Sarah Ciavarri

Motivating leaders to excel professionally and craft a life they love with actionable practices. Has been bringing Dr. Brené Brown's research to audiences for over 10 years.

Expert on

  • Resilience
  • Teamwork / Teambuilding
  • Emotional Intelligence
  • Empowerment
  • Leadership
  • Healthcare

Fee Range

$3,500–$8,000

Travels from

MN, US

Biography

Daring.  Authentic.  Riveting.  = So engaging participants actually put their phones away. = This is how event players and participants often describe Sarah’s presence. Through empathy, vulnerability, and her ability to dance in the moment, Sarah has the rare ability to connect with audiences live and virtually at a deeper level.  Sarah is a sought-after creative thought leader on vulnerability, authenticity and resilience, trained in all of Dr. Brené Brown’s curricula, who leaves her audiences with clear action steps to craft a life they love, minimize regrets through bold strategic action, and to achieve professional excellence in the midst of uncertainty and division.

Sarah is the founder of Level Up Leadership, LLC, and has been helping organizations, leaders, and teams achieve professional excellence for over a decade.  Sarah wrote, Finding Our Way to the Truth: Seven Lies Leaders Believe and How to Let Them Go to inspire leaders through her own relatable and humorous stories and to provide readers easy steps to be more successful in their own skin. Sarah is keenly attuned to the inner life of leaders and regularly presents on resilience, kindness, and courage.

Sarah is a Certified Facilitator of all of Dr. Brené Brown’s curricula: Dare to Lead, Daring Greatly, Bold, and The Gifts of Imperfection. Sarah has facilitated over 300 workshops on Dr. Brown’s research and has supported thousands of leaders to dream and live big.  Sarah is among the few who have been facilitating Brené’s research since the beginning.  Sarah has the unique honor of being among just a handful of facilitators dual certified in Dare to Lead and Daring Greatly.  In addition to this honor, Sarah was asked by the Daring Way senior leadership to step into greater responsibility eight years ago within Brené’s organization as a Case Consultant supervising candidates through integrating Brené’s research into their organization. Sarah is Vice President of Spiritual Life at a large senior healthcare organization headquartered in Minneapolis, MN. Sarah is also an Executive Coach for women leaders in the C-Suite through Chief.

Speaker Videos

SO OVER IT: OVERCOME THE OVERLOAD AND OVERWHELM WITH RESILIENCE

Format: 90 minute keynote

 

This program is perfect for:

  • Frontline Staff serving members or the public
  • Government employees
  • New Managers, those speed-tracked in their leadership because of COVID
  • Customer Service employees who repeatedly answer the same questions

 

The audience will leave with:

  • Key techniques and simple mindset shifts you can use to deal with hard emotions and overwhelm that hold you back
  • How to increase focus and boost productivity by setting boundaries, learning to say NO and prioritizing
  • Proven strategies to maintain an optimistic attitude, maximize your energy, and motivate yourself and others.

Most of the time you love what you do.  But sometimes the routine feels . . . well . . . routine.  And you are just so over it!  This keynote gives practical strategies for injecting excitement into the everyday and reigniting your sense of purpose.  Your contribution matters.  Learn how to harness the power of resilience to weather challenges, adapt in change, and remain upbeat so the next time you say, “How may I help you?”  you don’t dread the answer.

UNMASKING THE 7 LIES LEADERS BELIEVE

Format: 90-120 minute keynote or breakout session

This program is perfect for:

  • New Leaders 
  • Healthcare Administrators and Senior Leaders
  • Executive Teams
  • Non-profit Leaders

 

The audience will leave with:

  • A greater appreciation of the hidden – but equally deadly – false assumptions that stymie professional, team, and personal growth
  • An understanding of how the stories we tell ourselves as a individuals limit our performance, authenticity, and well-being
  • A proven 3-step framework to help you honestly and thoroughly examine the stories you tell yourself so you are empowered to live your best life.
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Through humor and personal stories gleaned from over 25 years in leadership, this keynote explores lies of a particularly insidious sort–lies masquerading as truths. These lies can be so engrained in how we were raised, the culture we live in, and the type of thinking that has kept us safe that we don’t notice how they inform our decisions and affect the way we lead, work, parent, and live. These lies aren’t the obvious ones. They are sneaky–lies that can be benign, even helpful, such as “I should finish what I start,” “People must like me,” and “I’m responsible for it all.” But these ideas when taken too far, lcan keep us from owning our ideas and strengths, following a dream, confronting dysfunction, or enjoying deeper, more honest relationships. They can replace a sense of well-being and hope with regret and resentment.

Finally, this keynote shares a proven three-step process for unmasking each lie: pay attention, examine, and apply the learning. We do better when we stop listening to the lies. 

PUTTING THE KIND BACK IN HUMAN AND WHY IT MATTERS TO YOUR MISSION, ROI, AND LEGACY

Format: In-person or Virtual

 

This program is perfect for:

  • New leaders
  • Frontline Staff who serve the public
  • Anyone who wants better relationships at work and at home

The audience will leave with:

  • Key Insights About How to Get Emotionally Grounded
  • Tools to Use with Colleagues and Customers When Tempers are Hot
  • Phrases that Respectfully Keep the Conversation Going

 

With the pressures of our modern world and frayed nerves from the pandemic, we could all use a little more honest-to-goodness kindness in our lives. More of ‘we are in this together’ and ‘we can get through mistakes and setbacks,’ more genuine interest and concern. Learn actionable practices to support your team, self-compassion practices to support yourself, and unleash the power of curiosity to use when in hard, heated, or horns-locked conversations, and the three-step process for healthy conversations.

PASSION, PURPOSE, AND PAYCHECKS: UNVEILING THE HEART OF EMPLOYMENT

Format: 90 minute keynote or breakout

 

This program is perfect for:

  • People supervisors
  • Service-based industries
  • Government employees

The audience will leave with:

  • Strategies to bounce back from setbacks.
  • Reignited sense of purpose for public service.
  • Deeper meaning in your role.
  • Ways to love their job even if it isn’t their dream job. 

 

Join us for a playful and insightful journey that will leave you feeling re-energized and ready to fall in love with your job all over again. In this engaging keynote speech, we’ll explore actionable resilience steps that will help you thrive in your role and connect to what drives you to do your best work. Discover how to bounce back from challenges with a spring in your step, reignite your passion for public service, and find deeper purpose in your work. Prepare to laugh, learn, and love your job like never before as we delve into and uncover the true magic behind combining passion, purpose, and those ever-important paychecks. Don’t miss this opportunity to reignite love for what you do  and become a more resilient employee.  Pssst, this also helps you get more done with less effort!!