And that's what's helped me as well. With my music and the times that I've wanted to give up and where I'm like I'm tired or it's just too much, I'm like, you know what, No, I'm touching people's hearts. My mission in this world is so much bigger than even streams.
You know, Yes, I wish I had more streams on Spotify and Apple Music and all this stuff, like with my music, but I'm like, wait, the people that listen to my music. I need to focus, even if it's whatever the number may be. Like, I can't compare myself. I don't want to compare myself to people that are streaming millions and millions, and I say I'm like, what the heck they just started and they're streaming all this.
Like if I continue to do that, imagine like I'm never gonna focus on trying to like bring out a better album that's gonna come out this year and it's gonna be amazing. So it's like it's not comparing our progress to anyone else's. So trust me. Now, I did have a lot of doors shut in my face, a lot of people that didn't believe in me, And now I see it and people send me messages all the time, which because I didn't believe in you, I didn't like
your music before, like blah blah blah. I was one of the people that taught crap about you on the internet. And now they're like I love you and thank you, Wow you, I admire you, You inspire me and all that. Just I'm like, okay, good, I'm glad I didn't give up. I'm glad I didn't throw the towel all those times that I wanted to, because this is what my mission is. God wanted, this is part of what I'm supposed to do.
This is part of my testimony. So hopefully that really does seep into your heart and help you in some way that could be anything. It is have to be music. It doesn't have to be what I'm doing. It could
be anything. And in those moments when I have felt down, or even now, when I felt like just disappointed and let down by people, or even let down by the industry or whatever the case may be, for a long time, I went to food, you guys, I was like, I'm gonna have a fat ass pizza and some ice cream and I don't care, and I'm just gonna lay in bed and I would just sit there and cry. And I did that a lot. Twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, sixteen,
it was a lot of that. And that's when I think I gained my most weight because I've always had an issue with food, you know, until I started learning to just say, Okay, wait a second, I'm gonna use I'm gonna still eat, but I'm gonna have some grapes better, you know, try not to have the whole tub of ice cream. Because I love food, you guys, I love food, But now more than anything, I don't know what happened.
It happened last year where I just I'm like, you know, I know who I am I know that I meant to do this. This is part of it, and I have to understand that not everyone's gonna love me and accept me. And once I did that, it just gave me this confidence to say, well, I'm gonna have sad days because I still have them. And I still have days not as often, but I still have days where I'm just like, F this, F the world, F the industry. I'm just gonna go and live on a mountain. You know.
I've thought about that. But when I'm feeling that, I just sit there and I'm like, Okay, I'm feeling this. This is part of it. This is supposed to teach me something. What is this meant to teach me? And I pray and I'll have yogurt instead of ice cream, you know, cause I'm like, I gotta like I feel better when I take care of myself and my body. That's not to say that I don't have my chips and stuff like, because I love chips, you know, but
I'm just saying, like, I make better choices. And I'm like, Okay, I'm just gonna pray. I'm gonna get all my knees and when I get on my knees. There's something powerful about getting on your knees. When you pray. You can pray literally sitting on the toilet doesn't matter. God is gonna listen to you anywhere and everywhere. I believe that you can go to church or not go to church or whatever. But when I get on my knees, it's
like I'm surrendering to God. And I'm like bowing myself to God, to the higher power, to the universe, and I'm just like, I surrender to you. I'm here and I don't know what to do, and sometimes I just say, help me, help me, I just need to feel better. Just help me. Sometimes there are and enough words. But once I just get on my knees, I'm just like, oh,
I surrender and it just helps me. And I feel like since I've been doing that, I have less bad days because for the rest of our life, you guys, we have to understand that part of living is having those bad days. It's an emotional rollercoaster, this thing called life. But it's still a beautiful life. It's all how you perceive it. It's all how your outlook on life. And if you want to have less of those, you just have to feel like surrender, surrender to your higher power,
surrender to who you are meant to be. And I say who you are meant to be, because it takes a while to get there, you know, to understand that. But that's what's helped me, you guys big time where I'm just like, ugh, well, it's part of life. It's okay, Tomorrow will be different. I'm gonna shake it off. I'm gonna feel my feelings, but I'm not gonna let it consume me for the rest of my life. And I'm not gonna let this bad moment turn into a bad day.
Well you guys, thank you for listening. I love these episodes where I get to talk to you and not even like I have no script. I don't sometime know what I'm gonna say. I just let the spirit speak through me. I don't know, but thank you, and I hope that this episode is helping or going to help you in any way possible. Thank you for listening. I
love you guys so much. And I mentioned this at the start of the show, but the team here at Cheekys and Chill is celebrating International Women's Day this week and for more programming honoring the incredible women at the network and worldwide. Head over to iHeart Podcasts International Women's feed by searching women take the mic on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you need
advice on love, relationships, health emails? I'm so excited to share with you that my Cheekys and Chill podcast will have an extra episode drop each week. I'll be answering all your questions. Just leave me a voice message, Menday. All you have to do is go to speak pipe dot com, slash Cheekys and Chill podcast and record your question. I can't wait to hear from you. This is a
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