Adam Markel

Adam Markel, bestselling author, keynote speaker and resilience researcher, guides individuals and organizations to tap the power of resilience to master the challenges of constant change.

With 18 years as a trial attorney building a multi-million dollar enterprise and 10 years as the CEO of a leading personal development and business training company, Adam has much to share about resilience, culture and change. Yet, some of his most enduring lessons came from his years as an ocean first responder – a life and death environment where Adam learned the importance of cultivating high performance capacity and impeccable teamwork.

In his latest bestselling book, Change Proof, Adam shows how those principles of resilience are equally relevant today for any business that wants to move beyond managing change to actively embracing it and using times of uncertainty, crisis, and chaos to create opportunities and stimulate individual and team growth.

As one of Huffington Post’s top speakers to see and the #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Pivot, Adam’s messages have inspired tens of thousands worldwide. His keynotes, corporate workshops, and business mentoring integrate practical business strategies, personal development insights and a unique delivery style to create a high-energy and impactful learning environment.

Adam is currently the Co-Founder and CEO of WorkWell Labs, a TEDx speaker and influencer, and host of The Change Proof Podcast, facilitating insightful discussions with business leaders and social innovators and sharing strategies to fully embrace an uncertain world and build Change Proof organizations.

Adam is continuously inspired by his wife of more than 30 years and their 4 amazing children.

Cultivating a Change-Proof Culture with AI: Preparing for a Future-Ready Workforce

In the dynamic realm of today’s business, the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) transcends mere technological innovation, playing a crucial part in enhancing employee well-being, happiness, and efficiency. This presentation explores AI’s revolutionary impact on crafting a supportive, productive work environment. We’ll delve into how AI tools can mitigate stress, uplift mental health, and establish a wellness-driven culture, thereby elevating employee contentment and performance.

Key Learning Outcomes:

• AI’s Workplace Evolution: Uncover how AI, including machine learning and data analytics, is transforming workplace practices and enhancing employee relations.
• Boosting Mental Health and Well-being: Discover AI-powered strategies for monitoring and improving mental health, emphasizing stress relief and emotional wellness.
• AI and Work-Life Harmony: Learn how AI optimizes operations and workload, fostering a balanced work-life dynamic and curbing burnout.
• Customized Employee Support: Explore the benefits of AI in providing personalized support and growth opportunities, thereby increasing job satisfaction and personal development.
• Ethical AI Use: Examine the ethical and privacy concerns associated with employing AI in monitoring and enhancing employee well-being.
• Looking Forward: Anticipate future AI innovations and their potential to transform workplace culture and employee engagement further.

This talk is designed to offer an in-depth perspective on leveraging AI as a key element in building a positive, high-performance work culture, ensuring a happier, more involved workforce ready to meet the challenges of the future.

Becoming Change Proof: The Power of Resilience for Unprecedented Success
In an era where change is the only constant, Adam Markel’s keynote on Change Proof resilience offers invaluable insights for individuals and organizations navigating the complexities of the modern workplace. Drawing on his extensive experience as a resilience researcher, keynote speaker, and bestselling author, Markel provides a roadmap for harnessing the power of resilience to thrive amidst ongoing change and disruption. His latest bestseller, Change Proof: Leveraging the Power of Uncertainty to Build Long-term Resilience, underscores the necessity of developing resilience before it’s needed, highlighting that resilience is multifaceted—encompassing mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual dimensions.

Through engaging narratives and practical strategies, Markel elucidates how resilience is not merely about enduring but about thriving—transforming adversity into opportunity and growth.
Key Learnings Include:

• Holistic Resilience: Resilience spans mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual realms, requiring a balanced approach to foster overall well-being and long-term success.
• Proactive Recovery: High performance is linked to recovery, not exhaustion. Incorporating regular, ritualistic self-care practices ensures sustained energy and productivity.
• Leveraging Adversity: Change and adversity, rather than being feared, can be catalysts for growth and innovation, pushing individuals and organizations to evolve and strengthen.
• Cultural Shift Towards Self-Care: Prioritizing self-care and encouraging it within teams cultivates a culture of resilience, leading to healthier, more adaptive, and cohesive groups.
• Strategic Adaptability: Embracing change and developing strategies to leverage uncertainty can position individuals and organizations to bounce forward stronger, capitalizing on the inherent opportunities presented by adversity.

This keynote offers a transformative perspective on resilience, emphasizing its critical role in achieving and sustaining success in today’s dynamic world. Through his compelling narrative and evidence-based strategies, Adam inspires a shift towards a more resilient, adaptable, and proactive approach to personal and professional challenges.

Got Your Back: Fostering a Thriving Culture of Support and Collaboration

In today’s high-stress environment, organizations face pivotal questions: Are we too overwhelmed to innovate? How do we combat burnout and maintain our competitive edge? As the world accelerates post-COVID-19, creating a nurturing workplace where individuals can excel becomes not just beneficial, but essential.

Annually, businesses lose an astounding $62 billion to health and safety costs arising from exhaustion and burnout. It’s clear that the ability to not just survive but flourish under stress is a critical asset for any organization.

Join Adam in this dynamic, virtual session as he unveils the secrets to enhancing performance and resilience within your team. Through a captivating ‘Got Your Back’ culture, discover practical strategies and actionable insights that promise to transform your workplace dynamics. Prepare to empower your team with tools that resonate beyond the session, driving lasting growth and success.

Key Learning Outcomes Include:

• Empower Innovation: Learn how to foster an environment where creativity and big thinking thrive, even in the face of challenges.
• Combat Burnout: Strategies to recognize early signs of burnout and actionable steps to address and prevent it within your team.
• Build Resilience: Techniques for developing individual and collective resilience, enabling your team to perform under pressure and adapt to change.
• Cultivate Support: Establish a ‘Got Your Back’ culture that emphasizes mutual support, collaboration, and trust, significantly enhancing team cohesion and productivity.
• Drive Sustainable Success: Practical tools for sustaining a healthy, productive workplace that consistently achieves and exceeds goals.

High Performance Leadership Lessons from a Lifeguard: Building Resilience in Business

Drawing on a diverse background that spans 18 years as a trial attorney, 9 years as a CEO, and 7 years as a lifeguard on Long Island’s beaches, Adam Markel brings a unique perspective to leadership and resilience. His insights go beyond conventional wisdom, rooted in real-world experience and a deep understanding of what it takes to build and sustain high-performing teams.

In his dynamic presentation, Adam introduces the “Resilient Leadership Model,” a transformative approach that aligns team members with a unified mission, engaging them mentally, emotionally, and physically. This model transcends traditional notions of endurance and command, focusing instead on heart-centered techniques that cultivate lasting resilience and superior performance.

Participants will be engaged through audience participation and compelling narratives, exploring the pivotal role of resilience in leadership. Adam’s strategies are designed to foster an environment of trust, accountability, and open communication, setting the foundation for a culture that favors collaboration over competition.

Learning Outcomes:

• Trust Through Transparency: Uncover how openness fosters trust, the cornerstone of high-performing teams.
• Love-Based Accountability: Learn to hold team members accountable with compassion, enhancing motivation and commitment.
• Revolutionary Feedback System: Implement a feedback mechanism that promotes genuine, swift, and productive communication.
• Cultivating Courage: Establish systems that encourage calculated risk-taking, supporting a supportive ‘got-your-back’ culture over a divisive ‘watch-your-back’ atmosphere.

PIVOT Formula: Cultivating a Culture of Creativity and Innovation

In an era where disruption is the norm, organizations clinging to the status quo face a stark reality: adapt or face obsolescence. A staggering 88% of the Fortune 500 companies listed in 1955 have since vanished, underscoring the peril of resisting change. The key to enduring success and avoiding the trap of mediocrity is cultivating “PIVOT-Ability”—the capacity to continuously reinvent and innovate by leveraging change.

Adam Markel’s presentation introduces the P.I.V.O.T. Formula, a strategy designed to foster creativity, agility, and resilience. By integrating foundational principles, compelling stories, and interactive exercises, Adam guides teams through the process of embracing small, yet impactful changes for sustained productivity and longevity.

Learning Outcomes:

• Embrace Incremental Innovation: Learn the law of small changes to boost productivity and ensure operational sustainability.
• Build Organizational Resilience: Discover a 4-part Resilience Regeneration process that embeds resilience at every level of your organization, from leadership to the front line.
• Adopt a New Success Paradigm: Transition to a success model that encourages reaching new heights and learning from mistakes, fostering an environment where great ideas flourish.
• Overcome Change Resistance: Break through the fear of change and challenge the status quo, empowering your team to embrace transformation and drive innovation.

Leveraging Intergenerational Strengths: Enhancing Workplace Well-Being & Resilience

As workplace dynamics evolve, the significance of intergenerational collaboration becomes increasingly paramount. Join us for a workshop that redefines the future of work by leveraging the unique strengths of our age diversity. By nurturing resilient relationships across generations, we convert diverse perspectives into a unified force for create workplaces that are not only high-performing but are strongholds of well-being and resilience.

Key Focus Areas:

• Innovative Collaboration: Explore dynamic strategies for effective teamwork and stakeholder engagement, transforming potential discord into avenues for collective growth.
• The Art of Reframing Challenges: Cultivate the ability to view challenges as opportunities, thereby igniting creativity and innovation that propels progress.
• Alignment of Strategic Priorities: Acquire the skills to establish clear priorities and align goals across generational lines, promoting unified efforts towards common objectives.
• Narrative Mastery: Enhance public communication by crafting narratives that engage and resonate, enabling constructive feedback management and bolstering team resilience.
• Fostering Psychological Safety: Unlock the essentials for creating an inclusive atmosphere where every team member feels respected, understood and encouraged to contribute, thereby nurturing a culture of trust and openness.

Led by Adam Markel and other seasoned WorkWell facilitators, this session is more than a presentation — it’s an immersive journey. Participants will actively engage in exercises designed to apply learned insights immediately, supported by personalized feedback and guidance. This hands-on approach ensures that attendees leave not just with knowledge, but with practical tools to implement change.

AI Adoption: Unlocking the Power of AI in the Future of Work

AI is here to stay. Leaders who recognize its benefits and learn how to catalyze them to future-proof their teams will enhance productivity and retain a competitive advantage, regardless of the changes on the horizon. Embracing this transformative force for greater productivity, collaboration, stress mitigation, and overall employee well-being is critical.

However, AI also presents a multitude of challenges that must be addressed in order to fully realize its benefits. In this dynamic and compelling conversation, Adam guides organizations through the intricate adoption of AI in the workplace, sharing effective strategies to empower teams and leaders alike to foster learning, growth and innovation.

Harnessing AI for Workplace Well-Being: Enhancing Employee Happiness & Productivity

In today’s fast-paced business world, the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the workplace is not just about technological advancement, but also about enhancing employee well-being, happiness, and productivity. This talk delves into the transformative potential of AI in creating a more supportive and efficient work environment. We will explore how AI tools can be used to reduce stress, promote mental health, and foster a culture of wellness, thereby boosting overall employee satisfaction and productivity.

Key learning objectives of the talk include:

• Understanding AI’s Role in the Workplace: Gain insights into how AI technologies, like machine learning and data analytics, are reshaping traditional workplace practices and employee interactions.
• Enhancing Mental Health and Well-being: Learn about AI-driven solutions that help in monitoring and improving employee mental health, including stress management and emotional well-being programs.
• Improving Work-Life Balance with AI: Discover how AI can streamline workflows and reduce workload, leading to a healthier work-life balance and preventing burnout.
• Personalized Employee Experiences: Explore how AI can offer tailored support and development opportunities, enhancing job satisfaction and personal growth.
• Ethical Considerations and Privacy: Address the ethical implications and privacy concerns surrounding the use of AI in monitoring and supporting employee well-being.
• Future Trends and Opportunities: Look ahead at emerging AI technologies and their potential impact on future workplace dynamics and employee happiness.

This talk aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of how AI can be a pivotal tool in nurturing a positive and productive work environment, fostering a happier and more engaged workforce.

Mental Health: Leveraging the Power of Uncertainty to Strengthen Resilience

In times of dramatic change, burnout, fear and stress – the idea of coming into each day with energy, let alone positivity, seems impossible. And the last couple of years have tested even the most resilient of us. However, there is a way to overcome these feelings. In fact, research shows that when we develop, practice, and invest in the skills of resilience, the results are improved physical and mental health, energy, passion and engagement. 

Join bestselling author and resilience researcher, Adam Markel, in this important conversation about how to leverage uncertainty and strengthen your resilience in order to show up in the best way possible, both personally and professionally. In this high-energy, interactive talk, Adam shares tangible, impactful strategies and practices to improve our levels of resilience, capacity and well-being. Adam’s techniques will empower you to unlock accelerated success even amidst the complex changes, stress and uncertainty we face daily.

The 3-Question Workshop: A deeper dive into operationalizing resilience

Join Adam Markel for a continuation of the conversation about what resilience is, what it’s not and how to operationalize it for the long-term, sustainable success of your organization.

In this interactive, process-oriented session, Adam will guide your team through a deeper exploration of individual and organizational resilience and how to more successfully apply it to their specific environment.

Leaders will retake the Resilient Leader Assessment™ and share their experiences with integrating the principles since the first session. The group will then engage in a collaborative discussion on the factors that may erode resilience in the future, how to assist your teams in becoming more resilient and what they are prepared to do individually to model and create a context of permission for others.

Throughout the session, Adam will share ideas, stories and tangible insights on creating a truly Change Proof™, resilient organization.

Work/Life Harmony: Leveraging the Power of Resilience

In times of dramatic change, burnout, fear and stress – the idea of coming into each day with energy and effectiveness seems impossible. On top of this, conventional wisdom has us yearning for “work-life balance”, a state that bestselling author and resilience researcher, Adam Markel, argues is neither attainable nor desirable.

Instead, the way to overcome our feelings of overwhelm, stress and a lack of fulfillment and productivity is to cultivate the ability to become Change-Proof: to leverage uncertainty as a catalyst for growth. It’s not about our ability to “just withstand” change or “power through”. It’s about developing the capacity to utilize it to our advantage so that we can thrive in the face of it.

Resilience is the key. In fact, research shows that when we develop, practice, and invest in the skills of resilience, the results are improved physical and mental health, energy, passion and engagement. 

In this high-energy, interactive session, Adam shares tangible, impactful strategies and practices to improve our levels of resilience, capacity and well-being. Adam’s techniques will empower you to leverage uncertainty and strengthen your resilience in order to show up in the best way possible, both personally and professionally.