Ashley Rhodes-Courter
From Foster Care to Fearless Advocate: Empowering Stories of Resilience
Fees and Travel
$20,000 plus $2500 travel buyout; plus up to 2 nights hotel on purchasers account
Biography
Since her first National Keynote at age 14, Ashley Rhodes-Courter has shared her story with thousands in the United States and in over 7 countries.
Ashley Rhodes-Courter, MSW, is the quintessential American success story. Born in 1985 to a single teen mother, by the age of 3 she was in Florida’s foster care system where she spent almost ten years being shuttled between 14 homes—some quite abusive—before being adopted from a Children’s Home at the age of twelve.
Despite her ordeal, she excelled in school because she believed that, “my education was the one thing nobody could take from me.” Early in her life she felt compelled to advocate for herself and the other children she lived with, particularly in the abusive foster homes.
Her efforts and academic achievements landed her Eckerd College’s Trustee Scholarship where she graduated with honors and ahead of schedule earning a double major in Communications and Theater and a double minor in Political Science and Psychology. Ashley then went on to earn a Master’s Degree in Social Work from the University of Southern California.
During her undergraduate studies, she was one of 20 college students selected for the USA Today All-USA Academic Team and was named one of GLAMOUR Magazine’s Top Ten College Women. She was also selected as one of the four Golden BR!CK Award winners for outstanding advocacy for community change by DoSomething!. As part of their campaign, she was featured on 25 million bags of Cool Ranch Doritos.
By the age of 22, Ashley had become a New York Times Bestselling Author. Her first book, “Three Little Words” is now an International Bestseller and has been published in at least 4 countries. Her second book, “Three More Words” debuted at #1 on Amazon Bestseller’s List. Both books are used in classrooms across the country in various community and First Year Experience Collegiate programs.
Ashley has received State, local, and National awards for her speaking, advocacy, and philanthropy. She has spoken on Capitol Hill and has been invited to the White House twice. “Three Little Words” is now being made into a major motion picture.
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Keynote Topics
Three Little Words:
What three little words could change your life? “Change Your Narrative” In her highly sought-after keynote, Ashley Rhodes-Courter, unveils a journey of survival, resilience, and triumph against all odds. Formerly in foster care, enduring severe abuse, she emerged as an award-winning New York Times Bestselling Author. Prepare to laugh, cry, and be inspired by her firsthand experiences and exceptional insights.
Helping the Helpers:
Mitigating burnout, mastering stress-relief techniques for handling anxiety, tragedies, and disappointments. Differentiating authentic self-care from what isn’t, promoting self-advocacy and support for others. Ideal for individuals in roles directly serving others—whether through jobs or volunteer work. A powerful reminder that the transformative impact of changing one person’s life begins with just one individual
Schools as Sanctuaries:
School was a sanctuary for Ashley where she was protected and encouraged by teachers and faculty. These unspoken heroes often do not receive the credit they deserve. Ashley’s trainings and keynotes provide content that help educators identify abuse, neglect, bullying, and explore complicated family dynamics. Audiences leave with useful tools and a renewed sense of purpose and passion.
Power of Perspective:
Delving into the Growth Mindset: Unlocking Potential; Distinguishing Between Major and Minor Challenges; Self-Discovery and Processing the World; Practical Insights for Cultivating Optimism; Extracting Lessons from Experiences; and Motivating Audiences to Prioritize Solutions over Problems. Through this reframing process, audiences acquire skills to confidently navigate challenges, embrace new opportunities, master effective communication, and overcome imposter syndrome.
Be The Change:
Adversity, and even trauma, possesses the power to fuel growth and transformation. Embrace the inevitability of change to excel both in the workplace and in your personal life. Ashley Rhodes-Courter guides audiences to navigate challenges with flexibility and an open mind amid emergencies, cultural shifts, and personal trials. Drawing from personal experiences, Ashley illustrates how tragedies can be transformed into purposeful triumphs.
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Ben Whiting
Transforming Cultures: Achieving the Impossible with Engagement and Entertainment
Fees and Travel
$20,000 plus $2500 travel buyout; plus TWO nights hotel on purchasers account
Biography
Ben Whiting achieved international success as an award-winning magician and mind-reader by creating an atmosphere on stage where the impossible was possible and where human connection had no limits. As an entertainer, he’s performed in over 30 countries, had multiple television appearances, and his clients include the likes of Crystal Cruises, Oprah’s HARPO studios, and Facebook.
Recognizing his passion for helping others in their careers and day-to-day lives, Ben began focusing on keynote speaking and leadership development in 2014. Shortly after delivering his first TEDx talk, he was hired by an international leadership development firm to create and deliver content around the globe. His consulting clients have included international companies like UNiDAYS, as well as Fortune 50 corporations such as Schlumberger.
Today, Ben combines his backgrounds in leadership development and corporate entertainment to help organizations create cultures that can achieve the impossible (while having A LOT of fun). He’s been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, the New York Times, and his clients include Apple, Google, American Express, and Amazon.
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Keynote Topics
Create A Limitless Culture
Better Results, Better Relationships, Limitless Possibilities
What do you get when you combine a background in leadership development with decades of corporate entertainment experience? You get something that is fun, engaging, and that builds a bridge between insight and actionable strategies to bring the best out of your people. This is what Ben Whiting’s Creating a Limitless Culture™ keynote delivers.
In addition to experiencing draw-dropping (and often hilarious) magic and mind reading, your group will be able to instantly increase productivity through better communication, reduce drama by learning how to create and sustain quality relationships in the workplace, and learn to thrive amidst constant change with a simple mindset shift that will also help them find not just happiness, but fulfillment in their day-to-day work lives (all while having A LOT of fun!).
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Jason Lauritsen
Leading With Relationship: Transforming Workplaces Through Authentic Connection
Fees and Travel
$15,000 plus $2000 travel buyout; plus up to 2 nights hotel on purchasers account
Biography
A dynamic keynote speaker, Jason Lauritsen is a true thought leader in the world of work and employee engagement who is dedicated to revolutionizing the way we Lead With Relationship™. He fearlessly challenges traditional norms to reshape the employee experience by consistently placing authentic human connection at the heart of leadership.
A firm believer that leadership is most impactful when it’s built on genuine care, support, and respect, he helps organizations reimagine their role in helping people lead fuller, more meaningful lives.
As a corporate executive, Jason cracked the code to doubling company revenue per employee. But it wasn’t until he began working at a company responsible for Best Places to Work contests across North America that he discovered the key that unlocks employee engagement, no matter the organization: People experience work as a relationship.
He is the author of two books, Unlocking High Performance and Social Gravity: Harnessing The Natural Laws of Relationships. His thought leadership has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, Talent Management magazine, HR Executive magazine, and SHRM publications.
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Keynote Topics
LEAD WITH RELATIONSHIP
The True Path to Employee Engagement
This impactful keynote inspires your audience to transform how they lead by helping them to understand one fundamental truth:
We ALL experience work like a relationship. That means we crave the same things from work that we do ANY important relationship in our lives: acceptance, appreciation, and commitment. Through this eye-opening talk, Jason delivers an experience that helps leaders put an end to any outdated ways of managing people, so they can instead liberate employees to deliver their best.
CHECK IN BEFORE THEY CHECK OUT:
How to Engage and Retain Top Talent
The Check-In Method presented in this keynote empowers audiences to self-assess their relationships with those they lead. In doing so, they learn to turn opportunities for connection into the support employees need to be happy, effective, and productive. The Check-In Method helps audiences become the leaders people want. By learning this fail-proof formula to strengthen their relationships with individuals and teams, each attendee uncovers the secret to dramatically improving retention, performance, and engagement.
Social Gravity:
Unleashing The Power of Relationships
We’ve heard it our whole lives, “It’s not what you know, but WHO you know that matters.” In this dynamic keynote, Jason teaches audiences how they can make a bigger impact, move their organizations forward, and fuel their success by leveraging the profound power of relationships. Jason shares the Six Laws of Social Gravity and invites audiences as a roadmap to help attendees transform their careers, businesses, and lives for the better.
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Jeff Havens
Serious Solutions. Seriously Funny.
Fees and Travel
$20,000 plus $2500 travel buyout; plus up to 2 nights hotel on purchasers account
Biography
Jeff Havens is not your typical business growth expert. His uncanny ability to provide actionable answers to today’s business challenges in an undeniably entertaining and impactful way has put him in front of over 1,000 eager audiences across North America and Asia.
AN IMPACTFUL AND HUMOROUS KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Delivering well-researched and relevant business insight is something a lot of keynote speakers do, but combining that with the entertainment value of a comedy show is not. Engaging, charismatic, and full of energy, Jeff Havens is the only business growth expert who provides serious solutions in a seriously funny way.
But even more than that, Jeff makes things easy. All of us are constantly being asked to do more with less, so the last thing you need is someone to tell you how difficult your challenges are.
Jeff has a unique ability to simplify seemingly complex problems in a way that will provide your audience with a fresh perspective, one that runs counter to the conventional wisdom of the business world. He’ll show you that we’re not actually creating a completely new type of person every 15 years, and that being innovative is not something only a few special people know how to do. Both exceptional leadership and customer experiences are built on surprisingly slender foundations.
You will leave Jeff’s keynotes refreshed, relaxed, happy, and more confident than ever, feeling prepared for the road ahead.
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Keynote Topics
Uncrapify Your Future!
The Most Innovative Innovation Keynote In The History Of Ever
If you’ve listened to anyone talk about innovation recently, you’ve probably heard something along these lines: “The world is changing at a crazy fast rate. Everything you’re doing now is about to become obsolete. If you don’t come up with some amazing, industrychanging ideas in the next 18 seconds, your business is basically going to disappear. Have a nice day.” And if that’s the kind of doomsayer message that you and your friends love hearing, then you can stop reading now. But if you’d like to present innovation as a simple process that literally everyone is capable of performing, then you might want to listen to Uncrapify Your Future! Filled with the trademark wit that has made Jeff Havens one of the most in-demand speakers in North America, Uncrapify Your Future! will make the process of coming up with new ideas easier and more rewarding than you ever thought possible. Because it turns out that every innovation in every industry – from automobiles to streaming music, coffee cup holders to wartime treaties – follows the same straightforward pattern. Your business is always changing, and so you will always need people to anticipate and capitalize on those changes. If you want them to think that being innovative is a daunting task that only a few elites can handle, listen to someone else. But if you want your audience walking away realizing that they’re all capable of greatness, then Uncrapify Your Future! is for you. Oh, and did we mention that it’s also hilarious? Well it is. And imagine that – a keynote that’s both educational and enjoyable. How innovative!
Unleash Your Inner Tyrant!
The Most Original Leadership Keynote You’ll Ever See!
The first of its kind, Unleash Your Inner Tyrant! helps managers and executives become better leaders by showing them everything they should avoid – including how to create a culture of fear and mistrust, how to oppress and demoralize employees, and how to stand firm in the face of all change – before wrapping up with a serious conversation about the kind of leaders we should all strive to become. Covering four main areas of leadership – creating a healthy corporate culture; management/employee relations; crisis management; and change management – Unleash Your Inner Tyrant! is every bit as content-rich and intensively researched as a more traditional leadership seminar but has the added benefit of an unparalleled delivery style that will have your audience laughing the entire time they’re learning how to become more effective leaders. Simply put, there is nothing else like this in the business world, and no better way to energize your management team while providing them with invaluable training they will remember for months and years to come.
Conquering Tomorrow:
Change Management for People Who Occasionally think Changes Are Dumb
If there’s one thing that’s true for everybody, it’s that things are constantly changing. And sometimes that’s great, like when we win the lottery or land an important account. These are the easy changes to deal with, and nobody really needs help figuring out what to do about them. But sometimes change is not so great, like when we get divorced or our company goes through a restructuring or there’s a worldwide pandemic that comes out of nowhere and shuts the entire planet down – that happened once, remember? And when these changes hit us, we have a tendency to run and hide and kick and scream and basically deal very poorly with them. Unfortunately, deciding that we don’t like a particular change won’t make it go away. If only there were a way to see “negative” changes in a more positive light… And that’s where Conquering Tomorrow comes in. Designed for anyone who has ever approached an upcoming change with hesitation or dread (which is everyone, by the way), Conquering Tomorrow takes audiences on a journey through some of life’s most common “bad” changes – some personal, some professional – to reveal a profound and important truth: that while the process of going through difficult changes may not always be fun, the end result of those changes is usually far better than we’re afraid it will be. Oh, and did I mention that the whole thing is funny? Delivered with Jeff’s trademark wit and infectious enthusiasm, Conquering Tomorrow is a highly personalized approach to the one of the thorniest challenges facing modern businesses – getting employees to buy into the changes that will inevitably come. Part motivational speech, part change management seminar, and all hilarious, Conquering Tomorrow will leave your people feeling like they can handle anything the world throws at them – even if they weren’t looking for it.
Decoding Your Customers!
Perfecting the Customer Experience In Four Simple Steps
Ah, the customer experience. It used to be that you just had to provide customers with good service, right? But that somehow became synonymous with dealing with problems and putting out fires, and so now you have to provide your customers with an experience that is so positive, happy, seamless, and nauseatingly joyful that they will happily wait in lines for hours just for the privilege of giving you money. You’d be forgiven if creating a great customer experience sounds exhausting. If only there were a fun, funny, high-energy, deeply researched keynote to help you figure out how to make this process a little easier. Well now there is. Decoding Your Customers: Perfecting the Customer Experience in Four Simple Steps will provide you with a comprehensive, straightforward, and entertaining explanation for how to win hearts and minds like never before. Now there are plenty of other customer experience keynotes. But the overwhelming majority of them either tell you how important it is to make your customers feel special (which you already knew) or share stories of businesses who have loyal customers (which you’ve already heard). And if you want to hear what you’ve already heard before, then hire somebody else. Decoding Your Customers takes a vastly different approach. As hilarious as it is informative, this keynote concentrates on the human behaviors that have brought the customer experience to where it is today, then synthesizes those behaviors into four simple realities that provide a clear vision for how to move forward. Decoding Your Customers will answer why customers behave the way they do and how you can meet their needs – not only today, but into the foreseeable future as well. And last but certainly not least, this isn’t going to be a dry talk. You’ll walk away with a better understanding of customer psychology and how to adjust your business accordingly, but that doesn’t mean you can’t laugh as hard as you ever have at a corporate keynote. Because with Jeff Havens, you get serious solutions in a seriously funny way. It turns out that crafting a winning customer experience strategy isn’t as scary or unpredictable as others may have made it seem.
Us Vs. Them!
The Funniest, Most Informative Generational Keynote Ever!
If you’ve listened to any other discussion about generational issues at work, then you’ve undoubtedly been told there are four distinct generations operating side-by-side in today’s working world. You’ve then been told the differences between those four generations, and then you’ve been told (although probably not in these exact words) that you need to just deal with all these different people, because they’re not going away and they’re not going to change how they operate. If that advice suits you, fantastic. However, if you’ve ever been frustrated by how impossible it seems to employ four different strategies to manage four distinct generations, and if you’ve ever felt like you’re the only one who’s being asked to make any changes, then Us Vs. Them is exactly what you need. Because it turns out that there really aren’t four generations. In this hysterical keynote, you’ll learn a simpler way of looking at your own generational picture, and you’ll also learn how to understand, recognize, and resolve every generational issue facing today’s workforce. That’s no exaggeration; by the end of Us Vs. Them, you and your colleagues will walk away with all of the knowledge you’ll need to address 100% of the generational issues you’ll face for the rest of your career. Other generational presentations focus on what people want, but Us Vs. Them will tell you why everyone wants the different things they do. It’s an important distinction, and it will make implementing new solutions easier than you ever thought possible. So get ready to laugh more and learn more than you ever thought possible. Because improving your generational issues doesn’t have to be boring.
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Joe Gerstandt
Diversity and Inclusion: A Catalyst for Excellence
Fees and Travel
$20,000 plus $2000 travel buyout; plus up to 2 nights hotel on purchasers account
Biography
Joe Gerstandt is a speaker, author and advisor bringing greater clarity, action, and impact to organizational diversity and inclusion efforts.
Joe has worked with Fortune 100 corporations, small non-profits, and everything in between. He speaks at numerous conferences and summits, and blogs at joegerstandt.com. He is a featured contributor for the Workforce Diversity Network Expert Forum and his insights have been published in Diversity Best Practices, Diversity Executive, HR Executive, and numerous other print and on-line journals. He co-authored the book “Social Gravity: Harnessing the Natural Laws of Relationships”, and serves on the Intersectional Culture and Diversity Advisory Council for the social networking platform, Twitter.
A strong advocate for resetting the diversity and inclusion conversation, Joe sees this work as poorly understood and often misunderstood. His keynote messages and interactive workshops bring greater clarity, action, and impact to existing and new organizational diversity & inclusion efforts.
Joe grew up on a family farm in NW Iowa, served four years in the United States Marine Corps, including participation in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. He attended Iowa State University and then spent 6 years working in management and business development for technology and communication companies. Joe then made a career change and went to work for a grassroots non-profit organization doing HIV and STD prevention work. This work is where he found himself drawn to issues related to diversity and inclusion..
Today, Joe believes that we cannot afford to continue applying a 20th century approach to an increasingly critical set of 21st century issues. A strong advocate for resetting the diversity and inclusion conversation, Joe sees diversity and inclusion as poorly understood — and often misunderstood. His keynote messages and interactive workshops bring greater clarity, energy, and application to diversity and inclusion work.
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Keynote Topics
From “Anti” to “Ally”: A Story of Personal Transformation
For the past 15 years, joe gerstandt has been helping organizations of all shapes and sizes to find new clarity relative to diversity and inclusion, and to put new practices in place. But he did not take a very direct route into this work, in fact there was a time in his life when he likely would have rolled his eyes at what he now does for a living. The often-discomforting experience of becoming aware of and addressing his own privilege, denial, bias, and bigotry still informs his work today. This is a story of how one person’s heart, mind, and behavior changed and what we might learn from it. From his own story of growing up on a family farm in rural Iowa, serving in the United States Marine Corps, personal and professional successes and setbacks, and just being in the world with other human beings, joe distills insights applicable toward leadership, behavior change, culture change, and enlisting more allies in this work.
Inclusion by Design
What specifically do you mean when you use the word “inclusion?” It has become one of the most popular words relative to the modern workplace, yet in most organizations it remains a vague, ambiguous idea; and vague, ambiguous targets are incredibly hard to hit. If inclusion is the product you are trying to deliver, then you should be able to speak to its characteristics. This message brings a powerful new clarity to the concept of inclusion, what it is, why it matters and how it happens. The audience will leave this message with a strong foundation upon which to build impactful and sustainable diversity and inclusion initiatives.
Inclusive Leadership
Inclusive leadership requires more than a statement of commitment, it is an active practice. This session introduces you to that practice. Anchored in a practical model of what inclusion is, joe will introduce you to a set of competencies and commitments to ensure that your leadership is, in fact, inclusive. You will leave this session with work to do and tools to use, things that you can act on immediately.
Inclusive Leadership Bootcamp
Level up! This is an intense and highly interactive deep dive into inclusive leadership, that includes pre- and post-work. joe gerstandt will guide participants through an exploration of inclusive leadership competencies and commitments in four distinct areas; Awareness & Authenticity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Leadership; each with their own exercises, questions for personal reflection, and opportunities for practical application.
Hacking Inclusion
An internal hackathon is a high-energy, interactive way to model inclusion, invite greater diversity of thought and perspective into your inclusion efforts, generate creative new solutions, and build new relationships. Once participants are grounded in a common framework of inclusion, a basic process for “hacking,” a target and deliverables, they set to work competing against other teams with very real time constraints to solve an inclusion challenge within your organization.
Team Genius
Most leaders and organizations already care greatly about talent, but are we having the right conversation about talent? More and more of our work is today being done at the group or team level, yet our talent efforts remain laser focused on the individual level. We seem to be operating on the belief that if we group talented individuals together, we will naturally end up with talented groups. But it does not work that way, at the group level there are a bunch of other variables involved. This message provides research driven insights into what makes a talented team (cognitive diversity & psychological safety), as well as practices and behaviors for getting there.
The Authenticity Advantage
While the word “authenticity,” gets casually thrown around as if it is a simple, safe, and common thing, the truth is a bit more complicated. Authenticity, properly understood, is hard fought and often involves a fair amount of real and / or perceived risk. As a result, authenticity is often lacking in our places of work, in our personal and professional lives. Which is unfortunate, because authenticity is a pretty righteous thing. This session explores authenticity, what it matters on the individual and organizational level, and how to put authenticity to work for you.
Brave Spaces
On a fundamental level, inclusion is about creating spaces and places where people who are naturally different from each other can tell the truth to each other. Truth-telling also has consequences toward safety, and learning, and ethics, and our ability to solve problems. While we may want to tell the truth to each other at work, there are often risks (real and perceived) involved. One study suggests that as many as 75% of executive in Europe and North America have at least one business related issues they are not comfortable bringing up with their peers. And that is executives! Psychological safety makes it safer to tell the truth to your peers, and in this message, joe prepare you to take psychological safety back to your team. The audience will be grounded in the research behind psychological safety, what it is, and how it is established. Participants will also receive a slide deck to help them introduce the concept to their team, assess psychological safety and develop an action plan.
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Matt Havens
Making Your Business Human, One Laugh at a Time
Fees and Travel
$15,000 plus $2000 travel buyout; plus up to 2 nights hotel on purchasers account
Biography
Matt Havens is not your typical speaker. His uncanny ability to provide real-world solutions in a relatable and humorous way have made him one of the quickest up-and-coming speakers in the industry.
Matt’s signature style began in corporate America, where by 25 he pitched the C-suite boardroom of a Fortune 25 company on his plan to lead enterprise-wide transformations to capitalize on the “Millennial” opportunities present in the marketplace and the workforce. Matt’s work soon caught fire, and he began speaking to audiences all over the country, subsequently catapulting up the corporate ladder and leading teams in areas as diverse as marketing, sales, and customer retention. Matt has been at the forefront of driving massively-scaled change efforts, started new sales departments, and ran contact centers in 5 different U.S. locations. In short, his approach is baked in reality instead of hyperbole.
Matt now brings his simple yet profound solutions to companies, associations, and small businesses across North America. His stated mission is to put perspective into action – both professionally and personally – by unpacking our true motivations, and specifically how our answers relate to the meaningful relationships and connections we create. The versatility of his experience and expertise is why he’s frequently called upon to address a variety of topics ranging from generational differences, leadership, culture, communication, sales and building successful teams.
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Keynote Topics
Make Your Business Human
The 4 Human Truths that Drive Personal, Professional, and Organizational Success
In the not-so-distant past, business success was defined entirely by money. The bigger you were, the better; the more profitable you were, the more successful your business. End of story. Today, though, society is increasingly interested in how that success happens. Employees are no longer willing to work for companies whose ideals they don’t support or whose profits come by any means necessary, and customers are quick to abandon businesses that are insensitive or self-absorbed. In the past, one bad advertisement was an embarrassment; today, one inflammatory tweet can be fatal. The businesses that will succeed in the future will not be the ones that spend all their time thinking about how to sell more products and services at higher margins. Rather, they will be the businesses that recognize the common human needs and motivations that govern employee and customer behavior. Make Your Business Human is a transformative keynote that focuses not on the differences that so many of us seem fixated on (Boomer vs. Millennial, Leadership vs. Workforce), but on four profound similarities we all share. Organizations which understand, honor, and harness the qualities that make us human will outperform their peers in creating memorable customer experiences and true workforce engagement. This shift in perspective is not theoretical. It’s already happening. If you want to be on the leading edge of tomorrow’s success, then you need to be leading The Human Way.
Stop Acting Your Age!
If you’ve listened to any other discussion about generational issues at work, then you’ve undoubtedly been told there are four distinct generations operating side-by-side in today’s working world. You’ve then been told the differences between those four generations, and then you’ve been told (although probably not in these exact words) that you need to just deal with all these different people, because they’re not going away and they’re not going to change how they operate. If that advice suits you, fantastic. However, if you’ve ever been frustrated by how impossible it seems to employ four different strategies to manage four distinct generations, and if you’ve ever felt like you’re the only one who’s being asked to make any changes, then Stop Acting Your Age! is exactly what you need. Because it turns out that there really aren’t four generations. In this hysterical keynote, you’ll learn a simpler way of looking at your own generational picture, and you’ll also learn how to understand, recognize, and resolve every generational issue facing today’s workforce. That’s no exaggeration; by the end of Stop Acting Your Age!, you and your colleagues will walk away with all of the knowledge you’ll need to address 100% of the generational issues you’ll face for the rest of your career. Other generational presentations focus on what people want, but Stop Acting Your Age! will tell you why everyone wants the different things they do. It’s an important distinction, and it will make implementing new solutions easier than you ever thought possible. So get ready to laugh more and learn more than you ever thought possible. Because improving your generational issues doesn’t have to be boring.
You’re Not an Acronym:
A Practical Approach to Leadership
If you’ve been a leader for a while or are being groomed to become one, then you’ve probably taken your fair share of personality tests. Perhaps you know your Woo strength, or maybe you’ve recently discovered that you’re a purple triangle when you’re stressed. If this kind of information is all you need in order to be the kind of leader your people are excited to follow, then you probably don’t need to keep reading this. But if you’ve ever suspected that leadership may be about more than just you, then You’re Not an Acronym is the kind of leadership presentation you’ll truly appreciate. Matt Havens has spent over a decade in various leadership positions at a Fortune 25 company. He’s taken dozens of personality assessments, and he’s recognized a fundamental flaw in the way that all of them attempt to help people become better leaders. By addressing and then correcting this oversight, You’re Not An Acronym will help you expand your understanding of leadership exponentially – and you’ll do it while laughing all the while. Because not only is this one of the most insightful leadership keynotes you’ll ever sit through, it’s also one of the funniest. After all, boring isn’t a business requirement. So get ready to enjoy the process of becoming a more effective leader more than you ever thought possible!
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Sara Ross
Founder & Chief Vitality Officer at BrainAMPED
Fees and Travel
$15,000 plus $2500 travel buyout; plus up to 2 nights hotel on purchasers account
Biography
Sara Ross is an international keynote speaker, the founder and Chief Vitality Officer at BrainAmped—a leadership research firm—as well as the author of the book, Dear Work: Something Has to Change.
Sara is on a mission to help organizations and their leaders reignite a sense of aliveness in both their work and at home. She and her company do this by using brain science-based strategies to teach people how to amplify their emotional intelligence, resilience, and well-being.
As a leadership expert, Sara’s ideas and research have earned her a reputation as a fresh and thought-provoking voice in discussions focused on the future of work. As such, Sara is called on to work with clients such as Microsoft, PepsiCo., Cisco, Wells Fargo, T-Mobile, Rogers, Allstate, United Health, Fidelity, BMO, Stanford University, and as diversely as the U.S. Navy SEALs and the leadership team of the NBA’s Orlando Magic, among others. In addition, Sara has worked with numerous government agencies, foundations, and associations as well as guest lecturing in the executive leadership program at Smith College. This broad perspective and diverse experience help explain why Sara is called on to work with some of the most senior, technically sophisticated, and skeptical audiences.
You can count on Sara to bring her trademark energy with the integration of relevant, cutting-edge science and relatable stories of success and failures. Her approach is guaranteed to challenge the status quo, provide new insights and inspiration, and most importantly, leave audiences with a blueprint of actionable strategies.
Before founding BrainAmped, Sara spent a decade immersed in the neuroscience of Emotional Intelligence and Performance at a leadership development company where she served as their Vice President and Global Head of Leadership Innovation, Research and Education. As head of faculty, Sara and her team led the development and delivery of award-winning leadership programs, assessments, coaching and accreditation programs that helped leaders from across the globe to be their best, even in the most complex and stress-filled moments.
Sara has a Master of Science (MSc.) from the University of Waterloo. Outside of work, she is a coffee loving, meditation rookie who can’t help but slip in the occasional Canadian “eh” at the end of a sentence. Her husband describes her career as professional eavesdropping-people-watching. She argues that she is merely a dedicated street scientist doing her professional duty to better understand why people do what they do and why they don’t do what they know they should!
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Keynote Topics
Stand-Out Leadership
Thrive with vitality in the future of work
Taking on anything challenging—even when meaningful and exciting—will involve stress, discomfort, and struggle. In a world defined by uncertainty, the most powerful way to raise the bar and get to the next level is to boost the collective potential of how people work together. That starts by helping leaders and their people build awareness of their behavior, learn to embrace the emotions that come with challenges, and strengthen the skills of empathy to thrive collectively together, whether in-person or virtually. Sara Ross, Chief Vitality Officer of the leadership research firm, BrainAmped, studies the influence of emotional intelligence, vitality-generating energy, and organizational culture on leadership, performance, and teamwork. Combining these areas and looking at them through the lens of brain science, Sara uses humor and storytelling to ensure people have actionable strategies they feel empowered to start using the moment they leave their seats.
Dear Work, something has to change!
We all want to put the last few years behind us. Unfortunately, with stress spiking, energy dropping, and challenges around quiet quitting, hybrid work, retention, and recruitment lingering, we can’t ignore the toll things have had on people and organizations. Sara Ross, the founder and chief vitality officer at BrainAmped, believes that addressing these challenges and navigating the changing world of work requires starting with a new question. Instead of asking how to help leaders feel less tired, stretched, and stressed, Sara transforms the traditional approach by asking how we can help leaders and their people feel more ALIVE – more energized, capable, and purposeful. In this keynote, based on the research and principles shared in her bestselling book, “Dear Work, something has to change,” Sara will show that the solution begins by helping audiences boost their Work Vitality Factor by focusing on four core ideas:
The Confidence to Get Knocked Down and The Resilience to Get Back Up
What would you do if you could not fail?” This is a good, thought-provoking question, but unfortunately, it is inherently flawed. If you are going to take on bold goals, get outside of your comfort zone, try new things, and build new skills – it will be hard and you will fail along the way. Instead, “What would you do if you knew that even if you failed, you’d be okay?” This is what it means to have the confidence to get knocked down and the resilience to get back up; stronger, faster, and healthier each time. While researching for her upcoming book, “Dear Work, something has to change” Sara Ross found that in a time of record-setting stress, uncertainty, and change, those most successful didn’t fail less often. Instead, they learned better. It’s the connection between confidence and resilience that free’s people to consistently stretch their potential to innovate, adapt, and thrive – even in the most stressful times. Too many people miss out on opportunities in work and life because they lack the confidence to try. It might be taking on a new role, adjusting to changing client expectations and competitive market landscapes, or simply seeking feedback. All because they fear that they aren’t equipped to handle the obstacles that come with each.
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Scott Burrows
Harnessing Vision – Mindset – Grit
Fees and Travel
$20,000 plus $2500 travel buyout; plus up to 2 nights hotel on purchasers account
Biography
Scott Burrows: Top Inspirational Speaker, Bestselling Author, Wheelchair Athlete & Successful Entrepreneur
Scott Burrows is a top inspirational speaker and bestselling author who is a living testament to the power of determination and adaptability in the face of adversity. His unwavering belief in our ability to overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges has touched countless lives and continues to inspire transformation on a global scale.
An accomplished athlete who excelled in both football and martial arts, Scott was just 19-years-old when his life took a tragic turn. Paralyzed from the chest down after a devastating car accident, doctors diagnosed him with quadriplegia and told him he would spend the rest of his life confined to a wheelchair. Despite this, Scott became relentless in pursuit of his goal to stand again.
Drawing on his athletic background and a profound desire to overcome, he found a way to rebuild his life and defy the odds. To help him navigate his challenges, he focused on three foundational principles: Vision, Mindset, and Grit. Along the way, he proved that no circumstances can ever destroy the power of the human spirit.
Today, Scott uses his personal journey to inspire audiences all over the world to take charge when presented with unexpected obstacles. A captivating storyteller, he shares actionable strategies to help audiences embrace change, build resilience, and push past their perceived limitations to achieve remarkable success.
In a world where setbacks are inevitable, Scott stands as an embodiment of the possibilities that emerge when we choose to reshape our perspectives. His bestselling book, Vision Mindset Grit, chronicles his unforgettable journey and serves as a reminder of the incredible strength that resides within us all. With determination, adaptability, and a positive mindset, we CAN stand up to any challenge.
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Keynote Topics
VISION. MINDSET. GRIT.
Success Strategies to Help You Stand Up To Any Challenge
We’re in a time when change is a constant challenge. More than ever, we must embrace an unstoppable mindset if we want to overcome adversity and create the kind of breakthrough opportunities that lead to unprecedented results. Scott Burrows is a renowned inspirational speaker and bestselling author who is living proof that you can defy the odds to turn your most audacious goals into a reality. A devastating car accident at 19 turned his life upside down and taught him a lesson of a lifetime: How to summon the willpower to carry on when the odds feel stacked against us. As audiences worldwide have discovered in this life-changing presentation, Scott’s riveting story of overcoming adversity through relentless perseverance, determination, and adaptability will inspire you and every member of your team to reach new heights. Whatever challenges you’re currently facing, Scott’s personal story and business insights will inspire you to overcome fear, push yourself further than you thought possible, and exceed expectations. The Vision. Mindset. Grit. framework will inspire you to think differently, envision complete success, and achieve extraordinary results.
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Simon Keith
Champion Athlete, Inspiring Leader, Lifesaving Philanthropist
Fees and Travel
$15,000 plus $2000 travel buyout; plus up to 2 nights hotel on purchasers account
Biography
Simon Keith is the first person in the world to play a professional sport after undergoing a heart transplant, having received the heart of 17-year-old welsh boy in 1986. Their story has been well chronicled including an ESPN E:60 feature, “A Change of Heart”.
Simon Keith is not just a former professional soccer player and one of the longest-living organ transplant recipients in the world, Simon is world renown speaker, having shared his remarkable story at the Whitehouse, as well as the British and Canadian Parliaments, and with audiences around the world. Captivating audiences with his incredible story, Simon challenges people to find their “moments of truth” and dares them to live.
Notable Athlete and Inspiring Keynote Speaker
After receiving the gift of life at just age 21, and in the middle of a remarkable soccer career, Simon resumed his soccer career at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV), playing two seasons with the Rebels and garnering many honors, including being named Student-Athlete of Year for the Conference as well as being voted as the USA’s Most Courageous Athlete. After his senior season, Simon was named the Most Valuable Player at the Senior Bowl and was drafted #1 overall into the Major Indoor Soccer League. Simon was drafted #1 overall into the USA’s Major Indoor Soccer League just three years after his surgery.
In 2011, he founded The Simon Keith Foundation, an organization dedicated to increasing organ donor awareness and supporting and educating transplant recipients. In 2018 The Simon Keith Foundation sponsored every child in the USA and Canada to attend the Transplant Games in their country.
His autobiography, Heart for the Game, details his unique life-journey, and he directs the proceeds from his book sales toward providing athletic training for other transplant recipients who undertake an active and healthy lifestyle.
In addition to his philanthropic efforts and professional soccer career, Simon is a successful entrepreneur who successfully built and sold 4 different companies over a span of 15 years. Most recently Simon served as the Chief Operating Officer for the Nevada Donor Network, a federally designated not-for-profit Organ Procurement Organization, leading the organization from a ranking of 53rd (out of 58) in the USA in 2011 to #1 in the USA from 2015-2019 (and the world) in terms of number of organ donors & organs recovered for transplant per capita.
Now one of the longest living organ transplant recipients in history, Simon has signed a major movie deal about his life with Kennedy Marshall Entertainment and the legendary movie producer Frank Marshall (Jurassic World, Jurassic World; The Fallen Kingdom, The Jason Bourne movies: Identity, Supremacy, Ultimatum, Legacy, Jason Bourne, Sully, Back to the Future 1, 2 and 3 , Raider of the Lost Ark, and many, many more).
In 2018 Simon fell ill, as his heart and kidneys began to fail. (Heart transplants average longevity is just 10 years). In an astounding twist of fate, in March 2019, Simon underwent a second heart transplant, as well as kidney transplant. Against all odds, due to a complicated immune system, Simon stood less than a 1.75% chance of ever receiving the critical lifesaving gifts needed to save his life and continue this already, remarkable, story.
Simon belongs to the Greater Victoria Sports Hall of Fame and the Southern Nevada Sports Hall of Fame, and in 2015 was named Canada’s Humanitarian of the Year.
In addition to Simon sharing his incredible story, Simon is considered an expert in leadership development, organizational culture, and entrepreneurship.
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Keynote Topics
Build Great Teams
How do you Build Great Teams? How do you build trust inside your organization? How do you grow every person within your enterprise? In today’s work environment it has never been more important to have a deliberate and methodical plan for every person on your team. Every single working human wants to be part of a super successful team and wants to be pushed to become the best version of themselves.
Build Great Leaders
Studies estimate that new managers that have ZERO leadership training in the United States and Canada ranges between 42% and a staggering 85%. Building Great Leaders is the number one missing skill set in today’s work environment. Simon talks about the leadership lessons he has developed over 25 years consulting with the finest leaders in business, sport, and life. Simon will absolutely challenge everyone in almost every room to evaluate and think about how to become a better leader.
Moments of Truth
In our lives, all of our lives, we tend to define ourselves by MOMENTS. These moments shape who we are and how we view ourselves. The birth of a child, getting married, a big promotion are all moments that many of us celebrate. But what if the moments in your life are not always expected. How do you prepare for moments when you don’t know when or how they will come? Why do some people seem to ‘execute’ their moments better than others? What if your moment seems bigger than what you can handle? Simon talks about the Moments in his life and how “being flat on your back at age 21, and about to have your heart taken out of your chest” certainly qualifies as a Moment. How Simon moved forward from that potentially crippling event and was able to live an incredible heart stopping life.
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