Djelani
Your Life, Reimagined
Through the lens of cultural and historical awareness, I facilitate transformation with high performance individuals and organizations in taking their performance to the next level. As an Internationally Acclaimed Mindset Strategist, I can help you or your team to breakthrough to transformation in the Creative Process. Much of my work has centered within international spaces through travel. Whether it’s going out on more auditions, breaking through your writer's block, finishing a script, a mid-life crisis, working on a team project, dealing with one of life's setbacks, making career changes, or you're just stuck in life, I’ll help you develop the habits and skills to effectively breakthrough.
Get to Know Me
As a fully-certified Mindset Specialist and International Guide for the past seven years and a credentialed educator for more than 30 years, I help clients in creative and career pursuits to achieve their personal and professional goals. The essence of my work focuses on engaging clients towards self-growth by first facilitating individuals and teams in identifying their core strengths so that they can overcome challenges and discover their most powerful creative self. I specialize in creating personalized plans and providing tools to guide clients forward that help activate their desired goals through intentional systems that support their unique brilliance and transformation in making a positive influence in the world. With a solid background as a teacher, activator, writer, and performer, I have enjoyed a long history of supporting creative individuals in finding their most powerful Self. In addition to coaching, I consult with creative organizations dealing with issues of diversity, cultural analysis, optimal achievement and change.
I completed a BM in Music, an MA in Theater, an MFA in Film Producing and I hold a PhD in Culture and Performance from UCLA. I am a graduate of the CaPP Institute's Executive Coaching and Positive Psychology Program and I am a member of ICF, International Coach Federation. Besides coaching, I have worked as an Education Specialist with children with disabilities in Los Angeles Public Schools, a college access coach and facilitator, as well as a Restorative Justice Facilitator in highly trauma informed schools, helping schools to create positive environments for student successes in all areas of their lives.
Because I like living life from the edge, I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane at 11,000 feet. I have had such adventures as taking a boat up the Niger River in Mali, West Africa to visit the ancient city of Timbuktu. I’ve visited the castles of enslavement in Ghana and Senegal. I have studied the genocide in Rwanda and the wars in Uganda. I’ve zip-lined over the canopy in Costa Rica. In total, I have traveled to more than thirty countries around the world, experiencing life changing adventures in each location.
I love learning about new cultures and languages, having completed extensive studies in France, Morocco and Senegal. My favorite travel adventures include climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, going on a safari in Kenya, and riding camels across the Sahara Desert. As a continuous student of French, I have experienced more than 20 visits to Paris. I participated in three Fulbright GPA projects in Morocco for three summers and I was selected to Participate in a summer program for the National Endowment of Humanities in 2021.
As an actor, my favorite role was performing as HUD in HAIR! At UCLA, I studied screenwriting with top teachers and was a finalist in the Diane Thomas Screenwriting Competition. Currently, I am developing a one-man theatrical drama that explores my life-long search to find belonging around the world as well as a social justice documentary set in the countryside in Senegal. My first book of poetry, "They Came with Empty Hands," is set for release in the Fall of 2022.
Because I love living life out loud, I have completed six marathons around the United States and I completed the first California AIDS Ride, a 500-mile bicycle ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles to raise money for AIDS organizations. Come along with me and let's create a great adventure together!