Speaker. Facilitator. Leadership Doula. Living Ancestor.

Keynotes and conversations for people and organizations becoming something new.

Stephanie Ghoston Paul speaks at the intersection of leadership, culture, care, identity, repair, boundaries, and liberation—inviting audiences to move beyond inspiration and into embodied practice.

Available for keynotes, panels, conferences, retreats, workshops, fireside chats, podcast interviews, and organizational gatherings.

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Stephanie Ghoston Paul creates moments people carry.

Stephanie’s speaking is grounded, honest, humorous, embodied, and deeply human. She brings together lived experience, organizational wisdom, restorative practice, ancestral inquiry, and liberatory leadership to help audiences ask better questions about who they are, what they are practicing, and what kind of future they are helping create.

Whether she is speaking to a conference room, a retreat circle, a leadership team, or a community gathering, Stephanie invites people into reflection, accountability, possibility, and action—without bypassing the complexity of the world we are living in.

Signature Keynote Topics

  • Legacy, leadership, and the choices we practice into the future

    What if legacy is not something we leave behind, but something we practice every day?

    In this signature keynote, Stephanie invites audiences to understand themselves as living ancestors — people whose choices, boundaries, relationships, leadership, and commitments are already shaping the world future generations will inherit. This talk moves audiences beyond individual success and into purpose, responsibility, imagination, and collective becoming.

    Audiences will gain:

    • A deeper understanding of legacy as a present-day practice

    • Reflection prompts for aligning choices with values

    • A renewed sense of responsibility, possibility, and purpose

    Best for: leadership conferences, social impact gatherings, women’s leadership events, universities, community gatherings, retreats.

Legacy, leadership, and the choices we practice into the future.

What if legacy is not something we leave behind, but something we practice every day?

  • Care, resistance, and sustainability in a world on fire

    Self-care has been flattened into an individual wellness assignment. Stephanie returns it to its deeper roots: survival, resistance, dignity, and collective care.

    This keynote invites audiences to examine how burnout, urgency, overwork, and disposability show up in their lives and workplaces — and what it might mean to build rhythms of care that are personal, relational, cultural, and political.

    Audiences will gain:

    • A sharper understanding of self-care beyond consumer wellness

    • Reflection on how systems shape exhaustion

    • Practices for reconnecting care to boundaries, community, and sustainability

    Best for: nonprofits, caregiving professions, social justice organizations, wellness conferences, community care spaces.

Care, resistance, and sustainability in a world on fire

Self-care has been flattened into an individual wellness assignment. Stephanie returns it to its deeper roots: survival, resistance, dignity, and collective care.

  • How to say no, stay rooted, and stop abandoning yourself

    Boundaries are often treated as personal development tools. Stephanie reframes them as leadership practice.

    This talk explores how boundaries help us protect our energy, clarify our values, interrupt resentment, and lead from a place of self-trust. Stephanie brings humor, honesty, and practical wisdom to a topic that many people know they need — but struggle to practice.

    Audiences will leave with:

    • A new understanding of boundaries as care, clarity, and leadership

    • Language for making aligned decisions

    • Tools for recognizing where they are overextending, overexplaining, or self-abandoning

    Best for: professional development events, women’s leadership spaces, staff retreats, wellness gatherings, burnout prevention programs.

How to say no, stay rooted, and stop abandoning yourself.

Boundaries are often treated as personal development tools. Stephanie reframes them as leadership practice.

  • Unlearning urgency, overfunctioning, and control

    When uncertainty shows up, many of us default to working harder: overplanning, overpreparing, controlling, micromanaging, and trying to outrun the unknown. Stephanie’s work names this pattern directly and explores the possibility that uncertainty may invite us to pause, play, rest, listen, slow down, or return to the body instead.

    This keynote is especially resonant for leaders, caregivers, founders, organizers, and teams navigating change, transition, instability, or burnout.

    Audiences will leave with:

    • A compassionate understanding of overfunctioning as a practiced survival strategy

    • New possibilities for responding to uncertainty with presence instead of urgency

    • Reflection practices for returning to the body before acting from fear

    Best for: leadership retreats, founder gatherings, wellness events, transition moments, organizations navigating change.

Unlearning urgency, overfunctioning, and control

When uncertainty shows up, many of us default to working harder when really it may be more effective for us to slow down.

  • What organizational culture work actually requires

    Diversity statements, one-off trainings, and symbolic gestures are not enough.

    Drawing from Stephanie’s years of organizational consulting and facilitation, this talk challenges leaders and teams to move beyond performative DEI and into the deeper work of culture change, repair, accountability, and harm reduction. Her previous speaker topics already include “Reimagining Your Approach to Diversity,” “‘Checking the Box’ for Diversity: Something More is Required,” and “Diving Deeper Into Organizational Culture,” so this is a natural evolution of her existing speaking lane.

    Audiences will leave with:

    • A clearer understanding of what culture change actually asks of leaders

    • Questions for examining power, harm, and accountability inside organizations

    • A framework for moving from stated values to practiced commitments

    Best for: organizational retreats, executive leadership teams, HR/people teams, higher education, nonprofit conferences, foundations.

What organizational culture work actually requires

Diversity statements, one-off trainings, and symbolic gestures are not enough.

Additional topics Stephanie can speak to:

  • The Art of Skillful Facilitation

  • Living and Leading with Purpose

  • Healing, Repair, and Harm Reduction

  • BIPOC Leadership and Affinity Spaces

  • Career Transition and Becoming

  • Self-Trust, Authenticity, and Power

  • Culture Change and Accountability

  • Community Care and Collective Liberation

  • Navigating Toxic Workplaces

  • Building an Ecosystem of One

Stephanie Ghoston is utterly passionate about her work! She owns her story, which is one of growth and change, and truly inspires her audiences to move forward in their own lives.

Stephanie speaks with humor and clarity which allows her audience to deeply connect with her message. She offers exceptional tools they can use to immediately make changes with their habits and life. I enjoyed her work tremendously and look forward to the opportunity to see her speak again.

— Dr. Donna M.

Keynotes

For conferences, summits, retreats, campuses, leadership gatherings, and major organizational events.

Ways to bring Stephanie into your space

Workshops

Interactive learning spaces designed for reflection, practice, conversation, and integration.

Panels & Fireside Chats

For thoughtful conversations on leadership, legacy, culture, identity, care, and liberation.

Podcast & Media Interviews

Stephanie is available for interviews on living ancestor wisdom, leadership, legacy, boundaries, care, purpose, and social change.

Organizational Gatherings

Custom talks and facilitated sessions for teams navigating change, repair, culture-building, or leadership development.

You are a living ancestor!

In her TEDx talk—presented Nov 10, 2020—Stephanie invites audiences to reconsider legacy, purpose, and responsibility through the lens of living ancestor wisdom.

While our team had already committed ourselves to several years of work to embed an anti-oppression framework into our approach to community-based strategies, Stephanie helped us to turn the corner and learn more about what it looks like to practice this together as a staff team.

One of the highlights of the experience was the opportunity for our executive leadership to debrief with Stephanie and learn from her insights and observations.

— Robin C., Executive Director

Speaking Inquiry

Bring Stephanie to your next gathering

Whether you are planning a conference, retreat, leadership gathering, community conversation, podcast episode, or organizational learning space, Stephanie brings depth, warmth, clarity, and care to the room.

Stephanie’s calendar books in advance. Please include as much detail as possible so we can determine alignment, availability, and next steps.