Gail Larsen
Author, Transformational Speaking | Speaking Coach to Bestselling Authors & Renowned Leaders | Founder of Real Speaking®
A new program for new times.
Deep Presence. Inner Map. Clear Decisions.
Gail Larsen with special guest Estelle Bingham
Especially for MEA alumni, teachers, leaders, facilitators, coaches, thought leaders, and evolutionaries—those of you who hold space for others and want to bring your own big questions to a gathering of peers.
Transformational Speaking calls forth our truth.
Transformational Listening calls forth what is waiting to be born.
Why This Program Now? A Message from Gail
Innovation comes from the mind.
Creativity comes from the soul.
Transformation comes from the Mystery.
We can't think our way to transformation. It emerges when we connect with an intelligence beyond our minds, one that often speaks without words.
Years ago, I was struck by the Rumi quote: "Speak a new language so the world may be a new world." I knew Rumi was pointing beyond the spoken word toward the many ways Life speaks to us beneath the noise: intuition, synchronicity, the body, imagination, dreams, deep listening, the patterns and gifts of our ancestors.
After three extraordinary gatherings exploring how Life speaks and guides us, I know for sure that what we can’t yet see is where the adventure begins! Learning these “new” languages is essential to be fully alive and aligned with our purpose—especially when many of our old maps no longer work.
At Transformational Listening, we engage life from a different level of perception—where clarity, direction, and a new story can emerge.
What if life didn't require more effort or figuring out... but more listening in?
The mind can work only with what it already knows. But perhaps the most exciting moment in your life — and on the planet — is happening in the unseen. In a circle of just 10 "important strangers," we'll listen to reshape how we live, lead, love, create, and serve.
"What was remarkable about Transformational Listening was that it was experiential. We didn't have to 'work' to find insight; we simply opened ourselves to being found by it. Wisdom and connection arrive in the most unexpected ways — and often at the most unexpected times." — Bruce Mezan
Jennifer Schaefer, Healer & Program Director
Mapmaking in partnership with the Mystery
Angeles Arrien often said: “Each day there are two plans: your plan and the Mystery’s plan.”
We are no longer standing at the edge of change but living inside it. The maps by which we’ve been taught to navigate our lives are failing us, and many of us are flailing with information overwhelm.
Mapmakers dream of what’s possible and participate consciously in what comes next. They are willing to explore new territory before there is a clear roadmap.
This is an invitation to step into a playground of possibility, a place where your mind can rest, curiosity can lead, and new ways of seeing become possible.
What if transformation begins when we become willing to walk the emerging path with practical feet—fully grounded in reality, yet listening differently inside it?
When listening opens new worlds of possibility
That’s what happened to MEA CEO Derek Gehl.
For most of his life, Derek trusted his mind to steer him – planning, analyzing, thinking his way through every challenge. But when the big questions came, logic alone fell short.
Then he sat in a circle with Gail Larsen.
She invited him to listen differently: to his body, to timing, to the natural world, to conversations that arrived like messengers at just the right moment – to the languages of life he’d spent years overriding.
“I never realized how much I was missing,” Derek says now. “Listening isn’t just about the mind. There are other instruments I can use in business and life. I’m tuning into a deeper frequency now, and it’s changing how I lead, love, and make decisions.”
Watch Gail in Conversation with Derek Gehl
The powerful & playful work we’ll do together.
Over four days, we explore four dimensions of listening that reveal a deeper compass for your life.
Through embodied presence and deep listening practices, we settle our nervous systems from the overwhelm of the world and open to a different quality of knowing.
Listening to Yourself
Where are you in your story? What thread of aliveness has guided you all along? What is your body asking you to notice, release, reclaim, or trust? How do you recognize your Holy No and your True Yes? What patterns in your lineage support you, and which are ready to be released?
This is where you understand your own inner map.
"If you are ready to put a dimmer switch on performing, pleasing and proving and shine a light on authenticity, truth and meaning, Transformational Listening is the path that will bring you home." — Robin Rorex, two decades of executive leadership at Nike
Listening to Life
When we put aside our busy minds, new forms of guidance emerge — synchronicity, intuition, timing, dreams, symbols, and the inner knowing that says "this way." Here, you notice the ways Life is already speaking to you.
"As a high-powered CEO and mother of five, I've spent years moving from client meetings to the carpool line, constantly answering the needs of everyone around me while rarely stopping to listen to what I truly wanted for myself. This experience gave me the space and tools to reconnect with my own voice." — Emily Reynolds, Founder, R Public Relations
Listening to Each Other
There is a way of listening that awakens wisdom rather than debate. In this kind of circle, presence is medicine and conversation becomes alchemy. You learn how to initiate Courageous Conversations where solutions are co-created rather than pre-determined.
"I am more secure in having courageous conversations without trying to control the outcome." — Raven Diggs, Sober Coach and Companion
Listening Together
When a group aligns, something extraordinary happens. We begin to sense what wants to emerge among us — ideas, direction, possibilities, and stories none of us could access alone.
This is collective intelligence. This is where the future speaks.
"There is no hierarchy in the web of Life. Only relationship. When we play, we restore flow. When we listen, we remember how to belong." — From our October 2025 Collective New Story
“It’s not enough to know your story; one must listen deeply for what’s on the horizon. Transformational Listening doesn’t just change how we listen, it changes who we are when we listen. This work has fundamentally transformed how I show up as a listener, a leader, and a human being in this changing world.”
~ Amy Hosford, General Manager, KN Literary Arts
What these four days look like
You'll be part of a co-created Listening Playground™ where you’ll listen through practices that include:
We take the work seriously, but not ourselves.
There’s even a Holy Fools chair for those moments when we notice we’ve climbed back into our heads. (Noticing is half the work!)
Holy Fools are dangerously alive and free enough to notice what we’d miss if we were trying to be right. We trust curiosity more than conclusions, because curiosity keeps us in relationship with what’s still becoming.
What you’ll take with you
In a circle of like-hearted companions who value depth, curiosity, and exploration, we combine teaching, experiential practices, meaningful conversation, ritual, story, silence, and play to create a Listening Playground™ where insight arrives through invitation and discovery. We play first, understand later!
Ted Ning
Convener, Natural Products Leaders
A clearer relationship with your inner map
Recognize the deeper patterns, longings, and inner signals guiding your life so you can move forward with greater trust, coherence, and alignment in your choices, relationships, work, and way of serving.
Michelle Pilley
Publisher, Hay House London
Tools for listening to life in real time
Play with synchronicity, body signals, resonance, intuition, and surprising openings as practical guidance for choices, courageous conversations, and next steps. Learn to recognize how Life is already speaking to you—and how to respond before the mind talks you out of it.
Kristina Coggins
Artist, Author, Coach
Greater trust in your inner guidance
Recognize the difference between fear, habit, conditioning and true knowing so you can stop overriding what you feel and start acting on what you sense. Develop a calmer, more spacious nervous system to navigate uncertainty without losing yourself.
Bruce Mezan
Professional Speaker
More courage to follow what’s true
Build the capacity to follow what you know, even when it leads beyond the familiar. Experience the relief of not having to figure everything out, replaced by an ability to let guidance arise naturally in support of what is genuinely yours to do. Develop a felt relationship with the Mystery and the deeper intelligence moving through your life.
I came carrying questions I couldn’t answer alone and leaving with clarity I didn’t expect to find. This week helped me recognize a pattern that had been running through my lineage, one I am now ready to face and to break. This experience will ripple through my lineage for generations to come.
~ Erica Carrico, Best-Selling Author/Purpose & Prosperity Mentor
“Join me on the Listening Playground! Fun and play aren’t frivolous—they restore the curiosity, connection, and joyful aliveness that lead to transformation. When we play, we restore flow. When we listen, we remember how to belong.”
~ Gail Larsen ~
Playmate-in-Chief & Provocateur of Possibilities
Meet
Gail Larsen
Modern Elder Extraordinaire | Award-Winning Author and Entrepreneur | Founder of Real Speaking® | Former Executive Vice President of the National Speakers Association
Gail Larsen is a master teacher of transformational communication and the creator of Transformational Speaking™, a body of work that has guided leaders, visionaries, and changemakers for decades. Fast Company describes Gail’s work as “transforming your relationship to your voice via the deepest stirrings of your soul.”
Described as “a teacher of the teachers,” Gail goes beyond traditional speaking or coaching. Through the cross-cultural wisdom practices she has studied for decades, she invites participants not just to speak from truth, but to live from it—in alignment with the life that is waiting for them.
She is the originator of Holy Fools Day, a celebration honoring those who follow truth over convention and wisdom over certainty, and delights in awakening the Holy Fool within—where transformation becomes not a buzzword or empty promise, but a way of being.
“Gail is simultaneously a master teacher, laser-focused listener, keeper of ancient wisdom, and comedian. She has an uncanny ability to help us put aside the noise of the world and focus on what really matters. I felt a profound sense of healing while I was there. Regardless of your profession, this is necessary life work … The ripple effects will flow into your sense of self, your relationships, your work, and the world at large.”
— Kari Cardinale, VP Content, MEAWisdom
Step into transformation in the high desert
Rising Circle Ranch | Santa Fe, USA.
Our spectacular Santa Fe campus is located on an upscale regenerative ranch featuring traditional Pueblo architecture and nearly 2,600 acres of wildlife, hiking trails in the arroyo, and awe-inspiring beauty. Close to historic Santa Fe, an artisan’s mecca.
PLUS: Gourmet from-scratch meals, snacks, and drinks featuring locally sourced ingredients, made by our in-house chefs
Time with the ranch horses
The horses at Rising Circle Ranch are part of your experience, offering a different kind of wisdom – they listen to what's beneath the surface and mirror back what we might not yet see in ourselves.
You'll spend time with them in ways that support the listening work: presence, attunement, noticing what emerges when we meet another being without an agenda.
The horses know this 2,600-acre landscape of wildlife habitats, arroyo trails, petroglyphs, and high desert vistas. Being in their presence becomes part of the listening playground.
Your workshop also includes:
The future is already speaking to you.
What becomes possible when curiosity outranks certainty and you begin listening for the deeper intelligence guiding your life, your work, and the way you serve others?
Your new story for yourself and the world awaits.
We will play, pray, create, and listen as though the future depends on it.
Because it does.
“The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke
Ready to Apply? Here's How It Works
MEA is the exclusive home of Gail’s Transformational Speaking and Transformational Listening programs and the only MEA workshops that require an application. Each Transformational Listening program is limited to just ten participants, and the application process assures each group is aligned and ready.
After you apply, Gail will contact you to meet one-on-one and to answer your questions so you’ll both know if this experience is right for you. No pressure; active listening!
Please note: Once you enroll, your registration represents a firm commitment. Please review our cancellation policy in the FAQ below.
Book your spot today
Transformational Listening™: Let Life Speak to You
Begin 4 PM Thursday, November 11, 2027, Conclude 10 AM Monday, November 15, 2027
Modern Elder, teacher and guide Gail Larsen invites you to listen your way back to your own knowing and into the life that is waiting for you.
Please review our cancellation policy in the FAQ below.
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes this different from other workshops?
Many programs try to give you more tools for thinking, planning, or fixing your life. Transformational Listening invites you into a different way of knowing altogether – where you learn to listen to your body, your inner signals, the land, synchronicity, dreams, and the people around you as “languages of life” that are already guiding you.
Instead of another step-by-step curriculum, you enter a co-created Listening Playground: four days of shared inquiry, ritual, story, silence, and play where insight arrives through experience, not effort. You’re not asked to perform; you’re invited to notice what becomes possible when you stop trying to figure everything out and let life show you what’s ready to unfold.
Do I need experience with any particular practice?
Not at all. You don’t need a background in meditation, journey work, ritual, or any specific modality. All you need is genuine curiosity and a willingness to be surprised.
Across the week, you’ll be gently guided into practices like embodied listening, time on the land, labyrinth walks, automatic writing, ancestor and story work, and partner dialogues. Each practice is invitational and paced so you can participate in a way that feels authentic and manageable for you.
What if I'm not sure I'm "intuitive" or "spiritual" enough?
You don’t have to identify as intuitive, spiritual, or “woo” to be here. Many participants describe themselves as practical, analytical, or skeptical, and discover that they’ve been listening to life all along – they just didn’t have language for it.
This immersion is about learning to trust the very human ways you already receive guidance: body sensations, timing, patterns, images, emotions, and the conversations that arrive at just the right moment. You’ll have room to explore all of that without pressure to believe anything you don’t.
Will I have to share personal things with the group?
You’ll be part of a small circle of 10 people where depth and honesty are welcome, but nothing is forced. There will be invitations to share what you’re noticing, what you’re experiencing in your body, and how life is speaking to you, always at a level that feels right for you.
The group agreements prioritize confidentiality, non‑fixing, and presence over advice‑giving. You’re listened to, not analyzed. People often report feeling both “gently revealed” and profoundly respected.
Do you recommend travel insurance?
We highly recommend purchasing travel insurance to protect your investment in this experience. Travel insurance can cover unforeseen illness, travel complications, flight delays or cancellations, and other emergencies that might prevent you from attending. Each participant is responsible for selecting coverage that meets their individual needs and circumstances.
Getting quotes: We recommend the website SquareMouth, which allows you to compare multiple travel insurance providers in one place.
What is your cancellation policy?
Because we commit one of only 10 spaces for you, tuition payments are non-refundable.
If an emergency should arise, your tuition may be applied to another program with Gail Larsen within 12 months with a $500 rescheduling fee.
What’s the application process like?
This is the only MEA workshop that requires an application. Once you apply, Gail will personally meet with you to discuss your goals, answer questions about the process, and ensure the workshop is the right fit for what you want to accomplish. This way you establish a connection before you arrive, knowing you’re in the right place at the right time!
Still deciding or have questions?
Connect with our helpful team of Advisors
Our Advisors are all MEA alumni who can offer genuine insights into our programs. They’re passionate about helping you finding the right fit to make your next chapter the best one.
Daniel Booz
Lucas Erie
Leslie Bartlett