About Yea
On September 21st, 2011, my brother Kolajo went out for a morning run in Providence, Rhode Island and never came home. He was 31. A Harvard PhD candidate. My best friend, my doppelganger, the foundation of my family. The morning after he went missing, I wrote a missing persons email. Physical description. Daily routine. A direct ask. A forwarding instruction. I was not okay. And I was completely functional. Both of those things were true at the same time.
I did not know it then, but that email, written in the worst moment of my life, was the clearest expression of everything I now teach. Name the true thing. Break it into pieces someone can act on. Ask for exactly what you need.
Standing at Kolajo's casket, I made him a promise: that I would live the best life possible for both of us. I have spent every year since making good on it.
One year after he died, I stepped into work that had become my ikigai, the place where what you love, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what sustains you converge. I have never applied for a job since.
The method I teach was not built in a workshop. It was extracted from that loss, from thirteen rounds of fertility treatment to bring my second child into our family, from losing nearly 100 pounds and keeping it off for years, from shaving my head over the bathroom sink while my husband held the clippers. And from 25 years of sitting across from students and clients who were told the wrong story about why they were struggling.
You are not broken. You are not behind.
You are in the zone of hope.
And I can show you how to move through it.
Yea’s Bio
Yea Flicker is a keynote speaker, executive function coach, and the creator of the Not If But When Method. She began her work as an educator and mentor in 1997 and is the Associate Director of Learning Services at Marin Academy. Before Marin Academy, Yea managed the first Department of Learning Services for the College Preparatory School in Oakland and worked in learning services at the Urban School in San Francisco. She directed a transition to college program at the University of Pennsylvania for five years and has taught undergraduate courses in sociology.
Through her roles in learning services at independent schools, Yea has extensive experience advising parents, supporting students with diagnosed learning differences, interpreting educational and neuropsychological evaluations, and consulting with school administrators on AI protocols, curriculum, assessments, admissions, and learning services.
Yea collaborates with her husband Jai, founder of LifeWorks Learning Center and the creator of WayfinderAI, an emotionally intelligent AI thought partner. They live in Marin with their two children.