Thursday, March 8, celebrates International Women’s Day. This year’s mantra is “Time is Now: Rural and Urban Activists Transforming Women’s Lives’. In order to kick off this monumental day right, we spoke with two women in the entertainment industry; Nely Galan and Felicia Romero.

Nely Galan, a Latin immigrant, is a women’s empowerment advocate and author of New York Times bestselling book, SELF MADE: Becoming Empowered, Self-Reliant, and Rich in Every Way. Galan is also the former president of entertainment of the television network, Telemundo, making her the first Latina president at a major network. She is an Emmy Award-winning producer and has appeared on the first season of the NBC hit, The Celebrity Apprentice. Galan created The Adelante Movement, which in Spanish means “Let’s move it! Let’s get going! Now!” Galan wishes for the movement to unite and empower Latinos economically. Her motto is, “Don’t buy shoes, buy buildings.”

Nely Galan wishes to give women around her this advice:

  1. Start thinking about all the various ways you can get your own chips—from working on your side-hustle while you keep your day-job, to dropping everything to focus on your new invention or startup.
  2.  Hobbies or passion projects can often be seeds you’re planting for a bigger picture. It’s all about being willing to go from “something I do on the weekends to blow off steam” to really refining your expertise.
  3. Think of emerging opportunities as low-hanging fruit. Such opportunities exist all around us—your job is to stay attuned and keep your radar up for one that makes sense for you.

Felicia Romero, also a Latin entrepreneur, is a celebrity health and fitness expert. Romero has recently appeared on the second season of the Lifetime Cable Television Network hit, From Fit to Fat to Fit. She has also launched her online fitness and nutrition platform, FitMethod. Felicia is also known for her several national and world titles as a fitness competitor. She has also worked with dozens of professional athletes on reaching their health and wellness goals. Romero wishes to empower women to strive for their best self.

Her tips to empowering women to reach their full potential are:

  1. Do not compare your journey to anyone else. Comparison can be a thief of joy.
  2. Learn from the failures but DO NOT give up….and trust me, there will be many failures.
  3. Action leads to momentum leads to opportunity. You must take action to create opportunities for yourself.  The opportunities will not come to you. Go out and make it happen.

This International Women’s Day, empower yourself and others around you to be better than the day before: to be stronger, more confident,and always striving for greater.