Bill Carr

Bill Carr is a humourist and an award-winning writer, stage actor and journalist. Born in Atlantic Canada, he travels throughout North America and is famous with convention audiences for his offbeat characters and custom-tailored performances. Bill's insightful perspective on the world takes aim at politics, people, business, sport and systems, as well as the mundane absurdities of life that often go unnoticed. He leaves nothing unscathed and prides himself on being a slave to all, but mastered by none.

Through consultations with meeting organizers, Bill will create a character who will best fit with each client's particular needs. It could be "The Right Rev. User Page", a zany evangelist of the Gospel of Free Enterprise, or it could be "Orville", the world-wise janitor whose facts aren't always straight but whose warped perspective adds insight to any gathering.

Bill Carr also delivers keynotes and workshops on how we need to lighten up and allow ourselves to dream, grow and become productive and adventurous again by putting laughter, humour and creativity back into our lives.

• 1. Work Inspired

  In this new, challenging economic reality how can we Work Inspired?
  What is life teaching you?
  Who and what is toxic in your life and who and what are the tonics?
  What does best practice mean in a radically changing environment?

  Bill combines years of research in the area of creative response to change and keep a healthy perspective in unhealthy times. Using humour and insight, he lifts and celebrates what is the new reality to help bring inspiration and passion back into the work you do. Bill also focuses on empathy ("contagious inspiration"), mental force, and the new ideas stemming from the latest research into how our brains work. Nurturing relations can re-wire our neural scripts and change surviving into thriving. An inspired perspective can turn tragedy into strategy and improve teamwork to create a new and vital work life.

• 2. Deep Service: A Call To A Higher Level

  "You gotta serve somebody..." - Bob Dylan

  Every industry is a service industry; every life a life of service at some level. Whether at work, in our community, or in our home life - we do in fact, serve somebody. As leaders and managers, we serve our company, our fellow employees and our clients; and to an important, and often neglected sense, we serve our community, our society and our world. At home we serve our families, our neighbourhoods, our society and the world.

  Using humour and a rich sense of humanity, Bill helps his audience explore how each individual, at every level of an organization, and the organization as a whole, can re-craft and reframe their work life and personal life to be one of deep Service. You will laugh, you will think, and you will change. Perception drives performance. When our lives are seen from a service perspective, it deepens our understanding of our place and mission in the world.

  Deep Service: Servant leadership explores the idea of servant leadership in your specific industry context. Servant leadership is a concept that is revolutionizing the workplace and adding depth and dimension to many lives and organizations. Servant leadership delves in to almost limitless possibilities of this idea when it comes to serving our internal customers.

  Note: All of Bill's keynotes and workshops involve research into each particular audience and the material is then specifically tailored to the client's needs.

• 3. Workshop: Round Table Talking

  This workshop is about communication at a deep level. It is about talking and listening and creating and dealing with a group of only sometimes "like" individuals. It is about how to team talk, team think, and team create by enhancing the ability of each member of that team to connect with one another. Whether you dealing with intergenerational difficulties, creative visioning for the future, challenges currently being faced, teambuilding, talking down the silos that inhibit corporate growth and effectiveness, or just simply improving interoffice communications, Round Table Talking is a dynamic means to explore and recreate.

  Round Table Talking incorporates the values and practices of aboriginal people's talking circles from around the world with the understanding derived from recent advances in neuroscience and communication theory. How effectively we communicate is more complex than just being articulate. It involves a number of very human mechanisms, which use different aspects of our brain, our social reality and our experience.

  Round Table Talking is more than just "talking," it is about how to set up conditions for real in depth discussion which can lead to break through ideas, deeper relationships and a safer, healthier work environment.

  The session begins with a brief keynote on the fundamentals that will be at play in the workshop, followed very quickly by exercises of the principles involved in real Round Table Talking. Talking the talk comes before walking the walk and thinking the thought comes before that.

  Round Table Talking explore such questions as:

  Is what we are saying what we mean? - And how do we determine that?

  Is what we are saying what people are hearing? And how do we know?

  What is "empathic listening"? How does it differ from simply listening? Where is this coming from? What really generated the ideas and or emotions that are being manifest at any given time?

  How do we talk about the "tough stuff" effectively? And do so without making it tougher?

  How come I can talk to everyone but you? How do we talk when we don't "get along"?

  These questions and more are explored and strategies revealed that can make communication clearer, safer and more productive. Each session is developed with the specifics of each audience's needs clearly in mind. Do they need more teamwork or more creative communication? Do they need help with difficult subjects or even difficult people? Are there specific problems they need a collective mind to truly explore? All this and more can be addressed in Round Table Talking.

  Bill creates a safe, effective and fun environment, in which his audience will explore communication on a deeper and more profound level. This highly interactive workshop is fun and fundamental, and a workshop your people will be "talking" about for a long time.

• 4. Humour & Creativity

  Humour & Creativity: A serious (but not solemn) approach to thinking and play in Business and Life.

  
  This is a workshop that discusses a creative approach to business and life in general, that serves as a foundation for problem solving, teamwork and innovation.

  Everyone has humour and is creative. It is a sad fact, however, that there are those who have had these lifesaving, invaluable natural talents suppressed by everyone from parents through teachers, friends, spouses, bosses and co-workers, to the greatest creativity buster — ourselves.

  
  This workshop is designed to help you discover how to get past your fears and the censorship of your mind placed there by society. It will show you how to have more humour and creativity in all facets of your life.

  
  Bill examines the four steps of creativity: preparation, incubation, illumination and verification, and talks about fools, clowns, humour and where humour fits in the creative cycle. As well, Bill explores the creativity and humour needed in key relationships — you to your work, you to your family, and you to yourself.

  
  Some of the questions raised are:

  ·Where does creativity fit in your life?
  ·What is a sense of humour anyway?
  ·Are you a Bog Thinker?
  ·What is the difference between serious and solemn?
  ·How do interest, focus, freedom, wonder and engagement come into play in the creative process?
  ·Do you moodle enough? Then of course, what is —moodling'?
  ·What about communication of your creativity and humour? Not everyone gets it?
  

  This is a workshop for business people, managers, employees, spouses, teachers, government workers, students and everyone else who could use a richer approach to problem solving, teamwork and the fuller, richer, living of their daily lives.

• 5. ACTING UP!: Taking Your Performance to the Next Level

  William Shakespeare said... "All the world's a stage..."

  What happens when we seriously apply this truth to our work and lives? Bill uses his extensive professional experience as a theatre artist to help you take your performance to the next level. By helping you understand your leading role Bill directs you toward achieving the performance of your life.
  
  This entertaining, engaging, interactive workshop has been developed from Bill's twenty years experience as a motivational speaker, and twenty five years as a theatre and film professional. His extensive work as an actor, director, producer and writer combined with years of research into companies and organizations from across Canada and beyond in his work as a humorous motivational speaker feed into one another to become what Bill calls his "life's workshop." Bill's theological and theatrical training, together with his business experience as an entrepreneur create a lively, fun, intensive, interactive and worthwhile event for you and your people.
  
  Knowing that the fundamentals of theatre are in essence the fundamentals of one's professional life- with effective dynamic communication at its very core, Acting Up! explores such issues as:

  · motivation, beyond the paycheck
  ·internal and external expectations
  ·the joy of improvisation through change
  ·the significant dynamics of collaboration
  ·the roles we play
  ·action and interaction
  ·the rules written and unwritten that permeate your culture
  ·the nature of character, yours and the organizations
  

  
  This workshop is all about Communication, Change, Joy, Motivation, Performance, The Big Picture and People, People, People!

  
  The workshop headings will give you some idea of how these vital corporate and life issues are addressed:

  ·Casting- Putting you in the lead role. Who are the principle characters in your life and work? What are their strengths and weakness? What are yours? What is your motivation? What is theirs? What is the arc of your character?
  
  
  ·Fundamentals of Performance- Who is your audience internally and externally? What is the most effective language and the most effective medium for your message; e-mail, one on one, meetings, etc. What are the secrets of timing? i.e. when to pause, and the value of silence. Words. Words. Words.
  
  
  ·Rehearsals- What is the place and importance of effective storytelling in your business and life? What key dialogues take place every day? What scenes are most effective for your message? What about safety and failure?
  
  
  ·The Creative Process (The five steps) as they apply to effective performance-Peeling the onion- getting to the essence of things
  
  
  ·On With The Show- putting it all together- rediscovering joy- discovering themes, how to plan and play knowing what we now know- future rewrites- rediscovering your mission statement
  

  
  
  This interactive workshop goes beyond the edict "Know thyself" and moves on to what to do with that knowledge. It stresses the active participation in your development through change. Bill's first workshop Creating Your Future: A Positive Approach to Change helped him discover the next area of need in any company- effective communication internally and externally.
  
  Theatre came from watching the living, communicating and interacting of human beings in their most vital reality. This workshop takes the lessons of this observation and experimentation and applies these truths to the life and work in which we all find ourselves. Seeing the past as prologue Bill helps the participants explore where they have been, where they are and where they want to go. With the proper perspective many perceived weaknesses can be rediscovered as strengths and some strengths can be found to be in need of tempering in changing times.
  All of the world is a stage and our individual and collective performance matters.
  
  Bill's workshop can run for a morning or a full day. It also can be used as a keynote to open or close a conference or for a noon hour burst of enthusiasm and vision. Essential to the success of these workshops is the research that Bill will want to do before each and every event. This material is best presented with a thorough knowledge of the audience and or participants. As Bill draws on twenty years of professional speaking and twenty five years of professional performing he knows the importance of pointed research and a deep respect for his audience. Each workshop and keynote will be specifically tailored to your people and their specific needs.

• 6. Lighten Up: Creating Your Future with a Positive Approach to Change

  A word we often hear in the workplace is Change! In response to this, people are being told to be creative and innovation resulting in ongoing cries of frustration and burnout! Quite simply, people who have been maintaining the status quo are not prepared for creative and innovative thinking, just as a couch potato is not prepared to suddenly run a marathon!
  
  In this workshop, people are prepared for creative action and innovative responses in the face of change. Myths about creativity are removed. You are shown the simple mechanisms of the creative process. Learn how to develop a creative culture in your workplace and personal life thereby enhancing your creative process and the creative potential of those around you.

  Everyone is inherently creative. This workshop proves it.
  
  Goals:

  ·To remove myths about creativity
  ·Show the stages of the creative process
  ·Open our language to creativity
  ·Apply this workshop to specific problems
  ·Set creative goals
  ·Infuse enthusiasm into our careers and lives
  ·Allow natural creativity to flow
  ·Have a great time and laugh a lot!
  

• Witty, well-researched, well-timed and perfectly targeted.
  The Advocates' Society
• You were fabulous!  You were overwhelmingly rated "Excellent" and to the question should we bring you back - YES, the sooner the better!
  Realty World
• There is no doubt that "humour is the best medicine" and when it is delivered in your unique style the cure is instantaneous.
  Canadian Medical Association
• I was very impressed with your fresh take...your keen ability to listen to particular IRB circumstances and come to the sessions with enough knowledge about the department, region and group to really connect on a personal level.
  Human Resources, Immigration & Refugee Board (Central Region)
• The topic was very relevant to us as we move through a significant period of transformation in IITB. Your message, along with your words of encouragement, were deeply appreciated. You had us laughing and crying, all at the same time, with your real-life experiences and stories! Your message that how we see the world affects what we feel and think, which affects what we do, thereby, impacting on our future - is a perspective that each of us should, and hopefully will, keep with us throughout our lives. Excellent and timely topic presented in a rib-tickling manner. Thanks!!
  Service Canada