Center for The Empowerment Dynamic Site Map

We Are The Empowerment Dynamic

The Empowerment Dynamic is a set of relationships and roles that serve as the antidote to the toxic Drama Triangle — and to living life victimized by drama.

Through the roles of Creator, Challenger, and Coach, TED* empowers us to choose our response to life's difficult situations.

Our Mission

To inspire individuals, professionals, and organizations to grow more resourceful and resilient in all their relationships — with others, themselves, at home and at work — through simple, universal, and cross-cultural frameworks for thinking, relating, and taking action.

Our Vision

A world where all people are acknowledged as Co-Creators, endowed with the inherent capacity to generate outcomes, to choose their response to life events, and so live in harmony and cooperation with all living things.

Our Purpose

To transform human relationships in order to inspire and unleash the heart and soul of humanity.

People in conversation at a TED* training
The Center for The Empowerment Dynamic

Meet Our Team

Experienced guides for meaningful change.

Donna Zajonc
Donna Zajonc

Author, Co-Founder

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“Helping people fall in love with their Creator essence, to accept all parts of themselves they may have left behind, and to boldly live as never before.”

Like the apple tree that bears fruit or the songbird that sings, she expresses and writes what she is learning, because she must. She does this to be in service to a changed and evolved world.

Donna's sharing comes in many forms — writing the TED* Works blog, books, guest speaking, creating coaching curriculum, and teaching and facilitating courses. She teaches and coaches with a kind heart while courageously igniting a fire inside your heart and mind to leap into your highest and most evolved self.

Donna Zajonc has been a Master Certified Coach since 2013 and Director of Coaching for the Center for The Empowerment Dynamic. She is the author of Who Do You Want To Be on the Way to What You Want: Coaching with The Empowerment Dynamic (March 2022). She has collaborated with David Emerald for over 15 years. In 2017, she was honored by the Washington State International Coach Federation as Coach of the Year.

Daniel Rellaford
Daniel Rellaford

Chief Executive Officer

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“Deeply passionate about helping individuals and teams live and work with greater intention, creativity, and purpose.”

Daniel has a rich and varied background in strategy, operations, and people leadership. He currently serves as Chief Executive Officer for the Center for the Empowerment Dynamic where he leads business development, internal operations, and strategic projects.

Daniel began his career at Amazon in Human Resources, working in the Fulfillment organization as an HR Business Partner. He later joined Oliver Wyman as a management consultant, advising some of the country's largest health insurers and health systems on strategy and organizational transformation.

He holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and HEC Paris, and undergraduate degrees in Management and French from Brigham Young University. Daniel lives in Utah with his wife and three sons.

Jim Anderson
Jim Anderson

Advisor

Barry Rellaford
Barry Rellaford

Director of Strategic Partnerships

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Barry Rellaford is a globally sought-after leadership development expert with over 30 years of experience as a coach, facilitator, and leader in multiple organizations. He serves as an Executive Coach at the Brigham Young University Sorensen Center for Moral and Ethical Leadership.

He previously worked with Stephen M. R. Covey in developing Franklin Covey’s “Leading at the SPEED of TRUST” and has facilitated this work throughout the world.

He has a Master's degree in Labor and Human Resources from Ohio State University and a Bachelor's degree in Organizational Communication from BYU's Marriott School of Management. Barry and his wife, Lorilee, are the parents of six children.

Martha Sims
Martha Sims

Community Manager

Eric Conover
Eric Conover

Director of Organizational Partnerships

It began with a personal epiphany…

Several decades ago, our founder David Emerald learned about the Karpman Drama Triangle and its corresponding roles. He yearned to escape the drama present in his life at the time.

In the summer of 2003 he met his wife Donna and moved to the Pacific Northwest of the US. There he came across a journal in which, years earlier, he had played around with a replacement set of roles. Shortly thereafter, he shared with Donna that version of the "alternative triangle," which evolved into the TED* (The Empowerment Dynamic)® framework and its affirmative roles of Creator, Challenger, and Coach.

David Emerald Womeldorff speaking at a conference
David and Donna Emerald

TED* Progresses

Encouraged by Donna, and from enthusiastic responses he received when sharing TED* with friends and colleagues, David wrote and self-published in late 2005 The Power of TED* (The Empowerment Dynamic) as a fable on self-leadership. A new TED* web site was launched soon after.

At the time, David and Donna had no idea how much this little book would make such a big impact in the lives of so many — at home, at work, and in many of their most important relationships.

TED* spread very organically between individuals searching for an "escape" from the dramas of everyday life and also began finding its way into organizations — large and small — as a set of leadership and culture-building ways of thinking, relating to others, and taking action.

The Center for the Empowerment Dynamic is Born

Many published works and courses taught later, David and Donna realized in a unifying (if not a "duh!") moment that all their work for individuals, professionals and organizations revolved around The Empowerment Dynamic. And thus, the Center for The Empowerment Dynamic was birthed!

From the very beginning, David and Donna's shared commitment was to ensure this work would endure far beyond their own involvement. The diverse and powerful community of 3VQ Certified Practitioners and the ever-evolving offerings of the Center for The Empowerment Dynamic stand as a testament to that vision, assuring that TED* will be helping people to thrive for generations to come.

David Emerald speaking
TED* leadership team

Where We Are Now

In April 2025, our beloved founder David Emerald Womeldorff passed away, leaving behind a legacy that has touched hundreds of thousands of lives across the globe. David's vision — that every person holds the inherent capacity to be a Creator, to shift from problem focus to outcome focus, from reaction to purposeful action — remains the beating heart of everything we do. His life was a living demonstration of TED*, and his passing has only deepened our commitment to carry that work forward.

In the wake of David's passing, the Center for The Empowerment Dynamic has undergone a thoughtful restructuring, ensuring that the frameworks, tools, and training programs he built continue to grow and reach new communities. Under the stewardship of our leadership team and the global network of 3VQ Certified Trainers, we remain steadfast in our mission: to inspire individuals, professionals, and organizations to live and lead with greater resourcefulness, resilience, and compassion. The work continues — and the world needs it now more than ever.

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