Let’s be honest difficult people are everywhere. The ones who push your buttons, drain your energy, and dominate your day. They trigger frustration, derail progress, and test even the most patient professionals.

In From Chaos to Calm, award-winning speaker and behaviour specialist Nicola S. Morgan reveals a practical and powerful roadmap for staying composed, confident, and in control no matter how challenging the person or situation.

This isn’t theory. It’s real-world psychology, humour and hard-won strategies drawn from years of working with human behaviour when it’s at its worst and helping people bring out their best.

Audiences discover how to recognise the patterns that drive difficult behaviour before they take over, respond with clarity and control instead of frustration or avoidance and reset conversations to move from conflict to collaboration.

You can’t control difficult people but you can control how you respond to them. And that’s the difference between chaos and calm.

What does it take to keep going when everything in you says stop?

When multi award-winning speaker Nicola S. Morgan set out to swim the English Channel solo, she didn’t make it. Hours in exhausted and freezing, she was pulled from the water just short of France. But that moment didn’t break her. It changed her.

In this raw, uplifting and surprisingly funny keynote Nicola takes audiences inside that moment and what came next. Through powerful storytelling, real-world psychology and evidence-based strategies, she explores what resilience really looks like when things don’t go to plan. 

Audiences leave challenged, inspired, and equipped with four imperfect but practical principles for navigating pressure, change and uncertainty in leadership, education and life.

This isn’t a story about success. It’s a story about continuing and why unfinished business might just be the truest form of resilience.

No matter your industry, today’s marketplace is ultra-competitive. From finding a new job or excelling in your current role to managing a work-life balance that works for you - life today is a rollercoaster which shows no sign of slowing down.

Often, we feel so busy trying to survive, that we’ve got no chance to really thrive - feel familiar?

Shifting your mindset from ‘survive’ to ‘thrive’ is a process. One that is fuelled with research- backed tools and techniques that can help you take control of your thoughts, let go of limiting beliefs and pull forward in difficult times. Because the truth of the matter is you can’t pour from an empty cup.

So how can we fill it up?

Nicola S. Morgan is an international education consultant, TEDx Speaker, teacher, entrepreneur, author, NLP master practitioner and English Channel Swimmer. Over the years, she has developed a resilient mindset which has helped her tackle the trickiest of challenges.

In this keynote, Nicola shares research-backed tools and techniques that will help you improve your resilience and perform at a higher level, without increasing stress:

• How to proactively take control of your thoughts to stay calm, centred, and aligned with core values to make necessary decisions;
• A 4-step process to identify and let go of limiting beliefs that crop up when facing new challenges;
• Understand how to identify an empowering meaning in a crisis;
• Tools to pull forward in difficult times;
• Four simple, daily practices to cultivate certainty and resilience to persist in pursuit of your goals and objectives;
• Believe you have the inner strength to thrive in life and work, regardless of the
  circumstances.

Audiences will leave the session feeling empowered and motivated to improve their resilience and mindset, and with a toolkit, they can implement it straight away.

It’s no secret that challenging behaviour not only affects your ability to teach a lesson and maintain control, but it also disrupts the productivity of the group as a whole.

In fact, disruptive behaviour was the most common reason for exclusions during the 2021/22 academic year, with permanent exclusions increasing 65% YoY. And this number is on the rise, yet again.

How can we, as educators, help and support the most disruptive, defiant and disrespectful children and young people? What can we do to create a positive learning environment and help them understand and manage their behaviour?

As an international education consultant, TEDx speaker, teacher and author, Nicola S. Morgan has a reputation for successfully managing the most challenging behaviour and motivating staff, senior leaders and parents to help implement change.

In this keynote, Nicola offers a set of hands-on strategies and techniques that can be implemented in both the classroom and the whole school. The session covers:

An overview of behaviour management best practices, approaches and interventions;

• Look at effective ways to manage challenging behaviour;
• Unpick non-punitive approaches to deal with challenging behaviour;
• Ways of working with families to improve behaviour and reduce exclusion;
• Giving children/young people a sense of purpose and why this is important;
• Building and maintaining a sense of belonging;
• Understand that the only person you can control is you;
• Review provision in your school/college to support all.

Audiences will leave feeling confident, assertive and empathetic - tools that will undoubtedly help elicit the desired response from students. Plus a kit bag of solutions that will enable them to manage challenging behaviour straight away.

As the saying goes, you can’t control the weather, but you can prepare for it…

And this phrase rings true when it comes to challenging situations in business or education. Whether it’s a conversation about performance, or talking with a frustrated team member or parent, dealing with difficult situations or people is often a source of stress and anxiety for many professionals.

In these circumstances, preparation is essential. No matter how the other person is behaving, or what they are saying, it’s important to remember the only thing you’re in control of is yourself.

With over 28 years of experience as an international education consultant, TEDx Speaker, teacher and author, Nicola S. Morgan is no stranger to tricky conversations with parents, colleagues and business partners.

Over the years she has developed and refined a practical toolkit that helps professionals feel more prepared, no matter the demands or challenges.

In this keynote, Nicola will share her tried and tested methodology which includes:

• Strategies for handling difficult conversations effectively;
• How to use empathy to truly understand the problem;
• Selecting the appropriate approach to deal with the issue;
• Effectively prepare physically and mentally for the conversation;
• How to think on your feet if the conversation takes an unexpected turn;
• Know what to say when everything else fails;
• Understand that the only person we can control is us.

The audience will leave feeling empowered and confident that they can more easily manage difficult situations, conversations and people, and if all else fails think on their feet!