Facing circumstances I did not choose, I decided.

I was born in Culiacán, Sinaloa, in a family with very little. My father left when I was a child, and my mother raised her children with a dignity that never broke.

I worked from the time I was a little girl. That is where I learned the value of a peso earned with effort, and I learned something bigger: that God was near even when nothing around me looked like it.

My older brother was my hero. We lost him in a way no family should ever live through.

That pain could have defined me. I decided it would not. It taught me that faith is not the absence of questions, it is to keep walking with them.

I came to the United States, made a home and had three children. When that marriage ended, I found myself alone with three small children, starting from zero.

That is where I made the decision that changed everything: my values, my faith and my responsibility as a mother would be stronger than any circumstance.

I started out working a single hour a day at a daycare. That hour became more hours, the hours became knowledge, the knowledge became vision and the vision became my own company.

Today Royal Education Center brings in more than a million dollars a year. But the company was never the goal. It was the result of putting God and my family first.

Over the last two years I have taken on their formation even more intentionally. First I took them to UPW, and today I am preparing them through Tony Robbins' Business Mastery, because I want them to learn to lead their lives before they lead a company.

Today Roy, Frida and Bella are part of Royal's leadership and are taking the company into a new stage. I am not handing them a business. I am preparing them to take on a responsibility and carry on a legacy.