Note: Elle customizes each presentation to meet your participant's unique needs and molds every topic to address the specific issues of the industry and audience. Her pre-conference interviews of participants even allow her to weave in specific wisdom stories from your organization. A list of keynote/workshop topics appears below.
Watch the Wisdom Out Video
Meet Dr. Elle Allison on YouTube and listen to her discuss the Wisdom Out project:
1. Title: What Wise People Do
Elle’s unique research of wisdom in individuals across America reveals these surprising findings: Wise people don’t have all the answers, they rush in where fools and angels fear to tread, their wisdom is hard won, they are motivated and inspired by a greater good and they transform adversity into fuel for growth. These Wisdom Makers™ have a knack for making life turn out well – even the hard parts. They do this by letting go of resistance to adversity, staying open to new possibilities, taking action, listening to their head and heart, seeing others, engaging in meaningful work, and redeeming loss for something that makes a difference for others.
Client benefits and audience takeaways:
Relate the stories of the Wisdom Makers™ to your own life and identify the places where you can transform adversity into growth
Accelerate your development and application of wisdom
Identify a priority situation in your life where wisdom is sorely needed and commit to specific wisdom action to take in the next few days.
Harness the energy that comes from life’s difficulties to bounce back and use it to make important decisions.
Greater confidence in yourself as you make decisions with wisdom.
2. Title: What Wise Leaders Do
Wise leaders appear to have an innate ability to make good decisions and steer challenging matters in the right direction. Although these leaders make it look easy, in truth they are simultaneously harnessing a potent mix of life experience, gut feeling, rational thought, and emotional equanimity – what we know as wisdom - to transform these challenges into growth. This keynote offers a six-step process for leaders who want to develop and apply wisdom to inspire teams and organizations toward a greater good.
Client benefits and audience takeaways:
Identify the energy that comes from adversity and use it to grow.
Take stock of the wisdom you already possess and decide to take the next steps to act with even greater wisdom.
Make wiser decisions and follow through on specific actions to create momentum and take advantage of opportunity.
Resonate emotional equanimity while leading and inspiring others to lead.
Accelerate wise problem solving in order to breakthrough the status quo create new opportunities.
Become more resilient and bounce back quicker from adversity.
3. Title: Sustained Change: Unleashing the Wisdom Potential in Individuals and Organizations
Change literature is largely focused on three goals: satisfaction, efficiency, and effectiveness. Those are worthy goals, but to sustain change, they are insufficient. Ultimately the responses to questions such as, “What’s in it for me?” and “How can I be more productive?” are equivalent to the instructions for evacuating a burning building. The advice can be useful and even lifesaving, but it does not create sustainable change. Leaders who know how to unleash the Wisdom Potential in teams discover the optimum intersection of individual performance, organizational performance, resilience and renewal, to achieve breakthrough goals for sustained change and a greater good.
Client benefits and audience takeaways:
Knowledge of your source of renewal and specific actions to take to renew.
Identification of a greater good that gives meaning to work and life and draws individuals and organizations forward.
Momentum toward achieving a greater good by engaging in high-powered actions in the first hundred days of implementing a new initiative.
A sense of renewal and focus.
4. Title: What Wise Couples Do
Drawn from her interviews of wise couples, Elle illuminates the nature of wisdom in romantic relationships. How did these couples get together in the first place? How do they navigate the travails of life together? What keeps them together? What is possible as a result of their relationship? For many of us, relationships are the last frontier – the place where no matter how competent we are in other areas of our life, we consistently “act the fool”. Through the stories of these wise couples, we see we are capable of sustaining a great relationship.
Client benefits and audience takeaways:
Learn the eleven secrets of wise couples and relate them to your own relationship history.
Create a new or improve an existing romantic relationship with someone you can share a lifetime of wisdom with.
Discover how you and your partner can use wisdom in your relationship to face adversity together and transform it into something for a greater good.
Choose to create a wise relationship where love, passion, friendship and respect sustain the two of you for all of your days.
More resiliency in love and more confidence as a partner in a loving and wise relationship.
5. Title: Women’s Wisdom: Adversity is the Source of Growth
“If you meet a woman of whatever complexion who sails through her life with strength and grace and assurance, talk to her! And what you will find is that there has been a suffering, that at some time she has left herself for hanging dead.”
These words, written by Novelist Sens Jeter Naslund in the book Ahab's Wife (1999) capture the essence of adversity as both the source of wisdom, and the reason why we need wisdom. Adversity, such as loss of relationships, financial security, our home, children, work, spouses, lovers and friends, comes to us in many forms and often out of the blue and out of our control. Women facing hardships or seeking to renew their spirit after suffering a loss have much to feel optimistic about! As you will hear from the stories of other wise women from around the world, these very adversities are also the source of strength, courage, renewal, and wisdom.
Client benefits and audience takeaways:
A process for milking the adversities in your life for the wisdom they offer.
Discovery or renewal of what gives you meaning
Specific strategies for taking wise action to face something in your life.
Increased grace and assurance from knowing that your losses give you strength.
6. Title: Wisdom Out, Now! (Note: This keynote is perfect to launch or close a company or department conference or off-site work session).
Whenever two or more well intended people put their minds together to face a challenge, explore ideas, or generate possibilities, wisdom is possible. Wisdom may seem like a far out concept, but in fact, teams and organizations can intentionally adopt a wisdom frame of mind whenever they choose.
Client benefits and audience takeaways:
Enhanced listening and communication during conferences and off-site work sessions, which builds trust and understanding between people.
Greater engagement by individuals and teams in work projects.
Application of wisdom strategies in real challenges at work and in life.
Generation of previously unimaginable solutions and opportunities.
7. Title: Wisdom for Mortals
Many people think wisdom is reserved for the world leaders and heroes in society who impact others on a global scale. In truth, wisdom lives in your community, on your street, and even believe it or not, under your own hat! Three things are true about wisdom: 1.) It is not a synonym for perfection, 2.) Everyone has some wisdom, and can always grow wiser still, 3.) It is a journey, not a destination.
Client benefits and audience takeaways:
Empowerment to use wisdom each day, which leads to wiser actions and better relationships with others.
Increased self-confidence to face challenges and turn adversity into growth.
Insight about personal life experiences that provide a ripe context for wisdom to grow.
8. Title: Wise Up!
You are never too young for wisdom. People think you have to live a long time before you even had a chance at being wise. It turns out this old way of thinking is simply not true. Many young people live meaningful lives devoted to the greater good. We hear about them in the news and we know they live in our neighborhoods (maybe even under our own roofs). Elle designs this keynote to reach either adult audiences or a K-12 audience. Wisdom is a journey that begins early in life. Young people and the people who care about young people can take specific steps to nurture wisdom.
Client benefits and audience takeaways:
Accelerate the development of wisdom by seeking out opportunities in mentoring and service learning, performance based learning.
Access the wisdom you already possess by exploring what happened in your personal best moment stories.
Identify the places in your life where wisdom will make a difference.
Commit to specific wisdom strategies to face and transform a challenge in your life right now.
Greater confidence in yourself as you make decisions with wisdom.
