Empowerment Through Storytelling
Speaking Topics Related To Empowerment Through Storytelling
To learn more about presentations and offers related to neurodiversity, please visit my neurodiversity page.
If you are looking for speaking topics related to empowerment through storytelling, you are in the right place.
My most commonly request storytelling related presentations are below:
- Mental Health Recovery: Leading From Lived Experience
- Questify Your Life: Using Gamification and Positive Psychology for Creative Self-Care
- We Can All Fight Dragons; Using Storytelling To Create A More Inclusive World
Mental Health Recovery:
Leading From Lived Experience
This story-focused presentation teaches about mental health recovery.
I share my mental health recovery journey, from growing up in and out of mental health hospitals, receiving electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) while still in high school, losing a year of my memory due to the ECT side effects, struggling through the transition into adulthood, and ultimately getting the support and skills necessary to start my mental health recovery journey.
In this insightful and vulnerable keynote, I share my mental health recovery journey, from growing up in and out of mental health hospitals, developing chronic pain, receiving electroconvulsive therapy while still in high school and losing a year of memory to its side effects, dropping out of college twice, starting my mental health recovery journey, and ultimately earning a J.D. cum laude, an LL.M. from Sweden, and building a business centered on my strengths and accommodates her weaknesses. I share this story not for shock value, but because it reliably shifts how audiences think, feel, and act.
Using the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration’s (SAMHSA) working definition of recovery: “a process of change through which individuals improve their health and wellness, live a self-directed life, and strive to reach their full potential” as a guide, this session explores the roles of both professional services and peer and community support in creating effective, individualized recovery plans, while making a clear call for more accessible and robust mental health care systems.
Suggested Learning Objectives for this presentation (can easily be modified to meet your presentation needs):
- Highlight the critical role of personal stories, mental health lived experience, and advocacy in promoting mental health recovery.
- Equip attendees with an understanding of the SAMHSA recovery framework (working definition of recovery), focusing on the four major dimensions: Health, Home, Purpose, and Community.
- Educate attendees on the importance and interplay of formal (professional services) and informal (peer support, community networks) support.
Great for:
Keynote & Plenary Sessions
Mental health conferences and recovery summits
Any group that would benefit from a story-based discussion about mental health recovery and the nuances of dynamic disabilities.
Previous examples of this and related presentations:
Selected Testimonials Related to Mental Health Recovery
Questify Your Life: Gamification and Positive Psychology for Creative Self-Care
What if the key to getting more done, feeling better, and building a life you actually enjoy was treating it more like an adventure? In this playful, courageous, and interactive session, I draws on the foundations of positive psychology and gamification to introduce the Questify Your Life® framework: a flexible, personalized system for turning everyday goals, setbacks, and advocacy into meaningful adventures. This gamification-based approach to self-improvement is rooted in positive psychology research and was originally developed as a personal mental health recovery tool in 2019.
Participants learn how to apply gamification principles to their goals, self-care, and daily systems in a way that is flexible, personalized, and genuinely fun. Sierra weaves in real-world examples from her own life — including her mental health recovery journey, her neurodivergence, and the side quests that led her to law school, Sweden, and beyond — to illustrate how the system works in practice. Audiences consistently describe this session as one of the most memorable and immediately applicable they have attended.
Suggested learning objectives for this self-improvement presentation (can easily be modified to meet your presentation needs):
- Learn a foundational understanding of gamification and positive psychology principles and how they apply to everyday personal growth
- Empower to utilize parts of Sierra’s flexible three-step Questify Your Life framework, mapping your journey, establishing your character, and designing fulfilling quests, ready to implement immediately
- Encourage participants to consider new ways to think about the systems they have in their lives as they relate to their well-being and goals.
Great For
- Any group that would benefit from a creative and fun presentation focusing on personal growth, gamification, and play, delivered by a gamification speaker.
- Well-being week events and positive psychology workshops.
- Wellness retreats.
- Leadership events seeking a highly motivating self-improvement keynote.
Previous examples of this and related presentations
- “Fighting Dragons: A Conversation around Disability Inclusion and the Power of Storytelling” US Bank Law Division.
- “The Wellness Reset Quest” NAMI Peer Leadership Council
- “Questify Your Life: Using Gamification and Positive Psychology for Self-Satisfaction” NAMIcon 2024.
- “Questify Your Life” WP Engine Wellness Week
Selected Testimonials Related to Questify Your Life
- “Thank you, this was great! Actually got reminded I’m doing better than I had given myself credit for.” Wellness Reset Quest, NAMI PLC
“Sierra’s philosophy is at once simple and grand: Turn your life into an adventure, and you’ll find that mundane things become enjoyable and the hard things more likely to get done.” Podcast guest, Ben Greene
We Can All Fight Dragons: Using Storytelling To Create A More Inclusive World
There are so many issues in our world, and sometimes that can feel overwhelming. Imagine looking up at the sky and seeing dozens of dragons. You can’t fight them all alone, and running doesn’t make them stop. This session teaches a different way: how to identify the Dragon you are fighting, tell your story with intention, and make a meaningful difference while taking care of yourself in the process.
Drawing on my Questify Your Life® gamification framework and my disability inclusion advocacy story, I guide participants through a powerful combination of storytelling, self-reflection, and practical strategy. This session is equal parts inspiring and actionable, and leaves audiences with a story they can return to long after the event ends.
Suggested learning objectives for this presentation
- Participants will gain a memorable reframe for approaching inclusion, advocacy, and community impact work through the lens of the “Dragon” storytelling framework
- Participants will gain practical self-care and sustainability strategies for doing meaningful work in the face of systemic challenge
- Participants will be able to identify the “Dragon” they are fighting, and tools and resources to make that fight sustainable without burning out.
Additional Speaking & Workshop Topics
My presentations can be delivered as stand-alone keynotes, breakout sessions, half-day or day long trainings, or multi-part workshop series.
Most of my presentations can be used to apply for continuing learning credits, especially for mental health providers and for legal professionals.
Additional topics:
- Finding a Seat at the Table for Beginners: A Guide to Local Mental Health Advocacy
- Disability Awareness & Inclusion
- Understanding and Addressing Ableism in the Workplace
- Invisible Disabilities in the Workplace
- Perspective-Shifting Storytelling
- Disability in DEI Conversations
- Creative Self-Care & Burnout Prevention
- Accessibility & Accommodations
- Calling In vs. Calling Out
- Aiming For Useful, Not Perfect: A Discussion About Inclusive Language
If your organization is seeking a topic related to disability, neurodiversity, mental health, inclusion, gamification, or workplace well-being, I can customize a session specifically for your goals.
Customization options include:
- Industry-specific examples (legal, healthcare, nonprofit, education, corporate)
- CLE-eligible versions
- Leadership, HR, or manager-focused versions
- Student or educator-focused versions
- Interactive exercises or discussion prompts
- Small-group breakout sessions
- Post-event Q&A or fireside chat
- Follow-up consulting session
- Multi-session or multi-department training series
Panelist Experience:
Need an additional panelist?
Examples of previous panelist experience
- “Disability, Ableism, and Advocacy in the Legal Profession,” Hennepin County Law Library
- “Resilience and Rights: Defending Disability Inclusion Amid DEI Rollbacks” Minnesota Women Lawyers
- “Navigating Accommodations in the “Real World”: How the Interactive Process Impacts Well-Being“ Mitchell Hamline School of Law
- “Lived Experience Panel: An Evening of Storytelling for World Mental Health Day” NAMI Minnesota
- “An Unfinished Journey: Civil Rights for People with Development Disabilities and the Role of the Federal Courts” Federal Bar Association Minnesota chapter
- “Realizing the Right to Food in Universities” University of Miami’s Food, Housing, And Racial Justice Symposium
- “Out in the Open: Unseen Disabilities in the Legal Community” Minnesota Chapter of the Federal Bar Association
Ready to Bring a Neurodiversity, Disability Inclusion, or Mental Health Session to Your Organization?
