Shorter than a retreat, our workshops offer our same commitment to creating safe spaces with maximum impact.

We offer interactive, thought-provoking opportunities for personal growth and professional development.

Contact us to design the workshop you need or choose from one of our more popular options.

Our Workshops

Photo credit: Michaela Rice

Photo by: Michaela Rice

Leading from Within

Tapping Your Inner Wisdom to Bring Out the Best in Others

The most effective leadership is not necessarily technique or strategy (though they are important). To paraphrase author Parker J. Palmer, leadership flows from the identity and integrity of the leader.

This workshop will help you clarify your values, strengths, and passions in order to better lead from your true, authentic self. A mix of individual reflection, deep listening, and group interaction allows you to better discern your inner voice and equip you to to bring out the best in others.

Photo from Wylio

Postures of Presence, Arts of Attention

Deep Listening for Life and Leadership

Especially in these divisive times, we need to remember how to show up as our full selves and be present in ways that bring out the best in others. This interactive workshop focuses on:

  • skills of deep listening, the “Arts of Attention”

  • key obstacles to deep listening, and a better understanding of its role in life and leadership

  • your capacities and qualities of character, the “Postures of Presence,” to empower positive change

Read more

I once had a conversation with a journalist from South Africa, who was sharing his impressions about the massive changes sweeping that country at the time, as white-minority political rule and the legislative and economic structures of apartheid were being dismantled.  After discussing the complex constellation of factors that were at play, I asked him, “What’s your sense of what F.W. DeKleerk and Nelson Mandela think of each other?” (DeKleerk was the white president at the time, and Mandela the black leader of the African National Congress who assumed the presidency in the early years of majority rule.)

“Aaahhh!” the journalist replied as his eyebrows went up and his hands few into the air.  “That’s exactly it!  There is hope for a relatively peaceful transition in South Africa for the first time in generations because those two individuals simply like each other.  Yes, there are many other factors at play, but none of those would matter without their relationship as the catalyst.  They have moved beyond fear to trust because they have bothered to understand and respect each other, and that has come because they have listened to one another.  They have chosen to do the hard and frightening work of listening to the other.”

When’s the last time you felt like you were being heard?  You know, really listened to, as if you had something important to say, and as if you yourself actually mattered?  What was that like? How did that feel?  And how often do you find yourself really listening to someone else, devoting your whole self, your entire attention, to that person what they she or he has to say – with their words and their voice, as well as with their faces and bodies, and with what they’re not saying?  How often do you help them to hear the wisdom that resides within themselves, by asking open and honest questions that invite the soul to expand – rather than just plowing ahead with advice or direction?

What a powerful, transformative, potentially life- and world-changing thing.  Just to pose a meaningful, well-timed question.  Just to listen, really listen.  And to be listened to.  Yet it’s also incredibly rare.  And so incredibly important – in relationships and families, in communities and organizations, and in leadership.

This interactive, experiential workshop sheds light on important skills of deep listening – “arts of attention.”  And it goes far beyond that to examine key but often unrecognized obstacles to listening, to understand its power and central role in life and leadership, and to explore the capacities of self and qualities of character – “postures of presence” – that ground and empower positive change.

Yes, it can be “hard and frightening work.”  But it’s also what we yearn for, a way of being-with one another that can change the world.

Sunset on Hillside with Tree Silhouette - by Nate Hanson

Photo by: Nate Hanson

Live Well, Lead Strong

Growing Toward Wholeness

We’ve heard it before: Eat right, get enough sleep, be sure to exercise. Why does it seem so hard to live a healthy and grounded life? 

Is it the pace, noise, and stress of our electronic, non-stop world? Perhaps it’s the easy access to empty calories or over-exposure to toxins and chemicals. Maybe we forget  that our wellbeing is not just physical health. It’s also about the emotional, spiritual, relational, professional, intellectual, environmental, financial, and vocational dimensions of who we are.  

This workshop invites you to a deeper understanding of all facets of your life, to develop skills and practices that nourish wholeness. You’ll also discover how to show up as a more engaged, authentic, and effective leader, energized to bring out the best in others by living into your own best self.

Photo by: Tristan Richards

Why Are We Here?

Growing a Culture of Purpose and Passion

Nothing works without purpose. 

Slick ad campaigns, bells-and-whistles (or smoke and mirrors) presentations, even shiny mission statements…none of that works without something beneath the surface that people can believe in. In these challenging times, we need people who live, work, and lead with courage, vision, compassion, and integrity — qualities that emerge when organizations and institutions continually ask “for the sake of what” questions: 

  • What are we really doing here? 

  • Why do we do what we do, in the way we do it? 

  • What do we want our lives and work to stand for?

Whatever your setting–workplace, school, neighborhood, home, or congregation–there’s a power in being an intentional “mentoring community, one that fuels its members’ sense of calling to create a more just and peaceful world. 

This thought-provoking, action-oriented workshop will spark your imagination, leverage the distinctive gifts and passions of the people around you, and ignite your organization’s creative capacity to make a positive difference.