Book Melissa as Your Speaker

Melissa will charm and delight your audience, while inspiring and empowering them to take action. Here’s a little taste:

Speaking Topics

For Corporate Audiences:

It Pays to Play at Work

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, but just as important as play after work is play at work. If this sounds crazy, you won’t want to miss this talk to find out why play is your 21st Century secret weapon, and how you can use it to improve productivity and benefit your organization.

You’ll learn:

• Why play is not what you might think
• Research-backed reasons play is good for us
• The 3 ways to incorporate play at work

Fostering a Culture of Innovation through the Power of Play

Every organization wants creative people, yet without intending to, too many organizations are actually fostering cultures that stifle creativity and innovation, rather than feeding it! How can organizational leaders shift this trend?

In this interactive talk Melissa explains the essential elements of a culture of innovation: one that fosters creativity from the ground up, through every layer of the organization. You’ll get to experience, with hands-on activities, how the strategic use of play can transform the culture of your organization.

Changing culture doesn’t happen overnight, but with mindfulness and commitment from all levels of leadership, it can be done, and it’s worth it. Don’t you want your organization to be a breeding ground for innovation?

You’ll learn:

• How creativity and innovation are interrelated.
• The essential elements of a culture of creativity/innovation.
• Specific tips for helping your team think more creatively.

Teaching the “King of Engagement” to Engage: The Real Secrets of Communicating for Influence and Impact

Have you ever tried to get people onboard with an idea, but gotten crickets in response? The ability to influence others, so you can make an impact, may feel like a mysterious X-factor, but really, it’s a combination of learnable skills. In this session, Melissa shares the 6 key skills anyone can develop to have greater influence in life and work, and how her F.U.N. Method™ of active-learning not only keeps learners engaged, but helps them remember better, too. You’ll walk away with tools you can use right away in life and work!

You’ll walk away:

• Understanding the skills you need to have greater influence
• More aware of your unconscious, reflexive “no” response
• With an activity you can do with your team, to help them apply empathy to communicate more effectively

For All Audiences:

Harness the Butterflies: How to Turn Uncertainty & Self-Doubt Into Fuel

The only certainties in life, as Benjamin Franklin so famously said, are death and taxes. And when you’re engaging in any creative act—whether developing a new product or writing a novel—uncertainty is magnified, and the gremlins of self-doubt and self-criticism tend to come out in full-force.

Thanks to evolution, humans are wired to avoid uncertainty, especially when judgment is involved. But that basically describes the entire creative process! So how do we overcome our programming?

Come to this session with innovation strategist & creativity enabler Melissa Dinwiddie to learn some strategies to help you lean into uncertainty and manage the gremlins, so they don’t stop you in your tracks and prevent you from taking the necessary risks that might lead to that next breakthrough.

Through a combination of stories and hands-on activities, this session is designed to help you:

• Learn to lean into uncertainty and reframe it as fuel
• Practice discerning the “gremlin” voices in your head from clear, rational thinking
• Explore tactics for managing gremlins when they show up, and start to see them as allies, rather than enemies

For Creatives & Students:

Secret Weapons for Resistance Fighters

We’ve all hit up against “creative block” at one point or another, mired in “the Resistance.” These internal monsters are a creative’s worst enemy, threatening to shut us off from our creativity. Thankfully, I’ve developed a passel of playful, paradigm-shifting secret weapons that I’ll share, with help from my trusty ukulele. Integrate these simple principles into your life and Resistance and “creative block” don’t stand a chance, so you can get back to the business of creating.

You will walk away:

• With a new, empowered way of thinking about your own creative expression and output.
• Knowing that you are fully creative, and fully entitled to create.
• Inspired to try things you might have been scared of trying before.

Play: The Missing Ingredient & Your Secret Weapon

Spending time on creative things is frivolous and self-indulgent, right? WRONG! In fact, it’s world-changing.

You don’t need to find the cure for cancer or end war as we know it in order to change the world for the better. Discover why your creative play and self-expression is a world-changing act, whether you’re an amateur or a professional. You’ll never look at playtime the same way again!

You’ll learn:

• 5 reasons why putting time into creative play is world-changing.
• The surprising way that creative play affects the brain.
• Simple and effective tools for breaking free of creative blocks and resistance.

Melissa’s Bio

Melissa Dinwiddie is chief instigator and lead facilitator of Creative Sandbox Solutions™, a creative consultancy that helps organizations build cultures of creativity and innovation through the strategic use of play.

She delivers kickass workshops and keynotes to corporations, conferences, high schools and colleges; hosts creativity retreats; runs an online community for women; and is the author of The Creative Sandbox Way™: Your Path to a Full-Color Life.

A former “non-creative” person and recovering perfectionist, Melissa is on a mission to change the conversation around creative expression and play, because not only does creating make you feel more alive — it’s how you change the world!

She shares her writings, artwork, and music on her blog, Living A Creative Life (recently awarded a Top 20 Doodle Blog on the planet), where you can also find her Creative Sandbox Way™ podcast.

If you don’t count her first oral report in fourth grade, Melissa entered the world of public speaking with a bang, when she co-delivered her undergraduate valedictory address to an audience of over 2,000 students, faculty, and families in a packed Zellerbach Auditorium at U.C. Berkeley.

A handful of years later Melissa was leading hundreds of congregants in three-hour High Holy Days services every fall for her lay-led Reconstructionist synagogue. Years of training as a jazz singer, singer/songwriter, and improviser have honed her skills as an entertainer, but her favorite performances are those that do more than entertain: they transform.

Contact Melissa today to bring her unique style of transformation to your event.

Testimonials:

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“Melissa Dinwiddie speaks (and sings) with a charisma that is instantaneously inclusive, bringing her audience together in community and lighting them up. Her charm is irresistible and it is also deep.“

David Roche
International speaker and performer, author, actor, storytelling coach

 

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“This workshop inspired me to allow myself more time to create for me, and balance that with what my customers want. The knowledge I’ve gained from this presentation is a lesson I’ll take with me wherever I go. Thank you for speaking at our school!”

Eden C.
11th Grader

 

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“It was fantastic!“

Seshu Badrinath
VP Programming, CTPPA
tiffinbox.org

 

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Contact Me About Speaking for Your Event

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