Seasoned leadership consultant and cultural architect on a mission to reduce relational suffering and create deeper connection
Watch Sara in Action
Help your groups to connect deeper and disagree effectively.
With a profound understanding of the responsibilities and burdens of leadership, Sara specializes in guiding leaders to foster meaningful connections, inspire purpose, and cultivate a sense of belonging within their teams, culture and communities.
Her approach emphasizes intimacy, vulnerability, and resilience. Which enables leaders to navigate difficult conversations, foster creativity, and build thriving cultures without compromising their authenticity, especially when they’re unsure how to sync with those they’re interacting with.
Approved Bio
About Sara Ness
Sara Ness is the CEO and Chief Catalyst at Authentic Revolution, the Community Advisor at the social health nonprofit Seek Healing, and an advisor to the rationalist organization Rethink Wellbeing.
When Sara was 20 years old, she catalyzed a worldwide movement of human connection, and has since influenced over 10,000 students on every continent except Antartica. She has trained the leaders of Fortune 500 companies such as Google and Dell to be more empathetic and authentic in their work, and held extended internal trainings for Mindvalley, Rebel Wisdom, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Her work has been used by CEOs, university professors, climate experts, and AI researchers to connect people during wars, classes, board meetings, and epidemics. Sara is a trained mediator with the International Mediation Campus and a trained Circler with both Circling Europe and The Integral Center. She is widely acclaimed as an expert in the fields of experience design, facilitation, and community-building.
Sara's Talks & Workshop Topics:
Any of these workshops/talks can be presented as a 60-90 minute session online, and/or a half or full-day onsite.
Company
- Creating Feedback Culture - Is your team too “nice”? Do you tend to sweep issues under the rug rather than risk an upset? This session, which is especially ideal for an offsite, will give your team a simple format to give and receive feedback - and then having them using it with each other right away.
- Defeating the Zoombies: How to Have More Engaging Online Meetings - This is a workshop initially presented at Google. We cover how to use simple Authentic Relating tools to turn any meeting from boring to connective, efficient, and awesome.
- Listening Circles for Companies in Crisis - One of our landmark sessions, this 90-minute experience creates space for every team member to relate their needs and feelings about the company. At the end, we present a list of employee-supported issues and suggestions to your executive team.
- Creating Psychological Safety in Teams - Psychological safety is the ability to be honest, make mistakes, and build trust with each other. It has been shown to be the most important element for successful teams. In this session, we’ll assess the health of your current team culture, and provide simple exercises to bring you to the next level.
Connection
- Defense Against the Dark Arts - What is power, and how can we use it? This session provides a simple way to understand and work with power - our own, and others - in any group or connection.
- How to Have Difficult Conversations - In this interactive session, we explore what holds us back and what can help us to have the conversations we avoid. We’ll cover self-regulation, de-escalation, and powerful connection tools for turning any conflict into deeper connection.
- Making Scintillating Connections - Ideal for any relationship group or container, this event teaches how to go from boring connections to fantastic ones. It can be taught as a webinar or a live workshop
- The Secret Languages of Connection - There are 4 basic languages to how any of us connect. This session presents a revolutionary new model to help us understand ourselves and others.
Leadership
- Creating Great Group Discussions - How to open up a fascinating topical conversation in a group, where everyone gets a chance to speak and you get clear feedback to help with future event design.
- Leading with Vulnerability - As a leader, it can be scary to show your full self. How do you bring your authenticity without “looking weak” or giving up your power? We’ll talk about the upsides and downsides of vulnerability in leadership, and how to do it in a way that inspires others to trust and action.
- How to Build Community - Community is a buzzword these days that can mean anything from “audience” to “life together”. In this event, we’ll teach you how to build an interdependent group of people who can co-exist, resolve conflicts, and work towards a common goal.
- Facilitation Fight Lab - As leaders, we all have situations that we don’t know how to handle. Participants in trauma - social justice challenges - The Dreaded Overtalker - and many more. Fight Lab is a highly interactive event where we play these situations out real-time, and learn how to work with them with ease and grace.
