We all have incredible opportunities to do things that matter to the world and to live with meaning and purpose.
Stages, Circles, and Conversations
I’ve given hundreds of talks across the world—from TED and Harvard to United Nations offices, boardrooms, monasteries, and movement spaces. These days, I’m invited to speak when the moment calls for something deeper: clarity, transformation, realignment with values.
If you’re looking for a speaker or guide who brings a lifetime of leadership, practice, and human truth-telling into the room, I’d be glad to talk.
If you’re looking for a speaker, click below to start a conversation.
I also run online and in-person workshops, retreats, and transformational conversations. Some of them are now open to the public. Click below to see what’s coming up—I’d love to meet you there.
Talks That Moved the Room
Systems thinking as a PhD engineering, training in humanist psychology, and years as a Zen student and teacher have taught me how the magic of transformation and accomplishment begins by perceiving and responding to the whole picture. When you perceive your self, team, organization, or world clearly, you respond clearly. When you define a problem well, you solve it well.
Therefore, most of my talks include some elements of understanding relationships and how to respond well in them, whether we are talking are about your relationship to your self, your team, your community or your planet and world.
I give a talk about improved team leadership by concentrating on self-leadership. I give a talk about better negotiation by better listening. I have given talks at at NGOs like the UN, UNICEF, and the Inter-American Development Bank, where I inspired workers to begin living the values of their professional work in their own personal lives.
I’ve spoken at companies like IDEO and eBay to inspire designers and managers to think about what products and services actually makes people’s lives better. I’ve spoken at conferences like TEDx and said “to hell with sustainability” because it is not aspirational enough while inspiring people instead to move towards a more regenerative vision for our future.
I’ve given university convocation speeches to inspire students towards lives of service. I’ve spoken at Harvard Divinity School and conferences of Buddhists and spiritual leaders to talk about how to get congregations engaged in helping their communities thrive. I’ve spoken to sustainability professionals about communicating in ways that connect to people’s values. And I’ve spoken to activist groups and non-profits about self-care.
- How do we move past our own fears and blocks so that we can clearly see what support our teams and stakeholders need?
- What do we learn to be less frightened so we can be generous and synthesize our needs with those around us to create win/wins?
- How can we reflect our concern for big, worldly issues in our own lives?
- How do we hold the tension between the need to prosper and have impact?
- How does an organization harness the need to matter in its employees?
When it comes down to it, my talks inspire people to see their relationships clearly and thus to wake up to their power to change things, their ability to be agents in their own lives, and their opportunities to transform their teams, organization and world.
To talk to me about how these kinds of questions might be addressed in ways that inspire your audience, customers, stakeholders or executives, please write to me here.
Some places I’ve spoken
Harvard Divinity School, The Commonwealth Club, San Francisco Museum of Science, Design Futures Conference, Nexus Global Youth Summit, ClifBar, EBay, North Face, Patagonia, TEDxPotomac, PSFK, United States Green Building Council, Union Theological Seminary and many, many universities (longer list here).
Some places I’ve taught
New York University, Sarah Lawrence College, University of Massachusetts, Tecnológico de Monterrey, The Omega Institute, Garrison Institute
To start a conversation about my speaking to your group or organization, click the button below.