Friday Nov 3 Saturday Nov 4 Sunday Nov 5

Preconference Opportunity

Edu van der Werf

Friday, 2-4pm: Courageous Conversations w/ Edu van der Werf

As a warm up to TCD2023, Edu will be hosting a real time facilitated conversation about courage, compassion and the relationship to shame. There will be the opportunity to unpack those feelings and how it may affect other experiences and how we can work to lean into these responses. There will be some facilitated group activity, individual interaction and of course a psychologically safe space for the experience.

This is an additional paid event.

Tickets are limited and can be purchased with your registration for TCD2023, starting from $79+HST.

Friday November 3

2pm – Preconference Courageous Conversations w/ Edu van der Werf

4pm – Doors Open & Registration

5pm – Welcome

5:30pm – Keynote

6:30pm – Break & Connecting

7pm – Learning Journey Part 1

8pm Close

Keynote: Courage in the Face of Adversity and Opposition

Imagine selling everything and hitting the road without a plan or destination. Our keynote speaker did just that and she is here to share her stories and walk you through an interactive experience to fortify your courage while having deep compassion for yourself in the process.

Dana Pharant

Saturday November 4

8.30m – Doors Open & Registration

9am – Welcome back & Learning Journey 2

10:00am – Break

10:15am – Workshop 1 or 2

12:00pm – Lunch

1:45pm – Learning Journey 3

2:30pm – Break

2:45pm – Workshops 3 or 4

4:15pm –  wrap up and close for 4:30pm

All Weekend

Join Sharon for “Stories of Courage & Compassion”

Connect or relax in the lounge anytime

10:15 Workshop 1: Josh

Learning to Show Up as Our Full Selves
Are you able to be your real self with the people around you? Or do you tend to feel like you’re hiding and having to perform with others? If your tendency is to keep your feelings, needs, and ideas hidden in order to keep others happy or maintain the peace, you may also recognize the toll this can take on both your wellbeing and your effectiveness as a change leader. In times of change, uncertainty increases. And when uncertainty increases, our communication and connection need to increase too.

In this highly-interactive workshop, we’ll practice taking little risks revealing our inner world to others and receive real-time feedback through hearing how that impacts another person. That may sound intense, but don’t worry, I’ll ease us into it. My goal is to help you get more comfortable opening up with people, and in a way that fosters connection and trust instead of unintended impacts. This practice works important relational muscles, helps us see our blind spots compassionately, and builds our own courage and confidence to bring more of ourselves (our feelings, desires, and ideas) to others.

2:45 Workshop 3: Jacqueline

All change begins with loss and loss can trigger our brain’s adaptive process, aka grief. Even though grief is normal and healthy, we’ve created a multitude of barriers to ignore or suppress it. This makes adapting to change much more challenging and uncomfortable  than it needs to be. To overcome these barriers we can use courage, compassion, and curiosity, or the 3Cs to help us grieve, transition, and adapt.

The main message of the workshop is that while adaptive process is normal, healthy, and physiologically necessary, we frequently impede the process to avoid discomfort and inconvenience. This doesn’t serve us well in the long run but courage, compassion, and curiosity (whatever these mean to them) can break down these barriers and help us process, transition and adapt more quickly, comfortably, and with less stress.

10:15 Workshop 2: Thea

Our brain is wired towards the negative. Since ancient times, our ancestors have been focused on fight or flight, and more so on avoiding or fighting the negative, rather than appreciating the positive. Change was often the enemy, the unfamiliar, something to be avoided. Yet breakthroughs rarely come from comfort zones.

Thanks to neuroplasticity, our brains always evolve and change, yet this tendency towards the negative still persists. If you are looking to understand change in a profound way, this is the session for you. If you are wondering whether there is something wrong with you when you have a hard time showing compassion to yourself or others, wonder no more. Come join me in this experiential journey of discovering, one moment at a time, that compassion is a skill that can be cultivated. It takes courage, and you already have this courage, you may just need to look through the clouds to see it. The sky of compassion is always there. It is in you, and it is waiting patiently to be re-discovered. Let’s rediscover it together, with loving kindness and no judgment. I will be waiting.

2:45 Workshop 4: Arlene

The human experience is defined by change. Much like riding waves, building agility, flexibility, and balance bolstered by a strong core enables us to thrive. In this workshop, we’ll focus on how cultivating a core of compassion empowers us to navigate unpredictability, embrace uncertainty, and become influential change agents. Starting with self, as change practitioners, we will also explore the core strength of personal courage as being integral to countering resistance and fostering healthy environments.

Sunday November 5

8.30m – Doors Open & Registration

9am – Welcome Back & Learning Journey 4

9:45am – Workshop 5 or 6

11:15am – Brunch

1pm – The Infamous Mashup Session

2:45pm – Break

3pm – Learning Journey 5

3:50pm – Close

All Weekend

Join Sharon for “Stories of Courage & Compassion”

Connect or relax in the lounge anytime

9:45 Workshop 5: Edu

Shame is undoubtedly one of the unpleasant emotions experienced occasionally by many. It is a social emotion, typically felt after failures, inadequacies and moral or social transgression. Because of it’s distressing qualities people are often inclined to lessen its intensity. It therefore has been called an ugly feeling.  Yet, at the same time organizations and managers are sometimes using shame to elicit a change in behavior. Either purposefully using ‘blaming & shaming’ or applying feedback mechanisms inducing unintentional shame triggers, the faulty self is the mechanism through which compliance is persuaded. Both experience and research have proven it to be effective at times.

So which is it? Should we avoid shame as much as possible or could its self-reflective and self-evaluative aspects be put to use? And if so, how would that work? The purpose of this workshop is to explore exactly that. By taking a deep dive into our own (vicarious) shame-triggers and shameful events this workshop will take you on a journey of your predominant  shame responses and explore possible alternatives for dealing with shame. Not only for yourself, but also in managing and repairing shame with others.

9:45 Workshop 6: Roxana

The workshop looks to answer questions on why kindness matters in leadership, why it is the best leadership approach for the future of work and what you need to pay attention to so that you grow as a kind and successful leader.

Being a kind leader take courage and it is an integral part of what compassionate leadership is about. There is a strong connection between kindness, compassion and courage in leadership, all important elements that have a direct correlation with successful business results, long term.

The workshop is highly interactive and includes group exercises for participants to re-discover kindness and its leadership impact from different perspectives. Takeaways will help participants build themselves up as strong and kind leaders, as well as bring new perspectives within their own teams, and build leaders in turn.