Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Paula Leon-Gambetta. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Paula, thanks for joining us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?
I think success is measured subjectively. I believe my definition of success will be different than the person sitting next to me and the person sitting next to them and so on. One of the things I’m grateful for having worked for a year outside of graduating college before entering grad school is that I got jobs right away, enjoyed making my pay but realized the exhaustion of working 3 different jobs, dealing with 3 different HR’s and 3 different schedules that when I entered Grad school I had a class that posed a question that I think everyone should ask themselves. What does success mean for you? What are some goals you’d like to reach, defining area’s you’d like to work in, researching jobs but also knowing your worth. When looking at what you bring to the table you’re able to say ok, I need to find a job that pays me this much amount so I can live my life and do the job properly. So when looking at what does it take to be successful I think really its just knowing what you want, what you deserve and what you need to learn. Playing the field with those two things in mind help propell you forward, confidence goes such a long way in how someone is perceived and when you know what you want, you know your worth and you know what you’re hungry to know more about, well success comes easier.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I’m as cheesy as they say a Multi-hyphenate artist, of Peruvian descent having lived in Canada and Switzerland before coming to America to study the arts at NYU. The area’s I tend to be known for are acting, stand up comedy, and filmmaking. I like to push the envelope and talk about my own lived experiences. My stand up comedy is a mix between storytelling and observational comedy with impressions here and there of the characters I’m talking about. Filmmaking wise I made a comedic short film She Knows Her Place (available on youtube) which has won 3 awards for Best Comedy Short and Best First Time Filmmaker as well as nominations for Best Screenplay, one of the festivals resulted in my film being screened at the Angelika Film Center in New York. Currently working on planning for production of some new projects I’d like to play with but mostly people do know me for my involvement with Women Stand Up NYC, I’m a coproducer of the company alongside Susan Dorf and Leorah Wood. I tend to handle all things Media related with the company where as Leorah tackles the educational side of our company and Susan handles production logistics as well as filing us for Non Profit status. WSU NYC is NY’s first women led production company dedicated to empowering folks with lived experiences of misogyny through stand up comedy. We run a “Newbie Program” led by Leorah where we take a rotating cohort of 7-8 “Newbie’s” or even comedians who are looking for more community and we help them understand the different styles of stand up as well as provide them with a support system that is the WSU nyc family. I am very proud of the work our company has done and continues to do.
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
Women Stand Up NYC started out was Women Stand Up and was run by two Canadians here on temporary visas but when the pandemic hit they went back to Canada and disbanded from the company but said to the community of alumni (35 people at that time) if anyone wanted to keep running the company that they had our blessing. So I reached out to the previous founder and asked permission personally and then later posted in our alumni group if anyone else was interested in helping me keep it alive and luckily there were. We started off as an eBoard system of 5 members but eventually when we started up the newbie program we ended up being a team of 3. Each of us brought our collective skills to the table and took on roles to better forward the company.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
As Media Manager I run all social media accounts. Instagram being the most popular for comedians and comedy shows. I created a posting schedule on an excel sheet and though some days aren’t pin point accurate my posting guide is there, so I always have something I can post that is relevant and topical for our community. It started off with highlighting comedians of color every Wednesday to mental health resources for when Roe V Wade news came about which definitely was topical for our audience. Now I do a mix of posting about our shows, spotlights on our featured comedians, tweets that week from our favourite comedians, community related memes, and celebrating news for women and non binary folks in comedy. Over the past 3 month I’ve grown our follower account by 300 which is slow but considering I’m studying for my grad degree and working a day job, I consider it a good step forward.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paulita_chatita/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/women.stand.up/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paula-leon-1a3b93146/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/PaulaJLeon
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQtnbaJ3Ns5SNXw8QldGoBw
Image Credits
JT Anderson / Danté Crichlow/ Chris Kammerud