Michelle McCullough

Stretch Capacity, Build Resilience, and Ignite Team Performance

Expert on

  • Leadership
  • Generations
  • Employee Engagement
  • Motivation
  • Resilience
  • Marketing

Fee Range

$10,000–$15,000

Travels from

UT, US

Biography

Michelle McCullough blends research-backed expertise with energizing, practical strategies to help leaders tackle today’s most urgent workplace challenges—from communication breakdowns and lack of trust to employee retention struggles.

A seasoned keynote speaker, Certified Speaking Professional (CSP®), and engaging emcee, Michelle has delivered over 400 presentations for organizations like Goldman Sachs, the Air Force Reserve, and Ancestry.com. As a Future of Work researcher, she’s led national studies including the 2025 Leadership and Engagement Report and the U.S. Happiness Report, revealing the hidden behavioral influences that drive performance, engagement, and retention.

Michelle is the bestselling author of four books, including The Make It Happen Blueprint and The HappyIST and serves on the Board of Directors for Stampin’ Up! As CEO of DreamBoard Media, she leads her own team using the same leadership and emotional intelligence strategies she shares worldwide.

Featured over 250 times in outlets like Entrepreneur.com, Fox, ABC, CBS, and NBC affiliates, Michelle answers the critical questions executives are asking—delivering actionable insights with her signature energy, engaging storytelling, and data-driven approach. Above all, she’s passionate about helping teams stretch, innovate, and enjoy success together.

Speaker Videos

Stretch Capacity™: Building High Performing Teams That Consistently Perform Without Snapping

Leaders at all levels face an impossible challenge: push their teams to achieve more while preventing burnout and disengagement. The pressure to deliver results often leads to stretched-too-thin teams operating in survival mode, where innovation stalls and top performers quietly quit.

In this high-impact keynote, Michelle shares research-backed strategies that help leaders understand the future of work to develop their teams’ capacity for growth. Through powerful storytelling, she demonstrates how to recognize the crucial differences between optimal stretch, rest and recovery, and dangerous burnout zones. Leaders learn practical tools to help their teams bounce back from challenges while maintaining the energy for sustained high performance.

The result? A transformed workplace culture where teams expand their capacity with confidence, resilience becomes a renewable resource, and growth happens naturally — without the burnout.

Key Takeaways:

  • How to assess and develop individual team members’ stretch capacity™
  • Practical strategies to help teams bounce back stronger from setbacks and challenges
  • The critical balance between pushing for growth and allowing for recovery
  • Research-backed techniques to build sustainable resilience in your organization
  • Tools to create a culture where emotional intelligence drives peak performance

Make It Happen Blueprint - The 3 High Performance Practices To Achieve More with Less

In a demanding business environment, having potential isn’t enough. Leaders and teams often know what they need to do but struggle to execute consistently, leading to missed opportunities, stalled initiatives, and unfulfilled potential. When overwhelm sets in, even the most promising projects and talented people can get stuck in the gap between goals and results.

Drawing from over a decade of research and real-world application, Michelle reveals her proven blueprint for turning plans into action. Through engaging stories and interactive exercises, she breaks down the 18 key attributes of high performers into practical steps anyone can implement. 

This is where potential meets performance — teams and leaders consistently executing at their highest level, turning their biggest goals into reality while maintaining the energy to take on new challenges.

Key Takeaways:

  • The three critical mindset shifts that separate high performers from high potentials
  • A practical framework for moving from overwhelm to focused action
  • Research-backed strategies to maintain momentum when facing obstacles
  • Tools to build accountability and sustain long-term success
  • Techniques to achieve ambitious goals without sacrificing what matters most

Be The HappyIST – Science-Backed Strategies for Emotional Intelligence and High Performance

Traditional workplace wisdom suggests that success leads to happiness. But research tells a different story: when leaders and teams prioritize emotional wellness and happiness as a strategy, performance naturally follows. Most organizations get this backwards, chasing metrics and milestones while watching engagement plummet and innovation stagnate.

Through groundbreaking research and her unique “HappyIST” framework, Michelle reveals how happiness acts as a multiplier for team performance. Moving beyond the limiting perspectives of pessimists, realists, and even optimists, she demonstrates how “Happyists” create sustained success by making emotional intelligence their superpower. 

Imagine the difference when teams don’t just look on the bright side — they live there, consistently delivering exceptional results while maintaining the enthusiasm to tackle new challenges.

Key Takeaways:

  • Recognize happiness as a powerful multiplier for performance and results.
  • Utilize the HappyIST mindset for a more powerful, action-oriented perspective.
  • Turn emotional intelligence into a practical superpower for everyday leadership and teamwork.
  • Reverse the success-happiness equation to fuel sustainable engagement and innovation.