Being the Change
(Level 1)
Discover Your Hero Within
Originally designed for educators and students desiring to keep the spirit of Challenge Day alive in their schools, our Being the Change Workshop has expanded to welcome anyone interested in personal growth. It is a powerful communication and connection tool for relationships of all kinds, including the relationship with yourself.
Being the Change is a live event with Challenge Day Founders, Rich and Yvonne, designed to help you reawaken the hero inside your heart. Fun, engaging and practical activities support you in taking action in your life. Experience unconditional acceptance. Heal your past. Breakthrough any limit and create the quality of life you desire. Leave inspired to "be the change" by being your most authentic self and living your true purpose.
The workshop features our simple three-step Formula for Change: Notice–Choose–Act, our trademark If You Really Knew Me activity, and other activities designed to bring more compassion, clarity and hope to your life. Rich and Yvonne share lessons and experiences they have learned from their lives and teach about the theories and practices of Challenge Day. The workshop is full of simple tools and activities that you can take into your families, groups and communities. The main focus of the workshop is to provide you with the first-hand experience of what it feels like to live in a world where everyone feels safe, loved and celebrated – so that you can experience this as a true possibility in your life and discover (remember) the hero in your own heart.
Our unique, compassionate approach to ending violence and oppression will leave you with an experience that you will never forget. Many people say this is the “best weekend of my life!”
"It reminded me of who I really am, and that I can be (am already) the person I've always wanted to be. It healed me and opened me up in surprising ways. Thank you!" – Caitlin
"Incredibly powerful. This workshop changed the way I see myself and every human being on the planet." – Joe
"One of the greatest decisions I have ever made for myself, my students and my children." – Katherine
Feel a Deep Belonging
Gain unique and powerful tools for improving collaboration, connectedness, and communication and empower a feeling of inclusion and belonginess while reducing isolation, alienation, and loneliness
Transform Relationships
Learn and practice core Challenge Day philosophies and techniques that can transform relationships; enable positive change while increasing authenticity and compassion, as well as social and professional fulfillment in all types of interpersonal interactions
Find Freedom with Personal Growth
Greater clarity of personal purpose, freedom from emotional roadblocks, and tools for determining and creating one’s best possible life
For More Information
Get started by Contacting Us or calling us at 925-957-0234.
Living the Change
(Level 2)
Create the Life of Your Dreams
Living the Change Workshop is an advanced training for those who have completed Being the Change Workshop (Level 1) and who are committed to creating the lives, relationships, and world of their dreams.
Living the Change is a live event with Challenge Day Founders, Rich and Yvonne, designed to challenge you to compassionately examine all areas of your life, including the self-limiting beliefs, patterns and stories that prevent you from being your most magnificent self. Deeply transformative and emotionally healing, this workshop will empower you with the tools and vision to live the life of your dreams. All of us have special gifts to share with the world. Join with teachers, parents, counselors, students, and many others from all walks of life. Celebrate what you love about your life and be supported in your courage to live authentically and 100% fully alive.
The workshop is held once annually and fills up fast. Join us for one of the best weekends of your life!
"Absolutely necessary and life changing!" – Sevan
"In just 3 days, I feel like a changed woman!" – Caitlin
"This workshop was a brilliant experience full of love, insight, growth and connection. Life-altering!" – Alyssa
Life Assessment
Compassionately look at all areas of your life, celebrating what you're proud of and diving in to the areas you wish to change and improve
Healing
Learn how to eliminate blocks and stories that limit your full expression. Experience heart opening techniques, access tools to more authentically relate to others and your own life experiences
Liberation
Learn to live your life 100% fully expressed and create the life of your dreams with life-affirming techniques of affirmation, forgiveness, and individual expression to create deeper relationships in every area of your life
For More Information
Get started by Contacting Us or calling us at 925-957-0234.
Couples Workshop
Create the Relationship of Your Dreams
Join Challenge Day’s Founders, Rich and Yvonne for an inspiring weekend to create the relationship of your dreams and/or to deepen the trust and love you already have together. Rich and Yvonne share the magic of their relationship and how they have stayed best friends and passionately in love for nearly 30 years. This fun, rejuvenating, experiential workshop is designed to shine a light on the current state of your relationship, providing practical and heart opening tools and strategies for deepening your connection as a couple. Give your relationship the gift of time, intimacy and attention it deserves.
"Those looking to practice passion and compassion must experience this first hand from these master practitioners!" – Eugene
"Deeply nurturing and heart opening. Turbo charge boost to the deepening of our relationship. Yum!" – Justin
"A beautiful opportunity to learn simple tools for deeply connecting with my love and life partner... and sharing with a community of couples in all stages of relationship and love!" – Monica
Learn Joyfulness & Deepen Connection
Experience more fun and playfulness in your relationship and experience greater understanding and acceptance of one another while learning how to deepen, nurture, and care for your relationship
Communicate Compassionately
Improve communication and learn tools for listening with deep compassion and healthy emotional expression as a way of building intimacy and partnership
Increase Intimacy
& Romance
Learn and practice tools for increasing romance and reducing conflict in your relationship. These tools include daily practices and weekly date night suggestions and much more
For More Information
Get started by Contacting Us or calling us at 925-957-0234.
Families
Create the Family of Your Dreams
Imagine what would be possible for you and your family if past hurts were healed, if everyone was operating from compassionate communication and if your family created their highest vision together? Over the years, many families have participated in our Being the Change and Living the Change Workshops, deepening their connection and vision for what's possible for their family and the world around them. As participants in our workshops, families gain invaluable tools for deepening the love, respect and connection between them. Register for a workshop - bring your whole family for a different kind of family reunion!
"It helped our family identify what we love and what triggers us about one another. This awareness provided the opportunity to tell our family what we love and appreciate about them and work through the personal triggers that kept us disconnected. Which forged a deeper closeness and trust amongst us. Healthier communication was birthed from this process as well. Sharing ourselves with a motivation to elevate instead of bring each other down. We love more genuinely and mindfully now having been a part of this experience. – Mitch McVicker
"Attending the program was one of one of the most amazing gifts our family has given to each other. The way in which we learned a sustainable communication model to navigate life together has been huge. We were able to understand and heal generational wounds at a core level. The facilitators are magical!" – Amy Clark, The Roach Family of Foundations
Deepen Understanding
In a shared group environment, experience greater understanding and acceptance of yourself and others, while learning how to deepen, nurture, and care for your relationships
Communicate Compassionately
Increase compassion and learn to communicate and express both positive and challenging emotions. Reduce conflict by practicing safe and effective forms of communicating and interacting with others.
Celebrate
Connection
Experience the power of acceptance and love. Celebrate the openings that come through the courageous exploration and release of unexpressed judgments, resentments and pain.
For More Information
Get started by Contacting Us or calling us at 925-957-0234.
Why Have You
Come To Earth
(Level 3)
A Three Month Journey Into Unfolding and Living Your Life Purpose
Why have you come to earth? Do you remember?
Join Challenge Day Founders, Rich and Yvonne and Master Facilitator, Justin Hilton, for an incredible four month journey into remembering why you came to earth and being in action around your life purpose. Includes 11 workshop days, 2 group and collaboration sessions and private coaching.
Space is limited to 30 participants and because this is a life mastery course we are giving preference to those who are committed to taking their lives to the next level and being in action. The is the "act" of the NOTICE-CHOOSE-ACT portion of our formula for change. If you are ready to commit and feel a passion for discovering what’s next in your life, this Intensive is for you!
$1495
$1250 Returning participants
"Mind blowing! The most beautiful gift you can ever give yourself."
"I found my true essence."
"I confronted my blocks and learned to shine again."
"I found my purpose and the support I needed to bring my passion to life."
"I expected a lot. I got that and more."
Unlock Your Passion
Be compassionately coached and powerfully guided into discovering your true purpose on earth.
Answer the Call
What if there is no accident you are alive right now? Dive deep into your own being and fully bring your unique gifts and talents into action.
Grow Leadership
Gain and grow in leadership skills, interpersonal communications, ability to collaborate, emotional intelligence, group process and team building, and project design.
For More Information
Get started by Contacting Us or calling us at 925-957-0234.
About Yvonne & Rich Dutra-St. John
“If we settle for tolerance, we have failed. Our goal is love.” - Yvonne and Rich
Experts on relationship building and communication, Yvonne and Rich Dutra-St. John have worked for over 30 years to break down the walls of negativity, judgment, separation, isolation and loneliness replacing them with compassion, understanding and love.
As graduates of the California public school system, Yvonne and Rich experienced first-hand the costs and consequences of bullying and isolation in school. Committed to making things better for their own children, they founded the innovative and award-winning Challenge Day Program in 1987.
Challenge Day has directly served 1.5 million youth and adults in 2200 schools, 48 states and 10 countries around the world.
Challenge Day’s programs have expanded to touch the hearts and lives of millions of youth and adults throughout the world with the gift of film. They have been interviewed on a variety of news broadcasts, and twice appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Their life changing work has been featured in several nationally televised documentaries: The Emmy award-winning Teen Files: Surviving High School, MTV’s If You Really Knew Me, Tom Brokaw’s Bridging the Divide, and The Bully Solution, which won the Canadian Blue Ribbon Award for excellence in broadcasting. Internationally, Challenge Day has been the subject of Posh Production’s Over de Streep (Cross the Line), which aired for 5 consecutive years and has expanded into Belgium, as well as a documentary that was filmed in Uganda entitled Boys Don’t Cry. Additionally, in 2016, Rich and Yvonne designed 8 shows for a series in The Netherlands entitled, Als Je Me Echt Zou Kennen (If You Really Knew Me) where they had the honor of working with diverse groups of parents, teachers, recovering addicts and courageous homeless individuals during the filming. Challenge Day was also featured in the book, Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul.
Awards
- Champions of Forgiveness by the World Wide Forgiveness Alliance, 2005
- People Helping People Award from New Directions Counseling Center, 2006
- Champions of Change from Tom Brokaw, 2010
- Bigger Game Player Award from Laura Whitworth and Rick Tamlyn, 2015
Drawing on a lifetime of experience, Rich and Yvonne have developed numerous specialized programs for groups and organizations ranging from school faculties, police officers, prisons, senior citizens, faith based communities, athletic teams, businesses, nonprofits, summer camps and staff retreats. They speak on a variety of topics such as diversity education, gender training, addictions, couple’s communication, parenting, team building and relationship building. Their keynote addresses and experiential activities have inspired individuals to live, work and interact as the everyday heroes they were born to be.
They have presented programs at various conferences, companies, and organizations including The Coca-Cola Company, The Million Dollar Round Table, The Kalamazoo Foundation, JFK University, The Boost and Push Conferences, Families First, The Bigger Game Expo, The Peace Alliance, Reach for the Future, TeenWork, The Whole Life Expos, The United Nations, The DARE Officers Association, The American Association of Group Psychotherapists, Transfinder Inc., California Solano County Men’s Prison, the Girl Scouts of America, and many more.
Their book, Be The Hero You’ve Been Waiting For has inspired thousands and has been the subject of many classroom and family discussions. Their inspirational message of hope, compassion and service permeates everything they do. As individuals and as a couple, Rich and Yvonne are masters at demonstrating what it means to live passionate, productive and meaningful lives. They are currently working on a series of additional books designed to deepen the reach and impact of their work for years to come.
March 15 - 17, 2019
Couples Retreat:
Create the Relationship of Your Dreams
Santa Cruz, California
$315 Tuition
Plus 2 nights all-inclusive accommodations priced separately
- Rekindle or co-create the romantic relationship of your dreams
- Give your relationship a nourishing gift
- Learn to focus your attention on, and be in service to, your partner
March 29 - 31, 2019
Being the Change (Level1):
Discover Your Hero Within
Concord, California
Adults $395 (Save $100: deadline 2/22/19)
Teens $125 (Save $30: deadline 2/22/19)
- Be the Hero You've Been Waiting For
- Learn ways to transform relationships
- Free yourself of emotional roadblocks
