Your Salary Is Not Your Worth| Latina Leadership Podcast with Andrea Diaz

Andrea Diaz: Hola Amiga. Welcome to the Latina Leadership Podcast, a podcast by Latinas for all women. Get ready, because today’s conversation is really special. Hola Amigas, and welcome to another episode of the Latina Leadership Podcast. I’m your host Andrea Diaz. And, you know, we talk a lot on this show about building, you know, building businesses, building community, building a life on your own terms. But to build anything, you need a foundation. And in our world, one of the most fundamental, tangible and often most fraught parts of that foundation is dun dun dun. Money. Specifically what we are paid for our work. For Latinas, the pay gap isn’t just a statistic, it’s a weight that gets passed down. It influences what we grew up in, what schools we can afford, the kind of security we can offer our own families. It’s a financial echo of systemic gaps in recognition, respect and value. But what if our strategy to close it starts not with a fight in a conference room, but what a conversation we have with ourselves first. So today we are incredibly honored to share a story from Evie Prete, a Latina salary negotiation coach who went from feeling like she had to shrink in corporate rooms to helping women negotiate over three quarters of $1 million in raises. And this is a conversation about transforming not just your salary, but your sense of worth and your future. So let’s hear from Evie in her own words. So I’m going to pull my phone here, and let’s read her story.

Evie Prete: My name is Evie Prete, and I’m a Latina salary negotiation coach, speaker, and host of the “Págame” podcast where I help women, especially women of color, rediscover their self-worth, negotiate their pay, and build careers rooted in abundance. A little bit about me—I’m the mechanical engineer turned program manager who grew up low income, graduated with an overwhelming debt, and spent years feeling like I had to shrink myself in corporate rooms. Over the last decade, I’ve negotiated nearly 200 K in raises and severance—three times my salary—and helped my clients negotiate over 750 K collective increases not by hustling harder, but by healing their relationship with self-worth. This year, I navigated a layoff, chose to see it as a redirection, traveled to Latin America and rebuilt my life and business with more confidence, joy, and alignment than ever. Now I’m stepping fully into my identity as a speaker, storyteller, and a thought leader for Latinas who want more. More money, more confidence, more audacity and more abundance.

Andrea Diaz: Oh my god, I want to pause there for a second—that line “not by hustling harder, but by healing their relationship with self-worth,” you know? And that’s the key that unlocks everything else. We’re often told to work harder, get more degrees, take our projects to prove we deserve more. But Evie is pointing us somewhere different—to the internal work. The mindset. She answers some powerful questions for us, and I want to share her insights. Our first question was, “Can you share a personal moment when you realize the power of salary negotiation, especially as a Latina in a male dominated field?” So let’s read Evie’s answer.

Evie Prete: The first time I truly understood the power of salary negotiation was when I learned I was being paid significantly less than a male colleague with a nearly identical background and education. I remember feeling everything at once: shame, anger, disbelief, and a deep sense of disrespect. It wasn’t just about the money, it was about realizing that my hard work and credentials weren’t automatically protecting me in a system that wasn’t built to be equitable. I intended to negotiate for the first time shortly after, and it didn’t go well. But that moment changed the trajectory of my life. I made a promise to myself that I would no longer stay in environments that benefited from my labor without valuing it.

Andrea Diaz: You know that feeling. She names the shame, the anger, the disbelief. So many of us know it. It’s the gut punch of inequity. But look what she did. She didn’t internalize that disrespect as a verdict on her own value. She externalized it. She saw it as a flaw in the system she was in, not a flaw in herself. And she made a promise not just to get a raise, but to never again stay in an environment that operated that way. And that’s a boundary—that’s claiming your agency. The negotiation was just a tool to enforce it. And this leads perfectly into our next questions, which are really about the “how.” So how do you prepare for that conversation when everything in you might be screaming that you should just be grateful to be in the room? And we ask Evie, “What is the most common worthiness wound you see in the Latinas you coach?” And here is her response.

Evie Prete: The most common worthiness wound I see in the Latinas I coach is the belief “I have to work harder to deserve more.” This belief is deeply rooted in first generation experiences, survival narratives, and family systems where being invisible felt safer than being seen. Many of us were taught to keep our heads down, work hard, and be grateful, but not to self-advocate. The problem is that hard work alone does not get you paid. In fact, it often keeps women underpaid. The first step in healing this wound is creating safety—financial, emotional, and strategic safety. When a woman understands her market value, knows her negotiation options, and has scripts for conversations, she stops operating from scarcity. From there, we shift the narrative from “I need to do more to deserve” to “I already deserve.” And now I’m learning how to articulate my value. That identity shift is where everything changes.

Andrea Diaz: So the strategy starts with safety. Not just feeling brave, but feeling prepared, knowing your numbers, having the words. The preparation is what quiets the scared, scarcity-driven voice telling you to take whatever is offered. Then we ask the following question: “What is one practical mindset-based strategy to use before entering a negotiation?” And here is Evie’s response.

Evie Prete: One of the most powerful mindset shifts I teach is separating self-worth from outcomes. Before entering a negotiation, I ask women to anchor into this truth: “My worth is not being decided in this conversation, only my compensation is.” When you stop treating a negotiation as a referendum on your value, your nervous system relaxes. You speak more clearly, ask more confidently, and stop over-explaining. Practically, I have my clients write down three concrete business outcomes they’ve driven—revenue saved, projects delivered, risk mitigated—and rehearse them out loud. This grounds them in facts, not feelings, and shifts the conversation from emotion to impact.

Andrea Diaz: Oh my God, I love that—this is the game changer. Decouple your worth from the offer. You’re not negotiating for your humanity; you’re negotiating for a number that should match the impact you’ve already proven you can deliver. And the practical tip here: write down three concrete outcomes. Rehearse them. You’re not going in and asking for value; you’re going in to report on the value you’ve already created. You’re just aligning the conversation to the record. And Evie’s journey includes a major pivot—a layoff. So we asked her: “After your layoff and time traveling, how did you define success?” Let’s see her response.

Evie Prete: After my layoff, I had a choice: rush back into the same patterns or pause long enough to redefine success on my own terms. Because I had negotiated well in the past, I had financial safety, and that allowed me to take time to travel to Latin America, reconnect with myself, and reflect on what I actually wanted my career and life to feel like. I realized success is not just stability or titles. It’s agency. It’s having enough money, trust, and confidence to choose what’s next instead of reacting out of fear. To any woman in transition, I would say this: a layoff is not a failure. It’s a redirection. If you invest in your financial literacy and self-advocacy skills, you give yourself options. And options are power.

Andrea Diaz: Oh my god, listen to that connection. The past negotiations didn’t just give her a bigger paycheck. They built her financial safety and that safety bought her time and choice when a crisis hit. So it gave her the power to see a layoff as a redirection, not as a disaster. And this is the ultimate argument for why this work matters. It’s not about greed. It’s about building the security that grants you freedom and resilience. And Evie sent us a final video message for all of you. So let’s listen.

Evie Prete: To every Latina listening: Your underpayment is not a personal failure. It is the predictable result of systems shaped by racism, sexism, and silence—systems that have long extracted our labor while minimizing our contributions. Negotiation is not about fixing yourself or proving your worth. It’s about refusing to let biased systems be the final authority on your value. Advocating for fair pay is not greed or entitlement. It is an act of dignity and self-respect in environments that were never designed with us in mind. And when you claim your worthiness financially, you don’t just change your paycheck, you begin to shift what safety, abundance, and possibility look like for your life and your lineage.

Andrea Diaz: When a Latina gets paid what she’s worth, it changes more than her life. It changes her lineage. Oh, what an amazing message. You know that line? “It changes her lineage.” And that’s it. That’s the through line. This isn’t just about you. The money you negotiate today is the stability that might fund your niece’s education, the down payment that starts your family’s generational wealth, or the emergency fund that saves your parents from stress. You’re not just asking for a number; you’re renegotiating a legacy. So where do you start? Borrowing Evie’s homework here: This week, take ten minutes. Open a document or a notes app. Write down three things you’ve accomplished in the last year that had a clear positive result for your team or company. Use numbers if you can—time saved, increased engagement, solving a recurring problem. Write them in full sentences as if you’re telling your boss about them. You don’t have to send it to anyone. This isn’t for a negotiation yet. This is just for you to shift your own narrative from “I work hard” to “I create this specific value.” And that list is the beginning of your new foundation. So thank you, Evie, for your honesty, for reminding us that our financial liberation is deeply tied to our personal and collective healing. And to everyone listening: Your worth was never up for debate. Your compensation should reflect that truth. I’m Andrea Diaz, and I’ll see you en la proxima. Bye, amigas.