Mitch Wallis

Mitch Wallis is one of the top thought leaders in psychology, with a lifelong mission to ‘change the way the world feels’.

His goal is to transform the lives of 1 billion people to be more mentally healthy through his educational platforms, inspiring talks and the social impact organisations he’s involved with.

After working at Microsoft for almost 7 years, he left his successful corporate career to devote himself full-time to helping people overcome suffering and reimagine the healing potential of the mind.

He is most well known for being the founder of Heart On My Sleeve – a leading global mental health movement that helps people drop the brave face and be real about how they feel.

He is the creator of “Real Conversations” – an interpersonal relationship program that transforms workplace culture and family systems toward psychological safety through emotionally intelligent communication skills. He has delivered workshops to C-level executives in over 4 continents and has written a book under the same name.

As an accomplished keynote speaker, Mitch has delivered talks to tens of thousands of people, including some of the most recognised companies in the world such as American Express, Amazon, Google, KPMG, and dozens more.

Mitch is a mental health expert – holding a master’s degree in clinical psychology from Columbia University in New York and has over two decades of lived experience with mental ill health including anxiety, depression, and OCD. He has accrued countless hours of experience researching and delivering evidence based emotional wellbeing practices.

He has been an advisor to the United Nations on the topic of youth mental health and won a Man of Impact award by GQ. He was appointed the first-ever ambassador for the Australia & New Zealand Mental Health Association and is currently an expert advisor to the Corporate Mental Health Alliance.

He’s been named a Westfield Local Hero and was featured in B&T’s Top 10 Social Changemakers in Australia. He’s been featured in wellbeing campaigns by the likes of Allianz and LinkedIn, and featured in top news publications like Sky News, Huffington Post and Channel 10’s The Project.

Mitch is accredited in mental health first aid and is a trained Lifeline crisis supporter. He runs a popular podcast that has featured guests from Harvard Psychologists, media personalities, and world-class Olympians. His social media videos have reached millions of people and he recently received the award for “most inspiring mental health video of the year”.

Mitch also holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce from the University of Sydney, and is involved with multiple social impact ventures including Heaps Normal (Australia’s #1 non-alcoholic craft beer).

Mitch Wallis Speaks About

All keynotes start with Mitch’s story of lived experience

Taking the audience on a journey of his immense highs and lows, Mitch’s story embodies what it means to “have it all yet want to end it all”. With his uniquely relatable and strangely comforting honesty, he embodies what it means to ‘drop the brave face’ and ‘be real about how you feel’.

Most significant – Mitch story highlights the #1 thing that has helped him rebuild from rock-bottom and reach a level of immeasurable resilience and world-class high performance despite his emotional turmoil.

This young man’s quest to transform his pain into purpose by inspiring, educating and empowering 1 billion people to connect, survive & thrive is nothing short of captivating.

Keynote 1 – Focus: supporting others

Real Conversations
5 steps to Connect with Confidence

The immutable laws of a helpful conversation when supporting someone through emotional pain

Healthy relationships are the heartbeat of business. In our day-to-day interactions with colleagues at work, or with our friends and family at home, we are often faced with the confronting reality of supporting people we care about who are going through difficult times. It’s common for us to feel confused about what to say and do, overcome with fear of getting it wrong, or riddled with guilt that we might make things worse.

In this keynote, Mitch shares the core insights from his proven proprietary framework that’s been adopted + trusted by some of the biggest companies in the world to boost psychological safety and empower cultural resilience. A must-see presentation for all leaders and teams facing periods of uncertainty & high stress.

Topics and outcomes:

• The #1 insight that separates helpful/unhelpful conversations that transform relationships.
• The 5 habits of daily disconnection and how to reverse these subtle yet game changing behaviours.
• The major learning from each part of the 5-step framework ‘ELsA.B’ including:
  • The hidden secret of setting up a conversation for success
  • The evidence based listening technique that leads to hyper-understanding
  • The key to mitigating risk in the highest stakes situations
  • The coaching model that empowers people to solve their own problems
  • The key to not becoming someone’s therapist, yet how to still be therapeutic

Keynote 2 – Focus: supporting self

Pretending is Painful
10 pillars to Emotional Freedom

The path to becoming unbreakable, even when you feel broken

The first step to emotional wellbeing is to feel understood. In this keynote, Mitch provides a platform for every person in the room to realise they are not alone.

This talk is designed to eradicate stigma and increase awareness & understanding of mental health, resulting in deeper appreciation for the experiences of others that might not be so well understood at present.

It provides educational soundbites that can be implemented from the instant someone leaves the room to help improve their state of mind and cultivate long lasting emotional stability.

Topics and outcomes:

• The 3 ingredients necessary to get out of the “stuck cycle” and reorientate our perspective toward growth (not surviving)
• The 4 truths about mental health that removes the “them vs. us mentality” with a clear north star to aim for in our personal lives
• 10 resilience tools that form the ultimate mental health toolkit that enables ANYONE to improve the strength of their nervous system
• The #1 call-to-action that motivates people to step forward and take charge of their internal world