Mentor Program
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” – Aristotle
Finding your way forward
Every rite of passage begins the same way: something in you already knows it’s time to leave the old ground behind, even before you know what you’re walking toward. If you are in a leadership position and find yourself at crossroads this is the program for you.
Over six months, in a small group held with real care, you move through the same shape this work has always followed; from Root to Heart to Horizon. First we build the ground you can actually stand on. Then we turn inward, toward the heart, and learn to meet what’s there, the triggers, the tenderness, the parts of you that have been managing rather than living. And finally, we move toward horizon: the capacity to stay steady and clear-sighted even when the ground moves again, and to bring something back to the people and work you return to. It’s practiced with a group, with a buddy and with me until it holds under the weight of a shift towards a real life.
Deeper Invitations
Each months holds an invitation, not a lesson. We begin by turning attention inward, learning to hold it there long enough for the mind to quiet and for what’s actually true underneath to surface. From that quieter place, we turn toward each other, bringing what we find into honest conversation within the group.
You’ll come to understand what moves through your body, your mind, your emotions and you’ll leave with a way of working with it, rather than being run by it. Slowly, the habit shifts: from reacting to responding. From managing to meeting.
This is how we build a life in which you are free to be who you actually are.
Program topics
Root and Finding Ground
Before anything else, we build a place to stand.
Month 1 Presence
Arriving fully and landing in the program. Practices of grounding, mindfulness, and quieting the noise enough to notice what’s actually here.
Month 2 Intentions
Deciding what this program is about for you.
Self-compassion, non-judgment, and beginning to name what matters most, the values you want to build from.
Heart and Meeting Yourself
Once there is ground, we work inwards
Month 3 Qualities of the Heart
Kindness, forgiveness, and compassion — alongside their less-discussed partner, boundaries. How attention and the nervous system actually work.
Month 4 Know Thyself
Integration and Returning
We take what has steadied and bring it back out
Month 5 Finding your voice
Mindful and compassionate dialogue. Relational awareness, cultural and personal sensitivity; practicing presence with others, not just alone.
Month 6 Integration
Carrying the learning back into work and life. What it looks like to stay resourced and clear when circumstances genuinely test you.
Course Description & Monthly Session Format
We meet as a small group for six months, once a month, for two hours.
Working in a safe space
Every session is a container where we have and hold time together and drop into smaller break-out conversations, so there’s room both to be witnessed by the group and to go deeper one-on-one. Some sessions carry a facilitated discussion on what’s surfacing as you apply the practice in your own life. This is where the learning actually lands.
What’s included?
- Six months of consistent practice
- One live 2-hour session per month
- Dialogue built for real application.
- At least one hour a week with your buddy
- A group that as a genuinely safe place
- A one-on-one session with me midpoint the program
Materials and Assignments
The work doesn’t stop when the call ends. You’ll receive the materials, research, and exercises from each session to keep practicing at home. I expect you will work with the materials up to 6 hours a week. Also, you will be paired with a buddy in the group, someone walking the same six weeks alongside you.
Meet your Instructor
Barbara Piper is founder and owner of Be Rooted, a Netherlands-based company focused on cultivating practices to improve your (personal) leadership. The core of her work is human leadership.
Barbara guides senior professionals and young academics across the globe through the same passage she has walked many times herself — toward a more human way of leading, at work and in life.
Her background spans international communication management in the corporate sector and general management in healthcare, followed by years designing and delivering senior leadership programs. Most recently as Senior Faculty at THNK School for Leadership and as compassion ambassador for Stanford University’s CCARE. She holds an MA in Communication, is a Stanford-trained certified Compassion Facilitator.
Years living and working abroad, including time in Asia and San Francisco, gave her a natural fluency across cultures and organisations, which she now brings to every group she holds. She believes that turning attention inward first is what calms and clears the mind, and what lets you find root in where you are, where you came from, and where you are headed, as leaders of organisations, and in your own lives.
Meet your Instructor
Barbara Piper is founder and owner of Be Rooted, a Netherlands-based company focused on cultivating practices to improve your (personal) leadership. The core of her work is human leadership.
Barbara guides senior professionals and young academics across the globe through the same passage she has walked many times herself — toward a more human way of leading, at work and in life.
Her background spans international communication management in the corporate sector and general management in healthcare, followed by years designing and delivering senior leadership programs. Most recently as Senior Faculty at THNK School for Leadership and as compassion ambassador for Stanford University’s CCARE. She holds an MA in Communication, is a Stanford-trained certified Compassion Facilitator.
Years living and working abroad, including time in Asia and San Francisco, gave her a natural fluency across cultures and organisations, which she now brings to every group she holds. She believes that turning attention inward first is what calms and clears the mind, and what lets you find root in where you are, where you came from, and where you are headed, as leaders of organisations, and in your own lives.