by Jaclyn Tersigni

Making moves and rising through the ranks while staying true to one’s self can sometimes feel tough. 

There are outside voices, expectations, and inner doubts that can mess with our own definitions of success and our ideas for how to get there. 

Victoria Alonso knows this well. 

As executive vice president of production for Marvel Studios — she’s worked on blockbuster films like Iron Man, Black Panther, and the just-released Avengers: Endgame — she carved her own path as a Latina woman in a highly competitive world often dominated by men. And she did it according to her own rules, while championing diversity and inclusion along the way.

In other words, she’s a hugely inspiring pioneer for women in any field.
During a recent chat with Bumble chief brand officer Alex Williamson, Victoria shared her hard-won lessons on how to live your truth, even when it’s hard to do so. Here’s what she had to say.  

Listen to your own voice

“Somewhere along the way in our journeys, we are told to hear somebody else’s voice and not our own. I think that if you don’t hear your own voice, someone else will fill that voice for you and you will be saying something that is not who you are. Which means you won’t get to live your own truth. 

If you don’t live your own truth, then you’re living somebody else’s life and you’re cheating yourself from actually living the best life you can have.”

Forigive others — and yourself

“Forgive whoever you have to forgive for whatever the thing is. You have to forgive yourself [too] because things happen because they’re meant to. Some things are not kind, some things are. 

If you blame yourself, then you’re the only one taking up that space. Resentment is that. Resentment is just taking up space.”

Check your ego, stay curious

“I’ve done a lot of the jobs that no one else wanted to do. I got here by sheer determination of picking up all the crap that a lot of people didn’t want to pick up, and I was good with it. I was good with it because I’m a curious girl. My ego doesn’t have a license. 

Somewhere along the way, I could’ve said no because the jobs that were offered to me were less than what I felt I was in my career. But I was curious enough about what they were giving me in that job that the title didn’t matter.”

Identify your hurdles

“You need to know what stops you. Because you become your own hurdle. You can blame it on what ‘the man’ told you or what culture told you through the man, but you have the power. You gotta get your hands dirty and figure out why is it that you doubt yourself.

Men fail every day and we don’t crucify them. People make mistakes all the time.”

Don’t say “failure”

“Failure is somebody else’s idea of what your success could look like. Don’t use the f-word.

What does your success look like? Stop defining yourself by somebody else’s eyes. You have to look at it through your own, otherwise you’re not going to get there. Define it for yourself.”