Free live workshop · Two hours
In one free two-hour live session, take a step towards creating the life you truly want for yourself.
Values-Based Decision-Making is a practice that surfaces the clearest picture of what matters most to you, then uses it as the filter for the decisions that shape your future.
Save my seatLive only, no replay. Bonus time is available afterwards for anyone who wants to go further with this work.
Have what you need to register? Save your seat above.
Want the full picture? It’s all below.
We are living in unprecedented times, and truthfully, we have been for a while. The rate of change hasn’t just increased, it has become exponential. You can feel it in conversations with friends, see it in the news cycle, and sense it in the general rhythm of the world. Life feels inherently unstable.
Between global shifts and personal pressures, our attention is being pulled in a thousand directions it does not need to go. At some point we have to stop and say: ‘No. I will not let my focus be hijacked away from my family, my well-being, and my vision for the future.’
“I have the ability to give myself permission to say no. Even though I’m good at something, always giving is depleting and can distract me from my goals.”
LisaPast participant
A friend recently described a kind of emotional whiplash from the news, where each week brings a story more jarring than the last. When we let the world decide where we look, we hand over our power, and we lose the ability to direct and create our own lives.
Reclaiming that power starts with knowing yourself and what truly matters to you. It asks for a shift back toward creating an ideal reality for yourself and the people you love.
Values-Based Decision-Making is the time-tested practice that makes this possible. It helps you envision the future you actually want now, not the one you thought you wanted ten or twenty years ago. With that vision as your filter, each decision becomes a deliberate step toward the life you are building rather than a reaction to whatever is loudest that week.
This is a living practice, not a prescribed and rigid formula. The process doesn’t ignore change, it works with change and grows stronger because of it. This adaptability is what lets you stay grounded and sovereign even as the world keeps accelerating.
Sovereignty is the ability to choose. Others don’t dictate what you focus on, you do.
That is the foundation of sovereignty, internally and externally. When you let circumstances or other people choose your focus for you, you are giving up that sovereignty.
The world is not going to slow down, and you can still become unshakeable within it. This is where you learn to stop reacting to the world and start creating your own.
What you will experience
A hands-on session, not a lecture of pure theory.
You will not just hear about the practice, you will work with it and leave with a bespoke experience of your own. Together we will:
- Pause long enough to notice where your attention is actually going, and reclaim it as the currency it is.
- Envision what you want your life to look and feel like.
- Meet the heart of Values-Based Decision-Making and draft your first compass, in plain language you can start using right away.
- Connect in small groups with people from all walks of life who are asking the same honest questions you are.
- Walk away with a felt sense of this practice, not just an idea of it.
“The realness of both of you made this feel accessible and possible.”
RhyaPast participant
Bring someone with you
If this speaks to you, there is a good chance it will speak to someone you care about.
Invite a friend, a partner, a colleague, or a client to come and experience this approach together.
Part of what makes this workshop different happens because we connect as a learning community, through reflection, in breakout conversations, and sharing our insights. Again and again, people discover that despite wildly different lives, they are wrestling with remarkably similar questions. It is one of the most surprisingly valuable elements of the experience.
The details
Two hours, live, and completely free.
- Date
- Saturday, August 29th 2026
- Time
- 12:00 – 2:00 pm CTChicago, Illinois, USA. Check what time that is where you are.
- Length
- Two hoursAdditional bonus time is available afterwards for those who want to go even further with this work.
- Cost
- Free
I keep the experience alive on purpose. Why?
How many self paced online courses have you bought and are still not started?
The demands for our attention are never ending. Yet when we slow down and intentionally connect with ourselves, children, loved ones or an activity, we can fully immerse ourselves within the connection.
If this was just a talking head experience, I would just send you a video. Change so often happens when we’re engaged and in reflection with others to unearth the wisdom within ourselves and within the room.
Change occurs with a lived experience, and that only happens when we are here together, meeting as people and relating to each other in real time, something a recording can’t provide.
“If you have something holding you back in life, if you want to make better decisions, or create your own clear path and you’re willing to put in the work, Javan is going to help you see quick improvement.”
Drew SampleFarmer and podcaster
The exchange
Two hours of your full attention, live and undistracted.
In return you don’t just leave with notes about a tool you might use someday, or having nodded your head in feigned agreement, or just plain nodded off. You leave having built the first version of your own decision-making compass, in your own words, used throughout the workshop and yours to keep for the rest of your life.
Most of what competes for your attention offers the opposite trade, a small permanent tax on your focus in exchange for nothing you keep. This is the reverse. You give half of an afternoon to the process and walk away with something that keeps paying you back every time you face a decision that has consequences, as long as you use it.
And if you show up fully and it still turns out not to be for you, you will have spent time in good company, clearer about what’s important, while having invested in the most important thing that matters. You.
“One of the most effective, truly personalized and context-driven systems for decision-making that is out there. Through nearly a decade of systems thinking, analytical work and strategic planning, I’ve yet to come across a more thorough but also practical and straightforward approach to making decisions. I’m not sure there’s someone out there who COULDN’T find value from this course. Highly recommended!”
Susan CousineauEvolutionary biologist
What this work has made possible
It would be easy to say everyone could benefit from this. I don’t think that’s true.
This work asks effort from you. It asks for honesty, reflection, and a willingness to explore yourself and your future, which can be uncomfortable at times. Not everyone is ready for this level of self exploration, and that’s okay.
For those who are willing to do the work, here are some of the outcomes people have shared with me:
- Joyfully saying no after years of people pleasing at their own expense.
- Avoiding more than $500,000 in debt by making one difficult but values-aligned decision.
- Leaving the comfort of the city to begin the life they had dreamed about for years on the land.
- Creating a clear personal compass they return to whenever life becomes confusing or opportunities compete for their attention.
- Finding work that genuinely fits them after years of settling for jobs that simply paid the bills.
- Regaining a level of mental clarity and focus they hadn’t experienced in decades.
- Rebuilding trust and getting back onto the same page with a spouse after years of drifting apart.
- Navigating the complexity of multiple businesses, relationships, health challenges, and competing priorities with greater confidence and less overwhelm.
This workshop won’t solve your life in two hours, but it will put you on the path to make your desired future closer than it appears.
“Javan helped prevent me from potentially making a $50,000 business mistake in a mere 15 minute phone conversation, not from sharing his own opinion on the situation but from asking the right questions, that illuminated my own needs and weak links, making the decision obvious. I am so very thankful to have access to his guiding influence when needed.”
Zach WeissElemental Ecosystems & Water Stories, USA · Values-Based Decision-Making client
Showing up fully
The depth of this session comes from genuine presence.
So we ask everyone to arrive ready to be here fully, which includes:
- Join for the whole session, start to finish, rather than dropping in and out.
- Settle into a dedicated, stationary space, not a moving vehicle or the middle of an errand.
- Turn your video on and use headphones if you can, so we can actually see and hear each other.
- Set your distractions aside for these two hours to immerse yourself.
- Use the chat with intention, keeping it on topic and holding off on links that pull attention elsewhere.
If being fully present is not possible today, that is completely understandable, and you are warmly invited to a future session when the timing is better.
Meet your instructors
The people you’ll be working with.
Javan Kerby Bernakevitch
Facilitator & guide
Javan has spent twenty years helping people uncover the wisdom already in the room, fifteen of them online: more than 1,500 students through Oregon State University, facilitating Voice Dialogue since 2019, and thousands of hours holding space for individuals and teams.
He came to human systems through living ones. For seventeen years he designed resilient land-based properties and enterprises across Canada, the US, East Africa and beyond, and kept finding the same thing. The land was rarely the limiting factor. The people, their decisions, and how they worked together always were.
That’s the work now. With individuals it looks like Life Design, Values-Based Decision-Making and Voice Dialogue, ranging from executive coaching to reflective inquiry depending on what the engagement needs. With organizations it’s strategic design, facilitation and leadership development. Across all of it, his job is less to give you the answer and more to ask the questions that make your own answer clear.
He is certified in the Xchange approach to participatory facilitation, trained in Voice Dialogue and Compassionate Inquiry, and grounded in the Art of Hosting and a daily nervous system regulation practice. He lives and works in rural Ecuador and facilitates remotely across the world.
Tristan Holme
Social designer & group facilitator
Tristan is a social designer, group facilitator and intentional community co-founder based in South Africa. He came to this work by living it, using Values-Based Decision-Making in his own life and in the communities he has helped form and sustain, and that lived experience is what he brings to holding space for others.
In the courses he works as a teaching assistant and small-group facilitator, and offers one-on-one sessions to help you clarify your values and practice making decisions from them. Students tend to describe his support as grounding, insightful and steady, which is the quality he most wants to offer: a calm, attentive presence while you do the real work of figuring out what matters and where you’re headed.
If you can’t make it, or want to go deeper
A few ways to continue.
If you cannot join us live, I recommend watching the Values-Based Decision-Making Introduction hosted by Zach Weiss as a starting point.
And if you are curious about going further, and using Values-Based Decision-Making to improve your life, your future and yourself, here are a few opportunities below.
Four sessions
An Introduction to Values-Based Decision-Making: The Daily Compass
Learn how to make one decision that makes a thousand decisions, and enhance your quality of life while accomplishing more. You’ll assess an area of your life you’d like to improve, envision the future you desire, highlight a value that will get you there, and on a daily basis use that value as a standard to direct your actions.
- Saturdays 12–2pm CT · November 7, 14, 21, 28, 2026
- Saturdays 12–2pm CT · February 20, 27, March 6, 13, 2027
Seven months
Values-Based Decision-Making Certified Practitioner 2027
Design your life from the inside out. Identify what truly matters to you, and use it to make holistic decisions that create your desired future, one step and one action at a time. If you’re looking to dive deep and embody your values in a way that will set you up for the future, this is the course for you.
- Saturdays 12–2pm CT · Begins April 10th 2027
- 10 live sessions · 3 support calls
To learn more about the upcoming courses sign up for newsletter
“If you ever wanted to feel like Merlin the Magician in the game of Life this class is the dress rehearsal! By far one of the best decisions I’ve ever made was to sign up and spend a couple of hours a week with Javan and Tristan. I looked forward to each and every class. Excellent facilitators, great content, amazing results in a gentle, fun, supportive environment. Make the time to be there, and how you choose what you do with your time will be forever changed.”
Shannon MarisUSA · Student, An Introduction to Values-Based Decision-Making
Further praise
In their words.
“This has been one of those rare opportunities to challenge my longstanding belief that I need to sacrifice my happiness in order to be successful. Instead of choosing a goal and letting my lifestyle be fluid around it, I can embrace my ideal lifestyle and let my goals become fluid to support it. This is a game changer.”
Jeff MaciejkoWeb developer
“Faced with an opportunity to buy back a portion of the family farm, I was overwhelmed with emotions and biases. I couldn’t see straight. After reviewing my context, speaking with Javan, and doing the hardest work there is on the farm, thinking, it became clear this opportunity just wasn’t for me. I sidestepped $500,000 in debt, saving time, frustration, and financial pain. My current businesses and quality of life have never been better. Thanks a million, or should I say, half a million!”
Takota CoenRegenerative property designer
“I came into this course feeling burnout from years of pushing myself to just go go go. The course gave me a feeling for how to use my decision making muscles differently and how to recognize when I was falling into old patterns. It gave me the confidence that I could navigate my way to a different result and I am now excited to explore that process.”
Stephen WeinbergSoftware engineer
“The journey of self-discovery isn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be, and it’s far more necessary than I realized.”
JustinPast participant
The invitation
There’s more to take from our attention and less to replenish it.
The complexities of life have only increased exponentially over our lifetimes. If you’re confused, or you don’t have an answer that satisfies you to these questions:
How do I envision my ideal future?
How do I guard my attention?
How do I create the future I seek?
Then this experience is for you. Give yourself the gift of two hours where you focus on you and a process that can make your desired future one step closer than it was when you started.
Save my seatSaturday, August 29th 2026 · 12–2pm CT · Live only, no replay
I hope to see you in the workshop.
Javan Kerby Bernakevitchjavankerby.com