Archives: Events

A Perfect Lifestyle:  Food, Wine, Sex and Chocolate:
An overview talk covering a wide range of lifestyle issues, including dietary patterns, obesity and its management, exercise, marriage, childbearing, pets, television, sleep, candy including chocolate, and success in life.  The most extensive and important part of the talk deals with diets, ranging from veganism to ketogenic, and drink.  All these areas are approached from a rigorous scientific viewpoint, with an emphasis on how each factor affects disease and longevity.  The talk concludes with a table of exactly how much life is gained or lost by simple lifestyle choices we make every day.

Shopping for Food: Label Lies and Nutritional Information
It would be best if we bought only foods in their original form, but the time constraints of current life often force people to buy packaged foods.  Unfortunately, packaged food labels frequently contain lies and misleading information.  Even nutritional labels can be misleading.  A can of spray cooking oil may say that it contains no fat, when in fact the product is 100% fat.  This talk covers the most common labeling misinformation and teaches exactly how to pick healthy packaged foods using simple approaches to the interpretation of nutritional listings.

Exercise from Move-it to Marathons
After a healthy diet, physical activity is the easiest and least expensive way to increase longevity and prevent heart disease and dementia.  Beneficial physical activity ranges from walking stairs to running marathons.  This talk discusses the myriad physical and emotional benefits of all levels of physical activity, as well as the occasional adverse effects of excessive activities, such as marathon running.  Our national guidelines on physical activity including aerobic, resistive, and balance exercises is discussed with an emphasis on just how to receive the greatest benefit.

Food for Thought: How to Stave Off Alzheimer’s and other Neurodegenerative Diseases Dementia, most commonly Alzheimer’s Disease, affects one in 14 people over 65 years of age and one in six over 80.  It is the most feared illness in older individuals.  It is also at least partly preventable.  The basic medical rule is that what is good for the heart is also good for the head.  This talk describes the most frequent types of dementia and other neurocognitive diseases and discusses how they are likely to present.  The value of a healthy diet and physical and cognitive exercise in preventing these diseases, amounting to at least a 50% reduction, is summarized in this talk.

Robert Vogel, M.D. is a preventive cardiologist and Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado Denver.  He received his B.A. from Columbia University (physics) and M.D. from Yale University.  He served on the faculties of the Universities of Colorado, Michigan, and Maryland, the latter as Director of Cardiology.  Dr. Vogel has investigated how to prevent coronary heart disease for more than 40 years.  He has authored two books and more than 250 scientific publications.  Dr. Vogel lectures frequently to physicians on lifestyle and heart disease prevention.  He has received a Good Housekeeping Magazine’s “Best Doctors in America” designation, a Federal Scientist of the Year Award, and has been President of the Association of University Cardiologists.  Dr. Vogel currently serves on the NFL Medical Committee and as a consultant to the Pritikin Longevity Institute.

The Hidden Dimension of Communication

A world of communication lurks below the surface of our awareness. When we are in conflict, this hidden dimension often catapults us into confusion and mind-bending emotion, thwarting creative resolution and conscious action. Drs. Glaser are former actors as well as award-winning researchers and university professors. They dramatize compelling conflict scenarios to demonstrate what happens when conflict invades our world and how to master seemingly deadlocked moments in challenging business, family, and personal situations.

Power Listening

When interpersonal pressure is on, listening is too often the first casualty. When dialogue turns to criticism, we often revert to unconscious auto-pilot reactions with defensive responses that may damage the relationship and make problems worse. This session provides a five-step model for transforming defensiveness and blame into insight and agreement. Speakers dramatize how trust increases when each person feels heard and understood.

Navigating Challenging Conversations

Why it is that people we care about too often feel defensive when we try to convey suggestions for improving their behavior and our relationship? How can we stop torpedoing our efforts and instead transform conflict into cooperation, discord into harmony, and make good relationships even better? This presentation provides a four-step model for raising issues that renders remarkable results: solving the problem, strengthening the relationship, and deepening trust – without creating a negative reaction.

Peter A. Glaser, PhD and Susan R. Glaser, PhD received their doctorates in Communication from the Pennsylvania State University. Authors of the internationally acclaimed book, Be Quiet, Be Heard: The Paradox of Persuasion, they have been married business partners and co-presenters for 40 years. Drs. Glaser have published three books and more than 40 research articles. Their research on transforming organizational culture has received the International Association of Business Communication Award for bridging communication theory and practice.  Feature stories have been written about them in Business Week, Newsday, Nation’s Business, National Business Review, Working Woman, Success Magazine, and the Washington Post. They have been featured speakers on every major university forum for entrepreneurship across the United States. They have also been presenters for Entrepreneurs Organization (EO), Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) and World Presidents’ Organization (WPO). The Glasers joined the faculty of the University of Oregon in 1975. For the last 14 years they have spent time in New Zealand and Australia working with leaders from both the private and public sectors. They work with federal, state, and local government leaders throughout the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., including their ongoing work with the U.S. Congress. www.theglasers.com, facebook.com/glasers, You Tube at the TheGlasersVideos and Twitter @TheGlasersInc.

Traditional Stories/New Media: Universal Themes of Humanity Found In A Hit Television Series

Josh Berman wrote and produced CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, for six seasons. His session will begin with the viewing of an episode of CSI entitled, “Werewolves”. In this episode, the CSI team solves the murder of a man suffering from hypertrichosis, the werewolf disease. The investigation leads to the victim’s sister, who also suffers from the medical condition, and has been living her whole life hidden from society.

Spiritual Underpinning of a Hit TV Show: The inspiration for Drop Dead Diva

Television writer/producer Josh Berman will present the premiere episode of his hit TV series “Drop Dead Diva”. Josh will introduce and screen the episode and then discuss how he went about creating, writing, casting, selling and producing this unusual, highly acclaimed comedy series about an skinny, vapid model who dies and comes back to life as a brilliant, plus-sized attorney.

Exploring the Human Condition through a Television Show:  Are You Being Serious?

In 2011, Lifetime Television aired an episode of Drop-Dead Diva entitled: “GOOD GRIEF”. The episode explores grief and over-coming loss and was a Humanitas Society nominee. The Humanitas Society honors television writers for work that “explores the human condition in a meaningful way.” Josh will introduce and screen the episode and then discuss the unique challenges presented in mixing comedy with tragedy.

Josh Bermanhails from Hollywood, California where he has worked as a television writer/producer for the past two decades and currently produces the HBOMax series The Gordita Chronicles, debuting in Winter of 2021. He began his career as a writer and producer of the hit CBS series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation for its first six seasons. Following his departure from CSI, he created two series for the Fox network: Killer Instinct and Vanished. Josh spent four seasons as Consulting Producer on the hit television series, Bones, while simultaneously writing and producing his own hit series, Drop Dead Diva, which currently airs on Starz, Amazon Video, and IMDBtv. Drop Dead Diva was nominated for a Humanitas Award, which honors writers for their work that “explores the human condition in a meaningful way.” Berman also co-created the series Notorious for ABC and the reality series Murder House Flip, streaming on the Roku platform.

The Functionality of Your Eye Brain Connection Integrating Periphery and Affecting Balance and Movement
Vision is learned and 75% of all sensory input is vision. Based on these two facts, learning how to use your eyes and brain together in a different conscious way will allow you to elevate and expand your learning potential and maintain your aging visual process. Come and experience hands on  how you can expand the way you see, think and move, all inspired by enhancing your newfound vision, and learn to integrate your eye brain, and conscious connection.

How to Expand Visual Memory for the Aging Brain:  A Hands-on Experiential Class
As we become aware that vision is learned, our visual memory is what will support us during our aging years but only if we know what it is and how we can access it. We are surviving on rote learning which is not serving us.  Come and learn how you can truly expand the visual memory capabilities that will serve you outside the Ranch and show you that as you tap more into the awareness of the vision, your memory can expand and can support you more than you realized. Don’t wait to train your eyes and brain to have enhanced visual memory.

Computer Vision & the Effects of Blue Light and Sleep
Come and learn how to enhance the comfort of your eyes in the ever-increasing world of computer exposure, the artificial light from screens, and the effects on our sleep. Enjoy an experiential lecture on learning how to increase comfort to your tired burning eyes, and how you can optimize good sleep during these times.

Dr. Dana Dean is a behavioral optometrist who specializes in holistic optometry and visual intelligence. She has had a private optometric practice in San Diego for the past 15 years. Originally from South Africa, she completed her studies in San Diego as well as attended the New England College of Optometry in Boston. She treats her patients holistically performing vision therapy on both children and adults. Her patients also include brain injuries, stroke victims and adults who want to achieve maximum success in life and reach their true potential.  Not only does she see patients performing eye-brain-body connection and building visual efficiency, she also lectures on the topics of vision and brain integration, vision and the aging eyes, vision and spirituality, vision with balance and coordination, as well as vision intelligence. Dr. Dana Dean is also a passionate advocate for educating teachers on the importance of vision and learning in a school setting.

Healing the Heart. Reversing Heart Disease with Lifestyle Changes.
Join Ben Brown MD, Medical Director for Ornish Lifestyle Medicine, as he shares the scientific background and more than 40 years of research on the Ornish Program for Reversing Heart Disease.

The Power of Plant-Based Living. The Nutritional Guidelines of the Ornish Program.
Learn the nutrition guidelines and your spectrum of choices for preventing and reversing the most common chronic diseases.

Mastering Change – Making Long-term Lifestyle Changes Stick.
Lifestyle change can be relatively simple when you have the right ingredients and an effective system. Join us to learn and apply some simple strategies to make long term changes in your lifestyle.

Ben Brown, MD, is Medical Director, for Ornish Lifestyle Medicine and an Associate Clinical Professor at University of California San Francisco. Ben has worked on lifestyle retreats with Dean Ornish, MD, since 1994. He has seen so many medical miracles with this powerful lifestyle medicine program that he was thrilled to become the Medical Director in 2014. The lifestyle program includes a plant based diet, relaxation, exercise and group support and has been scientifically proven to reverse coronary artery disease. Ben has more than 20 years in clinical medicine and has delivered more than 1000 babies. He has been a founding member for five non-profits and has spearheaded multiple community wide change projects. While in medical school he founded and directed an international non-profit (Community Partners International) to help serve the refugees along the Thai-Burma border and has done approximately 20 medical missions to the area and many missions to other areas (Bolivia, Haiti, Nicaragua). He worked as a rural family doctor in Point Reyes, California, and as Chief Medical Officer for Santa Rosa Community Health Centers. He teaches residents at the Santa Rosa Family Practice Residency where he developed an Integrative Medicine for the Underserved (IM4Us) Fellowship and started the IM4Us international movement (IM4Us.org). Ben is double boarded in Family Medicine and in Integrative Medicine, and has written and lectured extensively on reversing heart disease, physician wellbeing, facilitating life-style change and transformation. He is an award winning photographer, writer and humanitarian and is the author of 50 Simple Things to Save Your Life during Residency and is working on his next book, Know Yourself, Share Your Gifts, Master Change.