"Wisdom equals knowledge plus courage.
You have to not only know what to do and when to do it,
but you have to also be brave enough
to follow through." –Jarod Kintz

Today, more and more of us experience immense challenges in our lives.

We often hold onto significant self-judgments; have relationships that are only a shadow of our dreams; do work that turns into drudgery; and carry an overall sense that there should be more to life than what we’ve experienced.

Although we wish this would all change, many of us carry a deep sense of inefficacy about making life work for us, especially since we tend to think we’re to blame for the way it is. We go to therapists or take personal-growth workshops, hoping that if we get enough healing we will eventually see change happen in our lives…

This course comes from a different premise.

The basic premise is that you don’t have to wait to heal before taking responsibility for aligning yourself and your life with what most matters to you. Instead, you can embrace an attitude of leadership, which in this course is defined as caring for the whole – our whole self, our entire family, and every group we are part of.  

If this sounds like too big a leap, know this:

  1. A major part of this course is designed for you to receive acceptance, tenderness, and support as Miki accompanies you on the path of full empowerment; and
  2. When you focus in this way, you’re likely to discover your healing accelerates in many areas.

This Leadership as a Way of Life series gives you the opportunity to approach your life in the driver seat… connected with others… able to ask for what you need… and with heart-felt care for all of us – and for life itself.

What specifically might you learn?

How to:

  1. Know in each moment – and overall – what truly matters and what you want to do about it;
  2. Hold awareness of multiple needs and forge a path of action at the same time;
  3. Overcome separation, scarcity, and powerlessness; and
  4. Stay focused on present opportunities instead of bemoaning the absent ones!

How is this telecourse structured?

The Leadership as a Way of Life series is divided into four stand-alone courses that focus on some key aspects of leadership in different areas in your life. These are:

Embracing Leadership within Yourself

February 13 - March 6, 2015 (4 sessions)
You may still sign up for the 4-part program and receive recordings of this telecourse!

What does it really mean to take leadership of your own inner life?

In simplest terms, it’s about paying attention and noticing every time you’re tempted to see yourself as a victim. And it’s about choosing to embrace an attitude of responsibility and proactive engagement with life instead. Although you operate (much of the time) within conditions, circumstances, and systems that are not of your choosing, you are nonetheless free to choose how you respond to life – and free to make yourself and your life more and more of what you want it to be.

Embracing Leadership within Yourself supports your taking a step-by-step approach to making this shift a reality. You’ll uncover obstacles to taking full responsibility and develop practices for integrating your new choices into your life. The goal: for you to establish yourself firmly on the path of becoming the person you want to be, while maintaining love and compassion for who you currently are.

The four sessions cover the following topics:

  1. Understanding leadership
  2. Taking full responsibility for your life: aligning with vision
  3. Taking full responsibility for your life: aligning with values
  4. Making peace with your fallibility

Taking 100% Responsibility for Every Relationship

April 17 – May 8, 2015 (4 sessions)
Each session lasts 2 hours and takes place on Fridays from 12:00-2:00 PM Pacific Time.

When relationships falter, our habitual response is either to blame the other person (sadly frequent) or to blame ourselves. If only one or the other of us did something “right,” then the relationship would be different…

Whoever you blame, the act of blaming leaves you in the victim position and unable to have the relationship you want.

Taking 100% Responsibility offers a powerful antidote to this all-too-common dynamic by inviting you to assume a stance of leadership while holding full care for both parties’ needs. No longer will you need to wait for the other person to change, nor will you need to give up your needs to reach harmony.

During this course, you’ll first learn how to identify and express your needs without turning them into a demand, and second, you’ll learn how to be fully open to hearing others’ needs without forgetting your own. The goal? To make the relationship as workable as possible for both parties!

Each week we’ll focus on one aspect of shifting into an empowered position within a relationship:

  1. Composting dissatisfaction: attending fully to your needs
  2. Transforming judgments, your own and the other person’s
  3. Combining empowerment and empathic understanding
  4. Making decisions together in support of both of your needs

Leadership within Your Workplace

June 12 – July 10, 2015 (4 sessions - Excluding June 19)
Each session lasts 2 hours and takes place on Fridays from 12:00-2:00 PM Pacific Time.

Very few people occupy positions of such authority within an organization that they can singlehandedly shape its direction, culture, and focus. Most of us, often even those in position of apparent authority, experience ourselves as powerless within the organizations where we work.

Leadership within Your Workplace offers you a simple – and dramatically different – framework. Regardless of your position, you can adopt an attitude of leadership toward the organization. Essentially, this means you’re caring for the whole instead of focusing only on your own job, that of your team, or of a few specific individuals you believe are responsible for your ability to do your job.

During the course, you’ll focus on stepping beyond solely advocating for what matters to YOU – however much you believe in it – so you can also integrate with utmost seriousness the purpose and values of the organization and its designated leaders. Stepping into leadership means choosing, in each moment, how you want to act in support of multiple stakeholders.

Each week Miki will introduce one building block of this orientation, and offer specific tools that can help you live into leadership: 

  1. Accept and embrace caring for the whole, regardless of position
  2. Hold multiple needs while choosing a path of action: personal needs, needs of others, and shared purpose and values
  3. Support people in positions of power
  4. Empower those without formal power

Becoming a Change Agent Everywhere You Go

August 14 – Sept 4, 2015 (4 sessions)
Each session lasts 2 hours and takes place on Fridays from 12:00-2:00 PM Pacific Time.

More people are becoming increasingly – and painfully – aware of how much the world we have collectively created is not geared toward attending to human needs. Yet despite caring, most of us continue to choose to focus our energy purely on our own individual lives. We lack vision and resources for doing anything else.

Becoming a Change Agent offers you a defined pathway out of passivity and overwhelm, helping you to view leadership as a different kind of response to where you already are, rather than an internal demand to take on projects and activities you feel unable to do.

If you can respond more powerfully wherever you are and with whomever you interact, then you begin to be a “shaper” rather than a passive recipient or observer.

This course offers perspectives and skills that can support you in acting from an empowered position in a variety of common circumstances. This enables you to learn core principles of leadership and apply them everywhere.

The topics for each week are: 

  1. Within groups and communities: facilitating from the sidelines
  2. Across differences: aiming for mutually beneficial outcomes
  3. In random encounters: transcending isolation and bringing forth humanity
  4. In activism: aiming for a world that works for all, including current opponents

Why Take One or More of These Courses?

If you yearn to identify:

  1. What matters to you within the larger context of your life;
  2. What you want to do to promote the multiple needs you are holding;
  3. How to engage with inner and outer stakeholders to create alignment;
  4. A foundation for more easily and joyfully caring for the whole: your whole self, your family, your community and your world;

Then register for one or all of Miki’s new Leadership as a Way of Life courses, and open yourself up to powerful change. You don’t have to wait for healing to find you.

Align yourself and your life with what matters to you. Today.

You may sign up for the entire series – or simply one or more of the specific sections that appeal to you.

Leadership as a Way of Life
Sign up for all 4 courses


Single Person Registration    Pay $536.00 for the complete 4-part program (The first course in the series will be a recording only)

Library
Members Discount
   NVC Multimedia Library Members get 20% off! (The first course in the series will be a recording only)
Pay $429.00 for the complete 4-part program.

Bring a Friend Discount  
Register with a friend and you each get a 50% discount for the complete 4-part program. (The first course in the series will be a recording only)
That's $268.00 per person! Full price for two people - $536.00

   

Register for
Becoming a Change Agent Everywhere You Go


Single Person Registration    Register by August 10 and pay $240.00 USD ($265.00 after)

Library
Members
Discount
   NVC Multimedia Library Members get a 20% discount! Register by August 10 and pay $192.00 USD ($212.00 after)

Bring a Friend Discount  
Register with a friend and you each get a 50% discount. Register by August 10 and pay $240.00 USD Total ($120.00 per person) ($265.00 Total ($132.50 per person) after)

   

Sessions last 2 hours on Fridays from 12:00-2:00 PM
Pacific (California) Time

August 14, 2015
 •  12:00-2:00 PM PDT   
August 21, 2015
 •  12:00-2:00 PM PDT  
August 28, 2015
 •  12:00-2:00 PM PDT  
September 4, 2015
 •  12:00-2:00 PM PDT  
What Happens After I Register?

Upon registration, you will receive an email with complete instructions on how to access the course.

All registrants will receive access to course recordings.

About Miki Kashtan

Miki Kashtan is a co-founder of Bay Area Nonviolent Communication (BayNVC). Her latest book, Reweaving Our Human Fabric: Working together to Create a Nonviolent Future, was published in February 2015. She is also the author of Spinning Threads of Radical Aliveness: Transcending the Legacy of Separation in Our Individual Lives, and The Little Book of Courageous Living. She is inspired by the role of visionary leadership in shaping a livable future, and works toward that vision by sharing the principles and practices of Nonviolent Communication through mediation, meeting facilitation, consulting, retreats, and training for organizations and committed individuals. Miki blogs at The Fearless Heart and her articles have appeared in the New York Times ("Want Teamwork? Encourage Free Speech"), Tikkun, Waging Nonviolence, Shareable, Peace and Conflict, and elsewhere. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from UC Berkeley.