Two Keynotes,
One Message.
We are the answer we've been looking for.
“But… I don’t have a choice!”
The words spilled out of my mouth and all over a young associate who’d just told me she was giving up a promising legal career because she didn’t want a life that looked like mine: too much time at the office, not enough time with family, working three underpaid side “gigs” to prove to the profession that I deserved a seat at the table.
My stock in trade was showing people—my clients, my students, the associates I mentored—that the one thing they truly owned, the one thing they should never relinquish, was their power to choose.
And yet, when someone questioned my overwork, I instinctively, defensively responded: “I don’t have a choice.”
Stack the Deck emerged from that moment. Not because I didn’t know better, but because I realized how easy it is to forget what’s already in our hands.
Every year, every season, every week, we get to choose how we show up. Most of us are taught to wait. We wait for permission, for certainty, or for someone else to finally deal us better cards.
To make ourselves comfortable in that waiting, we tell ourselves the story that we don't have a choice.
Stack the Deck changes that story.
This talk shows you how to recognize the agency you already have, and how to play each card you’re holding with intention, so you can turn the life you're living into a life you love.
Book this talk if your members are ready to stop waiting for permission and start choosing themselves.
This talk is perfect for:
High-school & college students ready to step into the next chapter of their lives.
Mid-career professionals looking for what's next.
Aspiring entrepreneurs.
Stack the Deck:
Turn the Cards You're Holding into a Hand You Love.
“They can’t do that, though. It’s illegal!”
The truth is, anyone can do anything they want. By the time the system steps in, the harm can’t be undone.
In response, we outsource responsibility, asking for more oversight, more regulation, more enforcement: “Why doesn’t someone, somewhere do something?”
What if that someone, somewhere, is us?
All of us, together, here and now?
After 25 years working within systems designed to protect and provide for us, one truth has emerged: when we exchange our agency for security, we leave ourselves at the mercy of those systems.
We don’t need more systems. We need more agency.
More non-conformists and more creatives. And all of that starts with, you guessed it, more crayons.
Crayons Before Constitutions reminds us that real justice does not (and never did) color inside the lines. Rather, non-conformists and creatives have always pushed the edges of justice beyond society's carefully curated spaces.
Training in the arts—disciplines that demand discomfort, disagreement, and disruption—builds the moral muscle democracy needs to flourish. As stewards of programs designed to create better citizens, our most important job is to make space for and protect creative expression.
Book this talk if your organization supports those who are done coloring inside the lines and ready to create what comes next.
This talk is perfect for organizations that want to:
Reignite donors and supporters with story-driven message that inspires giving.
Re-energize members, volunteers, and communities who have grown exhausted by business-as-usual.
Refocus teams and boards when mission, messaging, or momentum gets buried under bureaucracy.