Jeff Hamaoui

MEA co-founder and poetic Chief Education Officer Jeff Hamaoui is a gentle and empathic facilitator, business innovation veteran, and community builder who’s taught sustainability courses at Wharton, Berkeley, and Stanford.

Listen to Chip and Jeff Hamaoui on the Midlife Chrysalis podcast:

Episode 68

February 13, 2026

Why Friendship Becomes the Most Important Skill in Midlife | Jeff Hamaoui

Workshops

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Live Sessions

Cómo Aprovechar de Nuestras Vidas Más Largas

Carl Honoré & Jeff Hamaoui

January 17, 2024 12:00 AM PT 03:00 AM ET

As you step into the next chapter of your life, we hope you’ll do so bravely and with a heart full of wonder and a spirit ignited by curiosity. And to help you on your way, MEA is ...

Friendship as a Practice: For Your Wellbeing and Longevity

Jeff Hamaoui, Christine Sperber & Derek Gehl

December 18, 2024 10:00 AM PT 01:00 PM ET

Join Jeff, Christine, and our new CEO Derek Gehl for a special discussion on why friendship is the most important practice for boosting your wellbeing and longevity. They’ll share ...

Celebrate the Season of Giving and Bring in the Solstice with Chip Conley & Friends

Chip Conley, Jeff Hamaoui & Christine Sperber

December 20, 2024 12:00 PM PT 03:00 PM ET

Join Chip and a slate of special guests for a special Solstice-themed Fireside Chat celebrating the power of giving. You’ll hear compelling stories from people whose lives have bee...

Pass It On: Mentor Young Innovators Building a Better Future

Seán Gallen, Coralie Jacquot & Jeff Hamaoui

May 18, 2026 8:00 AM PT 11:00 AM ET

In a village in Sub-Saharan Africa, a young entrepreneur is building a smokeless cookstove to protect maternal and child health. In another, someone’s engineering a water purificat...

Two Poems from Jeff

March 23, 2025

Teachers For directionLook to yourselfFor purpose,Look to yourselfFor inspiration,Look to yourselfFor power,Look to yourselfFor love,Look to yourselfFor certainty,Look to yourselfFor...

Social Battery

March 16, 2025

I was recently teaching a week with poet and author Mark Nepo on friendship. I took pages of notes and...

The Imaginal World

December 26, 2024

I have been talking about imaginal cells in transitions for years now. It was an idea seeded in my mind...

Petrichor

June 27, 2024

"Sur l'odeur propre de la terre" ‍ The day my daughter asked me If there was a name for the...

What Wisdom Said.

March 16, 2024

Wisdom saidI’ve been seeing it and seeing it andI’ve learned not to fear it.I have seen it comeAnd I have...

The MEA Process: Why We Need a Process for Midlife.

January 21, 2024

Living longer means we face more changes and are called upon to recreate ourselves, to change and repurpose ourselves more...

Purpose.

December 17, 2023

I learned so much from the group and gained some wisdom nuggets I will never forget; gems like “you make...

Emotional Granularity Mining.

October 13, 2023

In researching my book on men’s feelings I am having to do some pretty deep dives trying to understand how...

Sobremesa. The Ultimate Friendship Practice.

July 8, 2023

From an early age I have gathered people around food, initially at my British boarding school as a response to...

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Midlife Compass

Loneliness

August 19, 2025

According to the US surgeon general Vivek Murthy, there's a loneliness epidemic. The data for loneliness for men, for youth,...

10 Secret Rules of Friending

May 29, 2025

Search the internet and you'll find a hundred hacks on how to make friends. So much of the practice of...

Friending is a Practice – Part 2

December 15, 2024

Last week, we talked about the dangers of loneliness and how friends are the cure that protect you from the...

Friending is a Practice – Part 1

December 8, 2024

When it comes to our health and happiness, friending might be the most important practice of all.Studies show that an...

Confessions from a Mindfulness Skeptic

August 18, 2024

Hi, Jeff here. I'm one of the co-founders of MEA, and I have a confession to make: I used to...

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