Niels at a laptop at the front of a brick-walled room, speaking to a group

Speaking

I'll say the thing your team is thinking.

Keynotes, workshops, and forum sessions for people who are tired of leadership content that sounds like everyone else's.

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The 51 Threshold, Stillwater, April 2026. Photograph by Jeff Achen, Callsign 51

Talks

Four talks. Each one can become a half-day workshop.

AI can make us faster. It can't make us better leaders.

The talk behind the website. What two decades of leading soldiers and a decade inside corporations taught me about the one thing technology can't do for a team, and what to do about it on Monday.

45 to 60 minutes. Keynote, EO and YPO learning events, leadership offsites.

Poor leadership is criminally irresponsible.

A talk about what bad leadership actually costs, at work and at home, and why "good enough" is a choice someone is making. Not comfortable. Useful.

45 minutes. Keynote, all-hands, leadership programs.

Taking care of the humans.

For founders and executives: how to lead people through growth without burning them out or burning out yourself. What I learned building teams under real stress, and what the research says about doing it well.

45 to 90 minutes. Forums, retreats, workshops.

Drop the script.

A connection session, not a talk. Forty-five minutes that turn a room of strangers into a room of people. Co-led with a partner when the room is large.

Conferences, retreats, chapter events.

Every talk can become a half-day workshop. Ask.

Niels on a conference stage with a handheld microphone, mid-sentence, free arm out
On stage, October 2025

The moonshot

The 51 Threshold has its own page now.

Along with the rest of the work on 51 percent of the world flourishing by 2051.

Flourish together

Proof

Words from rooms I've been in, as they clear.

Past rooms

  • SWAY | LIVE, Boulder, August 2026
  • EO Minnesota, Edina, June 2026
  • The 51 Threshold, Stillwater, April 2026

Tell me about the room.

I'll tell you which talk fits, or whether we should build something for you.

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