JOANNE FEDLER SPEAKER AND PRESENTER

I believe no-one has come here to be invisible; that everyone has a story to tell. We have come here to touch and be touched.

“Listening to Joanne speak I am reminded of the great Maya Angelou, who once said; “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Anna Kellerman, Director, Artbuds

10 reasons to Book me for your next even t 1

I am a Yale law graduate, Fulbright scholar, internationally bestselling author of 9 books, mother of two teenagers and have also had the privilege of being named Asshole of the Month in Hustler magazine in 2004 (for the work I was doing to eradicate violent pornography in South Africa). I have a deep and broad view of the world, both personally and politically and bring all my experiences into my presentations.

2

I consider my role as a speaker as a collaboration with your vision and your aims. I tailor every presentation to fit your audience as well as the purpose of your event. (I may ask a lot of questions upfront to make sure this happens).

3

I work together with you to establish the ‘vibe’ you want your function to create, and how you want people to leave feeling, whether it’s a fundraiser or a consciousness-raiser. I am invested in ensuring that people leave the room feeling exactly the way you want them to feel.

4

As a bestselling author and writing mentor, I am well-read on a range of different topics, and am able to draw on stories and ideas from spirituality, to psychology, relationships, business, parenthood, lifestyle, health and wellness.

5

My aim is to touch and move your audience – to make them laugh and even cry. I am able to uplift and inspire an audience, no matter the topic of my presentation.

6

I’ve counselled abused women, taught law students, brought up two kids, moved countries, represented women’s organizations in the Constitutional Court of South Africa, and spoken to many different audiences from different racial, social, economic and political backgrounds. I can pretty much talk to anyone, and meet them wherever they happen to be.

7

I have read most of Shakespeare and the entire trilogy of Fifty Shades of Grey and quite a bit in between. My presentations draw on the sublime as well as the ridiculous, to ensure your audience is both entertained and provoked to think and feel – sometimes outside their comfort zones. (Don’t worry – I use enough humour to ensure this is a gentle experience).

8

I can speak for ten minutes or an hour. I can develop any talk into a three hour or three day workshop. If you want your audience to participate, I can draw them in. If you want them to create, I will develop writing games and exercises. Small groups don’t scare me. Neither do big ones. I can tailor my talks for a group of nuns, kindy teachers, housewives, CEO’s, rabbi’s wives, politicians, teenagers, or breast cancer survivors.

9

I have had extensive experience doing television and radio interviews, both in Australia and other countries.

10

The only way I know that I’ve done a good job is to ensure that at the end of my presentation, you think to yourself, ‘Booking this speaker was the best decision I’ve made in a long time.’

‘I have had the great privilege of hearing Joanne Fedler speak on a few occasions. Each time, she was nothing short of brilliant and each time I wanted to hear more. Her talks are highly intelligent but easily accessible. She is frighteningly perceptive and incisive and has the most wonderful, self-deprecating sense of humour. My staff loved listening to and were inspired by her motivational presentation.’ - Dr Hilton Immerman, Hon Fellow, University of New South Wales, CEO, Shalom Institute and Shalom College

‘What a privilege to hear such an accomplished woman, with such a rich background, speak with openness and vulnerably about her journey and the road she took to success. Her story is so engaging. Joanne Fedler is a woman who hasn’t given up her feminine energy as she’s walked through the mire of professional life.’ -Mary Barker, AMP, Females in Finance

‘Joanne is such an informed, engaging and warmly received speaker. I had the pleasure of working with Joanne when she generously delivered a wonderful keynote address at an event that I managed for women, aimed at empowering and uplifting mothers. It was such a beautifully prepared and responsive keynote, Joanne took the time to research our audience and was attentive to their needs and interests. The event was highly anticipated and Joanne's keynote was a highlight, providing our guests with intimate insights, an abundance of learning and Joanne's authentic, empowering presence.’ - Lisa Humphries, organiser SUnny Mummy Breakfast

‘We were honoured to have Joanne Fedler speak at our event and support our literacy initiative ‘Written Portraits’. Joanne was not only insightful with her knowledge and advice but kept the enthusiastic audience entranced onto every word. She is an excellent communicator and is extremely knowledgeable about her subject. We highly recommend Joanne as an inspirational speaker.’ - Renata Cooper, CEO and Founder, Forming Circles

‘I recall seeing Joanne speak at an event a few years back and I promised myself that if I ever got the opportunity to organise a function, she would be first on my list of speakers to invite.’ - Rochelle Rothfield, King david School Parents association

Former Clients Liebler Yavneh School, Melbourne Limmud Oz Magwood Bookclub Book Salon, South Africa Mount Scopus School, Melbourne Moriah College, Sydney Mount Sinai School, Sydney Ardmore Art exhibition opening Bnai Brith Centre for the Book, South Africa Creative Mamas Droemer publishers, Munich Emanuel School, Sydney Exclusive Books book club breakfast, South Africa

Moving Trains Productions – International Women’s Day event National Breast Cancer Foundation Northbridge Library Open Book Festival, South Africa Quality Life breakfast, South Africa Queenwood School, Sydney

Females in Finance

Randwick City Council – International Women’s Rights Project

Forming Circles Foundation

Reddam School, Sydney

The Friendship Circle

Sunflower Bookshop, Melbourne

The Gidget Foundation

Sunny Mummy’s breakfast

Jenny & Co – Jenny Cryws-Williams book club breakfast, South Africa

Sydenham Highland’s North Synagogue, South Africa

Jessie Street National Women’s Library

Sydney Jewish Writers Festival Sydney Writer’s Festival

Jewish Food Culture Fest

WIZO

The Jewish Museum

The Waverley Literary Festival

King David School, Melbourne

The Women’s Club Yad Aharon, South Africa

‘Joanne Fedler is an excellent speaker who offers substance, perceptiveness, humour and inspiration in all the right amounts. She has a generosity of spirit and a warmth which is uplifting and nourishing. She leaves her audiences thinking and smiling, and I would not hesitate to invite her again.’

- Michael Misrachi, organizer Sydney Jewish Writers Festival

KEYNoTE ADDrESSES

1.

These are a few of my keynote addresses which can be adapted for your particular audience. If there is a particular issue or topic you would like me to turn into a keynote address, I can do so.

Lead with your legacy

What is the legacy that the story of your life will leave behind? Joseph Campbell spoke of human life as ‘the hero’s journey’ and proposed that there are four questions that each human being must answer: Who am I? What is it to be human? From whence am I born? What happens when I die? In this inspiring talk, I examine these questions and ask where each of our stories are taking us. How do we create meaning through the mundane drudgery of everyday? I also share difficult stories from my life and show how we can use our experience to reinvigorate and recommit to living a life with meaning and purpose.

2.

Ask the right questions: a path to soulful success

What does it mean to be a ‘success?’ We imagine that a successful person has the ‘answers’ to life’s challenging questions. In this gentle but provocative talk, I suggest that having the answers is not a path to success, but rather being able to ask the right questions about any situation we find ourselves in. I examine how questions work on our subconscious; how poetry helps us ask questions and how we can learn to ‘love the questions,’ as the poet Rilke said, and make peace in places of uncertainty.

3.

What does it mean to live a ‘passionate’ life? Quotation anthologist Terri Guillemets said, ‘Chase down your passion like it’s the last bus of the night..’ So many of us are living lives of quiet desperation, lurching from one pay cheque to the next, in lukewarm (or unhappy) relationships, shackled to lives that neither inspire nor energize us. In this presentation, I share some secrets for discovering your passion – even the purpose for which you are here.



4.

the Secret Power of Great Leaders

What are the qualities that distinguish a great leader? Great leaders inspire others to action – by connecting with the hearts and minds of their team or communities through powerful, heartfelt communication. In this keynote address, I talk about the power of language, drawing on the years in which I sat on committees to draft legislation (including clauses of the new constitution of South Africa), my love of story and poetry, and the passion we all have to communicate and reach others through our written and spoken words.

5.

8. The Secrets of

the gifts of hunger

What are you hungry for? And what can hunger teach us about how to live? This presentation is based on the insights from my book When Hungry, Eat, a spiritual memoir about two years of my life in which I investigated my own ‘hunger’ in an attempt to lose weight. I discovered that there is always a much deeper hunger driving us, and it’s only when we can make a home in our hunger that we can ever let go of what is holding us back.

6.

Sustenance in a Busy Life

What does it mean to be ‘sustained’ by our lives? What are some of the tools we can draw on to fill us up with purpose, creativity and joy so that the ordinary moments in our lives make us feel fulfilled and enriched? In this motivational speech, I share my own journey of sustenance through a period of emptiness and grief, and how I overcame these hurdles to re-embrace the richness of my life.

7.

The seven Secrets to creative success



What does it take to make a success of your creative talents? In this talk I share the seven secrets to living a life of creative success. Whether your creative passion is to write a book, start a movement, paint, sculpt, create music, movies, or social change, this address is designed to help you identify the seven characteristics you need to develop to achieve your goals. Here I share my own journey as a writer (and the role of luck, serendipity and good timing) and suggest ways in which aspiring creatives can reach their dreams. This talk can also be adapted specifically for aspiring authors: These days so many people want to write books – but so few people succeed in finishing their books or getting published. What does it really take to start writing a book? How does one keep going? Why is editing important? And how does one get published? As a writing mentor, I’ve worked closely with many aspiring authors and have identified seven personal characteristics that I believe successful authors need to develop, and suggest ways in which these can be developed.

Successful Relationships This talk draws from insights from It Doesn’t Have to Be So Hard: the secrets to finding and keeping intimacy, a book I co-authored with psychologist Graeme Friedman. Why do we find it so hard to connect with each other? In love, why does romance sour into incompatibility? Are men really frightened of intimacy? Why don’t women understand that sex is intimacy? Is staying in an unhappy relationship better than being alone? How do we keep passion and intimacy alive with the same person over time? And – here’s a dangerous question – is monogamy unnatural? And if so, what are we to do about it?

9. Your story could

change someone’s life When I wrote my memoir, When Hungry, Eat, I was consumed with the fear that no-one would relate to my story – after all, it was a deeply personal story about trying to lose weight and emigrating from my homeland. To my great surprise, I still get emails from readers telling me, ‘your story changed my life.’ How is it possible, that our own deeply intimate and personal stories could touch and move others? In this soul-searching talk, I share why I believe storytelling is so powerful, and why I believe telling your story is not a selfish act, but one of generosity. I share tips on how to make your story interesting to others, and talk about how storytelling can heal and make us whole.

10. Another day in Paradox

After I lost a dear friend tragically in 2012, I went through a deep period of grief. During this time, I was consumed with the paradox of life’s pain and beauty mottled into one day, one hour, one moment. How do we make sense of this paradox? Grief and joy; light and dark; birth and death? How do we make sense of a life full of contradiction? In this speech, I draw on the deep wisdom of poets and philosophers, artists and musicians, to suggest that life is journey into paradox, and our job is to embrace the gifts of contradiction.

Here’s what people say about me: ‘To hear Joanne Fedler as a keynote speaker is always an absolute treat and pleasure. She makes you think whilst sharing such wisdom, humour, intelligence and warmth which is surely rare and a wonderful combination. I have been incredibly lucky to have had Joanne speak at various functions, with different crowds, and she always knows how to engage people and entertain whilst being motivating, insightful and one whose content resonates way beyond the actual event.’

‘Joanne kept more than 200 women enthralled for an hour as she spoke on the topic “Rethinking Sustenance and the Modern Trap of Happiness”. Her intimate stories and perceptive insights resonated with the audience, who appreciated her courage, honesty and fantastic sense of humour. One year on, Joanne’s thoughts on the importance of stillness and playfulness continue to pop into my head as I navigate daily life.’ - Romy Moshinsky, King David School Parent’s Association

- Chris Barnes, Event Co-ordinator, Queenwood Parents Association

‘The first time I saw Joanne speak I knew quite instantly that I was in the presence of an insightful, creative, intelligent and compassionate woman. And she could speak! To the masses! She has the rare ability to balance the macro with the micro, the personal with the big picture, and she's damn funny too. She will take you on a journey and you'll be wishing you could travel together a bit longer. A WonderWoman for sure.’ - Miriam Hechtman, founder of WonderWoman

‘As our keynote speaker at Creative Mamas (TED for Mums), Joanne brought with her an extraordinary force that left the group in awe for days and weeks later. Her expertise, professionalism and adaptability also made our collaboration a joyful experience, and one I would repeat in a heartbeat. ‘ - Anna Kellerman, Founder Artbuds

In a few short moments Joanne lets you in to her world – generous, tender, funny and deeply honest. Her talent lies in her ability to make her listeners feel we have had the privilege of being allowed in, without fuss, to bear witness not only to her rich life experiences, but also to her soul. It is an experience that lingers, long.’

- Cathy Milwidsky, Director of Preschools, Moriah College

‘Thank you a million times over for such an inspiring, funny, honest and wonderful talk yesterday. I am basking in the accolades that have been streaming in by email and sms and phone calls. Not only did you make the Big Breakfast really special, we sold 92 books as well. Seriously talks like yours make all the hassle of fundraising worthwhile.’ - Michele Silver, Moriah School Parents Association

‘Joanne is masterful writer and inspirational speaker. She brings personal warmth, meaningful insight and dignity to her audience. Her keynote presentation on "Herstory" allowed us a glimpse into her experiences of womanhood, mothering, immigration and personal growth. There was something for everyone and we all felt lighter for having shared in these wise words". - Vivienne Radomsky, Project Manager B’nai B’rith NSW

'Once you’re in the orbit that is Joanne Fedler, you will forever be captivated by her wit, charm and brilliance. As a writer and keynote speaker she masterfully weaves her stories with heartfelt anecdotes and beautiful quotes skilfully integrated, showcasing the breadth of her research and depth of her wisdom. Her delivery is filled with such authenticity and passion that you cannot help but feel personally moved. She has that remarkable gift where she can at once delight and motivate, but also be compassionate and make you feel at ease.’ - Anna Kellerman, Director, Artbuds

how to book me as a speaker

Please contact me through my agent: [email protected] for costs and terms (costs vary depending on the length of the presentation, where the event is being held and the number of people attending).

I look forward to working together with you to create an unforgettable event.

Joanne

www.joannefedler.com Twitter: @JoanneFedler Facebook: Joanne Fedler

over 600 000 copies sold worldwide