
Margie Warrell
Bestselling Author & Global Authority on Leadership Courage
Margie Warrell
Bestselling Author & Global Authority on Leadership Courage
Biography
Dr. Margie Warrell brings sharp insights from her diverse global experience to inspire bolder thinking and braver action.
The bestselling author of five books, Margie’s ability to distil grounded research into actionable advice sets her apart on the global stage. A leading authority on courageous leadership, she has learned a lot about overcoming fear and embracing change since her childhood growing up on a small farm in rural Australia. She has spent the last 25 years working around the world – in Australia, Asia, Papua New Guinea and the USA – while raising her four children.
An honouree of the Women’s Economic Forum and CEO of Global Courage, Margie sits on the advisory board of Forbes School of Business & Technology and is trusted by global brands – NASA, Google, Deloitte, Dell, Abbot, UN Foundation and Salesforce – to deliver life-changing programs that accelerate growth, inspire braver action and better outcomes. Her latest book, You’ve Got This! The Life-Changing Power of Trusting Yourself has been hailed as a ‘transformative book for these times!’
Speaker Videos
Lead Bravely Through Uncertainty, Change & Disruption
Find Courage
Embrace the Discomfort of Crucial Conversations
Speech Topics
Lead Bravely: CLOSE THE COURAGE GAP TO AMPLIFY IMPACT – FROM THE INSIDE OUT
No organization can out perform its leaders. So if you want to embolden your leaders to act with more courage, less hesitation, and cultivate cultures that ignite bolder thinking, accelerated innovation and unleash potential at scale – this keynote will move the needle!
In times of relentless change and rising complexity, hesitation is costly. It’s not enough for leaders to know what to do—they must become the kind of leaders who can do it. That requires more than strategy. It requires courage. Today’s most effective leaders are grounded in purpose, anchored in self-awareness, and equipped to navigate ambiguity while cultivating collective courage across teams and culture.
In this high-impact keynote, Dr. Margie Warrell delivers a bold recalibration of what’s possible when clarity, courage, and alignment converge. Margie unpacks why the real work of leadership begins where comfort zones end, bridging the gap between inner evolution and outer results. With compelling stories and evidence-based insight, she guides leaders to dismantle the psychological barriers—fear of judgment, risk-aversion, imposter beliefs—that subtly sabotage execution and stall growth and silence candor. This keynote equips leaders to stop operating from insecurity and start leading from conviction—resetting their trajectory for next-level growth and sustained impact.
Key Audience Takeaways
- The Case for Courage: Understand how fear-based leadership exacts a “timidity tax” and long-term vulnerability—and how scaling courage unlocks stronger performance and sustained advantage.
- Lead from Values, Not Emotions: Learn how inner alignment drives outer effectiveness, shifting from insecurity alleviation to purpose-powered action.
- From Groupthink To Generative Thinking: Foster ‘loyal dissent’ and bold thinking that breaks from convention to fuel innovation and resilience.
- Galvanize Shared Purpose: Craft and communicate a compelling “why” to ignite accountability, collaboration, and creative problem-solving.
- Scale a Culture of Courage: Apply four principles that build psychological safety, reduce perceived risk, and create the conditions for bold, aligned action at scale.
Take the Chance: HOW TO TAKE THE CHANCES THAT CHANGE EVERYTHING
Most people know what to do, but don’t do what they know. Want your audience to walk away ready to defy their doubt and take bolder action toward a bolder vision for the future – their own and your organizations? This keynote will not disappoint.
We often know what to do yet we don’t do what we know. Fear is a silent killer of potential, widening the gap between thought and action – stifling initiative, fueling indecision, limiting growth and leaving potential to lay dormant. Everyone misses out.
At a time when 85% of people cite fear of failure as their #1 barrier to action and 70% of employees are afraid to speak up at work, Margie draws on insights from latest book The Courage Gap to help your audience reclaim their agency, reimagine their future and step bravely into the gap between where they are and where they want to be. Your audience will leave with real-world strategies to turn their fears into fuel — igniting passion toward a bolder vision and ready to take the chances s needed to make it reality.
Key Audience Takeaways
- Flip Your Fear: How to turn fear into an ally, and calibrate awkward moments and discomfort as a signpost for growth and cue to speak up and step forward.
- Take Smart Risks: Recognize the unconscious biases that drive over-caution and learn a simple tool to discern smart risks from reckless ones.
- Fail Forward: Recalibrate the relationship with failure to ‘mine its gold,’ applying those lessons to reset more quickly and step forward wiser, braver, and better off.
- Reset and Rescript: Clarify your highest intention to focus on what you want—not what you fear—and rewrite the story that’s been keeping you stressed, stuck and too safe.
Brave the Awkward: THE HEART OF HUMAN CONNECTION IN AN OVERWIRED WORLD
In a world of digital distance, curated communication, and polite avoidance, this keynote empowers people to brave the awkward conversations that build trust, make candor safer, and strengthen belonging—fueling human-centered cultures where authenticity drives connection, agility, and competitive edge.
In today’s hyper-connected workplace—where curated profiles, Slack replies, and AI-generated messages dominate—something vital is getting lost: our capacity for real human connection.As it becomes easier to polish our image and harder to have honest conversations, we’re seeing a growing gap between surface-level communication and true belonging. The very technologies designed to bring us closer are eroding the awkward but essential interpersonal skills that build trust, foster belonging, and fuel collaboration. We’ve become masters of impression management but novices at genuine vulnerability.
This timely keynote by Dr. Margie Warrell helps audiences confront that gap—and close it. With warmth, insight, and deeply practical tools, Margie invites your people to brave the awkward: to lean into the moments of discomfort that deepen relationships, transform cultures, and unlock human potential. From giving feedback that lands to asking for help when it matters most, Margie teaches the conversational skills and courageous mindsets that strengthen teams, elevate trust, and make space for authenticity in a world that often rewards performance over presence.
Grounded in research and real-world experience across global organizations, Brave the Awkward equips your leaders and teams with a roadmap for building more human-centered workplaces—where people feel safe to be real, to take smart risks, and to connect beyond the screen.
With belonging and engagement at historic lows, this is not a soft skill. It’s a strategic imperative.
Key Audience Takeaways
- The 3C Model – Clarity, Courage, Connection: A simple model to speak truth with love, navigate sensitive conversations and avoid the costly “timidity tax” of avoidance.
- From Impression Management to Shared Humanity: Tools to move beyond status anxiety and performative behaviors toward mutual vulnerability and authentic connection.
- Braving Silence: How to sit in the discomfort of silence to create space for the conversations that matter most—beneath the surface.
- Disarming Defensiveness: How to amplify authenticity to show up in ways that make others feel safe to lower their guard, trust your intention and connect at the next level.
- Digital Courage in Virtual Environments: Strategies to use tech to connect—not hide—and bridge the emotional distance of remote and hybrid work.
Dare to Grow: HOW TO GROW THROUGH WHAT YOU GO THROUGH
Resilience isn’t built by avoiding hardship—it’s forged through it. If you want your audience to stay grounded under pressure and turn their toughest challenges into catalysts for their greatest growth, this keynote will equip them to build their capacity to thrive, no matter what.
To thrive amid the complexity and pressures of life today requires a new way of relating to life—not to control it or to avoid its challenges—but to expand and deepen our capacity to handle them better. In this uplifting keynote, Margie shares personal stories of heartache and hardship, setbacks and struggles, that will not only provide a blueprint for ‘growing through what we go through’ but will give your audience the mindset, tool-set and heart-set to navigate change better, emerge from it stronger, and transform their biggest challenges into the source of their highest growth.
Mixing a powerful blend of theory, practical tools, and heart-expanding wisdom, your audience will walk away not only able to face change and adversity better, but equipped to grow into the best version of themselves because of it.
Key Audience Takeaways
- Resilience Micro-Habits: Integrate simple, sustainable daily rituals to sustain energy, boost recovery, build self-fullness, and ward off burnout.
- Rescript Narratives: Tap the power of language to reframe derailed plans into ‘plot twists’ that turn self-doubt into self-belief and reinforce the personal agency to press on when life presses in.
- Practice ‘Be Before Do’: Why anchoring in the values that define who you want ‘to be’ enables you to operate with self-certainty to bring your bravest self to your biggest challenges.
- Breathe In Courage: How to reset your anxiety at the ground level, moving from flight/flight mode to think more creatively and respond more calmly – particularly when pressures mount.
- Activate Post-Traumatic Growth: Understand how to find purpose in painful situations, find ‘daily victories’ and discover the transformative power of living ‘from cause, not effect.’
Brave Women Rising: HOW TO START BEFORE YOU FEEL READY AND MAKE A BET…ON YOURSELF
Want to empower women to back themselves more and doubt themselves less? This keynote challenges the fears, habits and headwinds that hold women back— emboldening them to make a bet on themselves before they feel 100% ready.
Of the many reasons women remain underrepresented at most decision-making tables, none are due to a lack of talent, ability, or work ethic. In this deeply affirming keynote, Dr. Margie Warrell shares her personal journey—from battling self-doubt as a girl in the Aussie bush to defying the invisible barriers and biases that still subtly shape women’s careers, all while raising four children and building a global business.
Margie offers a bold invitation to women who want to do more and be more but too often doubt if they can. She unpacks the subtle but powerful pressures women face to be agreeable, humble, and “likeable”—and how women can (and must) make the ultimate and most important bet… on themselves. To be clear: this keynote isn’t about “fixing” women—it’s about equipping them to stop selling themselves short, to rise stronger, and to lead with the confidence they admire in others… even when they don’t feel 100% ready.
Key Audience Takeaways
- Bet on Yourself: Learn how to challenge social expectations, limiting norms, biases and double binds, and own your value without apology and not hide behind humility
- Turn Imposterhood into Growth: Reframe self-doubt as a sign of growth and lean into stretch moments.
- Speak with Authority, Authenticity, and Impact: Communicate with conviction and reset your relationship with power to take care while taking charge.
- Act Before You Feel Ready: Understand why courage precedes confidence—and how bold action builds belief and why you need to risk ‘winging it’ more often
- Rise Together, Not Alone: Build allyship, uplift other women, and foster cultures that multiply courage and impact.
Testimonials
Books & Media
Books
The Courage Gap: 5 Steps to Braver Action
You've Got This!: The Life-changing Power of Trusting Yourself
Stop Playing Safe: Rethink Risk, Unlock the Power of Courage, Achieve Outstanding Success
Brave: 50 Everyday Acts of Courage to Thrive in Work, Love and Life
Find Your Courage: 12 Acts for Becoming Fearless at Work and in Life