We recently connected with Petra Vega and have shared our conversation below.

Petra, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you recount a story of an unexpected problem you’ve faced along the way?

One of the hardest things about being a business owner is learning to see past the flashy marketing, pictures and promises. It’s been a year-long practice in personally and peripherally discerning what’s the real deal in what someone is saying vs. what exactly is possible (especially for someone who’s committing to creating more possibilities in the world). In this season, I’m learning that “it all works”, all being the strategies people may share and it’s really about “will it work for you though”.

Since then, I’m learning to get clear about how I change and grow because as they say, “entrepreneurship is the self-development journey you didn’t expect”. Questions like: Are you someone who benefits from 1-on-1 support or being surrounded by others or a hybrid mix? Are you a linear thinker or more nonlinear or sporadic? Are you a no-nonsense person or do you prefer a tender touch? All of this will help us know what services or supports are realllllyyyy going to benefit you in your growth.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

My name’s Petra Vega and I am the Liberatory Leadership Coach as well as a Facilitator. Emergent Strategist and Radical Social Worker. All of those self-defined titles encompass my perspective on leadership that is grounded in a place of liberation, about making things easier to lean into, getting at the root and leaning on the nature of change to support our visions and desires.

One of the key moments that brought me to this point is becoming politicized in college. By this I mean, I learned that the personal is political and that our lived experiences are much more connected to power than we imagine. I learned that the most transformational changes have historically happened at the intersection of relationships, political education and collective action. All of this pushed me to show up differently. I called out my racist, transphobic classmates for being harmful in public. I found a political affinity group that helped me level up my analysis and capacity. I cut off my relaxed hair as a first step to embracing my lineage. And I began organizing Take Back the Night’s on campus.

Since then, I’ve been practicing what it means to lead by example in an effort to be someone that practices what they preach. My background includes over a decade of experience in building power with parents and neighbors, challenging toxic workplaces into care-centered spaces, developing facilitation as an art for consensus-based decision-making and inclusive, participatory engagement, as well as training the next generation of social workers to trust the people as experts in their own lives, interrogate the savior complex within us and to heal ourselves in order to heal the collective.

My company, Create More Possibilities, began as a seedling of a desire to be part of the larger movement of folx who are creating more joy, healing, alignment. revolution. justice and belonging in the world. Today, this desire has turned into a coaching and consulting company for historically marginalized leaders who are ready to do leadership differently. I define leadership as an ongoing process of being responsible for and responsive to self and others.

I offer customized coaching for leaders who want to lead with MORE purpose and trust and LESS pressure and anxiety of perfection and internalized oppression. I provide consultation and facilitation for groups and organizations who want to translate their values into their programs, policies and processes, all of which I describe as daily practices.

My customers include folx and groups who: (1) want to be the kind of supervisor or manager they wish they had but aren’t sure where to start OR (2) have done lots of learning and unlearning around social justice, equity, change management, etc but aren’t sure how to translate that to action OR (3) are just not feeling good about their leadership or how they’re feeling as a leader or how they’re team is feeling or operating OR (4) are feeling really confident about their leadership and want some accountability and thought partnership to keep doing the right things.

Finding new ways to understand my clients’ intersections of experiences and desires so I can help them get closer and closer to practicing what they preach, is what motivates me to keep going each day. In a world that asks us to operate in cognitive dissonance for self-protection and survival, I want to be part of the antidote that says: it doesn’t have to be this way.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

As a leadership coach who learned how to lead from the people vs. from a hierarchical career trajectory, I love talking about the idea that if the people are not well, the work will not be well either. For me, fostering radical transparency so that workers and leaders can be honest about what is working and what’s not working is one piece of managing a team with high morale. If people are afraid of retribution for being honest about their struggles and challenges, then we’re going to continue to fuel struggles and challenges. The next piece is responding in a way that really demonstrates you heard and understand what your team needs to be successful and content in their wok so that high morale can be possible.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn the idea that just because “it” worked for someone else, doesn’t guarantee that “it” will work for me. By “it” I mean, a strategy or system or tactic. What I’m learning now is to better understand what are the similarities and differences in the advice/expert giver’s experience or suggestion so I can see how feasible and likely that resource would apply to me vs. allowing myself to feel like I’m doing it wrong. I know that’s not the case, it’s just that different things work for different people.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://createmorepossibilities.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/createmorepossibilities/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/createmorepossibilities/