Tony Zampella
HE / HIM / HIS
Activism and unlearning led Anthony V. Zampella to found Bhavana Learning Group in 2000. His firm works with coaches, educators, and executives, bringing wisdom to leadership. As a wisdom coach, teacher and mentor, he blends Buddhist psychology and practice with Western learning methods to develop generative communications, expand unlearning capacity, deepen listening, and cultivate contemplative practices.
Learning and unlearning that brings wisdom to leadership .
Popular Talks
Deep Listening
What is Deep Listening, and how can we create reliable practices to sustain it?
Unlearning Mindset
How to cultivate the ontological humility and inquiry to expand openness for unlearning.
Contemplative Practices
Rethinking our notion of practice to involve a post-meditation way of being.
Generative Communications
Unlock being human in language to generate mutual commitments and shared meaning.
Community, Coaching & Workshops
Conscious Leadership
Conscious leaders seek out blind spots to cultivate an interdependent awareness, integrate diverse perspectives, and employ varied competencies to serve multiple commitments.
With practice and wisdom, we increase self-awareness and contextual awareness to navigate the cultural changes and complexity that involve learning and unlearning.
Generative Communication
Generative Communication transforms our relationship to language from being describers of some objective-knowable world to being designers of reality.
With distinctions in language, communication develops the openness to bring something new into existence or inspire action that changes a situation.
Deep Listening
Our Deep Listening certificate program (with 34 CCEs from ICF) offers experienced coaches and leadership practitioners embodied learning and practices to develop the openness to transform your listening.
The art of deep listening evokes awareness, cultivates presence, and develops trust and intimacy.
Coaching & Mentoring
Our work with coaches expands consciousness to develop a spacious, flexible, and grounded coaching mindset to serve clients.
Through our body of distinctions, body of knowledge, and body of practices, we cultivate presence from an interdependent awareness.
Learning Community
Our three communities of practice support learning and unlearning in community to move beyond our individualism and integrate change.
Impact
- Generative communication expands the capacity for conscious leadership from service and creativity.
- Unlearning capacity deepens listening practices to develop reflective inquiry.
- Interdependent awareness with contemplative practices develops clarity to deepen wisdom.
Our work brings wisdom to learning and leadership to enhance collaboration, cultivate relationships, and deepen trust.
“My two years of working with Tony left me breathing deeply, standing in my center, and leading global transformation work. He brought the resources, practices, and relentless power of his listening to my personal transformation. As someone who creates major shifts in the world, it was a true gift to be coached and mentored by him.”
— Tina Maloney
“Tony provides a remarkable opportunity for continuous improvement and a quest to become/ be a stronger leader. Leadership skills are within everybody. [His work] will broaden perspectives, enable more effective communication, and develop a skill set that enables students to be stronger contributors right from the beginning of their professional career.”
— Sheryll Moser, IT Project Manager, Boeing
Activism and unlearning led Anthony V. Zampella MSOL, MS, CP to found Bhavana Learning Group in 2000. His firm works with coaches, educators, and executives, bringing wisdom to leadership. As a wisdom coach, teacher and mentor, he blends Buddhist psychology and practice with Western learning methods to develop generative communications, expand unlearning capacity, deepen listening, and cultivate contemplative practices.
An author and curriculum designer, Tony also works as a conscious leadership consultant and researcher. His research includes ontology and phenomenology, generative language, Integral Theory, stage development and integration, and contemplative pedagogy.
From early in life, Tony was drawn to activism and learning. Struggling with his own sexual orientation, he dropped out of high school in 1981. After coming out, he became an LGBT and AIDS activist (1984-97), published an LGBT weekly newspaper (1986-94), and served as a Human Relations Commissioner (1993-97) for the city of San Diego.
In 1993, he was shot in the neck in a gang-related incident. With this “wake-up call,” he earned a B.A. in Sociology (UCSD), M.S. in Journalism (Columbia University), M.S. in Organizational Leadership (Mercy College), and graduated from Nalanda Institute of Contemplative Science with a certificate in Contemplative Psychotherapy (CP).
Coaching since 2000, Tony served as faculty at Mercy College until 2005, directing its graduate Leadership program, and part-time at Rutgers University business school.
A Buddhist practitioner since 2000, Tony is certified in Foundations of Ontological Design; Open Space Technology; Appreciative Inquiry; Spiral Dynamics Integral; and Spiritual Intelligence.
Tony’s blog, Unlearning Curve, explores learning and leadership. The ICF has cited his research on listening; he contributed to the textbook: Complex situations in coaching: A critical case-based approach (Routledge June 2019); and is currently contributing to an anthology of Gay male coaches.
Let’s collaborate to ensure a transformative experience.