Andy Bernstein
- Founder and CEO, Resilience Academy;
- Author of The Myth of Stress/Breaking the Stress Cycle
In Person-Fee 🛈
Fee Range
$30,000 - $50,000
Virtual Fee:
$15,000 - $20,000
Travels From
New York
Andy Bernstein Speaker Biography
Andy Bernstein teaches people a new way to handle challenges, without jargon, or stigma. He has been the audience favorite at dozens of national conferences because his content is enlightening, relevant, funny, and transformational, both at work and at home.
Andy first became interested in handling change better as a teenager, when his father and little sister died unexpectedly.
He spent his twenties exploring transformational processes and working as a writer (at one point for the Muppets).
In 2004, Andy created a new process that distills breakthroughs down to just 7 steps done on a guided worksheet — and he has been teaching it to rave reviews ever since.
Andy has been a very busy speaker through Wharton Executive Education and in financial services firms. He delivers an enlightening, actionable way to develop stronger leaders and teams. Andy brings in humor and his own story as a way to keep the session engaging — people deeply appreciate that he is relatable and funny, and not a canned speaker — but the focus is always on delivering a framework and toolkit for audience members to use on their challenges today and in the years ahead.
All of Andy’s sessions feature his 7-step reframing tool to help people shift mindset faster, but the sessions can focus on specific areas (teams, families, org change, etc.) to make them more relevant and impactful.
Andy Bernstein has been one of the highest-rated speakers for thousands of leaders at Wharton Executive Education for 17 years because his content is:
EYE-OPENING: Andy shares the most important thing for better leadership, stronger teams, and personal well-being, all based on data. This is content that most people find enlightening and valuable, both personally and professionally.
PRACTICAL: Attendees don’t just get a new framework. They also get a 7-step tool that helps them break through challenges in their lives, with zero stigma or “touchy-feeliness” (it’s done on paper).
INTERACTIVE: Andy leads everyone through the 7 steps in the session. People love the interactivity. It also gives audience members something to take away and continue using.
ENGAGING: Andy’s specialty is skeptical, jaded leaders tired of motivational pep talks. He shows up as a warm, relatable, intelligent person here to offer real value. He will tailor the content to your audience. He’s easy to work with. And he’s funny (he used to write for the Muppets.)
If you are looking for a speaker who people will thank you for afterwards, Andy is at the top of the list.
Breaking the Stress Cycle: Mastering Stress, Resilience, and Change
Hans Selye revolutionized our understanding of stress, introducing the world to the concept of "stressors" (a term he coined) and stress management. His work shaped modern psychology and medicine, making him one of the most influential scientists of the 20th century.
But he got one crucial thing very, very wrong.
In this eye-opening session, you’ll discover:
• The critical mistake in Selye’s theory — and how it has led to widespread misconceptions about stress and well-being
• The truth about how stress and resilience actually work
• Why "stressors" don’t exist — and what that means for you
• A 7-step process to navigate challenges faster at work and at home — without relying on positive thinking, motivation, or "touchy-feeliness"
The Most Important Thing
What matters most for happiness in life? Money? Achievements? Love? We start by examining the world’s longest study of adult well-being, and why the real answer isn’t any of these things. We also look at the most important thing for high-performing teams (again based on data), and why it’s not talent, willpower, and other common assumptions. And then we discover a tool that helps attendees build both greater well-being and stronger team performance in just 7 steps, with no blame, stigma, or “touchy-feeliness.”
Taming Fire: Leadership in the Age of Disruption
In 1910, over 3 million acres of the Rocky Mountains went up in flames — the largest wildfire in U.S. history. Entire towns were reduced to ash. When the Great Fire was finally extinguished, the U.S. Forest Service made a solemn vow: “Never again.”
They built thousands of lookout towers and deployed an army of rangers to stamp out every spark. Ecologists hailed it as a tremendous success.
Then they saw the sequoias.
Sequoias are the largest organisms on Earth, living up to 3,000 years. But by the 1950s, these ancient giants were dying out.
Why? Because fire wasn’t destroying them — it was saving them. Fire cleared the soil and opened their pinecones, allowing them to grow. Without fire, they withered.
The same is true for leaders.
In this engaging, interactive session, you’ll discover how adversity — the fires we all face — can fuel leadership growth when managed correctly. You’ll learn:
• The two most critical qualities for effective leadership, based on global research
• Why adversity either cultivates or crushes these qualities, depending on how it’s handled
• A simple, 7-step guided worksheet to transform challenges into fuel for leadership and team performance — without stigma
• Practical ways to apply this process to real-world challenges at work and at home, helping your people thrive in an increasingly disrupted world
Motivation, Fast and Slow
In Thinking, Fast and Slow, the late psychologist and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman described how our brains process information in two distinct ways:
• Fast thinking — instinctive and automatic
• Slow thinking — deliberate and analytical
Both are essential, but different situations require one, the other, or a mix of both.
Motivation works the same way.
Like thinking, motivation can be Fast or Slow — and just as with thinking, different challenges call for different types.
The Problem with Fast Motivation - What happens when a situation demands Slow motivation, but all we rely on is Fast motivation?
Take fitness. Every January, millions join a gym. By mid-February, instead of losing weight, they’ve lost their ability to keep going.
Or consider leadership. Companies bring in high-energy keynote speakers — Olympic athletes! Navy SEALs! — only to find that six weeks later, everyone is back in the same rut. The issue isn’t that Fast motivation doesn’t work. It’s a powerful way to ignite change. But without Slow motivation, the spark begins to fade.
The Solution: Mastering Slow Motivation
In this eye-opening session, you’ll take a deep dive into the mechanics of Slow motivation, including:
• Self-Determination Theory — what it is and why it’s critical for both performance and well-being
• Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic motivation — what goes wrong when you only use one, and how to leverage both effectively
• The Importance of Teams — fast motivation relies on willpower and the individual; slow motivation is about habits and teams
Once the framework is clear, you’ll learn how to apply Slow motivation to real-world leadership challenges, including:
• Why removing friction is more effective than increasing flow
• Why great teams are less like machines to be greased and more like farms to be cultivated
• How to build a Fast & Slow motivation toolkit with daily, weekly, and monthly action items for sustained team momentum
Bonus Value: These sessions can be bundled with books and includes three months of online memberships per participant — ensuring that the insights and benefits last well beyond the session itself.
