What I learned watching Bad Bunny hold grief and joy at once.

⏱️ Reading time: 6 minutes

Welcome to my weekly newsletter where I share insights and advice from my experience as a woman of color leader championing values-driven leadership and preparing for the future of social impact.

In today's letter:

1. What Bad Bunny's Super Bowl performance taught me about effective leadership
2. The word nonprofit leaders hate (but desperately need)
3. Why holding space for both grief and joy makes you more effective

📬 1. A confession from Puerto Rico

I got goosebumps watching Bad Bunny perform at the Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday.

I'm not even a huge reggaeton fan. But sitting in my living room in San Juan—this place that has become my first real home after years of straddling cultures between the U.S. and my South Asian immigrant roots—I felt something shift.

Here was an artist standing on the biggest stage in America, performing almost entirely in Spanish, weaving political resistance through sugar cane fields and utility poles, celebrating Puerto Rican culture while explicitly naming its traumas. Workers falling from poles in sparks (referencing the devastating blackouts after Hurricane Maria). Ricky Martin singing warnings about modern colonialism. The independence flag hoisted during a song literally called "The Blackout."

And yet—and this is the part that matters—the overwhelming energy was joy.

Not toxic positivity that bypasses pain. Not rage that alienates people. Not grief that paralyzes. But joy that coexists with sorrow. Hope that doesn't deny reality. Celebration that acknowledges struggle.

That's the leadership lesson I want to talk about today. Because what Bad Bunny did on that field? That's a masterclass in something most social impact leaders desperately need to learn: how to hold space for both grief and joy—and why that duality makes you exponentially more effective.

💡 2. The word you hate (but can't escape)

Let me say something that might make you uncomfortable: Marketing is THE essential skill for social justice work in 2026.

I can already feel some of you bristling. "Marketing" feels dirty, manipulative, corporate. It's the antithesis of authentic social change work, right?

Wrong.

Here's what I've learned working across humanitarian contexts from Malawi to Mexico: If you work in social impact, you're already doing marketing. You're just not calling it that.

You call it "communications." Or "outreach." Or "fundraising." Or "advocacy." Or "storytelling." Or "community engagement."

I hate to break it to you: It's all marketing.

And the resistance to naming it? That's what's keeping you from being effective.

A recent article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy (you know, the sector's paper of record) laid it out plainly: "The nonprofit world excels at communications strategies that are almost irrelevant." The authors argue that nonprofits are stuck in old paradigms while the world has fundamentally shifted to social media as the primary place where trust is built and influence happens.

Here's what they found: Social media influencers—not experts with fancy credentials—are now the most trusted voices because they seem "just like us." They speak from bedrooms and kitchens, not boardrooms. They respond to comments. They make themselves accessible. They co-create knowledge with their audiences rather than dictating from on high.

Sound familiar? That's exactly what values-driven, proximate leadership looks like.

The sector's problem isn't that marketing is bad. It's that we've been doing it badly—or pretending we're not doing it at all.

🎯 3. What Bad Bunny understands (and why it matters)

Let me bring this back to Bad Bunny, because he is genuinely one of the most sophisticated cultural marketers in the world right now.

Think about what he achieved in 13 minutes:

He led with culture, not lecture. The sugar cane fields, the nail salon, the dominoes table, the piragua vendors—he invited you into Puerto Rican life. He didn't explain colonialism; he showed you its beauty and its wounds.

He used symbolism and feeling over jargon. No policy briefs. No academic language. Just workers falling from poles. A flag over his shoulder. Images that felt true.

He centered joy without bypassing pain. This is the crucial part. He didn't dwell in trauma. He didn't perform grief for consumption. He chose to create a space for celebration while acknowledging struggle. The message was simple but profound: The only thing stronger than hate is love.

He met people where they are. You didn't need to know Puerto Rican history to feel something. You didn't need to speak Spanish fluently to understand. He built bridges through emotion and beauty, not through demanding you do homework first.

This is what marketing done right looks like. And it's wildly effective for social justice work.

Compare this to how most activists and social justice leaders communicate: We yell. We demand. We boycott. We use insider language. We center our own righteousness. We exhaust people.

And then we wonder why we're not winning.

🌱 4. Pura vida: Living with your whole spirit

There's a concept that's helped me make sense of this—pura vida. Pure life. It's a Costa Rican phrase, but it resonates deeply here in Puerto Rico and across Latin America.

Pura vida means living with your whole spirit. Not being led by fear. Connecting with nature and the natural rhythms of life. Allowing yourself to feel—all of it.

Here's the radical part: Grief doesn't have to disappear to make room for joy.

They can live side by side. In fact, they must.

This is what separates leaders from bosses. Bosses manage tasks. Leaders hold complexity. Bosses demand compliance. Leaders invite people into shared meaning.

When you can hold both grief and joy simultaneously—when you can name what's broken while celebrating what's beautiful—you become infinitely more trustworthy. Because people know you're not lying to them. You're not bypassing their pain or asking them to ignore reality. You're acknowledging the fullness of the human experience.

And that is what builds the relationships necessary for real change.

The Chronicle article I mentioned earlier makes this point explicitly: Trust isn't built through credentials or institutional authority anymore. It's built through authentic relationship, accessibility, and co-created understanding. People trust people who seem real. Who respond. Who don't pretend to have all the answers but show up anyway.

This is why Bad Bunny is effective. Not just as an entertainer, but as a cultural force. He's built trust by being unapologetically himself—complex, joyful, political, messy, beautiful.

🔥 5. The leadership shift that matters most

So here's what I'm asking you to consider:

What if the most strategic thing you could do right now is learn to hold grief and joy together—and communicate from that integrated place?

Not "stay positive!" Not "focus on solutions!" Not "don't be so negative!"

But genuinely both. The complexity. The fullness. The hard and the beautiful.

Because when you can do that, something shifts. You stop alienating people with either toxic positivity or righteous rage. You start meeting people where they are with empathy and invitation rather than judgment and demand.

You become someone people want to follow. Someone they trust. Someone whose message spreads not because you're screaming louder, but because you're resonating deeper.

This is marketing. And it's leadership. And honestly? They're the same thing.

Marketing is about relationships. About understanding what people need and meeting them there. About building trust over time through consistent, authentic presence. About telling stories that connect individual experience to collective meaning.

That's exactly what social justice leadership requires.

Kevin Brown talks about this in his book Fundable, Findable (which should be required reading for every nonprofit leader). He argues that the organizations that thrive aren't necessarily doing the "best" work—they're the ones that know how to articulate their value, build relationships, and communicate in ways that move people.

You can be doing world-changing work. But if no one knows about it, understands it, trusts it, or feels connected to it? It doesn't matter.

💭 Final thoughts

I know this might feel uncomfortable. Marketing. Branding. Messaging. These words carry weight, especially for those of us doing social justice work.

But refusing to engage with these tools doesn't make you more righteous. It just makes you less effective.

And right now, in 2026, we cannot afford to be ineffective.

We're living through collective trauma. Systems are crumbling and reforming. The old rules don't work. And the leaders who will navigate this successfully are the ones who can hold complexity, communicate with clarity, build authentic relationships, and invite people into shared meaning-making.

That's values-driven leadership. That's also sophisticated marketing.

They're not in opposition. They're in partnership.

So maybe it's time to stop resisting the word and start claiming the skill.

Because the world needs leaders who can do what Bad Bunny did on Sunday: Create space for both grief and joy. Use culture and emotion to build bridges. Meet people where they are. And ultimately, remind us that hope itself is resistance.

May you live with your whole spirit. May you allow yourself to feel. May grief and joy coexist in your leadership.

It may be hard. But you will be glad you took the risk to try something different.

Maya 🧡

P.S. Speaking of holding complexity with grace—next week in Flourish Fellowship, we're hosting Vandita Morarka as our guest speaker. Vandita is a force in the social impact space, and I can't wait for this conversation. If you're interested in joining our community before then, you can sign up for Flourish here. I've decided to extend founding member pricing through April 30th.
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