Parents Educators Leaders change lives.
A personal retreat for adults toward a life of flourishing and meaning.
Find your path to a life of meaning.
And show others.
As a human person, do you:
- Wonder about the meaning of your one life?
- Fear there isn’t enough virtue and goodness in your world?
- Worry that those in your community aren’t fully flourishing?
- Question your impact on the character of those you serve?
Stop worrying and start leading with goodness.
Change your life (and the lives of others).
Why We Exist • Why Our Retreats Matter
Why Our Retreats Matter
We know you want to live virtuously and with meaning.
In order to achieve this goal, you (and your team) should experience a personal formation journey. Living without answers to life’s most enduring questions can leave you adrift and filled with doubt.
And the people and communities in your life can suffer.
No one should feel this way personally or professionally.
We know that sense of drifting, of questioning the meaning of our one life.
We know the discomfort of a community operating without a shared understanding of goodness and virtue.
That’s why we’ve spent years building a program to help people on their personal formation journeys, and help organizations lead with character.
First, schedule a consult so we can understand your needs. Then we will help you prepare by arranging a retreat program for you.
Finally, begin your journey by sponsoring the retreat and bringing it to life.
Stop the wondering and start the questioning, and find the path to a life of meaning, for you and your community.
Here's how it works:
The Retreat Experience
The goal of our retreats is to shift our moral mindsets in order to pursue the good toward a life of meaning.
We will explore the moral virtues informed by the world’s wisdom traditions in order to stay on a path to living virtuously.
You will receive a satchel of materials to launch your journey: 6-7 books, a writing journal, and drawing & writing pencils and pens.
Through a combination of readings, music, art, drawing, and other activities, we will prepare to gather.
And with the help of our facilitator/guides, we will discuss, listen, explore, interact, reflect and journal with a group of fellow travelers.
Our retreat together will be in-person for 3 days or virtually part-time over the course of 8 weeks.
Our facilitators
Meet the Guides who will get you started on your journey.
Bernard Franklin
Dr. Franklin is currently Managing Director of Uncornered, a novel gang recidivism program headquartered in Dorchester MA with branches in Kansas City and around the country.
He was a Fellow in Harvard University’s Advanced Leadership Initiative. Previously, Bernard served as Vice President of Student Life at Mount St. Mary’s University (MD), having been the Special Assistant to the President, and Assistant Vice President at Kansas State University.
Bernard started his career at the University of South Alabama. A BS graduate of Kansas State University, Bernard completed his MS in Counseling and Behavioral Studies from the University of South Alabama; and he completed his Ph.D. in Counseling and Higher Education administration, with a focus on boys and men’s development.
At the National Center for Fathering, Bernard served as Vice President and Urban Director. Bernard completed a two-month field research journey to West Africa to study the fathering heritage of African American men for an unpublished book.
Bernard was presented the Vision Award for his “pioneering work in educating men on the importance of fatherhood” by the Morehouse College Research Institute. Bernard was honored as Kansas City Royals “Father of the Year” and served as a member of the NFL Kansas City Chief’s counseling team. Bernard has been working with several national organizations on the integration and intersectionality of theology and the emerging neuroscience research.
Bernard is a trained Spiritual Mentor/Director, and he has taught classes related to “The Psychology of the African American Family”, and “Trauma, Resilience and Neuroscience.” Bernard has consulted and keynoted national and regional conferences, and conducted professional development to higher education, K-12 institutions, and many national organizations on a wide range of leadership, diversity, trauma and neuroscience.
Bernard is the widowed and proud father of a daughter and three sons, and seven grandchildren. The underlying passion of Bernard’s mature adult life has been the understanding and pursuit of personal transformation – the unfolding of the true-self associated with a journey of awakening. Bernard wants to be known as an instrument of peace and healing for his children, and for all people who have been severely traumatized—emotionally and psychologically damaged by systemic oppression, hatred and dehumanizing behavior.
His aspiration is to be a healer of human souls!
Bernard wants his wonderful four adult children and four grandchildren to dance like their ancestors—in their authentic, creative brilliance!
Bobbie N. Turner
Bobbie currently serves in her dream job as Chief Academic Officer for Gestalt Community Schools in Memphis, Tennessee. She has been privileged to work alongside men and women dedicated to providing a high-quality education to marginalized but magnificent scholars of color. Over the span of a twenty-four-year professional career, Bobbie has served as a teacher, instructional coach, principal, curriculum developer, professional development training, and principal supervisor. Bobbie received a B.A. in Education in English and Visual Communication from Grambling State University and an M.A in Curriculum and Instruction from Freed-Hardeman University. She is an alumnus of the national leadership programs, New Leaders, Relay Graduate Program, and the Accelerator group. She established a teacher leadership program that became a framework for the state of Tennessee.
Bobbie was born and raised in East Texas. The fifth of six children (two brothers/three sisters), she grew up in Texarkana, Texas where life centered around family, church, school, and sports. Bobbie’s desire to know God was nurtured over eighteen years by loving but flawed believers at Mt. Orange Baptist Church. Understanding and accepting the fullness of God’s love is a never-ending pursuit of Bobbie’s life. Bobbie was a loving and generous daughter to her mother and the pride of a distant father. She is a devoted lover and confidant and the best sister-friend ever. Bobbie enjoys spoiling her seven nieces and nephew with gifts and is known as a personal cheerleading squad to her closest friends. She has a heart for the elderly and is a generous contributor to people and organizations whose mission is to help and care for the “least of these”. Bobbie loves Tex-Mex, chicken tortilla soup, rib-eye steaks, strawberries, Italian Prosecco sparkling wine, and an amateur woodworker.
Sarah White
Sarah White (she/her), Oglala Lakota, is the Founder & Executive Director of the South Dakota Education Equity Coalition (SDEEC). Sarah grew up in Rockyford, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of South Dakota.
She has more than 11 years of experience working and advocating for Indigenous Education within various roles including Title VI Indian Education Programs, at Rapid City Area Schools in South Dakota and at Omaha Public Schools in Omaha, Nebraska. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a Master’s of Education degree from Creighton University, and a PK-12 Administrator endorsement from the University of South Dakota.
Sarah is a current board member of The Rapid City Club for Boys, Liber Institute, Mahpiya Luta Owayawa (Red Cloud Indian School), Oceti Sakowin Community Academy, and Elevate Rapid City. She is also a 2019 Bush Fellow, 2021 Class Member of Leadership South Dakota, and a facilitator for Wisdom for Good Personal Formation Retreats.
Sarah, after a long journey of self-discovery, has become a full participant in her own life and has started to see her sacred gifts as the paintbrush that paints the canvas of her role within her own life, and its contribution to the larger mural of her community. Sarah is a passionate advocate of Indigenous education whose work seeks to elevate the urgent narrative of Indigenous education through the lens of community.
Her desire in this role is to create a cohesive and collaborative effort to identify and implement solutions that address our shared concerns regarding Indigenous education. Sarah is a mother to 4 amazing sons.
Sonny Garg
Sonny is the co-founder and CEO of the Center for Expanding Leadership & Opportunity (CELO), a nonprofit committed to transforming education by providing the measurement infrastructure and evidence-based tools to systematically develop and improve the skills and competencies that matter most. He also serves as Distinguished Executive-in-Residence at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where he co-taught “High Performance Leadership” in Executive Education for over a decade.
Sonny’s career bridges Fortune 150 operations and early-stage ventures: he served as President of Exelon Power, Exelon’s first Chief Innovation Officer, and Global Managing Director at Uptake Technologies. Sonny was appointed a White House Fellow by President Clinton and is an Aspen Crown Fellow and member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Sonny is married with two adult children and still adjusting to being an empty nester.
Stephanie Mota Thurston
Dr. Stephanie Mota Thurston is an Assistant Professor in the Religion Department at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Prior to her graduate studies, Stephanie was a middle school special education teacher in Glendale, Arizona. At UIUC, she teaches large general education courses like the two-part series titled Religion and Society in the West as well as smaller seminars such as Happiness and the Good Life and Crime, Punishment, and Redemption in America.
Her research interests include social ethics, religion & politics in the US, moral formation, and theories of complicity, responsibility, and structural injustice. She is especially interested in moral and political questions concerning schools, families, and prisons. She is currently working on completing her first book titled: Beyond Unintended Consequences: School Segregation, Political Responsibility, and Education as a Common Good.
During her graduate studies at Princeton Seminary, Stephanie managed an inside-outside prison program which brought together lay leaders in the community with lay leaders incarcerated at Garden State Correctional Facility. These cohorts met weekly over a calendar year to study alongside one another in the prison, each earning a Certificate of Theology and Ministry from Princeton Seminary. She currently serves as on the advisory council to UIUC’s Education Justice Project, a college in prison program at Danville Correctional Facility.
From the middle school classroom, to the prison classroom and the undergraduate classroom, Stephanie is passionate about facilitating spaces where students can be curious, take risks, and gain confidence in their capacity for critical engagement with some of life’s most important questions.
Tamera Miyasato
Tamera Miyasato, Mdewakantan Dakota and Lakota, is the founder of Hahanna Consulting and an educator, facilitator, and systems-change practitioner with over 15 years of experience working alongside Indigenous communities. Her work centers relational leadership, cultural humility, and community-grounded learning to support meaningful and sustainable transformation in schools and organizations.
Tamera is a doctoral candidate whose research explores story as a pathway for transgenerational healing, examining how personal and ancestral narratives shape leadership, identity, and collective well-being. She brings this approach into her facilitation and helps participants reflect on their own formation, relationships, and responsibility to others.
Across her career as a teacher, administrator, and consultant, she has supported educators and leaders in creating environments rooted in belonging, reciprocity, and shared purpose. She is deeply committed to walking with Indigenous communities in education, not as an external expert but as a relative, centering local knowledge, values, and lived experience to guide change.
Her work invites individuals and groups to engage in honest reflection, strengthen character, and move toward lives and communities grounded in meaning and care.
Tony Klemmer
Tony Klemmer is the founder of Wisdom for Good, a retreat program for adult personal formation, serving educators, business and military leaders, medical professionals, undergraduate students and prison inmates. He previously founded the NAATE Program focused on delivering intense residential programs of advanced learning to high performing K – 12 classroom teachers and school leaders across the country.
Tony received his Ph.D. in Humanities from Salve Regina University. His doctoral work focuses on living a morally good life in our challenging modern world. He graduated from the Harvard Business School, and served on the Executive Committee of its Alumni Board, and has a BS in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
He helped found several high-tech companies and developed distribution networks in Europe and ran Asian sales offices, as an officer of a multi-national technology company. In 2011 he was named to the inaugural cohort of Pahara/Aspen Institute Teacher Leader Fellows and serves as an Aspen Global Leadership Network Moderator. He previously served as Assistant Headmaster of Portsmouth Abbey School.
Tony has been a Lecturer in Management at Yale University’s School of Management, and taught Production and Operations Management in the MBA program at Babson College.
He serves as a Senior Advisor to the Cindy A. Lyons Center for Equity in Urban Education at Elms College, Chicopee, MA, and has taught a course to undergraduates at Salve Regina University, based on the W4G Retreat Program: “The Quest for Spirituality.”