We’ve always believed that forming a strategy is impossible until you’re clear on what your values and principles are. Without values and principles to guide you, making decisions can seem impossibly difficult. Given how important setting values and principles is to decision making we asked folks we admire to tell us about the values or principles that matter most to them.

Sue Marshall | Transformational “Entrepreneur”

I believe that having a business is about serving people and that you can do that and make money at the same time. After being an entrepreneur the majority of my professional career, it was time to make an impact by starting a social benefit corporation that focused on climate change. Read more>>

Cha Cha Romero | Trauma Nurse and Fashion Artist

Dedication loyalty honesty and integrity. With out the true grit of those factors you cannot be successful! Do as you say and say as you do! Chingona status!!. Read more>>

Maighdeline Gordon | Photographer and Filmmaker

Something I have always valued highly is freedom of expression. As a mixed-race and bisexual woman, I’ve experienced no shortage of invalidation aimed towards my identity and self-expression, only to then find myself again through art. Through documenting periods of dramatic change and development in my life on film and video, and my explorations of the human body, sexuality, and our experience in the modern age through existential portraiture, I’ve found a way to connect with the human experience in a new way, and find comfort in the uncertainties of the world. I think that in a way all portraiture is existential in a way, because we look at these pictures of people we’ve never seen before, or of our friends or family, or even ourselves. Read more>>

Kari Granger | CEO of Leadership Development & Consulting Firm

An important value for me—especially as of late—is acceptance. My whole business is about catalyzing individual and organizational transformation, breaking through limitations, dreaming up new futures and materializing them. And what I’ve learned in the course of my career is that nothing new can be created without accepting what is already so. Lots of folks are struggling with this right now. There’s so much resistance to what’s so: The virus. The state of the economy. The ways in which society is changing at breakneck speed. So much is uncertain. The irony is that resisting that uncertainty only compounds the uncertainty. The quicksand metaphor is apt here: the more we struggle to extricate ourselves, the more stuck we get. When we accept the uncertainty and move into a state of peace, a state of wonder—that is when we find the capacity to design new futures. Read more>>

Helen Estrella | Dance Teacher

Hands down, it’s EMPATHY. It has taught me how to be patient, understanding and enables genuine human connection. In my line of business, I have to be able to connect with dancers from ages 3 through 18 as well as their parents. Before I had children of my own, I saw so many of my clients as “crazy dance moms”. Now I understand that they are just protecting the most important thing in their lives: their children. Read more>>

Alondra Loya-Trevizo | Professional Balloon Artist

The most important principles and values reliability and client experience. Assurance that my clients can rely on me from the moment an idea is turned into a design, all the way to the quality delivered in our exclusive service. At the heart of Balloon Empyre are the unforgettable moments we are able to create for another human being on their special day. Is what has differentiated us from other companies. Read more>>

Callie Kay Read | Pro Makeup Artist & Esthetician

To me, being an honest business woman that my clients can trust, rely on, and feel comfortable with is what I value the most. I pride myself on being genuine at all times. I will always shoot straight when it comes to communication with my clients, and take ownership in things that I may still need to grow on. I find that it’s greatly appreciated and have gained a clientele that I genuinely enjoy being around because of it. Read more>>