$20,001 - $30,000
Keynote fee falls within this range. For exact fee, please contact us.
California
Request Availability for Jess Pettitt
Jess isn’t a chef by any stretch of the imagination, but similar in that a true chef has a secret ingredient that they often leave out of a recipe on purpose and add a dash when no one is looking that pulls from past experiences and is exactly what is needed to really elevate a dish. By pulling from a variety of consulting clients, direct crisis management experiences, multitudes of different jobs along the way, and experience on stage as a stand-up comic, trainer, and now keynote speaker, Jess can elevate conversations.
It is through Jessica’s work in Student Affairs, as a college administrator, in South Carolina, Oregon, New York, and Arizona that she realized her love for the conversations across difference. As a Social Justice Training Institute Alumna, Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, and a Certified Speaking Professional, Jessica has taken the typical diversity talks to the next level of social justice conversations examining privilege, oppression, entitlement, and our collective responsibility to make change while connecting difficult topics with employee retention, crisis management, and increasing innovation and profits.
Jessica blends politics, humor, identity, and local flair with big city passion and energy through direct, individualized, and interactive conversations. Her workshops, seminars, and keynotes don’t just leave participants invigorated but inspired and motivated to follow through with action to create change. Having traveled and lived in a variety of communities and environments all over the world, while also engaging with education as student, teacher, administrator, and active community member, Jessica uses her take on life to lead participants through a safe but confrontational process of examination, self-reflection, and open dialog that is as challenging as it is rewarding.
Responses to Jessica’s programs are overwhelmingly positive and include comments ranging from, “This was awful – I never had to think so hard while laughing!” to “I can’t believe my boss brought her – thanks for actually treating us like adults,” to “She answered all of my questions knowledgeably and without making me feel dumb for asking.”
With her attention now turning to larger associations and corporate leadership, Jessica is pulling from the past 15 years of direct experience to lead teams to try instead of avoiding a stretch. It is in this trying that clients uncover a deeper sense of belonging, resourceful collaboration opportunities, and reignite their creativity and innovative ideation. Learning, feeling, and being Good Enough Now allows for teams to do the best they can with what they have and persist long into the future no matter the crisis, topic, or challenge.
Graduating from the University of South Carolina with an M.Ed., in Higher Education Administration with an emphasis in Crisis Management, Jessica pulls together lessons from teaching History and English in the classroom as well as those from the stand-up comedy stages of New York City to bring real and actionable results to meeting rooms and board tables. She is well published, including multiple online training courses, curriculum guides, and a book that makes the abstract actionable.
Conversations That Matter: Better Connections
Regardless of how traditional or progressive your organization is, there are some people and topics that at some point are off limits. You just can’t do them right now, especially when you have to bring up the difficult topics with the difficult people.
What if you could engage in these conversations with more confidence, humor, and ease? What if you could let go of someone has to win and someone has to lose or someone has to be right and someone has to be wrong? You can! Because no matter the person or topic, you are your best tool for conversations that matter.
Understanding yourself and others as differently right gives you the tools to intentionally design teams, groups, and partnerships that can bring value to a single project or your entire organization.
We are all frustrating to someone (and at times even to ourselves). Once you know who and how you are, you can (re)claim responsibility for your behavior-response-patterns and leave room for others to do the same. Before you know it, you are having better conversations and fuller relationships with those around you and clearing the way for your organization to experience greater efficacy and growth. It really is that easy.
Participants will learn:
- A three-part framework for taking responsibility for who and how they show up.
- Develop skills for a significant and powerful (and free) method to change culture around difficult topics and see others as differently right.
- The powerful skills that change culture around difficult topics and challenging people.
- How to see others as differently right.
Good Enough Now
Sitting around pointing fingers and waiting for change to appear on the horizon—has it ever worked for you? Do you feel an imbalance between who you are and who you think you should be? Do you see fulfillment, better relationships, and stronger teamwork as something to work for, but not possible now?
The truth is that all of these are available to us in this present moment, right where we are. And by being our authentic selves, we can immediately improve our companies, relationships, and communities.
This is Jess’s signature breakthrough message—an innovative, practical guide to ridding ourselves of self-doubt, self-limiting beliefs, and habitual excuses so that we can do “the best we can with what we have some of the time” and be the best versions of ourselves right here, right now. Yes, even you back there in the corner—I see you.
Participants will learn:
- The importance of being true to their authentic self.
- How to develop momentum based on their strengths.
- The three-part model to build on empathy and giving grace.
- How to recognize their own personal patterns and see them in others so they can leave room for edits in the stories they tell themselves about other people.
Why Diversity Initiatives Fail
After nearly two decades of leading Diversity trainings, Jess Pettitt, CSP, has uncovered why change doesn’t stick. With over 50 examples of her own clients’ previous, failed DEI responses, Jess will show your participants how our go-to answers are steps in the right direction, even if they fail. Leaving room for failure dismantles the urgency of action and gets to the core of the issue at hand to increase a sense of belonging in our organizations and build greater communities.
That’s because doing something and failing (or even doing nothing) is still a response. As long as you acknowledge what you’re doing (or not doing) and don’t hide from it, as long as you stop trying to win and focus on doing better, you will keep learning and growing as a company, and your responses will mean more and more to your people and to your public.
If your Diversity initiatives aren’t sticking, then you’re stuck in an old pattern. The only way out is disruption. So let’s do some disrupting and create change for good! In this talk, Jess help will help your people navigate this new and unfamiliar terrain and show them how any sincere and honest response can lead to your most inclusive culture.
Participants will learn how to:
- Successfully disrupt the normalized status quo for good.
- Remove excuses, learn from failed attempts, and get back to work.
- Motivate and inspire employees to act as participants in their own change
Request Availability for Jess Pettitt
JESS PETTITT, CSP
California
$20,001 - $30,000
Keynote fee falls within this range. For exact fee, please contact us.
Jess isn’t a chef by any stretch of the imagination, but similar in that a true chef has a secret ingredient that they often leave out of a recipe on purpose and add a dash when no one is looking that pulls from past experiences and is exactly what is needed to really elevate a dish. By pulling from a variety of consulting clients, direct crisis management experiences, multitudes of different jobs along the way, and experience on stage as a stand-up comic, trainer, and now keynote speaker, Jess can elevate conversations.
It is through Jessica’s work in Student Affairs, as a college administrator, in South Carolina, Oregon, New York, and Arizona that she realized her love for the conversations across difference. As a Social Justice Training Institute Alumna, Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, and a Certified Speaking Professional, Jessica has taken the typical diversity talks to the next level of social justice conversations examining privilege, oppression, entitlement, and our collective responsibility to make change while connecting difficult topics with employee retention, crisis management, and increasing innovation and profits.
Jessica blends politics, humor, identity, and local flair with big city passion and energy through direct, individualized, and interactive conversations. Her workshops, seminars, and keynotes don’t just leave participants invigorated but inspired and motivated to follow through with action to create change. Having traveled and lived in a variety of communities and environments all over the world, while also engaging with education as student, teacher, administrator, and active community member, Jessica uses her take on life to lead participants through a safe but confrontational process of examination, self-reflection, and open dialog that is as challenging as it is rewarding.
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Responses to Jessica’s programs are overwhelmingly positive and include comments ranging from, “This was awful – I never had to think so hard while laughing!” to “I can’t believe my boss brought her – thanks for actually treating us like adults,” to “She answered all of my questions knowledgeably and without making me feel dumb for asking.”
With her attention now turning to larger associations and corporate leadership, Jessica is pulling from the past 15 years of direct experience to lead teams to try instead of avoiding a stretch. It is in this trying that clients uncover a deeper sense of belonging, resourceful collaboration opportunities, and reignite their creativity and innovative ideation. Learning, feeling, and being Good Enough Now allows for teams to do the best they can with what they have and persist long into the future no matter the crisis, topic, or challenge.
Graduating from the University of South Carolina with an M.Ed., in Higher Education Administration with an emphasis in Crisis Management, Jessica pulls together lessons from teaching History and English in the classroom as well as those from the stand-up comedy stages of New York City to bring real and actionable results to meeting rooms and board tables. She is well published, including multiple online training courses, curriculum guides, and a book that makes the abstract actionable.
