Speaker · Coach · Practitioner · Human
I am not looking to impress you.
I am looking to impress upon you that if you hire me, work with me, sit in one of my audiences, or simply ask me a question — you will get an honest answer.
I am not an influencer.
I am a practitioner.
There is a very big difference.
I am still in the trenches with my clients. One to one. Side by side. Thinking through difficult problems. Working through high-stakes decisions. Helping someone find their footing when circumstances have changed underneath them. Sitting in conversations that cannot be repeated. Working with leaders when the title doesn’t help anymore. Helping people recognise when their own thinking is creating the problem they are trying to solve.
- Sometimes teaching
- Sometimes challenging
- Sometimes listening
- Sometimes asking the one question nobody else has been willing to ask
Because if I stopped doing the real work with real people and spent my life talking about it instead, eventually I would become a commentator. I don’t want to be a commentator. I want to know what is actually happening out there.
Speaking
Then I take those lessons to the stage.
I am an international keynote speaker and have delivered more than 1,000 presentations. But my keynotes are not built for the time slot. They are built for the people sitting in the room — people facing change, challenges, high-stakes situations, chaos, transition, transformation. I don’t leave my case studies at home when I walk onto a stage. I bring them with me.
Dare to Embrace Change
I did what I was supposed to do. Why doesn’t my life feel like mine? This keynote is about what happens next.
Explore Dare to Embrace Change →Become. Attract. Create.
Not manifesting. Not magic. Not woo-woo. This is self-intelligence — understanding how your thoughts, fears and decisions shape what happens next.
Explore Become. Attract. Create. →The BRIDGE
Lessons from a lifetime of change. My most personal presentation, and the story underneath almost everything I teach.
Cross The BRIDGE →Coaching for Humans.
I work with CEOs and Average Joes. I like it that way. Because sooner or later, titles disappear and we are all simply people trying to work something out.
We find out whether our minds meet, clash or connect. If they do, we may be able to do extraordinary work together. If they don’t, there is no reason to pretend otherwise.
Explore Coaching for Humans →
Before the speaker, there was the life.
Chicago. My family. The curious kid who took things apart because she needed to know how they worked. Business. Performance. Leadership. CEOs. Countries. Success. Failure. A secret I carried for 53 years. Gender transition. Loss. Starting over. Rebuilding.
The things that got me in the most trouble when I was young were often the same things that created my greatest successes as an adult.
Read JoAnna’s Story →The BRIDGE
We don’t cross one bridge in life. We learn how to cross bridges.
Life changes. Sometimes slowly. Sometimes brutally. Sometimes we are the ones who stop participating. The BRIDGE is my most personal presentation and the story underneath almost everything I teach about transition and transformation. Because sometimes, when it looks like everything is falling apart, it is actually falling perfectly into place.
Are you genuinely stuck, or have you become comfortable in the conflict because the uncertainty of change feels harder? Are you trying to save an old life that has already finished?
Read The BRIDGE →Honesty. That is probably the simplest way to explain me and what you will find in the pages of this website.
I have spent most of my life asking questions, getting myself into situations, getting myself out of them, studying what worked, studying what didn’t, helping other people through their own situations, and trying to understand why human beings do some of the extraordinary, brilliant, ridiculous and occasionally destructive things we do.
I’ve had a very successful life.
I’ve also had parts of it fall completely apart.
A Reason To Keep Reading and An Invitation to Come Back
I’ve crossed multiple countries, businesses, roles, careers, relationships, identities and more versions of myself than I could reasonably explain in one paragraph.
And I’m still learning. Follow JoAnna’s Journal →
This website is where I share some of what all of that taught me.
Not because I think you should live like me.
Please don’t.
One of me is enough :)
But something I have experienced, learned, questioned or discovered may help you understand something about your own life differently.
And sometimes that is all we need to make a better decision.
My Journal is where I think in public.
I don’t write because the internet needs more content. It doesn’t. I write because thinking becomes clearer when you are willing to put the thought into words and let somebody else examine it.
How do you want to get through life?
Surviving? Thriving? Or some realistic combination of both?
You always have a choice somewhere.
How do you want to be known and remembered?
Not by everybody. By the people who matter. What did you stand for? What did you contribute? Who became stronger because they knew you?
I believe in you! Sending you love, JoAnna
So where should you go from here?
Do not read this website simply trying to decide whether you like me. Read it asking yourself: what does this make me think about my own life?
If something here gives you an idea, challenges something you have always believed, or makes you curious enough to have a conversation — the website has done its job. And perhaps one day we will work together.
Until we meet, Be Amazing!
— JoAnna Ferrari