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Keynotes & Workshops

I give keynotes and facilitate workshops on human capacity — what helps us access and use our capacities well, especially when we need them most.
 

As a behavioural scientist and phenomenologist, my work combines research backed with science and engaging exercises that bring in the lived experience. Depending on the setting, a session can range from a keynote to a half-day workshop or a longer learning journey. Workshops allow us to go further: to slow down, reflect, experiment, and learn out loud together. The aim is to make research tangible and create shared language and practical tools that people can take back into their everyday work and lives. Depending on the session style, I may use dialogue, reflective exercises, and embodied methods.

My work draws from over a decade of research on sisu and human resilience, as well as positive psychology, somatics, embodied cognition, and my own field research.

Below are examples of talks and workshops that I have recently given.

 

HUMAN CAPACITY UNDER PRESSURE: INTRO TO SISU

What the ancient Finnish construct can teach modern-day people about resilience
 

Drawing from over a decade of my research on sisu and human resilience, this talk looks at what helps us retain our capacity to think, connect and act when things get difficult. We explore why more perseverance is not always the answer, and why the body — not only the mind — is an essential part of how we understand human strength and intelligence.

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The keynote introduces sisu as a human capacity and gives participants a practical understanding of state awareness: how our inner state shapes what we perceive, what becomes available to us, and how we act under pressure. Participants leave with a clearer understanding of their own patterns under stress, the difference between beneficial and harmful sisu, and practical ways to access and use their strength more wisely by developing their somatic intelligence.

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HUMAN CAPACITY IN RELATION

The relational side of performance

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We may often think of sisu as something that resides within the individual. Yet what becomes available to us is centrally shaped by the people around us and the situations we create together.

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This talk looks at human capacity and sisu not only as something within an individual, but as something that can emerge, or diminish, through how we engage with each other. It introduces micro-actions and social resilience as our capacity to stay connected and functional under pressure, and looks at the role of the nervous system, co-regulation and psychological safety in our ability to meet difficult situations together.
 

Participants leave with a deeper understanding of their own agency in strengthening connection and collective sisu under pressure, and a shift in perspective from managing only my own capacity to understanding how we shape capacity together. This talk connects sisu with a practice of micro-moments of sisu to offer a tool to help shape the culture of team or an organization.

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HEALTHY SISU: A BLUPRINT FOR TEAMS AND TEAM LEADERS 

Using strength wisely, discerning between beneficial and harmful sisu

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Too often power is associated with, or tolerated as, force, control and the ability to push through at all costs. But strength should not have to be hard to be effective. Neither ambition nor temporary, prolonged stress should cost us our sense of aliveness, our relationships, or our health. Yet too often, this is exactly what happens.

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Healthy and sustainable sisu is about learning to lead ourselves and our strength with insight and wisdom - in relationships, difficult conversations, high-performance environments, and everyday choices. Healthy sisu brings together qualities we often separate: toughness and gentleness, determination and sensitivity, boundaries and connection, rest and ambition.

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For those working toward ambitious goals, or having to navigate structures that are not life-giving, the question is not simply how to increase one's strength. It is how to increase our capacity to use strength wisely: to know what is enough, when to persist, and when to change direction. How to protect what matters, and how to care for ourselves and the people around us when doing hard things.

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Participants leave with a clearer understanding of the healthy and harmful expressions of sisu, greater awareness of their own go-to patterns around strength and perseverance, and how to begin to move toward more sustainable expressions of strength.

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​​Each keynote can be expanded into an interactive session, from a mini-workshop to a half- or full-day learning experience. Sessions are shaped around the people in the room and can combine research, stories, conversation, reflection and embodied exercises depending on the context.

 

If these questions are relevant to your organization, get in touch and let’s explore what we could do together!