All topics are customized for your needs.
Keynote (45-90 minutes), longer presentations (2+ hours), and workshops (half-day –multiple days) are available.

Our programs are lively and interactive, filled with movie clips, exercises, reflective discussions, stories, humor, and other activities that teach concepts experientially. You’ll leave with practical information that will change the way you live.

Assertiveness in the Workplace:  a Vital Skill

Explore how to communicate assertively without upsetting your customers or team.

By the end of this workshop you will be able to:

• Discriminate between aggressive, passive and assertive styles,
• Recognize the components of assertive communication,
• Use assertiveness techniques to confidently give feedback, set limits, and handle conflict. 

Can't we all just get along? Developing Empathy.

Empathy is one of the most important skills needed in life. Until we learn to see the world from another’s viewpoint, we may find ourselves stuck in anger and resentments. Empathy CAN be developed.
At the end of the session you’ll understand:

• The connection between emotional literacy and empathy.
• The difference between sympathy, pity and empathy.
• The relationship between empathy and body language.
• Ways to increase compassion and empathy to create more fulfilling relationships.
  
  

Conflict Resolution.

While conflict is inevitable, the effects of conflict are determined by your reactions. Handling conflict effectively can actually increase trust, morale, and productivity!
Possible topics in this program may include learning to:

• Approach conflict as a process.
• Manage the nonverbal messages you send and receive.
• Send and receive clear, accurate messages.
• Actively listen to and understand what others are saying.
• Effectively handle conflict.
• Build trust in your workplace.
  
  

Dealing with Difficult Customers

Using insights from research in emotional intelligence, this 3 hour training will teach skills to help satisfy difficult customers. 

In this workshop we will explore:

• Meeting both the service and psychological needs of our customers.
• Recognizing emotional messages in others and within ourselves.
• Using Active Listening and the LEAP strategy to defuse conflict situations and turn angry customers into happy loyal customers.

Emotional Intelligence and the Work of Changing Ourselves.

Is it possible to change? Emotional Intelligence does not offer a “quick fix” but it does offer extremely practical tools for examining our habits and patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting.

With this program you’ll take away an understanding of:

• Current brain research and what it says about how we’re wired emotionally.
• The three phases of an emotional reaction and how to deal with each.
• Methods of examining our thoughts, feelings and actions.
• Ways to begin changing our reactions.
  
  

Emotional Literacy - Learning to be Smart with Feelings.

Are your emotions friend or foe? According to Time Magazine, “Emotional intelligence may be the best predictor of success in life." Many experts now feel that EI is a better predictor of achievement than IQ. Emotional Intelligence is a new field that utilizes brain research to confirm two vital ideas: emotions offer us a unique kind of knowledge AND we can learn to manage our emotions intelligently. When we know how to use our emotions well, we can be more effective and happier.

At the end of the session you’ll gain:

• New insight into the meaning of feelings.
• A powerful process for managing emotional outbursts.
• Knowledge of what brain science tells us about our thinking/emotional selves.
  
  

Engaging others, Engaging Ourselves: Factors in Motivation.

Employee disengagement is a serious problem that may affect up to 80% of the nation’s workers. How do we remain enthused in our work? How do we inspire others? Exploring new research in cognitive science, emotional intelligence, and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we’ll examine our habits of thinking and motivation.

You’ll take away an understanding of:

• The best and most effective ways to motivate others.
• “Flow” and how to achieve it.
• The many benefits of an optimistic attitude.
• How to maintain a positive mind-set.
  
  

How Can I Serve? Discovering Your Noble Goal.

This short program uses exercises and discussion to explore your personal “mission statement” or “noble goal.” Since noble goals motive, inspire, and help us navigate and make consistent choices, they are an invaluable aid to living.

I Am Woman: Hear Me Soar. Dynamic Speaking for Women.

Women have unique strengths and challenges as speakers. This workshop will explore special issues for women including:

• Pitch and inflection issues for women's voices.
• How to create a dynamically vibrant and projected voice.
• Style, clothing, and the psychology of body image.

We will also look at standard speech topics such as:

• Changing nervousness into an energized presentation.
• Organizing your ideas.
• Creating a powerful, charismatic presence
• Developing a voice with authority.
• Discovering how to use PowerPoint to engage audiences.
• Using storytelling and narrative to make your presentations come alive.
• Eliminating vocal fillers.
• Learning to deliver content without memorizing.
  
  

Proposals and Presentations: Getting the Edge and Making the Sale.

Your business relies on your ability to influence through writing and speaking to others. Whether you are responding to an RFP or need to speak to a local Chamber of Commerce, enhancing your writing and presentation abilities will be a key to your success.

By the end of this program you’ll know:

• The benefits of the NOSY pattern for proposal writing: Need, Outcome, Solution, and You.
• Research on what readers love and hate in proposals.
• Methods of persuasive in writing and speaking.
• Methods of delivering your ideas effectively and with excitement.
  
  

Split in Two? Discover the Power of your Paradox.

Using the steps from the book Paradoxical Thinking: How to Profit from Your Contradictions, this active workshop will help you identify your core paradox. Then we’ll explore how taking advantage of contradictory elements in oneself can lead to more effective living.

With this program you’ll:

• Identify your core paradox.
• Shift your perceptions about yourself.
• Identify your high-performing and low-performing tendencies.
  
  

Stretching the Brain with Improvisation—Games for Creativity.

Exploring the same theatre games used by troupes like “Second City,” we will playfully discover our own creative genius. Everyone is creative!

The Advantages of Optimism—Change your thinking and win at work, love, and health!

Optimists live longer, healthier, more successful lives – their marriages thrive, they get better grades in school, and they earn higher incomes! The good news is that optimism can be developed.

By the end of this program you’ll learn how to:

• Change your internal dialogue from negative to positive.
• Create a better “explanatory style” for failure and mistakes.
• Move from an “I give up” habit to an “I can do it” habit.
  

The Golden Rule – Treating each other as a valued customer.

Exceptional customer service is rare. If you can create an atmosphere of outstanding service, your business will prosper.

By the end of this program you’ll know:

• The positive cumulative benefits of maintaining loyal customers.
• Two basic customer needs and how to meet them.
• Two types of dissatisfied customers and how to recognize them.
• A proven technique for dissolving customer anger.
  
  

What Pushes Your Emotional Buttons? Techniques for Navigating Troublesome Emotions.

Current brain research offers us a new understanding of why our emotions sometimes overwhelm our thoughts and actions. We can learn to manage our emotions and live happier and more effective lives.

By the end of this program you’ll understand:

• The effect of brain structure on your emotional life.
• Processes to handle the “reaction cycle” of an emotion.
• Systems to recognize patterns of behavior and change them.
• Methods of analyzing everyday thoughts, behaviors, and emotions to change them.
  
  

Where Does the Time Go??? Principles in Time Management.

What would you do with an extra hour each day?
Using video clips, discussion, quizzes, and small group activities, this program provides current theory and practical tips to transform your habits and help you utilize your time more effectively.

Workshop objectives:

• Identifying time wasters.
• Recognizing goals and setting priorities.
• Creating effective "to-do" lists.
• Matching energy levels to tasks.
• Dealing with interruptions like drop-in visitors, telephone calls, and emails.
• Overcoming procrastination.
• Managing time in crisis situations.
• Learning to work in “flow.”
• Balancing work and personal life.
• Working smarter, not harder!