Discovering The Hero’s Journey in Midlife

Find your path to wholeness and fulfillment by following the hero’s journey

When you’re dealing with the life-altering transitions of midlife, it can be all too easy to get sidetracked on your quest to live a life of meaning and purpose.

But no matter where you are in your journey, or how lost or stuck you feel, there is a proven map you can use to pinpoint your location and chart your route forward to the life you want to live.

And the map that reveals your path forward is the universal “Hero’s Journey” that’s common to the myths and stories of all the world’s belief systems.

As famed mythologist Joseph Campbell taught us, nearly all ancient wisdom traditions feature stories about a hero who is forced to venture out into the world and undergo a series of trials and adventures that help him become the person he needs to be to defeat the villain and return home to his village with the treasure.

All of these stories follow the same pattern – from legends about ancient heroes and religious figures such as Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Moses, Jesus, the Buddha, Mohammed, King Arthur, and Beowulf, all the way down to modern heroes such as Luke Skywalker and Frodo and his companions in Lord of the Rings.

The specifics may be different – but the stages we go through and the skills we must acquire to overcome the challenges each stage are the same.

And when you understand the stages and discover where you are in that journey, it becomes so much easier to understand what you need to do to advance to the next step and accelerate your progress to your desired destination. 

Through a combination of our MEA Owning Wisdom curriculum and Ben’s experiential Hero’s Journey and mindfulness teachings, you will:

By the end of your five days with Chip and Ben and the other MEA faculty, you will be bursting with clarity and renewed purpose and feel energized and inspired to take the next big step on your Hero’s Journey.

Ben Katt

Author of The Way Home: Discovering the Hero’s Journey to Wholeness in Midlife

Mindfulness Teacher | Speaker | Coach

Ben Katt has been helping people experience deep transformation and create lives of greater joy, compassion, and purpose for the past twenty years. His first book, The Way Home: Discovering the Hero’s Journey to Wholeness at Midlife is a guidebook and memoir about the inner journey we all must embark on in order to live our fullest lives.

Ben is the founder of the WITHIN Prison Meditation Project, serves as a hospice chaplain, and writes regularly about identity, purpose, creativity, and belonging in his weekly STILL newsletter.

Ben is a certified advanced meditation teacher of the 1 Giant Mind technique, holds a Master of Divinity degree, and was an ordained minister for over a decade. Previously, he led The On Being Project’s work in supporting religious and spiritual leaders in the work of social healing.

Ben is an expert at adapting ancient personal development practices for modern contexts in order to help people wake up to who they are and why they are here.

Chip Conley

MEA Co-Founder and Author of Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age

Bestselling Author | Entrepreneur | Innovator | Disruptor | Speaker

A three-time TED speaker on the big stage, Chip Conley is one of the world's leading experts at the intersection of business innovation, psychology and spirituality.

As one of the creators of the boutique hotel movement and the "modern elder" to the young Airbnb founders, Chip's been a disruptor and expert on entrepreneurship and business leadership. He’s a globally-recognized thought leader on the future of work and the competitive advantages of a multi-generational workplace.

Inspired by his experience of intergenerational mentoring as a “modern elder” at Airbnb – where his guidance was instrumental to the company’s extraordinary success – Chip founded MEA and has since dedicated his midlife years to reframing the concept of aging and helping people navigate midlife with a renewed sense of purpose and possibility.