We full-on admit to being awestruck by this Latina goddess’s handle on life. When Colombian-born Leila Cobo started at Billboard 12 years ago, she wrote a weekly column, “Las Notas,” and programmed the Latin Music Conference & Awards. She now sits atop the weekly magazine’s food chain as executive editor and TV host for Latin Content & Programming. Her enormous success, though, was never won at the expense of her familia or her passions. Mother of two, Cobo now eagerly awaits publication of her second novela, The Second Time We Met. Here, she reveals what’s behind her amazing balancing act, imploring, “Do not ever get disheartened.”

Solidify goals and deadlines. “I constantly procrastinate, which is why concrete goals and deadlines are crucial. Working at a weekly that prints like clockwork, you have to turn stuff in, one way or another.”

Push your limits. Starting at Billboard, “nothing more was asked than what I was specifically hired to do,” says Cobo. Within months, she was proposing all kinds of Latino-themed stories. Soon, the magazine had a standalone section featuring Latin-themed coverage and charts.

Seek mentors. Cobo is quick to remember the women who nurtured her career and took time to further her development. “They helped me when I was only just starting. I had nothing to give back.”

Follow your heart. “Do what you love; that’s what my father always said, and that success would result,” says Cobo.

Chip away at challenges. Even Cobo is not without her struggles, but she uses them as ammunition to get things done. “My biggest eternal challenge is convincing the mainstream that Latin music, Latin culture and the Latin marketplace are not just important but are part of the mainstream.”

Own your time. “Nights and weekends are my sacred time to write. There can be no one around me.”

Family first. Cobo says that much of her career track revolved around her family’s needs. “I gave up plenty of opportunities because I didn’t want my family to suffer.”

Photo Credit: Claudia Calle

It sounds like something straight out of a fairytale: A young girl, orphaned at the age of 8 and raised by nuns, goes on to become Miss Venezuela and then Miss World. But that is the reality of what happened to Ivian Sarcos, Miss World 2011. One year, 5,000 Facebook fans, and 33,000 Twitter followers later, Sarcos continues her whirlwind life filled with photoshoots, trips around the world, and the obligatory appearance on “Don Francisco Presenta.”

Being the youngest of 13 siblings from Guanare City, Venezuela, Sarcos was probably used to having to compete for attention. Still, nothing could have prepared her for losing both of her parents. Such dramatic life changes took her down unexpected roads. “Unfortunately I lost both my parents at a very young age, which led me to study for five years in a nunnery. I spent my five years in there and my dream was to become a nun,” she says.

In what can only be described as a massive career pivot, the 22-year-old Sarcos now cavorts in satin and pearl-encrusted wedges, rubs elbows with the likes of Paulina Rubio and has the tweets and Twitpics to prove it.

Even though she has triumphed over tragedy and grief that demanded a maturity far beyond her years, Sarcos still has a youthful, playful side: Check out the poufy, frothy bubble-gum pink gown she wore when she got her Miss World crown. Described as “epic” by the tabloids in the U.K., where the Miss World pageant is held, the gown would have made any quinceañera proud. Epic, indeed.

Photo: Getty Images

An investment banker. A corporate attorney. A venture capitalist. Alicia Morga has been there, done that. Today she is an entrepreneur helping mujeres get their ideas off the ground.

When Alicia Morga realized that advertisers didn’t quite understand the Latino market’s online power, she founded Consorte Media, a digital marketing company that used ciencia instead of hype to match brands with Hispanic-American consumers, in 2005.

“There was a lot of anecdotal evidence, but very little data about what really works,” says Morga. “I was determined to shatter some of the stereotypes about how Latinos ‘should’ be marketed to by collecting real data.”

After five successful years, the Los Angeles native sold her business. But her desire to help Latinas use technology as a tool to reach their dreams kept growing. So her next creation was gottaFeeling, an iPhone application meant to help women become more self-aware. “A woman’s power comes from understanding herself,” she says. “But many are out of touch with their emotions.”

For Morga, it’s simple: Understanding how you feel is the key to knowing what you want. And the more we know our goals, the greater the likelihood of reaching them. “Women are full of fabulous ideas that only need to be realized,” she says.

Morga admits that it’s easy to get distracted on the way to making a vision come to life. But keeping up el animo is a must, and you can do it by relying on friends and family and by doing small tasks that “remind me I am capable of doing something to completion and well,” she says. “I like baking. It’s a great tangible task, and the smell of baked goods always reminds me that everything is going to be OK.”

Pregnancy cravings are no joke. But try being a pregnant Latina foodie. That’s what 27-year-old Venezolana-Italiana Melissa Berthier experienced last year. Since her Mexican-Lebanese esposo, Alfonso, no longer was an executive at Mexicana airlines who could lavish her with dulces from Latin America, what could a food-obsessed couple do to satisfy mami-to-be’s authentic cravings?

It took about nine months, but on the same day their daughter Sabrina was born, another entity was birthed: Mister Gallo, the mascot for LatinBag.com, the new parents’ e-commerce site that would launch a few weeks later in October 2010. The Berthiers had tapped into a nostalgia market for authentic comidas Latinas. So, they now offer to bag the groceries from your homeland for you, with customers as far away as South Korea and Australia.

The Bethesda, Md., couple balances fulfilling orders daily between day jobs: Melissa works for Metro in Washington, D.C., and Alfonso owns a distribution company. LatinBag is a work in progress -- from shipping and tracking, to storage and inventory. Now raising a growing toddler, Melissa concedes, “There is no such thing as spare time.” But her job provides stability and health insurance, as they’d like to have another child. Eventually, however, they’d like to devote themselves full-time to LatinBag and expand their inventory. “I’d love to sell authentic Oaxaca cheese,” says Melissa. “But it’s a matter of storing it properly.” So for now, LatinBag stocks an assortment of dry and canned goods, as well as pan dulce, café, candy, spices and more goodies to satisfy those cravings -- whether you’re pregnant or not.

Described as the Spanish media’s “Latina Oprah Winfrey,” Cristina Saralegui lives up to the comparison to her television hermana: She’s an award-winning television journalist, a bold interviewer and a compassionate listener. Did we mention that she has the requisite eponymous magazine?

When Saralegui’s television contract was not renewed in 2010, she wondered if she had, at 62, come to the end of her run. “I thought, ‘Well, at my age, one retires,’” she says. But in her corazon, Saralegui wanted to continue doing groundbreaking television. A fateful charla with a TV ejecutivo clarified the circumstance. He had waited 10 years for her to be available to bring her to a new network. Saralegui saw an opportunity to start fresh and began planning a new show. “We always have to start anew, with new hope,” she says.

With twice the budget, Saralegui created “Pa’lante Con Cristina,” debuting to ecstatic audiences last October. Not only did top talent such as Pitbull inaugurate a spectacular set, but Saralegui also snapped up the coveted seven-to-nine Sunday evening slot when familias typically spend time together.

Saralegui is determined to make her new show a hit on the small screen. As its executive producer, more of the responsibility now weighs on her. One priority will be to reach younger, English-speaking viewers about important issues, such as la salud and la sexualidad. And though she occasionally thinks about retiring, Saralegui clarifies that “the old lady” is not worn out. “I’m leaving when I want to, and that must hold true for all of us.”