All Topics in Chicago
It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3: Browse for a topic, Click the orange request button, Fill out the contact form.Now the speaker will contact you in the next few days to coordinate details.
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The Mindset That Changes Everything: Leading With Clarity, Compassion, and Human Strength
Clara Lucia Jaramillo-Carrier, M.A., PCC, Purpose, Life, Executive Coach and Author, Breaking Through Consulting & Coaching
TOPIC CATEGORY: Business
Request This Free SpeechLeadership today is not failing because of a lack of talent or intelligence—it’s being strained by chronic pressure, fear-driven thinking, and disconnection from what makes us human. In environments that reward speed, certainty, and constant performance, leaders often lose access to their most powerful resource: a grounded, positive mindset that creates clarity, perspective, and empathy. MORE >
This session reframes positive mindset as a leadership discipline—not cheerfulness, denial, or motivational talk, but the ability to choose thoughts, perspectives, and responses that expand capacity rather than contract it. Participants explore how mindset directly shapes leadership presence, relationships, and decision-making—and how reconnecting with purpose and humanity restores effectiveness, trust, and resilience in today’s complex world. -
The Cost of Constant Pressure: Why Productivity Culture Is Breaking Leadership—and How Purpose Restores It
Clara Lucia Jaramillo-Carrier, M.A., PCC, Purpose, Life, Executive Coach and Author, Breaking Through Consulting & Coaching
TOPIC CATEGORY: Business
Request This Free SpeechWe are working harder than ever—yet trust is lower, relationships are strained, and leaders are exhausted. Today’s productivity culture rewards speed, output, and performance at the expense of presence, discernment, and humanity. The result is unnecessary suffering: fear-based decisions, fractured communication, and leadership that reacts instead of leads. MORE >
This session challenges the myth that more pressure produces better results. Participants will explore how chronic urgency narrows thinking, erodes empathy, and fuels chaos in teams and organizations. Through grounded insights and practical tools, leaders learn that reconnecting with purpose and values is a strategic choice—one that restores clarity, strengthens relationships, and enables sustainable, high-impact leadership without burnout. -
Off High Alert: Practical Nervous System Tools for High-Pressure Work Environments
Ron Martin, Principal, Founder, Executive Coach, Ocean Park Strategic Advisors
TOPIC CATEGORY: Business
Request This Free SpeechMany capable, high-performing professionals experience stress in their body even when things are going well at work.
- A tight chest before meetings.
- A jolt when emails come in.
- A constant background sense of being “on edge.” MORE >This free talk introduces Off High Alert, a practical, body-first approach to understanding and reducing work-related stress that doesn’t rely on mindset shifts, positive thinking, or therapy.Participants will learn why the nervous system often stays on high alert in modern work environments and why “just relaxing” rarely works, even for highly competent, prepared professionals.
This session is especially relevant for people who:
- Feel physically reactive to emails, meetings, or work interactions before their brain has time to catch up
- Stay functional and productive while feeling tense or exhausted underneath
- Don’t want therapy, oversharing, or long emotional processing
- Want practical tools that can be used during the workday, discreetly and effectivelyDuring this talk, attendees will:
- Understand how and why stress shows up physically at work
- Learn simple, in-the-moment nervous system regulation tools
- Reframe stress responses without self-blame or pathologizing
- Leave with a clear, repeatable way to help their body stand down in high-pressure situationsThis is a grounded, practical, work-safe talk designed to meet professionals where they are, without asking them to lower their standards, change who they are, or step away from their careers.
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What can I do to reduce my climate footprint and how effective is it?
Dorelle Ackermann, Activist, Pachamama Alliance: Chicagoland Co-Hearts
TOPIC CATEGORY: Climate
Request This Free SpeechAre you concerned about our warming planet want to do your part to create a sustainable future? Is it possible to have a thriving economy today and protect our planet? According to Hannah Ritchie, a data scientist, it is! Now, let's learn how we, as individuals, can make this happen. Using Project Drawdown's "Explore" we will follow the science in choosing measurable actions to consider. Next, we will recognize that respectful conversations are key to magnifying our individual actions into community actions that will bend the warming curve down.
This presentation will explore the work of Jonathan Foley (Project Drawdown), Hannah Ritchie (Our World in Data) and Katharine Hayhoe (Chief Scientist for The Nature Conservancy) to give participants the information and resources they can use to create meaningful change. MORE >The presentation will end by creating a group "word cloud" to remind us that in the words of Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” -
Reducing Deadly School Violence
Katazyna Weresz, Clinical Director / Executive Director, Counseling Speaks / In Her Shoes Foundation
TOPIC CATEGORY: Self-Improvement
Request This Free SpeechLearn from Kasia Weresz about reducing deadly school violence in a thought provoking presentation that focuses on prevention through understanding behavioral health.
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Successful Sailboat Racing
Bob Bernstein, MBA, Sailor and Author, My Sailing Odyssey
TOPIC CATEGORY: Miscellaneous
Request This Free SpeechIn Chicago I have raced sailboats for a lifetime. I have won many races in many different boats. I have also crewed on many boats. Recently I have been tactician on offshore boats and continue to win with my Rhodes 19 sailboat.
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Sailing and Life
Bob Bernstein, MBA, Sailor and Author, My Sailing Odyssey
TOPIC CATEGORY: Motivational
Request This Free SpeechI recently have written a book "My Sailing Odyssey" that has connections at many levels between my life experiences and sailing.
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General Self-Defense
Peter Honigmann, Founder and Head Instructor, Best Defense Concepts, LLC
TOPIC CATEGORY: Health & Fitness
Request This Free SpeechOffering presentations, seminars or hands-on classes in basic self-defense. The presentation can cover the following topics: law of self-defense, situational awareness and de-escalation, simple and effective strikes and techniques for dealing with the most common street attacks, how to defend against attacker's with weapons, the use of improvised weapons/pepper spray, or any other self-defense related topics of interest to the group. MORE >
Presentations will be tailored to the group and the topic. Any "hands-on" classes would require participants to sign a waiver.I am only available to give presentations weekday evenings and weekends, and limit my travel to suburbs north and west of Chicago.
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New Beginnings
Natoya Johnson, Entrepreneur, Musician, and Aspiring Evangelist, Live for Christ Ministries
TOPIC CATEGORY: Self-Improvement
Request This Free SpeechOur ministry provides encouragement to youth and women that need love, support, and ways on how to recover.
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What to Do when you have NO IDEA What to Do: Reconnecting to your Purpose
Gabby Rosely, Consultant, Gabby Rosely LLC
TOPIC CATEGORY: Motivational
Request This Free SpeechYou feel stuck, uninspired, unmotivated, & you're asking yourself - what do I do now? Maybe you're working a job you don't care about, maybe your relationship feels unfulfilled, maybe you're craving a new hobby... the point is, something is missing and you feel it - every single day. MORE >
In this keynote / workshop, I break down the actionable steps (in the workshop we actually go through them together) to reconnect to your purpose, your gifts & talents, and how to take aligned action EVEN WHEN YOU DON'T feel like it, in the direction of your vision.When we feel stuck, it's usually a lot deeper than "what we're doing" & "what we're not doing" - this is an opportunity to connect to your heart, your dreams, & ground them into reality in ways that feel inspiring AND realistic.