Tim Gard

If employee motivation and happiness is important to you then it’s time to meet Tim Gard. Tim’s Laughter Becomes You keynote is as funny as it is inspiring and content rich. Audiences laugh from start to finish and discover how simple it is to change their perception to create their own reality and avoid or defuse potential stressors.

Tim’s rejuvenating message helps increase employee morale and engagement while enhancing productivity and everyday enthusiasm in three easy-to-adopt steps. His unique yet practical ideas help people diffuse routine or extreme stress by insulating themselves against negativity. He shows audiences how to "refresh and renew" themselves simply by using and sharing his techniques. His terrifically funny, unique stories (and of course, extraordinary visual props) make this keynote address a hilarious way to start or close your meeting.

Tim’s daily dedication to his craft not just produces an amazing amount of topical humor, but it challenges him to consistently refine his programs and inspire creativity. Naturally Tim’s ability to improvise is top level as he’s demonstrated for more than 20 years. Having a Comic Vision® is the ability to harness humor and use it as a skill to see the stressors all around us in a different manner whenever possible. It is often choosing to act - and not react - to the situational stress we encounter every day at work, and at home. Stress exists all around us. If you understand what stress is and know what causes you stress, then you can work to lessen the situational stress factors in your life. Identify the things that cause you stress, approaching and working on them one at a time. Then, find the funny…..and repeat.

Tim doesn't make light of your serious situations, but rather, shines a light on them to reveal previously unseen possibilities. The pressure to accomplish more with less, meet tight deliverable deadline expectations and respond with professional promptness can create stress, team dysfunction and decreased morale. The philosophy of "everything seems so serious, heavy and intense" is an unproductive one, and a truly unhealthy way to work and live. When stress and dysfunction need reduction, it's time to discover how Laughter Becomes You. This is Tim's most popular program and this 45 min to 3 hour Keynote speech is as funny as it is inspiring and practical. As Tim says, “Laughter Becomes You”.

Discover how laughter can be a powerful tool in safety training with Tim Gard's Sticky Safety training. While safety is no laughing matter, Tim's unique approach demonstrates how humor can enhance focus, presence, and retention of crucial safety principles. Drawing from his experiences in high-risk jobs and firsthand insights, Tim offers a relatable and memorable program that goes beyond the classroom. You'll learn to integrate Sticky Safety into your safety plan, identify your "Why Factor"; stay "in the now"; utilize impactful statistics, and effectively incorporate humor and storytelling into your safety culture. Get ready to transform your approach to safety with strategies that are as profound as they are hilarious.

Sticky Safey background: Safety meetings don’t have to be boring! A touch of humor and improved storytelling can create a safety message that is both sticky and dynamic. There is nothing funny about an injury or an accident, but there is much that trainers and workers at every level can discover about how humor can help them deliver engaging safety training, and more importantly, better reinforce stronger, long-lasting safety messages in their safety plans.

The positive impacts of humor in training are like electricity, it exists whether you believe in it or not. Now, more than ever, safety professionals must try new things and do anything possible to reduce or eliminate accidents and injuries.

Tim has integrated a diverse work history background together into this unique training seminar style: his experience as a professional humorous speaker who has performed globally at over 2000 main stage events, and the study of Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and psycholinguistics (the study of how to craft persuasive dialogues) during his tenure as a welfare fraud investigator. Tim also researched why some safety messages stayed with him for decades such as “Don’t die of shame,” “I never unbuckled a dead body,” and “Getting hurt isn’t stupid - not telling anyone is stupid.” The result is Sticky Safety.

Early on Tim discovered that some safety training was very boring and other training left impactful messages in his brain that have remained with him for decades. They “stuck” with Tim for some reason. In his ongoing research into safety and through his own experiences, he identified several factors that come into play regarding safety training that make the takeaways more “sticky” or not. Some methods make messages stickier than others to different people, but there are commonalities that work consistently.

For example, some trainers Tim experienced were better story tellers than others. Good story tellers helped make the message sticky. He discovered that showing horrible photographs and videos at safety meetings are impactful, however, if you don’t prove to attendees it could happen to them or anyone they care about, then a key ingredient is lost. 

It’s critically important that attendees hear the stories of how the accidents impacted the people involved, their families and even people seemingly unconnected, for years afterward. Safety trainers and audience members need to become good storytellers to increase the potency of their content. Every safety policy item and instructions need to become as “sticky,” as can be possible lingering with the participant beyond the day of training. “Sticky” can be funny, insightful or uniquely creative by applying Tim’s easy “Sticky Safety” process.

One way to make the message sticky is with humor. Funny is sticky. People remember things that make them laugh. Many people might point out that safety is a serious subject and there is nothing funny about it. In a way, they are correct. There isn't anything funny about an injury or accident but the learning process can be fun and memorable. The principles you'll learn in this inspiring keynote will demonstrate how humor helps people stay focused, present, "in the now" and are able to call up the right information at the right time later on when it really matters most.

Tim also discovered that safety training which reveals why safety is important at a personal level, has a higher “sticky” factor. He realized that the most successful safety training combined information with emotional context. You can provide statistics or pictures and video of safety violations but without emotional context, a reason for the audience member to really care about it, the information often doesn’t resonate with the participant. Tim calls this the “why factor.”

The last element of “Sticky Safety” is credibility. He observed many trainers over the years that only spoke about safety but didn’t know what it meant to actually be on a job and be injured. They talked the talk, but never walked the walk. Tim’s broad work history where he’s seen and/or personally experienced safety issues include his time as an enlisted sailor aboard the USS Midway during the evacuation of Vietnam Nam, working at a lumber yard, digging ditches, building camper/trailers, driving a 20-ton truck at 1mph for over 1000 miles for a seismograph crew. He also worked as a welfare fraud field investigator and a welfare caseworker. The unique safety philosophy he built during his career is one that you can replicate to help your employees stay safe every day. Tim has worked in some very dangerous jobs, experienced workplace injuries and his insights are based on real life situations anyone can identify with and learn from. His message and proven methods are both profound and hilarious.

OBJECTIVES
Participants who experience Tim’s Sticky Safety program will leave with an understanding of the following factors that will impact them for years and years:

1. What is your “Why Factor”? Participants will identify their own reasons why safety matters to them.

2. How “Sticky” training concepts work, such as “Don’t die of shame,” “I never unbuckled a dead body,” “Getting hurt isn’t stupid, not telling anyone is stupid,” and how they can help you develop your own sticky concepts and share them with others.

3. How to apply context to statistics through story telling. Statistics don’t have to be boring. For every statistic there are real people and real lives and their stories need to be told to give meaning to statistics and information.

4. Humor is a powerful tool for stress resilience. Discover how anyone can use humor effectively with just a few guidelines, for better stress management and combating compassion fatigue.

5. “I can do this in my sleep” is a very dangerous mindset, but being really good at your job can reduce stress and there are ways to help employees be as present and attentive as possible on the job.

6. Take time to live. Safety violations often occur when people are in a hurry. Tim’s “Flip of a Coin” technique helps participants learn to pause and think of the consequences before acting.

7. How resilience training can reduce safety violations. It’s a fact stressed out tired people are a high risk for safety violations. Resilience training can help reduce stress and insulate people from safety violations.

8. How to identify Safety Traps and apply Safety Solutions

9. Discover how stress can be a positive or a negative in safety. Discover what your stress boundaries are. Tim is an internationally recognized authority on stress reduction and conflict resolution, and his easy-to-implement techniques provide ways to diffuse, deal with, and even avoid intensely stressful encounters.

ABOUT TIM GARD
Tim attended hundreds of safety meetings throughout the course of his varied employment history, while with the US Navy onboard the USS Midway CVA-41, while working on a seismograph team, as a heavy equipment operator, while working at a lumber yard as well as State and Federal Government in Human Services, as a fraud investigator and is a U. S. Navy veteran.

While researching safety and applying his experience in safety training he discovered that the most successful safety training combined information with emotional context. You can provide statistics or pictures and video of safety violations but without emotional context the information doesn’t stick with the participant.

Tim is a certified speaking professional (CSP) & a member of the Speaker Hall Of Fame, an elite honor held by fewer than 150 speakers worldwide. The author or co-author of Just Plane Funny, My Policy Manual, Motivational Leaders he also is an inventor of stress reduction office products that are marketed and enjoyed worldwide . In his 25-year career as a professional speaker, Hall of Fame Speaker Tim Gard has spoken worldwide at more than 2000 events. Audiences from Texas to Tasmania and everywhere in between enjoy his clean sense of humor and unique way of seeing the world.

Few people would admit to being unkind and it’s difficult to find even one business that bases its success on being unkind yet few businesses today actively have a kindness policy or Kindness Plan even though it’s a proven fact that unkindness is unprofitable and so kindness must be profitable. Unkindness is unprofitable.

Few will ever forget the man being dragged off the United Flight because the airline had overbooked the plane. United had a policy of how to deal with overbookings and employees followed it with disastrous results. It’s estimated that one overbooked seat cost United over 800 million dollars. In hindsight, United could have given him a million dollars for his seat and still be ahead. They didn’t have a plan and it cost them dearly. Kindness is also profitable. United is my airline of choice for exactly the opposite reason. 20 years ago, a United employee shared a simple kindness with me and that one kindness has resulted in me flying over 2.5 million miles on United spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of flights.

A Simple Kindness policy helps eliminate massive losses and allows for equally massive windfalls. The days of one dissatisfied customer telling 10 other people is long gone. Today one angry customer can tell millions overnight and the results can be catastrophic. Dismissing this as an occasional problem is a big mistake. Today's businesses need to create Kindness Plans and the people in business need to establish their own kindness plan too.

The ability to connect with others can make or break your career. That connection is fueled by kindness and the thread that ties it all together is laughter.

Meet Hall of Fame Speaker Tim Gard who will show you the benefits of kindness and laughter as a competitive business advantage and how even simple acts of kindness can become amazing marketing advantages with some planning and training. Tim has traveled over 4 million miles in his 24 year speaking career on planes, trains and automobiles encountering the best and worst of customer service. His latest seminar “A Simple Kindness” humorously explores your kindness options and provides techniques to build a kindness plan for both businesses and their employees.

Tim explores with the audience how key historical figures would use kindness to solve today’s business problem as well as the kindness and unkindness he has experienced in his own journey. While researching this program Tim discovered that most employees who weren’t seemly kind did so because they didn’t know how to show kindness on the job. Others blindly followed policy regardless of how that policy impacted on customers for a variety of reasons. Correcting this problem isn’t difficult but it does require a commitment to kindness and excellence. Are you ready to see how kindness can help your company grow your profits and increase your kindness visibility?