Maria-Theresa Sanchez

Maria-Theresa is a Life Coach and Founder & CEO of Imperfectly Human, a life-coaching business.

At first glance, it might look like I made a 180-degree turn - graduating from LSE’s MPA to becoming a Life Coach. However, my time at the SPP was a fundamental catalyst in helping me identify and forge an unexpected path.

Two things have always been clear to me. First, that no matter what path I took in life, I wanted to have a tangible impact on the world. Second, that we are not living in ways that work for people or planet: as evidenced by an increasing mental health crisis, deepening social division and unrest, and worsening climate disasters. Trying to find the root causes and solutions to these problems has been the invisible thread guiding my life. From studying at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service to working in program management across various institutions and multinationals, I kept searching for solutions to the big problems we are facing.

However, no matter where I looked, I didn’t find what I was after. What I did find is that change is often something talked about and marketed, but rarely reaches beyond the glossy surface. This was the spark that led me to LSE’s MPA program, specifically the Social Impact Stream. I wanted to understand the key ingredients, stakeholders, and barriers to creating systemic change across sectors, with a growing interest in the role of human behaviour. The MPA offered me the flexibility to design much of my own curriculum, taking courses across disciplines and departments from Designing and Managing Change in the Public Sector to Concepts in Environmental Regulation to Applying Behavioural Economics for Social Impact. Through the impact-focused courses, projects, professors, and students that I was exposed to while at LSE, what I was looking for finally started to emerge.

I was surprised to find that once I broke down all of the policy challenges I was studying, they seemed to stem from the same root cause - a lack of connection. Whether it’s to ourselves, to each other, or to nature, this disconnection is what makes us sick, turn against each other, and put things over people and profit over planet. I realized that true and lasting systemic change is a ripple effect born out of individual change. Not only did I learn this lesson through my academic endeavours, but it also showed up in my personal life.

Around this time, my chronic low-level anxiety got significantly worse. I felt completely disconnected, burnt out, and lost. Being the type A student that I am, I tried a plethora of healing modalities to understand what was happening to me and how I could get better. Eventually, my findings mirrored those at LSE. I was lost and anxious because I was disconnected from myself, and therefore from the world around me and the impact I so longed to have. I was trying to feel ‘good enough’ by making everything perfect, rather than authentic.

After a right-of-passage existential crisis post-graduation sprinkled with a global pandemic, I was able to put everything I learned together by combining my academic and personal experiences into becoming a Life Coach. I now own my own business where I coach change-makers across sectors to overcome blocks and deeply connect to themselves and the world around them. Using effective tools and methodologies I learned at LSE, in my personal life, and in my rigorous certifications to become a Life Coach, I am able to help my clients get clarity on what their truest and most beautiful lives look like, make the unique and impactful ripple effect they crave to have on the world, and have a great time doing it.

Maria-Theresa is happy to connect via LinkedIn, email, or Instagram