About Tama
"Follow your rebel brilliance."
~Tama Kieves
Life is short. Here's some quick links:
TAMA’S BIO
Tama Kieves, an honors graduate of Harvard Law School, left her law practice with a prestigious corporate law firm to write and help others unlock the extraordinary faculties within them. She’s the best-selling author of:
- Thriving Through Uncertainty
- This Time I Dance! Creating the Work You Love
- Inspired & Unstoppable: Wildly Succeeding in Your Life’s Work!
- A Year without Fear: 365 Days of Magnificence
- A Course in Miracles for Life Ninjas
Featured in USA TODAY, the Huffington Post, Forbes, as well as on ABC News, Oprah Radio and other national media, she is a sought-after speaker and visionary career/success and book coach, who has helped thousands world-wide to discover, launch, and thrive in the life, calling and businesses of their dreams.
Tama is on the faculty of the Omega Institute, the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, 1440 Multiversity, the Esalen Institute, and has presented at TEDx and Canyon Ranch. She speaks and leads retreats nationally/internationally and is known for her electrifying presence, grounded compassion, dynamic sense of humor and the believable and sweeping possibilities she ignites in others. After discovering the wisdom path of A Course in Miracles, she’s taught it in an interactive and highly experiential way for over 30 years.
“I was put on this earth to champion visionary minds, creative souls, freedom junkies, love-driven entrepreneurs and change-agents, and anyone who wants to live and work from inspiration instead of fear. I may also have been put here to eat great Thai food.” – Tama Kieves
(Media or Event Planners: Need a shorter bio? Let us know. We’ve got the goods! As well as pictures you can use.)
TAMA’S MESSAGE
(I'll take a Hallelujah if you please!)
Mavericks, meaning-seekers, lovers of humanity, creative change agents, writers and more — this is for you. I believe it’s time for an Inspired Revolution.
I want to live in a world where everyone is rocking their brilliance, living the lives they’re meant to live and doing the work they’re meant to do. It’s time for all of us to take our talents and vision into the world.
It’s time to stop trying to fit into the world or make it in the world, but instead re-make the world with our love and excellence.
It’s not crazy to want a rich, authentic, contributive life.
IT's crazy
to deny the
inspired power
that lives within
you
Really, it’s crazy to deny the inspired power that lives within you. In times of economic uncertainty, true passion is your greatest security.
Many of us are “bridge people.” We are left brained and right brained. We are analytical and creative. We are sensitive and grounded. We are drawn to the light and yet have our feet on the ground, some in red Prada, others in worn Birkenstocks. Some of us have higher educations. Some of us have learned things that no school teaches– and we could never explain. We are liaisons between worlds and ways.
Sometimes, we have felt like misfits. But, really, we are mavericks. We are stepping into new territories.
We are both/and people.
We are wearing coats of many colors.
We don’t fit in any boxes.
We span categories.
We are taking the power we have in the world– and beginning to use our higher powers.
We are here to normalize the inspired, alternative, and brilliant.
We are here to give creativity and spirituality authority.
We are here to love like never before.
We are here to honor all the intelligences within humanity.
We are here to listen to our souls.
We are here to walk in new ways into a new world.
We are the ones who will make the incredible, credible.
We are here to create a new mainstream of exponential possibilities.
We are different.
And we will make the difference to those around us.
We will choose love instead of fear.
We will choose to soar.
Welcome dear ones. I am grateful to share this journey into amazement with you.
TAMA’S STORY
How it all began...
The moment I read Catcher in the Rye in high school, I knew I wanted to write. But growing up Orthodox Jewish in Brooklyn, New York, writing wasn’t on the menu of options: Become a doctor. Or lawyer. Or marry one. No one said Mazel Tov, when I shared my love of creativity. “You’re going to write? You’re going to starve!” said my mother. And everyone I knew agreed.
Maybe you got a similar message, too, about the impossibility of your true desires. Maybe with a different accent.
I graduated from Brooklyn College, City University of New York. And sent in a grease-stained application (I thought it was futile) to Harvard Law School. I was miraculously accepted. And later, I graduated with honors and with trepidation. I flung that crimson silk cap high into the Cambridge sky on graduation day, it would land not only as a crown and a halo, but also as a ball and chain.
Because though I practiced law for an elite corporate law firm and though I landed on partnership track, I did not feel successful. I was slowly beginning to realize that success only means something when you mean something to yourself. I felt empty. And I feared my own feelings. The constant gnawing inside: There has to be something more to life than this.
But I couldn’t figure out any other options with my frantic linear mind. I had no sparkling faith or trust in myself, a Higher Intelligence, or even the cosmic tooth fairy, back then. That’s when pain saved the day. Pain forced me to finally listen to my brilliant heart—as well as my mind.
The moment that changed everything...
Desperately unhappy, I took a solo vacation. I ended up staring at the waves on a beach in Northern California, sobbing, even wondering if I could take my own life. I was so tired. I couldn’t bear to practice law anymore. And I could not let myself quit. Again, my linear mind could see no successful way through this. I was in a boxing match between who I thought I “should be,” and who I was truly meant to be.
But that day, sitting on the beach, eating a cinnamon raisin bagel, and just watching the waves, I had a simple epiphany. Another way of understanding myself and my desires. I wrote in my journal in wild handwriting: Just watching these waves, I am feeling better than I’ve felt in years. This bagel cost 50 cents. This ocean doesn’t cost a thing. Maybe I don’t need to make a gazillion dollars to be happy. Maybe success isn’t just about financial security for me.
Later I told my friend, I wanted to leave my law firm, but I couldn’t imagine how my life could work out. He said softly, “If you’re this successful doing something you don’t love, what could you do with work you do love?”
The logic of the question seared me. I knew I had to answer that inquiry with my life.
I left the practice of law to undergo the art, practice, and baptism of listening to myself in this lifetime. I walked out of my legal career without a plan, without much savings, without a viable source of income, without anything – all to follow my own inner voice instead of everything I’d been told. I wanted to know in my lifetime: What happens if I trust my own desires instead of deny them?
Where I am Now...
I cannot imagine that I could ever have chosen a life other than the sublime one I’m in. I’ve written and published five books—and more are in the works! I’ve traveled to different parts of the world as well as all over the country, speaking, teaching and helping others awaken their inspired lives. I lead and participate in life-changing retreats. And I’ve had the deep privilege to coach thousands of people and watch them experience their true power.
And this success means the world to me. It’s breathtaking to have my books (and work) grow in popularity almost solely through word of mouth. I never take this for granted. Amazing souls write to me: “I am crying as I write to you to tell you… ” And I cry when I read their words.
I continue to fall madly in love with this life. I am surely standing on holy ground. Oh, and it’s really fun!
I am still learning. It’s a dedication to rock your brilliance. It means continuously moving past old stories and fears and opening to new magic.
If you’ve read my books or participated in one of my events, you know I reveal my challenges as well as my insights and clarity. I share it all. Partly because I’m from New York City— and, well, that’s how we do it. But mostly because I know I will teach and inspire you more…if you see my stumbles and freckled humanity. So, I’ll keep sharing. Because I intend to keep growing. And I want you with me!
And to that younger self who sat on a beach and ate a bagel, I say thank you with all my soul.
And to all of you who join me on this transcendent adventure through life, I say thank you, thank you, thank you, more than you know.
I believe in you. I believe in all of us. And I believe in the inspired world we are daring to create when we rock our brilliance.
Visuals
My BOOKS
Some places where I’ve had the privilege to speak:
In the media:
Just Me!
