Dr. Ronda Beaman teaches executives, students and athletes to live as playful, healthy, imaginative, resilient leaders.
When Ronda Beaman, Ph.D., learned about the science of neoteny – the phenomenon where an organism retains juvenile characteristics into adulthood – she was inspired to write the book, “You Only Live Young Twice” and create the TEDx Talk, “Die Young as Late as Possible,” suggesting that most of us age ourselves from the inside out.
Dr. Beaman is the creative force behind much of PEAK Learning, an international research and consulting firm based in San Luis Obispo, California. She also is a clinical professor at the Orfalea College of Business at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly). As an internationally recognized and award-winning expert on leadership, resilience, health and wellness, education and coaching, Beaman teaches families, students, athletes and executives how to increase creativity, performance and resilience, and perhaps even extend their lives.
“Gallup did an international poll involving 149 countries and found that over 70% of us are disengaged at work. That means when you leave your car in the morning, you leave the windows down just a little bit, so your soul can breathe while your body goes in to work,” she says in her TEDx Talk.
Beaman believes that at some point in our youth, we were discouraged from being joyful, playful, passionate beings so that we could be “adulted” into society.
“We don’t inherit fear. We don’t inherit boredom and passivity. We are socialized toward them. We accept them,” she says. “We fall in line like a bunch of lemmings, as that’s the kind of behavior that we’re supposed to do as an adult, as a grownup, as someone of aged numbers of years.”
She says neoteny is the practice of maintaining childlike qualities throughout our entire lives. “It’s what we inherit on the day we’re born. They are things like awe and wonder, joy and singing – the things that make us inextricably and fantastically human.”
She asks, “Did you know that even people who hum live like seven years longer than people who don’t? We’re meant to be these amazing, beautiful, extraordinary machines and most of us don’t even tap a tenth of it because of the way we’re socialized, because of the way we’re raised, because of all kinds of reasons.”
Changing the Default Setting
The good news is, humans can change the way they think, the way they behave and the way they approach challenges, she explains. “At PEAK Learning, we created a technology that you can actually measure how people handle the tough stuff in their lives and actually change it within a day. There is all kinds of research on learned helplessness and all kinds of science that goes into it.”
Beaman compares some motivational presentations to a cup of coffee that gives people energy for a short period of time, but then perhaps leaves them feeling worse.
“We were looking for something more, something to actually change somebody’s day and life, and came up with this technology based on hard science. The basis of it is, you’re hard-wired to respond to the tough stuff in life the way you saw it being handled in your home, with your own role models. If you were raised in an environment where people thought the world was tough and they couldn’t do anything about it and how awful everything is, you probably have that as your default setting. We can actually change that default setting.”
Born to Achieve, Inspire
In her memoir, “Little Miss Merit Badge,” Beaman calls herself “an achievement addict,” the result of her need to be seen. “I wasn’t seen at home,” she says, but school was where she learned she could thrive.
“I liked earning things. I liked being better than I thought I could be. I liked teachers calling on me to do stuff. Whenever anything needed to be done, any contest came up, anything where I might win, then I would do it.”
Being rewarded was such a powerful motivator that she earned “every single badge” that a Girl Scout could earn. “I had two sashes [filled with badges draped from each shoulder]. I was a patrol leader [announced by the patch on her sleeve]. I looked like the Barbie version of General Patton. I was so proud, and adults would say, ‘Wow! You’re going places!’”
THE DRIVE THAT DOESN’T WANE
As a professor at Northern Arizona University in the 1990s, she was asked by President Gene Hughes to take on the daunting task of teaching first-year education majors and specifically, to discourage the ones who didn’t have the skills to teach. That class had 400 students, which Beaman knew by name on the second day.
Instead of discouraging them, she found a way to engage the students by transforming the classroom into an interactive daytime television show-like format, complete with live music, high energy and unpredictability.
“If you give people something bigger to believe in than themselves and you’ve got 400 students who want to be teachers or think that they do and you can give them the leeway to participate in their own growth as human beings and teachers, they will surprise you and delight you every time,” she said. “You can’t just be creative by yourself; you have to bring people into the whole maelstrom and have them see the potential when they really invest in something.”
Her approach has earned her honors at three universities, including Professor of the Year for three consecutive years at the University of Pennsylvania; and Teacher Scholar of the Year at NAU and Cal Poly. In addition, Beaman was the first recipient of the National Education Association’s Excellence in the Academy: Art-of-Teaching award.
“Students watch me and they say, ‘I want a piece of that, I want some magic in my life, I want some of that energy,’ and ‘She has so much energy’ – that’s how people describe me. Being a teacher, I take my job as a role model really seriously. I’m role modeling the very kinds of things that I’m trying to teach the students and I think that helps a lot.”
Feeling the Burn with Jane Fonda
Role models for Beaman have long been Cher and Jane Fonda, women who stand up for what they believe is right, particularly at a time when women were not encouraged to speak up. So, when Fonda opened an exercise studio in Beaman’s neighborhood, she rushed in to sign up.
“I did one aerobics class and thought, ‘I love this!’ I went back the next day and it was her [Jane Fonda] teaching! She was the nicest, most down-to-earth person. After we were working out, she came up to me and said, ‘You do this really well. Would you be interested in working with me on this?’”
Of course, Beaman said, “Yes!” And today, she continues to teach fitness. Among her classes, she coaches a men’s bootcamp. The 30 competitors on her team are training for the Morro Bay Triathlon on the California Coast. Last year, her team won first place. She also teaches a women’s Barre bootcamp, based on low-impact, Barre movements focusing on form, alignment and core engagement.
In addition, she conducts a recorded weekly exercise class for people of all ages with special needs, televised in 80 schools around the world. “These schools are usually in office buildings, and they don’t have the facilities to go outside and play on the playground or take walks. These classes are designed to help people discover their balance, their movement and just get them away from their desk for half an hour each day, which is really incredibly important.”
To no one’s surprise, Beaman won California’s Fitness Idol competition in 2018.
Changing Lives, Making Dreams Come True
While changing lives through teaching, coaching and consulting, Beaman founded the nonprofit organization Dream Makers, where final dreams come true for terminally ill adults. “Eight of us girlfriends put in $100 to make lifelong dreams come true for someone who’s 18 or older because when your life is cut short and you haven’t had the chance to make that dream come true, that’s a horrible place to be.”
So far, they have made 85 dreams come true. “Most people don’t want things for themselves, they want experiences with their families. Going to Disneyland is a popular one. We have a 30-year-old right now who has metastatic colon cancer. She wants to get well enough to eat all the weird foods at Disneyland.”
Beaman is engaged in another project as a self-described “Letter Doula,” helping people give birth to meaningful letters that they have wanted to write.
“There are so many people who would like to write a letter to a parent or maybe an ex-boyfriend. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a last letter, but a lot of people don’t feel like they have the right words or know how to express this emotion. So, I’m helping get those letters out because it’s really important to communicate those kinds of things to the people that you want to communicate with.”
This effort coincides with her latest project, “Book of Letters,” which she is now writing.
Words to Live Longer By
With a seemingly endless supply of energy, an unconventional way of teaching, the unique ability to turn students into bold, creative thinkers and executives into more resilient, imaginative leaders, and the enthusiasm to inspire athletes of all abilities, Beaman offers words of wisdom for professional and personal success:
“-When you look in the mirror, you really need to love, like and respect that person.
– Seek out the people you admire and learn from them.
– There is always time to do what you really want to do.” FBN
For inspiration, lessons and laughs from Dr. Ronda Beaman, watch Zonie Living at StarWorldwideNetworks.com. She can be reached at Peaklearning.com.
Courtesy Photo: Through a globally televised fitness program, executive coach and best-selling author Ronda Beaman teaches the joy of movement to individuals with special needs in more than 80 classrooms around the world.