Owning Wisdom with guest faculty Barbara Waxman

The Longevity Roadmap – The Secrets of Aging Well

Mar 3 - Mar 8, 2025 in Baja, Mexico
Led by: Barbara Waxman, Janis Nakano Spivack
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Financial aid is available. Apply Here.

Create A Personal Longevity Roadmap that Ensures Your Final Years Are Your Best Years

Many people in midlife don’t realize that your genetics are NOT a major determining factor in determining your longevity. 

Research now shows that your lifestyle – the choices big and small that you make every day – has a much bigger impact not only on your lifespan, the quantity of years you live, but your healthspan, the quality of years you live. 

This is especially true of the choices you make in midlife, which have an outsized impact on what your “Trophy Years” – the final 10-15 or so years of your life, when you’re able to sit back and appreciate the rewards of a life well-lived – are going to look like. 

That’s why now is the ideal time for you to get clear on what you want your Trophy Years to look like – in terms of the experiences you hope to enjoy, the abilities and capacities you want to maintain, and the relationships you wish to cultivate – so you can reverse-engineer your journey forward to the life you dream of experiencing in your final years on the planet.

In this Owning Wisdom workshop co-facilitated with gerontologist and longevity expert Barbara Waxman, you will create your personal Longevity Lifestyle Roadmap™ that empowers you to live a long, happy, and fulfilling “life well-lived” – starting now. 


What You’ll Gain

Through a combination of our MEA Owning Wisdom curriculum and Barbara’s experiential teachings and activities, you will:

  • Create your personal Trophy Years vision detailing the components of what you want your final 10-15 years to look and feel like
  • Conduct a “pre-mortem” of your current life and identify the lifestyle shifts that will help ensure you make your Trophy Years vision a reality
  • Discover how to consciously curate a life that brings you joy while maximizing your health and fulfillment
  • Design a Longevity Lifestyle Roadmap™ that’s unique as you are and charts your path to your ideal Trophy Years life
  • Become your own “Chief Risk Officer” and make better choices that allow you to live life to the fullest while staying true to your longevity game plan
  • Find the confidence and courage you need to show up as your best self and cultivate the seeds for your long and happy life on a daily basis

You will leave this workshop excited and energized to put your Longevity Lifestyle Roadmap™ into practice in your life, and will have a clear vision and next-steps plan to start making your vision a reality starting right away. 

Meet Your Faculty

Barbara Waxman
Author of The Middlescence Manifesto: Igniting the Passion of Midlife

Gerontologist | Coach | Speaker |  MS, MPA, PCC

Barbara Waxman is a highly sought-after gerontologist and longevity expert who has been studying the science of aging for more than 40 years. She is passionate about inspiring and empowering people in midlife to be healthy, resourceful, whole, and joyful.

Barbara serves as an Advisory Council Member for the Stanford Center on Longevity, an Advisory Board Member for Stanford Lifestyle Medicine and ExtraFood.org, and an angel investor in the Active Aging and Longevity Fund with Portfolia, which gives her unfettered access to the latest cutting-edge access research on aging well.

She has appeared on CBS This Morning, and has been featured in Marin Magazine, Arianna Huffington’s Thrive Global, Next Avenue, and is a frequent podcast guest.

What Barbara’s workshop participants have to say...

"Barbara’s leadership of our MEA cohort was invaluable, and her expertise regarding Middlescence was essential to the success of our program. But what made our collective experience so remarkable was how Barbara imparted her knowledge with so much grace, compassion and care. I have never experienced a teacher so genuinely connected with her students' emotional cores. Thank you for sharing your head and your heart with us."

Steven Rabinowitz
Attorney/Mediator

"Once I started working with Barbara, I identified ways in which I was working against myself work-wise, health-wise and even psychologically...[The] level of true support and concern for my well-being made it possible for me to be more creative in problem-solving across my entire life."

Alexandra Morgan
CEO, The Nancy and Stephen Grand Family House

"Barbara has a terrific tool box and is very results driven, thoughtful and organized. She helps me see different ways of viewing a situation which are transformational."

Julie Castro Abrams
CEO, How Women Lead

"So many breakthroughs, impossible to count. Many of the things that I thought I cared about were utterly insignificant compared to what really mattered to me. She helped me attain clarity of purpose, both for "now" and for the longer-term; I was able to re-center myself on what I truly valued in all facets of my life and rechannel the courage that I deployed on behalf of everyone around me to courage in myself."

Jaye Chen
Senior Management

This workshop is for you if...

1. Searching

Searching for ways to improve your longevity so you can live a joyful and fulfilling life for as long as possible

2. Tired
Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired and ready to stop putting your health and wellbeing in the backseat of your life.

3. Confused

Confused by all of the “latest trends” and conflicting advice about longevity you see in the news and online.

4. Purpose

Searching for greater purpose and community in your life but not sure where to find it or how to get started.

5. Willing

Willing to acknowledge that a long and vibrant life doesn’t come from a pill or an app – it comes from the quality of your relationships and experiences

6. Explore

Ready to explore new ways of being in the world that will boost your health, increase your vitality, and experience more joy in everything you do.

Do this powerful work on our awe-inspiring beachside campus in Baja

Baja, Mexico

El Pescadero Resort

A stunning oceanfront property offering all of the amenities of a luxury hotel with beautiful beaches perfect for swimming or surfing. Located on the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula, just a short drive from Todo Santos, the “Pueblo Magico”.

  • Beach walks
  • Poolside lounging
  • Warm ocean waves
  • Fire pits
  • Magical sunsets

Meet Your MEA Facilitators

In addition to the powerful sessions conducted by Barb Waxman, you will be guided through the core MEA Owning Wisdom curriculum by our seasoned faculty members:

Janis Nakano Spivack

Content Facilitator

Janis Spivack is the founder and CEO of Brite Catalyst, a Wellness intelligence and insights company. She is an award-winning executive and business transformation strategist with over 30 years of experience in democratizing the skills and knowledge necessary for personal change.

After getting her start in advertising, she moved to the field of tech innovation, where she nurtured startup leaders to Fortune 100 executives looking for reinvention. Integrating the real with the virtual to better serve people’s lives is her personal mission. She enjoys bringing together diversely talented teams and discovering better paths to summit their peak.

Longevity Doesn’t Come from “Biohacks” Designed to Help You Outsmart Death 

Living a long, healthy, and fulfilling well-lived life isn’t just about maintaining your physical health. (Although of course that matters, too.) It's about cultivating healthy relationships, having a sense of purpose, engaging in fulfilling activities, and feeling like what you do matters. That's your Longevity Lifestyle Roadmap™ is designed to help you do! 

Are You Ready to Chart Your Path Forward to Your Best Possible Trophy Years and Discover What A Long and Happy Life Looks Like For You?

People Come for the Workshops,
But They Stay for the Community

This is truly MEA’s “secret sauce” and something you can only experience in person: the powerful connections you will make, not only with your fellow participants and the incredible MEA faculty, but also the deeper sense of connection you will feel to your own inner self and the natural world around you.

Research into aging shows that your relationships play a HUGE role in your health and longevity. At MEA, you'll make deep and lasting connections, becoming part of a larger community that will make your life richer and more meaningful.

Our alumni cohorts stay in close touch after their workshop and we have a growing number of local alumni chapters all over the world.

It’s a joy for us to see them continuing to offer each other community, friendship, and support as they create thriving midlives for themselves. So if you have been feeling at all disconnected or isolated on your journey, we would love to have you join us!

Have we mentioned the food?

The MEA experience was designed by Chip Conley, a world-renowned boutique hotelier, and from the first bite you will taste the difference.

All of the ingredients are locally sourced and organic, and the food is made from scratch in our kitchens by incredible chefs.


The delicious breakfasts, lunches and dinners will leave you feeling nourished inside and out – not to mention blended drinks made with fresh fruit and other top-shelf ingredients.


Each retreat center has multiple kitchens that always have snacks and beverages available. At MEA, we believe that thriving is delicious!

Your Workshop Includes

  • 5 days and nights of lodging at our boutique luxury retreat center in Baja or Santa Fe with all of your meals, snacks, drinks and other amenities included
  • Daily sessions and experiential activities to help you connect with your inner self, envision your desired experience, and release what no longer serves you
  • Meditation covering a range of practices to soothe your nervous system and help you cultivate greater mindfulness and presence in the moment.
  • Movement to get the energy flowing and build your strength and agility as you chart your course forward to the life you want to live.
  • Incredible bonding experiences with the most amazing humans you’ll ever meet.
  • Three delicious, chef-prepared meals plus snacks throughout the day prepared from scratch with the freshest local ingredients.
  • Festive gatherings to cultivate connection and celebrate the joy and beauty of life.

Private Room

Space all to yourself.

$6,000 per person

Shared Room

Meet a new pal.

$4,500 per person

Enroll Now
BOOK a cAlL

Financial aid is available. Apply Here.

All of our workshops are limited to a maximum of 25 participants and spots tend to fill up fast.

If you’re interested in attending a particular workshop, secure your spot by enrolling today or booking a call with our admissions team to learn more.