Sonya Perez

Impact Cultivator, Change Expert, Leadership Coach

Enabling motivated change agents to expand their leadership potential by providing the insight, support and accountability for strategically and joyfully created change.

Sonya Perez

Impact Cultivator, Change Expert, Leadership Coach

Enabling motivated change agents to expand their leadership potential by providing the insight, support and accountability for strategically and joyfully created change.

Are you ready to lead with joy and ease?

Working as a change agent can be exhausting.

The internal pressure to perform well on behalf of the cause, continue to make great strides, show up as and lead a successful team is huge.

All of this rarely leaves time for prioritizing your own needs,  integrating awareness of what you learn into your life or filling up your own cup. 

The truth is, if you aren’t prioritizing your leadership development and doing the work to improve your mental and emotional awareness to create inner peace, you are not going to be able to effectively show up for your team, your organization or the cause you’re trying to help.

But it is possible to go from constantly spinning out and being filled with worry and anxiety to having an increased capacity, focus and clarity for more effective leadership. 

You are capable of finding the power to lead authentically and discovering the joy of doing so.  

I know because I’ve done this myself…

Hi, I’m Sonya

Founder and Creator of The Leadership Atlas™.

My mission is to shift the paradigm of leadership development toward caring for the whole individual, one leader at a time. I can help you to become the confident, effective and joyful leader you want to be. 

I know how it feels to be overwhelmed by your inbox and feel overworked to the point where your physical body suffers and your emotional and mental energy is maxed out. 

I lived and worked in spaces where social justice was the priority and exhaustion was normalized. They went hand in hand in my mind and I never considered a different way.

I was so committed to the mission of fighting global poverty that I didn’t stop to take care of myself and I didn’t know that my relentless effort and hard work was actually damaging my capacity to lead effectively and authentically. 

My accomplishments and hard work didn’t provide the confidence or inner peace as I took on new challenges. My perfectionism, dyslexia, and feeling like an outsider as the only Latina kept me in a state of struggle. 

I felt insecure and like an imposter believing the only way to overcome this was to work harder.
 
I embodied that hustle energy and scarcity mindset and spent years overworking and not taking care of myself because all that mattered was the mission.

It completely drained me.

In graduate school, I learned about and embodied the simple, but powerful, mental shift towards a growth mindset which meant I was able to accept and feel confident in the growth process. 

I finally gained more freedom to be my best self, be a more effective leader and be more creative. 

I was able to confidently show up and experience the joy of learning and growing rather than constantly being stuck in a fear – worrying about making mistakes  or not being enough for this mission that I cared so much about. 

This is when my passion for creating positive change in the world shifted from addressing global poverty to figuring out how to better support the people in organizations that are trying to do good in the world. 

The incongruence of caring for a cause but unintentionally treating employees poorly didn’t seem right to me. The model of production over people is hurting the impact we as change agents are trying to make.

Then during my Master’s program at Northwestern University, in Learning & Organizational Change, I discovered executive coaching and the many tools available to support leaders who want to create healthy workplaces.

Now, 10 years later after deepening my understanding of the brain, human behaviour and leadership (and getting married and having two beautiful children),  I have created my own coaching approach, The Leadership Atlas™.

My practice leverages my experience in the social sector, knowledge of organizational change, neuroscience, somatics, and a plethora of insights gained from my own personal breakthroughs and mental shifts to help change agents lead with confidence, ease and joy. 

It is possible to create a life that you love whilst impacting the world in positive ways.

I’m here to show you how.

Introducing The

We each have our own journey to map out as leaders. 

The reasoning behind the name ‘Atlas’ is twofold.

First, an Atlas is a book of maps, each with its unique purpose and perspective. Similar to an Atlas there is no singular map for great leaders. Similarly to an Atlas, everyone has their own roads, landscapes, barriers and signs and there isn’t ONE right way of achieving effective leadership or powerful change. 

I serve as a guide with an aerial view to support you on your journey to authentic and empowered leadership.. 

We each have our own journey to map out as leaders. 

The reasoning behind the name ‘Atlas’ is twofold.

First, an Atlas is a book of maps, each with its unique purpose and perspective. Similar to an Atlas there is no singular map for great leaders. Similarly to an Atlas, everyone has their own roads, landscapes, barriers and signs and there isn’t ONE right way of achieving effective leadership or powerful change. 

I serve as a guide with an aerial view to support you on your journey to authentic and empowered leadership.. 

The Atlas is also the name of the human vertebra – C1, connecting  our skull and body.  Embodied leadership is essential. Integrating our head knowledge with how we emotionally and physically feel enables a leader to become confident and effective, not just read and dream about it in our heads.

The Leadership Atlas, approach creates change by addressing your MIND ( mindset, mental models, conscious awareness), your EMOTIONS (automatic responses, feelings, triggers)  and your BODY (embodied sensations, physical needs and feedback that impacts how you show up as a change agent and leader). 

Integrating knowledge, awareness and practice on these three levels creates powerful transformations unlocking a leader’s full potential.  Tapping into your own  ‘Atlas’ you begin the journey of transforming your leadership from within. 

THE LEADERSHIP ATLAS APPROACH

MENTAL

EMOTIONAL

EMBODIED

We change leadership from the inside out, giving you the navigation tools and confidence to expand your capacity as a leader and feel empowered to lead with joy and innovation, in your own way. 

Our Values

Joy and Ease

Our focus is on creating joy and ease in your work so you have the ability to access the creative, curious and open parts of your brain to do inspired, meaningful and sustainable work.

Individuality and Interconnection

Everyone holds a unique point of view and we live in a network of meaningful connections in which our actions matter to the larger community. We have power as individuals AND cannot survive alone.

Curiosity

Is one of the most powerful, nonviolent emotions that creates space to move outside our comfort zone. Curiosity about why we are the way we are today and about the future we will choose to create leads to non-judgment and enables love to flow in the growth process.

Possibility and Hope

These values are key as a change agent and they set the foundation for action in a world where real setbacks, pain and darkness create the context for light, love, and radical change.

Rejuvenation

Life as a change agent Leader requires rejuvenation - real rest and immersion in beauty and nature. Healing our bodies and our minds, makes us more effective, creative and powerful leaders. 

Joy and Ease

Our focus is on creating joy and ease in your work so you have the ability to access the creative, curious and open parts of your brain to do inspired, meaningful and sustainable work.

Individuality and Interconnection

Everyone holds a unique point of view and we live in a network of meaningful connections in which our actions matter to the larger community. We have power as individuals AND cannot survive alone.

Curiosity

Is one of the most powerful, nonviolent emotions that creates space to move outside our comfort zone. Curiosity about why we are the way we are today and about the future we will choose to create leads to non-judgment and enables love to flow in the growth process.

Possibility and Hope

These values are key as a change agent and they set the foundation for action in a world where real setbacks, pain and darkness create the context for light, love, and radical change.

Rejuvenation

Life as a change agent Leader requires rejuvenation - real rest and immersion in beauty and nature. Healing our bodies and our minds, makes us more effective, creative and powerful leaders. 

Do our values feel in alignment with how you want to lead?

I am a Chicana, Latina, Mexican-American, bi-cultural human. I am both privileged and know marginalisation.  My ethnic identity and ancestral roots guide and ground. I have walked the complex journey of identity development in a racialized society and know it has provided me with an invaluable perspective on change, belonging, and the ability to integrate what supports me and others to thrive.

I am a Chicana, Latina, Mexican-American, bi-cultural human. I am both privileged and know marginalisation.  My ethnic identity and ancestral roots guide and ground. I have walked the complex journey of identity development in a racialized society and know it has provided me with an invaluable perspective on change, belonging, and the ability to integrate what supports me and others to thrive.

More about me

My energy flows from joy and I am deeply committed to helping leaders escape chronic exhaustion and a habit of  scarcity and fear.   

Aside from finding joy in working with incredible change agents to help them step into their true leadership ability to create impactful change, I also find joy in…