Benjamin Mathes
Benjamin Mathes is the founder of Urban Confessional: A Free Listening Project. Currently in over 75 countries, their volunteers stand on street corners with signs that say "Free Listening" and provide compassionate, non-judgmental listening for anyone who needs to talk. Their work has been featured in over 40 national publications including the Huffington Post, The Atlantic, Fast Company, and The Big Think, as well as in over 30 international publications across 15 languages. Read more…
Chief Mac Tristan
Mac Tristan received his Bachelor's Degree from Sam Houston State University, where he graduated with Honors. He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy, the Senior Management Institute for Police, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the U.S. Army War College Strategic Implementation Seminar in Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. Read more…
Daniel J. Siegel
Dr. Daniel Siegel is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. He is also the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute which focuses on the development of mindsight, which teaches insight, empathy, and integration in individuals, families and communities. Read more...
David Gau
David Gau is an Operating Partner at Pritzker Group Private Capital, leading the firm's activities in the Manufactured Products sector. David has a history of building and operating multi-national organizations, most recently as chief executive officer of Intersystems, a manufacturer of material handling equipment for agricultural and industrial applications. Read more…
Desiree Adaway
Desiree Adaway is a seasoned nonprofit consultant and facilitator, and founder of The Adaway Group. She is known by staff, senior leadership, peers, and partners as being great at open, honest, and productive conversations. She is not afraid of addressing anything that gets in the way of great work. Her style is positive, approachable, engaging, service-oriented and audience-centered. Read more…
Douglas E. Noll
Douglas E. Noll, J.D., M.A. specializes in helping people solve difficult, complex, and intractable problems. As a lawyer turned peacemaker, Doug has been voted as one of the Best Lawyers in America since 2005, by US News & World Report and has been recognized since 2006 as a Northern California Super Lawyer. He is listed in the Who's Who of International Commercial Mediators. Read more…
Gay Hendricks and Kathlyn Hendricks
Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks have been pioneers in the fields of body intelligence and relationship transformation for more than forty years. They've mastered ways to translate powerful concepts and life skills into experiential processes where people can discover their own body intelligence and easily integrate life-changing skills. Read more…
Gaye Theresa Johnson
Gaye Theresa Johnson is Associate Professor of African American Studies and Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles. She writes and teaches on race, cultural politics, and freedom struggles. Her first book, published with University of California Press in 2013, is Spaces of Conflict, Sounds of Solidarity: Music, Race, and Spatial Entitlement, and is a history of social and spatial struggles in Los Angeles' Black and Brown communities. Read more…
Heather Plett
Heather Plett is an international speaker, facilitator, and writer who specializes in the art of holding space. Participants of her Holding Space Coach/Facilitator Program join her from six continents to attend both online and in-person retreats, where they learn to offer deep listening and compassionate support to others and to themselves. Read more…
Lisa Hildebrand
Lisa Hildebrand is the Director of Education at Ventura Charter School of Arts and Global Education. A K - 8th grade public charter school in Ventura, CA focusing on Project Based Learning, Non Violent Communication, and student engaged learning. Read more…
Marcel Brunel
A former US Army Airborne Ranger, Marcel Brunel has spent the last 21 years working with organizations to help them improve leadership, communication and performance. Marcel works closely with many state and local governments and Fortune 500 companies such as PwC, Southwest Airlines, Dell Inc., Yum, Elmer's, and Baylor Healthcare, helping them link performance development to optimal results in an emotion economy. Read more…
Michelle Vazzana
Michelle Vazzana, Ph.D., is the former CEO and a founding partner at Vantage Point Performance, a global sales management training and development firm. She is also co-author of Cracking the Sales Management Code: The Secrets to Measuring and Managing Sales Performance. Vazzana has more than 32 years of successful sales and management experience. Read more…
Paloma Espino
Paloma Espino has been a caregiver ever since she can remember. She has been involved in end of life care at Sarah House Santa Barbara for the last 15 years absorbing the many lessons that are left behind by those that come to live their final days at the hospice. End of life care is her passion. She continues to be a student of life and hopes to remain serving Sarah House for many years to come. Read more…
Ram Dass
Ram Dass first went to India in 1967. He was still Dr. Richard Alpert, a prominent Harvard psychologist and psychedelic pioneer with Dr. Timothy Leary. He continued his psychedelic research until that fateful Eastern trip in 1967, when he traveled to India. In India, he met his guru, Neem Karoli Baba, affectionately known as Maharajji, who gave Ram Dass his name, which means "servant of God." Everything changed then – his intense dharmic life started, and he became a pivotal influence on a culture that has reverberated with the words "Be Here Now" ever since. Read more…
Dr. Sabrina N’Diaye
Dr. Sabrina N'Diaye, PhD, LCSW-C is an integrative psychotherapist and founder of the Heart Nest Center for Peace and Healing in Baltimore. There, she lovingly serves women, couples, other healers, and small groups. Her approach to healing is a blend of wisdom, science, and ancient spiritual practices. She is a student of the late Sufi Master Sidi Muhammad al-Jamal of Jerusalem, and incorporates Sufi healing into her work with individuals, families, and communities. Read more...
Sammy Rangel
Sammy Rangel is the author of FOURBEARS: The Myths of Forgiveness, a breathtaking autobiography chronicling the ongoing physical and sexual abuse he endured as a child which eventually led him down a path of self-destruction that culminated in Sammy serving more than fifteen-and-a-half years of his life incarcerated, both as a juvenile and as an adult, most of that time in solitary confinement. Read more…
Shoshana Wheeler
Shoshana Wheeler is a teacher, counselor, parent educator, and communication coach who has been active in the field of communication for over 20 years. In 2003 she discovered the work of Marshall Rosenberg, founder of Nonviolent Communication, and has incorporated this practice and philosophy into all of her teachings. Read more…
Vagdevi Meunier
Vagdevi Meunier, PsyD, is a licensed psychologist and Clinical Assistant Professor at The University of Texas in Austin, Texas. She has a private clinical and consulting practice in Austin where she specializes in relationship therapy, intensives, and retreats, professional training and supervision, and organizational consultation. Read more…