Whether you are an "official" leader or not, this ongoing program is designed to support you in freeing yourself to fully step into leadership in all aspects of your life and work, and play your part in making life work for everyone.
Leadership is not about your position in the world. No matter your life circumstances, your leadership is about taking responsibility for the whole, whatever that whole is, within your own sphere of influence: your family, your own life, a company you're running, or a social movement you are part of.
Miki says: "Leaders are people who align themselves and their lives with what matters most to them. And who choose actions that care for the whole in the systems in which they live."
Leadership is an orientation, not a position. It is not about how you engage with your circumstances, not what your circumstances are. YOU can step into leadership, exactly where you are.
Whoever you are, whatever your challenges are, this program is designed to support you in responding to the call of our times through ongoing coaching and support in the following areas:
- Stepping fully into your power, and using it creatively and collaboratively;
- Engaging productively with others in moving towards a shared purpose – whether it's at home, at work, or in your communities;
- Creating change within and without in response to everyone's needs;
- Bringing nonviolence more deeply into how you leadership;
- Functioning effectively at all levels, from internal to systemic;
- Combining power and love in a way that transforms the legacy of scarcity, separation, and powerlessness into a livable future;
- Increasing capacity to know and face reality as a source of greater choice;
- Bridging the gap between your vision and the reality of your life;
- Acting with integrity in more and more circumstances;
- Surrounding yourself with enough support to keep moving towards your highest goals; and
- Infusing your inner life with tenderness and acceptance.
The purpose of this course, as co-discerned by a group of veteran participants at the end of 2021, is “To accelerate individual and collective liberation in times of global crises through live coaching and engaging actively in co-learning nonviolent leadership.”
If this sounds like a lot, know this…
- Over the ten plus months of the course, you have a unique opportunity to receive acceptance, tenderness, and support from Miki as she accompanies you on your path towards full empowerment; and
- When you focus in this way, you're likely to discover your own healing accelerates in many areas – even though you're not directly focused on healing – because you are moving towards purpose and vision.
This program gives you the opportunity to approach life from the driver's seat… connected with others… more able to ask for what you need… and more able to respond to what life presents with heart-felt care for all – and for life itself.
And… all this with support and companionship along the way…
More about the program
This is the ninth year of this program. Many people come back repeatedly, and we have people who have signed up for all past years. We are awed by the groundbreaking success of this program in moving people forward in their leadership and establishing support networks that may last for years to come. There is no change from year to year given how much people experience this program as an oasis, a place of refuge and a lab of exploration of how to be in this time in human history.
This course attracts many people and still manages to create a deep sense of community and intimacy every year. People stay after the weekly call is over in what is now called the “after-party”, and form temporary and lasting groups, some continuing well beyond the end of the year. This is not accidental: we need a lot of support when we step into leadership, especially when we want to lead in visionary ways.
Miki's 2025 program includes:
- Forty-five sessions
We meet every Friday from 12:00 - 2:00 pm Pacific (California) Time from February 7 through December 12, for a total of 45 sessions (recordings of all sessions are available to everyone who registers!). In each of these sessions, what happens emerges from what you bring to the class along with Miki's detailed, attentive, challenging, and tender coaching. There's no set curriculum, and the class operates like a lab, or as one participant called it: an international think-tank about leadership. Miki leads the vast majority of the sessions and invites guest speakers when she is not available. We believe that the blend of Miki's laser-sharp focus and passion for supporting the emergence of a growing group of leaders who are oriented to making a difference everywhere they are, and the gifts and vision of the colleagues she personally invites, is a unique and dynamic combination. - Materials
Since there is no curriculum and Miki doesn't do linear teaching, there are no official materials for this course. That said, Miki has thousands of pages of materials that can enhance and deepen your learning, especially the close to 2,000 pages in over 40 learning packets, and new ones still being created. - Active co-learning
The focus for each week unfolds from what happens, which includes both what participants bring as questions, challenges, insights, or other requests, and what Miki brings from her living, active learning, and experimentation in her work elsewhere. - Leadership and collaboration opportunities
In addition to Miki’s facilitation and the immense support offered by the NVC Academy, this course has an additional layer of support that grows year by year. Participants who return from previous years have consistently accepted the invitation to take on active leadership in support of Miki and all participants. This means both more support for everyone and more leadership and growth opportunities. In addition, both within the course and beyond, people from diverse backgrounds all over the world co-create lasting friendships, support networks, experiments, communities of practice, and form pods to explore co-holding and experiment with shared risk. These collectives build strength and grow trust in life while collaboratively applying their learnings to take on leadership in their communities and daily lives. While co-holding one another’s dilemmas, they embody the leadership they long to see in our world, with robust support to stay committed to nonviolence and liberation for all. - Vision mobilization
Within this course you can receive support with aligning your life with your own vision using the Vision Mobilization (VM) framework, which offers a pathway for closing the gap between the luminous vision that each one of us carries in our cellular memory, and the erosion of collective human capacity we are born into and, tragically, internalize. It supports us to have:- Deeper clarity about what we truly want, how we want to live, and what is ours to do
- Infinite tenderness in relation to our own capacity limitations
- Support in creating agreements, with ourselves and with others, that are within capacity and increase capacity to align with our deepest dreams
- Understanding about what gives us energy to keep going in these difficult times
- Each participant who wants it can receive a template for their own vision mobilization structure, and the opportunity to participate in a peer-led group with support from those with more experience with this expansive tool.
You could…
- Advance your ability to step into leadership in all aspects of your life;
- Enjoy greater ability to live your values and inspire others to do the same;
- Increase your ability to hold awareness of multiple needs and forge a path of action at the same time; and
- Participate in individual and collective liberation in relation to the legacy of scarcity, separation, and powerlessness.
Is this course for me?
Only you can really know whether Miki's course is a good fit for you and we offer a few points that may help you make your decision:
- Although this course is designed to support deep application of the principles and practices of NVC as Miki lives them, it is not focused on practicing observations, feelings, needs, and requests. Instead, it focuses on deep questions about how we live from within the commitment to nonviolence and to caring for the whole through the lens of needs.
- Although this course emerges from a huge body of work that Miki created over many years, with clear processes and areas of practice, it really isn't structured, and most of the teaching happens in dialogue and interaction with individuals, in response to whatever arises.
- Although the environment is dialogic and collaborative, and what happens emerges from all who participate, this is also a led environment; a laboratory for what collaborative leadership can look like.
- If you would like to have a more detailed sense about the course, we invite you to check out the Vision Mobilization structure for it that holds all who participate. In this document you will find the vision, values, and purpose that are the foundation of the course, the mission elements which form the focus of what happens, and all the details about how the course actually functions.
- And if all this isn’t enough, the first session is entirely free and without any commitment, allowing you to experience for yourself what happens before the sense of community has formed. After that session, participants from previous years are also available to answer questions.
What People Are Saying About Miki's Courses
"I watched myself change over the course of Miki's class. As a woman of African Descent, I was initially very timid about speaking especially to a large number of people that I did not know. As time went on, I learned the power of my voice and I learned that my words had impact even on those I did not know personally. I am so grateful that I chose to take the course and I look forward to another year of change and deeper learning." Anita F., USA
"The biggest joy for me was seeing and experiencing how NVC principles change the lives of participants including myself: it makes them more free, alive, open, creative, active, vulnerable and so on." D.V, Lithuania
"Having this consciousness stream to dive into every week for 8 months, was just the kind of steady current of support I have longed to discover in a world where I have grown accustomed to feeling like an outlier." M.G.
"Miki helped me understand that engaging with people can be very healing. So, since then I have been talking to people like I have never done before." Ralph N.
"It's that incredible feeling that this group is able to hold people in gentleness and in their pain and that there's so much trust within the group that really deep things can come up. And I really appreciate that. And thank you all." Annika Lonak
