Beyond EI Live
The Beyond EI Live Series highlights the practical ways Emotional Intelligence is used to face whatever life throws our way. Come and listen to genuine, unscripted conversations, with the experts, where we explore new practices and strategies to embody our Emotional Intelligence. Join Tony Saccardi, your host, and a new guest every month as they dive into today’s relevant topics such as career, employee retention, work-life integration, mental wellness, goal setting, the emotional brain, stress resilience, and much more…
Next Webinar:
Awakening Your Five Senses: A Guide for Intention-Setting in 2026
In this edition of BEI Live Session host, Michele Nevarez and her guests, Lidia Lins and Florencia Ramirez, will talk about:
- Clarify what you want to feel in 2026—and access those feelings in the present moment through your five senses
- Why anchoring intentions in your body creates a trajectory for embodied change, not just another list of to do’s
- Sensory practices for everyday moments to connect with yourself, with others, and the world around you.
The conversation is scheduled for 30 minutes and the final 15 minutes will be reserved for Q&A.
Learn about the speakers
S. Michele Nevarez
Michele Nevarez brings 25+ years of executive leadership and 32+ years of Tibetan Buddhist practice to her pioneering work in Embodied Emotional Intelligence. Author of Beyond Emotional Intelligence: A Guide to Accessing Your Full Potential and Founder of Beyond EI, a coaching and training firm, she translates ancient contemplative wisdom into science-based practices introducing people to what they have direct agency over within themselves.
Michele Nevarez, SPHR has spent 25+ years in organizational development and senior leadership roles working with Fortune 500 companies in investment management, healthcare, manufacturing, and management consulting. A founding member of Rangjung Yeshe Institute, a university based in Nepal, Michele has served on the Boards of Directors of non-profit organizations ever since and has been practicing Tibetan Buddhism for the last 32 years.
Michele founded Beyond EI, a coaching and training firm, to address what traditional approaches to leadership and emotional intelligence often miss, the integration of embodied practices with an approach towards habit change that creates opportunities to put theory into practice. As an author and thought leader, she has pioneered frameworks to help leaders understand the hidden mechanics of perception—where they’re on autopilot and where they have emotional agency.
Her work includes the Awareness Matrix, the Mindbody Map, and the 12 Self-Discoveries, methods for practicing awareness and sense-making. Michele has spent her life attempting to bridge ancient wisdom practices with science and leadership theory to provide secular yet powerful ways for people to embody their own wisdom and follow their inner guidance system.
Lidia Lins
Lidia Lins is a Brazilian artist and voice activation coach based in Portugal. With a PhD background in science, she bridges empirical knowledge with ancient healing through her “medicine music” and signature voice work that helps women communicate authentically from the heart.
Lidia Lins is a Brazilian Voice Activation Coach & Singer and Songwriter currently living in Lisbon, Portugal. With a background in sciences, therapy and yoga, Lidia found a way to express her most genuine emotions and tap into her intuition through the power of activating her true voice. Currently, Lidia works in two fronts: she has merged her therapy and singing skills into her own version of voice activation, a powerful tool to bring us closer to our authentic selves and improve how we communicate with others, and she delivers powerful medicine music concerts with the intention to bring us back to our hearts and our most authentic selves. She believes in the power of the voice & sound as a healing tool.
Lidia has been singing since the age of 12, but because of societal expectations, she thought that pursuing a career as a scientist would make her more successful. She worked as a scientist for 15 years, and it was only when she embarked on a spiritual journey with sacred plants, that she discovered that her purpose was somewhere else: she wanted to bring more healing to the World through her music and voice work.
In 2022, Lidia started coaching others into exploring their voices and in 2024 she consolidated her 12-week program: “Your Naked Voice Mentorship”.
Lidia has also published her first album in 2023 called “Libertad” (freedom), and since then she has been performing in several national and international festivals and retreats.
Florencia Ramirez
Florencia Ramirez is author of Eat Less Water and creator of Casa de Sueños writing retreats. Her Santa Fe sanctuary on 5 acres offers the perfect container for transformation—complete with labyrinths, an adobe altar space, and farm-to-table nourishment.
Florencia Ramirez is the author of Eat Less Water and the forthcoming The Kitchen Activist (Red Hen Press, Fall 2026), books that reveal how the choices we make in our kitchens ripple outward to regenerate the planet. She is the host of The Kitchen Activist Podcast, where she invites listeners to reconnect food, water, and joy through everyday acts of sustainability.
As the founder and director of the Pesticide-Free Soil Project, Florencia leads community efforts to transform school food systems and advocate for policies that protect children and ecosystems from harmful pesticide exposure—especially in communities near schools and farmland.
For more than a decade, Florencia has also guided women through Casa de Sueños Writers’ Retreat in Santa Fe, helping them uncover their voices through embodied writing practices. Her five-acre property—with two labyrinths, an adobe altar room, and spaces designed for reflection—is both sanctuary and catalyst, a place where women shed who they thought they should be and step into who they truly are.
Past Topics
