Bill Carr

Bill Carr is known as an artist, an actor, humorist, writer, and speaker. For over 30 years, Bill has been helping groups from 12 to 1200 laugh at what’s trivial while helping them think deeply about what counts. Bill helps people see their world in new and exciting ways. His unique blend of humour and insight inspires laughter and consideration, offering his audience a fresh perspective on what they face everyday. At the root of all of Bill’s work is the use of humour to help people reflect on their own innate human nature and understand who they are in a greater social context.

Throughout his career, Bill has performed on theatrical stages across Canada and internationally. He has also worked extensively in the Film and Television industry in character roles and also as a social commentator on CBC’s The Journal. By playing roles as challenging as Lophakin in The Cherry Orchard by Chekhov, as comedically satisfying as Eddie the Cook on The Red Green Show, or as endearing as Jack, the father of a middle-aged woman wrestling with her singlehood in Spinster, Bill has learned a lot.

Bill has written a book “Acting Up: Lessons from the Theatre of Life” where he shares his diverse and multifaceted experiences as a performer and conveys both lessons learned and mistakes made, and issues a challenge to those wishing to live more authentically and with purpose.

Bill believes that empathy and compassion must take centre stage in all our human interactions and seeks to deepen his audience’s understanding of the interrelated nature of our reality. Combining the latest developments in interpersonal neuroscience with his gleanings from a lifelong study of ancient philosophical writings and spiritual practice, Bill shares insights old and new into how our minds work individually and collectively. Bill is fascinating to listen to as well as incredibly funny. Picture the late and great comedian Robin Williams and esteemed professor of Literature Joseph Campbell and you will begin to get the idea.

Bill travels extensively throughout North America delivering keynotes and workshops on creativity, communication, and intentional and inspired living for a number of organizations and corporations, from not for profit to Fortune 500 companies.

Bill is also an active volunteer in his community. He is an honorary Trustee of the IWK Health Centre and has been a host of the annual IWK Telethon, a much loved community institution in the Maritime provinces, for more than 30 years. Bill also regularly serves as host & emcee for many local events in support of charitable causes and the arts such as Unicef, YMCA, Neptune Theatre, Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia, Symphony Nova Scotia, Hospice Halifax, and Habitat for Humanity among so many others.

Relationships Matter: The Power of Story

We must learn to celebrate the idea that we are members of a species who communicate best through storytelling. In this session, Bill helps us consider how to best listen to and share stories with one another in order to make for better communication and deeper connections in our workplace and our private lives. Using ancient techniques and sharing modern neuroscience, Bill explains how the ubiquitous use of story works to build relationships in our personal lives and in the society around us.

Thinking About Thinking: The 3 Keys to Get Beyond Either/Or

Do we ever think about what we think, why we think that way or how we can think better? That would require a lot of thinking about thinking but it is so important that we make time and space to do this. In times of change and with increased pressure on resources and time, the importance of thinking clearly, critically, and creatively has huge implications. With our leaders, newscasts and modern social discourse increasingly becoming split into the two groups of those who are “right” and those who are “wrong”, we have to learn to consciously challenge this “either/or” thinking, and try to become comfortable with the nuances, the grey areas and the unknown. Simply put, the better we think the better we can perform and the better our relationships can be at work and in life. Bill will share the 3 keys that work for him.

Act Up: 5 Steps to Resilient Thinking

This is an invitation to explore and expand the role we play. At work, at home we often play very different roles and rightly so. It is critical to understand not only how you play each role but also how it is perceived. Expectations in a workplace need to be managed and understood by both the “player” and the “audience”. With humour and insight Bill invites us to ask questions and find answers about who we are in the world and how our “show” is going. Shakespeare said, “all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely player”. Bill also explores the very mental and emotional mechanisms at play in the act of creation itself. He also shows how resilience is both innate and learned. He shares his own 5 Steps for Resilient Living gained from what he describes as life of “trial and error”.

Work Inspired

This program can be delivered as a keynote or half/full day workshop.

Bill explores research into how the brain works and how we can use this knowledge to create an environment that will nurture a creative response to change and keep a healthy perspective in unhealthy times. Bill focuses on empathy and what he calls “contagious inspiration” and discusses how nurturing our relationship with ourselves and others can re-wire our neuro-pathways and change surviving into thriving and tragedy into strategy.

Talking in Circles

This program can be delivered as a keynote or half/full day workshop.

Talking in Circles will be helpful for organizations who are feeling challenged by issues like: intergenerational difficulties, creative visioning for the future, team building, silos that inhibit corporate growth and effectiveness, or poor internal communication. Bill asks questions such as:

• Is what we are saying what we mean?
• Is what we are saying what people are hearing?
• Where are our ideas really coming from?
• How do we talk about the “tough stuff”?
• How come I can talk to everyone but you?

Deep Service

This program can be delivered as a keynote or half/full day workshop.

Every industry is a service industry, every life a life of service on some level. The deep truth is whether at work, in our community, or in our home life, we do, in fact, serve somebody. As leaders and managers, we serve our company, our fellow employees and our clients; and to an important, often neglected sense, we serve our community, our society and our world. The depth and quality of this service is directly affected by how we see ourselves as being “in service”. Perception drives performance. When our lives are seen from a “service” perspective, it deepens our understanding of our place and mission in the world. Deep Service explores the idea of servant leadership in your specific industry context.

Seeing With Safety Glasses

This program can be delivered as a keynote or half/full day workshop.

Safety is a mindset. Much more than just rules and protocols, it is a way of seeing and then acting on what we see. It is about anticipation and the individual and collective responsibility for changing our workplace. Through his work with a number of diverse organizations, Bill has learned that the essential ingredient in creating a culture of safety is the development of a safety mindset. This mindset affects how we perceive our workplace and how we understand our responsibility to ourselves and our co-workers. At its core, building a culture of safety is about building an emphatic and caring community.

Living With Resilience: The Art of Bouncing Back!

Why do some people bounce back from tragedy and others fall apart? How do you some people stay upbeat during tough times while others collapse? What makes one person thrive while another person barely survives in exactly the same circumstances?

The answer to all of these questions is “resilience.” Resilience is that strength of spirit that lets you bounce back and make a go of it, despite adversity. Resilience is a skill mindset that can be developed. The key to resilience is perspective. How you see the world, how you see yourself and how you see the two in relationship to one another, are critical considerations that make all the difference.

In both his keynote and in his workshop on resilience, Bill discusses such things as: self-talk; mirror neurons; toxic and tonic people and how they affect your day-to-day reality; understanding change as transformation; learning to be gentle with ourselves; learning not to “jury rig” in times of transformation; taking care with what you feed your head and heart; the negative role all media can play and how all this and much more effects your perspective; and finally how to nurture and grow your resilience when you need it most.

Like any skill, once you understand the mechanics and assemble the tools and apply yourself, you can become a master. The last year has been a difficult one and this year looks every bit as challenging – never has resilience mattered more and been more sorely needed. Let Bill guide you with wit and wisdom on how we can live with resilience!

Relating Remotely vs. Remotely Relating: The art of Working Remotely in Healthy and Productive Ways

Working remotely constitutes a brave new world for many. The reality of working remotely with its technological challenges and logistical considerations about home and family create issues many are wrestling with and few are trained for.

First, we need to determine what we mean when we use the term “work remotely”? To this question Bill responds, “As an actor and writer I have always seen myself as ‘working remotely’ in a very concrete way. I as an individual exist ‘remotely’ and how intimately I wish to interact with others is always a choice. Now I know I am playing with words here, but it’s important to play around with concepts and definitions if we are to utilize language and devise new schemas in a rapidly changing environment.”

This is why Bill talks and teaches about what he calls the most important word/concept when it comes to ‘working remotely’ and that is ‘relationship’. In this keynote and or workshop Bill explores the question – “How do we engage in healthy relationships remotely?” Or another way to ask the question, “How does the current idea of working remotely affect relationships?”

Bill explores these questions and also addresses how to work remotely in healthy and productive ways. He explores such questions and topics as:

• How does technology affect relationships and how can we work skillfully with the technology and with one another?
• What have we learned from radio and television that we can all use every day?
• What is Zoom fatigue and what are some techniques to lessen its deleterious effects?
• How can we use Zoom calls and conferencing, e-mails, text messaging, old fashioned phone calls to their individual strengths?
• What are the fundamentals of relationships which don’t change because of technology?

This keynote and/or workshop deals with more than technological tricks of the communication trade and delves into how relationships work and how we can work relationships regardless of proximity or constraints of technology. And Bill explores all this in a fun and engaging way – modelling healthy remote connection!