New Maven Course Announcement

The noise in the world these days easily drowns out one true voice. It could be your own, or the person in front of you, or the voice of the meaningful work you’re longing for. Quieting the mind and listening for what matters takes inner skills and a space of trust, respect, and care. If you feel... Read More

How Do You Know What You Don’t Know?

“To know that you don’t know is the beginning of knowing.” ~Confucius It starts with knowing that we don’t know how to see clearly. You may say: “What do you mean? I can see fine!” That’s probably true. Most of us are fortunate to be able to see a car on the road and know it’s a car; see a tree o... Read More

Real Skills for Well-being and Success

Whether change is happening to you, around you, or by you, navigating change skillfully is hard. The impulse is to act quickly and get busy doing what you know without realizing that new challenges call for new ways of responding: Seeing clearly what is happening as it’s happeningUnderstanding th... Read More

Creating Space for Possibilities to Arise

For a future possibility to show up, first it needs us to open up—open up to space, emptiness, not-knowing, or uncertainty about the present. If you’ve decided that you must fly to Texas for a conference, then there’s no possibility to do something else. If you feel you have no choice but to do t... Read More

Cultivating Leadership Capacity with Well-being

Many of us want change (to happen) but we don’t want to change (ourselves). When we say “I want change,” we often mean “I want (everyone else to) change.” This creates suffering. When “I,” the person who has the title, position, or status, happens to be the one causing pain, suffering spreads to... Read More

WITHDRAWAL to Find a Solid Ground

If you feel drained, exhausted, or burned out in the midst of chaos, confusion, and apathy, may these words from David Whyte support you: “WITHDRAWAL can be the very best way of stepping forward and done well, a beautiful freeing act of mercy and as an art form, underestimated in this time of con... Read More

Is Your Success Getting in the Way?

By Jung Starrett When I first heard this story about a man crawling around on his hands and knees on the sidewalk under the lamp post to look for a key, I laughed and then cried. I laughed because I felt seen. I wasn’t alone. I cried because I felt the pain. The pain of struggling alone with que... Read More

Are you looking in the wrong places?

There’s a story about a man crawling around on his hands and knees on the sidewalk one night. A neighbor comes over and asks: “What are you doing down there?” “I lost my keys!” “That’s terrible! You dropped them around here?” “No. I think I dropped them back there near the door to my building.” “... Read More

Well-being to Profit All Beings

How does well-being connect profit, social justice, and meaningful work? What does mindfulness have to do with all this? The late Zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh answers this in his book, The Art of Power (adapted below): “We know that the bottom line of business is profit. But to profit means ‘to be... Read More

Ten Years of Stepping Into the Unknown

Ten years ago today, we took a leap of faith into the unknown: letting go of the world of security to search for a way of being and working that would bring us alive. The plan was to take a single, spacious year to reorient ourselves to a new life. We had both been very successful in the world of... Read More