Laura Peña

"I met this wonderful woman called Laura Rose, and I applied for a grant. She was part of this grant, she was a mentor for me, and one day she asked me, would you like to make this into a nonprofit? Through Purpose Earth and through this organization that Laura Rose is part of, they supported us into becoming a nonprofit. The process was so easy."

"The first moment was in 2012. I had a dream, a literal dream. I was sleeping and woke up with the name She is the Universe in my head. I didn't know what to do with this. This was so strange for me, but I trusted it. I didn't know how to trust myself then, but I bought a domain name."

"What I decided was to bring those girls that I've met together and invite other girls around the world to come together, connect with each other. That evolved into a more complex nonprofit where we do educational programs for girls to learn how to connect with themselves, but also to learn about who they are. Our programs go from Who am I to Who am I in relationship to In relationship to my community and the world."

"For those that maybe they are curious about something, you can start there. Follow those curiosities, follow what you are interested in right now, and go try that, because that might lead you to the next thing, that will lead you to the next thing, that might lead you to your beautiful, beautiful purpose."

"I think the biggest challenge for me in living my purpose is that before I started doing this, I had an identity of who I was. I'm living a very unconventional life to be able to do what I do right now, and I think the hardest part is to know in your heart what's next, and to know yes, this is something I want to do, but even then I have doubts because I don't know the how. Right now I'm in this place, really into two worlds: the world of the person I was and the new world of the person I am becoming, this woman of being of service to the world and to girls. The other me is this person who graduated from art school, and I'm having a hard time marrying those two parts of me."

She is the Universe - A global platform designed to amplify the voices of teenage girls from around the world.

"It wasn't until 2014, when my life fell apart. I got divorced, I quit my job, that year I moved from New York City, where I had been for many years, and basically, it changed my entire life. For me, it was a sequence. It was a series of moments. The first moment was in 2012. I had a dream, a literal dream. I was sleeping and woke up with the name She is the Universe in my head. I didn't know what to do with this. This was so strange for me, but I trusted it. I bought a domain name. I took action in the way that I knew how."

"I've been following that intuition and my heart because the heart knows. This is all a system of inner knowing that, if you learn how to listen to it, can be very powerful. This compass is our intuition, this part of us, especially for women, that tells us what is right for us. Every time I find myself at a crossroads, I keep asking myself, what do you want, heart? I touch my heart and ask, what do you want, what do you want, what do you want, and pause. Taking it slow and pausing when we're in the middle of trying to make a big decision is huge. My heart is pulling me in a different direction, and the people I keep meeting are asking me about this."

"I came in 2016 to bring friends who wanted to volunteer at an organization that works with girls. I was just there to translate, but I entered the space, and girls were running around, they were free, and they were laughing. I thought, wow, I can't believe that there is a place in the world, especially in my country, where girls can feel free. Of course, I didn't know what I was going to do with that, but I started crying. They were giving us a tour of the space, and I just couldn't stop crying, and I knew then that there was something there for me. For me, there are two main paths. One is through your joy, what makes you so happy. Another path for me to get into that purpose is to find what breaks your heart, what is it that when you see it, you feel like, ah, someone should do something about that, and then you do it. For me, it is to see women and girls who are amazing but cannot see their own brilliance, and that heartbreak led to this. So let the heartbreak, let it break, let it break."