Educational Programs

Can reconnecting to essence liberate us to experience a more meaningful future? Join wisdom sage and mystic Vanessa Inn, with MEA co-founder Jeff Hamaoui, and discover how to lead and thrive (unapologetically) from your true essence. Vanessa has a gift for deep connection and is one of our most popular workshop leaders.

Carl Honoré is well-known for tackling both the cult of speed and the cult of youth in his talks and his books, published in 35 languages. Chip Conley spent his business career trying to run faster until he joined Airbnb and realized he just needed to be wiser. Join these two thought leaders in a radical rethink of what it means to age and why it’s a bonus, not a burden.

Are you happier today than you’ve ever been? When was the last time you felt "radiantly alive?" Founder of The Rao Institute, Dr. Srikumar Rao suggests we're wasting our lives if we're not experiencing this. And he proves that it's possible, but to do so you’ll have to learn to think creatively, differently...radically differently. Join founder Chip Conley to change your thinking and get creative with your happiness with Dr. Rao.

Join MEA founder Chip Conley and veteran guest faculty Barbara Waxman on the journey of a lifetime as you learn to harness the energy, creativity, and tools necessary to forge a vibrant path forward on the blank canvas of your life, at the intersection of Middlescence and being a Modern Elder.

Join Encore.org leader and author Marci Alboher and MEA co-founder and CXO Christine Sperber to shine a light on the powerful elements of purpose, passion, and a paycheck in the second half of life. Glean insights and inspiration to help bring your power to light and explore what's possible today.

MEA Online offers a unique kind of “digital intimacy” that accelerates your growth. This 8-week course helps students become better prepared to welcome meaningful change into their lives with engaging live events, weekly videos, community conversations and reflection tools.

How do you juggle being a midlife entrepreneur while also creating the big life of your dreams? Join MEA’s seasoned leadership team — who understand the practical, mindset, and lifestyle challenges entrepreneurs face — for our most in-depth business workshop.

Join rebel souls Shelley Paxton and Christine Sperber for a life-changing exploration of what it means to rewrite the script of success and live life on your terms. Inspired by Shelley’s pioneering path from CMO to CSO (Chief Soul Officer), this workshop offers a rebel roadmap to status quo no more.

Sabbatical Sessions emerged during the pandemic as an alternative to our highly-curated workshops. “SabSesh” offers time to reflect and restore, work as a digital nomad, and tap into our “best of MEA” programming on your schedule. Come for a break, stay for the community.

This week, MEA co-founder Jeff Hamoui is joined by business and humanitarian phenom Paula Pretlow to dive deep into MEA’s core curriculum with a focus on challenging your underlying assumptions about success...and satisfaction. Explore your definition of success today, in midlife, in this era of world-changing events, and beyond.

Join founder Chip Conley for a rare opportunity to spend a week in contemplation, connection and community with renowned author and Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard. Altruism, happiness, and service in the latter few decades of one’s life will be explored as we prepare for the natural evolution of adulthood to elderhood.

Scholarships limited. Proceeds will be donated to the new Enlightenment Stupa project in El Pescadero nearby MEA.

One of today’s greatest poets, Mark Nepo, joins MEA co-founder Jeff Hamaoui to “open a heart space” for using poetry and the arts to unlock a better understanding of how rare it is to be here at all, and how precious, real, and raw is our tether to this life and each other. This is a rare opportunity to spend a week with a master poet for our times.

Can reconnecting to essence liberate us to experience a more meaningful future? Join wisdom sage and mystic Vanessa Inn, with MEA co-founder Chip Conley, and discover how to lead and thrive (unapologetically) from your true essence. Vanessa has a gift for deep connection and is one of our most popular workshop leaders.

Co-led by two of MEA's wise Millennials, and MEA co-founders Chip and Jeff, this week we invite a multigenerational group to lean into their hearts, brains and life experiences to gain new perspectives and purpose in career and life. Through work and play, we’ll share stories, build trust, and collaborate across ages to design a direction forward together – as individuals and as a multi-generational culture.

NFL Super Bowl champion Aaron Taylor joins our former pro athlete, MEA co-founder Christine Sperber, to dive into our core curriculum from a unique perspective. Christine coined the term “the swerve” for the unexpected. And this week, she and Aaron will explore new ways to view the opportunities in a career change.

Often, our big dreams get pushed to the recesses of our lives for something more "practical" or "realistic." They may be dormant and covered in complacency, uncertainty, or fear, but still there...waiting for you. Join Chip and Justin for a powerful week of uncovering and saying YES! to your dreams.

Feeling blocked? MEA co-founder Jeff Hamaoui is joined this week by one of our most popular teachers, Crush. founder Janis Nakano Spivack, who’s developed a powerful process to turn perceived blocks into bridges to your best life. Come and learn to approach your blocks with a new perspective and greater confidence.

MEA’s mindfulness, yoga and surf director Teddi Dean welcomes his Bones Brigade mentor, Stacy Peralta, skateboard icon, entrepreneur and award-winning filmmaker of Dogtown and Z Boys, Riding Giants and the soon-to-be-released Gerry, about surf legend Gerry Lopez. We'll take on the notion of “failure” as an opportunity to cultivate fearlessness, clearing a path to help you in achieving your goals and heart's desire. MEA co-founders Jeff and Christine will explore MEA's core curriculum with Teddi and Stacy on surfing, meditation and yoga. Total beginners are encouraged to join us!

MEA alums! Join with compadres from other cohorts for an intensive retreat where mindfulness and reflection meet creativity. Together, with MEA's co-founder Christine Sperber, the effervescent Kay Scorah and Paul Loper will co-create our vision for the future, for ourselves and our communities; sharing and acquiring new skills and practices on the way, which will facilitate authentic self-expression.

Sabbatical Sessions emerged during the pandemic as an alternative to our highly-curated workshops. “SabSesh” offers time to reflect and restore, work as a digital nomad, and tap into our “best of MEA” programming on your schedule. Come for a break, stay for the community.

Join MEA founder Chip Conley for a rare opportunity to spend a week with Dr. Shauna Shapiro as they dive into the practice of self-compassion ― the secret sauce for lasting transformation. This workshop has the power to change our individual and collective lives. Be prepared for unexpected beauty and delight.

Join two visionary entrepreneurs, karmic capitalists and friends who believe that entrepreneurs have the capacity and an obligation to positively influence the world. Learn about their entrepreneurial roots and how they cultivated wisdom and are harvesting it today at their companies that are changing lives from the inside/out, Madefor and MEA.

Get some ink on the page, conjure important moments of your past and discover your most authentic voice as a writer under the direction of returning guest faculty Mollie McNel and MEA’s Jeff Hamaoui. This inspired duo will call upon poetry, improv, cooking, and meditation to expand and enliven your writer’s mind and spirit.

The best life insurance is to take care of your body. Join our CXO and co-founder, Christine Sperber, and one of our favorite humans, renowned fitness master Tom McCook, to dig deep into MEA’s core curriculum while learning to tap into your body’s wisdom and attune to living in it with fresh eyes.

This is a workshop whose purpose is purpose. What makes you want to get out of bed in the morning? At midlife and beyond, the answer can become more challenging than ever to answer. Join “purpose pioneer,” Richard Leider and MEA founder Chip Conley, in doing a Purpose Checkup and experiencing how to unlock your purpose and answer the question.

The most-asked question about the climate crisis is what to do, where to start, and how to make a difference. Join MEA’s co-founder Jeff Hamaoui for a rare opportunity to connect in an intimate setting with an ecological and entrepreneurial icon of our time, multi-bestselling author and activist, Paul Hawken.

Join MEA co-founders Chip and Jeff and New York Times contributor and author of Never Too Old to Get Rich: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Starting a Business Mid-Life, Kerry Hannon, to learn how entrepreneurship means more than you think: freedom, love, getting out of your comfort zone, creativity, destiny. Expect your mindset to shift!

Did you know there's a science to the feeling of Awe? It's time to enliven your spirit and get reintroduced to what it means to experience it – internally and externally. Join MEA veteran Dacher Keltner, director of UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, and MEA founder Chip Conley for an inspired dive into science, ancient wisdom, art, and movement to explore Awe: body, mind, and spirit.

Let's Talk About Death (Over Dinner) author Michael Hebb joins MEA founder Chip Conley for a journey into the two topics that define us most deeply as humans, love and death. Discover a profound territory of human connection, meaning and purpose through their compassionate exploration of our mortality, and our capacity to love.

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Sabbatical Sessions emerged during the pandemic as an alternative to our highly-curated workshops. “SabSesh” offers time to reflect and restore, work as a digital nomad, and tap into our “best of MEA” programming on your schedule. Come for a break, stay for the community.