Beyond The Wilderness
Building adaptability, resilience, and trust in unfamiliar environments & uncertain times
After being laid off from my dream job, I found myself asking a deeper question:
What was this moment trying to teach me about Life, Leadership, Resilience, and Navigating Uncertainty?
The answer unexpectedly brought me back to one of the most formative experiences of my life. As a teenager, I was involuntarily sent to a wilderness program for girls in Maine. For two months, a dozen girls from completely different backgrounds were placed in an unfamiliar environment with limited resources, unpredictable conditions, and no distractions, only each other.
Somehow, that group of strangers became a team and eventually a family.
We learned trust, accountability, and how to move forward together when the path was unclear.
Years later, as an HR and talent development professional with over a decade of experience, I realized how closely this experience mirrored the realities of modern leadership.
Today’s teams operate in environments that are constantly shifting, where uncertainty, rapid change, and evolving expectations are the norm.
In this keynote, I combine the lessons from that wilderness experience with research from the Gallup, including the CliftonStrengths framework, to help leaders better understand themselves and the unique strengths within their teams. Participants will explore how strengths awareness, trust, and adaptability enable teams to navigate complexity and perform at their best.
Drawing from both personal experience and data-driven insights, this session provides practical tools for building stronger connections, fostering psychological safety, and leading with clarity, even when the path ahead is uncertain.