2019

The idea for Lucero was born in 2019 when three friends decided to combine their philanthropy, business and education technology expertise to address the youth mental health crisis. Founders Tom Murphy, Jim Hoover and Jeff Eastman envisioned a holistic, scalable solution that would bring mind-body-spirit well-being to the 1.2 billion adolescents around the world. The Personal Excellence Foundation was created to research the problem, identify potential solutions, and raise funds. Fun fact: the name Lucero was chosen because it means “light-bringer,” and to honor one of our founders’ former teachers!

2020 

From the very beginning, Lucero’s goal has been to make sure all the experts are involved, including mental health professionals, parents and other caregivers, and – most importantly – tweens and teens themselves. In early 2020, a pilot group of adolescents, parents, teachers and therapists at KIPP Austin College Prep Middle School and Samaritan Center helped develop our core curricula in the form of Quest Kits. The paper kits contained many of the self-care activities and self-reflection questions you’ll now find in the app.

2021

In 2021, over 200 Quest Kits were distributed to Boys & Girls Clubs throughout Austin to use for a 10-week period. The Boys & Girls Club pilot proved that tweens and teens who used the kit at least once per week showed an average of 20% growth in self-confidence and sense of purpose. We knew we were onto something, because multiple studies show that a sense of purpose is one of the most powerful protectors of mental health. That’s when we knew we needed to get Lucero in the hands of more tweens and teens.

2022

2022 was a big year for Lucero… we went digital! We started by asking tweens and teens, “If you had a magic app that could solve the problems you face, what would it do?” Then we built the safe space they asked for: an app that supports mental health by helping young people build healthy habits, gain tools for emotional resilience and connect with others who radically support them. We’re proud of the fact that all of Lucero’s content is co-created by trauma-informed therapists from Ensemble Therapy and Austin ISD who work hand-in-hand with our Youth Advisory Board. In fact, over 50+ youth, therapists, game designers and developers worked together to bring Lucero to life.

2023

So what’s next? 2023 will bring the launch of individual and family subscriptions and a pro dashboard for schools, community programs, and therapist networks. You can look forward to new features and more worlds to discover, all created with our uniquely youth-driven, gamified approach. We’re continuing our mission to become the go-to resource where tweens, teens and caregivers can find the skills, language and tools to navigate hard topics. We’re growing our community and supporting youth mental health with positive, proactive solutions that are fun, engaging, and take just a few minutes a day. So stay tuned and grow with us! The best is yet to come.

A habit is automatic, something we don’t have to think about. But habit formation isn’t just about taking the easy way out; it\’s actually a  brilliant neurocognitive strategy that helps our brains manage the vast amounts of information we process every day. Habits free up energy to learn, solve problems and handle daily tasks without overloading our brains.

Understanding the science of building healthy habits is especially important for parents and caregivers of tweens and teens. Habits can either help young people stay healthy or they can stand in the way. “Habits play an important role in our health,” says Dr. Nora Volkow, director of NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse. “Understanding the biology of how we develop routines that may be harmful to us, and how to break those routines and embrace new ones, could help us change our lifestyles and adopt healthier behaviors.” Here are four facts you need to know to help your teen build healthy habits:

1. Tiny increments lead to big change. 

In the book Atomic Habits, author James Clear writes, “Too often, we convince ourselves that massive success requires massive action. Improving by 1 percent isn’t particularly notable… but it can be far more meaningful, especially in the long run.” Clear points out that a 1% improvement each day for a year means you’re 37x better by the end of it. And while dramatic actions can be motivating at first, they disrupt our routines and are difficult to maintain. To make healthy habits stick, teens need to know that small, consistent efforts lead to long-term improvement.

2. Habits add up over time. 

“The effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them,” says Clear. We may not notice the effects of our daily habits as we’re going through our normal routine. But think about a habit’s cumulative impact over time: spending 5 minutes a day for one year meditating, connecting with others or exercising versus the same 5 minutes doom-scrolling on social media. The big picture can be overwhelming, but we can teach teens that success is about pointing themselves in the direction of their goals and taking small steps until they arrive.

3. It should be easy and feel good to practice self-care.

Stanford researcher and behavior scientist BJ Fogg says that a big part of why we don’t embrace healthy habits is that we think change has to be hard. But in his own experiments, Fogg found that simple, fun changes (like doing two push-ups every time he went to the bathroom) were easy to maintain and made him feel good. That led to more positive habits: “As I accumulated dozens of new habits – mostly tiny ones – they combined to create a transformation. Sustaining all this did not feel hard.” Parents and caregivers can set a precedent for making healthy habits easy by doing self-care together with teens and focusing on goals that are both meaningful and fun.

4. Lucero makes daily healthy habits easy for teens.

Lucero is a youth-driven, therapist-approved gamified wellness app for tweens, teens and their Crew (yes, that means you!) It’s designed to make daily healthy habits simple and fun, because science shows that’s the best way to support teens’ mental health and overall well-being. Lucero features 84+ gamified micro-lessons on topics like self-confidence, 600+ customized self-care activities, and ways for teens to track their progress and stay connected to people who radically support them. It’s a fun and engaging wellness app for practicing emotional regulation and – best of all – it takes just a few minutes a day to spark a lifetime of healthy habits!