Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in leadership development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Petra Vega, Founder of Create More Possibilities, located in Bronx, NY, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

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 about 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.
  2. Have done lots of learning and unlearning around social justice, equity, change management, etc. but aren't sure how to translate that into action.
  3. Are just not feeling good about their leadership or how they're feeling as a leader, or how their team is feeling or operating.
  4. Are feeling really confident about their leadership and want some accountability and thought partnership to keep doing the right things.

Tell us about yourself

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 the 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 Nights 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.

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.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

The magnitude and depth of relationships that I've built through this entrepreneurship journey. I've talked to more strangers this past year than I have in my whole life (practically), and many of them became friends, colleagues, and clients. This is a BIG DEAL for someone who hadn't posted on social media for nearly a decade and who still prefers to hide in the back and not be seen, but here I am, trying to be the best steward of this work that I can be.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

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."

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Get clear about how you change and grow because, as they say, "entrepreneurship is the self-development journey you didn't expect." 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 you know what services or supports are realllllyyyy going to benefit you.
  2. If you're just starting out, don't leave your day job. Learning how to market, create, sell, etc., your products and services is already a huge undertaking, so having to learn that and worry about getting your bills paid is over the top, stressful, and overwhelming.
  3. Plug into a like-minded community. Entrepreneurship can be super lonely, so finding a space you can go to for support, encouragement, accountability, and resources is crucial. It's what's kept me afloat all this time.

Where can people find you and your business?

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

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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