Felt safety is the key to fostering trust, open communication, and emotional well-being at work. Wendy McMahan shares practical strategies for leaders and teams to create environments where employees feel safe enough to be honest, ask for help, and show up as their full selves.

This session will equip attendees with actionable tools to foster a work environment where employees can thrive—emotionally, mentally, and professionally.

Felt-safety isn't a checklist. It doesn't take place if it is a policy without practice. It works when based in the lived experience of being welcomed, honored, and understood.

In this session, Thomas R. Wilson invites us into his world, where creativity, stories, and safe spaces became lifelines in the face of trauma, neurodivergence, and systemic failure. Through storytelling and personal reflection, participants will explore how imagination and empathy can transform not only how we offer safety—but how we feel it, too

Many workplaces say they're safe - but are they felt as safe by those who show up every day? In this session, we’ll explore the difference between actual safety and felt-safety, and how trauma can impact our ability to show up fully when unpredictability, power imbalances, or unseen threats linger in the background. You’ll learn to spot subtle disruptors like inconsistent communication, unclear expectations, or leadership blind spots that unintentionally contribute to stress and mistrust.

You’ll walk away with a simple, powerful tool—the Predictability Check—and strategies to create more structure, transparency, and trust in your workplace culture.

In this soul-stirring session, Amanda Jane Browne invites us into a reflective journey through the realities of burnout and uncertainty in a chaotic world. Drawing from her dual lens as a clinical social worker and someone with lived experience, she offers a deeply compassionate framework for staying grounded amidst disruption. Through grounding practices, philosophical exploration, and creativity as a tool for reclamation, Amanda helps us remember that even in collapse, we can create.

This is not a session of quick fixes or hustle culture hacks. Instead, it is an invitation to pause, to breathe, and to ask brave questions about who we are—beyond titles, systems, and expectations. With ancestral wisdom at our backs and gold in our cracks, we can navigate these times not by avoiding the discomfort, but by leaning into meaning, boundaries, and the art of becoming.

What if leadership didn’t require self-sacrifice? In this powerful and grounding session, Tatiana Szulc redefines sustainable leadership by centering nervous system awareness, internal boundaries, and embodied regulation. Drawing from her clinical experience and intuitive approach, Tatiana offers a refreshing and accessible lens on how leaders can stay attuned to their energy, lead with authenticity, and avoid the slow drift toward burnout.

Participants will explore how nervous system states influence leadership style, how to notice “overgiving” patterns early, and how to cultivate resilience through embodied practices. This session is a breath of fresh air for anyone leading people, projects, or communities—especially those in human service, education, and mission-driven roles.

Brian Knowler brings a rare dual perspective to the conversation on trauma and leadership—combining lived experience as a police officer and lawyer with expertise in trauma-informed organizational change. In this candid and courageous session, Brian shares his personal journey with post-traumatic stress, the ripple effects of silence, and the turning point that reshaped his life and leadership.

From frontline responders to C-suite executives, Brian challenges us to dismantle the "suck-it-up" culture and instead lead with vulnerability, clarity, and connection. He names the invisible weight many carry at work and offers real-world strategies to foster environments where people feel safe enough to ask for help.

Participants will walk away with tools to:

• Recognize signs of invisible trauma in themselves and others
• Reduce stigma around mental health conversations
• Shift team culture from isolation to support

Because no one—no matter their title—is an island.

Connection begins in the stories we share. Thomas helps us reclaim connection through the art of storytelling, shared creativity, and playful vulnerability.

Through Dungeons & Dragons, youth-led circles, and strength-based approaches, this session reveals how authentic relationships form when we choose to listen deeply and show up as our full selves. Participants will learn how to foster spaces where belonging is co-created, not prescribed.

We are wired for connection; but many workplace environments create the opposite: isolation, performance pressure, and disconnection. In this session, we’ll explore why connection isn’t just a nice to have, but a biological need. You’ll learn how micro-moments of trust can change team dynamics, why relational leadership builds resilience, and how to shift from transactional communication to connection that’s healing and humanizing.

With the 5-Second Connection practice, you’ll have a simple yet transformative way to create moments of belonging and trust in everyday interactions.

What if the very definition of success you’re striving for is quietly working against your values, your well-being, and your team’s connection?

In this insightful and vulnerable session, Carly Jo Bell, founder of WholeCo Media, invites us to examine the unconscious messages we’ve absorbed about what it means to “succeed.” Drawing from her own transformational leadership journey, Carly offers a fresh, embodied perspective on how our internalized definitions of success shape the cultures we create—often without us realizing it.

Whether you’re leading a team, building a business, or reshaping workplace culture from the inside out, this session is an invitation to pause, reflect, and root your leadership in something more whole.

In this heartfelt and practical session, Zander Sprague addresses one of the most overlooked yet deeply human experiences in the workplace: grief. Drawing from decades of lived and professional experience—including the loss of his sister while working at a Fortune 100 company—Zander offers insight into how grief shows up on the job, especially for sibling survivors, a grief category often minimized or misunderstood.

Participants will gain tools for acknowledging and supporting grieving colleagues, as well as understanding the psychological and emotional impact of unspoken grief on workplace productivity, morale, and human connection. Zander emphasizes that the simple act of listening and honoring another’s pain can transform a workplace from cold and disconnected into a space of shared humanity.

This session is for anyone who leads, manages, supports, or works alongside people navigating grief—because that means all of us.