Spark Stories Episode 17

Intro: [00:00:02] Welcome to Spark Stories, where entrepreneurs and experts share their brand story and how they found their spark. The spark that started it all.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:00:13] Welcome to Spark Stories Live Business Radio brought to you by the Atlanta Business Radio Network. Every week, entrepreneurs and experts share the stories behind the brand who they are, what they do, and why their brands matter. I’m your host, Clarissa Sparks. In our own series, we dive into the everyday operations of inspiring small business owners in our community. You can listen live on Saturdays at 10 a.m. or the rebroadcast at WW dot Business RadioX dot com. Today we’re going to talk about women entrepreneurs, how you can connect your gift with others so that it can have a deeper impact on the world. Please allow me to introduce one of our amazing community leaders who owns it? Virginia Nava. She’s a strategic advisor. She helps purpose driven visionaries, changemakers and trailblazers bring their vision to life through the power of strategy, communications and marketing. She has been advising purpose driven organizations and teams in different capacities for over 25 years, including nonprofit leaders, startup leaders and female leaders and entrepreneurs. She believes that your business needs to serve. It should be a tool you can use to impact the world, not something that drains or energy and eats up all of your time. Please help me welcome Virginia. Virginia, how are you today?

Virginia Nava: [00:01:48] I am really excited to be here. I’m really grateful. Thank you.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:01:52] Thank you. You’ve taken the step to launch your company, which is transformative power, and you’re brave in the world of entrepreneurship. I just have three questions for you today.

Virginia Nava: [00:02:06] Excellent.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:02:07] Would you please tell our listeners who you are, what you do, and why does it matter? So just give us a brief introduction, introduction of yourself, and we’ll give us all of the knowledge that we need for this call.

Virginia Nava: [00:02:23] Yes, of course. Yeah. So. So my name is Virginia Nava, and I’m originally from Mexico, and I’ve been living here in Atlanta for many, many years now. And what I do is helping people to really recognize their own inner greatness and to connect that inner greatness and gifts into the specific mission that they have and vision that they have for their life. One of the things that I believe is really important is to be a revolutionary in business. I believe that for many years we have been given a lot of formulas around business and how to have a career and how to approach even entrepreneurship. And to me, I think one of the major parts of transformation in my life was when I became an entrepreneur and I and I was like, Wow, I can do anything I want. I can wake up at whatever time I want. And, you know, I can basically design my life and it just spark in me a a new perspective about what I can do within my business. And it really spark a new perspective of how I can serve others with my marketing abilities, my ability to see people gifts and connect them into a specific business model that will work to share their vision with the world.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:03:56] That’s great, Virginia. And I think it’s so important to be able to tap into your gifts now for early stage entrepreneurs when they’re starting up, sometimes they can lack the clarity and even the confidence and knowing what their purpose in. How do you help someone to identify their purpose?

Virginia Nava: [00:04:20] Yeah. So how I do it is I help. I help people in many ways. One of the ways in which I help them is asking them questions and helping them realize that the answers that they find inside of themselves. Our what matters. I think a lot of the times we believe that what matters is something outside of ourselves and some form of outside of ourselves. And we believe that that’s the key of success. And I think as an entrepreneur, I think there are so many aspects of to entrepreneurship. There is a person who they are, there is the lifestyle they want, and then there are the circumstances that they’re facing. And I think a lot of the times people give. Advice without considering the three elements, right? So it’s really important to ask those three elements. So when you ask the question around purpose and how, how can somebody discover that for themselves? How I do it is I ask questions about their story, like, what is the life story and what are the lessons they’ve learned? Because along side of the story, a lot of times there’s some pain or there’s something that they want to change in the world, or there’s a desire to continue doing something that was great in their life.

Virginia Nava: [00:05:45] And from there I think it comes the heart desire to do something. So I think part of purpose is that is that heart centered desire, then that is the other aspect, which is your gifts. What are your own innate talents? Like who? Who are you? Essentially, I think there’s a lot of work that has been done around like a schooling, you know, like a skill set. There’s a lot of work on that. There’s there’s a lot of also research around like how you can find your personality traits and all that. However, one of the things that people miss the most is their innate abilities. Like some people may be like a natural caregiver, like some person may be like a natural leader, like some person, maybe a natural artist. Another person may be a natural, like, critical thinker and visionary. And if you are that person, but then you grow up in an environment that wasn’t conducive to that in many ways. For some people, their own natural abilities feel uncomfortable, which is really strange. Or sometimes it feels like, Oh, I haven’t used that, I don’t know how to use it.

Virginia Nava: [00:06:57] So why do people don’t know how to use it is because they were not they were not nurtured like like as children or in the workplace. Those abilities were not nurtured. So people need to go back to reclaim parts of themselves, of who they are. And they also need to go back and put themselves kind of in a mirror and not this mirror that is the inner critic mirror. And I think that’s the reason why a lot of people don’t go there, because they they go into this mirror that is a really critical mirror about all the things they don’t do and all the things that haven’t done. And we need to go see ourselves in this mirror. That is, if you cannot see yourself in the mirror of beauty and amazing ness about who you are, at least see yourself in a mirror that is neutral and it gives you an ability to see all of who you are. Because that’s the secret to success in entrepreneurship, and that’s the secret to resilience when entrepreneurship doesn’t work or when you know you don’t have the money from the founder to do it, that’s when you find that resourcefulness inside of yourself to succeed.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:08:12] Yeah. So, Vijay, it sounds like to me with entrepreneurship, you are you have to change the mindset.

Virginia Nava: [00:08:21] Yes.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:08:22] And having that entrepreneurial mindset will shift you into transformation.

Virginia Nava: [00:08:28] Yes. Yes, I love that.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:08:31] And oftentimes, like you said, go trying to minimize that negative or that inner critic so that you can transform and become either the new person or a refined person, if you will. And sometimes and I think earlier you touched on environmental and environmental when that plays a part of becoming. Sometimes you have to unlearn what you’ve been taught. You have to recondition the mindset so that you can embrace who you are becoming. Yeah, I think that’s a very important for our early stage and even our season entrepreneurs to really understand because again, this is a journey. And it doesn’t happen overnight and is evolutionary, so it’s always changing. So we talked a little bit about resilience, how if you are in a space where you don’t feel as resilient as you would like, what is something you can recommend or a strategy of some sort to help? The entrepreneur get out of that that state.

Virginia Nava: [00:09:48] Yeah. So, so I would like to totally answer the question around resilience and, and how important that is and. And I will also like to make some points around mindset and how to deal with the inner critic. So in terms of. Mai Mai in terms of resilience? In terms of resilience, I believe that resilience comes from perception. And I’m a I’m a marketer by trade and a brand.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:10:19] How do you see yourself? Right.

Virginia Nava: [00:10:21] So think about marketing and branding. Marketing and branding itself a perception, right? And that is like, okay, you buy this beautiful bag and then you feel like, you know, you buy this beautiful dress and you feel amazing, right? And then you have this perfume and like, you smell like roses, right? So there is in the world, there’s a creation of perception that is happening all the time. And it’s either sold to us like an advertisement all the time or it’s a perception that we made up of ourselves. So I believe that resilience I think people think resilience is that. It’s something you acquire. And I believe it’s true that you’re acquired through how you see the lessons and all that. But I believe also resilience is a perception and how is resilience of perception? So resilience is like if I perceive a circumstance. As really dramatic and really difficult. And then I and then I perceive myself as a person or a entrepreneur as a person. And they perceive themselves as really slow against the circumstance that the circumstance is going to win. Because because already perceptually, the circumstance is too big to handle. So there is this thing called perception and resilience, which is. Can you see yourself as capable of dealing with this circumstance and whether it’s capable to ask for help like sometimes? I know it’s really interesting, like capabilities, not always knowing what to do in terms of, you know, all the steps.

Virginia Nava: [00:12:16] Sometimes knowing what to do is saying, okay, I need to ask so-and-so for help or I need to go Google it literally, or I need to go to score again or places to go to. So, so resilience to me is, is when we take our power back from an experience, whether it’s we have experience and we can ask ourselves, what did I learn? Who did I become from this experience? And this is this inner conversation with ourselves of being aware of how we see ourselves in the mirror in response to the circumstance, and then being aware that the way we see ourselves is impacting our ability to act and then shift that perception and then invite other players into the experience. So most of the time, if we see ourselves as little as not employed, that’s not enough, that’s not perfect enough or the circumstance is too big and we can do it. And we are all in fear and self-doubt. Right? Which first of all, there’s nothing to be critical about because in many ways, a lot of entrepreneurs, I believe, are really courageous people because they took a step out of their 9 to 5 jobs, like some of them are like single moms with their children doing this, you know, like some of them have like amazing life circumstances and they’re doing this right.

Virginia Nava: [00:13:53] So first of all, acknowledge yourself or your courage to be an entrepreneur and try something new. And then second of all, say, you know what, it is normal to do something new and I don’t know how to do it, you know, and it’s normal to have those learning curves. And then now look at yourself instead of from the inner judge, inner critic, inner perfectionist perspective. And look at yourself from this loving perspective, this graceful perspective, and find yourself somebody who sees you like that and imagine how they will see you or find somebody like, you know, an inspirational elf or somebody you know. And imagine they look at you like that and then that will give you a new perception around your resilience. And to me, the first step to resilience is believing you are resilient and believing you can be resilient because it’s a really actually learn the skill, just like you learn math or Spanish or language.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:14:57] Yes, right. Yeah. You have to put it into practice. That’s good. That’s really good. And I think that’s one of. The many hats that we do have to wear as an entrepreneur, and that is a hat of resilience, being able to come back. Time and time again. And one of the things that I took away from for me just now is being able. Being confident. Being curious. Being creative enough to ask for help. We do not have to do it all. Being able to remove some of those hats is just as important as the many hats that we wear.

Virginia Nava: [00:15:43] Yes. And also, it is important to me, I believe what happened to me as an entrepreneur was know I was a corporate woman for 15 years before becoming an entrepreneur. And I have you know, I have a team of people and I have an agency that work with me. And I did amazing things. Right. And then when I became entrepreneur, I was like, wow, like I make all the decisions now, you know? And I feel like a lot of times. I think it is important to know that you can ask for help. It is important to also, you know, take out any belief around it that is not okay to ask for help. So whether you believe is like you are empower female and because you’re an empowered female, you do it all, you know. So it’s really interesting how even the feminine empowerment movement has made us almost like it’s scared of our own vulnerability and is scared to ask for help. So there is really no shame on asking for help and helping yourself or shaming that. And also, I think for me, when I was an entrepreneur, I think, you know, I have a successful career of 20 years. Before being an entrepreneur. And I think I want it to be like a successful entrepreneur, like the year they won, you know? And I assume I was like, Oh, because I have this successful, you know, corporate career. Like, I know what to do in entrepreneurship. So I’m like successful day one. I wasn’t really prepared to understand that entrepreneurship is like a total different game. And one day I was like, you know, I’m comparing my results from a 20 year successful career to a one month entrepreneurship. Like, two years, entrepreneurship is.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:17:34] Not the same.

Virginia Nava: [00:17:36] So allow yourself to say, Hey, I’m a beginner entrepreneur or I’m an amateur entrepreneur or I am a pro entrepreneur. And compare yourself with yourself and your stage. And don’t compare yourself with your previous self or some other people compare themselves with other people.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:17:55] I think sometimes too, we are in a society where we’re told we’re supposed to follow this new subscription of being on social media. And I think that with social media it’s hard not to compare because you’re looking at your success compared to such a global market. And so, again, being able to tune out the noise so that again, that you can focus on your own success and not the success of someone else’s, because it’s all measured differently. And I think that’s very important to. Identify at whatever stage that you’re in. Now, when you took the leap from corporate into entrepreneurship. What challenges did you face or that surprised you the most?

Virginia Nava: [00:18:52] Thank you. For me. There were many challenges. I think. I think what surprised me the most, I think first is realizing that that the whole entrepreneurship thing is an inner game. That was the thing that I was like, Wow, this is not an outer game. This is an inner game. It really surprised me how much of entrepreneurship really is a mindset and connecting with yourself and self-knowledge. And I didn’t know that. So I think for me, the challenges I had along the way were that I believe it wasn’t an inner game, it was an outer game. And then I was asking for the outer solution, right? So like if I was going to learn how to sell my product, then I would go to a sales training. Or if I was going to learn how to manage my books or my accounting, then I was going to go get to an accounting person. So during my entrepreneurship. I, I had challenges that were functional challenges, right? Like it was like the normal challenges an entrepreneur has like, you know, technical acumen about how to learn certain things or how to create a sales process, you know, things like that. But then what I realized along the way is that at some point in my career, I knew the processes.

Virginia Nava: [00:20:30] Like I went through the training, you know, I took the sales training, I took the technical training. I knew how to post a blog. Like I knew I knew how to build my website, you know, like. So basically I went to all this training on the how to do things, and then I had to ask myself, okay, I know the training of how to sell, you know, and it’s like nutrition, right? Like you’re not you should eat carrots, you know, whatever. And I like the things that you should do. And I knew all this thing. And then I was like, Well, if I know this things, then why am I not doing it right? Right. And that was when I was like, Oh, my God, nobody has told me, like, this is an inner game, you know, that that I feel uncomfortable promoting myself, that I feel comfortable doing the sales conversation and that it feels like a start to have and like to up front, you know. And I started really understanding that I have limiting beliefs around sales conversations that I believe I was a great closer and I believe I was a great restaurateur. But the middle I didn’t believe I was great at. Right. So what other things to me that I think in my journey was really, really surprising was.

Virginia Nava: [00:21:50] I. I felt there was a lot of skill that I needed to learn. But then when I learned them, then I went, Oh, I have to learn more of this, you know? And then I started really noticing this cycle of perfectionism that I had. And then really what has been really helpful to really overcome this challenges for me is that it’s this new mindset. So there’s this new mindset that everything can be learned. Like if you want to, you can learn it. So if you want to become a technical dude, you can learn it. If you want to become a master at your books, you can learn it. And then. There are things that you may not want to learn and then that you can then delegate. So what I learned was. In order to actually grow as a person during my entrepreneurship. I’m here to ask myself many more questions that I never asked myself at the beginning. Like, What do I really want? Like, what’s the lifestyle? Lifestyle I want? Like, you know how many hours I want to be with my son? Like, how much time I want to spend with my family? Like, do I want to learn that? Like, do I really want to do that?

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:23:10] Is that right? Stop learning and start implementing.

Virginia Nava: [00:23:14] Yes. And then and then I also ask myself, I guess what I found that is that the areas of my entrepreneurship that where working. Is because either a my perfectionist was like, well, we are not perfect yet, we need to be more perfect. Or There was a part of me that made them difficult that is always so difficult. And like and then what I learned as a to solutions for this is solutions for this one. Smarter mindset about something being difficult and then make it easy and ask yourself, what’s the first easiest step that I can do to learn this? Or What’s the easiest step that I can do to delegate this? Then the two Is that the interpreter? Shit, the game is another game. So perfection is really not helpful for entrepreneurship because entrepreneurship is about this constant learning. It’s this constant evolution. And then when we are trying to perfect something and we wait six months to perfect something and then launch the product six months later, we lost six months of feedback from our community to say, I like this title, I care about this subject, or, you know, I have no clue what you’re talking about. So we did the perfect thing and the perfect lunch, and then guess what? Like nobody showed up because we didn’t ask. And if we have asked in January, we’re not to launch something and then nobody cared or nobody asked questions. We could have pivot the question or the messaging. So one of the things to me that I learned was I have many challenges. I thought the solutions came from the outside and then I did it over and over again. And then, you know, that that says like whomever is doing the same thing over and over again, it’s like not the greatest idea, but I guess there’s a better way.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:25:15] We call that insanity, right?

Virginia Nava: [00:25:17] Exactly. So I was doing that and then I was like, it’s not working, so why isn’t that working? And it really made me realize that it was it was the way I was approaching and thinking about it. So mindset is such an important thing. And in your next question, I could I could give some tools around this if that’s helpful for your community.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:25:36] Yeah, I think, like I said, it’s I think it’s definitely important because a lot of my listeners have experienced that same thing. We take a course at the course. I like to call them course junkies and we go from webinar to workshops to trainings to different podcasts, and we’re looking for these answers, these solutions. But as you stated, the answers and the solution is is within us and we have to be able to identify that so that we can change those limiting beliefs to go and launch the course and not hide behind the shield of perfection. I think perfection can come with paralysis and hold us in a place that we aren’t moving as swiftly as we could or as we should. So I think that it is very important. Again, you know, what is being echoed in this conversation is the mindset we have to change the way that we see ourselves so that we can show up for our clients. And we talked. We started the conversation with purpose and time, that purpose to your gift. If you’re trying to learn other skill sets, you’re now being distracted from your true gift.

Virginia Nava: [00:26:56] Yes.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:26:57] So you have to be able to block out those distractions so that you can focus on that. I like to say that God given talent, that God idea, whatever that is serving you, I think that is very important that you stay in tune.

Virginia Nava: [00:27:15] Yes. And if I may, can I can I share a tool? Yes. So so one tool that that I have on with this is I’m actually writing a book about this is that. It is important that you see yourself essentially. And what I mean by this is I make a list of all your qualities, your introvert, your extroverted, your compassionate, your kind, your loving, your caring. You are creative, you’re a thinker. Your challenge. People make a list of all those things. And then ask yourself, how can I use this to get to where I want to go? And it’s just so magical when you really start using your own powers to go to where you want to go. And then the other one is. You know, be aware of perfectionism and the trap of it and be aware that you’re a perfectionist. You put a standard, that you put the bigger standard, and then you got the bigger standard, and then you don’t get to where you want to go. And instead of focusing on that standard, focus on the impact you want to make when you when you stop putting that, how do I look like, you know, is my hair perfect? Is my post perfect? Like, is my grandma perfect? Like, for somebody like me, you know, it’s.

Virginia Nava: [00:28:45] Stop focusing on that and then think about the opportunity that you’re giving yourself to express who you are and the opportunity you’re giving to another human to come in connection with you with that amazing gift you have, that amazing idea you have. You know, I remember seeing this post one time that said that something like like somebody has a vision board. And in that vision board, there is you and they’re waiting for you. They’re like, you know, they have you their vision board. And the only thing you have to do is show up and write down the post. And because somebody out there put you on the mission board like that happened to me recently, I put somebody in my vision board and the person showed up and it’s like, Oh my God, I was praying for you. I’m so glad you connected with me and share what you do. Because, you know, I think we believe that it’s the opposite. Like we believe there’s nobody out there for us. And what if we actually believe that in the vision board of somebody is the specific title of what they’re looking for? And we’re here, we’re like, Hey, we’re here, and we’re showing up and we’re just got to help somebody else with our gift.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:29:55] Yeah. Again, purpose, gift. Impact.

Virginia Nava: [00:30:01] Yes.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:30:03] And the to me, the key ingredients for all of those things is showing up. I think we miss the value in just showing up. And when you show up, unexpected things happen and that’s when you make a greater impact. It’s not about influence. It’s about impact and being able to reach who your destined to reach. And again, block out all those distractions. The comparison analysis and show up for who you were. Purpose to show up for.

Virginia Nava: [00:30:40] And also shut up gracefully, like shut up lovingly, shut up compassionately and like and be compassionate to yourself and your process and like and love yourself along the way of showing up so you don’t show up from a pushy energy and that is going to get you to be burned out. But I think when we shut up and we include ourselves in the process, you know, like right now I’m showing up and I’ll show you I have a candle next to me, right? Because I like, you know, I had to take care of myself as I’m here. Right? Because I don’t know you yet. Right. And I’m trying to get you comfortable with you as my community. Right. So one of the things I did is I light a candle for myself to feel like, you know, to feel kind of love, right? So can you do something little for yourself like that that gets you to know that you love yourself and you love your self now where you are, you know, so that you can shut up in a way that, you know, if you didn’t make it perfect or nobody liked it or whatever, you know that you can know that you love yourself, that you know that you’re there for yourself and that and the almost becomes, I think entrepreneurship can become this beautiful relationship of self-love and self expression and that, you know what, like you put your video out there, you put out there and you love yourself and then you say, nobody saw it.

Virginia Nava: [00:32:09] It’s not true. You saw it. Yeah. Because you are listening to yourself like this. I talk to my son. I’m like, dude, everything you tell yourself you’re listening. Yes. So everything you do, you know, like showing up to the one person that is you, that you. First of all, I think we need to show up to ourselves like we need to share our gift and say, this gift is important. I want to share it. The fact that you go with your photo on Instagram or like you call somebody in a circle or a networking group is an act of self love. And a lot of times we don’t think that that way. And and then we think that the love comes from the outer and somebody is going to love us by hiring us or whatever. And I believe that that’s just a byproduct of us loving ourselves and us honoring our gifts and like and it’s not selfish to honor your gifts because actually you are becoming a person of service when you do so.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:33:05] Yes, service. I love that. I think that is very, very important. Again, the service servant leadership. In entrepreneurship. I think that, like I said, that’s another staple that you have to have to make this. And I tell people all the time, you have to trust the process. And you have to give yourself grace. Yeah. And when you give yourself grace, you just show up again. Beautiful things happen. Beautiful things happen. And, you know, you said you’ve been in entrepreneurship for what, how many years now?

Virginia Nava: [00:33:42] It’s been over nine years.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:33:44] Over nine years. So I’ll put you in the the season category.

Virginia Nava: [00:33:52] I said that I think I’m an amateur. Like pretending to be seasoned.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:33:58] No, no, no, no. You survive over three years. So that means that you’re constantly growing and you’re giving you’re continuously giving yourself grace throughout the process. But do you do you read any books or podcasts or anything that kind of keeps you prepare for what’s next?

Virginia Nava: [00:34:20] Oh, my God. I love I love, you know, I love books especially and I love personal development programs. And, you know, I can share some tools. Like, I actually took the E Connell class on how to manage the psychology of time.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:34:39] Oh, interesting.

Virginia Nava: [00:34:40] It was like, oh, my God, it was an incredible class because it was so practical and it really shared like. Like how time is actually like like a practice, you know, like, like a yoga practice. Like how you just her time and that was like to me it was so transformational to me to see that program. Also, I was in that class with the woman and. The associated time with resources and money in a way that I’ve never associated it. And I was like, Oh, how I use my time, you know, has a relationship with my abundance and I and then I take this book. So let me tell you books that I love. So a book I love is the Grade by Dr. Magdalena meier. I actually know her in person because I met her at a woman event in New York. She’s a neuroscientist, and she basically teaches you how to do the whole work life balance thing. And then she has this thing called the grid and then you have all the sections and then you’re able to. To see all the areas of life and then how you’re putting them. Because I think for me, before I was successful, like I have a 15 year or whatever, 20 year career, but then I work 80 hours a week. So yes, I was successful in my career. But then if you see other things, like I was really lucky that I have really loving friends and a loving husband and they’re really low maintenance, you know.

Virginia Nava: [00:36:10] So I was lucky that I was able to have good relationships at the same time. I had 80 hours a week work. However, now I have a different perspective on my count and nurture them and make time for them and myself. And then there is another book that I think it would be really helpful for your community, and I recommend it to the people I coach and teach all the time. And it’s called The Art of Money by Barry Tessler, because for me as an entrepreneur, I had no clue how to do personal finance thing. Like I went to school and I knew corporate finance and I knew like how you do like a balance sheet and all that. But I didn’t know. And in many ways I think when you are bootstrapping your business, it is not just about professional finance, but it’s how you manage your personal finance to bootstrap your business. And Barry Tessler talks about the elephant in the room. Yeah. And it talks about like the emotional side of money. And I, it took me like five years to go to get that book because I wasn’t ready the first four. But when I read it, it was like a really amazing and is really feminine. So she puts a lot of compassion and on shaming and like, I really like man, like, you didn’t know this. Like, okay, like give yourself some grace and then learn it. So that, that book was really great for me and my development.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:37:33] Very good. Very good. Now, how, how can my community support you?

Virginia Nava: [00:37:40] No. I think for me, I am in a mission to really help people. Like find their spot in the world. Right. So I believe it’s like, imagine you have a job ad and then the job ad says you and then you have your gifts. And then there’s somebody out there that needs them. Right. So I great at a school forgets that it’s actually all my course is done in my Virginia dot com website that has three core courses I created, which is called Discover Your Inner Gifts, Create with your inner gifts and Share Your Inner Gifts. And one of my missions is that I want to help people that think that outer is going to be fixed and then it’s not and it doesn’t get fixed. And they think that there’s something wrong with them because it’s not getting fixed. Right. Because a lot of people are saying because as I well do, you’re not doing the right thing. And I want to help society by being like if you really knew yourself, like if you really knew all that dress shoes to have inside of you, you would live your vision. You will live the life you want, because then you will stop thinking that the only way to do this is to get outside resources.

Virginia Nava: [00:38:56] So one of my missions and one of the ways I think your community can help me is, you know, can they have an opportunity for me to share an article? If they have an opportunity for me to be interviewed, if they have an opportunity to download one of my books or simply, you know, one way you can help me is if you’re a mom or a dad or at auntie or grandma or like, you know, you influence another child. Even though I’m not a specialize in children, I think. If you can give them what my grandma gave me, gave me, which was see their gifts, acknowledge them. Like every time you see another person, you can help me create a movement by acknowledging the gift of another. So next time you see your best friend say you are amazing at cooking, you’re amazing and caring for others. Next time you see a child and their inner critic is coming because something is failing and not working, notice what they’re good at. And next time you see yourself and you’re like, you know, you’re being mean to yourself because something didn’t work out. Notice one thing that you’re amazing at and that can always be like, I’m an amazing, resilient person or I’m really courageous or I’m a great learner.

Virginia Nava: [00:40:14] If you can help me create a movement of gifts, I think the world will be better because I believe it’s like it’s like we are a big world, like a big puzzle. Right? And it’s like almost like a big puzzle that hasn’t been built. And it’s like only three pieces there. And there’s all these leaders, you know, like Oprah and all these amazing leaders. But then I know this sounds weird, but Oprah and like Williams and I always amazing. People need our help. Yeah, they need us to step up, and we don’t even need to step up, like, be Oprah, right? We need to stop in our community. We need to step up and LinkedIn. We need to step a step up. And like Instagram, we need to step up and whatever, you know, the work that you do, we need to step up in our family. So really step up. Don’t be shy with your gifts. Like God didn’t give you your gifts to be shy like it gave you you didn’t give you your gifts to be humble like, you know, like humbleness meeting like I’m going to hide them and keep them that right. Gifts are given to be used.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:41:23] Use your.

Virginia Nava: [00:41:23] Gift. So use them. And so that’s the way you can help me. You can have my mama. And then maybe Clarice. I can put my email and maybe you can put a story and share how you use them and like what happened. Because I love to hear that story.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:41:38] I think we just created in our entrepreneurial minds a new movement. And we go into the gift movement and get people to encourage them. I think that is so important. People don’t often hear the value that they bring to the friendship, to the what they bring to the table. And I think if we can hear that enforced, yes, it will make change an impact in its own right. So I think that’s an excellent idea. Virginia, to the gift challenge.

Virginia Nava: [00:42:14] Yes.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:42:14] Yeah. And we you know, and it starts with us when we just kind of, like you said, send that text message, send an email or in your if you’re in person, just tell someone the value in the gifts that you see in them. And I promise you it will make the world of difference. And a greater impact. So, again, thank you for sharing. Look, thank you for sharing that challenge. I think that is super important. Super important. And we’re happy to support you in any way that we can. Where do you hang out on Facebook or LinkedIn? Where do you hang out?

Virginia Nava: [00:42:53] Well, my favorite place to hang out is LinkedIn. Definitely. There’s something about community that I like, you know. So, yes, you can find me on my LinkedIn and basically has my same name here and you can find me there, disconnected me. And then I put a lot of resources and stories and lessons I learned. I also have an Instagram account on Facebook that I don’t put as much information there as I do, and I just think that LinkedIn, there’s more entrepreneurial centric information. And also on my website, I’ve been writing these amazing blogs with this amazing co author I have, and they’re really tool driven. So you can also find them there in Virginia, Napa, and yeah, and I have several books. I actually like that. There’s a book I wrote called Your Unique Gift and that if you if you’re interested, I can give an access to your community so they can access this book.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:43:50] Yeah, I would love to have the link so that we can support you in that way. Virginia. Thank you for sharing who you are, what you do, and why it matters. You know, here in Sparks story, we like to celebrate business owners today and every day. So our listeners. So please remember to go out and support your local businesses, express your support on their social media platforms. Like she said that she’s at Virginia now. And thank you for your time. Thank you for your expertise. And I want you to create a great day.

Virginia Nava: [00:44:25] Thank you. Thank you so much.

Intro: [00:44:29] Thank you for listening to Spark Stories. If you’re looking for more help in gaining focus, come check out our website where you can find episode show notes, browse our archives and access free resources like worksheets, trainings, events and more. It’s all at WW. She sparks dot com.