For those who may not know this part of my story, I’m Colombian, and several years ago I moved to the U.S. and started building a life and career here.

I don’t talk about being an immigrant very often. Not because it isn’t important to me, but probably because I’ve never wanted it to be the first thing that defines me professionally. I’m proud of where I come from, but like everyone else, I’ve always wanted my work, my relationships, my character, and what I bring to the table to speak for themselves.

Lately, though, I’ve been thinking about success and leadership, and I realized there is a part of my journey that I probably don’t give myself enough credit for.

Building a career far from home is hard. Building one in another language and another culture is a whole different experience.

I can honestly say I’ve never felt that I had to work harder simply because I’m Colombian. Did I feel like I had to prove myself? Absolutely. But I think most of us feel that way at the beginning of our careers.

And I also want to be honest about something else: I have personally never felt discriminated against for being Colombian.

What I did feel was completely lost sometimes!!

The hardest part at the beginning of my career in the U.S. was definitely the language.

There is knowing English, and then there is working in English.

Those are two VERY different things.

Suddenly, I had to learn business vocabulary, technical terminology, expressions people use in meetings, and how to explain an idea quickly and confidently.

In my head, I had an incredibly intelligent and professional response ready.

Then I opened my mouth and delivered something with approximately the vocabulary of a three-year-old. 😂

And when you know exactly what you want to say, that can be incredibly frustrating. You want people to see what you know, not how many English words you know.

But little by little, meeting by meeting, mistake by mistake, you learn.

You stop translating every sentence in your head.

You learn that having an accent doesn’t mean you don’t understand.

You learn to ask the question even when you’re not 100% sure you’re using the perfect words.

You learn to laugh when you completely destroy an English word and just keep going.

And eventually, you realize something pretty cool:

You are not just building a career. You are building one in a different language, away from your family, while adapting to a culture that wasn’t originally yours.

That realization changed how I saw myself.

Being an immigrant has never made me feel less capable or insecure. If anything, it has made me incredibly proud of what I have accomplished.

There are moments when I stop and think, Wait… I actually did all of this here?

Far away from my family.

In another language.

In another culture.

Learning not only how to do my job, but how to navigate an entirely different professional world.

Of course, not everyone you meet along the way will understand or respect your journey. There have been people who tried to minimize or discredit parts of mine.

When I was younger, that probably bothered me more.

Today, honestly, I feel a little sorry for them.

Because I’ve learned that sometimes when people try to make someone else’s accomplishments smaller, it says much more about where they are than where you are.

And success isn’t magic.

It takes discipline. Consistency. Sacrifice. A lot of uncomfortable moments. A lot of mistakes. And sometimes smiling confidently in a meeting while your brain is screaming, WHAT IS THE WORD I’M LOOKING FOR?!

One of the biggest things this journey has taught me about leadership is that confidence doesn’t always look or sound perfect.

Sometimes leadership has an accent.

Sometimes it pauses for a second looking for the right word.

Sometimes it says something completely wrong and everybody laughs, including you.

But it still has ideas.

It still brings perspective.

It still creates value.

It still belongs in the room.

I don’t see my Colombian background as something I had to overcome to become successful. I see it as part of what shaped me into the person and leader I am becoming.

It gave me perspective.

It made me adaptable.

It made me comfortable being uncomfortable.

It taught me to listen carefully.

It taught me that asking for help isn’t weakness.

And it taught me that you don’t have to change who you are to belong somewhere new.

I’m still learning. I still mess up words. I still have moments when my brain apparently closes the English department for the day and Spanish is the only service available.

But I’m not embarrassed by any of that anymore.

I’m proud of it.

Because success is already something worth celebrating.

But building a life and career thousands of miles away from where you started, in another language, surrounded by a different culture, while still holding on to who you are?

That kind of success means something a little different to me.