John Alston

Founder of the Stress Management Institute of America
Author of Stuff Happens (and then you fix it!) and Story Power: Talking with Teens in Turbulent Times
Stresses character, decency & common sense

Programs

Stuff Happens (and then you fix it): The Ultimate Change Management & Personal Accountability Program

This program is designed to assist people in getting past reluctance to do what is required: cope with the contingencies that generate angst, stress, and self-defeating behaviors. The ultimate goal is to reduce and/or eliminate miscommunication; personal objections over the uncontrollable or attending excuses; and to infuse a new, invigorating, uplifting spirit in these unforgiving and volatile times. This is the ultimate "no more excuses" approach to assisting people in adapting to changing and investing in personal responsibility for self-management.

Changes, Challenges, and Common Sense: "You Can't Be Too Serious"

Combining humor and insight, Alson offers solutions for meeting life's ever-changing demands. We can't prevent life from throwing a few curve balls, but we can build enriching lives by understanding basic living skills. Using humor and common sense, Alston provides those basics and demonstrates how to get rid of "head trash." Using thought-provoking content that will change lives, audience members laugh while they learn about the greatest combined antidote for the bittersweet nature of life.

Managing the Two "A's" of Stress: Anger & Attitude

Regardless of whether we view anger as positive or negative, it's important to approach anger as an attitude that can be controlled and directed. Once anger is addressed from a new perspective, individuals are able to view anger not merely as an uncontrollable, instinctual urge, but as a choice of response to a stress-inducing situation. If you're responsible for managing or servicing personnel within your organization, it's important to know that most people who react negatively to angry feelings are people who never learned how to positively cope with disappointments, setbacks, frustration, unexpected changes, or challenges that generate that powerful emotion. This program is designed to teach just that.

How to Survive the School Game

In this youth presentation, Alston explores the complications, changes, and opportunities faced as one grows from early experiences in kindergarten to challenges faced in high school and within our personal lives. He encourages young people to find and develop their gifts with the goal of someday giving back to the world. Alston will customize this program to highlight the issues and themes important to your audience.

From Ordinary to Extraordinary

Make work an extraordinary experience!

* Learn to work hard at only those things that count
* Change any organizations climate by setting your individual "attitude thermostat"
* Discover how to unlock hidden potential in you and co-workers
* Make customers, clients, co-workers feel unique
* Turn acquaintances into long-term profitable relationships
* Create lifetime relationships not just "satisfied customers"
* Learn to reduce frustration levels at work

The Secrets of Extraordinary Leadership

A common sense approach to dealing with changes and challenges

* Teaching leaders to cope with change in an extraordinary manner
* Learn to lead extraordinarily so others will follow
* How to communicate skillfully with people of varied interests, agendas, and abilities.
* Without followers you're not a leader . . . learn how to lead so others will follow.

Extraordinary Leadership is the key to success within any team, organization, municipality, state or nation, which seeks the achievement of any goal. This Program addresses changes, challenges, and common sense in a way that will make effective leaders out of anyone who will apply the skills taught.

Speaker Information

Skillfully utilizing humor and the power of the story, John Alston is a Hall of Fame speaker and award-winning author. Having addressed over three (3) million people around the world, Johnâ��s purpose is to provide personal accountability tools that drive extraordinary performance.

For more than 20 years, John has been writing and speaking an average of 100 times per year to organizations worldwide including numerous Fortune 500 companies such as General Electric, Sara Lee, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, General Motors, U.S. Steel, Corning, Bank One, Sprint, and the U.S. Army and Marines.

John's trademark approach enables people, regardless of their workstation, to transcend mediocrity by empowering them with facts, tools, and skills to excel in the marketplace. Ho-hum workers are transformed into insatiable achievers as John teaches the most important skill of all - learning to operate oneself more effectively. Morale skyrockets, personal accountability becomes more than a "buzz" word, and the bottom line is positively impacted as John lays out principles to alter how employees think, approach life, and meet challenges such as:

Â· Work hard and smart at what counts
Â· Move past blame and self-limiting beliefs
Â· Unlock hidden potential in yourself and others
Â· Reduce stress on the job and at home
Â· Build stellar relationships personally and professionally
Â· Change work climates by adjusting the "attitude thermostat"

Bringing unparalleled energy and insight to every meeting, John emphasizes character, integrity and common sense as the cornerstones of his presentation. John's time-tested credo is that happy, fulfilled and motivated people become happy, fulfilled and motivated workers. "You can be successful and be a good person," John encourages. "These are compatible values."

John's insights captivate audiences through four books he's authored: Life is a Gift--Don't Trash It; Story Power-Talking with Teens in Turbulent times; Goodness Must Be Taught; and his latest, Stuff Happens (Then You Fix It!).

Having first earned the designation of Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), which honors speakers in the top echelon of performance excellence, John is a Hall of Fame speaker- having been awarded the National Speakers Associationâ��s coveted Council of Peers Award for Excellence (CPAE) in 2001.

John's education background includes a bachelor or arts degree from Chapman University, and a master's degree in counseling psychology from California State University at Hayward. He's an active member of the Josephson Institute of Ethics Corps and founder of the American Institute for Stress Management. John invests in the lives of students by guest instructing at Canada College, Chapman College and the University of California Extension.

John has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, the Montel Williams Show and has hosted two of his own one-hour specials on the PBS network.