The road to lasting change can be hard.
Being a cause-driven leader is rewarding but challenging, even in the best of times. Peaceful Pioneers is your community of refuge, renewal and reconnection to what matters.
Being a cause-driven leader is rewarding but challenging, even in the best of times. Peaceful Pioneers is your community of refuge, renewal and reconnection to what matters.
Your tribe, or the tribe that awaits you, looks to you for hope and light. But you have your days of darkness and quiet despair, and you sometimes forget to refill your own emotional reservoir.
You devote most of your intellectual capacity to your cause, which often leaves too little time for you to gather powerful and cause-advancing insights from other leaders.
The hurdles you encounter on the road to change can get you down, feeling beat up, and disconnected from the pulse of our shared human spirit.
Sometimes, we choose our cause. More often, our cause chooses us.
We stumble into the causes we champion, often through life-changing or deeply painful moments that unleashed a desire to do more good. The change we seek is not just a thing we do, it’s an extension of who we are. It’s often a spirited embodiment of our personal healing, the final stage of a journey where we’ve turned that pain into a purpose that serves our companies, communities or countries.
At Peaceful Pioneers, we get that. We know that when you step up to lead, it’s a deeply intimate expression of why you walk the earth. We revere that truth about your work, we understand the need to refine that expression in a sacred space, and we strive to show up with the same resourcefulness and personal touch that you do.
You can walk this noble path of inner transformation, then outer mission, alone. You can choose to stay in your silo of smarts, wondering where your next intellectual breakthrough or charge of emotional and spiritual energy is going to come from. Or you can join Peaceful Pioneers to lift your spirit and strengthen our collective voice for those in need.
Our mission is to fill Peaceful Pioneers with cause-driven:
These are the people who move and inspire us with what they stand for. They are fueled to drive change from the inside out, from that infinite well of inspiration we tap into, one soul, one company, one cause, and one movement at a time.
And, on that road to change, we all gather precious stories and scars that are worth reading, writing about and growing from. These stories contain quarks of insight, atoms of peace and elements of wisdom. Through the telling, sharing and celebration of these stories, Peaceful Pioneers makes it possible to learn from and with each other, with openhearted honesty and uplifting grace.
I’m Maya Mathias, Founder and Host of Peaceful Pioneers. All my life, I’ve looked to balance my dreams of making a difference, with my obligations as a productive member of my family and society. A successful career in the corporate world taught me how to lead, but it didn’t quench my thirst to solve problems that move the needle for humanity.
When I said yes to becoming a social impact entrepreneur, I spent more than 6 years searching for the fuel I needed to keep my dreams and momentum alive. I invested time, energy and money in communities of all shapes and sizes, but soon found that
– business owner communities weren’t as open to helping me navigate my inner tensions, or healing my inner pain – it was usually all about the money and making the next sale
– spiritual communities didn’t offer the practical support I needed to channel my soulful inspiration into the causes I care about
– innovation communities were too prescriptive, and didn’t address the human element that helps game-changing ideas thrive, or how to tell stories in a way that opens minds and moves hearts
– advocacy communities were devoted to the cause – as they should be – and not on holistically developing the leaders who championed that cause
Eventually, I found my peace and got what I needed through all those communities, but wish I’d had one place where my leadership potential could be nourished on multiple dimensions – intellectually, emotionally, spiritually – and where I could be seen and cherished for my unique voice and contribution.
That place didn’t exist. So I decided to create it, and Peaceful Pioneers was born.
The world seems to get more chaotic each day. Daily life brings its own challenges – raising our children, being a caregiver, dealing with personal and professional emergencies – all of which can knock us off kilter, and make our professional goals seem that much further away. And when those challenges inject unspoken, or unspeakable, pain into our hearts and minds, our professional goals become almost insurmountable.
Peaceful Pioneers provides regular moments of reflection, release and integration, to help you navigate the realities of being human. Our content, conversations and check-ins serve to turn your grief into growth, your rage into resilience, and your fears into fuel.
The peace that emerges will keep your mind clear, your heart wise, and your spirit light on your path of positive change.
Malala Yousafzai, the Stoneman Douglas High School students, Muhammad Yunus, Maya Angelou, Nelson Mandela…these peaceful pioneers thrive(d) on their emotional, intellectual and spiritual independence. They zigged when everyone else zagged, because they maintained a resolve that kept their path true and their voices strong.
Peaceful Pioneers actively encourages and nurtures that sense of independence. You’re not here to be like anybody else. Your personal story isn’t like anybody else’s. Your passion for your cause is all your own. We cherish that about you, and we provide a safe space for you to attain, or maintain, that resolve in your work.
Here’s a brief sample of what lies in store for you, with new conversations, connections and communion being added all the time:
Access to Write with Wisdom 101, a guided 4-week program for you to reflect on:
– the lessons you’ve learned and the wisdom you’ve gleaned, to advance a mission or cause you champion
– and express your true self more richly
Access to our Executive Book Club (EBC) Group, with resources that:
– dig deeper into the books we feature in our Executive Book Club podcast
– turn the wisdom in those books into grounded action for your own leadership
You’ve been around the business-building and/or cause-championing block, and have the stories and scars to prove itWe’re deeply invested in building your emotional, intellectual and spiritual reservoirs as you seek to change the world. Invest now in more peace, perspective and purpose for the work you do.
Choose the level of conversation, connection and communion you’re looking for.
$250/year
$900/year
$2000/year
We envision Peaceful Pioneers as a space that, through nurturing its members, will uplift 10 million lives around the world in the next decade.
As a Founding Member, you’ll help to shape the way we accomplish that goal. We want you to come for the rich conversations and thought-provoking content, and hope you’ll stay for the sincere support and soul growth that Peaceful Pioneers offers.
The service and features at Peaceful Pioneers will only expand over time, with an inherent value that exceeds your Founding Membership fee. As a thank you for lending your time and voice to shape Peaceful Pioneers in these early days, you’ll enjoy a “price lock” guarantee i.e. you’ll continue to pay the rates you see on this page as long as you stay in the community.
If you decide to leave Peaceful Pioneers, then rejoin at a later date, you will be charged the prevailing membership fee on that date.