Just a reminder that Bold Academy applications are due at midnight tonight PST. Apply here.

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With immense gratitude and positive energy.

This summer, 24 people will come together in Boulder, committed to transforming their world and themselves. In an experience unlike any other, these 24 will cultivate years of critical life skills over four weeks in July. And you can be one of them. 

This is The Bold Academy: a life-changing experience designed to help you find your deepest clarity, build confidence, and unlock your ability to lead the life you’ve always wanted to live.

Does this sound familiar?

Deep inside, you’ve felt the power of your potential—but you haven’t been able to reach it yet. 

You’re tired of doing what you should be doing and you’re ready to do what you’re meant to be doing—but you aren’t sure where to begin.

You believe in your ability to do big things, to never settle, and to make the world a better place—but you aren’t sure how to get there.

You yearn for a community that will push you to reach your full potential, no matter the obstacles that are holding you back. 

Most of all, you’re ready for an experience that will unleash you. 

Why?

Because we all possess more potential than we realize—potential that once unleashed, can make any vision a reality.

Because the greatest opportunity we have in life is discovering what we’re meant to do—and then doing it.

Because when we’re awake, alive, and impassioned—together, we change the world.
 

THE EXPERIENCE

Four weeks of powerful, guided introspection and learning coupled with hands-on skill building, remarkable speakers, and a holistic lifestyle including fitness and adventures.

Our aim is to provide you with a profound experience that unearths clarity and builds confidence, enabling you to shape your own path and make powerful contributions to changing society for the better.

The Curriculum

The program curriculum will include a series of expert-led workshops, skill-building sessions, and learn-by-doing experiences that fall into the following categories:

• Self-awareness. Knowing yourself, your purpose, what to be true to, and when you’re at your best.
• Integrity. Behaving in a way that is consistent with your true self.
• Confidence. Overcoming societal expectations and being powerful and compassionate in who you really are.
• Risk-taking. Fluency in failure, experimentation, and iteration as the path to success. 
• Resourcefulness. The ability to generate passion, money, resources, and manpower around an idea, cause, or project. 
• Strategy. Knowing how to draw clarity from chaos and make plans that work. 

All of the workshops will adhere to a hands-on approach. Our aim is create participatory experiences that will be framed, undertaken, and then debriefed as a group. 

Outcomes

You will learn how to:

• Overcome fear, take action, and plan a meaningful life course.
• Tell your personal story in a way that is compelling and sticky.
• Spend your time in ways that energize you.
• Network your way into opportunities that are aligned with your strengths and personal interests.
• Design your own career path, whether traditional or unconventional.
• Marshal resources to get an idea off the ground, start a project, or launch a business.
• Develop and cultivate an online personal brand, to help gain career momentum.
• Speak and carry yourself in a way that is powerful and authentic.
• Identify and create work opportunities that are exciting, challenging, and strategic.
• Tap into the power of risk-taking, experimentation, and failure to advance your career and personal growth.
• Use a healthy lifestyle to maintain energy, focus, and do your best work.
• Build a deeply supportive community of peers that will help you reach your full potential in the years to come.

Speakers and Mentors

You will get to know:

• Entrepreneurs who have succeeded, and those who have failed, including a 27-yr-old who recently sold his company for $169M.
• Networking specialists who can teach the art of relationship building.
• Designers who understand the power of living systems and the role that relationships play in making real change.
• Thought-leaders on nonconformity and the art of building non-traditional lives (and personal income streams).
• Experienced investors who know what it takes to make a project or venture happen.
• World-class communicators who will teach the art of storytelling and personal narrative. 
• Yoga teachers that specialize in real-world applications of the practice, including centeredness, confidence, clarity, productivity, and focus.

Adventures, Fitness, and Career Coaches

We believe a holistic approach to life and learning is the best route to success and fulfillment. That’s why the four weeks in Boulder will include extra-curricular adventures such as cooking classes, dance lessons, yoga, camping, and wilderness hikes, among other things.

We’ll have a personal trainer on-staff, helping you feel like your best physical self. We’ll also have a career coach on-staff, helping you understand your unique gifts and set goals for your future.

HOW IT WORKS

Who, when and where?

24 individuals who are ready to conquer the world will convene in Boulder this July to unleash their full potential. 

Tuition

The cost of tuition is $7,500. Tuition covers all programming/workshops/speakers, housing (we’ll be living together in small groups), healthy food, all transportation in Boulder, access to a personal trainer/nutritionist, access to a career coach, as well as numerous activities and adventures like cooking classes, dance lessons, yoga sessions, camping, and other secret surprises. 

Timeline

Now: Applications open
April 5: Applications close
April 9: 50 finalists are selected and notified.

The first 24 to submit tuition will join us in Boulder this summer.

Application Process

In our inaugural year, we have 24 spots available. Because our aim is to bring together the right mix of people who are eager for this experience and can handle being pushed way outside their comfort zone, we’ve designed an application process.  

» Apply to the Bold Academy «

THE TEAM

The Bold Academy team brings a range of experiences from Apple, TED, NBC, United Nations Foundation, Seth Godin, iContact, StartingBloc, Fast Company, and a number of entrepreneurial ventures. We’re committed to giving our students an unprecedented experience.

Amber Rae & Nathaniel Koloc | Creators

Amber is a motivational force of nature, hell-bent on cultivating a world where human potential is not governed by what we’re told we can and cannot do, but rather by our highest intentions and inner gifts. She’s obsessed with helping people live the lives they are meant to live, and designs her projects accordingly. In the last two years, Amber launched the Domino Project with Seth Godin, turned insomnia into a global movement via Night Owls, and helped hundreds of people give their dreams direction, many of which were through The Passion Experiment. She’s been seen in The New York Times, Fast Company, Inc., Forbes, The Huffington Post, BBC, and ABC World News.

Amber is building The Bold Academy to give people the perspective and skills needed to claim the lives they know they’re meant to live.

Nathaniel has spent the last five years trying to understand why it is so difficult for talented young people to find fulfilling work. The journey took him through East Africa, South America, and Europe, as well as the worlds of social impact and sustainability consulting. Armed with those experiences, Nathaniel co-founded ReWork, a talent agency for sharp young professionals and college grads that refuse to settle for work that doesn’t inspire them. Nathaniel is an Unreasonable fellow, a StartingBloc fellow, and holds a Masters in Strategic Leadership toward Sustainability.

Nathaniel is building the The Bold Academy because the world is ready for it.

Dana Pearlman | Academy Director

Dana has a deep expertise in creating powerful conversations and eliciting people’s best intentions. Her work with facilitation and authentic leadership led to her co-founding The Lotus, a leadership consultancy focused on cultivating a just, resilient, and thriving world. Dana holds a Masters in Clinical Psychology and a Masters in Strategic Leadership toward Sustainability.

Dana is coordinating the development of The Bold Academy’s immersion curriculum and will be the primary host.

Ryan Allis | Entrepreneur-in-Residence

Ryan believes you can achieve anything you set your mind to. He was the co-founder and CEO of iContact until it was acquired in February 2012 by Vocus for $169M. He’s passionate about using technology and entrepreneurship as tools to change the world. He’s an angel investor in companies in the U.S. and East Africa via the HumanityFund, the author of the book Zero to One Million, and Chairman of the non-profit Nourish.org.

Ryan is serving as our Entrepreneur-in-Residence because he lives for inspiring others to reach their full potential so that together, we create positive change in the world. 

Antonio Neves | Performance Specialist

Antonio comes from the world of media and communications, with 10 years of experience in broadcast journalism including roles with NBC, E!, BET Networks, and Mediabistro, among others. He founded THINQACTION, which specializes in working with our society’s most underappreciated asset: the young professional who is hungry and ready to reach their full potential. Antonio holds a Masters in Journalism from Columbia University, and sits on the advisory board of StudentMentor.org.

Antonio is helping create The Bold Academy’s curriculum, and will be on-site to support attendees this summer in Boulder.

Cloe Shasha | Community Designer

Cloe has passion and talent for bringing people together. She has experience in logo and web design, journalism, event planning, and cognitive psychology research. Cloe loves interviewing people and recently launched the College Course Quality Project to document the best qualities of learning experiences. She founded and organized TEDxMiddlebury in 2010, and now works for TED on a variety of TEDx initiatives.

Cloe is helping with The Bold Academy’s program design and communications, and will facilitate and document experiences on-site.

Jamie Seiffer | Logistics Manager

Jamie loves making lists, rhyming, and events that run smoothly. He has a passion for the real world and knows that we had faces before we had Facebook. He has empowered college students to become social entrepreneurs with FeelGood, helped neighbors connect and build community at Front Porch Forum, and he is an active member of the CouchSurfing community. In his free time he likes to shred the gnar in the backcountry and ride his bicycle. 

Jamie is coordinating logistics because no one wants to hear “actually, that event happened 3 hours ago.”

Rob Norback | Curriculum Specialist

Rob started the Cornell FreeRice Initiative in college. He loved the idea of being able to help people in poverty while playing a game online. After college, he sought to help end the cycle of poverty by joining Teach for America. While teaching, he found that his students learned physics best through meaningful work and picked up a Masters in Education. His next big endeavor is to start his own business that helps fight poverty in the developing world. And because he understands that entrepreneurship can get lonely, he invented MBA with Friends to get his business education with the best people imaginable - his friends.

Hoping to help others find meaningful work, Rob is currently working to create the most kick-ass curriculum possible for the Bold Academy.

» Apply to the Bold Academy «

Still have Questions?

Email Amber (me@heyamberrae.com) + Nathaniel (natkoloc@gmail.com). 

The landscape of higher education is about to change. 

Too many college students are carrying diplomas that speak nothing to their true potential. 

Too many recent grads feel confused about what to do with their lives and how to contribute to something meaningful. 

That’s why we’re building The Bold Academy. It’s a 4-week experience designed to help changemakers between the ages of 20 and 35 find clarity, build confidence, and unlock their full potential.

We’re creating this for those who want to do big things to “change the world” but aren’t sure how to best align what they love with what they do.

Applications are open now and close on April 5th at midnight PST.

We’ve brought an amazing team together, which you can read all about here, and we’ll be inviting experts to lead workshops and exercises too. 

If you know of a changemaker who is ready to figure out how to make the most of themselves in this world, please pass this along. 

We’re really excited. (Thank you!)

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