Joe Robinson is one of the country’s most quoted experts on work-life balance, cutting stress in the workplace, and the art and science of productivity and effective work. He has appeared on Today, CNN, NBC Nightly News, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Forbes.com, and in the Wall Street Journal, Time, the Los Angeles Times, and dozens of others to share how to work smarter, break out of the stress and burnout cycle and build job and life satisfaction.
His articles have appeared in Entrepreneur, Fast Company, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, CNN.com, Men’s Journal, and many other outlets on issues from improving work-life balance to managing time pressure, stress, and message overload, to building resilience and optimism and activating life skills.
As a keynote speaker and trainer, Joe inspires conference and workshop audiences with fun, interactive programs designed for engagement, the best learning tool and something that minds crave. Activities include his surprise samba dance lesson (don’t tell anyone), always an audience favorite, which showcases the power of direct experience and full attention in the moment.
He has led programs for clients (and surprise dancers) at Amazon, IBM, Pfizer, Nestle, Ocean Spray, Equitable, Siemens, Kohler, LEGO, the Reserve Bank of India, New York City Public Health, the University of Texas Medical Branch, Imagine Entertainment, and many more.
Joe’s latest book, Work Smarter, Live Better: The Science-Based Work-Life Balance and Stress Management Toolkit, charts a path to a smarter, sustainable work style in an age of unbounded distractions and crisis mentality. The book provides an arsenal of tools from his work-life balance and stress management trainings that he’s brought to workers around the U.S. and the world, from Mumbai to Bogota.
He is also author of Work to Live, which shows how to avoid defaults that drive unhealthy work, and Don’t Miss Your Life, on the science and skills of activating the most gratifying life outside the office.
5 KEYNOTE AND EMPLOYEE TRAINING PROGRAMS FROM JOE ROBINSON
• WORK-LIFE BALANCE & WELLNESS: WORK SMARTER, LIVE BETTER
More and more of us are drowning in nonstop messaging and interruptions in an unbounded digital world. It’s made work-life balance one of the most popular topics in working America. This fun and interactive program gives your audience the tools they need to manage the chaos and keep stress, overwhelm, and burnout at bay.
Inspire, engage, and recharge your event participants with solutions they need to survive—and thrive—in an always-on world. They learn how to build a smarter, more sustainable work style, one based on thinking before autopilot reaction. The program shows through the latest research and best practices how to make adjustments to how we think, react, and do our tasks that make us more effective and less subject to stress and frenzy.
Participants learn how to manage pressure, multiple demands, devices, deadlines, and refuel the chief productivity tool: attention. They also learn how to put that attention on life outside work, find balance at home, improve wellness, increase optimism in their outlook, and build the keys to a gratified life. It’s a work- and life-changing experience that gives them tools they can use for a lifetime. They will be inspired!
Takeaways
• How to manage demands and pressure, instead of having them manage you
• The best tools to set boundaries on an unbounded world
• How to control email, information overload, message apps, and shredded impulse control
• Key stress reduction and wellness practices to promote mental health
• Top strategies to refuel and recharge your life outside work and activate life skills
STRESS MANAGEMENT & RESILIENCE: CALM IN THE STORM
Stress and burnout are at all-time highs, reports Gallup, but when you turn off the danger signal that triggers stress, the stress response stops in three minutes. Knowing how to do that may be the best takeaway your audience ever got from a conference.
Is your dog still barking two months after a stranger dog walked on your sidewalk? No way. That's why your dog is smarter than you are. He drops the incident as soon as it’s over. Humans hang on to the stressful event, and that's what causes our stress. This program shows how to be as savvy as a spaniel, by dropping stress like an old chew toy, reframing, defusing, contesting, and disputing the bogus overreactions of a brain that thinks it’s 100,000 B.C.
Your group learns how to navigate pressure, workload, deadlines, difficult people and conversations, bounce back from negative events, prevent burnout, and build resilience. This is the missing manual we never got on how not to take the bait of stress.
Takeaways
• How to manage stress, pressure, and overwhelm, and prevent burnout
• How not to take the bait of stress by looking at the thought that causes it, not from it
• How to leave work stress at work through the science of work recovery
• Multiple stress reduction tools to build resilience and manage any challenge
TIME MANAGEMENT: MANAGING CRAZY-BUSY WORK
Are information overload, interruptions, and distractions driving attention and productivity south? Get tools from this timely program proven to increase focus, manage distractions, and get more done.
Unbounded interruptions and intrusions erode impulse control and focus. The more you check email, the more you have to check it. You lose the ability to regulate impulsivity for not just email-checking, but also for Jim Beam, Sara Lee, or any other habit you don’t want. Control the crazy with strategies from the latest research.
Takeaways
• How interruptions shred your impulse control and discipline, and how to manage them
• Why multitasking thinking tasks is a myth, which we demonstrate in a fun exercise from the University of Michigan's David Meyer
• How rushing fuels stress and mistakes and why we need to be quick but not hurry
• Top time management tools, from the next physical action to base camps to order chaos and your priorities
MOTIVATION & EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT: Motivation 2.0: The Drive That Makes You Thrive
Studies show that employees who are intrinsically motivated are continuously interested in the work they are doing. That absorption and interest are the engines of employee engagement, which has been shown to triple shareholder return.
Give your organization the tools to unleash the extra effort in every employee. Drive self-initiative, trust, purpose, and results. Employee engagement can't be commanded, only enabled. This program shows how to do that by unleashing the little-known but most potent motivational system, Motivation 2.0, and the power of intrinsic motivation.
Takeaways
• How to use intrinsic motivation to drive optimal experience and full absorption in the moment
• How to identify the right work goals needed for intrinsic motivation—excellence, service, craft, challenge
• Rationales that promote perceived choice and willing engagement
• Key strategies to unleash self-initiative
LIFE BALANCE & HAPPINESS: THE SKILLS OF SATISFACTION
Scientists have found exactly what makes humans happy, but it isn't what we think. This inspirational program breaks down the skills we need to increase gratification, the long-term version of happiness.
Discover the strategies that create an extraordinary life. Some 60% of our potential happiness we have no control over. It's how we use the other 40% that makes the difference. Lift your audience sky-high with this popular program.
Takeaways
• The 7 key life skills needed for an extraordinary life
• How to satisfy the brain’s chief goals for long-term fulfillment: novelty and challenge
• The 3 Core Needs you have to satisfy to be gratified and the under-the-radar goal structure necessary to make it happen
• Why experiences make you happier than material things
