Dr. Rebecca Heiss

Our brains aren’t bult for optimal performance, happiness, or inspired leadership. They are built simply to keep us alive. The result? We avoid difficult conversations, and confrontations, workers are disengaged, and we exist our way through work and life. MEH.

But the solution lies within each of us. Rather than allowing our biology to hold us back, we can use it to work with us, unlocking our highest potential and learning that when we fear(less), we make room for so much more.

Keynote audience will leave with tools that enable them to:

• Identify and breakthrough personal biological barriers to optimal performance.
• Evaluate and neutralize subconscious fears that prevent them from playing all in
• Utilize awe in place of fear to drive performance, collaboration, and engagement.

Our brains believe the stories we tell them. Without conscious effort, they are negativity seeking missiles, but we have the power to change that. Rather than allowing our stress to spiral resulting in decreased performance and an array of health problems, we can use our biology to work with us, turning stress into a positive experience that pushes us toward better outcomes.

Keynote audience will leave with tools that enable them to:

• Re-categorize stress as a strength that can drive performance.
• Utilize a 3-step scientific technique to shift stress mindsets from ordeal to adventure.
• Enable positive communication, ideation, and creative collaborations to lead through ambiguity with a beginner’s mind.

The past years have brought increased stress, challenge, and unpredictable change to all industries, resulting in a confidence gap with leaders and teams – afraid to step up, afraid to be vulnerable, afraid that they will flounder. With her trademarked T-Minus 3 Technique, Dr. Rebecca brings her decades of research in stress and human behavior to transform that fear into fuel that will ignite leadership and their teams to reach new heights of performance. Imagine if you could lead from a place of confidence, inspiring more motivation, more engagement, more productivity, and more focus, all by fearing less. That’s fueled leadership.

This keynote is ideal for leaders & teams who are:
• Facing uncertainty and feeling overwhelmed.
• Anxious or concerned about how failing might be percieved
•Looking for a way to tell better stories about what stress and anxiety are signaling

Audiences will leave with:
• An ability to utilize the T-minus 3 technique to transform stress and fear into energy that works for, rather than against them
• A framework for harnessing an adventure mindset to become more resilient in high-pressure situations.

Absenteeism, turnover, disengaged employees, diminished productivity, increased medical costs, and increased legal costs, puts the economic impact of stress at around $300 billion for US employers (an average of $702 per employee per year.)! The trouble is, we are treating stress like a disease to be rid of. We take vacations, go on wellness retreats, and engage in stress management programs to try to rid ourselves of stress – but having zero stress is a dead person’s goal. Stress will surround us all the days of our lives. In fact, research has found that the goal to avoid stress increases the long-term risk of outcomes like depression, divorce and getting fired! Rather than the exhausting, fearful approach of fighting stress, what would happen if we could lean into and transform our stress into a competitive advantage?

Stress isn’t inherently bad. In fact, the highest-performing athletes and leaders have learned the secrets to the upside of stress, using it to fuel their performance rather than hinder it. The result of this stress mindset shift? Increased performance and productivity, greater connection with others, and enhanced ability to learn and grow from challenges. Fueled by stress, a company becomes fear(less), resilient, and capable of thriving through change, with everyone 3x more likely to be focused and accomplishing more in less time, 2x less likely to make mistakes and miscommunicate, and more than 1.5x less likely to consider leaving the organization.

This keynote is ideal for leaders & teams who are:

•Facing turnover, disengagement and burnout
•Feeling stuck on a treadmill that’s always moving faster
•Looking for a way to alleviate stress with solutions other than the tradition “stress management” techniques that tend to only add MORE to do’s to our plates

Keynote audiences will leave with tools that enable them to:

•Understand the root of our stress response and recalibrate it to work with us in the modern world.
•Engage with our fears to reframe them as energy that can optimize performance.
•Adopt a simple framework for rewiring our brains to respond differently to threats as challenges, to reduce burnout and restore purpose and fulfillment to our work.

This inspiring keynote incorporates emotional storytelling and audience improv, weaving its way through understanding why we are constantly hearing the “shoulds” in our head, and silencing the voices of “not enough” to finally become the protagonists of our own lives. Finding Fear(less) masterfully incorporates science and storytelling to inspire and motivate us all to become the best versions of ourselves – the version that our 8- and 88-year-old self would be proud of.

This keynote is ideal for leaders & teams who are:

• Looking to feel inspired and motivated
• Unable to feel fully authentic or are feeling like imposters in their lives
•Looking for a way to bring more purpose and meaning to the work they do

Are looking for gender-specific (i.e. women’s empowerment) leadership

Keynote audiences will leave with:

•Inspiration and stories that link the challenge of change and becoming fear(less), to purpose and connection
•An understanding of their own unique Superpower.
•An empowered sense of self and connection to others.