The Problematic Religious and Political Situation
in Today’s Middle East

Manu Bakh spearheaded the development and curriculum planning of Iran’s largest naval training facility that after the Islamic revolution became Ayatollah Khomeini’s largest prison. Manu, a high-ranking officer in the Imperial Navy of Iran, was subjected to harrowing experiences with the new regime and miraculously escaped with his life. His living story, documented in his book, Escaping Islam, exemplifies the free world’s necessity to deal with the aggressive Islamic movement, supported by oil money that does not reflect the democratic yearning of the people for a Western-style modern life. www.escapingislam.com     

Conscious Leadership in the Workplace – A Sea Change

Conventional business practices are reaching a tipping point of non-sustainability. No matter how powerful the organization, no business will escape the coming transformation to higher levels of consciousness, awareness and connection to our human community and our home, Mother Earth. David addresses how we create the Conscious Leaders who will lead this massive shift to a new humanity based on love rather than fear, connection rather than separation, wisdom rather than knowledge, and New Agreements rather than old ones. David Dibble, for 30 years a recognized expert in organizational improvement and systems thinking, is the author of The New Agreements in the Workplace. www.thenewagreements.com

Creative Stress:  A Path for an Evolved Life

James O’Dea is a Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences and was until recently its President.  He lectures all over the world, and has essays published in numerous magazines and books, including currently the Mystery of 2012, Consciousness and Healing, and The Dawning of a New Civilization in the 21^st Century.  His new book, Creative Stress:  A Path for Evolving Souls Living through Personal and Planetary Upheaval, reveals with precision how we can and must transmute negative stress so that we can evolve individually and collectively and  offers the reader a steady climb to the higher reaches of human creativity and fulfillment, with practices and compelling stories. www.jamesodea.com

The Ecology of Human Transformation

“When you know where you are, you’ll know where you are going.  Award-winning author of seven books, including Butterfly Wisdom and Reconnecting to the Magic of Life, Dr. Joyce C. Mills shows how we can discover exactly where we are in the process of change, how to overcome obstacles placed in our path, ultimately discovering how to live a balanced and joyful life.  Dr. Joyce creatively combines science, spirit, and metaphor showing how each of the four passages of the butterfly’s development mirrors our inner journey and quest for full-winged emergence, sharing how the scientific secret of the butterfly’s transformation relates to our inner gifts, skills, and soulful resources. www.drjoycecmills.com

Discovering Your Passion in Midlife and Beyond

Nancy Anderson is a career and life consultant based in the San Francisco Bay Area  and the author of the best selling career guide, Work with Passion, How To Do What You Love For a Living (New World Library, 1984, 20th anniversary edition, 2004).  She comes to us with her new book, Work with Passion in Midlife and Beyond:  Reach Your Full Potential and Make the Money You Need.  She will invite the audience to ask questions about their career concerns and then respond on the spot, using the intuition and insight that makes her unique among career professionals.  She will work with individuals to show how to find the right niche in work and to be happy and productive.  www.workwithpassion.com

Don’t Get Arrested in South Carolina or Anyplace Else!

J.B. Simms Investigations did missing person work for 20 years, reuniting adoptees with their biological parents and contributing to cases appearing on Primetime Live with Diane Sawyer and Dateline NBC. When his work led him to a client falsely accused with involvement in a fatal hit and run accident, he uncovered fraud, deceit, and corruption by South Carolina’s law enforcement and prosecution. His chilling story demonstrates that when the prosecution refuses to give the accused a trial and pressures him into a plea agreement, authorities can charge him with any crime they wish and prosecutorial  and law enforcement misconduct and criminal acts will never be brought to light.  www.erikpublishing.com 

Four Pathways into a Promising Future

Many persons can imagine a future filled with crises and calamity.  Much more difficult is imagining a future of opportunity and promise. This presentation (and audience conversation) offers valuable tools for imagining a promising future as we explore four, “beacons of hope” or compelling stories that provide deep insight into the human journey. This engaging and informative evening offers insight, conversation, and community building.  Duane's presentation draws from more than four decades of work and invites us to stand back and take a fresh look at the big picture of the human journey. www.awakeningearth.org

Reclaiming Your Personal Power

Teresa Tudury’s comedic performance is utterly  madcap, unpredictable and uninhibited. Picture a cross between Bette Midler and Bonnie Raitt musically, and toss in the most side-splitting stage patter imaginable, and you have Ms. Tudury. After a catastrophic neurological illness early in 2002, Teresa was left without the ability to work at her profession  as a writer and performer...or relate to the world  she had known. Her journey through the minefields of a fractured being to the integration and return of her experience of her " self " is  told through her music and comedy. This musical comedian pours out her original songs with power, verve, passion, and disarming humor. www.teresatudury.net   

The Wise & Mindful Leader

Dr. Ron Alexander, pioneering psychotherapist, leadership coach, and author of Wise Mind, Open Mind, presents his method for becoming a wise and mindful leader who responds with awareness instead of reaction.  The mindful leader brings clarity and calm in a crisis to assess a situation clearly and to access the power to change it.  Dr. Alexander has been helping individuals and all corporate levels in companies such as Disney, ABC Television Network, Sony Music, and the Veterans Administration to use mindfulness to tap into their core creativity, resolve conflict, reach goals, encourage teamwork, increase productivity, and develop smart strategies for the future. www.ronaldalexander.com  

Beyond Theology: Bridging the Differences in the World's Religions

Dr. Brad Hawkins holds a Ph.D. in the study of comparative religions from UC Santa Barbara. His Buddhism: Many Paths, One Goal has been translated into six languages, including Japanese and Chinese, and his Introduction to Asian Religions is the standard text in many  Asian religion  courses. In a world increasingly connected, the interaction of religions is not only an academic question, but also a pressing issue.  As long as human beings are willing to fight and die for their faiths, we must bridge the gap between religions to create mutual understanding. New insights into the nature of religion, especially similarities between Muslim and Christian Mysticism, provide such a bridge.

Yes, We Have to Live Together, But Does It Have
to Be So Painful?

Scott is an organizational change agent who learned to help others transform using methods he developed during his 25 years as a business coach. With his book Unshackled Leadership he has guided hundreds of businesses to move to success with a 15-step system that delivers repeatable results and bypasses costly detours.  Relationships with others involve expectations often unfulfilled and disappointments are an inevitable outcome. How we deal with them, however, is critical.  Fear of confrontation leads us to avoid the other person.   Scott offers a new, alternative model to allow us to keep all present relationships as loving as possible and to go back and heal existing broken ones. www.UnshackledLeadership.com

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Gracefully Looking and Being Your Best at Any Age

Whether you're 18 or 80 or somewhere in between, there is much to be learned from Valerie Ramsey's story.  In her book, Gracefully - Looking & Being Your Best at Any Age, she discusses her life transitions and her battles with cancer and heart problems. A frequent guest on the Today Show and Fox Business News, Ramsey says we don't have to look at any particular stage in our lives as an ending.  Instead, why not grab the chance for a whole new beginning? Many unforeseen circumstances in the world today force people to take a hard look at themselves and their futures. Valerie offers her secrets to look and feel your best, to explore life, to accept challenges, and to ask “What's Next? www.valerieramsey.com

How to Use the Word for the World's Re-Creation

In an age of escalating world crisis, Laurel Airica, WordMagic poet/ performance artist, believes that we must  throw off the yoke of bad ideas – many  embedded in the English language symbols and sounds and affirmed each time we exchange greetings:  “Good Mourning, Have a good Weak, Make sure you get DeepRest.”  Through her mystic-linguistic decoding of English Language, Laurel intends to create a revolution in popular perception of the power of the Word to impact the quality of our world.  She has discovered the self-defeating contra-dictions through which we write our own Life Sentences and how collectively to evolve a new inspirational  language of the heart. www.laurelairica.com

Number:  The Construction of a Concept  and
What Children Know

Dr. Barbara Sarnecka, Assistant Professor of Cognitive Sciences at the University of CA, Irvine,  studies construction of natural number  concepts in early childhood., i.e. the relationship  between children’s number word knowledge and their performance on a numerical task without number words.  Number is a particularly interesting case because humans have both innate (i.e. non-learned) number knowledge, and also other number knowledge constructed based on information from other people.  Sarnecka argues that human beings do not have innate concepts for numbers.  Rather, these concepts are acquired through a conceptual-role bootstrapping process depending heavily on language. www.cogsci.uci.edu/cogdev/sarnecka

What's Your Body Telling You? Tune into Your BQ

Steve Sisgold, author, speaker, trainer, coach, advocates reliance on our BQ, body awareness intelligence instead of our IQ(mental intelligence).  He presents proven BQ techniques for concentrated focus and confidence to steer us away from dangerous impulsive reactions.  His book, What’s Your Body Telling You?  offers inspirational exercises and mind-body integration tools to hear and connect with a primal level of information sharing between your body and mind,  to shift into whole body consciousness,  to identify, release, and change the subconscious  viral beliefs that sabotage happiness., and to communicate with greater effectiveness and clarity. www.onedream.com  

Saved by a Poem - A Poet in Concert

Kim Rosen, MFA, a spoken-word artist, teacher of self-inquiry, and award-winning poet, has served on the faculties of WisdomUniversity, the Omega Institute, and Kripalu. Her book, Saved by a Poem:  The Transformative Power of Words, is an emphatic call to cultivate the ever-renewable resources of the heart.  Through poetry, the unspeakable can be spoken, the unendurable endured, and the miraculous shared, a necessary medicine for our times. Kim integrates the spoken word with the sound of music in a soul-enriching Poetry Concert causing profound shifts in feelings, thoughts, and even biochemistry as a conduit to an inner source of joy, freedom, and insight to align every level of your being. www.kimrosen.net

Understanding Leveraging & Maximizing Social Networking

The rules of networking, marketing, communication, and education have shifted dramatically. We are all now students of social media. Mirna Bard calls herself America’s Social Media Coach, combining 12 years of advertising experience with scholastic knowledge and real-world internet expertise. She incorporates social media and online marketing into every marketing mix she provides for her clients through her company, NuReach Global, to increase traffic and sales with on-line transparency. Mirna is the Social Media Chair for the National Association  of Women Business Owners of Orange County and  an instructor at UCI where she lectures on social media.

Cultivating Resiliency to Address the Need for Change

Dr. Ronald Jue has created new ways to examine and address the many current crises in a world changed by the collapse of trust in our financial and political institutions and by social mismanagement. He focuses on the development of cultural integrity and legacy building with individuals and their roles in their business  environments.  He affiliated with the World Business Academy and the World President’s Organization to spearhead dialogues exploring how spiritual and core values need to be integrated into the work-place, leading to the PBS TV series, ”Healthy People/Healthy Business.”  His book, The Inner Edge, offers a pragmatic approach to a path of integration for the professional. www.rwjue.com

The Wordcatcher

Phil Cousineau is the author of over 25 books, has more than 15 documentary script credits, has led numerous art and literary tours around the world, and is currently host of “Global Spirit” on LINK TV. At the core of virtually all his work is a passion for words, a love of language, and a commitment to soulful communication. His new book: Wordcatcher: An Odyssey into the Weird and Wonderful World of Words, captures his enthusiasm (from the Greek “to be filled with the gods”) for the thrill of using the right words at the right time to say what we mean and mean what we say—as beautifully as possible. www.philcousineau.net

Change Your Mind, Change Your Results:
Six Steps to Transforming Your Life

Steven Fogel, author of My Mind Is Not Always My Friend:  A Guide for How to Not Get in Your Own Way, is a principal and cofounder of Westwood Financial Corp., one of the largest owner-operators of retail properties in the U.S. with a portfolio in 23 metropolitan markets worth over one billion dollars.  Along his path he became a painter, a writer, a musician, an actor, an independent film producer, and a stand-up comedian.  After many years of searching for answers to the psychological and spiritual mysteries of life, his purpose came to him:  to share the self-transformation techniques he has learned to help others relieve their unnecessary pain and get out of their self-imposed straightjackets. www.mymindisnotmyfriend.com

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Baker Boys: Inside the Surge
Newport Beach Film Festival

Kern Konwiser, writer, director, and producer of award-wining theatrical films, documentaries, cable and network movies, has collaborated with industry’s most influential pioneers. In 2008, he joined forces with GigaPix Studios, a partnership that yielded the documentary, Baker Boys: Inside the Surge. Cinematographer Jon Steel, who for 25 years covered nearly every major conflict, went into the heart of an Al Qaeda hotbed outside of Baghdad to chronicle the last 90 days of Baker Company’s (U.S. Army, 3rd Infantry battalion) tour of duty, producing 120 hours of footage. Kern and his brother, Kip, assembled and edited the story of the “war inside” that the Baker Boys will inevitably bring home, capturing conversations so deeply personal they seem more like confessionals than interviews. Kern and Kip will both join us to share their experience.

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Creating Authentic Partnerships vs. Complicated Relationships

Christine Arylo is the author of Choosing Me Before We: Every Woman's Guide To Life and Love. She and her husband Noah Marti, partners in life and business, share the real deal on what it takes to build an authentic partnership.   Most of us say we want partnership, intimacy, unconditional love, and respect, but do we really know how to create it? From Christine Arylo and Noah Martin you will learn: the 5 biggest mistakes people make in relationships; how to go beyond the ideal of a relationship into the reality of a partnership; how to get what you need without hurting your partner in the process; and a deeper understanding of yourself and your impact on all of your relationships. daretoliveyou.com

The LifeQuake Method for Finding Your Life Purpose and Becoming a Change Agent for the World

Dr. Toni Galardi is a licensed psychotherapist, public speaker, advice columnist and  author of the recently published The LifeQuake Phenomenon: How To Thrive (Not Just Survive) During Times of Personal and Global Upheaval.  She developed the LifeQuake™ Method, which is trailblazing a new model for overcoming the fear of change. Most of us are dependent on using crisis as the prime motivator for change. This new LifeQuake™ Method reframes this personal and global upheaval into a seven-stage model that develops the ability to anticipate the end of cycles, prepare for change before it reaches catastrophic consequences and transform fear into a joyous, meaningful life. www.LifeQuake.net  

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Forgive for Love

Dr. Fred Luskin, Director of the Stanford Forgiveness Project and the author of the S.F.Bay area best sellers Forgive for Love and  Forgive for Good, demonstrates the importance of practicing forgiveness, long extolled in religious and psychological traditions, to promote mental and physical health.   He will explore the 9 steps of forgiveness that can lead to enhanced well-being through self-care.  Dr. Luskin will include practice in guided imagery and discussion of research to determine an understanding of what forgiveness is and is not, highlighting his work with couples and people struggling to forgive offenses from their significant others,  past and present. www.learningtoforgive.com

How to Recognize and Release Toxic Emotions, Experiences, and Perceptions from Your Body

Vaishali, a faculty member at The Omega Institute and The Kripalu Center for Health & Yoga, has appeared on national television and radio and presented at panels on health and wellness all over the United States.  She will share tips from her new book, Wisdom Rising, on how to recognize and release toxic emotions, experiences, and perceptions from your body, a manifestation of your mind, to promote increased health, vitality and longevity. Grounded in Indian/Tibetan Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine, she will teach the fundamentals of Chi Nei Tsang, self-administrated massage that works directly on the digestive system and supports the elimination of toxins, including toxic emotions.www.myspace.com/purplehazepress

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Lighter-Than-Air: A History of Balloons and Airships

Dr. Tom Crouch, acclaimed authority on the history of flight, is Senior Curator of the Division of Aeronautics at the Smithsonian National Air and SpaceMuseum.  The author of five books on the Wright Brothers, his The Bishop’s Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright, received the 1989 Christopher Award, lauded for “artistic achievement in support of the highest values of the human spirit.” In 2009 he published Lighter Than Air, a comprehensive illustrated history of balloons and airships, focusing on the people, flamboyant and daring, heroes and scoundrels, intrepid balloonists and peripatetic aeronauts, crossing continents and oceans, providing scientific discovery and reconnaissance. www.si.edu/ofg/Staffhp/CrouchT.htm  

What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20

Dr. Tina Seelig holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the Stanford School of Medicine and is Director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program where she guides her students in making the difficult transition from the academic environment to the professional world, providing tangible skills and insights that will last a lifetime.  Her book, What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20:  A Crash Course on Making Your Place in the World, shares what she offers her students: provocative stories of individuals defying expectations, challenging assumptions, and achieving success with a healthy disregard for the impossible, recovery from failure, and seeing problems as remarkable opportunities. www.harpercollins.com/tinaseelig  

Philosophy and the Attainment of Happiness

Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Descartes, and Sartre all might agree that happiness or human flourishing is the final end of our striving, but disagree on the definition. Dr. Jeff Mason holds a Ph.D. from the University of London, was a Professor in London for 26-years, published three books on philosophy and rhetoric and is the blogger of 93 philosophical meditations.  He currently teaches at Cal State Fullerton and also presents a popular annual lecture series on Philosophy and the Art of Living at UCI’s OLLI where he has distinguished himself as a stand-up philosopher demonstrating that positive thinking and ideas about the art of living the good life have perpetually intrigued great thinkers. www.philosophersnet.com 

Never Be the Same

Mark LeBlanc, President of Small Business Success, based in Minneapolis, MN.  teaches the street-smart strategies for achieving in times of challenge and change.   Transformed by his 500 mile hike across Spain, he brings great depth to core issues we face every day personally and professionally.  His Achievers Circles offer: Direction - make sure you are heading in the right direction; Identity - create or recreate a proper identity that serves you from a visual and verbal perspective.; Marketing - create a marketing game plan that gets you visible, busy, and booked with the right business; Benchmarks - when focused and on track, how to set up a system for accountability, and self-renewal. www.markleblanc.com

The Love Response:
Exploring the Physiology of Love

Dr. Selhub, clinical instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School and a senior physician at the Benson Henry Institute for Mind/Body Medicine at Mass. General Hospital, bases her practice on The Love Response™, referring to the chain of bio-chemical processes that occur in the body when one operates from love rather than from fear.  The neurobiology of love brings the body and mind into a state of flow and resilience, provoking a positive physiology, which helps the mind and body heal at its deepest level.   When you are filled with this Love, love that comes from others, Social Love, from something larger than you, Spiritual Love, and from within you, Self Love, you can handle anything that comes. www.theloveresonse.com 

Your Most Powerful Creative Tool

Peter Clothier, former Dean at the Otis Art Institute, widely-published art writer, and blogger, The Buddha Diaries,  brings the perspective of long experience and empathy for the creative passion.  His recent  Persist: In Praise of the Creative Spirit in a World Gone Mad With Commerce, addresses the predicament of creative people of all kinds—artists, writers, actors, musicians, dancers—who find it increasingly difficult for even the most talented to get a hearing in a cultural environment in which success is most often measured in commercial terms. Just as the artist must acquire and develop a disciplined mind and a commitment to practice to create a life in art that will survive the vicissitudes of a world dominated by market concerns,  so must each of us in our life’s work. www.peterclothier.com    ww.thebuddhadiaries.com

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Writing Down Your Soul

Everyone has innate spiritual intelligence. Whether you call it intuition, guidance, or something else, everyone has had the experience of a sudden insight or knowing-often upon waking. Janet Conner, in Writing Down Your Soul: How to Activate and Listen to the Extraordinary Voice Within, explains why that happens and how you can turn on that Voice any time you need it, day or night. Janet will share research from psychology, biology, and brain wave function that explains the power of writing is getting into the theta brain wave state.  Janet will teach us the seven simple and rather fun steps that thousands of soul writers use every day to access limitless wisdom and creativity. www.writingdownyoursoul.com

PAST SPEAKERS

Dr. Frank LaFerla is Chancellor Professor in the Department of Neurology and Behavior at UCI, Director of the Institute for Memory Impairment and Neurological Disorders, and Fellow of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory.  His research is focused on understanding the pathogenesis of Alzheimer disease, most recently on using neural stem cells as tools to model critical aspects of of Alzheimer pathology.  With a distinguished record of research, teaching, and service, he  plans to expand the Institute to new levels to bridge or “translate” scientific-based discoveries and introduce them in meaningful ways into the clinical programs touching patients and families. http://neurobiology.bio.uci.edu/faculty/laferla

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Formula for Success 4 Teens and 4 You

We enter Thanksgiving with gratitude that people like Bill Morris, former Wall Street Executive, has spent the last 16 years conducting motivational seminars for teens at institutions ranging from West Point and Stanford University to obese camps, halfway homes, drug rehab centers, foster homes and high schools. He provides answers, solutions, and guidance for teens struggling with common issues such as time management, goal setting, every day setbacks, fitness, nutrition, self esteem, and confidence. A Board Member of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Bill’s motto in life is “learn, earn and return” and his lofty goal is to reach 30 million kids in the US with his message, “game plan,” and recently created DVD, Success4Teens. You will be inspired. www.success4teens.com  

Discover The “WOW” Factor in You and
Power Up Your Charisma

Chris Alexander, Emmy Award winner for Overall Excellence in Business Education and PBS TV producer of Creating Extraordinary Joy and Joy in the Workplace, is the author of five books.  His most recent publication is The “WOW” Factor. We all know people we love to be with. We all have brands and products we love. What is your brand? What is your “WOW” Factor? When we experience the magic of The”WOW” Factor, we want to repeat it over and over. It's flattering, it's attractive and we want more of it. Chris Alexander will show you how to bring The “WOW” Factor into your business and into your life by learning how to power-up your charisma and create great relationships and customer experiences. www.alexanderspeaks.com  

The Long Culture War? The Vitality of 'Wedge Issues' in the Obama Era.

John Dombrink is Professor of Criminology, Law and Society in the School of Social Econogy at UCI. He is author of several articles on the legal treatment of vice and co-author of Sin No More: From Abortion to Stem Cells, Understanding Crime, Law and Morality in America (with Daniel Hillyard, NYU Press, 2007) and Dying Right: The Death With Dignity Movement (with Daniel Hillyard, Routledge, 2001). Dr Dombrink directs the Social Ecology Mentor-Mentee Program providing academic support for first-generation college students. He will discuss the current state of American "culture wars," and the effects of social conservatives and the religious right on law and politics in America. For More Info

Kute’s own background and experience lays out the blueprint for his approach to liberating others, setting their gifts and greatness free. Born in Ghana, the child of a Japanese mother and Ghanaian father, raised in London, and on 4 different continents, he is a next generation world leader out to awaken millions to Love and to Living their inspired destiny. According to Kute, once freed of the conditioned responses scripted by family, society, institutions and the media, people are no longer limited to pre-programmed interactions in the course of living. In fact, life becomes a bold adventure, an expansive, jazzy improvisation, which is what he calls “Freefall.” As founder of The Blackson Group, he uses a variety of modalities to help people break out of old patterns. www.kuteblackson.net

October 14

Suzzanne Falter Barn

The Interface Theory of Perception

Donald Hoffman is Professor of Cognitive Sciences at UCI and author of Visual Inteligence: How We Create What We See. His research has led him to propose conscious realism: consciousness and its contents are all that exists. He demonstrates that our perceptions constitute a species-specific user interface that guides behavior in a niche. Just as the icons of a PC’s interface hide the complexity of the computer, so our perceptions usefully hide the complexity of the world, and guide adaptive behavior. This interface guides research in perception and informs a new class of evolutionary games, interface games, in which pithy perceptions often drive true perceptions to extinction. Donald Hoffman PhD

Stroke Prevention

Dr. Vivek Jain is a stroke neurologist and Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Neurology at the UC Irvine Healthcare’s Stroke and Cerebrovascular Center, one of only three certified primary stroke centers in the county. Strokes, or brain attacks, are the third leading cause of death and a primary cause of disability in the United States today. The key is recognizing the first sign of cerebrovascular trouble – a transient ischemic attack (TIA), commonly known as a mini-stroke – and getting immediate help. About a fourth of all stroke patients have had at least one TIA whose symptoms disappear in less that 24 hours and are frequently shrugged off. This morning may save your life.Dr. Vivek Jain 

The Creative Process in Eight Stages

Kimberly Brooks is an artist and technologist whose work has been featured in magazines and juried exhibitions in museums across the country, including the Whitney, MOMA, LAXMA, and CA Institute of the Arts.  She hosts a popular weekly artist column called “First Person Artist” on the Huffington Post where she writes about the creative process and interviews artists around the world.   Hailed as an “interactive visionary,” she started her career teaming up artists with engineers to create the software design firm, Lightray Productions, and has created groundbreaking projects for Norman Lear, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., NASA, Intel, the LAPD, Warner Music and many more. www.kimberlybrooks.com

The Harder They Fall: Celebrity Stories of Addiction and Recovery

Gary Stromberg, head of The Blackbird Group, honors National Recovery Month with a look at how addiction devoured celebrities’ pride and accomplishments until they found the courage to seek help,  honesty to face their disease, and ultimately strength to rebuild their lives. No stranger to celebrities, Gary Stromberg, filmmaker and author of three books, co-founded Gibson & Stromberg, an influential music public relations firm of the 60’s and 70’s representing such luminaries as The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Babra Streisand, Boyz II Men, Muhammad Ali, Elton John, Neil Diamond, Ray Charles, The Doors, Earth, Wind & Fire, Elton John, Three Dog Night, and Crosby, Stills, & Nash. www.garystromberg.net   

The Journey Beyond CEO

Robert Hunter is a business leader whose broad range of experience includes 23 years at PepsiCo and 10 years as CEO of PepsiCo Food Systems, leading it to a $4 Billion company at the time of its sale. He is currently chairman and CEO of Exxcell Entertainment, Inc. As part of his journey beyond CEO, he is the author of Curious Journey: Origins of the New Age, the first of a six-book series in which he documents that there is more that we don’t know than we do know; and to be successful, we must be open to possibilities. He will share his knowledge of ethics in business and the potential of what New Age thinking offers us to build strong personal and business relationships. www.robertcharleshunter.com