Speaking

Leslie will work closely with you to deliver customized content that meets your objectives. She knows your reputation hinges on the quality of speakers you hire and her job is to make you look good. She wants people to thank you for your efforts and hard work.

From private and public sector organizations to health care, trade associations, and educational institutions, Leslie works with a broad span of industries. This demonstrates her ability to research, understand, and uniquely customize her message for each audience. If you are willing to brief Leslie on the details she is willing to absorb them. She is a popular, enthusiastically received speaker for women’s audiences and she also brings an authentic, inspiring message to caregivers.

Speaking Samples

presentation
Interview with Leslie

Interactive Presentations

change

Make Change and Stress Your Allies—Not Your Enemies

Recent historical events have permanently changed the ways we relate, communicate, congregate, educate, motivate, celebrate, commiserate, and operate at work. Change and stress are unsettling, provoking the faint of heart to reach for the chips while trail blazers chip away at the challenge (chances are you’ve done both). Now take a few moments to consider how, over time, these two familiar forces have forged a better you, with or without your cooperation.

We’ve been told, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” but a taking a longer, closer look often brings insight, revelation and adaptation. Take time to know—and grow. Reap the benefits of embracing, aligning and empowering yourself with the two tricky forces you’ve tried to avoid in the past—and you’ll never look back.

Why This Topic
Change and stress are inevitable, unhappiness is optional. Reject the temptation to resist, resent or resign yourself to fate. Take on the unexpected or unwanted with creativity, composure and commitment, and reap the rewards of self-determination and peace of mind.
Key Skill Takeaways
  • Discover the many ways you unknowingly enable resistance and anxiety
  • Radically elevate your reframing skills for enhanced insight and mental agility
  • Transform how you tackle adversity to restore your attitude, energy and output—for good
“A crisis is simply an opportunity to practice what you preach.”
– Leslie Charles
change

Reentry: From Then, To Now, To Next

In early 2020 we were still busy breaking our New Year’s resolutions when the pandemic hit. The new year didn’t unfold; it unraveled. Despite the ambiguity, isolation or uncertainty, you found ways to prevail while enduring the unexpected, unwelcome and unthinkable. Your experiences and those of your team members can unearth self-discovery if you are willing to compare notes. For your collective benefit, before moving on too far, it pays to take stock and examine the good, the bad and the ugly of your shared history. Sifting through your recent past can be profitable, especially in taking the time to identify what you personally lost and what you found. Zero in on the strengths you drew upon, not just to survive, but to thrive—and examine your lasting insights so you and your colleagues can more effectively plan and shape your future with increased trust and tenacity.

Why This Topic
A pandemic isn’t something you can wish away, nor does it help to idealize the past. Put simply, a historic event is a terrible thing to waste. This session delicately opens the Pandora’s Box of Covid-19, examining what sustained you and those around you, while unveiling the hope you harbor for the future. As in space travel, the most precarious part of a journey is reentry: carefully create a solid plan for where you’ll land.
Key Skill Takeaways
  • Transform key experiences into teachable moments and stockpile the lessons you gained
  • Track the core skills that helped you face adversity for future application
  • Transfer the insights you gained to help shape and inform tomorrow’s challenges
“When we act out of fear, we often create the very outcome we are trying to avoid.”
– Leslie Charles
stress

Beating Burnout: Sidestep the Toll of Long-Term Stress

Burnout is the result of weathering too much pressure for too long with too little letup. Some professions such as healthcare and teaching make people more vulnerable to burnout, but the pandemic’s economic, emotional, social and occupational woes have increased the likelihood for everyone. Ongoing uncertainty, unresolved worries and shifting expectations with inadequate stress relief can take its toll. In the face of these constant pressures, how are you holding up?

Burnout symptoms begin with generalized dissatisfaction, impatience, irritation, discontent or anger, while slowly developing into disillusionment, fatigue and emotional withdrawal. When hit with unfavorable, unrelenting forces, you need to closely examine what you do to yourself when stressed. You also need to know what you can do for yourself to steer clear of burnout and enjoy the long-term health you deserve.

Why This Topic
Considering the mental health community’s concerning reports on this subject, you want to remain as healthy and vital as possible. Reduce stress and resist burnout by taking the time to incorporate easy, brief personal practices that make your life more positive, productive and peaceful.
Key Skill Takeaways
  • Relieve self-imposed pressures to fully appreciate what’s right in your life
  • Retain and refine simple strategies that support your mental and physical wellness
  • Reactivate your senses to lighten stress, heighten your spirits and brighten your day

“The next time it feels like you’re walking a tightrope, check to see if it’s lying on the ground.”

– Leslie Charles
communication

How to Talk So People Will Listen: How to Listen So People Will Talk

Two social factors influence the way people perceive you: how you talk to them and how well you listen. The quality of your relationships depends on your ability to connect in all kinds of situations, especially when time is limited. Knowing how to relate quickly, clearly and constructively is an essential workplace skill, especially if you are in charge. Raise your awareness of subtle cues you send that affect how your message is received and sharpen your ability to read these nuances in others. Enhance your ability to hold people’s interest by intentional listening and you will sidestep many of the pitfalls that cause confusion, annoyance or opposition.
Why This Topic
You spend more time communicating than you realize. Many conversations are spontaneous and brief, providing limited opportunities to observe the effect you have on others. How do you rate as a communicator? Once you know how to solidly connect, the relationships you create can yield impressively long-lasting benefits—for everyone.
Key Skill Takeaways
  • Identify and adjust the way you use time and space when interacting with others
  • Master the practice of patiently eliciting people’s perspectives and priorities before soliciting yours
  • Gear your communication strategy toward collaboration and connection to gain and maintain commitment from others
“What do you want to have happen in this situation, do you want to be right, or do you want results?”
– Leslie Charles
communication

Close Encounters: Converting Conflict into Conversations

Crisis communication was once reserved for special occasions, but in today’s overly sensitive society, interacting with others can be a delicate, often dicey endeavor. While many people are civil, others may challenge, dismiss, or try to discredit you. What people say—and how they say it—discloses more about them than they realize. This matters because a large part of daily communication occurs casually and unconsciously. But certain words—and nuances—carry more weight than in the past. Some people you communicate with may not sweat the small stuff, but others will work hard to make you sweat. Master your ability to navigate tricky interpersonal exchanges so you can ensure that the message you send is indeed the one you intend. Boost your skills in redirecting conflict and cooling escalated encounters—or best yet—know how to outright prevent them.
Why This Topic
Whether addressing the receptive and responsive or the uncooperative and unreasonable, you want to be clear, concise and constructive. The person who controls the language controls the situation, from redirecting run-amok meetings to outlining explanations, correcting performance or resolving prickly issues. The secret? Subtle control is your goal.
Key Skill Takeaways
  • Bolster your ability to appear calm, confident and competent, even when you’re not
  • Bypass awkward exchanges by being an available listener
  • Build bridges of understanding by “controlling” conversational flow without controlling

“The next time someone pushes your buttons, remind yourself that you’re the one who installed them.”

– Leslie Charles
Motivation

Discover Your Superpowers: Yes, they are real!

You were born with a set of unique qualities that make you “you.” Some people call them signature strengths or core competencies, others insist they are superpowers. Whatever you call them, these skills are legit. You have them, we all do. Discover your mother lode of untapped potential that is waiting to be found, freed, and fired up.

Granted, you don’t have a built-in supersonic propulsion pack, nor can you fly without a ticket, but you can outwit adversity, overcome obstacles and perform more marvelous feats than you think. Break free of impeding patterns and habits so you can crush common excuses by channeling the powers you didn’t know you had. Only you can save the day!

Why This Topic
At long last, “soft” skills are being recognized as valuable, desirable workplace assets. Examine your innate abilities and stake a claim on your signature strengths. Increase your confidence so you can bounce back at will and blow off everyday annoyances that suck the joy out of life and work. Oh, and be prepared to have lots of fun along the way!
Key Skill Takeaways
  • Claim your often-overlooked inborn capabilities and how to leverage them
  • Confirm the key qualities that have served you through life by saving your day
  • Connect with two hidden aspects of your personality you can use for good
“The very traits and qualities that got you into trouble as a kid are the ones that make you successful as an adult.”
– Leslie Charles
Motivation

It’s Not Easy Being ‘Tween:
How to Stay Healthy When You Don’t Have Time

Do you spend a lot of time thinking about exercising more, eating better, and getting a bit more fit? And how are all those thoughts working for you? Granted, you are busy, you have many responsibilities, and it may seem impossible to fit in any kind of self-care. But you always have some in-between time that is your own!

Maybe you’re short on lengthy leisure time or total calendar control, but you still want to preserve your wellbeing. While you don’t need to sculpt a six-pack or grind out buns of steel, you do need to do something to stay healthy. That’s exactly what we do in this interactive session.

In life, work and especially relationships, we all know that little touches make a big difference. It’s the same with health. Discover fast-action “workups” that enhance your energy and boost your health. With a bit of ingenuity and brief blocks of time (minutes, not hours), you will reap the benefits.

Adopt this imaginative, incremental approach that helps you stay healthy. Perform easy exercises in between your daily duties instead of thinking or talking about them. Practice some simple strategies that will make a big difference for you—in no time!

Why This Topic
Chances are, that every day, crammed, changing schedules and constant interruptions divert your attention and derail your good intentions to be more active. Discover the biggest mistake people make about time so you can get refreshed instead of stressed and end up healthier and happier than you thought possible.
Key Skill Takeaways
  • Radically revise your perceptions about how you can capitalize on short spaces of time
  • Take creative advantage of the opportunities you have every day to “up” your fitness
  • Replace wired-in rituals with rejuvenating practices that enhance your body and mind
“Choose to live consciously and deliberately, some people cruise through life on autopilot.”
– Leslie Charles

What Audience Members Say