Motivational Speaking
Lisa Fitzhugh
Past Keynotes

A collection of excerpts from past keynote speeches that touch on leadership, introspection, creativity, stepping up, and more.

Past Keynotes
Team Building
Lisa Fitzhugh
Adventure on the High Seas

This essay was based on a vivid and disturbing dream. It describes a large ship of adolescents trying to sail into a fierce storm, unable to harness the power of their collective courage and creativity to save themselves.  It speaks to what’s needed for any team to assemble well and survive such times. 

Adventure on the High Seas
Creativity
Lisa Fitzhugh
A Fool's Errand

In this essay, I highlight the essential role of the fool and his/her capacity to challenge our assumptions about what we accept as the truth, the key to any creative endeavor worth its salt. This may be more relevant now in 2025 than when I wrote it in 2021.

A Fool's Errand
Team Building
Lisa Fitzhugh
An Act of Imagination

During the pandemic we had different experiences of the lockdowns, the virus, and other people’s choices.  I encourage people to consider that we are, each of us, afraid of different things. So if something scary is happening ‘out there,’ it’s important that some people hold less fear, otherwise the collective nervous system would collapse under the strain. 

An Act of Imagination
Leadership Coaching
Lisa Fitzhugh
Leading From the Inside Out

How we lead is directly related to how well we tend to our inner emotional and psychic landscape. Whatever untended ‘business’ inside of us will be projected onto the people around us, especially if we hold more positional authority.   

Leading From the Inside Out

motivational speaking case studies

Annual Arts Conference Keynote

Sarah Davis invited me to Johnson City, Tennessee 25 years ago seeking to learn from my experience creating Arts Corps, the non-profit arts organization I founded in 2000 and led as Executive Director for 8 years.  She asked me to be the keynote for their annual arts conference and invited me back again a few years later.  Catalyzed by Arts Corps’ success and my encouragement, Sarah launched a similar program in Johnson City.    

“For 14 years, I’ve seen Lisa in numerous professional situations—motivational speaking, retreat facilitation, community visioning, and leading. She is a deep listener and sows seeds for change that resonate long after she has left the room. Witnessing participants reconnect with their own creative rocket fuel is something to behold! Her authentic spirit leads us to new places where we can tap into our full potentials and see the vision for a world healed and enlivened by collaboration and creativity. Lisa IS the rocket fuel that everyone needs.”

–Sarah Davis, Board Member, Going Elemental

City of Melbourne

In 2008 Kim Dunphy from the City of Melbourne’s Cultural Authority organized a speaking tour for me around the state of Victoria on the value of arts in education.  I had just left Arts Corps and had many stories to share about what made Arts Corps so successful and how we sustained this innate but often untapped learning for young people over time.  

“Lisa's keynote speeches for a series of conferences across Victoria, Australia, in 2008, were incredibly inspiring and motivating.  Her messages about creativity and powerful learning, delivered with warmth and passion, provided an excellent starting point for our events that sought to encourage creative connected communities. Our delegates were unanimous in their positive feedback about her.”  

--Kim Dunphy, Conference Director, Cultural Development Network, Melbourne, Australia