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A DECADE+ OF STORYTELLING POWERED BY THE BEST WRITERS ON THE PLANET

BE PART OF THE LEGACY

TAMPA BAY • FEBRUARY 23-24 2026

This FINAL encore experience will be unlike any other. Because like everything we do, it's been "reimagined" from beginning to end. It's not a virtual or hybrid event. It's not a conference. It's not a seminar, a workshop, a meeting, or a symposium. And it's not your typical run-of-the-mill everyday event crammed with stages, keynote speeches, team-building exercises, PowerPoint presentations, and all the other conventional humdrum. Because it's up close & personal by design. Where conversation trumps presentation. And where authentic connection runs deep.

Skill Sets for Success

Early Conundrums and Enigmas Transcended

Sense-making is responsive in meeting diverse challenges, so we make sense common. Coherent and cohesive teams reduce conflicts; fewer complaints, less disruption or downtime, and less chance of angry staff, workers, or costly litigation. A conversation crafter helps build coherent & cohesive teams to garner premium results; time savings and value-added benefits create financial gains for your alliance, project owner, contractor, subs, and/or organization.

I’ve had some amazing opportunities to learn sense-making patterns and processes while raising a family, finishing a BS degree, and serving our Church as an Elder. My first exposure and opportunity were in the aerospace industry in my mid-20s, managing a $ 7 million/month production desk for commercial spares with over 800 items. I led a 35-member department in reaching the numbers, unknowingly, just because I treated people with dignity and respect.

Ineffable moment, delivering my son, Ian.

I reached the top of others’ priority lists because I understood structure and systems, yet I applied interpersonal skills consistent with the golden rule. It just made sense to me, however, in a command and control environment there was a lot of aggression present in the general activity of others attempting to meet monthly numbers and OEM requirements for military and commercial aircraft. It did not make sense, and the corporate culture was bereft of essentials for long-term results with individuals. The burnout and sour attitudes were nearly ubiquitous.

A couple of years later, after much depression and finding solace, I had the opportunity to produce and host a public access TV show sponsored by the Christown Lions Club with an all-volunteer crew trained by the local cable company. We called it One World, with the intention of peering into the lives of people and professions to uncover what keeps us afraid, angry, ignorant, and immobile toward reaching our dreams and goals. We produced 120+ shows with guests that spanned the gamut of personal and professional activity. I felt like I got a Ph.D. in interpersonal relationships as I learned to weave guests conversations into sense-making reality.

Creating Opportunities for Excellence

Like many, my early endeavors didn’t work out so well and I misjudged people and situations, including my own. After a devastating divorce, corporate and church expulsion simultaneously, I had the opportunity to choose my future engagements without fear of potential pitfalls, knowing many of them from recent experience. I vowed to continue to follow what worked, whether I could fully explain it or not.

I’ve enjoyed time in coaching, construction, education, events, manufacturing, music, theater as well as start-up businesses and developing organizations. I’ve led events, seminars, and workshops for business owners, entrepreneurs, and instructional designers. The construction industry was particularly adversarial until the introduction of ‘partnering’ in the early 90s. AZ DOT saw a reduction in litigation costs, dropping from $19 million to less than $1 million within two years.

Are you co-prescencing your prototypes?

The principles of partnering include the hard and soft skills represented in the top graphic, which are essential for any sense-making activity. In the mid-2010s, I was introduced to coursework developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology called ‘Transforming Business, Society, and Self;’ joining 32,000 students around the world. Theory-U, developed by Otto Scharmer and Peter Senge, was the core of the activity. That model was nearly the exact process I’d learned as a ‘partnering’ facilitator.

Culminating Activity and Co-Creating a Future

Some 45 years after a spiritual awakening as a teen that I’d kept quiet about for decades, I learned that my early naïve and innocent notions in aligning with my life’s path actually set up future opportunities. After a time I learned to just go slow, enjoy the flow and let activities and engagements be determined by the synchronicity of their arrival. It truly is the philosophy and psychology of optimal experience.

Sense-making is determined by our ability to sense, which is far beyond the activities of the brain and thinking. In many respects, it has to do with not thinking.

The notion of ‘nothingness’ brings terror in the minds of many, instead of freedom beyond their imagination to co-create opportunities to do such things as change the world collaboratively for the better of all. Is that even possible? Sure it is.

We are an electromatic field, non-physical in nature.

If we look at the progress of time, circumstances, and opportunities, we can observe our evolution toward understanding a bigger picture in which we are all bytes or pixels that merge into a beautiful picture, hopefully.

We’re all electronic; electromagnetic force fields are generated from the core of our Being, unconscious of that activity for the most part. Quantum science has lifted the veil, apocalyptically. It sounds too sci-fi for incorporation into our physical reality, yet it’s being done moment by moment. It’s observable and replicable.

Zen Benefiel
Zen Benefielhttp://zenbenefiel.com/
Zen says his life has been spiced with personal and professional opportunities that came through his nurturing of faith, love, and trust that dreams do come true. What built that faith, love, and trust began as an orphan told of his adoption just after his 4th birthday. The spice continued with experiences that span the gamut of the paranormal and include off-planet engagements over a lifetime. Can you say outlier? With two Master’s degrees and multiple certifications as well as an interesting professional history (ZenBenefiel.com) his passion turned to transformational life coaching just after the turn of the century, having become a rather astute cognitive scientist with extraordinary insight and intuition, he transformed Be The Dream (founded in 1988) from the intention of bridging best business and spiritual practices to a reality that has served hundreds. A decade and a half of writing was filled with cathartic wonders. His gifts are useful for Team Partnering as well, facilitating people, places, and things to build mega-structures with pre-construction teambuilding sessions. Divorced with four children, 9 grandkids, and 2 great-grandsons, he remarried after 30 years. Luba is from St. Petersburg, Russia, and their meeting, both agree, was a cosmic conspiracy of destiny, spiritual compatibility, and future vision of a newly ordered world in harmony with natural order. After 47 years of preparation, and stepping into what feels like fulfilling destiny, he recently became the Executive Director of the Live and Let Live Global Peace Movement that is inspiring the world now. Zen's Book "Navigating Holistic Growth: The Servant Leader's Guide," demonstrates, true leadership is not about authority, but about fostering an environment of growth, understanding, and cooperation. This guide is an essential resource for anyone looking to make a meaningful impact, through self-discovery and by empowering those around them.

DO YOU HAVE THE "WRITE" STUFF? If you’re ready to share your wisdom of experience, we’re ready to share it with our massive global audience – by giving you the opportunity to become a published Contributor on our award-winning Site with (your own byline). And who knows? – it may be your first step in discovering your “hidden Hemmingway”. LEARN MORE HERE


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