It’s time to offend the haters, Ch*ngonas! Obviously, we’re not giving you permission to be a jerk, but we are giving you permission to spread your wings and stop trying to please the people who want to keep you down. And to help you on this courageous journey to confidence we’re talking to this week’s guest, Rachel Luna. 

Rachel Luna, author of Permission to Offend, is a highly sought-after international speaker and certified Master Neuroscience Coach to 6 and 7-figure-earning entrepreneurs. Named by Forbes as one of The 11 Most Inspiring Female Entrepreneurs To Follow On Instagram, this former US Marine has a reputation for inspiring confident action and helping her clients double, triple, and quadruple their income. Her clients often referred to her as their “secret weapon.”

In this week’s episode, Rachel explains how society keeps us from being brave. Toxic cancel culture has infiltrated our communities and our friend groups. I’ve heard too many women say that they are afraid to achieve great things because they don’t want to offend the people in their community. Offend them! This is your life, not theirs, and it’s time to stop caring about what other people think and take charge of your courageous life. 

–

Connect with Rachel Luna:

Website: www.rachelluna.biz/ 

IG: @girlconfident 

Order Rachel’s book Permission to Offend: https://therachelluna.lpages.co/book-page/ 

Listen to the Permission to Offend Podcast: https://www.rachelluna.biz/podcast-1 

–

Rachel Luna:

Rachel Luna, author of Permission to Offend, is a highly sought-after international speaker and certified Master Neuroscience Coach to 6 and 7-figure earning entrepreneurs. Named by Forbes as one of The 11 Most Inspiring Female Entrepreneurs To Follow On Instagram, this former US Marine has a reputation for inspiring confident action and helping her clients double, triple, and quadruple their income. Her clients often referred to her as their “secret weapon.”

Rachel calls herself a magnet for miracles because despite losing both her parents to AIDS, struggling with eating disorders in her teens, and battling alcoholism and depression in her early 20s, Rachel has never allowed herself to be limited by life circumstances. Instead, she persevered and when she was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer in the summer of 2019, Rachel tackled it the same way she does everything – with confidence, faith, and love.

Within 30 days she was cancer-free and today she continues to thrive, teach, and activate confidence in others. Through her top-rated podcast, Permission to Offend – which has listeners in over 90 countries around the world – social media platforms, email list, courses, her live event Confidence Activated, and journaling membership – The Faith Activated Journaling Experience, Rachel is on a mission to help 11 million women step into faith, worth and wealth.

Standing only 4 feet 11 inches tall, Rachel is a tiny but mighty firecracker who lights up the room and galvanizes her audiences all around the world. An international speaker, Rachel has been invited to share her powerful talks all across the globe from the US to Europe to Japan and has been featured in Forbes twice, The Huffington Post, Success Magazine, and Latina Magazine among many others.

If you’re ready to return to your truth, own it, and live fully self-expressed without fear of judgment, rejection, or defamation – so that you can step into your next level of elevation, Rachel Luna is the girl you call.

–

Website:
www.theerikacruz.com

Follow Erika on:
Instagram @‌theerikacruz
TikTok @‌theerikacruz
LinkedIn

How to work with Erika:

Join the waitlist for Courage Driven Latina here.

–

Podcast production for this episode was provided by CCST.

Episode Transcript

Rachel Luna: I said, so why aren’t you selling what’s holding you back? And she was so brave and so sweet. And she said, “I’m just so afraid that I’m going to offend someone.” And I didn’t even think about it. I just said, I screamed into the microphone, “Offend them!” You have to be willing to give yourself permission to offend because people are going to be offended that you dare to dream.

People are offended that you’re out there building your business, starting your podcast, writing your book. There are people, even sometimes your own friends and family that are offended that you don’t want to go to college, that you want to break from the quote unquote. Quote unquote norm and I, as soon as the words came out of my mouth, I was like, Oh, that’s good.

Erika Cruz:

Hello, hello. Before we dive into this episode, I wanted to give you all a trigger warning. Rachel and I do discuss race. We also discuss Roe v. Wade and the topic of abortion, which is obviously a very sensitive topic, and that begins at around 26 minutes. Rachel shares some stories from her life with miscarriage and just the complexities around this topic, and vulnerably shares just how conflicted she feels about this issue.

And I do believe that that’s the purpose of this podcast episode, to help us navigate these difficult conversations, especially when people are on one side. Of a, of an issue and people are on the extreme other side of an issue. And I think this conversation between Rachel and myself is a perfect example of a conversation with two people who come from different backgrounds and have different views of the world and different spiritual practices where Rachel is Christian and I consider myself spiritual and we.

If you can cut out that silence, that would be great. And while Rachel mentions that she’s feeling very conflicted about where she stands on this issue, then we have me on the other end where I’m very certain about how I feel. And I think that women should have that choice, but. Rachel is seeing both sides, right? And I think this, again, this conversation where we can both be amicable and listen, and I’m allowing her to share her story and her point of view, that is what this podcast is for, is to allow people to share their stories and to share Their opinions.

And I also want to be very clear that in no way, shape or form are any of the statements said on this podcast from either myself or a guest, are they trying to convince you that you should change the way that you think or that you should adopt our views? I think that actually the point of this podcast episode is.

To help you identify your values and what your voice is and that’s exactly what Rachel stands for, but I just wanted to let you all know that this is something that is discussed at about 26, 28 minutes in, in the event that you’d rather not listen, that’s totally okay, or if you wanted to skip ahead, just wanted to give you all that disclaimer, but I do think that this is an important conversation where we are able to learn to Thank you.

have dialogue around these really complicated topics.

Erika Cruz: Hello, hello, and welcome back to Chingona Revolution podcast. We have a very special guest today. This individual is a speaker, a coach, and we met at a conference in Puerto Rico, which is her motherland, and she has such an inspiring story. And even though she’s been through so much, she has not let that bring her down.

She is such an inspirational speaker and a testament to not allowing your circumstances. to define who you become. And this person is none other than Rachel Luna, who is the author of Permission to Offend. Such a good book. And she’s also a highly sought after international speaker and 

 certified master neuroscience coach to six and seven figure earning entrepreneurs. Named by Forbes as one of the 11 most inspiring female entrepreneurs to follow on Instagram, this former US Marine has a reputation for inspiring confident action and helping her clients double, triple, and quadruple their income.

Her clients often refer to her. as their secret weapon. Rachel calls herself a magnet for miracles because despite losing both of her parents to AIDS, struggling with eating disorders in her teens, and battling alcoholism and depression in her early 20s, Rachel has never allowed herself to be limited by her life circumstances.

Instead, she persevered And when she was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer in the summer of 2019, Rachel tackled it the same way she does everything with confidence, faith, and love. Within 30 days, she was cancer free. And today she continues to thrive, teach, and activate confidence in others.

And that’s what she is going to do today. Let’s get into this amazing conversation. Rachel Luna. Oh, I’ve been looking forward to this conversation with you ever since we met at our money, our power conference where you were the keynote speaker and you blew all of us away I really feel like we need multiple parts of this because there’s so many things that I want to get into so many things that I want to ask you.

But first, welcome to Ch*ngona Revolution podcast. 

Rachel Luna: Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited to be here and low key high key. I was hoping to be invited to be on this show. So thank you. I’m so 

Erika Cruz: glad. Yes. Whenever I, I remember talking to you about it at the conference, the moment I met you, your energy was just magnetic.

I was like, Oh yeah, I, I don’t, I don’t even know who she is exactly. I knew who you were, but I don’t think I had pieced it together. Like I knew your face and I knew who the keynote speaker was. And then it hit me, I think after you and Karina went shopping at Zara, I was like, Oh, and then it all clicked.

So, and then I was totally fangirling and I was like, no wonder I was so drawn to her energy. And okay, so I have so, so many questions for you, but I think I want to jump right into it. I’m sure we’ll get into some of your background, but. You recently launched a book called Permission to Offend, and it is such a good name.

I want to know, where did the name come from? 

Rachel Luna: Mm-hmm. Okay, before we talk about the name, let’s make sure we tell the listener what it doesn’t mean, because sometimes you hear the words permission to offend, and it can seem very jarring, and I want to be very clear. I am not. Advocating for you to be a jerk, mean-spirited, instigate any division or intentionally hurt people.

On the contrary, when I tell you to give yourself permission to offend, I’m championing for you to advocate for your truth, your beliefs, your values, your freedom, emotional, mental, spiritual, physical, all-encompassing. So that is what we mean when we say permission to offend. Now, where it came from, it was so, it felt random, but I don’t really believe in random anything.

I think that God’s hand is on just about everything when we are open to being a servant and a vessel. So I was speaking at an event that is, you know, one of my professional jobs is a speaker. I am. Thank God with such a gift and an honor to me. I get flown all around the world to speak on different stages.

And on this particular event, they wanted me to speak about sales confidence, which I love because I love selling. It’s like such a great form of service. And so I had done my talk and then I asked questions and I had this one woman stand up and I said, so why aren’t you selling what’s holding you back?

And she was so brave and so sweet and she said, I’m just so afraid that I’m going to offend someone. And I didn’t even think about it. I just said, I screamed into the microphone, offend them. You have to be willing to give yourself permission to offend because people are going to be offended that you dare to dream.

People are offended that you’re out there building your business, starting your podcast, writing your book. There are people, even sometimes your own friends and family that are offended that you don’t want to go to college, that you want to break from the quote-unquote. Quote unquote norm and I, as soon as the words came out of my mouth, I was like, Oh, that’s good.

And then I began workshopping that concept. And I think that this is something that people don’t take the time to do. Like they have an idea and instead of testing it out and trying it on, they’ll sit with it and they’ll ruminate and agonize. Privately, you know, is this going to work? Should I do this?

Should I not? And they’re trying to find the answer within themselves. And yes, there are many answers that are within yourself, but when it’s something that you’re creating for the public, you know, on mass. It’s a great idea to just throw it out there and see what happens. I’m also a big believer in selling things before you fully finish creating it.

So I started workshopping it the next couple of podcast interviews that I did, they were like, so what do you want to talk about? And, you know, they’re like, well, let’s talk about giving yourself permission to offend. And as soon as people would be like, Ooh, what is that? Then I knew, aha, I’ve got them. And that’s, here we are years later.

Erika Cruz: That is beautifully said and I think there’s you I’m so glad you talked to us about what it doesn’t mean and in your book you specifically talk about how we’re in this cancel culture where we’re told to essentially pick one side or the other but life is not Black and white, right? Life exists very much in the gray zone and life is complex.

And I feel like you did such a beautiful job of talking about that in the book. So can you tell us a little bit about the, how society sometimes wants us to, to have these polarizing opinions, but it’s important to have a safe space and at least have one person that you could go to and workshop these different ideas and allow yourself to tell yourself a different story to use your words 

Rachel Luna: for it.

Sure. I mean, even that question is so complex because as you’re asking me, I’m searching my brain. I don’t know if anybody that’s watching this version of the podcast, but I’m searching my brain for examples. And because I know that this is going to go out to a larger audience beyond just you and I. I’m thinking very intentionally, like what is the best example that would cause the least amount of harm?

The reality is that right now, more than ever, we live in a society that is so ultra-sensitive and there’s nothing wrong with being sensitive. I’m a big proponent for feeling your emotions and crying if you need to cry. And, and if you’re offended by something, really taking the time to go introspective about it.

But man, you can’t say nothing these days without people wanting to cancel you right away. To even answer your question, we have to really identify why is that the case right now? Why are we living in such a time where even thinking something that is what we were taught? Okay. Let me give you an example.

Trigger warning, we’re going to talk about race right now and I just want to for the sake of this conversation express that I’m going to mention some programming that I was taught growing up that I’ve had to work to unlearn. And I’m going to ask for grace if I miss speak for the sake of giving this example, by the way, what I’ve just done there, did you see how I like set the tone for the conversation?

That is what I teach in one of the chapters in the book is how do we even workshop these ideas without like causing someone harm? So when I was growing up and I’m in a different generation, we were literally taught. Not to see color. I remember being told don’t see color. You know, if you see color, if you acknowledge that, that there’s a black kid, it was always like, why I got it, but why I gotta be a black person?

Why I gotta be a Puerto Rican? Why I gotta be a Mexican? Why couldn’t it just be a person? And we were, it was like ingrained. I remember. You know, if you said anything, if you gave any kind of modifier or adjective pertaining to race or color or culture, you were racist. Now, decades later, if you don’t acknowledge a beautiful black woman or a Puerto Rican or, you know, whatever, a part of the culture, if you don’t acknowledge that that person’s culture exists.

So you have to remember that what we’re trying to do right now is learn and unlearn and figure out where each person from multiple generations fits into the fabric of this society. And it is hard because back in the day. Remember, the internet is still new. I am part of the generation and I’m not making excuses.

I could hear someone saying like, this is the problem. You’re making excuses. This is not an excuse. This is reality. Right. You’re dealing with multiple generations where we did not have the internet until I was a teenager. Some of the people listening to this show don’t even know what a world without a cell phone is like.

Like when I was growing up, cell phones were a new thing. I can’t believe you have me aging myself like this girl. Come on now. So, but, but it’s okay. Right? Like, these are the conversations that we have to have. So when you say your original question. You know, why is this? Like, how do we do this? How do we workshop these conversations?

It’s first acknowledging that there is a generation gap, acknowledging that there have been advancements in technology that now give us more access than we ever had. So you and the. The proverbial you, right? You at large have had access to the information superhighway, where you could know what gaslighting means, what race theory is, what colorblindness is, like what pronoia means, all of these things where the, there are other generations where none of that act, there was no access to that information.

So you’re asking us to now collapse the catch-up. And that is work that needs to be done. So to be clear, That work all needs to be done, but what we need while everyone is catching up while each generation is sort of getting on board with where we are in society is there needs to be a call for more grace, more compassion, and more empathy.

And there needs to be a general understanding that some of us are going to get, not some of us, all of us are going to get some part of it wrong at some points in the journey. And can we allow for. Curiosity and conversation instead of condemnation and cancellation. How do we 

Erika Cruz: do this? I love that. Oh, that was a mic drop moment.

How do we 

Rachel Luna: do this? So good. So the way that we do this is first of all. You got to know who you are before you can even start trying to figure out who someone else is. And until you’re clear with who you are, with what you’ve learned and what you’re, you need to unlearn, don’t get into the conversation.

Don’t start throwing those daggers because at some point that you will be the target. So first of all, what do I believe? What do I value? What have I learned? And do I still believe the programming that was instilled upon me by my caregivers, my parents, my teachers, you know, growing up Latina, we’re told a lot of messed up things, right?

Like, yeah. Mas bonita calladita or, you know, those little. No digas nada, you know, don’t you dare say anything. Don’t you dare step out of line. I remember one time, man, I’ll never forget this. We’re at Payless, right? And my grandmother’s with us. She’s visiting from Puerto Rico and she said something about me learning how to cook and because one day I was going to need to cook for my husband.

Now, mind you, I grew up with, a single mom because she’s not, she wasn’t my biological mom. My biological mother passed away when I was three and a half from AIDS and my godmother, who is my mom, basically inherited me. So she didn’t have a husband when I landed on her doorstep. I didn’t have that picture of a mother, a father, and a mom serving the husband as it were.

I grew up with you’re a strong, independent woman. You don’t depend on anybody. Go get your career. You don’t need a man. Okay. My grandmother, very traditional, you’re supposed to serve on your husband and all the, all the women in the family need to cater to the men. So my grandmother says, you know, you need to learn how to cook so that one day, you know, you can cook for your husband and.

I said, who says I’m getting married? And what if I want to be a lesbian? And my mom came from around the rack of the shoes and pop me right in my mouth. Mira, no, tu estas loca, no diga eso. Right? Like it was this. Horrible offense, and here’s the kicker, Erika, is that my mom had all these gay friends. So I didn’t understand what, and I looked at her and said, what’s wrong?

She’s like, are you crazy? You’re going to give your grandmother a heart attack. I was like, but like all your friends are gay. She was like, shh, shh, you know, like, it was crazy. You have to remember, we have people who grew up in that generation where if they even said the word gay, they got popped in the mouth.

And now we have this new world where we have nonbinary and transgender, and it is. A lot for the nervous system and the brain to catch up with and so there has to be grace first figure out. What do I believe? Do I believe that a woman should be serving her man and and cooking for her husband? You know, honestly, for a long time, I didn’t.

And now I’m in a season where like, you know, I, I like when I have a meal ready for my husband, I don’t have a meal ready for him every day. Most days I don’t have a meal ready for him, but you know, on the day that I have a meal ready for him, I feel very proud of myself. I feel like, man, This is so nice of me to do this and it’s not because it’s expected, but because it’s an act of love, because I genuinely, I know he’s had a hard day at work and I want him to feel taken care of just the same way that I, as a woman wants to feel taken care of by my husband.

And I think I’m going to say some controversial stuff here, but I think that. The reason we’re having so many problems is because we are overcorrecting feminism. We overcorrected, the, with the gender there’s overcorrection. And I know that that’s an unpopular thing. Hear me out. When I say that we’re overcorrecting, it’s that in our attempt to Right.

The wrongs of the past. We’ve forgotten what we stand for and what we believe and value. And we’ve forfeited our personal values to acquiesce to some, someone else’s definition of societal values. And this is why I say, and why I’m such a proponent in my book, permission to offend. It’s the first figure out.

What you believe and what you value and take a passionate stand for your truth and your values while also holding space for the values and the beliefs of other people. As a Christian woman, I am still every day reconciling. A bunch of things that are part of our society. But you know what I do value? I value people feeling seen, heard, and understood.

That is a deep core value of mine. And so because I value that when I meet people who have beliefs or ideologies or, or lifestyles that are different than my own, before I rushed to like be understood about my Christian values. I start asking questions and I try to get to understand them because I want people to always have some sort of safe.

as safe as I can provide, because I, I can’t guarantee I can’t control your experience of our interaction. I can only just say, like, I’m interested. Tell me more why do you believe that? Where do you come from? and so. Really giving yourself that space to question your beliefs, question what you’ve been taught and ask yourself, do I still believe this to be true?

And this is especially important first and foremost with our relationship with ourself, but really with our relationship with the people whose opinions matter to us. Because the reality is that the world has a lot of opinions and at the end of the day, other people’s opinions are none of our business.

Like what… Some random person listening right now that I don’t know that might not even be my ideal community member thinks about me is not my opinion. However, my ideal community member, my mom, my husband, my best friend. You know fulano de tal that has been an old family friend their opinions matter to me and I have to reconcile How do I take a stand for my values and my beliefs?

Honour and respect where they’re coming from without giving in to make them feel better about their truth.

So powerful. I’ll just, I’ll stop there. We could take this 

Erika Cruz: so many different directions. I’m like, where do I want to go from here? Because you said so many, so many good things. So cool. Cool. I think, you know, as we’re talking about other people’s opinions, I think that is the number one thing that stops people from taking action on their goals and dreams of like, Qué Or to use the three fears that you talk about in the book, you talk about judgment, rejection, and defamation.

Tell us a little bit about these three fears, and when we were at the conference, I heard you talk about your experience with rejection in your life, so can you tell us a little bit about these three fears, and if you would like to use some examples from your life, because before we started recording, I mentioned to you, Most of my clients and most of the people listening to this podcast, they have a goal.

They know what they want to do. It’s just that fear and fear of being judged, fear of being rejected, fear of what people, you know, will say to someone else about them. So I’m going to stop rambling and let you talk. 

Rachel Luna: You’re not rambling. You’re describing it beautifully, actually. So thank you for that. I see you have read my book.

so here’s the thing, the, the three fears that we tackle in the book permission to offend judgment, rejection, defamation, right? What will they think? What will they do? Who with who will they tell them? What will they say about it are like across the board? All of us, every single human being has experienced those fears at one point or another.

The cool thing about judgments is that judgments are automatic. The first judgment is automatic. I like to say the second judgment is a choice. So I have a master certification in neuroscience. I also certify people to become neuroscience based life coaches. And one of the things that I learned over the years and, and through some studies is that when.

The, when someone is walking towards you, your brain is forming a judgment eight seconds before you have any facial recognition of who that is coming towards you. And that interesting, like for eight whole seconds before your brain realizes like, Oh no, that’s just Erica. Your brain is already deciding.

It’s dangerous or safe, and that is from a combination of circumstance, environment, appearance, sound, all of the senses are involved, right? So like, let’s say for example, I’m only four 11 and a half. So when you meet me in person, listener, the half matter, the half does matter, but I just want you to be prepared.

So you don’t say to me, Oh my gosh, you’re so much smaller in person. I’m little, I just look big on screen. So anyway. Say, for example, I’m walking down a dark alley, it’s two o’clock in the morning, I’m by myself, and I see a big, giant figure walking towards me. Even just imagining that scenario, my heart is like beating a little bit faster.

I found my breath getting a little short because my brain already knows like, Oh, you’ve been taught to stay out of dark alleys as a woman by yourself in the middle of the night. Because that could be some rapist, mugger, sex trafficker, whatever. Right. But then if I think, well, who could that be? That big burly man walking towards me is my brother.

Totally safe, but I, until I could actually get to see his face, I was terrified. So the judgments are going to happen. What I like to say is that when the judgment happens, that means I have your attention and I want your attention. I want you to see me, hear me, hopefully understand me. But even if you don’t.

If you’re still looking at me, if you’re still judging me, I have an opportunity to do or say something that will help you understand me a little better. And we can have some, and maybe you don’t understand me, but maybe I’ll give you a nugget to just. Stimulate your own thought, help you come to a new level of understanding with yourself, a new level of integration.

I don’t know, but that would be cool. So don’t fear the judgment, in fact, embrace it because the judgments of other people just help you. It actually gives you a lot of feedback, right? So when people are judging me, I remember one time, oh man, this was good. Okay. Do you remember when the abortion laws were overturned when Roe v.

Wade was overturned? By the way, I never thought I would ever see that in my life. I never thought that that would even be a possibility. So that just lets you know, like, no matter what you believe, like just the fact that things like that are still happening, everybody’s, everybody’s value system is being shaken up to some extent.

Okay. Now I knew. That if I said anything about good or bad, that that was going to get me in like major hot water with 50% of my audience. Cause remember Erica, I’m Christian. And so if I said anything like, Oh my gosh, this is terrible for women’s rights. We’ve just been set back whatever years my Christian community, like I would never hear the end of it.

If I said, yay, victory, baby’s lives are being saved. You know, like this is what we need more of my feminist side of my community. They would have a field day. Right. And here’s the reality is that I serve both of those communities. So I said, you know. Either, no matter what my truth around this is, do I, am I willing to go to bat for either side of that flag?

And my thought process was no, not today. That’s not my ministry that has nothing to do with like the way that I want to help women be liberated. Right. And so the way that I choose to help women be liberated is to help them get in touch with their truth. What that means, right? Is for the Christians who are like, yes, victory.

I want to empower the Christians to find their voice to say, yes, victory for the feminists who are like, we’ve been set back a hundred years. I want them to find their voice to say, we’ve been set back 50 years, right? I want each person’s voice. To be heard according to their values and their beliefs. So I chose to take the, the perspective of money because helping women activate their faith, their worth and their wealth is very important to me.

All I said was, well, what we’ve learned with Rovi with the overturning of Rovi Wade is that, women with with money will not have a problem exercising, agency over their body. So women start making more money. Right. I thought that that was a neutral thing to say, girl, that was not a neutral thing to say.

So many, all the anti capitalists came after me. 

Erika Cruz: They come after me too. 

Rachel Luna: The anti capitalist came at me hard. It was like the, the ultra feminist anti capitalist, remember I said that we have a, my perspective, my belief is that we have a problem of over correction. Yeah. Yeah. So the anti, like ultra feminist, ultra anti capitalist came for me and they, they just had a field day.

Here’s what I learned about that situation. Number one, when there is a hot topic, something fresh. Hot off the press. I don’t get involved. I don’t make my opinion known in the first two weeks. I’m okay not being part of the trending conversation because what I’ve learned, especially with the work that I am here to do.

Some of you, you belong part of the trending conversation. Some of you like your mission is to be the voice on whatever side of the aisle you are on that trending conversation because My ministry is to help heal and to bridge gaps and to to have each side of the aisle heard and seen and hopefully understood to a degree.

It’s never going to be in my audience’s best interest for me to get involved on the trending when everyone’s emotions are like inflamed. It’s best to let all the Ultra over correctioners, the keyboard warriors have at it first and then like, let it relax, let it simmer because what happens is that by the time I join in the conversation, people have had a moment to think about what they really believe.

Not what they’re responding to. And here’s the thing, our thoughts and our beliefs are continuously updated based on what we’re consuming based, based on what we’re being exposed to. So little pro tip out there for you, content creators, and you’re, you’re like a double, you ever play double Dutch. Or maybe nobody plays double dutch anymore.

Okay. Like double dutch, you got to know when to get into the rope. Okay. Because especially if you pay play with the cable wires, see, I don’t even know if they play with cable wires anymore, but that’s how I grew up. Okay. So we used to play double dutch with the. Thick ass cable wires. And you don’t even know what an ass whooping feels like until you get hit with a cable wire.

Okay. So the, the ropes are going and you have to like, you know, calculate when you’re going to jump in there. And because if you don’t, you are, you get whipped and those cable wires leave a welt. So. Pro tip for my content creators out there who are like, I want to have a voice in the conversation, but the conversation is not really part of my ministry, right?

Like, that’s not really what my niche is about. Let it simmer, let that boiling pot cool down and then go get in there because then other people will have formulated. The other tip is that before you start really getting into any kind of hot topic conversation before you start giving yourself that permission to offend and speak your truth, take time and figure out what do I really truly believe about this situation?

And to be honest with you, like I’m going to say this, I’ve refrained from saying anything, but today I, I hope I feel safe. I hope I’m safe enough with your community to say this. I still don’t know how I feel about Roe v. Wade. I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought about it from so many different perspectives.

And one of the things that I think. Is a gift of mine is that I have enough compassion and empathy for both sides. and because I have so much empathy for both sides, it’s like, I can see where both sides are coming from. And I still, you know, as a, as a woman who’s lost children early in early pregnancy and where people would just say, like, oh, it’s just embryos, like.

My baby, my babies, when I lost them at six weeks and eight weeks, they were not just embryos to me. They were not just clusters of cells to me. They were my children and I lost them and that’s painful. And I also think of, you know, the woman who was raped. And who doesn’t want to have that painful reminder.

So I share that with you because I want to normalize giving yourself that permission to say, I just don’t know how I feel one way or another yet. It’s, it’s too nuanced for me to take a strong position for or against, and I just have to check in with my values. So if you ask me my value, my value is I, I think that it’s life and I want to cherish life.

And because I can’t solve the problem, one of the things that I do is I make donations to an organization that helps women. You know, single moms, women that have had these children with no support. Right. Because I think if you’re going to be part of the, be part of the problem or complain about the problem, you should do whatever you can to add to a solution.

Not everything has a solution, but can you do your part? So, you know, if anyone has strong feelings about what I’ve just shared, I am open to hearing your feedback. My request though, if you’re going to come at me. Is that before you do that, grab a copy of my book, Permission to Offend, and just learn the language of empathy.

and just be thoughtful in your, at me, you know, like when you come at me, be thoughtful about it and be respectful. And I’m going to be respectful in my response to you too, because I deeply care about seeing you, hearing you and understanding your perspective. I can’t promise you that I won’t judge because I’ve just shared with you that judgments are automatic, but I will dismiss my first judgment.

And, and I will choose a judgment that aligns with my values and I’ll ask you more clarifying questions. So Erica, everything that I’m doing here, you see how I’m like just even mirroring, this is the language, this is the work, right? It takes so much more. Work than to just be a loud mouth, new Eureka, which is what I am by nature.

And, and say like, don’t come at me. Y’all, I just had an opinion. No, because if everyone is saying, don’t come at me, but everyone is giving their opinion, then we don’t have dialogue. We have a bunch of people giving monologues. 

Erika Cruz: So, okay. I feel like what your book is doing is it’s creating this safe space for us to have these very vulnerable conversations that are very nuanced, right?

And it goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning. It’s not black and white and everybody’s situation is different and then our lived experiences are different. And then add, you know, to your point about it’s the hard part of life isn’t just learning things. It’s also the unlearning and realizing what conditioning we were programmed with.

And we, you’ve talked about money or wealth a few times, and this is one of the topics I wanted to talk to you about, and I think growing up Latinas. As Latinas, we are told that, you know, money is evil and we shouldn’t, we should be humble and we should just keep our heads down and work hard. But one of the things that you opened with whenever you gave your keynote speech was that you are here and alive today because you are rich.

So can you tell us a little bit about how building wealth has allowed you to be where you are now? And if you had to do any of that. Money work, because I’m also aware from meeting you at the conference and hearing your story that you essentially grew up in two different dynamics, one that was a little bit more abundant and one that was a little bit more in scarcity.

Rachel Luna: Yeah. So thank you, because I always forget to even mention these parts of my story. If you’ve ever read the book, rich dad, poor dad, where he talks about his rich dad and his poor dad, it’s like, it’s a money book. It’s a great book, by the way. So I grew up with like rich mom, poor dad is the best way I can describe it.

And we were not rich by the definition of rich for today, but we were well off. So my mom that raised me was a registered nurse and it was just us. So we lived well, I went to private school, I had vacations and dance classes, and we could afford to eat out a couple times, you know, like at least once a week we were eating at Sizzler.

Do you remember Sizzler? Or maybe not. I loved Sizzler. I do. Yes, I do. Their shrimp, their fried shrimp was so good. Anyway. So, or, or Chinese food, like I have these great memories of going and having like Chinese food and egg rolls with a great Welch’s soda. Like, these were luxuries, right? By comparison, my father, who I only saw intermittently after my biological mother passed away.

My dad was on welfare. He was a high functioning alcoholic and, IV drug user. He had full blown, he had HIV first and then he developed full blown AIDS and then cancer. Like he was on disability and he lived in like, you know, the whack part of the Bronx where we used to play kick the can and, and stick ball and, you know, throwing the shoes up on the, the wires for fun, and by the way.

Those memories are some of the best memories that I have, like being in the street with my cousin, but it was also a very dangerous environment. I remember 1 time my dad had me out middle of the night, you know, with his friends out, out in front of the building and I was tired and I was thirsty and I was like, daddy, I’m thirsty.

And he gave me a sip of beer and he was like, here, this will quench your thirst. Like, I’m a little little kid. Three, four years old having a sip of beer. So I, I grew up seeing two different worlds and there was something really wholesome when I would visit my father or my half sister, my half sister lived with her mother in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

This was before Williamsburg was gentrified. Okay. Just because different times then. So I remember. My sister would her, her mom was on welfare also, and they lived in this row, like railroad apartment, you know, what a railroad apartment is. So, like, you go in and you’re in the living room, and then if you go to the left there, it’s three quote unquote bedrooms, but to get to each room, you have to walk through one room to get to the next room.

Right? So there’s really no privacy. So she lived in this railroad apartment and I remember they used to order from the Fingerhut catalog and the Fingerhut catalog, you could order things on like a layaway and you know, you pay off every month and then finally you paid it off and you got the things.

And this whole concept of like ordering from Fingerhut and like lay away, like I didn’t understand that, like lay away. What do you just go and buy it? Right. And then I’d go to my dad’s house and he’d have The government cheese, you ever see the government, government cheese comes in a block. And I remember my dad would slice it thin.

And by the way, thank you for indulging me as I share these childhood memories, because at that time I didn’t think anything of it while I was there with my dad, but when I would go home. And I would say to my mom, like, can we order from the finger hood catalog? I would be like condemned. I remember one time I said, mommy, can you get the block of cheese?

Like daddy had like, she just lost her mind. Like I had just said the worst thing possible. And I remember she, she said like. We will never, you’d like, you need to super at this. What she used to say to me, super at the, super at the, like, you got to raise yourself up, you have to be better than, and it was this sort of superiority, right?

Like it was us against them and, and we were better than them. And I should not want, by the way. In my mom’s defense, she never said this to me. She never said you’re better than them, us against them. That’s not what she said, but her disdain for me wanting those things created, allowed me to tell a story.

And from that story, I made the meaning that, Oh, I better never want this. And so. I remember when my sister said that she wanted to grow up and she wanted to get an apartment in the Marcy apartments. So the Marcy apartments in Williamsburg, Brooklyn are, I don’t know if they’re still there, but they’re like, kind of like government projects.

I think the projects, the projects, right. But you have to apply. And I remember when she got accepted, she was so happy to get an apartment in the projects. And you have to remember, I live a completely different life. And I was like, you don’t want to leave Brooklyn. You don’t want to like, you want to live in the projects.

Why, why would you want that for yourself? And here’s the kicker, Erica, my sister was, is. Smarter than me intellectual, like book smart, she was smarter than me. She always got better grades. I have ADHD and dyslexia. Like I was a horrible student. My sister was on a roll. She could have gotten scholarship.

Like she could have done so many things, but because our worlds were so different for her getting an apartment in the projects was a step up for me. It was like, Oh my God, if we live in the projects, we’ve done something very wrong.

These two stories created dissonance. Dissonance is when you have two beliefs that go against each other operating in your brain at the same exact time. So on the one hand, you know what I loved about, the way that my father and my sister lived was that they didn’t have a lot, but they were so happy with what they had.

And where I lived is like, we had plenty, and there was still the pressure to have more. And I didn’t know how to reconcile that. The pressure, the pressure to have more, to be more, to achieve, to achieve, to achieve, and to always feel not good enough because I wasn’t great at a lot of things. I was a dancer, right?

I went to all these dance classes, but I wasn’t the best dancer. And then when I. The puberty hit and I developed and it was very clear. I did not have the lines of a dancer, so that was out. I loved writing, but I had dyslexia and I had ADHD, so my grades were bad. So it was like everything that I was even remotely interested in and I still wasn’t even great at.

And just that alone, that pressure to be more than was a lot. So when I would see this simple life that my father and my other family members had, I envied them and I decided, okay, I am. I still, I don’t want to live in the ghetto. I know that for sure. I don’t want to be on welfare. I know that for sure. I want to be wealthy, but I want to be so wealthy that I’m never discontent.

Right. And you know what? I to learn that number one contentment is a choice and you can be happy and grateful for what you have and feel true content. Right. And also still want more and it’s okay if you still want more. It doesn’t mean that you’re miserable. It doesn’t mean that you’re not satisfied with your life.

Just means you want more. That was the reconciling that I had to do with growing up. So I’m sorry, that was really rambly there. But the nugget that I want to pull out is that for me, Even though I had this like back and forth, not knowing where I fit in, because for Puerto Ricans from the Island, I was a green guy for everyone here in the United States, I was a Puerto Rican.

I had a lot of identity issues and I was, I was trying to make my income determine my personal worth and you have to pull out from that, right? Like your personal. Yeah. Worth has nothing to do with your net worth, nothing whatsoever. So if you’re a coach, if you’re a teacher, a course creator, a podcaster or whatever, your social media numbers, however much money you’re making a year, that has nothing to do with your personal worth.

Okay, that’s just business. Maybe your marketing needs finessing. Maybe your messaging or positioning needs a little upgrade. Maybe you need to be more consistent. Maybe you need to market yourself more that none of that has anything to do with yourself. And the reason why there’s that disconnect is because we think they’re buying me.

I have to sell myself. I have to charge my worth. You are priceless. No one could ever afford you. What you’re charging is for the value of the transformation. And so when I recognize all of those things, I was like, okay, listen, me, I’m priceless. The value of my transformation. Is premium because when I help someone break through a mindset or a belief around their income potential, they end up making more money.

And when they end up making more money, they have more time, freedom, more emotional freedom, more mental freedom, all of the above. So I was on a mission to help people feel more mental, emotional, financial freedom. Then I got diagnosed with breast cancer in 2019. Girl, thank God I have money in the bank.

Because I chose in my own journey to freedom, I chose to heal in an unconventional way that was not covered through, traditional, insurance. The bill was almost 40, 000 and I had to write a check for, I believe it was 30, 000. 3, 000, maybe 30, 000. Could you write a check for 30, 000? Like just a full on that.

Like I remember writing that check and you know, that there was a sense of pride because I thought, wow, my dad in his whole life would never have been able to write this check and look, I am writing this check to save my life. And thank God I had that money. And I’m here four years later, cancer free. So I did have to work on my money mindset.

I still have to work on my money mindset. There are other levels of financial wealth that I haven’t hit yet. And some days, the reason why I haven’t gotten there is because of my money story. And other days it’s because my actions are not aligned. Not everything is a mindset, not everything is like, Oh, you know how like you ever hear people say they’re like, it’s your mindset.

No, sometimes it’s strategy. Sometimes you don’t have the right strategy. Sometimes you’re inconsistent. I read this Bible verse that I love so much. it says a lazy man will not cook the food that he catches. And I thought, man, how many of us have an email list of a hundred? but you’re not emailing your list consistently because you’re thinking, I only have a hundred people.

How many people listening to this have, you know, a couple hundred, maybe a thousand followers, maybe 10 followers. And you think, what’s the point of showing up consistently? It’s only 10 people. Those are 10 human beings whose lives you have the opportunity to impact. An audience of one is still an audience.

And if you got that one person judging you. Give them something to judge. That’s the only way the transformation is going to happen for them and for you. Yes. 

Erika Cruz: Oh, that’s so well said. I want to go back to one of the things that you mentioned about how, sometimes people will equate their worthiness to their paycheck or their worthiness to, you know, how successful their business is or their worthiness to their, their numbers.

I actually see this as a block with my clients a lot where. They’re waiting to get that first paid client in order to call themselves a coach, or they’re waiting to reach a certain number of followers to start being consistent. But no, it’s the opposite. Like you have to know that you’re already worthy because you’re inherently worthy.

That is your birthright. And then show up as that person, right? So how, I mean, you just told us about your experience, but I’m sure your clients have gone through this as 

Rachel Luna: well. Yeah, of course. And like, it’s so interesting because do you think that it gets easier just because you have more eyeballs? It actually gets harder.

The more you grow, the more eyes on you, right? So there’s even that judgment that you’re fearing now. is magnified. However, don’t let that stop you. Right? Because I can already hear someone saying, well, that’s my fear is that their fear of success is a real thing. We focus on people having a fear of failure, but fear of success, I think is more dangerous than fear of failure.

Cause at least with fear of failure, you might get up and try again, but some people won’t even make an attempt. Because they’re afraid of what’s going to happen when they reach that success. Will they be able to sustain it? What will their parents think? What are, you know, is the cousins going to say? So one thing I want you to recognize, especially in our community.

Oh my God. And I, in the Latino community, everyone has so many opinions. Like we, you stop trying to please them. One of the things I say in my book, permission to offend is give yourself permission to disappoint others so that you stop disappointing yourself. Period. Period. Yes. So, with other people, man, I lost my whole train of thought.

Oh, whatever. You’ll ask me again if it was, did I not, I didn’t answer the question, did I? It’s the ADHD coming in strong. It’s a thing. I’m, I’m. 

Erika Cruz: Pretty sure I’m dyslexic and ADHD as well. I’m just a nine nose. So I’m like, we’re, we’re in the same boat. 

Rachel Luna: But you know what the funny thing is, like years ago doing an interview like this, if I had lost my train of thought, I would have gotten off the broadcast.

I’m like, Oh my gosh, what’s her audience going to think? They’re going to think I’m so dumb. I’m not a good coach. Like I’m all over the place. And now I’m like, Oh, this is just my ADHD brain and it’s fine. It doesn’t make me less than, right? So this is where knowing your worth and your value in the work that you do in the service that you provide.

So if you can take a look at your body of work and judge it for what it is, not for Take care. Who you’ve been, that’s going to give you more, courage. That’s going to give you more confidence as you start. If you’re waiting for X number of followers before you are consistent, like that is, I can’t even begin to tell you how ass backwards that is.

There’s no sugarcoating it. It’s ass backwards. There’s like no sugar. I was trying to think like, what’s the most compassionate and empathetic way I could say this, but no, some things I’m just going to say it to you straight up real talk. It’s ass backwards because you want your audience to grow with you.

The way that people have this like investment in you and what you’re doing is that they were there for the journey. They’ve seen your progression, right? There’s a reason why I’ve been a coach for. 13 years, there are people who have been with me from my very first email back in like 2009 and here we are at 2023 and they’re still rocking with me.

Why they, by the way, they have, some of them haven’t been there the whole time. They leave, they come back, they leave, they come back. Your growth is going to trigger some people. So some people are going to leave. There will be a moment where you do or say something where you get a mass exodus. This happened to me about five, four or five years ago.

I said something about, you know, I’m a Christian and I, I, I don’t remember what I posted. Well, it was something like, if only people would turn to God, the creator, the way they turn to the universe he created off, people were. Big time mad at me. I’m telling you, 1, 000 followers unfollowed me in like a three hour span.

Oh, wow. They didn’t like what I had to say that day. That has not stopped me from changing thousands of lives. In the aftermath of that. So I am never concerned about the people that leave. I’m only concerned about the people that are here and now today, those are the people whose lives I can change.

Those are the people whose lives I can inspire, breathe some life into the word inspire means to breathe life. And I am here to help breathe life, to help you heal so that you can live in like the biggest freedom expression of yourself in all areas. So you know, people are going to leave, they’re going to come, whatever.

Keep showing up. Stop waiting. The waiting is your, your downfall. 

Erika Cruz: It really is. It really, really is. So, you know, Rachel, I think people look at your, your brand, right? They look at you and they’re like, okay, Rachel is an incredible coach. She’s a published author. She’s a breast cancer survivor. All of these different things and they probably assume that you have everything all figured out and that you no longer have to deal with those three fears of judgment, rejection or defamation.

So tell me a little bit about how, what, what is it that you are currently working on that’s allowing you to face these fears and overcome 

Rachel Luna: them? What are you talking about? You said it. I have no fears. I figured it all out. No, just kidding. no, I’m a human being. And so every day at some different point, the fears come up.

I believe that fear is a spirit and you can tell it to go right back to hell from where it came. So some days that helps some days that doesn’t help and I have to go into my neuroscience and and think rationally and logically like, okay, what’s happening in my brain? Why am I so afraid? Why is anxiety plaguing me right now?

Like, let me really think about this. What do I believe? What’s the story? I’m telling myself, by the way, this little process that I’m Mirroring for you right now is in my book in chapter one. It’s called the framework for freedom. So I am a proponent of my own work. I practice what I preach every single day.

That is important. You know, speaking about like why some people don’t take action, it’s not just the fear of judgment or whatever. It’s because they’re out of alignment because they’re trying to help someone do something that they are not doing in their own life. Right. They’re trying to help someone get a climb, some mountain they don’t know how to get to the top of or some mountain that they’ve gotten to the top of one time, but they stopped doing the conditioning and the exercises that gave them the strength and the endurance to get there in the first place.

So if you are feeling like a lot of imposter syndrome, if you’re feeling all of that, that is a surefire sign to you to be the first partaker of your gifts. So this is true story. Look at my book. I don’t know if you’re not watching this. I’ll describe it to you, but Eddie got, I’m showing you my book, right?

And you see that there’s. What do you see? Sticky tabs, right? Yup. A bunch of sticky tabs. All over this book. Bunch of sticky tabs. Look, I’ve highlight this book. I do all the things. I wrote this. I wrote every single word in this book and yet I opened my own book because I have to remind myself of my genius.

I have to remind myself of all the wonderful things that I’ve created, the tools that I’ve created that I can lean. And, and share with others. So the thing that I am, I’ve launched this year, that really girl, Ooh, you want to talk about being scared. You want to talk about feeling like, am I worthy? Am I the one should I really be doing this?

God really meet like all of those. Moments where you’re questioning yourself was when I launched my neuroscience based life coaching program. It’s called Certified. Very original, right? Because that was the other thing. I was like, what am I going to name this thing? Like, and I thought like, well, maybe come up with like a awesome name.

I’m really great at naming things for other people. And I was like, you know what, I’m spending too much time on something that doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme. Right. Cause I can always change the name later. And this is, for those of you that are like my over thinkers, listen, you’re spending so much time agonizing.

One of the things I love to say, and I say it in the book is make a decision and make it work. So I said, you know what, I’m agonizing over the name, forget it. I’m on college certified with Rachel Luna and that’s that. And then I began the next fear was like, well, what am I going to teach? I have so many things to teach and how do I condense it all into six months?

And should I write the textbook first and then do the thing? But then I remembered exactly what I told you earlier. I believe in selling and then creating because when you sell something that helps you validate the idea, if people buy it, then, you know, there’s a market for it, then you can invest the time in building it.

And I am never afraid to get a deposit and have the start date be a month or two months later while you’re figuring it out. If you, first of all. If you’re good at what you do, and you’ve done a good job of positioning and marketing yourself, people will buy it because they already know that they can count on you to deliver whatever it is you say you’re going to deliver, even if it’s in the future.

So that is the consistency piece, right? That’s putting in the work. I’ve been doing this for 13 years. I’ve built up that equity. So then it was, you know, like, no, we’re, we’re going to sell it. And we will develop the curriculum once I know that people actually want to buy this thing. Do you know that we sold out in seven days with only three emails, no social media, nothing, no Facebook ads, three emails.

Congratulations. 

Erika Cruz: Thank you. That is just a testament to the demand and the brand and the, the impact that you’ve had on the community because, and I love what you said that, you know, you’re a big proponent of selling before it’s ready because that in, in some level is also validating the idea, right? How many people don’t go creating all of this, investing all this time, and it out in the market and it wasn’t even what people wanted.

Rachel Luna: Or it’s not even what they wanted, which has happened. Years ago, I had a coach and this coach told me you can’t sell confidence. By the way, that’s such a lie. There are going to be people that will tell you that you can’t do something because they can’t do it because they don’t have the vision to execute.

And I was so naive at that time. I believe like, well, he’s ahead of me. He’s already a multimillionaire, so he knows better. No one knows better than what God is telling you, right? In your heart, right? Right in your soul and in your spirit. And this is why I say like, you have to have renewing of the mind every single day.

This is why I say you have to have a good, strong journaling practice, which don’t you worry, chapter nine of my book breaks down my whole journaling practice. You have to have this deep, intimate relationship with yourself so that you can make the best decision. So he tells me to, to do this program around affiliate marketing, which I am very good at affiliate marketing.

I used to do a lot of that. I never wanted to teach it though. I just enjoyed doing it for myself and for the benefit of my audience. So we do this, he tells me to launch this affiliate marketing course. I launch it, I sell a couple, like it sells and then I, he says, we’ll do it again. Do you know that I spent 8, 000 on a one, one three minute promotional video for this affiliate marketing course?

8, 000. Then I sold the course and I only made 10, 000. So I netted 2000, but after all of the expenses, maybe I made a thousand dollars on this project only to really fully discover that I did not want to teach affiliate marketing. And I didn’t want to be known as the affiliate marketing person. I could have saved myself so 

Erika Cruz: much time and money.

Yeah, that resonates so much. I did the same thing. I, I did, I created an online course all about TikTok because that’s where my brand grew and I was like, Oh, well, if I learned, you know, if my brand grew through TikTok, let me teach people how to do TikTok. That’s not what I wanted to do. I wanted to work with people and actually help them do what they want to do, not go posting on Tik Tok.

And same thing. I spent all of this time and energy and hardly made any money from it. So I could not agree with you more on that. There’s a few there. I have one more question for you, but there’s a few things I wanted to say. so first the audio book of your book is fantastic. So for those of you who like audio books, Rachel is the narrator and it is, it really feels like you’re having your cafecito in the morning and having an honest, deep, transparent conversation with somebody who really understands you.

so definitely get the audio book. I have both. I love doing, you know, the reading the physical book and then listening to the audio as well. I think it also helps with my dyslexia. That was one of the things I wanted to say. Secondly, the book is also in Spanish. So for those of you listening, I don’t only recommend that you get a copy for yourself, but get a copy for your tias, get a copy for your mom.

How cool to do a book club like you and your mom, that is generational healing right there, especially with the different tools and topics that are in your book. Because a lot of, you know, the older generation may not want to Yeah, let’s go to therapy, but they may be willing to read a book, especially written by a fellow Latina.

So I feel like we can just create the most amazing book club, intergenerational book club. And then lastly, the last thing I wanted to say, and then I have a question for you is that you do such a good job of bringing together spirituality and your, your Christianity, your Christian ideology. Oh my goodness.

Hold on. I’m butchering. Bye. Bye. Your faith. Yes. Thank you. That’s the word I was trying to say your faith, but also bringing in research and science. And I think that’s why I vibe so hard with you because I’m the same way where I can be very, very spiritual on one side, but on the other side, I’m like, wait.

There’s, you know, studies on visualization and why it works and those two things can coexist so beautifully and you do such a good job of bringing together faith and science in a way and your neuroscience, right? Your faith and neuroscience to help people change. And I think it’s just such a beautiful.

Beautiful combination. let me stop there. Did you want to comment on anything that I said before? 

Rachel Luna: I wanted to really quickly mention about the, the mother daughter thing in the book, there are actually a couple of stories around like the mother daughter relationship and you’re living up to our expectations.

I definitely highly recommend because at a minimum, it will help you and your mom learn how to communicate in a much more, nurturing. Supportive, compassionate and empathetic way, especially if you’re, you know, a Latina branching out from what your mom and, and your parents wanted for you, this book will help bridge that gap.

Oh, that’s 

Erika Cruz: beautiful. That is so beautiful. So I guess this is actually the second to last question. So the last question I want. I don’t know where people can find you, but the second to last question is as a breast cancer survivor, how has that experience changed you as a human 

Rachel Luna: being? I feel like I’m so much more mellow.

So before breast cancer, I was like, go, go, go hustle, hustle, hustle, like achievement, achievement, achievement. I have to. We’re also in the Marines, right? Yeah. But I mean, I had already been out of the Marine Corps for, well, you know, almost a decade by the time I was diagnosed with breast cancer. So that, that part of my life was over.

I had already been, you know, entrepreneur for quite some time, but I was like fixated on this. Particular dollar amount. And I kept thinking like, you know, seven figures in a calendar year or seven figures in the first six months of the year, like that’s when I’ll make it. And that’s when I’ll be worth it.

And just, it was so dumb. And you know, And I, I do mean it, it was dumb and I, I would rationalize. I knew that I was having these irrational and irrational relationship to money, but I was rationalizing it as saying, but so many of my clients, I’ve helped them already get to seven figures. I have eight figure clients that come to me for work.

Like I need to catch up to them. That was my thing. Like I have to catch up. And here’s the thing. Remember earlier, I said, you’re trying to lead someone to do something that you haven’t done yet. I had to remind myself that I know where in any of my messaging, do I promise that I’m going to help you become a seven figure earning entrepreneur?

That is not my promise at all. Or eight figures. And some of my clients are eight figures. My promise is that I will help you find emotional and mental freedom that your faith, your worth, your vision, your identity will expand, your capacity will expand. And I can help you do that whether you’re making 0 or whether you’re making 10 million a year, 14 million a year, 25 million a year, right?

Because none of The work that I do has nothing to do with your bank account, right? It helps. And some people do end up making a lot more money afterwards, but that’s not our, that’s not mission. So as you’re thinking about your own business, think about like, what is my mission? And am I really like, what am I helping them do?

And do I know how to do that? And am I actively using those steps day to day? So that was the part. What was the question? I’m sorry. I went off on how, 

Erika Cruz: breast 

Rachel Luna: cancer. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so when I got diagnosed with breast cancer, I had been like this uphill battle. And then it’s something interesting, right?

Because when you are looking down the barrel of a gun, that’s what it feels like. That’s what it felt like to me when I got diagnosed, I felt like, Oh my God, at any minute, like life is going to be over. And I had to, I had those irrational thoughts, but I also had a lot of faith of like, Nope, I’m going to survive.

I’m going to thrive one and done. Like I already know that I am going to be delivered from this. It made me really respect the cadence of life. It made me really respect and value. Every single day as an individual day. And so instead of like forcing myself to look towards this 15, 20 year vision, which by the way, you do need that, right?

Cause you have to have a strong, compelling reason to live beyond the day. You have to have one of the things that they teach you when you’re healing. From the emotional side of breast cancer is you have to have a strong will to live and things to look forward to in the future. So you have to have that.

But it was very much like you’re stressing for what? Because stress oxidizes in the body and all that oxidized stress just creates such a hospitable environment for cancer. And my mission is to create an inhospitable environment for cancer. So for me, cancer was… One of the greatest teachers and very early on, I decided I wasn’t going to be at war with cancer.

You know, a lot of people say like F cancer, you’re in the fight for your life and you’re in the battle. Yeah. And I feel like I fell to them and I feel now I have been in a battle. For so much of my life and then I joined the Marine Corps and then I literally went to war during Operation Iraqi Freedom and I fought just to to live.

I fought to just get to this planet because my biological mother almost aborted me. She wanted to abort me, you know, save my life. My godmother, the woman that raised me, she told my mom, no, don’t. Don’t have an abortion. That’s your daughter that you’ve been waiting for. And my biological mother said to my godmother, if it’s another boy, you’re going to take it because she already had three sons.

And, and my mom said, all right, if it’s a boy, I’ll take it. Little did she know that I was a girl and she was going to take me too. So I had already felt like I had fought so much in my life. I didn’t have any more fight left. I didn’t want to fight. I was going to love my way through the journey. I was going to be curious.

So every time, sorry, it’s like, it takes my breath away. But like, every time I had a hard day and you have, you have so many hard days because You just don’t know, right? Like you’re, you have an expectation, right? I was, I say this, you can be confident of the destination, but still be afraid of the journey.

Like, I knew that I was going to be healed. I knew that God was going to deliver me, but there were so many steps in that journey and there was so much hard, hard work. Work and I didn’t want to do the hard work. I just want it to be healed, right? Some of us, we don’t want to do the hard work in our business.

We just want the money in our bank account. We don’t want to do the hard work of showing up consistently. We just want a million followers and that’s just not how it works. So I decided that, every step on the hard days, I would just say like, okay. What are you trying to teach me today? What is it that I need to learn about myself today?

To help me get through this day. Like, do I need to show myself more love? Do I need to show myself more empathy? Do I need to ask for help? You know that some people don’t have what they want because they don’t know how to receive. Do you know that receiving is also an action step? And that some people don’t let themselves be taken care of.

Some people don’t let themselves be fully supported. Some of you have so many resources available to you, but you’re not accessing them. And so cancer just gave me so many gifts and, and I mean, it’s really helped me work on my relationship with fear because for the first 18 months I was terrified. Every single day, like, every day that thought of, like, isn’t it going to be back?

Am I going to get a scan today? And is today going to be the day is, you know, am I going to get my lab work back? And is today going to be the day? And that is no way to live. And so I had, like, that’s why. Take such command. And I, I challenge every single person listening, like take captive of your thoughts.

That’s a Bible verse, take captive of your thoughts. And so science based take captive of your thoughts because you can reframe them. There’s neuroplasticity, right? And so you have to pay attention to the thoughts that you’re thinking, harness them and ask, is this the best thought for today, for this moment, is this thought helping me or hurting me?

What is the most powerful, helpful thought story I can tell myself today and how can I amplify that? so I’m grateful for the experience and I Thank God that I have already decided and declared and come into agreement with all of heaven and all of earth that I only had To learn those lessons one time through cancer and never ever ever ever ever ever ever again.

Amen Amen. 

Erika Cruz: Wow. That was so, so powerful. If you all want to go back and listen to any part of the podcast, go back to that part, especially what Rachel just said, is the story you’re telling yourself helpful or not because you have the power to change that. So where can people find 

Rachel Luna: you? Well, since you’re already listening to a podcast, I would love to invite you to hit the subscribe button on my podcast, which is titled permission to offend the same as the book.

And then my website is rachelluna. com and on Instagram, which is my favorite social platform. I’m at girl confident. 

Erika Cruz: Fantastic. And we, my team has linked down below your website, your social media. Your book, and as a reminder, the book is in Espanol as well. So sharing is caring. Get a copy for yourself and for a loved one.

Rachel, thank you so, so much for your vulnerability, for your wisdom, and for your 

Rachel Luna: time. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. I appreciate you. Thank you for having me.