The Foundation Course
Break Free from Internal Barriers
Build and Deepen Meaningful Connection
5-week Zoom Course | Oct 8–Nov 5, 2020 | Thursdays 4:00-6:00pm PDT
Thank you for your interest! The course is full.
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The Foundation Course is based on
Designed For Connection…
a neuroscience-based methodology that develops concrete skills and practices for building–and repairing–meaningful connection while navigating complexities of a diverse, dynamic, and uncertain world.
I’ve guided hundreds of leaders from different countries, cultures, and world views on their journeys, transforming how they connect with themselves and others. I’m excited to help you too.
“The listening I learned is the closest to the magic! Connections can be deeper regardless of where we come from and what differences we hold. I learned that change can be possible if we open our hearts and listen to each other in a time span of an hour.”
About this course
This Foundation Course helps you develop skills that are essential for shifting from impulsive and damaging behavior, to creating possibility and connection through self-awareness, choice, and intention.
A proven progression of structured frameworks for developing skills and body-based somatic practices will help you:
Calm your nervous system so you are less reactive when you get “hooked” by defensiveness, judgment, blame, withdrawal, or shutting down.
Become more aware of and comfortable with emotions in yourself and others
Share and listen deeply to validate each others’ experience and build safety
Engage with complexities of misunderstandings, reactivity, social identity, and power dynamics
Repair divides after inevitable conflict or breakdowns
Some context about Erica
I have unique life experience that enables me to support a diversity of people from different walks of life, to bridge divides within themselves and with others.
Having grown up in a New England town as a Chinese girl who identified as White and Jewish, and having lived and worked in Asia and Latin America for many years, I bring nuanced skill and awareness to help leaders navigate interpersonal, team, and organizational challenges in a context of complex social identity and intersectionality dynamics.
As a result of my own personal leadership journey, I deeply empathize with the challenges and risks involved with expressing one’s authentic voice and reality while navigating stereotypes, unconscious bias, power dynamics, and fear of judgment. I’m passionate about helping people anchor in self-worth, a necessary foundation for expressing your unique and transformative leadership, interrupting and transforming inequities and disconnection, healing divides from misunderstanding and difference, and connecting in our shared humanity. Learn more about my story.
My approach to leadership development includes neuroscience, practicing building meaningful connection amidst complexities of social identity and power dynamics, and body-based somatic practices. This integrated and multi-disciplinary approach is missing from many leadership development and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion trainings.
“The course pushed me, made me more self-aware, and led to tremendous amount of learning. More importantly, the class led me to realize there is so much science that one can leverage to manage the hard things in life - conflict, difficult situations, to simply how to have better conversations with people everyday.”
What are the Benefits of the Course?
+ Develop Core of Resilience and Capacity
- Build a solid core grounded in self-worth
- Increase awareness of your emotional and physiological reactions
- Regulate your nervous system to better navigate stress, discomfort, uncertainty, misunderstandings, and conflict
- Interrupt and transform limiting beliefs, behaviors, and thought patterns
- Own your reactivity, assumptions, and judgments with curiosity and inquiry
+ Build Meaningful Connection
- Be more comfortable acknowledging and expressing emotions in ways that build meaningful connection
- Validate others’ emotions and experience so they feel understood
- Connect across differences and misunderstanding
- Repair and rebuild connection after breakdowns involving disagreements and conflict
+ Awaken Joy in Shared Humanity and Connection to Nature
- Draw energy and inspiration from connection and belonging as part of humanity and the natural world
- Express your voice and leadership grounded in self-worth and self-trust from belonging to a greater whole
- Ignite a path forward with clear, actionable steps for building meaningful connection and belonging
How can I apply these skills to life?
Here are some examples of ways people have applied skills and practices from the course to different types of challenges.
Build empathy through awareness of your own and others’ emotions
“I’ve used pause and Notice and Name while at work to understand what my physical and mental state is before I enter into a meeting. By doing so, I’ve realized that I am now becoming more aware of my partner and coworkers’ emotional state even via Zoom. I spend more time trying to understand where they are in life and how that might affect their work and responsiveness. In short, it’s made me more empathetic in the workplace.”
Transform inadequacy to internal resilience and worthiness
“When I am feeling inadequate, or nervous about myself, I recall the dignity practice and am a stronger, more self-assured individual. I am not waiting for or hoping for external validation or reassurance, but rather am able to boost myself up. This has meant less potential stress with others in my life.”
“I was able to better manage the emotions that were coming up for me, and to actively name, notice, and dispel the critical thoughts. After being able to call out my assumptions, I immediately felt calmer and more centered. It brought a greater sense of ease and confidence.”
Ground in connection amidst crises of COVID and racial challenges
“In just two weeks I am already experiencing impacts. I learned that my interpretation of others’ words can be completely incorrect. I am a lot calmer and less reactive when on the receiving end of comments that sound negative. This has been especially helpful while confined together in COVID lockdown.”
“In the wake of the tragedies that have been on the news surrounding the systemic injustice for black people in America, I find myself using the Notice and Name practice to ground where I am. To process what I need and let others know as well.”
“The course helped me better understand how my thoughts and actions are influenced by unconscious biases, as well as the unearned privileges I am granted by virtue of being a white woman in America. This has helped me show up as a better white ally to my women of color teammates, and it has helped me reflect on my own white privilege. Furthermore, the practice of “listening with empathy” has helped me maintain very strong relationships with my teammates rather than feeling divided by our differences. Hearing their personal stories and then sharing the profound impact on me has drawn us closer together.”
Interrupt conflict and shift into connection
“A disagreement with my wife has been going on for weeks and it’s easy for us to get frustrated and scale it quickly. However, I’ve been able to do the listening practice, which has helped us avoid turning it into a fight. For that I’m proud, grateful and hopeful!”
“I can more accurately understand my own responses to conflict and actively work on increasing connecting behaviors. I think a lot more about my physiological reactions to various moments and what they are telling me about my subconscious response. Seeing that translate from halting practice in class into real-world applications in only a few weeks has been a significant change for me. ”
Course Curriculum
A progression of concrete skills and intentional practices help you shift and transform how you connect with yourself and others in these foundational ways.
Unconscious Reactivity
to Conscious ChoiceBlame/Shame to Empathy
Isolation to Connectedness
Alienation to Agency
Overwhelm to Possibility
+ Weekly Sessions
Session 1
- Practice foundational skills for how to build and deepen meaningful interpersonal connection quickly
Session 2
- Transform unconscious beliefs and barriers through neuroscience-based practices
- Connect interpersonally from grounded self-worth
Session 3
- Practice interrupting unconscious processes that shape reactions and behaviors
- Connect interpersonally from grounded self-worth
Session 4
- Practice building meaningful connection beyond stereotypes
Session 5
- Integrate learnings
- Ignite a path forward with concrete next steps to continue practicing meaningful connection with yourself and others
+ Elements that will support your learning
- 2-hour live Zoom course each week with Erica and team
- Clear action items to set you up for progress each week
- Daily individual self-regulation practices and weekly Partner Practice
- Weekly reflection writing to deepen learning
- Access to a private online community where you can engage with others about the course
Conditions for Learning
You have the emotional capacity and are ready to invest 30-60 minutes a day to engage with daily practices and weekly reflection exercises.
You are not in the midst of loss or trauma that would interfere with your ability to contribute to a group learning environment and engage with the practices.
Note: If you would like to be notified when the course is offered again, make sure to sign up to receive updates about upcoming courses and resources.
Celebrating after a recent course!
“This is hands down the best class I have attended at Haas! Even virtually, the connections we built with our group were deep and meaningful. I am still amazed at how Erica and the team managed to keep everyone engaged on Zoom! They helped us exercise ‘interpersonal muscles’ to be a better person, leader, and manager.”
“In Erica’s class, I learned tools and resources to take safe risks and bring emotions and vulnerability into daily interactions. This truly transformed how I am able to approach even the most challenging transitions in my life, both personal and professional.”
Register Now!
The Foundation Course
Break Free From Internal Barriers
Build Meaningful Connection
Break Free From Internal Barriers
Build Meaningful Connection
5-week Zoom Course | Oct 8-Nov 5, 2020 | Thursdays 4:00-6:00pm
Thanks for your interest, sorry the course is full!
Sign up to receive updates about upcoming courses and other resources.
Meet the Team
Erica Peng empowers people with essential skills and practices to build meaningful connection and heal divides from social identity and difference. With a neuroscience lens and innovative, experiential approaches, Erica helps leaders engage with complex dynamics involving language, culture, social identity, and other dimensions of difference. Having lived and worked in Asia and Latin America, she brings nuanced skill and expertise to this work.
Erica has over 15 years of experience helping leaders develop interpersonal and leadership skills at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, Stanford University Graduate School of Business, and University of San Francisco School of Law. When not working, she can be found Cuban salsa dancing, growing food in her garden, and thinking about her next kayaking adventure in warm waters.
Ling Thio is passionate about reducing unnecessary suffering through personal growth, interpersonal skills, and cultural transformation. He is an organizational development consultant with 11 years experience as a coach, facilitator and educator, focusing on diversity and, inclusion, and interpersonal skills. Ling teaches/facilitates organizational development with Matrix Leadership Institute; Erica Peng’s Interpersonal Skills and Embodied Leadership course at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business; and interpersonal dynamics classes at Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Ling is trained in Hakomi (psychotherapy) and Somatic Experiencing (traumahealing). Previously, he was involved in three successful Silicon Valley start-ups as Lead Engineer, Software Architect and Co-founder. Ling was born in Indonesia, grew up in The Netherlands, lives with his wife in Oakland, California, and has an adopted son from Côte d’Ivoire.
Martin Wagner is committed to dismantling racism and other forms of systemic and interpersonal oppression by increasing his own and others’ capacity to stay grounded and present in difficult conversations. Martin has spent twenty five years promoting and defending human and environmental rights as Managing Attorney of the International Program at Earthjustice. In his leadership role, he has developed and facilitated initiatives to help white staff educate and support one another to interrupt patterns of white supremacy and to be better allies to colleagues of color. He is also a facilitator of Erica Peng’s Interpersonal Skills and Embodied Leadership course at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. His favorite activities include backcountry skiing, backpacking and climbing in the mountains, dancing, and reading and writing poetry.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which tuition do I sign up for?
Sign up for the tuition that respects the value of the course while honoring your economic reality. We respect that people have different financial situations and trust you'll support our purpose to make this accessible to all people.
What if I have questions in between class sessions?
If you have a question about the course or your learning, post your question on the online community and we will respond!
What if the course is not meeting my needs?
If it’s not a fit with what you were expecting, we will gladly provide a full-refund within 10-days of starting the course. Email support@ericapengconnects.com and let us know.
How will the skills I learn “stick” beyond the 5 weeks?
This is a common question! Developing skills and capacity takes on-going practice. Since you have a nervous system that is constantly reacting to your environment, each moment is an opportunity for practice. The Designed For Connection practices are purposefully clear, straightforward - and enjoyable! - so you can incorporate the ones that you are most drawn to, into your routine. Similar to developing muscles, as you practice over time, you will strengthen skills and self-awareness.
When will you offer the course again?
If you would like to be notified when the course is offered again, sign up below for the free Practice Guide and you’ll receive email updates about resources and upcoming courses.
What is the refund policy?
There are no refunds.
Please choose a tuition with intention, that respects the value of the course while honoring your economic reality.
Full Tuition $800
Reduced Tuition $400
Limited Resource Tuition $200
Social Justice Tuition $0
We offer this tuition to people of African American and Indigenous heritage, and others who have been financially disadvantaged by systemic injustice.