Bring Mark Waldman to Your Event….
Keynote Talks, Lectures, Seminars & Workshops
Designed for Universities, Community Service Groups, Spiritual Institutions, and Corporate Training Environments.
Watch the Waldman/Tavis Smiley Interview on PBS TV
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Watch Mark’s TED talk
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Keynote Talks, Lectures, Seminars & Workshops
Each topic below represents a central theme that lies at the core of Mark Waldman’s and Andrew Newberg’s neuroscientific research conducted at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Spirituality and the Mind. According to Time, Newsweek, and the Washington Post, Mark and Andy are the world’s leading experts on spirituality, communication, consciousness and the brain.
The mindfulness and communication exercises that have grown out of their research are now being incorporated into hospital staff training programs, executive MBA programs, weight-loss and stress reduction programs, public high school educational programs, care-giving programs for the elderly and mentally ill, psychotherapy training, divorce mediation, peacemaking programs, and spiritual transformation programs in the Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and secular communities.
Presentation length for lectures can range between 20-90 minutes, or longer, and can be adapted to the topic or theme of the conference. Additional 30-90 breakout sessions can be selected from the list below, and can be orchestrated into a half-day, full-day, or multi-day workshop.
For more information, brochures and prices, click the “Get Started” button below.
Talk Topics:
60-Second Strategies to Improve Your Brain
This is one of Mark’s most requested programs for general audiences and schools. Combining mindfulness strategies with positive psychology and brain-based cognitive training, Mark uses interactive videos and sound-enriched slides to show you:
- How to fully relax and de-stress your brain in 30 seconds.
- How super-slow movements cause the brain to reduce physical tension.
- How to improve focus and concentration with a single sound.
- How a single pleasant memory generates neurological trust in others.
- How to use a single word to turn on 1200 stress-reducing genes.
- How to communicate more effectively by speaking ten words or less.
- How to thicken your neocortex (maintaining mental clarity), shrink your amygdala (the fear-and-anger button in your brain), and slow down the aging process of your brain through brief mindfulness exercises.
This keynote lecture is 60-90 minutes long.
The Workshop can be tailored to fit a 2-3 hour window.
Compassionate Communication and Your Brain
It only takes a couple of minutes to transform any conversation, with nearly anyone and in virtually any situation, into an experience that will rapidly generate inner peace, social empathy and cooperative dialogue. This lecture and experiential workshop is a core element in Mark and Andy’s current research. In the lecture, Mark will explain how a single word can change your brain – as well as the listener’s brain – in positive or negative ways.
He’ll share with you what the most powerful word in the world is, and he’ll explain why words, by themselves, are the least important part of the dialogue process. He’ll guide you through the other key elements using a combination of slides and experiential examples. For example, you’ll discover how to generate a “Mona Lisa” smile that immediately builds neural trust and empathy in others.
The lecture is 45-90 minutes.
In the Compassionate Communication workshop, participants pair up and practice a formal 20 minute exercise that includes 12 key strategies that neurologically stimulate empathic dialogue and deep listening. This evidence-based training program is also available on an 80 minute CD that participants can purchase and practice with. The workshop can be tailored to fit a 1-3 hour slot.
Compassionate Communication is the theme of Waldman’s and Newberg’s book: Words Can Change Your Brain. Courses have been taught to adults, students, hospital staff, therapists, patients, attorneys, conflict-resolution mediators, and to corporate executives and administrators.
This workshop can be presented to an academic or professional audience, or prepared to meet the needs and values of any business organization, student/educational group, or religious/spiritual organization. The strategies in this workshop are an integral part of the Executive MBA program at Loyola Marymount University.
The workshop is 60-120 minutes.
The Neuroscience of Happiness and Success
Mark and his team of university researchers have developed a series of experiential exercises and strategies that have been proven to enhance neural performance in ways that increase attentiveness, concentration, empathy, optimism, and work-related productivity. This program explains what motivates people to take action, and what interferes with the brain’s ability to achieve one’s goals and dreams. Participants learn how to identify sabotage behaviors and create counter-strategies that lower stress and build self-esteem.
This keynote lecture is 60-90 minutes long.
The Workshop can be tailored to fit a 2-3 hour window.
Building a Better “Business” Brain
Our neuroscientific research shows that we are wired from birth to make as much “money” as we possibly can. However, if we act selfishly, other people will neurologically react with altruistic punishment. In this lecture and workshop, Mark will guide participants through a series of steps that enhance a person’s ability to achieve the goals they desire. This includes the use of a Daily Commitment Sheet to help one recognize sabotage behaviors, the creation of a C.R.A.P. Board that allows a person to identify and disassociate from emotional problems that interfere with success, and a “Wellness” strategy that improves self-esteem in just a couple of weeks.
The audience will also be taught peak performance strategies now used by the Harvard Business School and the Executive MBA program at Loyola Marymount University. These strategies have also been proven to improve teamwork collaboration and organizational stability. The lecture is 60 minutes; the optional workshop lasts 2-3 hours, or for an entire day.
This keynote lecture is 60-90 minutes long.
The Workshop can be tailored to fit a 2-3 hour window.
How God Changes Your Brain
Different spiritual practices can permanently alter the structure and function of the brain by as much as 25%, more so than any other technique or medicine in the world. Meditation and contemplative prayer lowers stress, anxiety, depression, and rage, and it simultaneously enhances memory, cognition, empathy, compassion, and love. It may even improve your grade point average in school. Anyone – young or old, religious or secular – can use these practices to discover and deepen his or her personal values, to rapidly improve peaceful conversations with others, and thereby bring a little more peace into the world.
This keynote speech includes animated videos of the human brain, interactive slides of Newberg and Waldman’s brain scan studies, and demonstrations of simple techniques that the audience can experience, exercises that have been documented to improve neural functioning, generate personal happiness, and improve social interactions in the workplace and at home.
Mindfulness, Spirituality, and the Brain
By simply spending a few minutes several times a day, a person can permanently alter the functioning of the brain by as much as 25%. The result: Greater work productivity with less stress, decreased anxiety and depression, and enhanced memory, cognition, and empathy. The keynote speech includes animated videos of the human brain, interactive slides of Newberg and Waldman’s brainscan studies, and demonstrations of simple techniques that the audience can experience – exercises that have been documented to improve neural functioning, generate personal happiness, and improve social interactions in the workplace and at home.
The workshop guides participants through various relaxation and stress-reduction exercises and different styles of mindfulness-based meditations. Participants can sample ancient spiritual practices from Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Sufism, and Islam and will be shown how they can be used in nonreligious capacities.
This keynote lecture is 60-90 minutes long.
The Workshop can be tailored to fit a 2-3 hour window.
6 Steps to Enlightenment
What is Enlightenment?
How do you get there?
Will it actually change your brain?
How do you prepare for it?
Enlightenment is neurological experience that you can “invite” into your life, and when it happens, it can shatter your most sacred beliefs? In this workshop Mark will show you what happens in your brain engage in powerful spiritual rituals like chanting, sacred dancing, channeling, and intense prayer.
He’ll share with you his and Andy Newberg’s latest research involving Brazilian mediums channeling spirits, Sufis and Muslims engaged in ritual prayer, and the startling findings when an “enlightened” person sends wisdom to another person far away. Then he’ll guide you through a series of experiential exercises that dramatically alter neural functioning in unique ways, showing you how to use your intuition – the spiritual wisdom within your brain – to transform your perception of the world.
This keynote lecture is 60-90 minutes long.
The Workshop can be tailored to fit a 2-3 hour window.
A Journey into the Living Brain
It’s not an organ, like the heart. It’s a community of a 160 billion independent and creative living organisms, constantly changing and creatively communicating with each other. Mark presents video footage of neurons interacting with each other in ways that create our emotional and conscious realities. The program includes visual and auditory illusions that help participants understand that the world we imagine is very different from the reality that actually exists “out there.” The program explains what neuroplasticity is and how we can use this ability to change our lives in dramatic ways. The presentation is 45-90 minutes long.
Organizations where Mark has recently lectured and taught:
Texas Council of Community Centers, Southeastern Louisiana University, UCLA General Hospital, University of Chile (UNIACC), Longevity Now, European Mindfulness Psychotherapy Association, Association of Transformational Leaders, NeuroGym, Esalen Institute, International Academy of Collaborative Professionals, American Academy for the Advancement of Medicine. Centers for Spiritual Living, Holmes Institute, Unity Worldwide Ministries, Mind Science Foundation, Silva International, National Alliance on Mental Illness, Los Angeles County Psychological Association, Center for Neurobiology of Stress (UCLA), Moorpark College, Willamette Writer’s Conference, Loyola Marymount University, Wright Institute.
Mark Waldman began his coaching career 1987, under the psychoanalytic supervision of Bruno Bettelheim and the Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute. He was actively involved with the Association for Transpersonal Psychology and was the founding editor of the Transpersonal Review. As an Associate Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Spirituality and the Mind, Mark and Andrew Newberg used their brain-scan research to develop new ways to improve cognitive and emotional performance. Their national bestseller, How God Changes Your Brain, was chosen by Oprah as one of the “Must Read” books for 2012.
The author of 14 books, Mark’s in-depth research has been published in neuroscience and psychology journals throughout the world and his work has been featured in Time Magazine, the Washington Post, the New York Times, Forbes, Entrepreneur, and many others. He has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs, including PBS and NPR, and his TEDx Talk has been viewed by more than 100,000 people.
He created the world’s first NeuroLeadership course that he taught for the Executive MBA program at Loyola Marymount University, and he has traveled throughout the world introducing new brain-enhancing strategies to schools and professional organizations throughout the world including the Los Angeles County Psychological Association, the UCLA Center for Neurobiology of Stress, the Texas Council of Community Centers, Pepperdine School of Psychology, Southern Louisiana University, University of California Irvine, Centers for Spiritual Living and many religious/spiritual groups.
