Speaking
Talks That Make People Think Differently About How We Work, Care, and Lead.
Boundaries. Burnout. Energy Management. Emotional Intelligence.
I speak about the human patterns shaping our workplaces and our lives—from people-pleasing, overfunctioning, and emotional labor to leadership, organizational culture, boundaries, and burnout.
With the depth of a mental health expert, the clarity of a professor, and the strategy of a consultant, I bring research and real life together in a way that is candid, warm, funny, practical, and deeply relatable.
Audiences don't just leave with something to think about.
They leave seeing something differently—and knowing what to do with it.
Speaking Formats
Programs can be customized for organizations, conferences, leadership teams, and professional communities through:
Keynotes • Workshops • Conference Sessions • Leadership Retreats • Professional Development Days • Moderated Conversations • Panel Facilitation • Custom Organizational Sessions
Signature Keynote Topics:
Unveiling the Culprit
How Systems and People-Pleasing Drive Burnout
Burnout is often treated as a personal problem when it may be telling us something important about the systems people are working within.
This keynote examines the intersection of organizational systems and individual patterns—and what happens when unclear expectations, emotional labor, overfunctioning, people-pleasing, and unsustainable demands collide.
Rather than asking people to become better at tolerating burnout, Erin challenges audiences to look at what's creating it.
Participants leave with a clearer understanding of burnout as both an individual experience and an organizational signal—and practical ways to create healthier boundaries, clearer expectations, and more sustainable ways of working.
Ideal For:
Organizational and executive leaders, HR professionals, higher education, nonprofits, schools, human service agencies, healthcare teams, and organizations addressing burnout, retention, morale, or culture.
Participants will learn to:
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Identify how expectations, role confusion, emotional labor, and unsustainable demands contribute to burnout.
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Recognize ways workplace cultures can unintentionally reward overfunctioning, people-pleasing, and self-sacrifice.
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Identify practical opportunities to create clearer boundaries, healthier expectations, and more sustainable systems.
You’re Tired, Not Broken
A Caring Professional’s Guide to Energy Management
The people who care the most are often the ones asked to carry the most.
Helpers, leaders, educators, nonprofit professionals, and other care-centered people are frequently praised for being dependable, available, and willing to step in. Eventually, being the person who can always handle more comes with a cost.
This keynote introduces the Halligan-Avery Energy Management framework as a practical alternative to simply trying to manage time better.
Participants examine where their energy is actually going, what is unnecessarily consuming it, and how boundaries, capacity, and intentional choices can help them continue doing meaningful work without continually depleting themselves to do it.
Ideal For:
Helping professionals, educators, counselors, nonprofit professionals, healthcare and human service workers, student affairs professionals, caregivers, frontline leaders, and others whose work requires sustained emotional and relational energy.
Participants will learn 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 related to overfunctioning, emotional labor, expectations, and role confusion.
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Apply practical strategies for protecting capacity while remaining aligned with their values and the work that matters.
Emotionally Intelligent Leadership
Using What You Know About People to Build Better Systems
Emotional intelligence isn't just about being self-aware, approachable, or good at reading the room.
It's what you do with what you understand about people.
This keynote moves emotional intelligence beyond an individual leadership trait and explores it as a strategy for better decision-making, communication, culture, and organizational design.
Participants learn to notice patterns, listen differently, understand the human dynamics underneath workplace challenges, and use that information to create environments where people—and the organization—can function more effectively.
Ideal For:
Executives, managers, supervisors, HR professionals, nonprofit and higher education leaders, team leads, emerging leaders, and organizations committed to building stronger people-centered systems.
Participants will learn to:
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Understand emotional intelligence as a leadership strategy rather than simply a personal characteristic.
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Use insight about people's needs, behaviors, patterns, and experiences to inform stronger leadership decisions.
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Apply emotionally intelligent practices to strengthen communication, trust, culture, and organizational systems.
Heartfelt Leadership
Leading with Empathy & Authority
The best leaders don't have to choose between caring and accountability, compassion and clarity, empathy and authority.
Heartfelt Leadership challenges the belief that being a caring leader means keeping everyone happy, avoiding difficult conversations, or carrying responsibility that belongs to someone else.
Erin explores what happens when empathy is paired with boundaries, accountability, self-awareness, and courage—and how leaders can care deeply about their people without overfunctioning for them.
Participants leave with a more sustainable model of leadership: one that makes room for both humanity and high expectations.
Ideal For:
Senior leaders, executives, supervisors, founders, nonprofit leaders, care-centered managers, emerging leaders, and anyone navigating the tension between caring for people and leading them effectively.
Participants will learn to:
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Differentiate empathy from rescuing, over-responsibility, and emotional overfunctioning.
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Practice leadership behaviors that integrate compassion, clarity, accountability, and boundaries.
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Navigate difficult decisions and conversations while maintaining trust, respect, and relational integrity.
Bring Erin to Your Organization
Every audience is different.
Keynotes and speaking engagements can be customized to reflect your audience, industry, organizational context, and the conversations your people are already having—or perhaps need permission to start having.
Whether you're planning a conference, professional development day, leadership retreat, or organization-wide event, we'll identify the topic and format that will create the most meaningful experience for your audience.
The goal isn't just a good hour together.
It's a conversation people continue having after the room clears.