Speaking
Boundaries. Burnout. Energy Management. Emotional Intelligence.
Schedule a talk on boundary-setting, burnout, Energy Management, people-pleasing, over-functioning, emotional labor, helping systems, and what it takes to create more sustainable ways of living and leading.
Give your organization or event the depth of a mental health expert, the clarity of a professor, the strategy of a consultant, and the candor of someone willing to say the thing everyone else is thinking but has not yet said out loud.
Expect an honest, warm, funny, practical, and deeply relatable speaking style on topics ideal for a wide variety of situations and formats.
Speaking Formats
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Keynotes
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Workshops
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Conference sessions
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Leadership retreats
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Professional development days
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Moderated conversations
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Panel facilitation
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Custom organizational sessions
Signature Keynote Topics:
​Unveiling the Culprit: How Systems and People-Pleasing Drive Burnout
Burnout is often treated as a personal failure when it is frequently evidence of a system that is no longer working.
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This keynote challenges organizations to move beyond self-care language and surface-level wellness efforts. Participants will examine how unclear expectations, poor design, emotional labor, people-pleasing norms, and unsustainable demands create burnout — and what systems must do differently to create clearer boundaries, healthier expectations, and more sustainable ways of working.
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Participants will leave with a clearer understanding of burnout as both an individual experience and an organizational signal. They will examine how systems can unintentionally reward over-functioning, normalize unsustainable expectations, and shift responsibility onto individuals — and what organizations can do differently to create healthier, clearer, and more sustainable ways of working.
Ideal For:​
Organizational leaders, executive teams, HR professionals, higher education leaders, nonprofit organizations, schools, human service agencies, healthcare teams, and workplaces concerned about burnout, retention, morale, and culture.​
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this keynote, participants will be able to:
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Identify how unclear expectations, role confusion, emotional labor, and unsustainable demands contribute to burnout.
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Recognize how organizational culture and systems can reward over-functioning, people-pleasing, and self-sacrifice.
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Apply practical strategies for creating clearer boundaries, healthier expectations, and more sustainable systems of support.
You’re Tired, Not Broken: A Caring Professional’s Guide to Energy Management
Helpers, leaders, educators, nonprofit professionals, and care-centered people are often praised for being dependable, available, and willing to carry what others cannot. Over time, that praise can become a trap.
This keynote introduces the Halligan-Avery Energy Management framework as a practical way to understand where energy is going, what is draining it, and what boundaries are needed to protect it. Participants will explore how to care deeply without collapsing under the weight of everyone else’s needs.
Ideal For:​
Helping professionals, educators, counselors, nonprofit staff, healthcare and human service workers, student affairs professionals, caregivers, frontline leaders, and anyone whose work requires deep care, emotional labor, and sustained availability.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this keynote, participants will be able to:
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Assess where their emotional, cognitive, relational, administrative, and moral energy is being spent.
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Identify energy drains connected to over-functioning, emotional labor, and role confusion.
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Develop practical boundary-setting strategies to protect energy while staying aligned with their values
Emotionally Intelligent Leadership: Using What You Know About People to Build Better Systems
Emotionally intelligent leadership is not just about being kind, approachable, or good at reading a room. It is about using what you understand about people to make better decisions, build stronger systems, and create environments where people can do their best work without burning out.
This keynote helps leaders move beyond surface-level emotional intelligence and apply it strategically. Participants will explore how to listen differently, notice patterns, understand human behavior, and use that insight to improve communication, culture, decision-making, and organizational design.
Ideal For:​
Executives, managers, supervisors, HR leaders, nonprofit and higher education leaders, team leads, emerging leaders, and organizations looking to build stronger people-centered systems, improve communication, and make better decisions through deeper understanding of their people.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this keynote, participants will be able to:
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Recognize emotional intelligence as a leadership strategy, not just a personal trait.
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Use insight about people’s needs, patterns, and experiences to inform stronger systems and decisions.
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Identify practical ways to create more people-focused systems that support clarity, trust, and sustainable performance
Heartfelt Leadership: Leading with Empathy & Authority
Many leaders feel pressure to choose between being caring and being clear, being compassionate and being decisive, being liked and being respected. Heartfelt leadership challenges that false choice.
This keynote explores how leaders can be both empathic and authoritative — leading with warmth, clarity, boundaries, and courage. Participants will learn how to care about people deeply without carrying everything for them, and how to make hard decisions without disconnecting from their humanity.
Ideal For:​
Senior leaders, C-suite executives, supervisors, founders, nonprofit leaders, women in leadership, care-centered managers, and anyone who wants to lead with both compassion and clarity without over-functioning, people-pleasing, or avoiding hard decisions.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this keynote, participants will be able to:
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Differentiate between empathy, over-responsibility, and emotional over-functioning in leadership.
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Practice leadership behaviors that combine compassion, clarity, accountability, and boundaries.
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Apply strategies for making difficult decisions while maintaining trust, respect, and relational integrity.