Abroad Wisdom Academy
10-week certificate program · Hybrid · Maximum 5 Fellows per cohort
In Direct Partnership With Indigenous Communities & Sacred Lineages
Why Abroad Wisdom Academy
The Abroad Wisdom Academy is for coaches, therapists, healers and mentors who have done the training and still sense there is more.
That isn’t a shortcoming. Your practice has grown larger than the traditions that formed it. The Academy puts you in the room with the people who carry older ones, and with a small community of practitioners and leaders who walk the path with you.
As a Wisdom Academy Fellow, you receive rare access to learn directly from the world’s great wisdom teachers and the guardians of sacred lineages: High Rinpoches in Bhutan, shamans in Mongolia, guardians of the sacred mountains in Peru, and Native American elders.
You can read about ancient wisdom, or you can stand in its presence. Within our hybrid programs, you join a curated group of Wisdom Faculty, Fellows and extraordinary leaders on immersive journeys into living wisdom cultures.
On each journey, you are one of no more than five Fellows, working closely with our Wisdom Faculty to prepare, accompany and support the CEOs, founders, creatives, family office leaders and investors who join Abroad experiences. These are the people whose choices send ripples across the world.
The Curriculum
At the heart of every Academy program is the Wisdom Worldview: four themes that recur across many of the traditions we’ve been invited to learn from, each expressed in its own language and practice. You study them together, then go deep into one living culture to see how its people understand and live them.
A world where nature is alive.
In many traditions, the land is a relative rather than a resource. Mountains hold stories, and rivers carry memory. The Lakota expression Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ, “all my relations,” holds that humans are woven into the natural world, not standing apart from it. Reverence becomes stewardship: taking only what is needed, and caring for what future generations will inherit.
A world where community comes first.
In southern Africa, Ubuntu speaks to a shared humanity. In the Andes, Ayni, the principle of reciprocity, shapes relationships with people and land alike. Many traditions hold that individual thriving is inseparable from collective wellbeing: elders are honored, food and land are shared, and decisions are made to restore harmony rather than create division.
A world guided by time that ripples forward and backward.
The Haudenosaunee principle of the Seventh Generation asks that every decision honor those not yet born. Many cultures understand time not as a straight line but as a cycle, where past, present and future are intertwined. In a world of quarterly returns, what would it mean to lead, and to help others live, with legacy in mind?
A world where spirit lives within everything.
Many traditions experience the world as an animated whole, where every being carries essence, every place holds meaning, and the physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual are woven together. What we do to others, we also do to ourselves.
The Wisdom Worldview isn’t nostalgia. As we face ecological stress, burnout, isolation and rapid technological change, these living traditions help us see with wider eyes. For helping professionals, they offer a deeper foundation for the work of helping others change.
How It Works
Weeks 1–4
Four live online sessions with Wisdom Faculty and teachers from your culture, so you arrive already in relationship with the tradition and ready to help the leaders you support enter it too.
8–10 days
An immersive on-the-ground experience in a living wisdom culture, living the tradition yourself while supporting the travelers experiencing Abroad alongside you.
Weeks 7–10
Four live online sessions that carry what happened back into your life, your leadership and your practice.
Three Living Classrooms
Every Academy program follows the same path. What changes is the classroom. After you apply, we’ll talk with you about your timing and your practice, and help you find the cohort that fits.
Inside Each Classroom
Faculty
Former Press Secretary to the King of Bhutan · Former Dean, Royal Thimphu College
Abroad’s lead wisdom faculty in Bhutan and a former head of media for the country, he brings Bhutan’s wisdom to life through storytelling and lives the compassionate leadership he teaches.
Psychotherapist and meditation teacher · Lead faculty, The Four Winds Society
A licensed therapist specializing in meditation, mindful movement and wisdom-based leadership, and a member of Abroad’s faculty and curriculum team.
Coach and somatic therapist · Abroad’s lead wisdom faculty in Peru
Trained in Andean practice, she has written for Abroad on Ayni, the Andean principle of reciprocity, and its place in Q’ero relationships with Pachamama.
Harvard Medical School faculty · Former Executive Director, Institute of Coaching
A leading voice in coaching and leadership development, he guides Fellows in applying what they’ve learned to their practice.
Founder & CEO, Abroad
An executive coach, Edmund Hillary Fellow and University of Chicago ExecEd faculty member, focused on wisdom-based leadership.
Bhutan
Her Eminence Dorje Phagmo Rinpoche
Buddhist master, female treasure revealer, community leader
Abbot Sonam Tobgye
Supreme leader of monastic community
Peru
Don Raul and Justino Apaza
Q’ero, Inca Medicine School
Don Martín Pinedo
Shaman from the Huascar Lineage
Don Rufino Turpo
Shaman from the Turpo Lineage
Mongolia
Vivien Vilela
Cofounder & President of Aniwa
Khurelbaatar “Spark”
A revered Mongolian shaman
The Fellow Experience
Rare access to living wisdom cultures in Bhutan, Peru and Mongolia. These are not places you can simply visit. You must be welcomed into them.
Deep, personal access to Rinpoches, shamans, elders and wisdom keepers who are the guardians of their traditions, through relationships we have built over more than a decade.
The opportunity to sit with and support remarkable leaders on Abroad experiences as they explore wisdom, purpose, meaning, impact and legacy.
Complete the program and receive a certificate from the Abroad Wisdom Academy, a credential that makes your wisdom training visible in your practice.
You pay what participants pay for the on-the-ground experience alone, and receive the full 10-week certificate program, including the live online preparation and integration.
Lifelong friendships and collaborations within an intimate community of peers and wisdom keepers, and a place to keep nourishing your practice long after the program ends.
The Fellow’s Offering
Eight 90-minute live online sessions, 8 to 10 days on the journey, travel time to reach your wisdom culture, and approximately eight individual support sessions with the leaders you accompany.
On each journey, you are paired with roughly four leaders, offering each of them individual preparation and integration sessions.
You’re invited into deep connection with wisdom, with teachers, with guardians and with luminary leaders. It’s held with reverence and humility, in recognition of something sacred being shared with you.
If you are seeking a break from the world and you have a desire to dive deeper into your true purpose, join an Abroad quest. You will be transformed and aligned with your true purpose at this critical time on our planet.
Tamra Fleming Cleveland
Former Starbucks Executive, Executive Coach
10 / 10
Participants’ average rating of Dr. Dorji Wangchuk, Abroad’s lead wisdom faculty in Bhutan, across 10 years of Abroad experiences.
Is This for Me?
It’s probably not the right fit if you’re looking for an introduction to mindfulness or personal growth, a vacation, or a credential without the commitment to practice and service behind it.
Tuition & Financial Aid
Tuition covers the full 10-week certificate program, including all virtual sessions and your in-country experience.
Peru
April–June 2027
$8,500*
Mongolia
July–September 2027
$10,000*
Bhutan
September–December 2027
$10,000*
*Tuition is in USD, based on double occupancy. Excludes international airfare.
Financial aid from Wisdom Academy donors keeps the Fellowship open to the people best suited to it.
01
A short application about you, your practice and what’s drawing you here.
02
A call with a member of our Wisdom Faculty to get to know you and find which cohort fits your timing and your calling.
03
If it’s a fit, we’ll offer you one of no more than five places in a specific cohort.
04
A $2,500 transferable deposit secures your place. We’ll discuss payment plans with you.
Not Ready Yet?
Join us at the Wisdom Worldview weekend at 1440 Multiversity in the California redwoods. Three days with Abroad faculty and wisdom keepers, and a first taste of what the Academy explores.
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
