How did I Get Here?

On following that intuitive thread, tapping into community, and creating what comes next.

When I think back on what has actually brought me to this point in my life, to my work and community, to this particular and sometimes surprising life I’ve built, what strikes me most isn’t any single success or carefully laid business plan, it’s that I’ve followed something that feels more like an invisible, intuitive thread, guiding me along through all of it.

In the late 90’s I was putting myself through UCLA, studying a major that I absolutely loved: World Arts and Cultures. Class schedules focused around subject areas such as Visual Cultures, Arts Activism, and Critical Ethnography. My classes ran the gamut - ranging from lecture halls studying things like Art as Social Action to practical studio classes learning Afro Cuban Dance with live drumming as our soundtrack. It was an interdisciplinary and full of so much life - a tiny liberal arts college meets a Big Ten campus. I was 18 and wide eyed, ready to absorb everything I could about the world around me. As a “WAC major” I had hit the jackpot - I had access to some of the coolest arts and humanities classes and lecture halls in the country, nestled in the nook of a department with only 100 students, all while living in the heart of a dynamic city.

But in those days, a major like that was pretty much looked at as a joke.

“What the hell are you going to do with that?” people loved to ask, not really expecting me to even answer. Each time I would laugh begrudgingly, because the honest answer was that I didn’t entirely know yet. I was accruing student loans while working in a cafe part time. I didn’t have time to meander after graduation, I needed to earn money and in those days that meant really only one thing: start the professional corporate climb…but doing what, I had absolutely no idea.

I knew what I loved, I felt strongly about who I wanted to become, and most of all I knew that familiar feeling in my gut when I was doing, studying, and practicing the things I cared about. This was not something I was willing to trade for something that looked better on paper, something that only allowed me two weeks off a year and basic health insurance, but I had no idea how to justify that conviction. This was (practically) pre-internet age, when everyone graduated and got a traditional job, usually some entry level position in a company that they had interned with one summer. I understood the logic of that, I really did, but instead I stayed my course and stuck with exploring what I felt drawn to (travel, art, culture, writing, photography, design). Even when I couldn’t fully explain it, even when the people who loved me most looked at me with that particular combination of affection and concern that I came to know quite well during those years. Even when, post graduation living back at my mom’s house for the summer, there was a copy of a book titled “How To Survive The Quarter Life Crisis” laid thoughtfully on my bedside table.

Twenty-five years later, so much of what I’m most grateful for now grew directly from that stubbornness, that conviction, that deeper trust in my intuition, and from the people and places and unexpected opportunities that found me because I kept overriding the fear of “failure” to follow the things that lit me up.

I joke now that the business I have built is a real-life example of a WAC degree put to good use. Never could I have predicted then that this is where I would be now, but it also isn’t random. It isn’t just a coincidence that I’m living abroad, working with artisans, practicing and teaching craft, and curating trips. It is the result of not giving up on what really matters to me.

It took so many detours and mistakes to get here, yes. But I’ve learned by now that what is meant for us doesn’t pass us. It circles us again and again until we are finally ready and paying attention.

And yet, running a business is really hard. Being an entrepreneur is at the core of my business. It had to be, because I wanted to build something I couldn’t find elsewhere. That building never stops: it evolves and grows, shrinks and dissolves, explodes and explores. It ask so much of me, it highlights my biggest strengths and exposes my biggest weaknesses. Building a business is like involuntary therapy that forces me to be honest with myself. It tests my limits daily as to how committed I am, so I always have to be paying attention to that deeper knowing.

Lately, like so many people and businesses we know and love, I’ve felt things shift in ways that are hard to fully articulate but impossible to ignore. The world is carrying a lot right now, and we are not immune to that, not even close, and there is only so much enthusiasm that can mask what a lot of people are feeling. Small businesses of all kinds have felt the weight of this particular moment, and we have too at Luna Zorro. My team and I see how much people need engagement, community, connection and purpose right now, and we want to be a bridge for that through the projects we collaborate on, the products we create, the workshops we plan, and the trips we build and operate.

What that looks like right now is listening before we plan. We’re thinking carefully about what comes next, and we’re letting that be shaped, at least in part, by you, our readers and supporters, our community that makes Luna Zorro what it is. We want to know what you actually want and need from us - what you’re curious about, craving, hoping to find when it comes to travel. We want to understand what’s resonating, what’s been holding you back (if anything), so that we better know where to focus our love and energy and contribute in ways that are needed.

If you have a few minutes to spare, we’ve put together a short survey - three minutes at most - and we would be so genuinely grateful for your time and your honesty, because what you share will directly shape what we build next, where we go, and how we keep growing this thing we’ve spent so many years putting our hearts into. If joining us somewhere has ever crossed your mind, this is a lovely moment to tell us where.

LUNA ZORRO SURVEY

With so much love and gratitude,
Molly x