Jade Oates, is a writer, poet and the editor in chief of The Mandarin, an online literary magazine based in California. Through the unique, personal and inspired writings shared in The Mandarin she has sought to cultivate and celebrate a New Romanticism, that is, the creative, individual, magically real, and yet naturally grounded landscapes of emotion experienced by humanity.
During her collegiate career she was recognized as Honors Scholar of the Year in 2017, and in 2020 earned her degree from Cal Berkeley. Professionally, she gives herself to opportunities in writing, editing, journalism, and publishing and is also interested in brand storytelling.
Jade believes in our outer selves reflecting and embodying our inner through fashion, color and words, in the light of wisdom, that art itself is the test of the artisan, in giving form to the invisible and invincible summer within us all, and in ever developing one's own personal magical realism manifesto.
Dr. Tracey Hunter is a clinical psychologist, relationship coach and Schema Therapy practitioner based on the Gold Coast of Australia.
She received your PhD in clinical psychology at Griffith University, Gold Coast in 2005 and made the Academic Excellence List for her thesis work. She is also author of several publications that dissect the relationships between child development, depression, and peer relationships.
Tracey's aim is to help people get in touch with disconnected parts of the self so that they can create inner harmony and thrive in intimate relationships. Through the experiential techniques of Schema Therapy, her clients are able to bring unconscious patterns and wounds into awareness, to heal, and to gain clarity about core emotional needs and values. She also focuses on women ready to step into their feminine power and create loving and energizing relationships.
Tracey believes humans are fascinating and resilient, that underneath our protective layers, we seek a more satisfying experience of life, and that one of the most important journeys we can take as humans is the exploration of the effects on our lives of the messages we received in childhood about love, connection, self-expression, and worthiness.
David Haines is a British/Dutch artist based in Amsterdam. He studied in London and Amsterdam and his mediums include graphite, paint, moving image, text and music. His work was recently showcased at the British Museum, in London and in the past has been shown in Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Estonia, Istanbul, HongKong, and New York.
David believes that drawing and painting are media that liberate the image from the dehumanized abstraction of its digital reproducibility, that there are deeply psychological reasons why we return time and again to singular images in our digitally saturated society, and that it is the handmade image, in all its materiality, that offers us the closeness we desire.
He values what he refers to as, the index, the mark we may, if we wish, leave behind, that is to say, our trace, those footprints on the beach, that smoke that signified our fire, the cave paintings, through the whole history of art, the singular experience and pulse of people leaving their trace behind though they are no longer there.
Jordan Jonas is a Wilderness Living & Self-Reliance Expert and winner of season six of the show, Alone.
He spent his formative years in the vast nature that is Idaho country. Then as a young adult he spent countless days and nights navigating both rural and urban environments while riding freight trains across the US.
Soon after that adventure, Jordan spent the better part of the next ten years living in Siberian villages in Russia, with fur trappers, and traditional nomadic reindeer herders. There, day in and day out, he learned the art of survival from people whose existence depended on those skills.
These abilities proved effective in helping him win season six of the History Channel's show, Alone. To do so, you spent 77 days in the Arctic. He successfully hunted a bull moose, a wolverine, dozens of rabbits, squirrels, grouse and numerous fish.
Throughout his life, Jordan has learned to hunt, trap, fish, survive, and even thrive in abundant times and lean. He has obviously learned to deal with tremendous adversity but more important than this, has been the development of character and love.
Jordan values ingenuity, adaptability, resilience, gratitude, his heritage, and becoming someone worthy of the incredible sacrifices made by those who came before him.
The Venerable Robina Courtin has been A Buddhist nun since the late 70s. She was born in Melbourne, Australia, where she was educated by Catholic nuns, and studied classical singing. In 1976, she met some Tibetan lamas, and received ordination as a monastic eighteen months later, in Kathmandu. She has worked since then with the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition, the worldwide network of the Tibetan Buddhist teachers, Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. She has also served as editorial director of Wisdom Publications, editor of Mandala magazine, and executive director of Liberation Prison Project, which she founded in 1997 and which helped prisoners with buddhist practices.
Robina's life and work was featured in the documentary film Key to Freedom and the award winning film, Chasing Buddha. Additionally, a recording of her singing prayers and mantras, entitled Devotion, was produced in 2018.
Robina believes in action, in doing things that help one know one’s mind deeply and well, that we need to unpack the mind, to unravel its contents, deconstructing layers of thoughts and feelings, emotions and assumptions, and thereby beginning to reconstruct the cognitive processes at the basis of our emotions. The way to do this is through the, in her own words, brilliant, marvelous, sophisticated psychological techniques that we call meditation.
And of meditation she said, "It is not a relaxation technique, but a training…why? So in our daily life we can see what the hell is going on in this mind of ours. Some people can sit for 30 minutes, very comfortably. They’re just spacing out, feeling good. That ain’t meditation baby.”
CONTACT ROBINA COURTIN
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CONTACT RON CECIL
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CONTACT DANIEL PENNER CLINE
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Scott Kellett was arrested at the age of 20 for possession of a controlled substance and two aggravated robberies. He signed a plea bargain for 30 years and served 18 in two of the roughest prisons in Texas before being paroled.
CONTACT SCOTT KELLETT
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CONTACT RON CECIL
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CONTACT DANIEL PENNER CLINE
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David Haines is a British/Dutch artist based in Amsterdam. He studied in London and Amsterdam and his work spans drawing, painting, moving image, text and music. His work was recently shown at the British Museum, in London and in the past has shown in Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Estonia, Istanbul, HongKong, and New York.
David, believes that drawing and painting are media that liberate the image from the dehumanized abstraction of its digital reproducibility, that there are deeply psychological reasons why we return time and again to singular images in our digitally drenched society, and that it is the handmade image, in all its materiality, that offers us the closeness we desire.
CONTACT DAVID HAINES
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Website: https://www.davidhaines.org/
CONTACT RON CECIL
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CONTACT DANIEL PENNER CLINE
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John Silvestri is a musician and painter. His artistic ability was noticed at the age of eight when he had his first public showing in the St. Louis Art Museum. After studying art in college, he apprenticed in Italy under modern painter and sculptor, Salvatore Leto. His art has been reviewed on international art talk radio as well as in several editorials, including the Herald Tribune, USF Oracle, and The Oregonian. At the age of 12, John began to discover a musical talent as well and in 2011, his original music scored the movie Prime of Your Life which was selected to Cannes Film Festival. Currently, his rock band Audio Orchid is based in Sarasota Florida.
For many years, he drew on the synergy, and at times conflict, between his life as an artist and his devotion to music. The two passions have come to fuel each other and at times harmonize. Ideally, he plays music like he paints, and when he paints, he uses realizations arrived at through music.
John values laughing his ass off, enjoying life every day, and at the same time, not delaying, procrastinating, or beating around the bush of one’s dreams. He believes in doing what he is passionate about, doing it now, as much as possible, as well as he can, and not bullshiting himself along the way.
CONTACT JOHN SILVESTRI
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Website: https://www.johnsilvestriart.com/
CONTACT RON CECIL
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CONTACT DANIEL PENNER CLINE
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Abigail Taylor is a neurodivergent life coach who founded a platform called The Confident ND Community where you help individuals learn to love and work with their unique brain. She teaches working with the brain each of us has been given and how to leave oneself open to living experiences despite what others think.
CONTACT ABIGAIL TAYLOR
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Website: https://www.confidentnd.co/links
CONTACT RON CECIL
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CONTACT DANIEL PENNER CLINE
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CONTACT DAVID HOWITT AND MERIWETHER GROUP
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CONTACT RON CECIL
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CONTACT DANIEL PENNER CLINE
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Maggie Doyne, is founder of the BlinkNow Foundation in Surkhet, Nepal. The story of that organization began in 2005, in northern India. While there and during a cease-fire in the Nepalese Civil War, she met a six year old girl who was barely surviving. She helped pay for her school, and then, using $5,000 she'd saved from babysitting expanded your efforts. Soon funds came from supporters worldwide, she purchased land in Nepal, and in 2007, started The BlinkNow Foundation. This nonprofit now includes a women's center, health clinic, girls' safe house, a Children’s Home that is the legal guardian to more than 45 children, and a 400-student school that is the ‘greenest’ school in Nepal,
In 2013, this school's students took Nepal's District Level Examination for the first time. All students scored within the top 10% nationwide, 50% scored in the top 1% nationwide and the school was ranked first in its region.
Maggie has been a Speaker at the Forbes 400 Summit on Philanthropy, and the Forbes Women's Summit and have received many awards, including the CNN Hero of the Year, as well as the Unsung Hero of Compassion award, presented by the Dalai Lama. But more importantly, in March 2022, she shared your personal story in your book "Between the Mountain and the Sky, A Mother's Story of Love, Loss, Healing and Hope.”
Maggie believes in operating at the grassroots level of community, in focusing and promoting sustainability and self-reliance within community, and not least of all, getting down with the truth.
CONTACT MAGGIE DOYNE AND BLINKNOW FOUNDATION
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Website: https://blinknow.org/
CONTACT RON CECIL
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CONTACT DANIEL PENNER CLINE
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Scott Tatum is the founder of UcanOutdoors, a platform through which he delivers daily “Friendly Reminders,” about self-care, taking accountability, and healing.
He is also a nomad, explorer, and outdoor enthusiast who advocates for public lands. Scott utilizes the outdoors for his own healing and while traveling these open spaces, offer the reminders that he also calls “Self-Care Savage Ups.” His message is inclusive and clearly expresses his belief that we could all use more guidance, compassion and heartfelt story. He knows what it’s like to be stuck in a cycle, to self-sabotage and to be close to giving up. But he has discovered that changing one’s surroundings can connect us to who we truly are and undo long ingrained beliefs.
Scott believes that a human is always one decision away from a different life, that self-care and taking accountability for one’s own growth are vital steps to well-being, and that saying things out loud is ten times more powerful than if you think it.
CONTACT SCOTT TATUM
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CONTACT RON CECIL
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CONTACT DANIEL PENNER CLINE
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Steven Eugene Kuhn, is co-author of the book, Unleash Your Humble Alpha, as well as a decorated United States army combat veteran, speaker, and consultant who helps individuals improve their quality of life. He runs the platform, Humble Alpha, which helps businesses and individuals Develop Influence, Create Opportunities for More Earnings, Increase Reach and develop Personal Growth.
Steven believes people’s life is about how to fulfill their potential that, all you need to do is decide, and acting through the consistent, conscious application of Honesty, Integrity and Transparency.
CONTACT STEVEN KUHN
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Website: https://steven-kuhn.com/
CONTACT RON CECIL
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CONTACT DANIEL PENNER CLINE
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Milena Sidorova, is an award-winning Ukrainian-Dutch choreographer, Young Creative Associate at the renowned Dutch National Ballet in Amsterdam and in December 2020 became the first dancer in the history of the Dutch National to officially hold positions as both dancer and choreographer.
She has created more than 25 choreographies and has been celebrated for her consistency, originality of voice, playfulness, and “Skin-tingling work.” Some of her recent accomplishments include directing the ballet film Rose, which explores love, and hope through the portrayal of shadows of previous relationships. She's had her work selected by the Royal Opera House in London and the creation of her newest production Regnum, was described as “Brave, and unforgettable”
Her video Hold On, inspired by the lock down and filmed by dancers in their homes, went viral and was adapted by the Dutch rock band Di-rect. Her work Tickle, also known as Kriebel, won an international Young Audience Music award and her choreography The Spider has been performed all over the globe. Milena also played the creepy human spider in the Oscar-winning movie Dune.
Milena believes in, chasing and blooming, in the continuous change toward who we are meant to be, reflecting on our actions and attitudes, and finding the events, environments and communities that disrupt and then shift our sense of selves.
CONTACT MILENA SIDOROVA
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Website: https://milenasidorova.com/
CONTACT RON CECIL
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CONTACT DANIEL PENNER CLINE
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Shoshana Berger, is an author, founder, as well as executive editor at Ideo. Her book on facing Mortality, A beginner’s Guide to the End, which you co-authored with Dr. BJ Miller, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2019. In support of the book, she also published op-eds and essays in the New York Times, TIME, Fast Company, and other publications.
She was a senior editor at WIRED, and co-founded the DIY design magazine, ReadyMade, which was a finalist for a National Magazine award. In 2006 she turned this into a book, Ready Made: How to Make (Almost) Everything. Through her early work in journalism, starting her own business and a lap in the corporate world, she began to develop what has become a Swiss Army Knife of experience including guiding innovation sprints, helping global organizations use the tools of storytelling to generate ideas, shaping the voice of a brand, and even projects that have helped reimagine Judaism, death, and school lunch. And for those of us didn’t know, she also wrote a book about William Butler Yeats living in New York in the year 2029.
Shoshana, believes in leading with a strong story, bringing everyone within a team along for the ride, and the question, How do you tell a human story that also drives business?
CONTACT SHOSHANA BERGER
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CONTACT RON CECIL
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CONTACT DANIEL PENNER CLINE
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Benjamin Russack is a therapist and host of the podcast, Look, Just Tell Me What To Do which focuses on improved mental health through conversations with health professionals on subjects such as marital conflict, anxiety, addiction, eating disorders and the pitfalls of everyday living.
Benjamin has an MFA in Creative Writing, holds a black belt in Brazilian Jujitsu and for a time, made his living as a chess instructor. Intrigued by how his chess students began to improve their game at the same time as they experienced growth on deeper levels, he returned to school for a second graduate degree, this time in Counseling Psychology emphasizing Jungian archetypal theories and practices. After thousands of hours of work mostly in chemical dependency rehabilitation centers he now has his own offices in and around San Francisco.
Benjamin believes in applying the right philosophy at the right time, helping people live a better life on a day to day basis, that the problems in the world are based on externalized ego wounds and that most people are trying to heal themselves whether they know it or not.
CONTACT BENJAMIN RUSSACK
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Website: https://benjaminrussack.com/
CONTACT RON CECIL
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CONTACT DANIEL PENNER CLINE
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Scott Stabile is an author of Big Love: The Power of Living With a Wide Open Heart.
He gives workshops throughout the country about connecting to ourselves through writing and also works one on one as a coach with people committed to looking at their lives honestly. His greatest joy is helping open-hearted humans actively work on their growth and healing. Scotts parents were shot to death when he was fourteen. His brother OD'd on heroin nine years later and he grew up around addiction, dysfunction and tragedy. At that time, Scott hid his pain, and his truth until he decided it was enough. He is currently working on a memoir focused on sexuality and his journey of acceptance of himself as a gay man.
Scott believes Love is the base note for everything good, that choices made from love can only serve the world positively, and that while healing may be somewhat out of our hands, the brave and honest part is certainly within our power.
CONTACT SCOTT STABILE
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CONTACT RON CECIL
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CONTACT DANIEL PENNER CLINE
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Megan Febuary, is the author of For Women Who Roar as well as a Trauma-Informed Book Coach. She invites new and experienced women who know they have a story, to write and publish it, find their voice and heal in the process.
She received her M.A. from The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology with an emphasis on The Body Is A Storyteller. Megan is the creator of Book Year and Founder of For Women Who Roar, through which she has taught embodiment, and helped publish over a 1000 works of women.
Megan's passion for narrative focused trauma care and embodied storytelling began at a young age when through her own creative journey you found that it wasn’t about the end product, but the process of creating as a form of healing trauma. As an entrepreneur, podcaster, curator of multiple print publications, and leader of creative events, retreats and panels, she has grown a global community of over 100,000 women featuring authors such as Elissa Altman, Lisa Taddeo, and Nana Ghana.
Megan, believes in reconciling with the stories we’ve exiled, staying with the parts of ourselves we keep abandoning, and the potentially messy process at the heart of creative recovery.
CONTACT MEGAN FEBUARY
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Website: https://www.meganfebuary.com/about
CONTACT RON CECIL
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CONTACT DANIEL PENNER CLINE
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Michael Poore is author of the book Reincarnation Blues, the story of Milo, the oldest and wisest soul on Earth. He also wrote, Up Jumps the Devil, the story of John Scratch, who is really the Devil, and who has been bumming around Earth since he got kicked out of heaven. The New York Review of Books called this book, “an elegiac masterpiece.” Poore's most recent book, Two Girls, a Clock and a Crooked House, published in 2019 is his first for young readers. His short fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train, Southern Review, and Asimov’s. And his story “The Street of the House of the Sun” was selected for The Year’s Best Nonrequired Reading in 2012.
CONTACT MICHAEL POORE
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michael_poore227/?hl=en
Website: https://michaelpoore.live/
CONTACT RON CECIL
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CONTACT DANIEL PENNER CLINE
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Ted Alexandro is a comedian. He has made multiple appearances on David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Craig Ferguson and The View and have had two half-hour specials on Comedy Central. He also active in several social justice movements and are a co-founder of the New York Comedians Coalition, which raised the pay for comedians in NYC comedy clubs.
Ted also co-created the award-winning comedy web series “Teachers Lounge” with Hollis James. He stars as a music teacher in a NYC elementary school. Each episode stars a different comedian as a faculty member. Teachers Lounge won two Cynopsis Digital Media Awards. He has appeared regularly at the iconic Comedy Cellar in NYC. and is said to be a New York comedy fixture as “firm as bedrock."
Ted believes in equality among his professional peers, and people in general, having a voice in social conversations, and saving your loose change.
CONTACT TED ALEXANDRO
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CONTACT RON CECIL
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CONTACT DANIEL PENNER CLINE
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