PUBLIC SPEAKING

I have appeared on TV, hosted and joined as a guest on radio shows and podcasts, and spoken at live corporate and nonprofit events. I was selected to speak on the TEDx stage at City University of New York on November 14, 2021, on “Turning Life’s Challenges as a Force for Good.” Click the links below to hear some of my public speaking. (Corporate motivational talks are excluded from this sampling, because of confidentiality contract clauses.) Some popular workshop offerings also are below.

Keynote speaker at the 2023 Saprea fundraiser, which provides support for childhood sexual abuse victims: https://vimeo.com/828432071

WUSA9 TV:

Meditation for Busy Washingtonians: Author and lawyer Maria Olsen explains how you can meditate to relieve stress while keeping up with your busy schedule.

herstory women’s empowerment conference:

Maria’s presentation at the HerStory Global Women’s Empowerment Conference. Maria Olsen, author of 50 After 50: Reframing the Next Chapter of Your Life, co-chaired this day of the Conference and spoke about how she reinvigorated her life after age 50.

Inside out lgbt radio:

Interview with Karl Racine: Maria Olsen, host and producer of the "Inside Out" radio show on WPFW fm 89.3 in Washington, D.C., interviews Karl Racine, the first elected attorney general for the District of Columbia.

"Mommy, Daddy...I'm Gay": Special Edition of "Inside Out" for parents children in the LGBTQIA+ community, with guest Maria Olsen.

POLITICS AND PROSE:

Maria Leonard Olsen: Live at Politics and Prose: Maria Olsen discusses her book, 50 After 50: Reframing The Next Chapter Of Your Life, at the largest independent bookstore in Washington, D.C., Politics & Prose. Olsen is an attorney, cohost of WPFW’s "Inside Out," women’s writing and empowerment-retreat leader, public speaker, and a woman who turned 50 expecting to find life less satisfying.

C-SPAN:

Gaithersburg Book Festival: Maria Olsen talked about her book, Not the Cleaver Family: The New Normal in Modern American Families. She spoke from the James Michener Pavilion at the Gaithersburg Book Festival, held on the grounds of City Hall in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Third Act Quest Storytelling Event: Storytellers sharing personal stories of resilience, reinvention and living with purpose. From the event organizer: “You and your story were powerfully inspiring. The way you so openly share not only your successes, but your life's most painful moments as well, made an impact on everyone who attended Third Act Quest Stories ‘LIVE.’ I am so grateful to you for all that you do!” Maria’s presentation begins at 1:47:30 on https://youtu.be/5Xcwk9vJNrA.

Popular workshops Maria offers:

Self-Care for Living Your Best Life

You cannot pour from an empty cup, or one that is weighted down with too many “rocks.”  Everyone has “rocks” they carry around, like the rock of harsh self-judgment. Learn how to shed what no longer serves you and protect your well-being. Attorney, recovery mentor, radio show host, Becoming Your Best Version podcast host and author of 50 After 50: Reframing the Next Chapter of Your Life, Maria Olsen, will share her experience overcoming alcoholism, trauma, addiction to busy-ness, and the pain of her divorce by using spiritual, mental, physical, social, and emotional self-care strategies. Participants will engage in group exercises to enhance well-being and thereby increase productiveness. Barriers to self-care will be tackled. Maria will teach self-care strategies, including:   Breaking the cycle of negative self-talk; reframing techniques; cultivating contentment; emotional regulation skills; learning to respond mindfully, rather than simply to react; healthy social relationships and building connection; boundary-setting; intentionality about how you spend your time; reinvigorating your life and rediscovering your “why.”

Participants may workshop, with confidentiality, specific challenges currently being experienced and learn techniques that yield best possible results.

De-Stressing Tactics for Busy People

A certain amount of stress can be useful as an impetus for optimum work execution.  Worry can motivate action.  When the amount of stress is excessive, however, performance suffers.  Learn strategies to achieve balance when stress threatens to hamper your ability to deliver your best work product. Topics covered include time-management techniques, how to find appropriate support, mindfulness & meditation, how to work exercise into your day, and other ways of taking re-set breaks, especially with meditation.

Studies show that meditation can increase clarity, sharpen concentration, improve sleep and decrease anxiety, depression, hypertension. It may even reduce pain and age-related memory loss. Stress-reducing meditation need not be time-consuming or involve chanting. It is accessible to all, and can even be done while walking to your next meeting. Gain skills to enhance ability to work in stressful situations.  Learn to control job-related anxiety in high-pressure work environments, and obtain quick techniques for becoming centered and focused.

Participants will learn effective de-stressing techniques.  Short form meditations will be practiced.  All will emerge refreshed and armed with strategies for living a more balanced and focused life, both inside and outside of work, leading to sounder decision-making and optimal health.

Getting Back Up After Life’s Challenges Knock You Down

Big T and little t trauma are part of the human experience. But challenges need not derail you. We each have agency, resources and the ability to choose our attitudes, no matter what cards in life we are dealt. Learn healing and coping skills to help you thrive after life knocks you off center. Maria shares her journey after getting divorced, sober, becoming an empty nester, processing her childhood sexual trauma and living alone for the first time in her life at age 50. For a preview, check out Maria’s most popular book, 50 After 50: Reframing the Next Chapter of Your Life, and her TEDx Talk, “Turning Life’s Challenges into a Force for Good.”

How to Tell Your Story

Workshop on the importance of telling one’s story, for healing, sharing, and/or memorializing it for family. Presentation includes the pros and cons of self-publishing, hybrid publishing and traditional publishing, as well as how to get published and effective marketing strategies.