We were lucky to catch up with Amanda Salazar recently and have shared our conversation below.

Amanda, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you walk us through some of the key steps that allowed you move beyond an idea and actually launch?

I’ve actually had 2 successfully failed business due to being over educated in this question. Both fully launched, sold all inventory before expected time. They made me just enough to get to myself to the “next” journey. But I realized that when you are so passionate about a cause, belief, lifestyle and aren’t properly disciplined on how to execute that, you’re gonna have a couple failures. Accepting full entrepreneurial-ship comes with understanding that you, are going to fail many times before you can get up. That, as a person filled with a lot of pride, took a while to get through. One of the key steps to understanding this was acceptance of help. As a young women in this modern world, I read about other inspiring women such as Cheryl Sandberg, Linda Gates and the list can go on but honestly sometimes you can find inspiration and discipline a lot closer to home. Being a Latina raised by powerful women and powerful men sometimes I felt the need to prove myself, when in reality I just needed to accept the help when it was right in front of me. You add sopa opera family optics to it and yes, that mentality can get skewed. But nonetheless, I believe that help is always closet to home. Next in my journey, I needed to realize what that “home” meant to me. Being raised between Costa Rica and San Diego has really shaped that because in both places the Hispanic community is so large. Sometimes I felt compelled to only represent one. But in reality I am what we call “a yegua” . A mixture of all. Growing up, trying to perfect a language that it was not my own (English) made me pick up a very unique accent in my native language. Between living next to Tijuana, summering in the tropics of Costa Rica, and studying abroad in Spain the accent became pretty diverse. Each time I came home having to explain why my native tongue has changed. Which made me realize I just adapt quite well to change. Now the final question I asked myself and you as my reader is: how do we inspire change?

Amanda, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I began my professional career by attending University of San Diego for my undergraduate in Business Administration and am currently continuing my education at Pepperdine University by perusing a Master of Science in Applied Behavioral Analysis. When choosing my institutions for education I can best describe it from one of USD’s founders Mother Hill , “But the only one that attracts people on sight is beauty. If beauty attracts people, they will come and find the truth and have goodness communicated to them by the kindness of people here”. Coming from a family that has made the American dream a priority, I begged myself to ask the question of why private vs public schools? And it’s because frankly, it gives you access to “more connections with less effort”. The downside are the costs are so unreasonable sometimes that without capital or substantial dedicated drive, not everyone can have the “privilege” to attend. Accepting the title of being a student again brought my creativity back out on how I can serve my higher mission of “unconditional love”, with what I have mastered so far in life. This brought me to freelancing for the moment, since i am a “student”, once again. I’m a free lancer working with all my different skills/mediums – Photography for businesses in Costa Rica
– Administration/Caregiving for businesses in the US
– Creative direction in helping small creatives start their social media platforms
– Sales for circular economy companies needing their amazing products that help secure the future of our next generations world
I believe my skills are unique in the sense that I give a “breath of fresh air” when things get overwhelming for the body. For when an eager mind is attempting to peruse an interest. I’m capable of thinking big picture and small picture simultaneously. This brings me to be most proud of my unconditional support from friends and family, without my family I could not take the time needed to do the things I love all the time. “Family in my eyes are the ones “we choose” to keep in our lives forever “.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Currently do to the stresses of the modern world and keeping my options open, I have had to deal with a lot of “chronic pain”. Due to my beliefs and the harsh realities of when taking medication you experience immense side effects, I choose not to take pain medicine. This was one of the hardest choices I have ever taken in my life because it caused me to significantly slow down my life. The 5 a.m club can only start if, the body allows it to start. The upside though, without slowing down my life in a way that natures intends us too, I was able to find clarity to realize this is not only a problem I face. This is a harsh reality of our overall healthcare system in the United States. Before the pain began to take ahold of my everyday choices, I had already started being so conscious of my life decisions and it wasn’t enough because the body is always talking and we as individuals have to slow down and listen. I say all this because I am a person with so many economic and natural supports, I couldn’t imagine what a person with half the resources must go through to get the proper care, support, and ultimate love they may need to get through the painful situations they may be facing. And ultimately this reasoning is what brought me back to school to get my masters. So I can help those, in ways that cannot be explained just by one common “healthcare practice”.

For my profession and interest in the world, I travel quite often and on my recent trip to Japan, one of the most technology advanced places, of the modern world. I could still see the disparities placed when you are “disabled” and traveling. The place I was able to see the most accessibility and accommodation was at the Disneyland resort and it was quite beautiful. I was able to rent out a chair but still had to “pull out” my medication “to show” I needed the chair. Some may say this was just improper preparation, but the realities are full accommodation is when: We, as individuals can Trust. What I mean by this is, when the communication that the individual presenting it doesn’t feel judgement from anyone and feels secure in doing so in whichever methods they are capable of explaining themselves. I go all this to say because California is one of the most accessible states in the US, and still has a long way to go from being able to provide full accessibility for individuals. My ultimate goal would be to change That! plus the world. Some may call it ambitious, others can simply say the eyes of an illegal immigrant allow you to see the world for what it is, a community. Once we come together not for profit but for the people of the world. But, I do believe we need people that are educated on how to properly make profit to make those decisions. This leads me to the idea of what work “must” be done on your own? But what if you do not have anyone in your corner? The world is working slower than what it’s intended because we are NOT working together as a team, we are working divided and the world is suffering by our division.
Politics aren’t enough anymore because we are so divided, that with lack of education and overconsumption of media (in all forms) we can no longer talk in person about “bigger picture” topics.
All these questions for the self, could not have came to me without the interest of a “higher education” every time I am in “chronic pain”. I am fortunate enough to run “back to school” and figure out life’s greatest mysteries? Now, that is the highest level of “privilege “ I can think of and I could not do this without the support and love from my family and friends, what I call “la raza”.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I am simply so “willing for change”, besides wanting to be an entrepreneur and accomplish my dreams. I would set all that aside to make someone’s dreams, well reality. That’s against everything I have ever learned but that is what I call ethical change. I’ve recently heard an interview by Fred Again saying “success for me is chasing…like happily, as long as I am , that’s what I’ll be forever”. My chasing happily will always consist of helping others that are not given all the privileges of “regular life”. Until that irregularity becomes our social norms. That IS science or in scientific terms acceptance of neurodivergence. Lastly until, I can open my own non-profit, I have learned to just continue to work with the system and not against…maybe just with a little bit of social push .

Contact Info:

• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/amandasalazar–
• Other: Spotify: Sol Leorina