Meet
Julia Nicholson
JULIA’S JOURNEY
Julia Nicholson’s life has been riddled with unwanted change, adversity, and loss. As a teenager, she was a passenger in a high-speed, head-on automobile collision that nearly took her life, leaving her unconscious and critically injured. A few years later, fresh off a harrowing divorce from an abusive husband, she found herself a single, unemployed mother of two young children, lacking self-confidence, self-esteem, and any marketable skills or education.
Just over a decade later, Julia had earned multiple college degrees, was named the CEO of a $450 million company, and had her own independent consulting business, all while raising her two young children. Her career has taken her into some of the most dynamic, high-pressure boardrooms in the country, most recently serving as the CEO of a $9B pension and health benefits company. Julia is now a keynote speaker, consultant, and an adjunct university professor, where she shares what she’s learned with future business leaders.
What happened in between these two seemingly disconnected phases of Julia’s life? How did she do it? She shares the answer and the life-changing framework she used to overcome insurmountable challenges and beat the odds.
Now, she’s bringing that message to audiences around the world with her speeches, book “Move Forward Stronger: A Dynamic Framework to Process Change, Loss, and Grief, and TEDx Talk “The Way We Think About Loss and Grief is Dead Wrong.”
"Julia Nicholson is a rock star public speaker and I always go out of my way to see her speak any time I see her name on a program! Ms. Nicholson is always smart, energetic, engaging, and personable with an ability to deliver messages that are thought provoking and guaranteed to have people talking about, and even repeating, what she said well after the event. She is an absolute professional and the kind of speaker you hope to have presenting every time you walk in a room!”
- Tim Valencia, MBA, CEBS, Board of Directors, IFEBP
Power and Resilience are Built Through Adversity
Resilience and grit aren’t just about the number of times you get back up after being knocked down. They are about how you get back up and what you do afterward that drives transformational change. We don’t succeed in spite of our challenges; we succeed because of them when apply what we learn from them to future challenges. In order to build a gritty, resilient organization, you need to build grit and resilience in people.
Change starts with an awareness of your auto-pilot assumptions. Julia’s 5 Realizations will help your audience tear down the mental barriers that are negatively impacting and holding them back and replace them with a new framework that will propel them forward.
Julia emphasizes the positive, but only as it relates to the very real and difficult challenges we face every day. No oversimplifying life’s challenges, just powerful tools to process them with strength and purpose, gleaning valuable life-long skills from them.
Explore the truth from a proven expert on the subject about why some people’s progress stalls, getting frustrated and stagnated when encountering challenge and change, and how others use it to their advantage, driving greater personal and professional success.
Unwanted change happens every day. It's unavoidable. With every challenge, you can quit, be weighted down by it, or take something valuable from it!
Building a habit of resilient thinking and behavior is proven to be one of the greatest indicators of life and career success. Julia’s 5 Realizations will help you do exactly that in a revolutionary way.
Audiences who see Julia speak always feel motivated and inspired, but she goes beyond those to offer real, research-based tools that lead to life-changing actions long after the event is over.
"Julia’s presentation style was a perfect mix of educational and dynamic. Her closing keynote gave our participants an unexpectedly fresh view of the topic. She did a great job at our event and would bring positive energy to any program. I highly recommend her as a speaker."
- Melanie Thomas, Communications Department, Texas Municipal Retirement System
