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Do you want to inspire your delegates or colleagues to live and work with true vitality?
Inspire your audiences with fresh perspectives on how to help your body and mind adapt and thrive in the digital age.
Watch this short video about my keynote
Keynotes:
No matter what your profession or chose life path, Personal Sustainability is vital to your long-term livelihood and career success.
That’s especially true when you take on a leadership role, and need to function at a higher level. In this cutting edge Keynote, also available as an interactive half-day Master Class, Thea O’Connor will reveal how you can increase your energy and attention by better understanding, and working in tune with, the internal operating systems of your body and mind.
Improved health and wellbeing doesn't just improve your weight, your cholesterol and your fitness .
It also has a direct impact on key leadership capabilities such as managing change, staying focused on priorities, communicating with influence, and even your integrity. In this presentation Thea reveals the links between self-care and superior leadership performance, which brings a new level of importance to staying healthy on the job.
Body Intelligence (BQ) - the forgotten quotient?
Smart people can do dumb things when it comes to their bodies. When working hard to stay on top of our jobs, we can easily fall into treating the body with all its needs as a hindrance to our professional success, rather than giving it the respect and care it deserves. This common pattern is due to a deficiency in BQ -body intelligence. In this presentation Thea will reveal the fundamental skills of BQ, and how you can apply them to a busy working day, so you can enjoy better health, greater self-awareness, and emotional equilibrium.
My unique "Follow Up" feature is included in speaking fee.
As an event organizer, I’m sure you wonder what kind of return on investment you get from one-off presentations.
Well, Thea’s evaluations show that after a presentation over 95% of attendees say they are inspired to a make positive changes in their lives.
But we all know this enthusiasm can wane quickly. That’s why Thea includes a follow up webinar for conference participants in her speaking fee, that is designed to help embed longer-term behavior change.
Conference Add-On
Give your conference delegates some serious light relief with a 10 minute presentation “Nap before you Snap”, followed by a 15-minute powernap or meditation. Ideal for the after-lunch time slot. Why not let us organise a Nap-Zone for your delegates?
As the world’s origingal ‘Naptivist’ Thea is not interested in business as usual. She’s more interested in what works – and if that means embracing the powernap to boost energy and attention – then bring it on!
The Science of Recovery Breaks
The ability to press ‘pause’, even just for a few minutes so you can restore your energy and attention, is key to enjoying a sustainable career. Yet so often we simply work flat out from dawn until dusk, because we have ’no time’ to even catch our breath.
This seminar focuses on the power of short recovery breaks for physical, mental and emotional wellbeing, and how you can integrate them into your day, no matter how busy.
- Why do short breaks enhance wellbeing?
- What type of breaks make a positive difference?
- What about timing? Do breaks have a different effect, depending on time of day?
- How long does a break have to be to have an impact? We cover the research examining the effects of micro-breaks (30 seconds) and mini breaks (1-2 minutes) right through to weekends and annual holidays.
- How to integrate your break of choice into a day’s work.
- First steps towards creating a team culture that encourages and supports punctuating your day with health, energy or brain breaks.
Setting Limits at Work
With technology enabling us to work anywhere, anytime and with more people working flexibly from home, setting healthy boundaries has never been more important ... or more challenging. What's more, most of us haven't been trained in setting boundaries in a professional setting, even though it is key to having a sustainable career. In this webinar we cover:
• The features of healthy boundaries.
• Our own default settings – are our boundaries too loose, too rigid or about right? And what factors contribute to their development?
• A step-by-step process for establishing healthy limits at work.
• Dealing with reactions - in yourself and others. This could include fear of others reactions, guilt or discomfort at changing your modus operandi.
Walk away having identified a low-risk boundary adjustment, that you can experiment with straight away.
Resilience During Permacrises
There’s no handbook for how to cope with the series of crises humanity has been facing over the last several years - the global pandemic, which in Australia was bookended by devastating bushfires then floods and subsequent staggering increases to the cost of living.
We do know, however, that humankind has faced numerous mass traumas and tragedies throughout history, and that there are certain characteristics that define those people who survive, and emerge even stronger.
This webinar distils the research into resilience during world shaking events, plus effective resilience programs for workplaces, into practical approaches that will help you through the state of perma-crisis that many of us have, or continue to experience.
You will come away with specific strategies for:
• Taking care of your psychology and physiology to increase resilience in body and mind.
• Managing anxiety - health anxiety in particular.
• Pacing yourself during this ongoing, drawn out crisis.
• Preventing fear from generating mistrust of the ‘other’ to help reduce division and separation.
You will also be invited to share any coping strategies you are finding helpful, so we can learn from each other.
Come away with a realistic action plan for the One Thing that will make the biggest difference to you.
We don’t need another GFC – Great Fatigue Crisis!
Anti-dotes to White-Collar Fatigue. While fatigue is clearly acknowledged as a serious risk in most blue-collar industries, white-collar fatigue is an insidious but frequently denied problem. In this presentation we explore how tiredness and fatigue affect knowledge workers’ critical resources – such as the ability to focus on what’s important, higher-order decision-making, mood or creative thinking. Thea highlights the personal and workplace practices that can mitigate the dangers of white-collar fatigue and ensure a steady supply of daily energy and focus.
The Art & Science of Changing Habits
Know what you “should” do for better health, or to work more effectively, but just don’t seem to do it? Whether it’s diet or exercise, smoking or sleep, habits are tenacious and take more than a “just do it” attitude to change, despite what The Biggest Loser might suggest. You need skill as well as will.
In this seminar you will:
· Discover the top 4 ways we sabotage our healthy intentions.
· Understand what neuroscience tells us about the true nature of habits and what it takes to change them.
· Apply the critical success factors for developing long term health habits, into your own take-away action plan.
Preventing Burnout
Exhaustion was one of the top three reasons people rang the beyondlblue help line last year. This isn’t surprising given all the energy-draining challenges that COVID-19 brought with it - and still does: anxiety, the need to rapidly adapt to online remote working while trying to maintain BAU l all in the context of an uncertain future. Leaders, managers and employees have all been feeling the strain, many of whom started the year already feeling depleted. Burnout is a real risk for workers at all levels. In this webinar we cover:
• The 4 principles for Personal Sustainability that will support you at a time when it has never been more vital to conserve and renew your energy.
• The three dimensions of burnout - it’s more than just being tired.
• Tell-tale signs you might be on the brink and the 3 critical actions to take if you are.
• Creating team norms with your colleagues that can help you work more sustainably.
Sleep Your Way to Success
Delve into the latest scientific discoveries about the purpose of sleep and how much we really need. This seminar goes well beyond the standard ‘sleep hygeine’ advice you can readily access online. Thea covers:
- Where are Australians at when it comes to slumber? The top 3 ways we are wrecking our sleep.
- The architecture of night time sleep, outlining the different sleep stages and how the structure of our sleep changes over the lifecycle, from birth to old age.
- Insights into the purpose of sleep – what actually happens when we close our eyes? We explore the links with mental health conditions.
- Self-assess the quantity and quality of your own sleep, while busting common myths.
- Practical tips for getting more or better sleep once your head hits the pillow.
- Time for Q&A: Bring your curly sleep questions. Eg Does a weekend lie in make up for late nights? Can you sleep bank? (ie stock up in advance)? Are coffee naps a good idea?
Health by Stealth
“No time” is one of the most common reasons Australians give for not engaging in healthier behaviours, such as more exercise or cooking healthier meals. In this webinar we bring you the best health hack around to tackle this problem: Health by Stealth! After briefing you on the research into ‘nudge theory’ and ‘stealth interventions’, and how they are often more effective than the ‘do this because it’s good for you’ approach, we get really practical and look at how you can instil health and wellbeing into your everyday work practices. You’ll leave the seminar with your own ‘health by stealth’ plan that’s simple and actionable. A nudge here, and process tweak there, and you’ll be able to boost your health at work without having to think about it, or make more time.
A Nap-In!
Come, lie down and be counted to help make the powernap the new coffee break. In this educational-experiential mini-siesta we cover:
- the basics of our 24hr circadian rhythms, including the dip in afternoon alertness
- the science behind the benefits of a brief name
- how we typically respond to our bodies’ signals of tiredness and how personal and cultural beliefs can affect our nap-ability.
- essential Nap Know-How for taking a safe and effective work-a-day nap.
- how to get permission from your boss, including your inner boss.
The best bit? We learn by doing so you’ll get to enjoy a 20 minute mini-siesta leaving you refreshed and recharged for the rest of your day.
Body Intelligence - an essential ingredient to women’s health.
Is it possible that in the quest to achieve ‘equality’, prove ourselves, while also taking on more than our fair share of caring, we’ve over-ridden our bodies’ cyclic needs, to the point of exhaustion? And to the point of impairing many aspects of our health and wellbeing?
In this presentation Thea will cover:
- The impact of ongoing stress and tiredness on women’s cycles, including the daily the sleep cycle, the monthly menstrual cycle and the menopause transition.
- The forces that can drive us to over-ride and disregard our bodies.
- How to improve our body intelligence so we get better at noticing, listening, and responding to the rhythms, signals and symptoms of the body.
- Practical ways to be responsive to our natural cycles to support better health and productivity at work.
Breaking the Body Image Glass Ceiling
Too many women today secretly feel a failure because they don’t measure up to our impossible, cultural beauty ideals. That’s a recipe for unhappiness and disempowerment. How can women stop wasting valuable life resources – time, money, effort and attention – on body worry, and channel them into meaningful life goals instead? In this research-based presentation, Body Advocate Thea O’Connor, offers practical steps to help women break though the body image glass ceiling into the empowered state of feeling comfortable in our own skins.
Happy Keynote Clients
I thrive on encouraging people to develop the inner attitudes, daily practices, and group norms that will allow them to live and work with zest.
"Thea is one of the most accomplished MCs I have come across.
She was always well prepared to welcome world calibre speakers on stage. One of her talents is her ability to prime the audience and set the right vibe to make the event a success. I would highly recommend Thea to anyone wanting to engage her services as a MC, as a coach or as a meeting facilitator.
Tony Rothacker, Chapter Director, Start Up Grind Coffs Coast and Manager of the Innovation Hub, Coffs Harbour.
"I would like to congratulate and highly commend Thea O’Connor for her inspiring, witty, sensitive, engaging and informative presentation at our Forum held at the Royal Women’s Hospital. "
Meg Gulbin, Manager, Absolutely Women’s Health, Royal Women’s Hospital, Melbourne.
"I really thought you were one of the most vibrant and captivating speakers I’ve ever seen. Great work!”"
Network Central Business Women’s Breakfast attendees, Sydney