Mónica Lucena is empathetic, resilient, and passionate about dance, best known for specialising in dance therapy and for a life shaped by balancing a career in management with her primary role: supporting and promoting the self esteem of her daughter Matilde, who has a rare disease.

At The Epic Talent Society, Mónica brings her Allophilia talk, born from the moment she refused to accept that her daughter would never speak or walk, and decided that what she wanted for Matilde, above all, was self esteem.

In an era that too often treats difference as something to manage, the question is how we learn to look at differences differently. Mónica shares how Matilde’s self esteem depended on her own, and how giving to others creates a cycle of love.

As a speaker, Mónica shows how she built networks of professionals and friends to create support, and how the right strategies allowed Matilde to be happy today, and even an entrepreneur with Matiti Bags.

On the frontier of human difference, Mónica challenges us to practise Allophilia, to look at difference differently and learn to love it.