About Shauna Shapiro

A member of Axialent’s Advisory Board, Shauna Shapiro is a PhD best-selling author, clinical psychologist and internationally recognized expert in mindfulness and self-compassion. She is a professor at Santa Clara University and has published over 150 papers and three critically acclaimed books, translated into 16 languages.

Shauna has presented her research to the King of Thailand, the Danish government, Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Summit, and the World Council for Psychotherapy, as well as to Fortune 100 Companies including Google, Cisco Systems, LinkedIn and Morgan Stanley. Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Oprah, Mashable, Wired, USA Today, Dr. Oz, the Huffington Post, and the American Psychologist. Shauna is a summa cum laude graduate of Duke University and a Fellow of the Mind and LifeInstitute, co-founded by the Dalai Lama.

Dr. Shapiro offers numerous speaking topics including The Traits of Great Leaders and Building a Compassionate Corporate Culture and others listed below. Keynote presentations can also be customized across a wide range of topics including Mental Health, Mindfulness, Neuroplasticity, and Well-Being. Her TEDx Talk, What You Practice Grows Stronger, has been viewed 3 million times.

 

Talks

Dr. Shauna Shapiro offers numerous speaking topics and Keynote presentations across a wide range of topics including Leadership, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Neuroplasticity, and Well-Being.

1 – The power of mindfulness: what you practice grows stronger

In this presentation, Dr. Shauna Shapiro – an internationally recognized expert in mindfulness – teaches you powerful practices to live a happier, healthier more meaningful life. She shares recent discoveries in neuroscience and offers practical tools to re-architect the structure of your brain to decrease stress, increase clarity and strengthen your sense of belonging and purpose. You will learn how the practice of mindfulness deactivates the centers of the brain responsible for emotional reactivity, and helps engage the rational part of your brain so you can make choices aligned with your deepest values. Dr. Shapiro offers a science-based roadmap for how to enhance personal and professional well-being, while building better lives and communities.

 

2 – Hardwiring happiness: positive brains = better health + performance

The negativity bias, our tendency to look for what’s wrong and to gloss over or entirely miss the good, is hardwired in us. It made sense evolutionarily. This was how we survived. Yet this imbalance leads to chronic stress, anxiety and depression. What over a decade of research shows is that training your brain to be positive leads to greater success at work, better physical health and improved mental well-being. To overcome  earned helplessness, we must create “wins” for our brain by training ourselves to be rational optimists who focus on what is working. Dr. Shapiro explains what positive psychology is, how much we can change, and practical applications and strategies for Hardwiring Happiness even in the midst of change and challenge.

 

3 – Compassionate leadership

Great leaders encourage collaboration, promote inclusion, and make their employees feel seen and heard. Their greatest tool? COMPASSION. Compassion isn’t a static trait that people either have or don’t have—we all have the ability to grow our compassion intentionally  Through practice. A clinical psychologist and renown expert in compassion, Dr. Shapiro uses her scientific and clinical expertise to give us concrete strategies for compassionate leadership. She shows us how to lead teams that are connected, collaborative, creative, and ultimately more successful. This presentation illuminates the science behind why kindness and compassion are not signs of weakness but sources of strength.

 

4 – The power of mindfulness in education

Our schools and communities are responsible for preparing students to succeed in and contribute to an increasingly challenging world. We are seeing the impact of rising stress, emotional dysregulation, and attention deficit, and social isolation on the health and wellbeing of our young people. All of us, students, teachers and parents, need tools to help navigate these difficult times. In this presentation, Dr. Shauna Shapiro, a leading expert in mindfulness and compassion, teaches practices to rewire the brain for greater clarity, contentment and calm. She presents a science-based roadmap to reduce emotional reactivity, manage stress, enhance self-compassion and increase the ability to make healthy life choices. Evidence from thousands of scientific studies shows mindfulness practice is directly correlated to decreased stress, increased test scores, stronger motivation, and a more connected, supportive community. Dr. Shapiro integrates cutting-edge neuroscience, interactive experiential practices, and inspiring stories to show how simple changes to our mindset and habits can bring about significant transformation in our brains and in our lives.

 

5 – The science of self-compassion

Our society teaches us that self-compassion is the enemy of productivity; that to be kind to ourselves is to invite complacency. In fact, the opposite is true. Self-compassion is proven to increase motivation and productivity, boost resilience, and improve mental health. Dr. Shauna Shapiro, a pioneer in the empirical study of self-compassion, shows us why we need self-compassion more than ever, and teaches us simple, yet powerful practices to cultivate it. She provides step-by-step guidance for tapping your inner resources and transforming the way you work and live.

 

6 – The power of attention

We’re in a focus crisis: we can’t pay attention, and it’s affecting our power to innovate and think deeply. In fact, research from Harvard shows the mind wanders on average 47% of the time. That means we are missing about half of our life. We risk losing our ability to finish long-term projects and connect with people around us, as well as losing contact with our deepest values and goals. Dr. Shauna Shapiro offers a science-based roadmap for reclaiming the power of attention and recovering our minds. She’ll teach you how to reverse exhaustion, get back your flow states, and forge real relationships at work and in your personal life. When we tap into that stillness, our minds will be sharpened to do anything we set them to, and we’ll have workplaces and organizations that are ready to embrace a focused, productive, creative mindset and achieve their goals.