Public Speaking
Book a Life Engineering Speaker for your next event
Consistently rated in the top 3% of all speakers at a conference, Rusty delivers powerful performances that engage the audience. He enlightens their minds, lifts their spirits, makes them laugh, and most importantly, motivates them to take action.
A richly experienced and highly polished international keynote speaker, Rusty has the references, testimonials, and post-session survey’s to show he’ll be a powerful addition to your next event.
From his TEDx speech, to very intimate settings (20 or so attendees) to standing-room only super-sessions and keynotes (over 2,000 attendees), Rusty knows how to tailor both the content and the performance to both the people and the setting.
“Rusty is the best speaker I have seen.”
From experience
comes refinement
Rusty’s professional, public presentations since 2015
(500 – 2,500 attendees)
Rusty’s webinars commonly have over 2,500 registrants, and his recordings are still today among the top-viewed webinars for SHRM (the Society for Human Resource Management).
- Why strategic HR is crucial now, and how to get started
- How compensation discussions make or kill your culture
- 5 Steps to a smart compensation plan
- HR’s role in employee performance
- Accelerating new hire productivity through onboarding
- How to leverage technology to drive strategic outcomes
- How to win the recruiting battle against big companies
- Creating pay transparency in the workplace
- Gain relevance, influence, and authority by viewing HR as a business
- Winning your sear at the strategic table with internal influence
- Using analytics to make smart HR decisions
- 7 practical ways to improve employee engagement
- 4 Ways to communicate compensation to drive strategic outcomes
- 5 Reasons you should pay employees for performance
- How to give feedback to employees
- Managing a diverse workforce
- Simple secrets to strategic HR
- Managing employee turnover
- How soft skills power organizational performance
- Employee Engagement
- Deeper dive with soft skills
- Being strategic about communicating comp to executives/managers
- Leveraging technology to accelerate your strategic evolution
- Recruiting for soft skills
- Creating an open and happy culture
- Reinventing performance management, how to do it right
- Employee development as a differentiator
- 5 Steps to set up your compensation plan
- What HR in top performing companies do differently
- Diversity, an entirely different perspective
- How to really drive employee engagement
- Implementing soft skills in the workplace
- Panel – Managing Employee Engagement
- A checklist for powering performance and engagement in 2017
- Strategies for communicating compensation
- The roles of employee feedback in today’s organization
- Comp is Culture
- Today’s recipe for organizational success: Culture, engagement, and learning
- 5 Keys to Retain Top Talent
- Communicating Comp to Employees
- Panel – Employee Engagement
- Hiring Hacks: What to look for when considering new technology
- If you aren’t investing in learning, you won’t keep winning
- Total Rewards Panel
- The Hard Truth About Soft Skills
- Compensation Best Practices
- How to become an onboarding master
- Panel, Employee Engagement
- Managing Employee Turnover
- Understanding Incivility (Costs, Causes, Cures)
- Paying for Performance
- Getting Real About Employee Engagement
- Tough Comp Conversations – A guide for doing them right
- How diversity can drive your organization forward
- The employee journey – the foundation of employee experience design
- Employer brand – How to get it right and put it to work for you
- Talent and Career Mobility
- How (and why) to make sure your employees feel valued
- The hard side of soft skills
(over 75 and up to 2,500 attendees)
Rusty’s speeches often end with as many as 100 people waiting to connect, because his speeches connect. Counting speeches below 75 attendees would just take too long (well over 200).
- International Association for Human Resource Information Management, Atlanta GA
- Wisconsin SHRM Conference
- International Toastmasters Competition, Park City Utah
- State Toastmasters Competition, Salt Lake City, Utah
- Washington State HR Conference, Bellevue
- SHRM National, Washington DC
- Plansource Conference, Deer Valley, UT
- Florida HR Conference, Orlando, FL
- California HR Conference, Long Beach, CA
- Northwest Human Resource Management Association, Bellevue, WA
- PayScale Compference, Bellevue, WA
- Utah Crossroads Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah
- Wisconsin SHRM Conference, Madison, Wisconsin
- Michigan SHRM Conference , Detroit, Michigan
- Elevate, Salt Lake City, UT
- Be the author of your own story, Viewmont High School, Centerville, UT
- SHRM Chapter Meeting, Provo, UT
- If any of you lack wisdom (Youth Group)
- HR must reach escape velocity (DisruptHR SLC) (300)
- 16 Elements of Engagement (Virginia SHRM Conference) (200)
- Scaling Smarter Panel, Park City Utah
- Discover the Light Within (Idaho High School)
- 16 Elements (Workforce Experience Event , Portland, Oregon) (50)
- 16 Elements (Elevate Summit, Snowbird)
- Elevate – how to accelerate the evolution of HR (Elevate Summit, Snowbird)
- Think like a business, act like a business, win like a business (Elevate Summit, Snowbird)
- Think like a business, act like a business, win like a business (HRMA- Canada) (400)
- Discover the light within (Youth Conference)
- The economic urgency of high-impact HR (PIHRA) (2,000)
- The connection between workplace civility and company culture (CAHR) (350)
- Facing Your Fears With Faith: How to move forward in troubled times (Cent 5th Relief Society)
- The 16 Elements of Engagement (Utah Crossroads – 150)
- 16 Elements of Engagement (Northwest Human Resource Management Association Conf)
- Tennessee SHRM Conference – 16 Elements (300)
- Payscale Compference – Comp and Culture – the surprising partnership
- Elevate Virtual – The Art and Science of Onboarding
- Lake Washington (LWHRA) – 16 Elements of Engagement
- Association of Youth Councils – Discover the Light Within
- Association of Youth Councils – Escape Velocity Workshop (16 Elements)
- HRACU – The Employee Journey
- Summit – The business of employee satisfaction
- Summit – Discover the light within
- SLSHRM – The Employee Journey
- Utah Business Week – Escape Velocity
- National Human Resources Management Association: Architecting the Employee Experience
- Escape Velocity Seminar – A Life Launch Event (x4)
- Escape Velocity Seminar – Identity – Discover the light within
- Escape Velocity Seminar – Objective – Find your purpose
A note
from Rusty
There are few things I enjoy more than speaking to groups about things that are important to them, to their lives, and to their futures.
We are all engaged in an epic battle in life. But we aren’t alone. And we can all benefit from the emotional energy and intellectual ammunition that comes from a powerful, life-changing speaking event.
I tend to conduct down-to-earth, mentally stimulating sessions and workshops in a high-energy, emotionally rich format.
I tell stories, fill hearts, lift spirits, and engage minds. I help people see the light that shines within and teach them incredible principles that give them power in their lives.
Where will Rusty be speaking next?
Here are his booked events for the next few months
Book Rusty to speak!
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Looking for
references?
If you’d like references or testimonials from prior conference coordinators and attendees, simply fill out the form above and specify how many you’d like, or if you’d just like us to send you our default promotional package.
We don’t give out that contact information publicly, to protect the privacy of those individuals, but we’re delighted to make it available upon request for a legitimate opportunity. It’s the strongest possible promotion, after all!
Commonly requested
speeches
Like most professional, paid keynote speakers, Rusty has a repertoire of his top keynotes. But unlike most speakers, who exclusively deliver those speeches, Rusty finds great joy in tailoring a speech to your specific audience and your specific event.
When you book Rusty to speak, he’ll start with an in-depth interview with you (and maybe some of your customers or attendees) to understand your unique needs, and will create a speech totally tailored to your situation. But these speeches below will give you a broad idea of some of the things Rusty speaks about.
Rusty gives speeches to all audiences. Some of them are highly personal, some to youth, some to adults, and some of them to both. These are often delivered at personal enrichment conferences, youth conferences, or other such events.
Some are highly professional. He’s a favorite (and can provide the references and results to show it) at large conferences, and also conducts high-impact sessions in more intimate settings, like leadership development workshops within an organization, or speaking at a company retreat or a company event.
Highly personal
speeches
Discover the light within
This is a speech based primarily off my life journey and the lessons it’s taught me. It covers topics such as overcoming adversity, letting go of your past, discovering who you are, recognizing the strength that is within you, finding hope in your future, and generally how to find light in dark times.
It’s an emotional but motivating treatise that leaves you feeling better about yourself and your future, giving you fresh perspective on life and strength to keep moving.
It’s warmly received by adults and youth alike, but for youth I tailor it more around the identity struggles they face and how they can find confidence to be themselves when they recognize their individual worth.
Escape Velocity – A Framework for Personal Progress
This speech begins with a brief overview of my past, but then delves into the principles, practices, and methodologies you can use to escape the gravitational pull of your past to create a future of your own design.
It’s a high-level overview of the Escape Velocity framework for personal progress, and is especially compelling to those who have struggled to change. It is for people who are truly seeking to make the most of their lives, and want to be adequately armed to make it happen.
For groups not necessarily struggling against a troubled past, it’s more forward-looking. It’s a message of personal progress… identifying where you’re going, understanding the key practices that will get you there, anticipating what will be working against you, and knowing how to adapt.
(Often conducted as part of a two-day seminar covering each stage of Escape Velocity)
Escape Velocity – Architecting a Life Launch Event
This presentation takes a deep-dive into a single aspect of Escape Velocity, the Launch Event. It can also be held as a workshop. It dives into principles, exercises, and methodologies that will help you create a life-launch event of your own.
You’ll leave feeling renewed and invigorated about taking control of your life, armed with powerful tools and concepts that will help you get off the ground.
(Often conducted as part of a two-day seminar covering each stage of Escape Velocity)
Escape Velocity – The Great Escape
This presentation or workshop (depending on your needs) focuses in on the second stage of the Escape Velocity framework. It discusses in depth the causes of failed launches and of successful launches whose change initiatives didn’t endure. Those are approached either as diagnostic exercises or as examples illustrating the types of gravitational pulls that lead to mission failures.
We’ll cover principles, practices, and tools needed for true change endurance, and how you can ensure your change effort can finally reach escape velocity, where you experience lasting success with minimal continued effort. The further you get from the ground—or whatever you’re trying to escape—the less effort it takes to stay away from its gravitational pull.
You’ll leave feeling empowered. You’ll have a solid foundation of activities and concepts that you can put into practice, and you’ll have principles that will help you run triage on events that threaten to pull you down.
(Often conducted as part of a two-day seminar covering each stage of Escape Velocity)
Escape Velocity – Failure Recovery
This presentation or workshop (depending on your needs) focuses on the final element of the Escape Velocity framework: planning for and recovering from stalls.
We dive deep into the primary causes of stalls, and learn how to recognize and run triage when you begin to see stall-like symptoms. You’ll learn how to implement early warning systems and performance indicators that will help you detect when you might be reaching a stall.
And then we’ll talk about what to do about it. You’ll leave feeling more comfortable and optimistic about your change initiative, knowing you have been trained against the most common causes of failure and are armed to deal with them appropriately.
(Often conducted as part of a two-day seminar covering each stage of Escape Velocity)
Highly professional
speeches
Organizational Escape Velocity
Organizations struggle to reach new heights. They tend to always do what they’ve always done—held back by the gravitational pull of their past, their culture, their failures, their beliefs, underperforming people, and so much more.
To escape these gravitational pulls takes more than effort, it takes science. In this session, we’ll cover principles and practices from the latest in human capital management, psychology, and organizational behavior that are necessary to escape these gravitational pulls, enabling us to build remarkable organizations that do remarkable things.
- We’ll identify the things that tend to hold businesses back and how to overcome them.
- We’ll demonstrate how to build culture as a competitive advantage.
- We’ll discuss:
- how to attract and build a focused, engaged, high-performing workforce to generate organizational thrust.
- how to recognize and recover quickly from stalls.
- how to architect launch events that don’t just result in failure once the initial boost is exhausted.
The Employee Journey
Laying the foundation for organizational success
At a time when financial capital is cheap and readily available, but human capital isn’t, there’s an urgency to increase Employee Lifetime Value (or eLTV). But to do that, we have to understand the employee journey. We have to know what brings them in and causes them to stay. We have to know what engages them and causes them to perform.
Armed with that understanding, we can begin to architect an employee journey that reduces time TO value, increases time IN value, and increases time in role (the core elements of eLTV).
In this session you’ll learn the building blocks of employee success. You’ll learn how to diagnose disengagement, how to detect emotional distancing, and how to architect intervention opportunities with analytics and “Stay Interviews.” You’ll learn the importance of onboarding and re-boarding. You’ll also learn how this employee journey becomes a core component of culture and the gravitational pull your organization has on your employees.
Suddenly so many of the initiatives you invest in today will come under scrutiny and you’ll recognize all new ways of re-inventing them to drive real organizational value. This is one of those highly-celebrated sessions that will leave you aching to go re-architect your core initiatives.
The 16 Elements of Engagement
The Building Blocks of High Performing People, Cultures, and Organizations
Businesses don’t create value, people do. And HR is the ultimate steward of this incredible organizational asset. But most of our time is spent focused on policies, processes, and procedures, and not around people, performance, and productivity.
It’s time to change all that.
Come learn the levers that will allow you to unleash the greatness in your employees. You’ll leave with a comprehensive overview of what drives people to perform, what triggers a performance stall, how to diagnose disengagement, and how to create organizational momentum by focusing on what matters most… people and culture.
Because this is what HR is all about… our human resources.
How to Think, Act, and Win like a business
Using the Business Model Canvas to reinvent your approach to execution
The media has been calling for a major disruption in HR, demanding for it to become more strategic, to solve more imminent business problems and to step up its game or be replaced. Unfortunately, and especially in small and mid-sized businesses, many HR professionals don’t know exactly what Strategic HR actually means or how to get started. And most are so mired in the operational that even when they catch the vision, they’re unable to fuel their necessary transformation. But the future of HR is now, and we have to solve this strategic need now.
Using the famous Business Model Canvas as a lens, we’ll introduce an all-new approach to HR that will transform the way you approach HR, buy you credibility across the organization, and earn you a seat at the strategic table.
Using this framework, you’ll come away with real techniques to help you determine who HR’s customers are, how to identify their unmet needs, how to build value propositions to meet those needs, and how to build value delivery channels so those solutions actually make a difference to your organization.
You’ll learn how to market your value to those customers, how to change the perception of HR through story, how to partner with other internal departments, and measure and manage customer relationships. You’ll learn how to escape the operational handcuffs holding you back, and you’ll come away:
- armed with economic and business context to help you see your organization in a new light.
- armed with a proven framework to reinvent your department.
- armed with the language and ideas of a business modeling which will buy you credibility—in the boardroom and with executives—that you can use to martial support for future initiatives.