Travels from Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Susan David's speaking fee falls within range: $30,000 to $50,000
Susan David, Ph.D. is one of the world’s leading management thinkers and an award-winning Harvard Medical School psychologist. She has spent the past two decades studying how the way we navigate our emotions shapes everything that matters: our actions, careers, relationships, health, and happiness. Her #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling book, Emotional Agility—based on the concept that Harvard Business Review heralded as a “Management Idea of the Year” and winner of the Thinkers50 Breakthrough Idea Award—describes the psychological skills critical to thriving in times of complexity and change. Emotional Agility been translated into 30 languages and is winner of numerous accolades including Amazon’s Best Books of the Year Award and the Books for a Better Life Psychology Award. Dr. David’s TED Talk on emotional agility has been viewed by more than 10 million people.
Named to the Thinkers50 global list of the top management thinkers, Dr. David is a sought-after keynote speaker and advisor, with clients that include the World Economic Forum, Ernst & Young, the United Nations, Google, Microsoft, Nasdaq, and many other national and multinational organizations. She is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal and a guest on national radio and television.
Dr. David trained as a clinical psychologist. She completed her Ph.D. and a post-doctorate at Yale University on emotions research. She is on the faculty at Harvard Medical School and is a Cofounder of the Institute of Coaching (a Harvard Medical School/McLean affiliate). She lives with her family outside of Boston.
Building Emotional Agility Rapid technological change, globalization, and hybrid work have fundamentally disrupted the way we live. We are increasingly caught between organizational demands and environmental realities. Organizations need flexibility, teaming, customer-centricity, innovation, and inclusion. Yet at the same time, accelerated complexity conspires against positive change, leading to rigidity, strained relationships, and lower wellbeing. The demand for people and organizations to be agile has never been greater.
Developed by Susan David, Ph.D., Emotional Agility is a practical, science-based roadmap. It’s a set of essential psychological skills for our fast-changing, complex world: skills that allow us to remain engaged, open, and values-connected, and to reincorporate our most challenging feelings as sources of energy, creativity, and insight.
Emotional Agility is at the heart of mental health, leadership, culture, collaboration, and innovation—everything that matters to healthy people, organizations, and communities. Now more than ever, it is crucial. Thinkers50 recognized the Emotional Agility framework with its coveted Breakthrough Idea Award, noting, “Emotional Agility is the new currency for leading effectively” and The World Economic Forum calls Emotional Agility a “key skill for the future.”
Emotional agility is a tool for everyone. Because our thoughts, emotions, and behavior drive everything; every aspect of how we love, live, parent, and lead.
We had such an amazing experience! Thank you. I had a good feeling about her involvement from the beginning, and the outcome was better than I could have hoped for. She really reached our participants ‘in their hearts’. – Mike Vierow, McKinsey & Company
The wisdom of Susan David’s innovative insights is only made more impressive by its practicality. Her deep understanding of psychology is matched with clear, real-world steps to more effective leadership. – Helen Clark, 27th Prime Minister of New Zealand, UNDP Administrator (2009-2017)
An outstanding success..! – Jeremy Darroch, CEO of SKY
Susan reminded us of how critical it is to recognize our feelings and to be emotionally agile. Susan connected with the audience in a powerful way with her ideas and personal stories. It meaningful to us to know that so many others around the world will have an opportunity to be informed and to be inspired. – Pat Mitchell, TEDWomen
Susan was fantastic. She showed great empathy for the audience and guided our leaders on how to become more agile in face of our daily challenges. Her talk was the perfect blend of inspiring and practical, and the audience loved it! – Guilherme Soárez, CEO of HSM
Susan’s deep understanding of psychology is matched with clear, real-world steps to more effective leadership. – Helen Clark, 37th Prime Minister of New Zealand
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Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life
The counterintuitive approach to achieving your true potential, heralded by the Harvard Business Review as a groundbreaking idea of the year.
The path to personal and professional fulfillment is rarely straight. Ask anyone who has achieved his or her biggest goals or whose relationships thrive and you’ll hear stories of many unexpected detours along the way. What separates those who master these challenges and those who get derailed? The answer is agility—emotional agility.
Emotional agility is a revolutionary, science-based approach that allows us to navigate life’s twists and turns with self-acceptance, clear-sightedness, and an open mind. Renowned psychologist Susan David developed this concept after studying emotions, happiness, and achievement for more than twenty years. She found that no matter how intelligent or creative people are, or what type of personality they have, it is how they navigate their inner world—their thoughts, feelings, and self-talk—that ultimately determines how successful they will become.
The way we respond to these internal experiences drives our actions, careers, relationships, happiness, health—everything that matters in our lives. As humans, we are all prone to common hooks—things like self-doubt, shame, sadness, fear, or anger—that can too easily steer us in the wrong direction. Emotionally agile people are not immune to stresses and setbacks. The key difference is that they know how to adapt, aligning their actions with their values and making small but powerful changes that lead to a lifetime of growth. Emotional agility is not about ignoring difficult emotions and thoughts; it’s about holding them loosely, facing them courageously and compassionately, and then moving past them to bring the best of yourself forward.
Drawing on her deep research, decades of international consulting, and her own experience overcoming adversity after losing her father at a young age, David shows how anyone can thrive in an uncertain world by becoming more emotionally agile. To guide us, she shares four key concepts that allow us to acknowledge uncomfortable experiences while simultaneously detaching from them, thereby allowing us to embrace our core values and adjust our actions so they can move us where we truly want to go.
Written with authority, wit, and empathy, Emotional Agility serves as a road map for real behavioral change—a new way of acting that will help you reach your full potential, whoever you are and whatever you face.
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