Meet Eleana Pena

We were lucky to catch up with Eleana Pena recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Eleana, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

I get my resilience through my faith in God. My resilience is the ability to never give up despite the challenges I’m facing because my strength comes from God. So many times, I was faced with opposition and I continued in the midst of it. Those challenges and opposition is what gave me confidence that I am heading in the right direction even when it looked like a dark
moment. Sometimes I may look at challenges as if “I’m not doing something right” but in reality I am. My mind can play a huge role with negative thoughts but that is where my faith in God and strength comes in this is how I build resilience by relying deeply on my faith and not giving up when it looks hard. I have to lean on my faith that all things are working together. Continuing the journey despite the challenges, disappointments and heartache is resilience. I’m always reminded of several leaders in biblical times who went through so many challenges but in actually, the journey was all along preparing them for the destination. They continued despite of what they faced demonstrating their resilience.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I am very passionate about storytelling and sharing those stories with others. There is so much power in sharing stories. It can inspire, help and motivate people. As an actress, I get to do that which is amazing. I have an educational background in Psychology which also allows me to work in the Mental Health and Substance Abuse field. It’s such a rewarding feeling to see people getting the help they need and seeing them grow from a negative dark place to a brighter positive place. It is exciting and special to me that I am able to use my artistic and creative talent as an actress and use my educational skills to inspire and motivate others through storytelling. With entrepreneurship, I am able to combine creativity, education and storytelling so I can create content and share with my audience and followers what brands and products have been most beneficial to me and what has helped me along my journey. My brand focuses on being authentic to who God created me to be so others can be inspired along their journey.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

The three qualities, skills and areas of knowledge that were most impactful in my journey is communication, consistency and knowing my strengths and weaknesses. Like the phrase says “communication is key” well, it truly is. As an artist in a creative space, communication is top priority. As an entrepreneur, the same rule applies in business. Communicating with brands in a timely manner and completing a collaboration on or before the due date is imperative. To be able to respond and communicate in an adequate amount of time, demonstrates commitment, integrity and trust. Consistency is never giving up. Showing up for yourself even if you don’t get that call back from the audition. Knowing what your strengths are will help you stay motivated. Work on the areas you need strength in so you can learn and grow. I would tell folks, to develop a daily to-do-list or strategy, to get things done on a day-to-day basis which includes communication and responding to emails. Mark an hour or 2 of the day to respond to emails. This will help you stay more efficient. I love to write positive quotes and things to do around my desk. This helps me stay consistent with all my daily tasks. Even if it’s to go workout at the gym, I write it down on my to-do-list. There is something about seeing your to-do-list face to face, it keeps you consistent throughout your day. There is so much power in that and overall builds confidence because you’re accomplishing goals. It helps you along your journey tremendously. It feels so good to accomplish goals. Reflecting on your actions and experiences, will help cultivate your strengths and motivate you. I love to journal. Writing down all my strengths and weaknesses helps me focus on how far I’ve come. You also have to celebrate your wins whether big or small. Be proud of yourself no matter what progress you’ve made. Each day we wake up, is a clear indication there’s a God-ordained purpose.

Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?

I think it’s better to be more well rounded by investing efforts on improving areas you are not strong in because this is where a lot of growth happens and you gain knowledge. In my experience, the areas where I did not feel strong enough, have worked in my favor. It was a bit scary and overwhelming at first building a brand and entrepreneurship. I was constantly thinking of the results versus doing and learning the process. My ability to connect with my audience and followers, helped me to hone in on my creativity. The more I natured my craft and practiced, the better I understood what I was doing and ultimately, I got good at it. I don’t believe in putting limits on yourself because anything is possible. Even the rejection we go through, is redirection for a better opportunity. The right doors and opportunities will open. It will all align in your favor if we just try. You have to believe in yourself and go all in regardless of your weaknesses. You will never know if there is strength in an area you least expected until you work on it. Every bit of growth you achieve, is definitely worth celebrating.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @eleana.pena
• Twitter: @itseleana