Calissa Ngozi

We live in a world that praises hustle, rewards overextension, and quietly shames rest. Burnout has become so normalized that many people don’t even realize they’re depleted, they just assume this level of exhaustion is the cost of success. In this signature keynote, Calissa Ngozi introduces The Oxygen Mask MindsetTM , a powerful and practical framework for reclaiming energy, protecting mental health, and building sustainable success, without abandoning ambition.

Inspired by the airline instruction to secure your own oxygen mask before assisting others, this talk challenges the belief that self-sacrifice equals strength. Blending lived experience, mental health expertise, and real-world workplace insight, Calissa reframes burnout as a systemic issue not a personal failure. She redefines resilience as the ability to recover, adapt, and reset, rather than simply pushing harder. This keynote creates permission. Permission to pause. Permission to set boundaries. Permission to build a life and career that doesn’t cost you your well-being.

Participants gain a clear understanding of burnout as a cultural and systemic issue rather than a personal weakness, learn how energy, boundaries, and recovery drive sustainable success, apply a practical Oxygen Mask framework immediately, and use language that normalizes rest, boundaries, and self-care without guilt.

Audiences leave feeling validated, grounded, and equipped with practical tools to reclaim their energy and protect their peace. They gain a new relationship with rest, boundaries, and ambition – one that supports long- term success instead of chronic depletion. Many walk away with immediate language and actions they can implement the very next day.

Leadership today is heavy. Leaders are expected to manage performance, people, change, and emotions, often while silently running on empty themselves. In this talk, Calissa speaks to the reality leaders are living in, not the leadership theory they’ve already heard. She explores how a leader’s relationship with stress, boundaries, and self-care directly shapes team culture, engagement, psychological safety, and performance.

Calissa challenges the outdated belief that strong leaders must always be “on,” showing how exhaustion at the top quietly cascades into disengagement, burnout, and turnover across teams. She reframes leadership resilience as a learnable skill — one that can be modeled, practiced, and embedded into organizational culture.

Audiences learn how leadership energy shapes morale, trust, and motivation, why burned-out leaders can unintentionally create burned-out teams, how boundary-setting serves as a modern leadership competency, and practical strategies to model resilience while maintaining authority.

Leaders walk away with clear, actionable strategies to protect their own energy while strengthening trust, morale, and engagement across their teams. They leave with a modern leadership lens that supports psychological safety, reduces burnout-driven turnover, and creates sustainable high performance without sacrificing humanity.

Entrepreneurship is often sold as freedom but lived as constant pressure, blurred boundaries, and the fear that if you stop, everything will fall apart. In this talk, Calissa dismantles hustle culture and replaces it with a more honest, sustainable model for success. She speaks directly to entrepreneurs who are tired of being told to “push through” when they’re already running on fumes.

Drawing from lived experience and mental health expertise, Calissa explores how burnout shows up in decision-making, creativity, leadership, and growth. She addresses the guilt many entrepreneurs feel around rest and why that guilt often keeps businesses stuck or stagnant.

Participants discover how burnout quietly undermines growth and innovation, why energy management is a strategic business imperative, how boundaries protect both brand and leadership clarity, and how to scale sustainably without sacrificing health or vision.

Entrepreneurs leave with renewed clarity, focus, and permission to build success without self-destruction. They gain a practical framework for making better decisions, setting healthier boundaries, and scaling their businesses in a way that supports both growth and long-term well-being.

Sales and service professionals live in constant performance mode – networking, relationship-building, client management, and emotional labour with little space to recover. In this talk, Calissa names what many professionals feel but rarely say out loud: being “always on” is exhausting. She explores how chronic depletion impacts confidence, connection, credibility, and results. Rather than offering productivity hacks, Calissa introduces a different approach, one rooted in energy, boundaries, and authenticity. She shows how sustainable self-care improves performance, not hinders it.

Audiences explore how emotional labour drives burnout in sales and service roles, why exhaustion undermines consistency and connection, practical micro-recovery strategies for networking-intensive environments, and boundaries that strengthen relationships instead of harming them.

Participants leave with practical tools to protect their energy, regulate emotional labour, and show up more confidently and consistently. They gain strategies to build stronger relationships, sustain performance, and maintain credibility without burning the candle at both ends.

Helping professionals give deeply and are often expected to do so without limits. Many have been taught that caring for themselves means caring less about others. In this grounded and validating talk, Calissa addresses compassion fatigue, secondary trauma, and burnout with honesty and care. She creates space for professionals to acknowledge the weight they carry without shame or judgment. Using the Oxygen Mask MindsetTM, Calissa reframes self-care and boundaries as essential tools for sustainability, not signs of weakness. She challenges the guilt that keeps many helpers stuck in survival mode.

Participants learn how compassion fatigue and burnout develop over time, recognize early warning signs often overlooked by professionals, release guilt around rest and boundaries, and adopt sustainable practices for long-term engagement in their work.

Attendees leave feeling seen, supported, and deeply validated in the weight they carry. They gain sustainable tools to manage compassion fatigue, set boundaries without guilt, and continue doing meaningful work without sacrificing their mental, emotional, or physical well-being.

Invisible disabilities don’t disappear at work and for many professionals, they’re working twice as hard just to appear “fine. ” In this powerful and honest talk, Calissa shares what it’s like to navigate leadership, entrepreneurship, and high-performance environments while living with ADHD, anxiety, and an invisible disability. She explores masking, emotional regulation, burnout, and the pressure to conform to systems that weren’t built for neurodivergent brains. Rather than focusing on deficits, this talk reframes neurodiversity as an advantage when the right supports, boundaries, and expectations are in place.

Audiences understand why traditional productivity models fail neurodivergent professionals, uncover the hidden burnout of masking and emotional labour, learn to redefine focus, success, and boundaries, and discover how inclusive environments unlock neurodivergent strengths.

Neurodivergent professionals leave feeling recognized, affirmed, and empowered to work in ways that honour how their brains function. Leaders gain insight into invisible barriers and strengths, while organizations walk away with practical, stigma-free strategies to support talent, reduce burnout, and unlock true potential.