Colin James

Colin James is a conversational intelligence expert, sales strategist, and one of those rare speakers who can emcee a conference, deliver a standing-ovation keynote, and run an immersive workshop all in the same day. He speaks on the science of conversation, influence, and communicating for maximum impact, drawing from a lifetime spent exploring cultures, religions, philosophies, and the psychology of human connection. Colin’s research-based approach helps sales professionals and leaders dramatically improve how they persuade, connect, and build trust.

The Science Behind Every Conversation
Colin’s work is grounded in neuroscience and behavioral research, revealing how the brain processes social cues, body language, and vocal tone during high-stakes conversations. His frameworks give audiences specific tools for reading a room, building rapport instantly, and steering conversations toward desired outcomes. He has worked across industries helping professionals turn every interaction into an opportunity.

World-Class Event Design
Beyond keynotes, Colin consults with clients on event design to create profoundly memorable, world-class conferences. His ability to combine deep content with engaging delivery has made him a favorite with organizations seeking speakers who can do more than inspire, but actually shift how their teams communicate. His keynotes deliver research-backed strategies for conversational intelligence, building client trust, and mastering the influence and communication skills that drive results in sales, leadership, and culture.

Lizard Management Strategies

The number one cause of workplace disruption, conflict, disengagement and low productivity is stress and anxiety. The ability to manage stress and handle anxiety is a skill. Now here is the fact that confronts many: the workplace does not cause stress and anxiety. How can we say this? Because, in any workplace, not everyone is stressed or anxious. Different people in the same context respond differently and, to keep it simple, respond either productively or negatively. What’s the difference?

Productive people who manage challenging environments well, who have what looks like natural confidence, who flourish in perceived adversity have well developed Lizard Management Strategies.

This is a deeply powerful idea that Colin James has been developing for 20 years. It leaves everyone who hears this keynote or completes this workshop able to handle stress and anxiety immediately in their lives – professionally and personally. This can be a catalyst for both a cultural shift and for personal effectiveness to skyrocket. LMS is a game changer.

Knowing what the Lizard is, and how it can managed, lives long in the minds of everyone hearing this powerful and life changing method. This session can be a keynote, a workshop or a combination. What you will learn;

• How to eliminate individual and group anxiety
• How to gain natural, effortless confidence in all contexts
• How to never sabotage yourself again

Followership

Good leaders create good followers and good followers create good leaders. Sounds kind of obvious right? Leadership is theoretically easy. That’s why there are tens of thousands of books on the subject. Of course it’s more complex than reading a book or article.

What constitutes excellent leadership?

Does the answer lie in focusing on “Followership”? Followership challenges both Leaders in organizations (how to be a better leader) and employees (how to be a better ‘follower’).

Colin James has been studying, exploring and researching the nature of Leadership and Followership for 3 decades. He draws upon a host of stories, references, humour and his unique graphic presentation ability to hold audiences fully engaged and enthralled. Above all it’s practical.

This session can be a keynote, a workshop or a combination. This is what you will learn:

What makes an excellent follower?

• The 3 key reasons Followers follow and the 3 reasons they will stop
• How to build authentic leaders that compel followership
• How this knowledge can transform people and cultures

I Can’t Believe It! – Making the ‘impossible’ possible

“I can’t do that!” “I have never been able to [fill in the blank]” “I wish I had the talent to [fill in the blank]”

This session is a deeply powerful demonstration of the reality that what holds people back in their lives are limiting beliefs. Colin James shows participants how to draw a fully rendered, artist quality portrait in ONE HOUR. A lifelong belief such as “I can’t draw to save my life” is turned on its head in ONE HOUR. This is a startling experience that is a life changer for many.

This session gives participants a tangible and real-life experience for challenging and redefining their belief system. The whole session is 90 minutes of extraordinary learning.

The ultimate lesson from this session is this “If a lifelong limiting belief can be changed in one hour what else do I (and we) need to question that could bring the changes I (and we) want in our lives (and organizations)?” This session can be a keynote, a workshop or a combination.

What you will learn:

• How to release the grip of limiting beliefs
• How to access your natural inner talents – even the ones you thought you never had
• What possibilities in your life you may have never considered before
• How badly we have been programmed and how to change it.

Managing the Change Game – We are going through a lot of change right now

“The restructure is being announced” “We are going to roll out the new strategy and there are a lot of changes”… you have heard these sort of words a thousand times. Change for many invokes fear, anxiety and the like. Why? How can we make change an easier and less complicated palaver? A session by Colin James in high demand is Managing the Change Game Brilliantly.

You would think that with ALL the change everyone has been experiencing in their lives of late we would simply get better at managing change better. So why aren’t we? Structural and organizational change often fails to understand and appreciate the psychology of change. Most adults hate change. Period.

In this session Colin James unpacks the psychological change cycle and, once understood, lets people and teams manage the whole process far more effectively.

This session can be a keynote, a workshop or a combination and has helped 1000’s understand the secret to making change easier.

What you will learn;

• How to manage change with style and grace
• How to support and manage a team through a change process superbly
• What has stopped you achieving your goals in the past and how to ensure this does not happen again.

The Engagement Myth – Who out there struggles with staff turnover?

Everyone? Thought so. The promise of a gold watch if you stick around is no longer enough for today’s workforce – they need to be ‘engaged’ at all levels in order to develop true company loyalty.

And you as a business want this, you need this! An ‘engaged’ employee will be more productive, less likely to leave and provide higher value in all contexts. Fact. Endless research backs it up. Google it.

But how? The answer isn’t what you think.

In this attention grabbing keynote Colin James will:

• Bust through the myths and get to the crux of what really drives staff loyalty.
• The 4 archetypes – how employees ‘play’ and how you can use this in your teams today!
• How to manage this new breed of worker brilliantly