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Murray Banks  

Triathlon Champion / Motivator

An honored educator and world champion athlete, Murray Banks knows how to craft and deliver an engaging and motivational message. His interactive style merges skill, inspiration, and fun to create dynamic and thought-provoking presentations that school administrators can truly appreciate.

You never get just a speech with Banks. Every keynote is custom tailored to resonate with educational leaders. His experience in education and collaboration with your planning team provide the insight to customize specifically to your conference theme. Banks's signature topics are fresh and in the moment – more of a lively conversation than a speech.

Murray Banks was Teacher of the Year in Vermont and has been to the world championships in two sports. Married for 40 years, he and his wife have raised two sons who are elite mountain guides. Their expeditions together often find their way into his presentations illustrating the power of focus, adaptability, and balance.

Banks delivers every keynote with the warmth, fun, and intensity that brought him success in the classroom and international competition. His three signature topics connect leadership performance to focus, adaptability, and life balance. Each can be custom tailored for a keynote or workshop session.

Speech Topics


Leadership Under Pressure: Focus in Our Leadership, Balance in Our Lives

Educational leaders are between the proverbial "rock and a hard place" with high-stakes testing and accountability on one side, and a challenged and frustrated faculty on the other. Educator Murray Banks' keynote highlights the leadership skills that foster a climate of success for our faculty, staff, and students: enthusiasm, focus, positive problem solving, and optimism. He delivers four skills for staying focused under pressure and taking care of ourselves so we can also take care of business. It is a subject that fascinates everyone and Banks delivers it with a medley of science, inspiration, and humor. You'll get his 10/90 Rule to keep meetings on target and learn why you may need to go to the "B.A.R."

Tough Times, Tough Teams

These are tough times and successful organizations need tough teams… colleagues who pull together, work hard, stay positive and are resilient. A challenging economy and uncertain future make it difficult to give our work teams the reassurance they need to stay focused, so our leadership skills will be critical to our success.

This isn’t the time for a walk through the theoretical wonderland. Murray provides practical, real world skills for being optimistic and staying focused on performance. This tough presentation inspires and energizes while providing four actionable skills for…

  • Turning problems to solutions with the 10/90 RULE
  • Preventing “G.G.” in tough times
  • Communicating a tough message in a positive framework
  • Keeping your focus when things don’t turn out as planned

The Trouble with the future is, It’s not what it used to be!

In a world of change, most people prefer stability and consistency. So Murray presents a small dose of sympathy and leaves organizational change to the consultants… then presents five personal skills for being agile, resilient and adaptable. Change pushes people out of their comfort zone and Murray gives a skilled push with these key points…

  • Using the “Lava Lamp Philosophy” of continuous change
  • Know when to go to the “B.A.R.
  • Implementing the “RICHTER SCALE OF STRESS” for perceived crisis
  • Using a Switching Skill for change-resistant colleagues
  • Preventing “Pyschosclerosis”

PERFORMANCE UNDER PRESSURE

Focus In Our Work, Balance In Our Lives Working with focus and intensity, yet keeping our lives in balance is a subject that fascinates everyone and Murray delivers it with a medley of science, humor and inspiration. As he weaves your conference theme through his keynote, he will hit these key points…

  • The 10/90 RULE to keep meetings focused
  • Why pressure changes persona and persona affects communication style
  • How the physiology of food, fitness & fun offsets pressure and fatigue
  • What you focus on expands, so focus on the outcome you want

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