In this episode of Behind The Work, Jessica Santana breaks down the 10 most powerful lessons learned from over a year of interviews with successful executives, entrepreneurs and visionaries. These aren't generic tips. they're real principles that ambitious people are using to stay the course on their dreams and build legacies.

What you'll learn:
✓ Why waiting for the "right time" is a myth
✓ How to take bold bets on yourself (even when it's scary)
✓ Why doing business with friends is actually a flex
✓ The role of faith in entrepreneurial success
✓ Why rest is the work
✓ How to build something that lasts (not just trends)
✓ The power of reinvention and bold pivoting ✓ How to love yourself when everything feels broken

Whether you're launching a business, pursuing a career change, or leveling up your mindset, this episode will challenge you to stop waiting and start becoming the person you're meant to be.

Key Takeaway: "You either win or you learn. Never lose."

Timestamps:
Connect with our host, Jessica Santana:

• Subscribe to the Behind The Work newsletter: https://jessworldwide.substack.com/
• Follow Jessica on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@behindtheworkshow
• Follow Jessica on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@behindthework

About Behind The Work: Behind The Work is the show for the ambitious person looking to level up their lives, their career, and their businesses. Hosted by Jessica Santana, Behind The Work goes deep with the executives, founders, and leaders who are building from a place of power. Each episode pulls back the curtain on the real work — the strategy, the setbacks, the pivots, and the purpose — behind the people, companies, and organizations shaping what's next.

Shawna Young has built her career around a simple but radical belief: that investing in underinvested founders isn't charity — it's the multiplying force that changes entire communities. It's not just about writing a check. It's about what happens when the right person finally gets the room, the resources, and the relationships they were always capable of using. This week, Shawna joins Jessica on Behind The Work.

Shawna is the CEO of Camelback Ventures, a New Orleans-based nonprofit accelerator committed to increasing access to opportunity for entrepreneurs of color and women — providing early-stage fellows with seed funding, mentorship, and community at the "friends and family" stage of their journey. She came to Camelback from Ada Developers Academy, where she served as interim CEO, and has held executive leadership roles at the Scratch Foundation, MIT, Duke University, and Durham Public Schools. She holds an MBA from MIT, a master's in science education from UNC Chapel Hill, and a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from Howard University.

In this conversation, we get into what it actually takes to fund early-stage founders the system has historically overlooked — and why the gap between a good idea and a funded one is rarely about talent. We talk about what Camelback's fellowship model gets right that traditional venture capital gets wrong, what it looks like to build a startup ecosystem from the inside out, and why Shawna would take a Rolodex over a million dollars every time — because in underinvested communities, the missing ingredient isn't always capital. It's connection.

We also get into her own leadership journey — what it taught her to watch her parents build and sacrifice for a business for over 35 years, and how that shaped the way she thinks about the founders she now serves. We talk about what she learned stepping into Camelback during a founder transition, what it means to honor a vision while making it your own, and what the hardest parts of this work have revealed about what she is actually made of.

This episode is for you if:

- You're an early-stage founder who has been told no by rooms that weren't built to say yes to you — and you need to know there are people actively working to change that.
- You work in venture, philanthropy, or impact investing and you're ready to be honest about where the gaps are and who gets left out.
- You're building a nonprofit or social enterprise and trying to figure out how to scale without losing the mission.
- You're a leader stepping into an organization someone else built — and you're navigating the weight of legacy while finding your own footing.
- You believe the next generation of world-changing companies will come from founders who've been overlooked — and you want to understand what it takes to actually back them.
- You want to see what it looks like to build an ecosystem, not just a portfolio.

Connect with our host, Jessica Santana:

• Subscribe to the Behind The Work newsletter: https://jessworldwide.substack.com/
• Follow Jessica on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@behindtheworkshow
• Follow Jessica on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@behindthework

About Behind The Work: Behind The Work is the show for the ambitious person looking to level up their lives, their career, and their businesses. Hosted by Jessica Santana, Behind The Work goes deep with the executives, founders, and leaders who are building from a place of power. Each episode pulls back the curtain on the real work — the strategy, the setbacks, the pivots, and the purpose — behind the people, companies, and organizations shaping what's next.

Judith Martinez has built her life around a single question: what would you do if you were one percent more courageous? It sounds simple. But for the young women of color she has spent her career serving, that one percent is the difference between staying small and stepping fully into who they were always meant to be.

This week, Judith joins us on Behind The Work.

Judith is the Founder and CEO of InHerShoes — the modern woman's community for courage — a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit committed to catalyzing courage for young women of color around the world. She is a first-generation Filipina-American, an LA native, a Forbes 30 Under 30 nominee, a Vital Voices and TRESemmé Global Leadership Fellow, a United State of Women Ambassador for California, and a 2021 awardee hand-selected by Serena Williams and Stuart Weitzman for her work in cross-generational equity. She has spoken at the United Nations Youth Assembly, worked alongside Echoing Green fellows, and most recently served as Director of Social Impact and Inclusion at Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez — where her work helped earn the brand a 2023 Fast Company Brands That Matter recognition.

In this conversation, we get into where InHerShoes came from — what Judith saw in young women of color that made her say courage is the thing we have to activate. We talk about what it felt like to speak at the UN Youth Assembly in the early years, what traditional institutions are still getting wrong about developing leaders, and what she learned co-authoring the first book written by students, for students, on leadership in higher education.

We also get into the corporate world — what drew her to Rare Beauty, what social impact looks like from inside a brand versus inside a nonprofit, and how she navigates the line between performative and authentic impact when the pressure to perform is real. We talk about what the 2020 national awakening taught her about the relationship between individual courage and systemic change. And we talk about the hardest moment in her journey — and what it revealed about what she is actually made of.

This episode is for you if:

• You have an idea, a vision, or a calling you've been too afraid to begin — and you need someone to remind you that one percent is enough to start.
• You're a first-generation woman navigating systems that weren't built for you and trying to build something that will outlast you.
• You work in social impact — inside a nonprofit, a brand, or a corporation — and you're thinking hard about how to protect the integrity of the mission.
• You're a young leader trying to figure out how to build power without losing yourself in the process.
• You've been waiting for permission to step into the room — and you need someone to tell you the permission was always yours.
• You want to understand what it really looks like to build a movement from the ground up — the parts that worked, the parts that didn't, and the moments that changed everything.

Connect with our host, Jessica Santana:

• Subscribe to the Behind The Work newsletter: https://jessworldwide.substack.com/
• Follow Jessica on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on Instagram: http://instagram.com/@behindtheworkshow
• Follow Jessica on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@jessworldwide
• Follow Behind The Work on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@behindthework

About Behind The Work: Behind The Work is the show for the ambitious person looking to level up their lives, their career, and their businesses. Hosted by Jessica Santana, Behind The Work goes deep with the executives, founders, and leaders who are building from a place of power. Each episode pulls back the curtain on the real work — the strategy, the setbacks, the pivots, and the purpose — behind the people, companies, and organizations shaping what's next.