About Us

James Gimian

James Gimian has been studying and teaching The Art of War (the Sun Tzu Bing Fa) since 1980. He served as the general editor of the best-selling translation The Art of War: The Denma Translation (2001) which received critical acclaim from military officers, business leaders, and Asian Studies scholars. Gimian followed that with The Rules of Victory: How to Transform Chaos and Conflict—Strategies from the Art of War (2008), co-authored with Barry Boyce.

Gimian has been presenting lessons from the Art of War to business and non-profit leaders in North America, Australia, and Europe since 1985. His work takes the form of seminars, leadership training programs, consulting, and coaching. The core of this work is presenting the text’s profound strategic thought in clear, simple, and accessible training that enables today’s leaders to employ these tools in their work and lives amidst the challenges of an increasingly complex and uncertain world.

Gimian has served in leadership roles in the magazine and book publishing industry since 1972, including stints at Shambhala Publications, publisher of Lion’s Roar magazine, and most recently founding publisher of Mindful magazine and Mindful.org, a media launch in 2012 that has grown to reach over 2 million people per month. Gimian also founded Trident Booksellers and Café in Boulder, Colorado in 1980, which continues to serve as an employee-owned community institution. He became a student of the Venerable Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in the early 1970s and has continued the practice and study of the dharma since that time. Gimian currently serves as the Executive Director of the Foundation for a Mindful Society.

Barry Boyce

Barry Boyce is a professional writer, editor, and corporate trainer, who is the founding editor of Mindful magazine and mindful.org. He is co-author, with James Gimian, of The Rules of Victory, a commentary on the strategic principles that underlie Sun Tzu’s Art of War, and a member of the Denma Translation Group, which produced a groundbreaking translation of the Sun Tzu text, published in 2002.

A longtime meditation practitioner and teacher, he is the editor of and a primary contributor to the books The Mindfulness Revolution: Leading Psychologists, Scientists, Artists, and Meditation Teachers on the Power of Mindfulness in Daily Life, and In the Face of Fear. Barry served as developmental editor for US Congressman Tim Ryan’s books, A Mindful Nation and The Real Food Revolution.

Barry trained government and corporate leaders for twenty years as the principal communications trainer for Dynamic Learning, Halifax, Nova Scotia. He also taught communications in the Computer Science and MBA programs at Dalhousie University and at the Institute of Chartered Accountants, where he also taught the Art of War. On his own and together with James Gimian, he has taught seminars on the Art of War throughout North America and in Europe.

He and his wife live in Nova Scotia, and their daughters and granddaughters live in Toronto, Canada.

How you can learn more

We present the Rules of Victory and the Simple Rules in a variety of settings, including: