Informing. Entertaining.
Inspiring.
Keynotes and presentations customized to the audience to help people connect and be inspired to put the content into action.
Watch Rob in action
Speaker reel
Not just speaking… engaging!
Depending on the focus and length of my keynote or presentation (typically from 30 minutes to as long as 2 hours with workshop elements included), I curate activities for the audience to engage in based on the audience composition.
Whether it’s a leadership group where we bring in a discussion of the traits of leaders they look up to or a group of customer service employees practicing active listening, the audience has opportunities for applicable exercises to start practicing what they are learning.
A confidential intake survey for participants and conversations with org leaders and event planners also help craft the final shape of the keynote.
Topics include:
Putting Empathy to Work
How Empathy Shows Up in Leadership
Strengthening Empathy in Your (Function) Org
Empathetic Selling and Relationship Building
Creating a Better World (Org) with Empathy
Attendees come away learning:
What empathy looks like on the job or in their life
Tangible, practical steps to build and apply empathy
Take home exercises to practice the 5 Steps to Empathy
Language to use for more empathetic communication
The ice cream exercise is one of many audience engagement activities I use to demonstrate and reinforce the 5 steps to empathy.
Let’s give it a try…
Imagine you and a colleague are going to share an ice cream and have to find a flavor you can both agree on.
Start by asking your colleague: ‘What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?’ Now, share yours and what you like about it. Then work together to find a flavor you can agree on to share.
I find with the ice cream exercise in particular; the audience really gets into the discussion and the volume and engagement in the room goes up.
It always makes me smile because it’s an example of empathy in action, collaborating and compromising on a flavor of ice cream to share.
Once you understand the basics of this exercise, asking good questions and finding common ground, you can begin to apply it to more complicated topics all the way up to the big issues facing our society.
And who doesn’t love a tasty frozen treat?
My life and professional experiences allow me to maintain engagement and make sure what I’m saying is being heard.
My love of public speaking began in high school when I got down on the floor in front of my classmates pretending to free something that was stuck in an imaginary vacuum cleaner while reciting a passage from Erma Bombeck’s book, If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, Why Am I Stuck in the Pits? That attention getter captured the imagination of the high school drama coach who quickly cast me in lead roles in every play and musical until I graduated three years later.
Having spent years of my adult life standing in boardrooms presenting and on pool decks coaching masters swimmers, I leverage my past experiences, including those early high school experiences, to maintain engagement and make sure what I’m saying is being heard, whether it’s a “silent disco” format, a conference keynote or a smaller team offsite. I strive to make meaningful connections because that’s when I know I’m making an impact.