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 · Dušan 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.

Book Lorca Schedule a call Speaker sheet

In short

  • What I do — keynotes, half-days, and multi-day work. The shape follows what your people actually need, and we decide it together.
  • Who I speak to — schools and universities, conferences, healthcare and public service, and companies. Rooms have run from four-year-olds to boards.
  • Travel — yes. I come to you.
  • Fee — we talk first. What it costs depends on the shape, the travel, and how many of your people it reaches, and I would rather find the right thing than quote a number at a stranger.
  • How to start — a call. Tell me who is in the room and what the day is for.
Schedule a call 406-581-1522

Recent speaker topics

What she speaks about

  1. A Hunger for Joy
  2. Radical Compassion & Social Courage — watch it
  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

Trusted by leaders & organizations

Young Southeast Asian Leaders Institute Montana Women’s Climbing Festival Schedulicity The Maureen & Mike Mansfield Foundation U.S. Department of State State of Play National Parks Conservation Association Farm to Crag Community Mediation Center The Compassion Project NOLS Eagle Mount Montana State University Leadership Institute One Valley Community Foundation Adventure Scientists Red Ants Pants Bridger Bowl Ski Area Cancer Support Community Bozeman Dharma Center Leadership Outfitters Montana Environmental Training Center The Traveling School Wisetail Montana Department of Corrections Montana Farmers Union Ava Law Group Gallatin County of the State of Montana Livingston Health Care Sky Oro Gallatin College — Montana State University Oregon Episcopal School Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Bozeman BroadBeta Bozeman Public Library Griffin-Hammis Associates Bozeman Health United Church of Christ

See her speak

A Hunger for Joy

Out of tragedy, grief and trauma — finding joy, and spreading it. TEDxBozeman.

Living with Homing Pigeons

Death, love, and the art of letting go. Seven minutes, twenty slides, twenty seconds each — PechaKucha Night, Bozeman.

PechaKucha Night Bozeman · 2013 · 7 min