Trainers
A group of dedicated, passionate
and highly skilled people who...
However, the most important qualification is that they have themselves lived the practices of the program for many years and created their own growth personally and professionally as a result.
More To Life trainers are not paid a salary, and the fees they earn are often lower than those available in comparable commercial settings. Many have additional careers in a variety of fields, ranging from psychotherapy, counseling, business, to university teaching.
... come from all walks of life, careers and traditions. They describe a sense of being called to bring this knowledge and wisdom to the
world.
To become trainers for More To Life, these individuals must master the MTL tools, inhabit the principles of the More To Life program in their personal and professional lives, and master the delivery of the course material so each participant has the opportunity to break free from old patterns, and in doing so experience more connection, love, peace and joy!
Many of our participants from all over the world describe our trainers as some of the best they have ever seen. Even our most experienced trainers consider themselves students of Life and continue their own personal growth and evolution to their highest and most noble selves. Their dedication to learning from life continues forever.
as much as the student. Many participants say that the qualities modeled by the person who led their course was one of the things they most valued in their experience.
They are motivated not by a desire for earnings but by their vision for what this work brings to people's lives, and by the knowledge that in this context, the teacher learns
 |
|---|
They are motivated not by a desire for earnings but by their vision for what this work brings to people's lives, and by the knowledge that in this context, the teacher learns as much as the student. Many participants say that the qualities modeled by the person who led their course was one of the things they most valued in their experience.
Trainer Biographies
Elaine Alpert
As a girl, I was quiet and most content when building or creating something. It was the feeling of joy that was so compelling, being absorbed in the moment, free to be myself without reserve. The projects grew in size as I grew older, with staff, budgets, and deadlines. Though I considered myself fortunate to make a living by making art, I longed for further alignment of purpose in my life. I wanted to make a hands-on difference in the lives of people in tangible ways – yet I had no idea what was in store when I decided to attend the More To Life Weekend in 1985. The experience was pivotal.
I witnessed people letting go of years of accumulated stress and fear. And as I began to drop my own layers of protection, the joy I knew as a child reemerged. I had come home to myself. This was how I wanted to live, no matter what happened to or around me.
I could not know then that years later my world would catapult upside down with the sudden loss of my teenage son. Everything I had learned and taught about being open to what Life brings would be called into play. I discovered that the practice of More To Life tools and processes had forged a solid foundation of inner strength and resilience. Today I have an even deeper joy and appreciation for my life, far richer than I thought possible.
Being a Senior Trainer offers me the privilege of being present when someone suddenly breaks through into a new way of being – fresh, more alive, with an inner knowing of what is solid and true. Cherished moments, when we understand that we are all students and teachers for each other. I envision a world in which moments like these are happening not only in training rooms, but also in boardrooms, government meetings, schools, and homes—everywhere. In reality this vision is already in motion around our planet. We are each a part of this shift in consciousness, the ripple effect of people in all sorts of places calling for a more vital, connected, and loving world.
Background:
Elaine Alpert, M.Ed, is a Senior Trainer and has been an active student and leader in the More To Life program since 1985. She is licensed to incorporate More To Life tools and processes into her own methodology, MindPeace, creating transformational courses and coaching programs for private clients.
Originally educated in Art and Design, Elaine founded a women’s wear manufacturing company in NYC, selling to major department stores and boutiques across the country. As an award-winning artist, she was also commissioned to create large-scale sculpture for public and corporate spaces.
Elaine draws from her research and hands-on experience in the arts, transformative education, neuroscience, indigenous healing practices, and integrative health. She loves the theatre, sculpting in clay, long walks, and connecting conversations with friends. Elaine lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband Tom, and has a son attending college.
Anne Brown
I think of being a trainer in the More To Life program as being both a privilege and a gift. I first took the More To Life weekend in 1981, the third training ever held. I had chosen to take it at that time because resentment and negative beliefs were causing problems and distance in my relationships, including with my mother and my husband. The work I did allowed me to let go of all of this, and my relationship with my mother and husband transformed.
I am a couple and family therapist by profession, and at that time I was in private practice. The experience of this course was especially exciting because I saw people having breakthroughs in three days that would often have taken months of work in my office. It has been a privilege to work with people in this way, and see their lives being transformed as a result. I see people's faces shining by the end of the Weekend and, because they go away with tools to continue the work, I know that they can recreate those breakthroughs whenever they want to. I feel proud to be trusted by them and privileged to be working with people who want the best for themselves and have the courage to go for it. I have grown tremendously myself from doing this work over time. I am no longer a person who tends to hang back from challenges, but risk showing both my strength and my vulnerability. Today I play full out without pretense.
My husband died last year and I miss him terribly. But I am grateful to have these tools so that I could love him unambivalently and help to create the closeness that we both desired.
Toward the end of each course I have witnessed a palpable connectedness and a sense of spirit in the room. To me it expresses the kind of community that is greater than any one of us alone, and it is my hope that this work will spread that spirit among people in a way that helps to bring peace and justice to our world.
Background
Anne Brown PhD is a Senior Trainer and has been involved in More To Life course work since its inception. She is a former Director of the Institute for Human and Family Relations in Los Gatos, California and is a university lecturer in Family Therapy. She has two Master's Degrees (in US History and Social Work) and a PhD in Marital and Family Therapy. Anne has published papers in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry (1986) and in the journal Annual Progress in Child Psychiatry and Development (1991). She has worked as a therapist in private practice for the past 30 years, counseling individuals, couples, families and groups. Anne was married to the late Dr. K. Bradford Brown, co-founder of the More To Life program. She lives in Northern California.
William Holt
I decided to become a MTL trainer because I had been a prisoner of my survival mind and I was shown the path to freedom. Once free, it mattered to me that others be free to rekindle their dreams and ignite the torch of connection and for-ness for all. To be free to embrace reality as it is, not as I insist it should be. And the more I shared this with others in my life, from the grocery store checkout clerk to a large training room full of people, the deeper my faith, the broader my vision and the greater my self-acceptance became.
Before this adventure began in July 1984, it was as if I had been dwelling in a dimly lit room with lightning flashes awakening me just enough to keep my hopes alive. Somewhere deep inside of me I trusted, in retrospect, that who I had been was merely a glimpse of what was available to me and to us all. Then I met my models for living, Dr. Brad Brown and Ann McMaster, both with feet of clay that they owned just as much as their powerful wings of transformation.
They became my mentors, my friends and my pathmates. They inspired me until I could let life directly infuse my soul with all its love and pit-bull course corrections and could fully partner with them with my unique part. Each time I train or coach, I am present to the fact that I am a spiritual being having a human experience, faithful to life as it is now, and here's another now, and...
Background
William is a Senior Trainer and has been involved with More To Life course work for over 30 years, having helped to establish our London Center in 1984/1985. He has degrees in science and psychology, and was the founder of the Meta Institute for motivational psychology in California, where he pioneered and developed in-depth techniques for performance coaching. He currently works as a partner, business coach and trainer for TriVergent International, which takes the More To Life principles into businesses and organizations. William lives in Houston, Texas with his wife and life partner, Adriana, who is from Mexico City and they have 2 lovely twin girls. His hobbies include singing and playing the guitar, a remnant from his professional past as a stage performer.
Peggy Jarrett
Through a series of serendipitous circumstances, I stumbled upon the More To Life course while I was living in Dallas, Texas in 1984. My experience of the course was profoundly moving and applicable to almost everything in my life where I wanted to make changes but hadn't really known how. I knew soon thereafter that I wanted to become a trainer of this powerful and practical work. I was working as a geologist at the time and enjoyed the analysis and detailed subsurface investigation. But as a dear friend of mine pointed out, I was now called to help others with a different kind of 'subsurface investigation.' What followed was a five-year, intensive journey to become a trainer while still holding executive positions in the business world: parallel careers, as it were. In 2001, I joined the administrative team in Knoxville as our Gifts and Grants Director, soon moving to the Operations Director role and now serving as the Executive Director. Serving in this way is truly an honor and privilege. This role, combined with my work as a Senior Trainer, fulfills ' in ways I could hardly imagine ' my deepest longings to stand alongside others, to make a real difference with my life, and to respond creatively to what Life offers me.
Simply put, my passion about passing on this work has to do with the future of our children. I want my children, your children, all of our children to have their best shot at loving and being loved. It all comes down to that for me.
Recently, I was a proud parent at my older son's 6th-grade choir concert. Watching those adolescents ' eighty of them - fresh-faced, maturing yet awkward, moved me to tears. As they sang a particularly poignant song, Hope Is a Hidden Star, I thought to myself - I am so blessed to know about genuine hope and to have the ability to help others discover and rediscover their deepest life purposes so that our world benefits from the best we each have to offer. I believe hope was not meant to be hidden but, as the song continues, to shine down upon us all.
Background
Peggy Jarrett holds a Bachelor of Science degree in English and Speech Education and did post-graduate work in Business Administration and Geology. As environmental manager for a large consulting firm, she was responsible for the assessment and cleanup of contaminated properties, as well as the supervision of environmental scientists and engineers. Peggy has been a More To Life student since 1984 and served as Center Manager in San Jose, California and Houston, Texas. She is a Senior Trainer and Executive Director at our Administrative Center in Knoxville, Tennessee. Peggy lives in Knoxville, where her primary focus at home is her two sons, Caleb and Cameron. She also enjoys gardening, hiking, traveling, and reading.
Warren Kahn
I am a Trainer for this program because it is the best way for me to give back for all I have been given. My life has been transformed significantly since I took my original Weekend back in 1982. I am proud of the man, the husband, the father and now the grandfather I have become by continuing my own learning as well as facilitating courses worldwide. When I experience the personal and group breakthroughs of so many from all over the world, I am re-inspired, energized and touched to my core.
I have always been a student of life and have gained knowledge and understanding from many sources. But I must say, I have not seen or experienced any other program that goes so deep and helps deliver people to their best selves so consistently, time and again. The practices of the program enhance our abilities to partner with life no matter what is happening and empower us to create the lives we truly want. I am honored to be a part of such a valuable effort.
Background
I have been a student of our program since 1982, and am now a personal coach and More To Life Mentor, as well as a Senior Trainer. My work has included facilitating More To Life courses in the federal prison system. I was Associate Professor of Music at Sonoma State University for 23 years, and continue to run my own sound studio, The Banquet Studios, where I produce music albums, books on tape, sound-tracks and commercials. I have been nominated for two Grammy awards. I am happily married to my best friend, Lisa, and we have recently become grandparents. I enjoy road biking, racquetball, bodysurfing, scuba diving and have participated in three triathlons. Lisa and I are proud owners of a tandem bicycle which we enjoy riding through the vineyards of Northern California.
Jan Matney
I grew up in a small farming community in West Texas in the 1950s and 1960s. Our family, which included my maternal and paternal grandparents, parents, two older sisters and I were integral members of Hamlin's First Baptist Church. From this experience in the church, I grew to believe that I was called to serve others, and I committed my life to this intention. During college, however, I lost my vision, becoming increasingly apathetic and cynical. In truth, I lacked the confidence that my life mattered.
When I participated in a More To Life Weekend in 1985 in Austin, Texas, the calling I felt as a young girl reawakened. While before I thought myself inadequate, I now saw possibilities and I began to take risks, two of which changed my life. I enrolled into Montana State University's counseling program, and my husband and I invited our friends and acquaintances to participate in a More To Life Weekend, the first of many trainings in Bozeman, Montana. I subsequently graduated with a Master's Degree in Counseling, opened a counseling practice, and voluntarily supported the production of the More To Life program in Bozeman. Out of these choices came many opportunities to serve others and grow myself.
In 1996 I made another important decision: to become a More To Life Trainer. As Trainers, we all facilitate people to become more authentic, loving, and human, and empower them to make their unique contributions. When I witness people released from their accusations, demands, fears and resentments and freed to be themselves, I am awed. It is as though a flower were unfolding or a life being birthed. I am giving to others and to Life itself. And it is all giving back to me.
This program holds countless stories about human resilience, courage and personal responsibility, and serving as a Senior Trainer is both an honor and a transformative experience. It is more than I could have hoped for, dreamed of or imagined, even as a child who heard a calling to serve.
Background
Jan Matney is a Senior Trainer for the More To Life program. She has trained in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, South Africa and the throughout the United States. She is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor and a Neurofeedback Practitioner with a Masters Degree in Mental Health Counseling. She is Director of the nCenter, a clinic in Bozeman, Montana that provides counseling, neurofeedback and craniosacral therapy. Jan is a co-founder of Changes of Course, an organization promoting social change. Changes of Course has been contracted by the Wyoming Department of Health to provide the Power of Connection course to Wyoming veterans and their spouses.
Her first degree is in music. She and her husband Claud have been married for over 40 years. They have three adult children together and one grandchild. They brought More To Life course work to Bozeman, Montana, in 1987, and Jan is still involved in the More To Life Program there.
Ann McMaster
When I was 16, I used to wonder why I was born, what my mission in life was. I was clueless for the next 12 years. Then my husband and I became legal guardians for a 14-year-old girl, and we went to counseling to integrate her as consciously as possible into our family. That clinched it for me. I wanted to facilitate the restoring of people and systems to wholeness.
Then in May, 1982, I went to California with 3 other psychotherapists. We went to satisfy the Continuing Education Units required for our licenses, and to take advantage of the Training being in the Bay Area ' we went to play. I had no idea I would gain so much from one weekend. At the time, I was a very successful therapist, working with individuals, couples and groups. The More To Life Weekend showed me how to make more of a difference by educating a roomful of people how to effect their own transformation. The teaching is experiential, so they get the learnings for themselves. It's exciting and inspiring to be a part of their change process. I also am changed in that process, becoming more of who I am when I am at my best, as they become more of who they are. As we become more of the best in us, so do we affect the people around us. And even more exciting, as we all evolve, so we add to the conscious evolution of humankind ' in specific and in general.
Looking back on my life - as the eldest of 8 children, a student tutor, a volunteer in a terminal cancer ward, a mother, a psychotherapist, a Senior Trainer, a business consultant ' the pattern emerges clearly. I love what I do. In my soul, I am an artist, and my medium is the human spirit. The More To Life program offers me the most profound and effective way to ply my artistry ' whether it's in a public forum or in a business setting. It works.
Background
Ann McMaster has a degree in Social Work and Psychology, a Master's Degree in Behavioral Science, and is a Licensed Professional Counselor. She has practiced as a psychotherapist since 1978. Currently she is a partner in InterAction US TriVergent International, teaching the principles and tools skills of More To Life in the business sector. She has been a Senior Trainer since 1985, working with groups in the US, England, Scotland, New Zealand and South Africa, where she lived for two years. She has also done extensive training for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Ann enjoys white-water rafting, canoeing and camping, and is a mother and grandmother.
Gerry Moline
I've known from the time I was quite young that I wanted to contribute to the world in some big way. My childhood dreams and fantasies were all about helping others, helping the world, and having great adventures while I was doing it. I suspect that was what inspired me to become a nurse in my first career and, later, to go back to university for advanced degrees and a second career in environmental research. I've always had a big world view and a sense that in some way what happens to each of us impacts all of us. But I never fully had the sense that what I was doing in either my nursing work or later environmental work was impacting the world in a way that was deeply satisfying.
In 1996, I was introduced to the More To Life Weekend by one of my colleagues at the research laboratory where I was working. What I experienced that weekend profoundly changed the course of my life. I found a way to lay down resentments and self-limiting beliefs that had dogged me for years and, in doing so, freed up my energy, creativity, and boldness. I had no idea where this turn of events would take me, but it became clear to me soon after doing the Weekend that I wanted to be a part of offering this transformational experience to others.
I have been involved with this life-changing programme ever since, and have had the privilege of delivering trainings in many parts of the world. When I am involved in this work I am fulfilling that calling in me to contribute to the world in a way that is deeply satisfying and humbling - helping others to wake up to their own creativity, break through their own self-limiting beliefs, and take ownership of their own responsibilities as stewards of this precious planet. I get to have more of me in the process of challenging others to have more of themselves. And in the midst of this, I get to take part in one of the greatest adventures of all - liberation of the human spirit.
Background
Gerry Moline has a doctorate in Geohydrology and a Master's Degree in Geophysics, and for 10 years was involved in environmental research. She has also worked in the fields of psychiatric nursing and substance abuse counseling, and provided consultancy assessment and change management training for businesses. Gerry is a Senior Trainer with the More To Life program and has been actively involved with the program since 1996, participating in leadership roles for the More To Life Foundation in Knoxville, Tennessee, and coaching leaders of our centers in London and Scotland. Gerry lives in London and also works as a consultant for InterAction Training Consultants, which applies More To Life principles and practices for corporate clients.
Sophie Sabbage
Sophie Sabbage has degrees in English Literature and Psychology and a Change Management Diploma. She is a Senior Trainer with More To Life, as well as a Co-Founder and Director of InterAction, a training consultancy which she helped to establish with Brad Brown and Janet Jones in 1996. InterAction applies More To Life principles to the corporate sector, and the company won the prestigious Guardian MCA Gold Award for Change Management in 2004. Sophie is also a writer of fiction, some of which has been broadcast on BBC Radio, and she is passionate about literature and poetry.
David Templer
I chose to become a More To Life Trainer as a form of accelerated learning. What I gained as a student from the practices of this programme seemed to be drawing me into a realm where sharing myself with others kept revealing more of what I needed to learn myself.
The training room offers an experience of mutual enlightenment that intensifies my ability to become more of who I want to be, even as I serve life's mysterious agenda of evolution and growth.
I know of few other places, outside a theatre or a place of transcendent natural beauty, where a more intense encounter with the truth of things can be found.
For me, the journey of each course is a journey of self-discovery for all involved which evokes our common humanity, reaffirms our interdependence, and reminds me that I am blessed to be alive in this moment with a never-ending connection to infinite wisdom and infinite forgiveness. For me, this is the most fun you can have with all your clothes on.
It also allows me to connect with and be inspired by the everyday heroism of ordinary people's lives. Together I see us as part of that ever-growing wave of creative energy that allows us to reclaim our social nature and grasp the levers of social change in a way that can challenge the ways of the world, without adding to its suffering.
Background
David Templer is a Senior Trainer who has been working with individuals and organizations through More To Life since 1984. He helped to establish our London Centre, was part of the More to Life Foundation Executive Team for ten years, and is a former member of the More To Life Foundation Board. David has a background in communications, and has read widely in philosophy and psychology. He gained a Masters Degree in English Literature from Cambridge University and has worked as a writer and an independent film maker. He has been an editor in the publishing industry and currently helps to run Lifetimes Press, which publishes books and other material presenting More To Life principles.
Clare Vivian-Neal
As a scientist in Cambridge, UK in the late 1980s, I was inspired by the promise of what could be possible for our world. I was a keen environmentalist and active campaigner. I wanted to increase awareness of our interconnectedness with the planet so we'd cease the activities of destruction, war and change our ways - but how to make a difference?
Then I took More To Life. I was fascinated right from the start. I had never seen anything like what happened in that room. People changed; I changed. Here was my answer. Here was a way to engage with individual change at a deep and lasting level. I wanted to be able to do what my Trainer, Ann McMaster, was doing in assisting people to shift their perception of the world and see things more clearly. Since moving to New Zealand in 1990, my vision of a world where we respect and honour each other and our Earth has remained vividly with me. Isolation, abuse, unhappy workplaces ' all can be transformed. I know it because I have been a part of many such transformations.
I am a Trainer to enable me to be the most skilled I can be as I walk alongside others who are also seeking a more connected world. My vision is to enable healing of individuals, families and groups so we are all able to bring forward our unique gifts with more creativity, wisdom and love to live our lives with more passion, lightness, joy and love ' more connectedness.
Background
Clare Vivian-Neal has a degree in Biological Science and careers as a bio-technologist and then heading a design team in the outdoor industry. She has studied Gestalt and Hakomi body-centred psychotherapy and other therapeutic methods, and has been teaching More To Life course work regularly in New Zealand and Australia since 1991. She organised'the first More To Life courses held in New Zealand, and is a Senior Trainer and Business Director for the More To Life Foundation. Clare lives in Golden Bay, New Zealand with her husband, and loves the wildness of the South Island. She is interested in reducing her carbon footprint and living more sustainably.'Clare enjoys hiking, sea-kayaking, gardening and adventures with her family and friends (and dog).
Brocas Walton
It is the mixture of being both challenged and rewarded at the same time. There is something about stretching to be all I can be at any moment, while training others to do the same, that is both exciting and satisfying. It is also unpredictable, the way life is itself, which requires me to be on my toes and living in the moment. Having said all of that, what got me interested in being a Trainer in the first place is still a strong motivating factor for continuing to train: It is the impact it has on people's lives and therefore how people are in relationship to each other.
Having grown up in South Africa, where separation of one human being from another was written into the statute books, I had become despondent about my own ability to impact what I saw as this incredible injustice. Through becoming a Trainer, I saw a way for myself to impact directly and intimately in changing this dynamic, so that the possibility of people to connect as human beings became a reality. There are so many things that separate us, all over the world. Training people to connect means I too am required to look at what separates me from others as well as my more noble self, so that I too can connect more with others, the reality of life as it is, and also with myself and my deepest wants as a human being, and to go after realising these too.
Background
Brocas Walton has a degree in Architecture and spent the early part of his career in research and development work to establish land rights, housing, and public facilities for displaced communities in South Africa. He has published several papers about development and the environment. Brocas was instrumental in bringing More To Life courses to South Africa in the late 1980s, where he taught our short courses to people from diverse ethnic backgrounds. He is a Senior Trainer and served as Area Coordinator for South Africa. His many adventures have included piloting airplanes and sailing a catamaran across the Atlantic Ocean. As well as training for More To Life, Brocas trains in organisations. He lives with his wife and two young daughters in East Sussex.
Nicole Zuber
Nicole Zuber is a More To Life Associate Trainer and has been an active student and leader in the program since 1997. She has worked for the More To Life Foundation during the last 5 years as both a Program Director and, most currently, in the role as Cycle Development Director. She also works as a Corporate Trainer for Capella University where she focuses on leader and employee professional development. Originally educated with a Bachelors Degree in Spanish and 2 Master Degrees in Spanish and International Management, her passion lies in supporting people to lead their most authentic life by facilitating experiences where real change can happen and supporting individuals to re-frame, rethink, and recalibrate beliefs, habits, expectations, assumptions and fears that restrict potential and growth.
In addition, in her role as Trainer, Facilitator, and Advisor, she supports individuals, teams, and organizations to make personal and collective changes that are most important to them but have proven resistant even to thoughtful plans and heartfelt intentions. She shifts how people think and what they believe is possible to develop a growth mindset.
Lastly, she helps organizations create and support a culture of continuous and deliberate people development. She delivers public workshops, organizational consultation, personal coaching, train-the-trainer certification, conflict resolution, short courses, customer service, leadership development and customized programming.
She lives in Minneapolis, MN with her partner of 8 years and loves to travel and have new experiences in her free time.
