Natalie Johnson

Trust: The Secret Ingredient
Research from Google’s Project Aristotle indicates that the number one most important ingredient in high-performing teams is psychological safety or the belief that the environment is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. Additionally, we know from the research that trust is at the heart of all connected, collaborative relationships. But how do we ensure psychological safety exists, demonstrate behaviors that elicit trust, and build trusting relationships on our teams? This training will identify the essential elements of trust for participants and offer an opportunity to assess personal strengths and challenges related to trust. Participants will leave the session with a-ha moments and actionable ideas for building, maintaining, and repairing trust at work and at home.

Stress: Is Your Superpower!
In many ways, work and life today are busier than ever. There is pressure to do more and be engaged and plugged in 24/7. Although technology has brough great advances to our life it has come at a cost. We’re more distracted, less productive and there is an epidemic of burnout. Although stress is a predominant factor in all our lives, research has revealed that the traditional way we view stress isn’t helpful and actually contributes to burnout. The latest research on stress and human physiology illustrates that stress isn’t as detrimental as we previously thought. We can use our stress to create high performance, better connection with those that matter and even extend our life. This training will focus on the science of stress, how the body responds to it and how we can utilize stress as a true superpower. Through this training, participants will:
• Understand the new, updated science on stress
• Identify three types of stress and categorize personal stressors
• Identify excessive stress, understand the impact and learn skills for altering it
• Utilize skillful storytelling and cognitive reframing to change the stress response and create energy, positive emotions, mental clarity and resilience
• Define and use recovery strategies to create sustained performance and resilience

The Role of Vulnerability and Empathy in Creating Best-in-Class Workplaces
Recent research from the field of organizational psychology suggests that the most important key to bringing our best selves to the workplace even in times of demanding change is to put our egos in the backseat and lead with vulnerability and empathy. This session will offer important insights into the role of vulnerability and empathy in today’s changing workplace and offer practical ideas for participants to upgrade their own inner operating system, improve workplace relationships and respond to workplace challenges with courage and a leadership mindset.

Courageous Feedback: Communicating with Conviction, Clarity and Kindness
One of the most challenging parts of the workplace is giving and receiving feedback courageously. Especially when we are faced with a difficult conversation, we often find ourselves avoiding, sugar-coating, clumsily landing the message or reacting defensively. While these responses are natural and common, courageous leadership requires that we develop more comfort and confidence with candid but kind conversations. In this training, participants will:
• Identify personal barriers to giving courageous feedback and laser in on the inner work they need to do to improve their feedback opportunities
• Learn how to step into the right mindset before tough conversations
• Understand the role of empathy and vulnerability in courageous conversations
• Explore the concept of radical candor and practice using it
• Learn how to receive feedback without defensiveness and practice concrete strategies for doing so
• Learn how to create a culture of feedback on their team

Stepping into Greatness: Staying Calm, Kind and Productive in Times of Uncertainty
In times of crisis, we often default to fear and anxiety. While this is a natural human response to uncertainty, it has negative consequences for our wellbeing, our families, our communities and our workplaces. In times of disruption, change and uncertainty, what’s most needed is leadership in the true sense of the world – for each of us step into our greatness and stay calm, kind and productive. This training will help your employees do just that. Through this training, participants will:
• Better understand how and why we get emotionally triggered in times of stress and crisis
• Create clarity on what leadership in times of change means for them personally
• Explore self-care strategies for remaining physically healthy, mentally focused and emotionally calm
• Learn practical ideas for staying focused and productive at work even in the face of adversity

Above the Line: Rising Up in the Challenges of Today’s Workplace
Today’s work world is uncertain, complex, highly demanding and full of emotional triggers. Unless we’re intentional, these conditions can cause us to “armor up” and lead with ego. When we show up to work this way, we create or worsen all the things we don’t want on our teams: ineffective communication, conflict and resentment, trouble navigating change, lack of common vision and purpose, decreased performance, disengagement and burnout. This workshop teaches participants three simple but powerful concepts they can use to rise above this default state, bring their best selves to the workplace and create a team where candor, collaboration and innovation are the norm.

Dare to Lead™
Developed by renowned researcher and author Brené Brown, Dare to Lead™ is an empirically based courage-building program designed for the leaders of the future. The most significant finding from Brene’s ground-breaking research is that courage is a collection of four skill sets that are teachable, measurable, and observable. The Dare to Lead™ program focuses on developing these courage-building skills.
Participants of Dare to Lead™ trainings can expect to learn:
• Vulnerability is the foundational skillset of courage
• The critical role self-awareness plays in Daring Leadership
• Armor (not fear) is the greatest obstacle to Daring Leadership
• Four measurable, observable and teachable skillsets that make up courage
• To embrace Daring Leadership so you can show up fully in the workplace and relate in a way that calls others to greatness
This program is best positioned as an advanced leadership development training both for existing and emerging leaders. It can be delivered in half-day, full-day or 2-day trainings.

Cultivating Positivity: The Science and Practice of Shifting Your Positivity Ratio
The field of Positive Psychology offers updated thinking on the importance of positive emotions. Positivity doesn’t just feel better, it leads to significant improvements in our productivity, relationships, wellbeing and longevity. In this session, participants will learn:
• The benefits of positive emotions on all aspects of our lives
• A new way to consider both pleasant and unpleasant emotions
• The value of intentionally shifting their positivity ratio
• A wide variety of strategies for experiencing more positive emotions more of the time
• A model for responding to uncomfortable emotions productively

Energy Management: Your Key to High Performance
In many organizations, there is pressure to do more and be plugged in 24/7. This makes it difficult to prioritize personal wellbeing and maintain balance. The research is clear that individual wellbeing, work performance and organizational outcomes suffer in the long term unless employees develop the ability to balance the demands of the modern work world through better management of their physical, mental, emotional and spiritual energy.

This rich, interactive and inspiring workshop helps employees understand that self-care is not a luxury, but rather an absolute necessity for showing up as the best versions of themselves at work and at home. It offers new insights that help participants recontextualize their own wellbeing as an essential business imperative and provides realistic strategies for enhancing physical, emotional, mental and spiritual energy so they can contribute more fully and sustainably to their professional and personal lives.

Through this training, participants will:
• Understand the connection between personal self-care, work performance and organizational outcomes
• Learn and practice strategies to increase self-awareness and manage and expand energy capacity in all four energy dimensions (physical, emotional, mental and spiritual)
• Understand the benefit of managing energy instead of time
• Gain clarity on individual purpose and align with behaviors that support people and things that matter most
• Understand how to support others in their own energy management journey

Your Emotional Impact
The impact of emotional intelligence (EI) in employee success has become a significant topic for forward thinking organizations. If a person doesn’t have a high level of emotional intelligence, their IQ or work ethic will only take them so far. In this workshop, participants will learn what emotional intelligence is and how it impacts wellbeing, relationships, performance and effectiveness in the workplace. They’ll learn new models for assessing and responding to their emotional state and better understanding the emotional states of others – and practice strategies to improve their EI quotient and become more emotionally connected and resilient.

Practicing the Pause: The Power of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
Ultimately, designing a quality life experience at work and at home is an inside job. No matter what aspect of your life you want to improve, you're likely to be more successful by practicing mindfulness. While mindfulness has expanded into mainstream vernacular, there is still a misunderstanding about its true meaning and how practically it can be integrated into everyday choices, resulting in improved wellbeing, performance, relationships, leadership style, and quality of life. Through this training, participants will:
• Learn about mindfulness as both an attitude and a practicable set of skills
• Develop more self-awareness especially around their mindless or automatic habits
• Learn a simple formula for leveraging mindfulness to slow down, interrupt old habits, and make decisions more intentionally
• Identify areas of their lives that would benefit from the power of the pause and decide on next steps

The Power of Self-Care in a Purpose-Driven Life
While most people know the importance of taking care of their health, many still struggle to prioritize self-care and make sustainable changes in health behaviors. This can be especially true during times of transition or increased stress. Research indicates that connecting our daily choices to something greater than ourselves serves as a powerful motivator for change and can help us more consistently show up as the best version of ourselves. This session will offer participants:
• An opportunity to create clarity on purpose and align health behaviors to what’s most important to them
• Insights on the relationship between health behaviors, energy and performance
• New ideas on physical, mental and emotional wellbeing and practical strategies they can use immediately to improve these areas of their lives

Sleep: The Essentials
Advancements in sleep research have taught us that sleep is more important than we ever thought. Sleep deprivation contributes to disengagement, lack of focus and chronic disease. Once we understand the fundamentals of sleep and how daily choices impact it, we can take small steps to get the rest our body and brain desperately need. In this session, participants will discover how their lifestyle habits are impacting their sleep, learn about common sleep disorders and identify practical methods for higher quantity and quality sleep.

Developing a Leadership Mindset
Research indicates there are several critical keys to high-performing teams that include: psychological safety, a shared set of principles about how to behave on the team, consistent accountability and the development of a leadership mindset among all team members, not just those with formal leadership titles. The Developing a Leadership Mindset program is designed to improve the effectiveness of work teams by:
• Increasing self-awareness and effective thinking
• Increasing psychological safety
• Improving team communication and conflict resolution
• Enhancing resilience and ability to cope with change both at the individual and team level
• Developing clarity for all team members on the team’s purpose, values and shared principles
• Creating greater alignment with organizational priorities

The Developing a Leadership Mindset program is designed to be delivered to small- to medium-size groups via a series of interactive workshops. Workshops are conducted at 2- to 4-week intervals with reflection and practical application work between sessions. It is best delivered within working teams to build a mutually agreed upon workplace culture where peers actively hold themselves and one another accountable to living their desired culture. A participant workbook is included for all participants.