Chris Heeter

Have the courage to bring all of who you are to all that you do.

BOOK CHRIS

Before the ‘formal’ bio, I just want to tell you how I came to speaking and why I still do it…

With a lot of help from the National Speakers Association, I learned about the business of speaking.  The sled dogs, the wilderness trips, and ALL the experiences and stories have done the rest.  My favorite description of what it feels like to get to speak to an audience or work with a team comes from the speaker/poet David Whyte: “Good speech is half what you plan to say, and half what is listened out of you.”

On to the more “traditional” bio…

Award winning speaker and business owner, Chris Heeter, is out to create a wild revolution in the workplace. As a wilderness guide for over 3 decades, Chris has led and worked with countless teams, helping them literally and figuratively, find their way as a group and as individuals.

Featured on The Discovery Channel’s “National Geographic Today,” Chris brings decades of wilderness leadership experience indoors, to offices and off-sites, working with teams and leaders, helping us all recognize that work doesn’t have to be so complicated.

She believes that teamwork, leadership, inclusion, and a positive work culture boil down to three essentials: Wildly Present, Wildly Original, and Wildly Welcoming.

Chris’s life serves as the canvas for her many memorable, easy to implement, life-changing tools that apply to individuals, teams and leaders in organizations all across the country. Her entertaining stories and insightful lessons were learned as much from her sled dogs, (a team of 16 Alaskan Huskies that she bred, raised, and trained as a team), as they were from the rivers that serve as the backdrop for the many whitewater trips that she has guided over the last 3 decades. Bottom line? Chris exemplifies wild!

She has been recognized by MeetingsNet as a Top Ten Speaker, and she was the highest rated speaker at MPI’s World Education Congress in 2014.

But best of all, Chris is determined to help you awaken your wild side because when we let our WILD show, everybody wins. Your organization, your team, and especially you!

EXPERT ON
Leadership
Teamwork/Teambuilding
Diversity
Organizational Development
Corporate Culture
Personal Development

PROGRAM INFORMATION

YOU HAVE YOUR TEAM…NOW WHAT? MANAGING PERSONALITIES, FINDING THE GOOD IN EVERY “DOG”

WHEN THE LEADERS SEES NOTHING BUT TAILS: LEADERSHIP SKILLS LEARNED FROM THE BACK OF A DOGSLED

Picture a musher driving a dogsled. His/Her team is in front of her, there are no reins to steer the dogs, no whip to make them go. He must lead the team from behind, training them, harnessing and guiding their energy, the only means of communication from the sled being voice commands (to another species). Trail conditions change frequently, dogs on the team sometimes disagree. Sound strangely familiar? Join Chris Heeter for an exploration in wild leadership. You’ll learn when “setting the snow hook” might be the best thing to do not only on the trail, but in a meeting or before a launch or major initiative. You’ll get to know some of the sled dogs (virtually) and their personalities, what they have to teach us about communication, leadership, and the value of perspective. It’s a program with surprising, memorable, relevant, and applicable tools and strategies, whether your “pack” has two legs or four.

THE STUPID SIDE OF THE ROCK: WHEN BEING RIGHT IS LESS IMPORTANT THAN BEING A TEAM

Join Chris for a “wild” ride into the world of whitewater canoeing. Whether you are careening backwards in a canoe, or at work with that very same feeling in the pit of your stomach, these analogies hit home for all of us: the absolute necessity of giving and receiving support; the no-frills power of positivity; and down-to-earth tools for staying afloat and working as a team.

NAVIGATING THE RAPIDS OF DIVERSITY: STAYING UPRIGHT, WORKING TOGETHER, AND LEANING DOWNSTREAM

Whitewater has much to teach us about productivity, leadership, and diversity:

  1. –how different the world looks when we focus on the route, rather than the obstacles along the way.
  2. –how little it matters what has happened upstream, what is important is what is in front of us right now.
  3. –no matter the route you choose, you are 100% more likely to stay upright if you listen and work together rather than try to choose 2 different routes in 1 canoe.

Whether the times are frightening or exciting is up to each of us. Chris drives these points home with memorable stories of whitewater adventure, a breath of fresh air from a different point of view.