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Does Speaking Another Language Change your Personality?

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I feel like a different person when I speak in Spanish then when I speak in English. Being a child raised in both Latin America and the U.S., both languages have always been a central part of my life and my identity. Spanish ruled my life during my early, formative years, while English was at the forefront during my later, school years. It wasn’t always easy or as simple as it is now to switch from Spanish to English. As a young child, I would commonly mix Spanish and English to form new words like “glasso” (glass in English and vaso in Spanish) or start my sentence in Spanish only to finish it in English. But one thing that has always been clear is that Spanish is the language of home, of family, of love.   English is the language I learned outside of the home, taught to me by others. As a result, my Spanish self has always been more passionate, more spontaneous, more earnest, and more alive. Spanish is the language that comes more natural when I’m overcome by excitement an
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Latina Entrepreneurs Are Taking the World by Storm

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Image by Seth Doyle I have to admit that for the majority of my working life, I have not given much thought to entrepreneurs given that I’ve always worked for good size companies that had everything in place and made it easy for me to just come in and do the work I needed to do. While I always appreciated what the founder (mostly women) had created, I didn’t give much thought into all the dreams, the effort, the long hours, and hard work that went into creating something out of nothing.   But being surrounded by successful Latina entrepreneurs that I am honored to call my friends, has given me a new perspective on what it means to pursue your dreams. As a Latina (and aspiring entrepreneur), let me tell you that NOW is a really good time to pursue your dreams and launch your own business.   Don’t believe me? Well check out these incredible, eye-opening, and inspiring facts:       Latinas in the U.S. are opening their own business at nearly 6 times (!) higher than any
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Is Privacy a Lost Cause?

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Corbis image Imagine yourself in a room with eyes on the walls - your every thought, action and move observed and scrutinized. I know it sounds creepy but that is sort of the world we live in nowadays. With an increase in consumer tracking methods and GPS everywhere, privacy is really hard to come by these days. Stats reveal that privacy is a top concern for consumers and something they strive for, yet the irony is that most consumers (me included) knowingly or unknowingly partake in things that make privacy a thing of the past.   We buy products and services online, we download a million apps, we share our stories and pictures on social media, we sign up for grocery deliveries, we visit all kinds of websites, we research travel destinations, health issues, watch online shows, we wear or carry mobile devices that track our every move, our every step, and our given location.   Google knows it all. We’re generously feeding information into the digital world and
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What About the Unsung Athlete?

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Like most families, we passionately watched many of the Olympic events and cheered on our favorite athletes. Now that the Olympics have ended, I’ve had some time to digest it all as a marketer for big brand names and as a mom to an athlete “in the making.”   So not only was I glued to the competitions, I was also very attuned to the ads.   Not only were Phelps, Bolt and Simone Biles the biggest winners in their sport, they were also the biggest winners in the endorsement/advertising world. As a marketer I understand why brands sponsor these elite athletes – the crème of the crop, if you will - they have fame, name recognition, they’re cool, and they have the makings of a great story - humble beginnings, hardships, and wild success due to hard work and perseverance. Brands want a piece of that because they know that these types of stories serve to inspire people and by buying the brand, consumers get to feel a little bit of that magic. The thing is, it seems like nowadays a
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I want to be a Soccer Mom

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Not too long ago I attended some automotive focus groups, and one of the respondents said, “I don’t ever want to drive a mom car.” She was, of course referring to a mini-van and the lifestyle that goes with it…a soccer mom, if you will.   She was probably visualizing a hurried mom, wearing sweat pants, loading sports gear into her car, chauffeuring a million kids, including a screaming toddler, food crumbs all over the place, and mom frantically driving from place to place taking her kids to different activities….whoosh, just typing that made me all frenzy! This got me thinking, at what point, did soccer mom turn into such a negative thing, and who made it so?   The respondent from the focus group didn’t have kids but was planning a family soon.   She had adopted the negative soccer mom image and was turned off by it. In my mind I was thinking, just wait until you have kids and then you can make up your mind, especially about the car you’ll need, because having kids really chan
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