Caroline Adams Miller

Getting Grit – Put Passion, Perseverance and Purpose to Work!

Suggested Audience: All employees. Caroline also offers a leadership version of this topic.
Format: Keynote or Workshop

In times of greater complexity, ever-increasing regulation and competition, organizations need people who can weather these challenges and not just be productive—but actually thrive. People who are resilient in times of change. People who have GRIT.

Grit is passion and persistence in pursuit of long-term goals. Research confirms: Grit is the secret to success.

As company goals get more challenging every year, achieving them will take even more grit. But HOW do people become grittier?

Caroline Adams Miller, MAPP, is an expert on Positive Psychology and the foremost authority on how to apply the science of grit and achievement to our lives. Caroline shares timely examples, stories and research-based insights that your audience will put to use to reach their highest goals!

After attending this energizing and inspiring talk, your audience will:

• Understand what grit is and why it’s important.
• Recognize the difference between good and bad grit.
• Cultivate grit to help them stay resilient and persevere in the face of difficulties.
• Be inspired to stretch beyond their comfort zone.
• Create a culture of grit that encourages people to make their best efforts. (Leadership version)
• Spot grit in others and hire for grit. (Leadership version)

People with authentic grit have key traits that audiences learn from and want to emulate. Caroline shares the practical strategies that accelerate performance: defined purpose, hard goals, role models, team building, and more. This powerful talk inspires audiences to become grittier—and achieve big goals!

The New Science of Goal Setting – How to Achieve Game-Changing Results

Suggested Audience: Business leaders, sales managers, anyone who is required to create and accomplish goals in their job.
Format: Keynote or Workshop

Goal-setting is a basic business fundamental. Everyone knows how. Or do they? Everyone uses metrics but the world is still full of missed goals, failed objectives, and tarnished brand names. That’s because we’ve been using a goal-setting approach based on thin air, not science.

What could your team achieve by using a proven, research-based approach to setting and achieving goals? Effectively setting goals can leapfrog you ahead of your competitors. The right goals help you adapt more quickly to a changing environment and help ensure success in new markets.

Caroline Adams Miller is a renowned thought leader on the transformational power of setting the right goals at the right time. She studied the science behind successful goal setting at the University of Pennsylvania, where she received a Masters in Applied Positive Psychology. Caroline uses riveting storytelling, her infectious enthusiasm, and science-based techniques to empower your audience to set meaningful goals—and achieve them!

In this fast-paced and energizing talk, your audience learns practical steps to improve their goal setting, including:

• Build on a foundation of happiness; first we’re happy, then we’re successful.
• Practice the 6 Keys to Effective Goal Setting.
• Understand the difference between Learning Goals and Performance Goals; when to use each, and when to blend them.
• Use Primes and Prompts to set you up for success and avoid the most common mistakes that derail progress.
• Establish accountability and build a culture of positive energizers.
• Goal setting is essential for maximizing human performance. People who implement these proven goal-setting processes achieve the greatest successes of their careers and game-changing results.

Creating Your Best Life—In and Out of the Office – How Women Can Pursue Meaningful Goals and Live with No Regrets

Suggested Audience: Women’s meetings, conferences and forums.
Format: Keynote or Workshop

Hidden talents. Unused strengths. Unrealized goals. Women are often so busy meeting everyone else’s expectations that their own professional and personal goals get left behind. Unexpressed talents often make us restless and dissatisfied.

Now is your time to go for it! The happiest people wake up each day with clear, hard goals that provide meaning and purpose.

Goal setting expert Caroline Adams Miller, MAPP, inspires women to put their innate strengths to use. She encourages women to become their authentic, ideal selves—not just who they feel they “ought” to be—and provides proven techniques to help them reach their full potential.

Caroline shares stories of women from all over the world, whose actions, habits, mindset and grit fueled their amazing accomplishments. And she combines leading-edge research with storytelling that paints a picture of possibility. Female leaders are inspired to take positive risks, and have the passion, persistence, humility, and courage to achieve their toughest goals.

In this fast-paced, energizing and research-based session, female leaders learn practical steps to create their best self in and out of the office, including how to:

• Identify strengths to increase success.
• Use the new science-based approach to set goals to achieve the best outcomes.
• Develop a supportive “web of influence”—women helping women.
• Build a culture of positive energizers.
• Cultivate a mindset of self-efficacy, resilience, optimism, and grit.
• Be someone who people tell inspiring stories about! After this stimulating session, you’ll have the courage to create your best life. You’ll be eager to reach beyond your comfort zone, achieve your goals, and become your best possible self!

How to Cultivate Grit in Schools – …And Put the “Awe” Back in Awesome!

Suggested Audience: Parents, Teachers, Students, School Administrators, Gen Z students, Education Conferences, School Boards, School Associations.
Format: Caroline designs the day to include three programs (keynote and/or workshops) to match the unique needs of each of the three audiences (students, teachers/staff, and parents).

Although the word “awesome” is thrown around a lot in today’s society, experts say that we have become “awe-deprived” in recent years due to cheating scandals in sports and business, and overall lowered standards for excellence. The millennial generation, however, was raised with abundant praise, leading to concerns that when their performance reviews aren’t “awesome” they feel discouragement and demotivation. Easy goals and low standards for excellence can actually prevent people from becoming awesome. According to the most current research, when people are truly awe-inspired by extraordinary behavior and events, they are profoundly impacted, and are more likely to work hard, be hopeful, and be kind to others. Grit is also an essential element in being awesome, and specific character strengths that undergird gritty behavior can be cultivated to support becoming one’s best self. Using research and stories of gritty people, Caroline weaves together a variety of information that leaves “Gen Z” students, parents, and teachers understanding the importance of hard goals, gritty behavior, and why inspiration is a necessary ingredient in a flourishing life.

During the programs, Caroline explains and facilitates:

• The current paucity of grit/resilience in society and what factors have led to the inability to handle stress, disappointment and setbacks.
• The role that schools have played in creating and perpetuating these problems, and what they can do to stop coddling students and their parents.
• Ways to embed grit education in a school’s daily environment and discussions.
• That all grit is not created equal – i.e. overuse of grit can be detrimental (selfie grit, stupid grit, and faux grit).
• How parents, students and teachers can change the ways they live and interact with others to enhance the cultivation of grit and its supporting character strengths (humility, patience, self-regulation, bravery, teamwork, and persistence, among others).