About Luna
Coach, Mentor, Public Speaker, Consultant & Expert in psychology, empathy, mental health, and wellbeing.
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I'm on a mission to help academics like you to dream big, recognize the absolute talents and gifts you have... all so you find work that is aligned with your values, without sacrificing your financial freedom.
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This is because I've become
resilient when I've had to be!
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I have a PhD in Applied Psychology and worked for 20 years in academia. I resigned in 2021 to create Luna Leadership.
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My story is of someone who grew up in poverty, took on loads of debt to live the American Dream, left the USA to avoid the exploitative and unfair academic tenure systems, but got caught in taking on more leadership and service roles while being promised promotions to the point that I left my child and partner in a city 3 hours away!
As academics, we take on more work, because we are perfectionistic and because we want validation and significance.
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I was a people-pleaser and I trusted academia. But my trust was misplaced similar to trusting a toxic lover who makes promises of love and devotion.
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​But we burn out trying to do all the things, all the while being told we're not writing enough, leading enough, bringing in enough $$$, etc?
I was burning out supporting students and travelling back each weekend to see my family as well as publishing 8 papers per year and writing grants worth 1M. I believed the university's promise that I'd be promoted in 2 years but I felt so betrayed when they decided, instead, to make me redundant after 4 years.
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After fighting and being featured in national and international media, we won the fight, saved 47 jobs!
I felt betrayed by the whole process, especially since I had sacrificed so much for academia, even losing 2 years of seeing my child everyday. I decided to leave for good, despite being tenured.
When you leave academia, you really do struggle with feelings of failure, grief, and whether you can do anything else but academia. It's like "you're not good enough for academia, but don't you know that no one else will want you?!"
Getting over these feelings of worth and failure was hard. I did get offers to work in non-profits at Director-level roles, which is how I became unstoppable in my CV writing and interview skills! If anything, I am a determined and persistent little armadillo!
What I realized in my self-discovery is you need to get vulnerable and become intimately familiar with your driving forces - mine were to help people who felt like they never fit in to create their own unique paths to freedom and fulfillment with financial freedom!
I now am a career coach and a research consultant, creating wealth that my parents would have never imagined; success is now redefined as the ability to spend time supporting my child, working on healing from trauma, dancing on stages for charity, and having hikes and cycle rides! I no longer work the wild hours!
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What is your version of success? Have you had time to consider that for yourself?
Making an impact
I have a particular passion to help those who have been most disenfranchised, given my background as Puerto Rican immigrant. These early experience as a Latin American woman forged my resolve to fight social injustices, but with creativity and flair. I am recognised as a Fellow of The RSA, which is awarded to those who demonstrate significant contributions to social change.
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Part of the reason I left academia was because I knew I could have greater impact upon the systems from without rather than from within.
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You might be wanting to use your research and writing skills outside of academia but don't know how. I teach this and I've also done it!
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I've used all the tools in my wheelhouse to co-create The Luminary Group Ltd.
I don't just teach these skills to my clients in coaching, I live it daily!
Do you want to know me and what makes me tick!?
Someone recently introduced me to SAVVY on LinkedIn as a fun way to show who you are, what you value, and what you're good at! If you want to do it too, here's what they stand for: S for skills, A for attributes, V for value, V for victories, and Y for young at heart.
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Here's mine:
S- Skilled at inspiring others and crafting creative & masterful strategies.
A- Full of light and hope, with weapons-grade optimism.
V- Diversity, equity and inclusion - I'm an activist; I put my body between hostile people and Brown/Black bodies.
V- Helping people imagine huge moves and then helping them bring them to life.
Y- I'm a professional dancer!
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What's yours?
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And if you want to know my qualifications:
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I've been coaching for a decade, starting while in academia. I've received awards for creating coaching programmes in academia, and I currently am a service provider at Durham University as an academic coach.
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In the last year, I've completed over 50 hours for my continuing professional development, learning trauma-informed practice, social justice in coaching radical compassion, and acceptance and commitment - accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA).
