a Five Week Wisdom Workshop Experience
Three Different Gathering Groups:
Group 1: Nov 11 – Dec 16, Wednesdays, 9:30am – 10:45am MST via
Zoom
Group 2: Nov 11 – Dec 16, Wednesdays, 6:00pm – 7:15pm MST via Zoom
Group 3: Nov 10 – Dec 15, Tuesdays, 4:45pm – 6:00pm MST in Fort
Collins
No meetings Thanksgiving week, Nov 24/25. Final celebrations, exit interviews and presentations: Wednesday – Friday, Dec 16 – Dec 18 (times to be announced).
Time/Energy Commitment: 75-minute meeting; about two
to three hours on your own each week. Five books in five weeks: this one
runs at a graduate seminar’s pace.
Enrollment: Limited to eight seats per group. By
application and friendly invitation.
Tuition: $695. Payment plans and needs-based
scholarships available.
Paid Substack Subscribers: $495
Continuing perMA Fellows: $200/month
Prerequisites: A community you’re building, or want to
build, and/or a community you want to contribute to.
Format: Weekly small-group gatherings with reading,
writing, and facilitation practice
Lead Facilitator: Sean Waters, M.A. in Philosophy and
M.A. in Education
Texts:
Carl R. Rogers, A Way of Being (Houghton Mifflin, 1980).
John Heider, The Tao of Leadership: Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching Adapted for a New Age (Humanics, 1985).
Marilyn M. Taylor, Emergent Learning for Wisdom (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
Reinhard Stelter, A Guide to Third Generation Coaching: Narrative-Collaborative Theory and Practice (Springer, 2014). PDF provided.
Irvin D. Yalom & Molyn Leszcz, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy, 6th ed. (Basic Books, 2020).
Apply: application form · course page
We’ll cover the takeaways from our five selected thinkers: Rogers, Heider, Taylor, Stelter, and Yalom. Each reveals something about building the containers for sustainable flourishing. Each week, you’ll draft a process letter on your own reflective facilitation practice, working toward an end-of-2026 goal connected to your technical, human, and leadership skills for culturing community. We’ll close with a three-day finals week, Dec 16 – Dec 18: a celebration, a series of presentations, and exit interviews. This is for people who want to create good containers and deepen commitments around the communities they’re building.
Like an Epicurean garden: how do we build good walls, serve good snacks, and gather with good people? This is a good life. The three Taoist treasures (verse 67) give us a map of our shared commitments:
Our five weeks will also move through the Seven Ps of a good life, each echoing a world philosophy or two. For coaches and facilitators, we’ll consider our relationships with Self, Life, Others, World. A relational approach.
We’ll encounter the following questions:
Week 1, Self: Presence + Purpose (Rogers). Besides
the technical skills, what are the human skills most important for
culturing community?
Week 2, Life: Play (Heider). How might you guard and
keep the treasures of deep love, simplicity, and humility?
Week 3, Life: Projects (Taylor). How do we build the
garden wall, serve good snacks, and gather good people to cultivate
emergent learning for wisdom?
Week 4, Others: People (Stelter). Who are the people
you want to learn with? What is third-generation coaching, and why does
it matter now?
Week 5, Others: Process (Yalom). What are the healing
factors in any group setting? How do you, as a facilitator, cultivate
therapeutic group dynamics in your community?
Celebration, World: Perspective. What does it look like
to dance your thanks?
These will be updated based on our interactions. Dates are for the Wednesday groups; the Tuesday Fort Collins group meets the day before.
| Week | Session and Question | Reading | Overview and Invitations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · Wed Nov 11 | Self: Presence + Purpose. Echoes Buddhism + Aristotle. | Rogers, A Way of Being | The communities we culture and the containers we build are our personal responsibility: less a responsibility vibe, more a Tao way. Rogers’ conditions of the helping relationship. By the end of the week: Your first process letter: your purpose, and the community you’re building. |
| 2 · Wed Nov 18 | Life: Play. Echoes Taoism. | Heider, The Tao of Leadership | A really good group leader on leading and teaching. Effortless action: facilitation is like the Tao. |
| Nov 24/25 | No meeting: Thanksgiving | Catch up | Dance your thanks. |
| 3 · Wed Dec 2 | Life: Projects. Echoes Stoicism + Epicureanism, and Pragmatism. | Taylor, Emergent Learning for Wisdom | Graduate-level scholarship on emergent containers that culture emergent wisdom: everything you’d want to know about self-directed learning and the stages it unfolds in. |
| 4 · Wed Dec 9 | Others: People. Echoes Judaism + Christianity: I–Thou. | Stelter, A Guide to Third Generation Coaching (PDF) | Third-generation coaching: symmetry between dialogue partners; narrative and collaborative meaning-making. The foundation for offering one-on-ones and culturing the writing group you need. |
| 5 · Wed Dec 16 | Others: Process. Echoes Existentialism. | Yalom & Leszcz, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy (the therapeutic factors chapters) | The therapeutic factors of groups. By the end of the week: Prepare your finals presentation and exit conversation. |
| Finals · Dec 16–18 | Exit conversations + facilitations | A presentation and exit interview, for the cohort and for the year. | |
| ✦ Fri Dec 18 | World: Perspective. Echoes Indigenous wisdom: offering + gift. | Final celebration. To give back: the inner work is meant to be shared. |
Sean Waters has taught writing at Colorado State University for 17 years and holds master’s degrees in Philosophy and English Education. He founded the Wisdom Workshop in 2021 and has led more than 1,500 hours of small-group facilitation with 115+ participants in 9 countries. He has also played over 1,000 shows across the Colorado Front Range.
I will live my truth openly and honestly
In the light of my growing consciousness
Responsible for the consequences of my choices
And acting in behalf of all creation.— John Heider
When you enroll, you agree to our code of conduct and to our terms of participation.