Interactive storytelling keynote
Your Story Is Your Superpower
A storytelling keynote for leaders whose experience can move people
Turn authentic experience into stories that create connection, meaning, and influence—without becoming theatrical, manufacturing vulnerability, or making yourself the hero.
Spoken for NASA Houston Flight Operations · U.S. Air Force · U.S. Navy · CEO Groups · 3× TED Speaker · 5× TEDx Speaker
Facts inform. Stories help people care.
Your audience isn’t asking for a performance. They’re asking for meaning.
The right story helps people understand why an idea matters, why it matters to you, and what may be possible for them. That is why storytelling is not decoration around leadership. It is one of the ways leadership becomes human.
Leadership storytelling turns lived experience into meaning that helps people understand, remember, connect, and act.
The story comes through you, but ultimately it is for the audience. It opens something up for them.
The keynote experience
John tells great stories. Then he shows the room that they can, too.
This keynote is funny, moving, practical, and deeply participatory. John shares unforgettable stories, breaks down why they work, and—when the event allows—works live with audience members to reveal the powerful stories hiding inside their own experience.
People don’t leave thinking, “John is a good storyteller.” They leave thinking, “I have stories that matter, and now I know how to use them.”
01
The Audience Is the Hero
The speaker may guide the journey, but the audience should be able to see themselves inside the possibility.
02
Your Origin Story
Reveal why this work, mission, or moment matters so much to you in a way a résumé never can.
03
Insightful Vulnerability™
Share hard-earned lessons that contribute to listeners instead of asking them to carry unprocessed emotion.
04
Meaning, Not Chronology
Shape what happened around the insight it made available, not every detail in the order it occurred.
05
Details People Can Feel
Use the specific, relatable details that help listeners enter the experience and remember why it mattered.
06
Leadership Stories
Build a repertoire of stories for trust, change, culture, values, customers, failure, courage, and action.
A keynote that demonstrates the idea
The best way to understand the power of story is to experience it.
When appropriate for the event, John invites willing audience members into a live conversation. With warmth, humor, respect, and a few precise questions, he helps them find the moment, detail, choice, or lesson that turns an experience into a story worth sharing.
The room sees how much wisdom is already present—and how quickly human connection changes when someone shares it well.
Everyone has a story capable of inspiring and moving other people.
The work is not inventing one. It is recognizing the right experience, discovering what it means, and shaping it so it becomes a contribution.
What your audience will take with them
Not one perfect story. A new way to recognize and use the stories they already have.
- Recognize meaningful stories hiding inside ordinary professional and personal experience.
- Choose the right story for the audience, purpose, and moment.
- Make the audience the hero instead of turning the story into self-promotion.
- Use vulnerability with insight, judgment, and service.
- Turn abstract ideas and values into moments people can see and remember.
- Share stories more naturally without memorizing a performance.
“Your Origin Story is one of the most important tools in your leadership repertoire.”
Credibility matters. Emotional Credibility™ moves people.
Your experience can establish more than expertise. It can help people understand how you think, what you value, why the work matters to you, and why they can trust you to lead. A well-chosen Origin Story is one of the clearest ways to make that connection.
Vulnerability needs an insight.
Vulnerability is not telling people every painful or embarrassing thing that has happened to you. The contribution arrives when you have processed the experience into a lesson that makes something useful available to the listener. John calls this Insightful Vulnerability™.
The story is yours. The gift belongs to the audience.
The point is not to impress people with what you survived or accomplished. The point is to use your experience to open a door: to possibility, courage, understanding, action, or a more honest conversation.
“What an incredible experience. A whole different approach—storytelling with relatable verbal details. It was fun to learn something new, and I received many compliments from attendees of all backgrounds.”
Gary Mercer, GE Aerospace
Built for leaders and the people they lead
Especially valuable when information alone is not enough.
- Leadership conferences and executive offsites
- Technical, scientific, medical, and engineering organizations
- Founder, CEO, and entrepreneurial communities
- Customer conferences and sales kickoffs
- Organizations clarifying purpose, values, culture, or change
Your people already have the raw material.
They have made difficult choices, learned hard lessons, served customers, solved problems, taken risks, failed, recovered, and discovered what matters. This keynote helps them see that experience as a leadership asset—and use it in service of other people.
Designed around your event
Choose how deeply you want the audience to participate.
John can create a compelling keynote for a large audience, add live story work, extend the experience into a practical workshop, or facilitate a conversation that brings out the stories of your own leaders.
Keynote
A story-rich shared experience that changes how people see their own stories.
Interactive keynote
Include carefully facilitated live story work with willing participants.
Keynote + story lab
Help participants identify, shape, and practice a leadership story of their own.
Executive Fireside Chat
Reveal the wisdom and personality of your own leaders.
Executive Fireside Chats
Bring out the person behind the title.
Through Live Like a Leader, John has interviewed more than 150 leaders from all walks of life. He knows how to ask the questions that move a conversation beyond polished talking points and reveal the stories, passion, values, and dedication behind a leader’s work.
John brings that skill to Executive Fireside Chats for conferences, leadership meetings, and company events. He creates a conversation that humanizes the executive without diminishing their authority, respects their expertise, and helps the audience connect with the person who is asking them to follow.
Planner questions
What should you know?
Is this only about personal stories?
No. Personal experience can be powerful, but leadership stories also come from customers, teams, difficult decisions, failures, values, moments of change, and lessons learned. The key is choosing an experience that serves the audience and the purpose.
Do audience members have to participate?
No. Live story work is always designed around the event and handled with care. Participation is voluntary, and the keynote remains valuable and complete without putting anyone on the spot.
Is this useful for technical or highly experienced audiences?
Yes. Technical expertise becomes more useful when people can understand why it matters and remember it. John respects the intelligence in the room and helps audiences add human meaning without “dumbing down” their ideas.
Does John tell stories, teach storytelling, or both?
Both. John creates an engaging keynote experience through story, then makes the underlying principles visible and useful so audience members can apply them to their own communication.
Can John customize the keynote?
Yes. John learns about the audience, event, organization, and desired outcome. The examples, degree of interaction, and practical emphasis can all be shaped around the moment.
Is this a motivational keynote?
It is funny, moving, and inspiring, but it is not inspiration without application. People leave with distinctions and tools they can use in leadership, meetings, presentations, and everyday human connection.
Bring John to your event
Give your audience an experience that helps their own stories come alive.
Tell John about your audience, your event, and what you want people to believe, understand, feel, or do next.