Najwa Zebian

This keynote simply empowers participants to stop building their homes (their sense of identity and safety) in other people, places or titles. Najwa will guide them through the process of building a home within so that they feel like they belong wherever they go so that they can be intrinsicly motivated to lead themselves and others.

The powerful metaphor of home provides a structure for personal transformation as participants explore practical tools for self-understanding and self-reflection. With deeply resonant teachings delivered with her trademark power, candor, and warmth, participants will harvest the power of building that inner space of solace where they can unleash their potential. Organizations will create an environment of self-aware, intrinsically motivated leaders who in turn make the work environment authentically welcoming and reflective of all members of the organization at all levels.

Keynote Presentation Goals:

• Providing participants with Najwa’s magic formula tools to build a strong foundation of self
• Exploring the destructive and constructive power of the limiting beliefs we create during our childhood
• Demonstrating the lifechanging value of changing the question from “why can’t I have that?” to “why don’t I have that?”
• Walking through the revolutionary process of healthy boundary building in personal and workplace contexts (as opposed to setting)
• Equipping participants with practical tools to navigate self-love, forgiveness, compassion, clarity and surrendering to the present moment both in their personal and workplace contexts
• Exploring the benefits of “unblinding” yourself- one of Najwa’s unique tools to achieving internal and external clarity in the workplace

This keynote presentation explores the importance of moving from a top-down approach to leadership to a distributed type of leadership. What does a workplace where every employee is a leader look like? What does it feel like? And how could it transform both the professional and personal lives of every employee to be more productive and fulfilling? Najwa brings her expertise from her graduate studies to this life-changing talk.  

Participants, whether in conventional leadership positions such as management or CEO or not, will reflect on their own understandings of leadership and their application of it in the workplace and in their personal lives. They will also learn practical strategies for going from "I" to "We", ensuring every team member feels valued and valuable.  

Ultimately, educational leadership in the workplace seeks to ensure that employees are meeting their potential, both in terms of their current roles and their overarching careers. Leaders foster a sense of distributed leadership through continuous learning and professional development, recognizing that individuals who are engaged in learning are more productive, creative, and innovative.  

Presentation Goals: 

• Creating and sustaining a positive learning environment that encourages employees to develop and use their skills   
• Establishing clear expectations, providing guidance and support, and expressing recognition and praise   
• Promoting collaboration and recognizing the value of diverse perspectives, experiences, and skills  
• Fostering a work environment that is inclusive, respectful and responsive  
• Highlighting the connection between organizational culture and overall employee well-being  

This keynote presentation aims to completely transform both the personal and professional lives of participants at all organizational levels to become the masters of their own path. Through research, stories, and practical strategies, this keynote will guide participants to adopt resilience as a pathway to a healthy workplace mindset and maintaining a work-life balance. 

There is a myth that there is no room for emotion in the big leagues. Whether we want them to or not, emotions guide how we do almost everything, not just how we handle failure. Our feelings dictate how we manage our time and energy. They help us navigate conflicts, take responsibility for our actions, communicate with others and adapt to changes under stress. All these skills are required to be a good leader, teammate, or employee. Instead of focusing on one skill at a time, we can strengthen our emotional intelligence and build resilience that enables us to handle anything that comes our way. 

We can create a welcoming and healthy work environment where employees can thrive by bridging the gap between personal and professional perseverance skills and destigmatizing mental health in the workplace. With the incorporation of mental health exercises, organizations can reconcile employee attitude, mental health, and retention leading to increased productivity and performance for the whole organization. 

Presentation Goals: 

• Equipping participants with self-care tools to recognize and combat burnout and overwhelm 
• Bridging the gap between work and life through authentic, tangible mental health practices 
• Providing a framework to help participants develop strategies for stress management and reduction 
• Changing mindsets and removing resistance to organizational change through intentional adaptation 
• Guiding participants to devise personalized plans for resilience in the workplace based on their lived reality

This keynote empowers participants to dismantle and remove limiting beliefs they have about themselves in order to stop being led by them. Instead, participants are encouraged to lead through authentic action that spans their personal and work lives. This talk emphasizes the connection between making changes in your personal life to bring your best self to the workplace. 

Authenticity plays an important role in originality and credibibility both in and outside the workplace. But how do we balance being our most authentic selves with the role we're expected to fill at work? 

By bridging the gap between personal and professional perseverance skills, participants will walk away with tools for developing self-awareness of their triggers and barriers plus how to manage them while prioritizing their emotional wellbeing. This understanding and balance will lead to higher performance and passion for their work. 

Presentation Goals: 

• Empowering participants to own and tell their story 
• Highlighting the connection between limiting beliefs outside of the workplace to performance/productivity in the workplace 
• Guiding participants through effective strategies to gain clarity on who they really are 
• Providing examples of language to express healthy work boundaries with themselves and others 
• Instilling mindfulness skills that allow for constructively using fear

This keynote guides participants to harvest the power of self-compassion and lead themselves and others through courageous action. It offers a guide to navigate through changes we don’t choose, changes we choose, and changes we must make. Through tackling the roots of fearing change (fear, uncertainty, need for validation, etc.), this keynote positions change as a positive and necessary part of a company’s evolution. 

Most people want something in their life to change, but sometimes unwanted change comes all too swiftly. When the changes in a workplace are unwelcome, employee wellbeing and productivity can suffer. 

By navigating the changes we must make (or those we need to endure) with acceptance, we can embrace change for the possibilities it presents. Using a self-compassion approach to alter participant outlook from merely adapting to change to consciously adopting and embracing it, will not only shift perspectives but also foster a vibrant work environment conducive to creative productivity. 

Presentation Goals: 

• Decentering failure language in the workplace, normalizing risk taking innovation and curiosity 
• Setting participants up for excellence through an empowering, full-potential approach 
• Fostering an inclusive environment where participants feel invited to assume a seat at the table 
• Providing participants with tools to identify and dismantle guilt or hesitance because of failure (or the possibility of it)