Marnie McBean, O.C.

Speaking topics

Presentations listed below include in-person and virtual keynotes, as well as workshops, fireside chats, and other presentation formats.

• Be a Career Champion: Training to Win on the Bad Days Too

  In sport and life, flukes count but relying on them is an anxious bet. “Career Champions” are those who manage to succeed in any condition; almost despite the system or environment. Marnie McBean has coached countless champions and shares some of the secrets to their success.

• The Power of More: How Small Steps Help Us Achieve Big Goals

  Marnie McBean’s ideas regarding performance — rigorously tested and proven — pave a path for the preparation, communication, and teamwork that are essential to winning in any competitive environment. With anecdotes and hard-earned wisdom, she connects with audiences as a real person and leaves them with a framework for success that transcends sports and can be applied to any competitive endeavour. McBean helps your team do what she has done time and time again: turn potential into outstanding performance.

• Start Happy, Finish Happy

  How do you keep the “fun” in a long career? As we progress through a career, the joy of achievement, learning, and “winning” starts to get nudged out by expectations.

  Marnie McBean looks back at the nine Olympic Games she’s been involved in, and the lessons and impact they left her with, perhaps one of the most important being, “you can’t finish happy if you don’t try to start happy.”

  In this keynote, McBean describes the four key elements to “starting happy”, using relevant and interesting examples to illustrate her points and leaves audiences with immediately implementable takeaways to start on the path to personal success:

  • Be aware of your “done” list.
  • Don’t wait to start hard conversations.
  • Use the expectation of change and challenge as a weapon.
  • Know that you are the somebody that you’ve been waiting for.

• Our Hidden Impact: The Impact of Effective Mentoring, Teaching, and Leadership isn’t Always Obvious

  There are some lessons that require objective measurement, such as improving test scores and performance, but there are many areas where leaders, teachers, and mentors have an impact that is not quantifiable. We can’t measure growth in confidence, focus, values, or commitment, and yet improvement in these areas tend to give us the greatest satisfaction. As a mentor to Olympians, Marnie McBean takes no credit for the performance of the athletes but knows the importance of being part of their preparation.

• The Recalculated Road to Tokyo

  Marnie McBean, O.C., Canada’s chef de mission for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, three-time Olympic gold medalist, and long time mentor to Team Canada shares her insights and stories of the leadership and resilience that contributed to Team Canada having its best Summer Games despite globally challenging times.

• Host / Emcee

• Workshop: Start Happy! Finish Happy!

  Workshop Goal

  To take team building to a higher level, further instilling confidence and courage into staff so that they are exactly the kind of people who can achieve huge goals. Quick group exercises will give attendees the tools to reinforce their commitment and dedication to challenging tasks as demands increase.

  Workshop Content

  This workshop focuses on the 1^st and 4^th pillars of Starting Happy: [i]

  1) Be aware of your Done-List

  2) Start Hard Conversations

  3) Use Expectation (of change and challenge) as a weapon

  4) Know that you are the Somebody that you have been waiting for

  Team Behaviour – More starts with you

  Using a set of questions, your group will discuss amongst themselves and ultimately decide how to answer the statement “My Team Is…”

  ~Who do you want to be?

  ~What kind of co-worker/colleague do you want to be seen as?

  ~What kind of work environment do you want to work in?

  ~How do you want your competitors to see you?

   

  Communication – Starting Conversations

  Whether in sport or in business, communication always lays the foundation for effective team collaboration and goal achieving. This exercise goes beyond simply asking what your team members need from each other to be successful – it directs them towards how they can get it. They will discover that more often than not this is achieved simply by starting a conversation. This is how the best teams work, grow and win together.

  Confidence – Know what’s on your DONE list

  The nature of ambition requires that we focus on our To-Do list, but confidence and swagger come from a proud awareness of our Done List. In small groups, your team will be asked to recall, list and discuss some items on their Done list – personal & corporate – that make them who they are. It’s pretty impressive and motivating when the whole group puts there Done items into a pile.

  Going Forward – Getting to Finishing Happy

  At the conclusion of the workshop your group will have answered the question “My Team is…” and, having been freshly reminded of what they have already accomplished, they will be confident and eager to achieve more! The Done list that they just created as a group is an objective reminder that they are very ready to be, and to achieve everything that they want to.