Speaking

A voice for the hard, beautiful things

Resilience thinking and post-traumatic growth, spoken from lived experience.

Lorca among aspen trunks, sunlight flaring through her raised arm
Photograph · Dusan Smetana

“Do you want creatively resilient thinking and radical self-care in your people? Do you want them feeling more innovative, more peaceful and more grounded? And do you want a resilient organization that meets change or crisis beautifully? This is what we do together.” — Lorca

Lorca Smetana is an expert in resilience thinking and post-traumatic growth — a gifted speaker, experienced resilience coach and mentor who helps students and professionals in high-stress lives short-circuit burnout, expand resilience skills, and grow as survivors into leaders.

Recent speaker topics

What she speaks about

  1. A Hunger for Joy
  2. Radical Compassion & Social Courage
  3. The Pillars of Resilience: Reversing Burnout, Touching Life
  4. Strategic Mindfulness for Caregivers & Crisis Responders: Rescuers That Last
  5. Mindsets for Innovation: Strength in Vulnerability
  6. Community in Tragedy — A Path of Belonging
  7. On the Grace & Tyranny of Mortality: From Tragedy through to Joy

She spoke, but more importantly she moved, all of us — 4-year-olds, to wide-eyed 11-year-olds, to cool 16-year-olds, to staid adults. Lorca’s combination of storytelling, quiet passion and commitment, and calm centeredness made us all rethink our life choices: are we doing all we can to make this a better place? Lorca leads by example: she does not tell, she shows.

Mo Copeland · Head of School, Oregon Episcopal School

See her speak

A Hunger for Joy · TEDxBozeman

Watch Lorca’s TEDx talk on the homepage — out of tragedy, grief, and trauma, finding and spreading joy.