10/16/2020
Fun Facts Friday:
December 2003 - quit my job with a prestigious Family Law firm in Fresno - as a single parent with no savings and not knowing how I was going to pay for Christmas or January rent
January 2004 - Reached out to colleagues in Madera for freelance paralegal work until I could establish my business
Operated my business from my two bedroom apartment for several years because I could not afford rental space
Struggled financially for the first few years to make ends meet - taking whatever legal work I could get
Car 🚗 got repossessed because I got behind in payments because clients were not paying me
Eviction notice was next
Two eye surgeries sidelined me
Still kept the fire 🔥 in my belly to succeed
Rented a shared space and kept grinding to establish clients and continued to freelance paralegal work
Business started building as well as my client base
Rented a bigger shared space and continued to grind
2007 - Son graduated from high school in and went directly to a UC
My mom diagnosed with cancer - January 2017
April 2017 - finally opened my own office suite
My dad died - October 2017
Discovered my Mom’s cancer came back on October 31, 2017
I still kept grinding
My business was small yet successful after 13 years
Through all this I served as a member of La Raza Lawyers, Latinas Unidas, Sierra Charter School Board Member, chaired local 5k races to raise money for various causes - breast cancer, food bank etc.
March 2018 - mom lost her battle to cancer
March 2018 - Bought my first home 🏡
Still kept grinding
July 2018 - my oldest sister passed away after a lengthy illness
Still grinding and still struggling trying to figure out why I was being tossed all these hardships
October 2019 - became a grandmother 👵 for the first time
2020 - Finally feeling peace and proud of my small business
The moral of my story - never give up, keep grinding, keep a tight circle of very supportive friends, you build a tougher skin when you are self employed, not everyone is going to like you - and that’s perfectly ok, not everyone will understand “your grind,” stay humble, stay hungry, give back. Success is not always about money - it’s about survival!!!