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Bob Zima    

Bob Zima is a self-proclaimed “Frequent Flyer to Hell and Back."

Bob Zima is a self-proclaimed “Frequent Flyer to Hell and Back."

His engaging and entertaining style allows him to seamlessly weave his “E-True Hollywood Life Story" into his “rollercoaster-esque” keynote addresses, workshops and seminars. Bob is a licensed clinical professional counselor who has published two books and produced two videos on grief, loss, and healing. He publishes a blog and hosts as podcast as well. Both the blog and the podcast feature Bob's cathartic satire, through which he shares and explores his own socially unacceptable emotional tensions and cognitive perceptions.

Bob has personally experienced and lived through the crisis and trauma of alcohol and drug addiction with twenty years of recovery, financial devastation/bankruptcy & homelessness with a toddler and a kindergartner, infidelity and near divorce and the death of two infant children.

He has also backpacked through Europe, talked with the Pope, played basketball with Michael Jordan, was selected as the clinical site supervisor of the year in Illinois and has his picture taken with the Stanley Cup. Booyah!

So needless to say, his trips TO Hell ARE accompanied with trips on the highway of healing..,.thus making the “Back” part of his tagline the real story and the focus of his books, videos, blog, podcast and live stage shows.

Bob received a Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School located in Deerfield, Illinois. He has worked in the counseling field since 2006 as a private practitioner, clinical supervisor, program developer and compliance manager. His therapeutic programs have been nationally recognized by JCAHO and NAMI.

Prior to returning to school for a masters degree, Bob worked in the advertising, corporate communications/marketing and broadcast media industries as a producer, director and writer for seventeen years. From print to CD-ROM to video and Internet based training, if you needing it communicated to customers, employees, and/or stakeholders Bob and his production house, Killer Whale Integrated Media, were the people to call.

From 1990-1992 Bob trained and performed with the Players Workshop of Chicago's Second City. He also performed comedy with Comedy Sportz and Improv Olympics in the early 1990's. He wrote a teleplay, The Madcap Murder of Mortimer D. Banks, which featured Second City players and air on cable television in the 1992.

Bob's passions include a love for Hockey, NASCAR and the Professional Bull Rider's Tour.

Speech Topics


Ignite Innovation and Imagination

When it comes to healing, we are on our own. That does not mean that we cannot and do not heal outside of a community. In fact, connectivity to community is vital to all healing processes.

However, the only one who can develop and deploy our healing plan is us.

My keynotes, workshops, podcast, videos and books, are designed to inspire you to start thinking "what if?" What if I tried this and then tried that? What if this does not work, then what should I do?

Healing from the BS of Life, the traumatic and dramatic life events in which we experience, is all about developing psychological fitness skills that help us overcome adversity, develop perseverance and deploy a mental wellness action plan. To do this, we must be innovative.

Health Healing is fueled by creativity and imagination, cognitive processes that produce hope. Hope, of course, is the rocket fuel that drives motivation. And motivation is the engine that takes us to our own personal healing destinations.

This keynote address inspires people to start to consider what it, to get busy being innovative and creative with their healing.

The Power of Your Life Story

Bob Zima has an "E-True Hollywood" life story. Any one of his trips to hell and back is worthy of a movie of the week.

Yet Bob, like most of us, focus on the tale of travels to the gates of hell and not the trips on the highways of healing that lead away from the gates of hell. And, we also don't give enough credit to the things we have learned in life prior to out trip down the highway to hell.

This talk encourages people to see the power that resides in their own life story before, during and after the fit hits the shan in their lives.

Put Your Mask on FIRST

Bob leverages his own tales of travels to Hell and back to motivate and inspire all healing helpers at all professional and para-professional levels to do their own healing work prior to attemtping to help another.

Using his Frequent Flyer to Hell and Back tag line, Bob discusses what happens when turbulence hits our lives and how we need to be prepared to respond. Putting Our Masks on First, as you are instructed in an air emergency, means that we look out for our own healing and the pitfalls associated with NOT healing when we are seeking to help others.

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