The Comfort Zone Advantage
How Real Recovery Builds Change-Ready Teams
The best parts of life happen outside your comfort zone. If you want to thrive, you need to grow.
Your team works the same way. If you want your organization to thrive, your people need to grow.
But growth is hard! People resist change.
It’s easy to get people excited about a new initiative for a few days. It’s much harder to get them to actually commit to change.
And it’s harder still to develop a genuine culture of change readiness - so they’re able to adapt not just to the current change, but to every curveball that comes their way.
But while it’s hard, it’s also necessary. You already know that your organization faces a choice between adaptability and stagnation. You just don’t know what to do about it.
This Is Where WE Come In
The Comfort Zone Advantage - Keynote
Our keynote “The Comfort Zone Advantage: How Real Recovery Builds Change-Ready Teams” directly addresses the key psychological barrier that prevents your team from embracing change. As psychologists, we understand the real reason people get stuck. And we understand exactly what they need to break free.
The research is clear - the strongest performing teams are also the most psychologically healthy. That’s why the Comfort Zone Advantage gives your team the courage to grow by giving them permission to recover. We help your audience unlock the strength they need to change by changing the way they meet their needs.
And, we make sure they have a blast while they’re learning! Our keynote is a high-octane one-hour experience designed to be the most fun part of the entire event. We keep your audience engaged with personal stories, a guest appearance by Tom Cruise, and (of course) a dance montage. Your audience will walk away with practical strategies they can immediately apply - and a big smile.
The Comfort Zone Advantage can be delivered as a virtual training, but it’s best as an in-person keynote so we can bring the full experience (like the dance montage!) Depending on the needs of your event, we can add group discussion or reflection opportunities, or add deeper trainings on related topics.
What Your Audience Will Learn
Why people resist change, and the legitimate psychological need behind that resistance
The importance of the comfort zone and how healthy growth requires a balance of effort and rest
Why common approaches to change actually cause burnout and overwhelm, and how a recovery-first strategy unlocks growth while preventing burnout.
How to recover from burnout and build psychological resilience
What happens when adaptability becomes a core value (and how to make that happen)
Practical strategies for bringing change-readiness to your workplace and personal life.
Specific applications to your audience and event
Adaptability keynote speakers Dr. Wendler & Dr. Shumway
Meet the Speakers
I co-present The Comfort Zone Advantage with fellow psychologist Dr. Kyler Shumway. We’ve each been speaking professionally for over a decade, and we teamed up to maximize our impact for this topic. Double psychologists means twice the energy and twice the impact!
A few of our bona fides:
I’m a TEDx speaker, and so is Kyler
We’re both authors of popular books, and we co-authored the Great Courses book Neurodiversity and the Myth of Normal.
We reach hundreds of thousands of social media followers with evidence-based insights about mental wellness.
We’ve spoken to corporations, nonprofits, universities, hospitals, research laboratories, federal and state government agencies, the US Army and Navy…the list goes on!
We specialize in making life easy for event organizers. Our goal is to deliver a high-impact talk for your audience and a zero-stress experience for you. We are both committed to being the smoothest part of your entire event.
Oh, and we’re best friends. If you want to see what happens when best-friend chemistry powers psychological insight, you’ll want us on your stage!
