With her infectious energy and unique approach, Pegine has earned her spot among the elite in the Motivational Speakers Hall of Fame, joining the ranks of Oprah, Shakira, and Beyoncé.

Pegine is the brains behind the “Global Women’s Executive Leadership Experience™,” a groundbreaking simulation and situational training exercise designed specifically for business executive women leaders. This memorable experience prepares them for high-stress, high-value moments, boosting their influence and confidence along the way. It’s no wonder women from around the world have rated it as one of the most profound leadership experiences, with 18% even receiving promotions within just six months.

What makes Pegine even more extraordinary is her inspiring journey from former Bronx gang member to becoming a true American success story. Her powerfully irreverent, funny, and real approach has left a lasting impact on countless individuals. In fact, people remember her programs for years because of her unique techniques, including the use of chants, cadences, and mantras that solidify powerful thoughts in the minds of her audiences.

In this podcast you’ll hear:

• Pegine’s incredible journey from a former Bronx gang member to a true American success story
• The power of one well-intentioned mentor
• How Pegine was able to overcome a complete shutdown of her multi-million dollar business when a government shutdown cancelled her contracts overnight… and went on to build more successful businesses.
• Why you should be willing to stand up and cheer for other women (and yourself!)

Read the Full Transcript

Kelly Youngs:

Hello and welcome back to the She Is Fierce podcast. I am absolutely delighted to be here with you today and with a very special guest. She is a past, she is fierce speaker and the founder of Power Women Worldwide, a dynamic community serving thousands of women, speakers, experts, and leaders each month. She is the true embodiment of the power of transformation and resilience. Her journey from the streets of the Bronx to the world stage is a testament to the indomitable spirit that propels us beyond challenges and into greatness. Now, as one of the most sought after business and leadership keynote speakers out there, her clients include 10% of the Fortune 100 global corporations, 12% of direct selling news, north American, top 50 companies, and all branches of the US military. So imagine being among the motivational speakers, hall of Fame ranks a league that includes luminaries like Anthony Robbins and Jack Canfield. PA is the only Latina and one of a mere eight women in those ranks. Her words and her presence When she is speaking, leave a mark on all who hear her. Peggy, I am so thrilled to have you with me today. Welcome.

Pegine Echevarria:

I’m so happy to be here. You hear somebody doing the intro and you go, wow. Yeah. Wow. That’s

Kelly Youngs:

You. That’s you we’re talking about. It’s good. Yeah. I mean, as you know, we have so many incredible women in our community and I’ve been so lucky to interview many amazing women. And I shared this with you right before we started talking. I feel so aligned with your mission. I love everything you’re doing, and I have been so lucky to have you as a speaker on our stage and actually see you in action and see how from the first moment you walked in the room, you just lit up that room. You had women up, they were moving, they were shouting. You had everything just moving in sync and in rhythm, and it was beautiful.

Pegine Echevarria:

Thank you so much. I appreciate that. I love what I do. I love what I do. I love every aspect of my life that has gotten to me to where I am, the story. It’s all of our stories, but it’s how we view our stories that makes such a difference to inspiring others, having impact. And I’m very aware I’m not 22 anymore. So I think that one of the best things I could do in the world is share the story to say, trust me, if I can do it, you can do it.

Kelly Youngs:

Yeah. I mean, as you know, and you said it so well, our mission is all about elevating women’s stories and you have a really powerful story. So as I was preparing for this conversation, I was like, okay, well she’s got business wisdom. You’re a speaker, so you work with corporate groups, you have all of this knowledge across many different categories, and yet I really came back to really focusing on your personal story because you have overcome a lot and you have been elevated to the highest echelons within your career. And I’d love to kind of explore your backstory. You have a unique background. You spent your childhood, as we said briefly earlier, in a poor neighborhood. You actually ended up as a gang member at one point. Share a little bit about your early years.

Pegine Echevarria:

So I left when people was talking about the world dysfunctional. So my background, my youth was chaotic and filled with love. So I was raised by a single mom. My dad was a raging alcoholic. The best thing that ever happened to my life was that she kicked him out, which in itself was a very dramatic experience for all right, including seeing my father being arrested and thrown down the floor and they’re always at eight. Leave my dad alone, leave my dad alone. And so there was a lot of emotion I have come to recognize because of what before is that people would say, I’m so sensitive. I love being sensitive because my emotional intelligence is so high that I’m grateful for it. So to all those people that used to say, I’m too sensitive, freak you all that’s right, I am. But I became a very angry kid and at the same time that I was growing up, my half-sister was living with us and she got involved with heroin.

She became the local junkie. A prostitute was running away every couple of weeks. My mom would go out in the middle of the night trying to find her, bring her back, and she had said to her when she was 16 and I was 13, she said, I can’t go after you anymore. This is going to be your choice. You do it. I have two other kids at home that I had to deal with. So Kathy eventually died in the streets as a junkie and I’m out. And so I was this angry kid, so I was a really angry kid, so angry kid, get involved with wrong people. My mom did not want me to fall in the same place as my sister. So she also signed me up for Girl Scouts. So literally if you cut me in half, I was half cadet girl scout and half gang member.

And I was lucky. My mom, when she pulled for the Girl scouts said She’s a tough gang member. And they said, oh, this is perfect. We have a brand new program. Because some female executive from Wall Street who was a single older woman, had called the Girl Scouts and said, I want the toughest girls of New York and I want them. That’s the only way I’ll do Girl Scouts. I want them. So myself, this woman, this girl Denise, and this girl Barbara, we were in three different gangs. We were in this very select girl scout group with Mrs. B, who the rules were, I don’t do cookies. I’m not doing arts and crafts. You all think you’re tough. I’m going to show you where tough really is. And she would take us, pick us up in the Bronx, take us to Wall Street every Wednesday at three o’clock.

So after school, we’d go over there and we were given one rule by Girl Scouts is that we had to wear this stupid little cadet hat. There was this cadet hat, these little things. I know exactly what you’re talking about. Okay, so that was the one rule that we had to wear the cadets. So here we are with gang jackets with the cadet hat, walking behind this very waspy blonde woman. We’ll talk like this and I’m not going to take any crap from anybody. She was like the first agent and she was like, I don’t even know who she was. I don’t know her last name. We only called her Mrs. B, and she’s scared. We didn’t act like we were scared, but we were scared. She would stop people like you on the street, Kelly, she sounds scary right now. And she would go, you stop.

How do you get to where you are? And you’d see these gang members behind with our arms crossed, sucking our teeth and our minds. We were going, this woman is whacked. She’s crazy, but you would respond because the way she asked. And you would say, well, I went to school and I applied for this job and I moved up Frank, and she was it easy? Oh, it’s not easy at all, and how do you deal with those guys? And so we were getting these lessons every Wednesday and she was with us for about a year and a half. She leaves, I’m still in the gang. And then at 17 years old, I was standing on the corner with Lefty and rats, which are two girls, and lefty was really mean and nasty. And I was there and I looked, you would’ve walked to the other side of the street.

But in my mind I said, God, there has got to be another way. This can’t be what my life is about, but I’ve seen other things and can’t be. And I said goodbye to everybody. Ran home. Well, I walked really fast with, and then I got to the basement. I put five countries in the hack. I decided I was leaving the gang. I thought I was so important that I had to leave the country. Didn’t realize I could have gone to Florida, could have gone to Queens, they wouldn’t have followed me. I wasn’t that important. But within a month I was on a plane to Spain and had a thousand dollars in my pocket, which I have since paid back and I changed my life.

Kelly Youngs:

What an amazing story. You have done so much since then that we can talk about, but what an incredible just upbringing and story of really personal transformation, making a choice. And I know so many challenges must have come after that, but making that choice and putting yourself on a new path,

Pegine Echevarria:

It was really interesting because I did have this vision, and this is so funny that we’re talking about this now. I did have this vision of me older being on tv. There was a TV bank, and it’s been so funny as I do in Sunday Zooms and I’ve been on tv, but I laughed because it didn’t happen overnight. It took decades to have that. And I had no idea what that vision meant. Zero, nothing. It was like, okay. But then doing it was like, wow, okay, so this is what you universe, God was leading me to, oh, okay, now I see how things were being put together. And honestly just life is one big adventure and there’s so much joy if you choose it. And that’s what I chose.

Kelly Youngs:

Yeah, well, and I love that you talk about your vision even when you didn’t have that clarity around the path. So one of the things that, and I think I annoy people sometimes because the thing that whenever we’re doing any exercise for anything, I always say, let’s start with the vision. So what is the ultimate outcome that you’re looking for? And I love that even though you had no idea what the path was, you had some vision of what your direction was and whatever that journey is that’s taken you there, which I want to jump into, you ultimately have found yourself in that space and kind of living out that vision in a way that is unique to you.

Pegine Echevarria:

And I think that sometimes a vision in that instance, I could not have told you what my vision was. I definitely knew it wasn’t what I was living. And I think that is something as valuable as knowing it ain’t this. And I think that we never spend enough time and going, alright, it ain’t this, so what do I want?

We don’t honor our instincts. Let’s say this is not where I’m supposed to be. This is not what I’m supposed to be doing. This is not, and we should honor that as vision work. That is critically important because if we don’t look at a vision work, we’ll stay there because then we get stuck with, well, what’s my vision? I don’t know my vision, I just know I don’t like to be here. And that’s not a good enough. Alright, you don’t have a vision, but trust me, your insights is telling you, get out now. Trust us, there’s something else for you. Get out, move on, change, transform, just get out. Doesn’t matter what you’re going to do, leave, walk out. Just get out my, I had to talk about that more. That’s really, that’s a powerful vision.

Kelly Youngs:

Yeah. And understanding what you don’t want helps you figure out what you do want. I love that.

And I want to kind of lead to our next question because through all of the twists and turns of entrepreneurship, you have built a multimillion dollar business and you’ve also had the heartache of losing a multimillion dollar business, yet you have just been more determined. You have come back and you have conquered all of those odds. So with many different, you just shared your kind of origin story, but throughout all of these incredible things that you’ve done, we kind of listed your phenomenal resume, but you’ve had many different struggles along the way. Can you talk us through what you consider either your biggest struggle or struggle that was really defining for you, that helped you become who you are?

Pegine Echevarria:

Oh, that is a very loaded, great question. So I’ll tell you, one of the biggest heartaches for me was in 2023. No, it is 2023 in 20 13, 10 years ago. Wow, that’s amazing. That’s really amazing. So 10 years ago I was running, my company had grown, we were doing multimillion dollar deals. I had just done a huge event for President Obama. It was a huge, super successful deal. And I was also running some very, very large scale training programs also through federal contracting. And on a Monday, so on a Friday we got notified that we had won three different contracts, totaling $52 million. I had a staff of seven full-time. I had 50 professional role players.

This was great. So that was on a Friday. On a Monday we had heard words about sequestration and government shutdown and they were words. And I had two trucks going out to Alabama with my role players. And we had amazing costumes and stuff to do this work. And we get the call that contract’s canceled. So I had to call them, turn them down. And that was because of government shutdown. They weren’t going to have the money and no work can be done. It was stopped. So I’m like, that’s okay, that’s okay. We’ve got these contracts coming in, everything’s going to work out. And that Friday was government sequestration, which was congress. Now I remember all of this. Okay. We lost all the contracts, we lost everything, everything overnight, literally overnight, just everything. It was horrendous. And so I had to let go of my 50 role players who I adored and loved, and we had trained and we did tons of work.

I tried holding on because entrepreneurs were so determined, persistent, we’re going to make this work, sorry, held on to staff that I should have let go at the same time I didn’t. I held ’em on. And I can honestly say that I look back in those years. So 2014 was my angry, 2014 was half my, you’re not going to see me. No, I’m a fighter. I’m going to do everything. You watch me. I mean, I was like an animal trying, but not a really healthy animal. A just trying to fight for, just trying to get back. So that was 2014. Oh my god, it was so bad. 2015 was pulled the blankets over my head. I’m a failure. Life isn’t working out for me. What did I do? Blah, I can’t tell anybody. I can’t tell anybody because I’m this personality and oh, the boohoo, what am I going to do?

How am I, oh my God, it was so, so crazy. So that was 2015. 2016 was my gratitude year. Oh gosh, thank you so much that I wasn’t that. Thank you so much for getting me out of there. Thank you so much for letting all of that go. I really didn’t like who I had become. I definitely found that certain things that I know is I don’t want to lead a big organization. That’s why I left a big organization. I didn’t want to be having all these people, all these people that I was in charge of their salary and I’m the one that’s hustling for them. Why am I hustling for them? I was like this, aha. If I want to make money, make money for me, why am I making money for everybody else? I pay your salaries. Well, and

Kelly Youngs:

I think you carry that right? As a business owner, you carry that weight of obligation when you feel responsible for someone else. And so it’s much more than the money. It’s also just that it’s

Pegine Echevarria:

Your respons, oh, I’m responsible for who’s daycare and who’s this and how are we going to pay for this? And so here, take my money for you. And I’m thinking what the, so 2016 was this great, oh, relief, this great sense of I am. So I spent days writing gratitudes and acknowledgements. I use appreciate, applaud, acknowledge, and accept. So I would write on those four topics all the time because it was liberating for me. It also made me just like when one door closes, it opens you up to, so what do you want? So you were doing this and you, I’m really good at running a business. I’m really good at selling. I’m really good at all that stuff, but do I want, it doesn’t make me as happy. And it worked out perfectly. Then my mom got really sick and I now was a caretaker and I was still doing my work. I was still plugging away at speaking, but I didn’t have that monkey on my back, which was fabulous and hard. And it was humbling. Lemme tell you all these people that, Ooh, I want to make a million dollars. I want to make you better know how you want to spend that million dollars. You better have all your financial pieces together. You better know that you’re not making a million dollars. And I met too many people that may paid 1,000,009 to earn a million dollars. So they were losing money… It’s just so bs.

Like the dinging, ding, dinging, dinging. You made a million. Although I must say that I was really to take a check of million dollars and show it to my mom. Probably the first time she ever said to me, I’m proud of you. Funny. So challenges just come with the game. We were just talking about it before this. I got a terrible allergic reaction just recently, and I was six months in bed to medication, and that was, I haven’t slept so much. And I was like, well, I guess I could count this as vacation, I guess. And that made me very aware of how grateful to have multiple streams of income and how grateful for the growth over the last 10 years. I’m just grateful and grateful that I stay very true to who I’m passionate about, which is women.

Kelly Youngs:

Yeah. Well, I think that’s so beautiful. And you talk a lot in your speeches and you’ve even illustrated it today, this power that you have or this belief that you have in the power of women, the power of people to change themselves, to step into leadership. I feel like we’re so aligned in that way. And I want to know what keeps you even as you just said, even in those hard times, even if you’re six months in bed, because you are trying to figure out what is going wrong, but still, as you said, you’re still generating revenue, you’re still planning for the future. What keeps you motivated to get up every day to sit down and get things done?

Pegine Echevarria:

This is a great question. So I have three things, and when I say them out loud, so three things. I have it in my head that I have to live to 114 years old and I have to live to 114 years old, not like a week’s like 114 years old. I need to be feisty, fearless, focused. 114 I want. So my vision is when I am at that end that I could say I made a difference in the lives of women. So they know how amazing they are. They know how, not only that they’re amazing, that their leadership style is needed now, that their way of seeing the world is needed now. And I totally, totally understand the concept of, well, I’ve got, I think that I’m in a place of saying, how do we reframe the business world so that women can, because we’re going to do it anyway.

We have it all. We just are exhausted having it all. We have our kids, we have our relationships, we have our friends, we are working here, we’re volunteering there. And we all wished we had eight hands and we’re octopuses. And we never feel like we’re quite good enough in all of them that we had this concept or idea that was supposed to be perfect. Screw that. We’re supposed to be ourselves, we’re supposed to, we’re just, there is no supposed to. We’re just be yourself. Right? You want to take a day off. I had the funniest experience. I have a very dear friend, and we have, I really liked this woman. I wanted to know her better. God, it’s going about 20 years. And she was a very successful, serious, very serious kind of woman. And I called her up, I said, have you ever played hooky?

And she said, what? I said, take Friday off and play hooky with me. We’re going to go to the movies. And she was like, I’ve never done that in my life. And I said, good, I’ve done. That’s why I was kicked out of my first high school and never finished my second. We’re going to have you play Hook. Did that. Yeah. So it was hysterical. So she was like, okay. And she was so nervous. So we went to the movies on a Friday at two o’clock, but we were both on committees together. We both were running our companies, we were both parents. And it was hysterical because you’ve never saw two people be more uncomfortable in the movie theater. She was super uncomfortable. I don’t do this. And I wanted it because I didn’t know what to say to her so we could have the shared experience.

Well, we have been buddies since then, and we talk about that first date, which we call our first date, which was a disaster. But it was also, we were breaking so many barriers for ourselves who in Jacksonville takes Fridays off to go to the movies, which women leader, any of them would go play a hooky. And it was liberating for both of us. And I think that I’ll know, well, my job will never be over. My job will never be over because there’s so much that I want women to be fulfilled within the spider with. I’m a participant in the greater good. I’m a leader just as you are to transform the, it can’t just be one person. It’s thousands of us that are saying Women are amazing, women are awesome, women are great, and our way of leading is different. Get over it. And I do it for my daughter. I do it now for my granddaughter. I don’t know where it’s going to lead. I just know I can’t stop.

Kelly Youngs:

I love that. And I love, we’ve talked so much about your personal story, but also the motivation and the meaning for you about leaving a legacy. So building something that is unique and special to you in your own life independently, but also building and leaving a legacy for your daughter and your brand new granddaughters. Let me just stop and say congratulations. Thank you. Now I want to talk a little bit more kind of in the same vein around the idea of purpose. So as you know, virtually everything we do at She Is fierce is kind of stepping into this space of women’s stories, but also understanding and living with a sense of purpose. And you have, as we’ve said, so many different pieces to what you do. You talked a little bit about what keeps you motivated, but I’d love to know what the word purpose means to you and how you feel like maybe you live that out day to day.

Pegine Echevarria:

That’s a really great question. So years ago, so I had gone to Europe and through what I thought was being forced, I had to figure out how to become an entrepreneur and opened those business. I came back to states and I started as a receptionist up here at Card gans. And I moved up rank from salesperson to national salesperson to director of operations. And in my roles as I was going through, it always was fascinating to me, like always about where the role that women were playing. And when I got to be in leadership, I became intrigued with this question, which was how do organizations and society help or hinder women and minorities to move up rank? And how do women and minorities help or hinder themselves? That became a really interesting question, and it became a question because I would offer opportunities to hire women that I thought were phenomenal. I mean, they were phenomenal. They had incredible skills. And they’d go, no, I’m not ready. No thank you. No. And I didn’t have the time or the effort to go. I didn’t have the time. I definitely didn’t have the time to go and mentor them and say, come on, you couldn’t do it. Believe in you. That just wasn’t how it was done. Here’s a job, you don’t want it next.

Pegine Echevarria:

That role, right? But it bothered me because who I hired was usually a guy was way less certified, less capable than qualified than the women that I was hiring. So this really started ticking me off. I mean, really pissed me off. Then I became president of a direct sales company and then head of a not-for-profit. And in all those roles, I constantly was confronted by these incredibly qualified, brilliant, amazing women who nobody was putting themselves down, they were putting themselves down, drove me nuts. Just so you know, Kelly drove me freaking nuts. My passion. I love

Kelly Youngs:

That you’re saying this because I feel like I spend so much time going around saying, why are you not doing X, Y, or Z? You have everything you need to do it, just do it. Right? I’d love to hear someone else who gets mad about the same thing.

Pegine Echevarria:

It just drives me nuts. So that became fuel. And as you can see, I get really passionate about this stuff. I just can’t. So when you talk about passion, my passion comes. So I was a pissed off kid, and then I got pissed off about women that were leading up. So I guess the more pissed off I am, the more passionate I become. But I do feel strongly that I cannot change people, places, things in situations. I can only change myself and how I react or how I act. And so knowing that I can only then share, educate, inspire women to be able to say, how am I choosing to act? How am I choosing to show up? And what rules will I not conform with? So I’ve worked with tons of corporate women, I’ve worked tons with entrepreneurs, I’ve worked tons in military, and sometimes we stick a stick up our butt to try to conform to what others want to see with us. And so we adapt, we lose our souls to adapt to another thing. My mom used to tell me something. She goes, if you could just teach women what you do, I said, well, what is that? And she said, you’re H two O. You are who you are. You are totally who you are. But I could put five different VAs VAs in front of you, or vs however you want to say it, and I could pour you into those Vs. You’ll take the shape, but you won’t change who you are.

Kelly Youngs:

Oh, I love that.

Pegine Echevarria:

So I’ll wear this St. John suit. If I’m going in limited tall, I don’t do that talk, but I’ll wear the St. John suit so that whoever they are seeing the impression of, oh, she’s one of us.

Or that if I’m going to a youth thing, I might wear something just a little more hip. Oh, she’s one of us. But that doesn’t, I will never change my presentation style. I will never change how I speak. One is, I really don’t care what you think of me. I care what I think of me. And I think that’s the most important thing that I would want women to know. People places, things in situations, you no control over all control of how you think of yourself. So you have to really focus on how do I want to think about me?

Do I see myself? How do I love myself? How do I share myself? How do I want me to express myself? And give yourself full permission to do that. Everybody else, free them. They will adapt to you.

Kelly Youngs:

So two things. First of all, you have already pre-answered one of my follow-up questions, which was, what are your words of wisdom for women who are listening that you want them to take away? And that was a beautiful way of sharing something that I think even those of us who I think so many people might look at, many of the women on our stages, or even I’ve experienced people think, oh, well, you’re doing everything your way. And I think, oh no, there’s so many things that I want to do that I haven’t done yet. Or I need to step out of my comfort zone, or whatever those things are, no matter how much I think we as individuals might try to step into ourselves, and the way you’re describing, there’s another layer and there’s another layer, and there’s so many opportunities to go deeper into that.

Pegine Echevarria:

Oh gosh. So people assume, oh, she’s done this. Lemme tell you what my daily life looks like. Because you’re right, there’s always this uncovering. So Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8:00 AM for the last 15 years, I am in a mastermind. It’s a self-development. She and I are in a partnership. So we read very deep books to self-discover ourselves, to discover ourselves. So now we’re reading this book, sacred Contracts, that’s super deep, and we don’t read it fast. We read a couple of pages and we assess what does this mean to us? I mean, and the two of us will go on retreats where we’re being pushed and prodded to uncover the more magnificence of who we are. We don’t do.

So that’s what we, that’s three days a week. I love that. I do that every single day no matter what, no matter what. I write gratitudes, I do gratitudes and applause and I do appreciation. So gratitude, applause, appreciation sounds the same, but it’s not. So gratitude is I am grateful for what I’m receiving that you and I both know that we had nothing to do with it. Right? The universe just provided for us. Thank you so much for that. Sometimes it’s a check coming in. Sometimes it’s just me looking at my granddaughter, that emotion that I had no idea existed, right? Appreciation is, this is what I’ve done. These are the steps that I’ve done. I am so proud of you, ping for doing this. I’m so proud of you for taking this job. I’m so proud of you for doing it because sometimes we wait for everybody else to tell it to us.

Freak that if you wait for somebody, everybody else, you’re never going to hear it or you hear it and then you’re going to go, oh no, me really? And so we’re going to discount it anyway, you had to do it for yourself, right? So appreciate it. And then applause. There are a lot of things that you do during the day that you deserve a standing ovation. And this is so critical point. Sometimes it’s just the fact that you’ve been so exhausted and you took your dishes and you’re like, I could leave them. I could put them in the dishwasher. I could leave them. All right, I’ll put them in the dish. That is an applause moment. That moment is a standing ovation applause moment. Because sometimes we deserve it for those things that if we don’t do it, who would do it? Very true. So those kinds of things though, that moment when your kid gets up and having a nightmare and someone next to you didn’t hear the screaming and yelling, and you have a big conference to go on the next day, but somehow you managed to get up, hear the nightmare, go, it’s okay.

It’s okay. Go back to bed and get up for the event and go, showtime. That deserves a standing ovation. And can I say something else about standing ovations? Alright. Do all females have to give people standing ovations? I am really tired of women not standing up for other women to give an applause waiting for, and maybe they’re great, give them applause. Maybe they suck. They had courage to get on stage. Give them applause. How dare we hold ourselves back from what will people think of us? If I’m the first one to stand up, women must applaud women. You might not like her. She might not be your cup of tea. She’s on stage and you are not. And you’ve seen it too, right? You’ve seen

Kelly Youngs:

A thousand percent. Yes. I have to say, I love what you’re saying. And I will say that I did see a fantastic example at one of our recent events where Shaana Brooks, Aaron, Kendrick, Alma Ramirez, these incredible artists and curators, they were together in a panel on stage. And when I was reaching out to them independently to ask them if they wanted to be featured, they already knew each other. They were already celebrating each other. They were already inviting each other. And I thought, I’ve found these incredible independent people, and they had built this beautiful community of female artists who, and I’m sure many men in there as well, but that they were lifting each other up. So I think that’s a beautiful example of what you’re saying, right? How in all of these other aspects of life, we can be doing the same thing.

Pegine Echevarria:

And it’s a really interesting phenomena for me. I mean, I speak all over the world to just tons of different kinds of conferences. And it’s really fascinating that one, you need at least one person to stand up. But in women’s conferences, you really need at least four women to be willing to stand up before everybody who stands up. And it’s only because everybody’s thinking,

Kelly Youngs:

I don’t want to be first.

Pegine Echevarria:

Don’t want to be first. What would they think of me? Maybe if I stand up, they’ll all notice me. And ooh, that would be terrible. No, stand up and be noticed. All y’all should be standing up

Pegine Echevarria:

It takes courage to be there.

Kelly Youngs:

Yeah, it does take courage. And as we kind of wrap up our conversation, I want to ask you one more question about you, and that is, if you feel that there is a defining characteristic that has kind of helped you to succeed at the level that you have, if there’s some

Pegine Echevarria:

Oh, absolutely. Something

Kelly Youngs:

That people always comment on or something that in your heart of hearts, like, because of this, I’ve been able to get to where I am.

Pegine Echevarria:

Absolutely because of my enthusiasm, I’ve been able to get where it’s, I did not know. I’m really grateful that I know my enthusiasm is my power. I was told all through growing up, take it down where it was my enthusiasm that changed everything. And I am like, I laugh. Look at my granddaughter now. She’s still, she’s only one month old, so everything is flopping around. But I know the moment where you’re finding your toes and you’re finding your fingers and the joy and the enthusiasm and oh my gosh, this world is great. And I really feel like that every day. Oh my gosh, this world is great. I get to be with Kelly. I get to be with Kelly Youngs and talk to her. I get to be able to share. I get to make, to be alive and to share my truth. And it’s my truth, it’s my story, it’s my world. And the fact that I’m here, I always remember I could have gone the way of my half sister. It would’ve been very easy to do that. My enthusiasm said, hell no. You’re more valuable. There’s a line that I’ve learned to ask yourself to be, are you capable, valuable, worthwhile, and lovable? Those are the four things that every human wants to be capable, worthwhile, lovable, and valuable.

And how just you being born gives you those things.

Kelly Youngs:

What a beautiful way to wrap up our conversation picking. I am so truly grateful for your time, for your wisdom, and I want to encourage anybody who is listening to this to go and learn more about Pein. Book her as a speaker for your next corporate event. Learn more about Power Women Worldwide, and you can do all of that@pein.com. Is there anything else that you would love our audience to do, to get to know you?

Pegine Echevarria:

Go to pig.com. Go to Team Pig. So Team Pig is my program for women that want to be speakers, experts, and be paid well. If you want to be bold, be brave, be seen, be heard. You definitely want to go to Power Woman Worldwide because that’s what I do. That’s my mission. You want to know that you have to be called to lead. So yes, go to ping.com and there I have books. Sometimes you need to kick your own butt. I have called to lead. I have about five or six books, but most importantly, just step up to the plate. If you go to either one of them, you’ll find me. And if you want to send an appointment to chat or talk or whatever, just reach out. Reach out and touch. Let’s just do that. Make the world a better place.

Kelly Youngs:

Absolutely. Well, I’m so grateful to you. Thank you. Thank you to everybody who is listening to this in the near future and in the distant future. I hope that they get the chance to connect with you and get to either follow you or get to know you in real life and get some of that enthusiasm and that joy in their lives as well. Thank you again.

Pegine Echevarria:

Thank you so having me. I adore you.

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