She’s a Latina leader who’s on the rise to greatness. She is a Media Mogul unlike any other. She is an “Emmy Award Winner and Producer of over 700 shows” both in Spanish and English on Telamundo. I would say “She’s the Latina Tyler Perry.” She is the founder of the “Adelante Movement” which is backed by Coca Cola. Her name should not be hard to remember. Her name will be spoken by all Latina woman around the world. Her name is Nely Galan.
“I realized that I’m an entrepreneur. I started from the bottom and I’m still working my way up to the top. I had information that Latina’s needed to know” Nely said. It came to me when I was on Celebrity Apprentice with Donald Trump. Latinas wanted to know – How did I talk to Donald Trump the way I did on the show. That’s when I realized that my Latina sisters needed my help.
When I joined one of the Coca Cola boards, they told me “There’s a women’s movement bubbling around in the Latina’s market about entrepreneurship and economic empowerment and you Nely, you need to do it. So, I took on the challenge. I began helping my Latina sisters. What else am I supposed to do? It’s like someone out there had figured it out. We think we can’t get what we need to know, but we can! It’s actually easy to gain that information If you work hard and do your homework on how to attain information for growth, you can do it. I’m empowering my Latina sisters, I’m letting them know that they can get whatever they want to get. I’m showing them “How To Do It,” It’s doable.
During the time I was helping my sisters, the brand name Adelante was created. The Adelante Movement is for Latina women only. I want to stick with my girls. A lot of people give to everyone else. I wanted to give back to my girls.
Nely said; The word Adelante means (in Spanish) “GoForward” or if you say it like; A-de-lan-te’, it means “Move Your Butt”. “Do it! Go Do it”. Adelante started two years ago and it has really taken off since then. As I told you earlier, Coca Cola soda brand backed me with this concept. After joining one of their boards, I was introduced to The Adelante Movement. I was running a company which was at the beginning stages with a Latina women group. The Latina women group was trying to start a movement about equal pay. It was a good concept but needed to grow. The Latina women’s group needed someone like me to push it forward. And I did.
Before working for The Adelante Movement and before I was on the Apprentice, I started running a small television station; “Channel 47” (before it was called Telemundo). I worked my way up and ended up running Telemundo. We ended up selling it. I became a Latina “Tyler Perry.” I produced 700 TV shows both in Spanish and in English. I created and produced the TV hit show “The Swan – The Makeover Show.” After The Swan, NBC asked me to be on The Apprentice. Once I was fired from the Apprentice(after ten 10 episodes) by Donald Trump, I said “It was great!” It was great because I met a lot of great people while I was there. People like Gene Simmons and Amarosa., which by the way… she’s really a nice person. Being on The Apprentice was like going to camp with all these cool people that you ever wanted to meet.
After leaving The Apprentice, I decided to go back to school to get my degree. Going back to school was something I wanted to complete. It was on my bucket list. So, a year ago, I received my Masters Degree as a Doctor in Clinical Psychology. So now I’m a doctor who started The Adelante Movement.
You’re a woman who wears many hats, I stated. “There’s no limits.” Nely replied,
Yes. There’s no limits my friend.” There’s no limits. If you work hard and do your homework, there’s no limits to where you can go. Nely said.
Nely began reminiscing…when I was young, I attended an all girls Catholic School. I wrote a story about “Why you shouldn’t send your kids to an All Girls Catholic School.” The Nuns of the school expelled me because of it. My parents and I went to the Board of Education, fought the Nuns and my story came out in the newspaper. I won! The nuns took me back into the school and they allowed me to graduate early. Seventeen Magazine offered me “Youngest Guest Editorship”.
I had a nanny who watched my son. One day, my nanny told me she wanted to learn about the company I was preaching about “Adelante” So I told her what she could do. She was so inspired about what I told her, she started bringing other nannies to the meeting. There were so many nannies coming over, and they were so inspired about what I had to say that we started a nanny club to teach them how to buy houses and pay them off. The meetings continued until my son Lucas turned eight years old. I told my nannythat she had the knowledge to better her life, and she needed to move on. She eventually left when I got her a better job with higher pay. Today, my ex-nanny owns her own paid off house. She was the first person who inspired me. Since The Adelante Movement started, we had approximately 10,000.00 people following us. There’s so much more…we want to get a quarter of a million Latinas to follow the Adelante Movement. I’m just trying to help my community of Latina women first.
You were just on MSNBC with “Morning Joe” and you spoke about Women Empowerment. Yes, I’m a fan of Mika. Mika is a girls’ girl. She’s all about empowerment, so I was excited to meet her. I went on the show and I spoke to Mika and Joe about Latinas and empowerment. I spoke about where we are at today, and where we are in regards to entrepreneurship. I really believe entrepreneurship is the answer for all women. We’re all fighting for equal pay because Latina women are only making .55 cents to the dollar. We as Latinas need to make the same money as everybody else.
My aspirations are to give back to women. I love women. I want to help women. I feel a real compassion towards women. Women like Oprah Winfrey inspire me, as well as Ricoberto Menshu, who is a Guatamalan Nobel Peace Prize winning lawyer. I’m inspired by my friend who is a Latina Maya Angelou. I’m inspired by my son Lucas. I’m inspired by woman. I’m inspired by single moms and minority women because I feel we work three times harder than anyone else.
I would tell a younger me, the world is your oyster. Youare so lucky to live in a digital age. You can do anything in your life. Don’t focus too much on guys. Focus on your career first and on being filled with yourself first.
Fear and failure are my best friend and I pushed through. Failure is part of life. As a Latina, you grow up thinking you failed. I remember reading a biography about people who are really successful, and that they had failed a lot and learned from their failures. The next time they tried something, they’d do it better, because fear is not a fact, it’s just a feeling that shows up for everybody. So, you’re not the only one feeling fear. Everyone else is feeling fear too. Today I was fearful to go the show “Morning Joe” and I said, If I feel fear then I have to do it. If you don’t fail, you’ll never succeed. So when I have a failure, I mourn it and then I would say success is around the corner baby. It’s around the corner and it always is.
Nely also said there’s no Prince Charming. When you become your own Prince Charming, you attract a better guy than you. You don’t really need the guy. He’s just icing on the cake
And finally, Nely said “No one Can Save You. Yes. No One Can Save You. You have to save yourself. And the way to do that is to make your own money.” I’ve told women; just like I’ve told you, don’t buy clothes or shoes. Buy buildings.
This is what I received from Nely: Save up your money for something bigger. The more you save, the bigger the profit. Don’t spend your money on something that can’t pay you back. It will be like throwing away your money. Buy something that is attainable; Property; Stocks and Bonds; Insurance that can pay you back. Don’t spend your money on shoes or clothes. We all want to make something of ourselves. We all want to make money and we want to make a lot of it. Invest in something that will pay you back. I’ve been doing those things before I interviewed Nely. Don’t get me wrong. I do love clothes and shoes and the finer things in life, but after my interview with Nely and constantly hearing her say “Don’t spend your money on clothes and shoes, buy Property!”, I now know how to do it right and have a different perspective about life. So I guess I’m on the right track to success. Thanks Nely
