Speaking | mentoru

Keynote Speaking

Looking for a speaker who will inspire your staff or students to make the most of their unique potential?

Over the past 13 years, Jay has presented to over 80,000 people in groups ranging in size from two to 2000. He offers a series of interactive talks that are tailored to each audience, with his 3 Steps to Significance serving as the common thread that weaves the themes together.

He uses his own non-traditional career path and scientific evidence to demonstrate how action, openness and authenticity are fundamental principles for building a purposeful career and life. Jay has traveled to 51 countries, held 19 different jobs, lived in eight Canadian cities and seen 74 concerts. This combination, among other trials and tribulations, has led him to his own Significance: helping others build purposeful lives for themselves.

Here is his recent TEDx talk - Gap Year: A Path to Purposeful Education

3 Steps to Significance: Action, Openness and Authenticity

What, exactly, makes people feel fulfilled?

What is it that allows certain people to find their calling in life, while others toil endlessly without ever truly achieving a sense of meaning in their work or life? Countless studies and self-help books have been written on the topic, with three fundamental principles showing up time and time again: facing our fears and taking action with imperfect information; stepping outside of our comfort zone and approaching life with a learner’s mindset and striving for accomplishments that align with our intrinsic motivations.

In this talk, Jay uses a combination of his own personal experiences, scientific evidence from positive psychology and stories of significant lives to:

Define what it means to live a life of significance
Explain what the 3 principles for Significance look like in practice
Offer suggestions to create more meaning in your work & life

Agency & Adaptability: Filling in the Gap (year) for Young Canadians

Meaningful gap year experiences are increasingly important for the future workforce.

Rising tuition fees, ease of access to information and shifting trends in career development mean that a purposeful year away from formal education after high school is more important now than ever before. Unfortunately, due to a lack of information and a societal emphasis on the linear career model, gap years have not yet garnered mass support in Canada.

Parental concerns include diminished career motivation and loss of academic momentum in their child’s development. Student concerns include a perceived lack of success among their peers, and a desire to “get their education over with quickly” so that they can “start living.” These are a few among many of the barriers preventing increased gap year participation rates in Canada.

In this talk, Jay shares stories as well as research in psychology and insights from MentorU's innovative gap year program, Discover Year to illustrate:

Why a purposeful gap year is important in helping students foster good mental health and build crucial career skills.
How Discover Year is helping young adults build a sense of personal agency and adaptability.
What experiences students, parents and educators should be looking for when planning a gap year.

Escape Rooms: Dynamic Lessons in Leadership and High-performance

When the owners of Escape Manor initially set out to create an exciting new interactive entertainment offering in Ottawa, Canada, their intention was not to produce a mechanism for corporate leadership and communications training.

The escape room experience, however, has proven to be an innovative and engaging tool for team-building.

To help teams extract the most important lessons from their escape experiences, Escape Manor partnered with MentorU to develop a training program. MentorU’s analysis of the best practices of successful escape room teams included a sample size of over 50,000 groups. This analysis revealed many parallels between high-performance in escape rooms and in the workplace. Escape rooms offer important team insights regarding shared purpose, good communication, effective leadership, mutual trust and synergy.

In this talk, Jay combines these escape room lessons with stories and research in high-performance to:

Provide insights into some of the fundamental behaviours and attitudes that high-performing teams demonstrate
Make recommendations to instill these behaviours and attitudes in your workplace

"Jay's personality, experience and communication skills, combined with his passion for career development and positive psychology, make for outstanding presentations. He has visited with our students on a number of occasions, and consistently connects with them in authentic and meaningful ways. He uses this to create a sense of wonder and excitement as he explains how their journey, and the experiential pathways they pursue, will take them places they can’t even imagine. He is an excellent role model and I would recommend him to anyone looking to engage their students with inspiring stories and relevant research".

- John Unsworth, Head of Student Services, Nepean High School