Gopi Gita Schomaker

I’m excited to be joining Kuli Mela this year and sharing three workshops:

✨ Money & Mission
Align your work with your values.

✨ Turn Your Strengths Into Money in the Bank
For youth ready to discover their strengths and future opportunities.

✨ Resolve Conflicts
Practical tools for navigating difficult conversations.

If you’ll be attending Kuli Mela, I hope to see you there!

Conflict isn’t something to fear.

In fact, conflict can be one of our greatest teachers.

Every disagreement reveals something important: differing needs, perspectives, values, or expectations. When we learn how to navigate those differences with curiosity instead of judgment, conflict becomes an opportunity for growth.

One of the most important skills we can teach children is not how to avoid conflict, but how to work through it.

When students learn to listen, communicate, and seek understanding, they develop skills that will serve them for the rest of their lives—in their friendships, families, workplaces, and communities.

Conflict is inevitable.
Resolution is a skill.

Last month, I had the opportunity to lead a two-day Leadership Teaching workshop for a wonderful group of ISKCON educators in Indiana.

One of the things I love most about this work is connecting with teachers who care deeply about the children they serve. Together, we explored student leadership, agency, connection, and practical ways to create learning environments where children take ownership of their growth.

I left feeling inspired by their dedication, thoughtfulness, and commitment to helping the next generation thrive.
I’m looking forward to returning this summer for the next phase of our Leadership Teaching training.

Most people think conflict is the problem.
It’s not.

The real problem is that most of us were never taught how to navigate conflict in a healthy way.

We avoid difficult conversations until resentment builds. Or we react in the moment and say things we later regret.

Over the last several decades, I’ve worked with children, parents, educators, business leaders, and communities. No matter the setting, the same principle holds true: when people feel seen, heard, and understood, solutions become possible.

This Sunday is the second and final session of my Conflict Resolution series at Kalachandji’s.

We’ll explore practical tools for:
✨ Navigating difficult conversations
✨ Understanding the needs beneath the conflict
✨ Building stronger relationships
✨ Creating more peace in our homes, schools, workplaces, and communities

I’d love to have you join us.

One of the biggest mistakes we make in education is focusing only on the outcome.

The grade.
The test score.

But growth happens long before the outcome arrives.
When students are involved in setting goals, tracking their own progress, and reflecting on their effort, something powerful happens: they begin taking ownership of their learning.

They stop working for the teacher and start working for themselves.

As educators, our role is not to control every outcome. Our role is to create an environment where students can grow, learn from mistakes, and build confidence in their own abilities.

Celebrate the progress.
Celebrate the effort.
Celebrate the courage it takes to keep going.

The outcomes will follow.

Want to learn how to create a classroom where students lead, take responsibility, and support one another?

🔗Download my free Leadership Teaching ebook. Link in bio.

One's back and one's going.

My Nitai has come home from two months of summiting mountains. When he was six he was scared of Hoover Dam's height, and now he's been scaling the Alps, in five countries!

My Vraju has bought his first home and will be moving out shortly! He's worked hard, ever-responsible and his aunti Kunji is making his dreams come true.

Leadership Teaching/Parenting/Selling continues to expand! Every call is abundance: money flowing in. A $50,000 customer for one; a $2million dollar donation for another. A child who's finished building a tree house in one group, a teen who's fixed a friendship that was on the rocks in another. Teachers literally holding hands and singing kumbayah (hare krishna) and school leaders recognizing their own immense power.

Though my boys spend less time with me cuz of busy days, they continue to be my very reason for being. Their few words and thoughts direct my mission. They push against any externalized religious pressure, and they can't stand my performative tendencies. Their dislikes are needed and wanted, and I eagerly hear so I can learn.

They are no longer the future. They are the present, and represent a whole generation of bhakti kids. If I'm not going to listen to them, what's the point of years of a bhakti education?

I love their leadership in my life. And I love every moment of their breath. Especially the ones where we're laughing and jabbing and continuing shenanigans.