Becoming a Sage with Dr. Jann Freed

Margaret Wheatley, also known as Meg, embarked on her journey of caring for humanity in 1966 as a Peace Corps volunteer in post-war Korea. Her current endeavors are concentrated on cultivating and empowering leaders globally, advocating for them to become Warriors for the Human Spirit. These leaders prioritize service over self, exhibit unwavering resilience amidst challenges and setbacks, and effect positive change for the communities and causes close to their hearts.

Meg, the author of ten books, including the seminal work "Leadership and the New Science," has received accolades for her pioneering contributions from numerous professional associations, universities, and organizations.

Laura Rotter, CFA, CFP, is the owner of True Abundance Advisors, a heart-centered, values-based financial planning firm based in New York. After a successful career managing money for institutional investors including Citicorp and Para Advisors, Laura discovered mindfulness practices and was drawn to guide professionals facing a big life change to achieve both financial security and life satisfaction.

Since making her shift, she has been featured in CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Westchester Senior Voice. She is on the advisory council of Impact100 Westchester, a women’s group giving organization, and volunteers with My Money Workshop, teaching financial literacy to underserved communities.

Dr. Pamela Maxson, an executive and leadership coach, mentor coach, trainer/facilitator, and author of "Finding Your Inner Bitch: How to live an authentic and wholehearted life," assists readers in tapping into and expressing their core selves.

Alongside her book, she has developed two related courses: "Develop Your Life" and "Mastering Midlife." With over 25 years of teaching experience at Duke University, Pam is the founder and principal of Periscope Coaching.

Susan Latremoille enjoyed a stellar 38-year career as a wealth advisor. During those years, she watched many of her clients move into retirement with high hopes and plenty of money, only to become disillusioned and depressed. She was frustrated because there was no place for her to turn to help them. After selling her wealth practice at the end of 2019, Susan was determined to do something about the problem. That led her to co-found Next Chapter Lifestyle Advisors, which supports financial advisors in providing information and education about lifestyle planning to their retiring clients. Susan Latremoille CPRC, FEA, ICD.D, MBA is a win-win solution. Advisors’ clients design and implement plans for a fulfilling, balanced, and purposeful life after their careers. This facilitates the advisor to integrate their client’s lifestyle plan with their financial plan. The advisor benefits by deepening the client relationship which improves retention, and by differentiating their practice with a much-needed value-added service.

Today Susan is a sought-after speaker who focuses on inspiring advisors to up their game while benefiting their clients.

Ali Schultz is a coach and the co-founder of Reboot.io. She weaves her business acumen with the innate wisdom of the body, the philosophies of the world’s wisdom traditions, and the“way of the horse” to help clients find their voice in service of finding themselves.

Ali earned her Master’s degree in Religious Studies from the University of Colorado at Boulder, studied Transformational NLP at NLP Marin, and completed the facilitator program at the Center for Collaborative Awareness. An avid horsewoman, she is also a certified EQUUS Experience Facilitator in Equine Facilitated Coaching. You can find her writing on ‘The Art of Being Human at Work’ on the Reboot Blog and also at the OnBeing project.

Dr. Michael S. Lewis, M.D., is a distinguished orthopedic surgeon and former consultant for the Chicago White Sox baseball team, Chicago Wolves hockey team, and the Chicago Bulls basketball team, with whom won two championship rings.
Previously, he served as the chief of staff at NorthShore University HealthSystem’s Skokie Hospital and received a teaching award from Rush University Medical College.
Dr. Lewis is an award-winning author who has published seven books, including One World: A View of Seven Continents (as seen on PBS TV), Seeing More Colors: A Guide to a Richer Life, Invitation to Joy: Viewing Birds on Seven Continents, The Ball’s in Your Court: A Doctor Shares Life Lessons from Michael Jordan, Phil Jackson, Abraham Maslow, and other Inspiring Teachers, and Getting Wiser: 101 Essential Life Lessons and Inspiring Stories. He is also an accomplished photographer; his work is featured in galleries and permanent collections at Brandeis University and Boston Children’s Hospital.
Honored as a notable Chicago author, Dr. Lewis lectures nationally and internationally. An avid tennis player, he and his wife, Valerie, reside in Chicago, raising two daughters and two grandsons.

Her exuberance as a non-linear thinker and visionary in the brand intelligence space has always taken center stage. But Mary van de Wiel, dubbed brand psychologist and master provocateur by her corporate clients, brings 35 years of multicultural experience redefining brands and bringing emboldened thinking to organizations.

As Founder, CEO and Executive Creative Director of an independent branding & design agency with offices in New York and Sydney, she steered award-winning campaigns for Fortune 500 clients.

Since successfully selling her agency (on her own terms), Van launched her Brooklyn-based brand laboratory for serious play — consulting, coaching and leading her signature workshops. And right now, she’s moved her practice to central Mexico where her other top creative priority is her fashion and lifestyle brand called Black Line Crazy (BLC). In her Limited Edition Collection of wearable art and homewares, each piece is based on her bold abstract paintings. The Museum of Contemporary Art CHICAGO has already purchased BLC pieces for its Design Shop.

Also dedicated to helping university students identify their point of difference in an ever-changing employment landscape, she’s been a guest lecturer on branding at UCLA, The University of Sydney Business School (and many others) where she loves speaking about mixing the rigor of her vast business experience and the whimsy and joy of artistic pursuits.

Susan Turnbull is the founder and Principal of Personal Legacy Advisors. She the author of The Wealth of Your Life: A Step-by-Step Guide for Creating Your Ethical Will, and creator of Life Legacy Cards and the Life Legacy Conversations Tool, all designed for those who agree that wealth transferred to future generations has both tangible and intangible dimensions.

Susan is a member of the Boston Estate Planning Council, the Purposeful Planning Institute and the Personal Historians Network and has been featured in many national publications.

Ayse (pronounced Eye-Shay) Birsel is one of the world’s leading industrial designers. She has designed hundreds of products, from toilet seats to office systems to potato peelers to concept cars. You’ve probably held or sat on something she has designed for Herman Miller Knoll, Target or Toyota, among many others. Her work has earned her several nicknames—Queen of Toilets, Queen Bee (for office systems), and Design Evangelista (given to her by Mauro Porcini, Chief Design Officer, PepsiCo).

Interior Design Magazine awarded her Best Of Year Product Designer of 2020. She is one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People In Business. She is named one of the world’s top 8 coaches by Thinkers50 for Marshall Goldsmith Distinguished Achievement Award for Coaching and Mentoring. She is the author of Design the Life You Love and is recognized as "The #1 Coach for Life Design.” Her new book, Design the LONG Life You Love, was published in December 2022. Her design process, Deconstruction:Reconstruction™, is the red thread across all her work. Her work can be found in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

Ayse was born in Turkey and came to New York City with a Fulbright scholarship, where she now lives and works.

Home is Baja and Breckenridge for this former pro snowboarder who's launched and operated hotels, produced events on beaches and glaciers, managed pro athletes, and worn the hats of writer, restaurateur, and more. The common thread? Christine is passionate about creating experiences that change people's lives—be it in our classroom, our community, or in our workplace. Christine cares deeply about the wellbeing and happiness of her amazing team and the broader El Pescadero community where she lives with her husband Josh and their family of rescue dogs.

Bruce Rosenstein is Managing Editor of Leader to Leader, a publication of The Frances Hesselbein Leadership Forum and Wiley/Jossey-Bass. He is the author of Create Your Future the Peter Drucker Way, (McGraw-Hill and Brilliance Audio, 2013) and Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker's Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life (Berrett-Koehler, 2009).

He worked for USA TODAY from 1987-2008, as a corporate librarian and during the final 12 years, also as a writer about business and management books for the newspaper’s Money section. He is a regular writing contributor and member of the steering committee for Corporate Learning Network. He started a blog, “The Peter Drucker Files,” for Psychology Today in January 2022. Since 1996, he has taught as an adjunct professor at The Catholic University of America Department of Library and Information Science.

At only sixteen years old, Jacqueline Wales fled from her childhood home in a desperate search for happiness. Looking in all the wrong places, she left a trail of abandoned children and a pattern of self abuse that threatened her life.

But that’s just the beginning of her story. From Leith, Scotland, to London, England; from the California coast to Paris, Amsterdam, New York, and Bali, Jacqueline’s life has been a journey of self-discovery, awakening, and joy in the face of fear.

Jacqueline believes that being fearless is not the absence of fear, but the courage to take the next step. Today, Jacqueline is an author, keynote speaker, and trusted advisor to successful, high-achieving women.

Jenn Lim is the bestselling author of Beyond Happiness, and the CEO of Delivering Happiness [DH], a company she and Tony Hsieh [the late CEO of Zappos.com] cofounded to create happier company cultures for a more profitable and sustainable approach to business. DH has worked with or spoken at more than 400 companies and organizations worldwide, including Starbucks, Sallie Mae, Lockheed Martin, Zoom, Northwell Health, and more. In 2020, DH was placed on the Inc. 5000 list, becoming one of the fastest-growing private companies in the US.

In her new bestselling book, Beyond Happiness: How Authentic Leaders Prioritize Purpose and People for Growth and Impact, Jenn draws on her decades of experience in culture and strategy to translate it into a practical “how-to” framework so workplaces can adapt quicker, couple purpose and profits, and modernize org design to the Great Resignation and Great Awakening. As a result, she guides all of us—no matter our title or role—on how to live more meaningful lives through the work we do every day.

Jenn has been featured in Inc., Forbes, Fortune, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Thrive Global, MSN, Fox Business, CNBC Make It, Success Magazine, etc. and has been coined by many industry experts, thought leaders, and members of the media, as the “happiness expert.”

Robert E. Quinn is the Margaret Elliot Tracy Collegiate Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan, Ross School of Business. 

His research and writing focus on purpose, leadership, culture and change.  He is one of the co-founders of the field of Positive Organizational Scholarship and a co-founder of the Ross Center for Positive Organizations. 

In terms of research, he is in the top 1% of professors cited in organizational behavior textbooks.  He has published 18 books. 

As a teacher Quinn is the recipient of multiple awards.  In a global survey he was recently named one of the top speakers in the world on the topic of organizational culture and related issues. His talk on personal purpose went viral and has been viewed by over 18 million people.

Pat Whitty calls himself a Modern Elder Whisperer. The “whisperer” phrase was made popular by the Horse Whisperer who is a person who has a unique understanding of the emotional and psychological needs of horses. Through his own study of health, aging, and his own transition to a Modern Elder, Pat has a unique understanding of the emotional and psychological needs of elders.

He recently completed a week retreat at the Modern Elder Academy in Baja, a place and a school with its own unique curriculum and celebrations for transitioning into another chapter of life, so we can grow whole, not old.

Pat recently left his position as the Dean of the School of Business at a San Antonio university to pursue a new career as a Health and Life Transition Coach helping people in midlife and beyond write the next chapter of their life. He has a Master’s Degree in Organizational Development from Incarnate Word University. He was manager of Leadership and Management Training at Chase Bank for 10 years and owned the Dale Carnegie Training franchise for South Texas for over 20 years.

He is the president of the Dominion Rotary Club in San Antonio, TX. 

Liz Brunner is a best-selling author, Executive Communications Coach, Motivational Speaker, Podcast Host, and Emmy award-winning journalist. 

She is the author of Dare to Own You: Taking Your Authenticity and Dreams into Your Next Chapter. Mixing memoir, both personal and professional, with practical, implementable transformational tools, the book weaves her story about determination, perseverance, resilience, faith, and trust. 

Liz is also the host of the Live Your Best Life with Liz Brunner podcast, on which she guides her guests to share their stories of self-discovery and re-creation.

Erica Keswin is a highly sought-after workplace strategist and coach with 25 years of hands-on experience and two Wall Street Journal bestselling books. She is a trusted guide for companies around the world looking for ways to connect their teams, increase engagement, and create a human workplace.

Carol Orsborn, Ph.D. is a recognized thought leader in the field of conscious aging and author of over 30 books translated into 15 languages including her forthcoming The Making of an Old Soul: Aging as the Fulfillment of Life’s Promise and Older, Wiser, Fiercer: The Wisdom Collection.

Dr. Orsborn received her Master of Theological Studies and Doctorate in History and Critical Theory of Religion from Vanderbilt University with specialization in the fields of adult and spiritual development.

A former top marketer helping brands like Ford, Humana and Prudential build relationships with the Boomer generation, she is now committed to both living and expanding awareness of aging as a spiritual path.