KEEP YOUR COMMUNITY RUNNING WITHOUT RUNNING ON EMPTY
Practical tools and research-backed strategies to protect your energy, lead through pressure and build the next generation of leaders, from the speaker CSDA needs for its
2027 General Manager Summit.
Keeping the lights on isn’t luck.
It's leadership.
And right now, that leadership is under more pressure than ever. Tighter budgets. Aging infrastructure. A board, the public and staff all expecting answers.
Your leaders are dedicated, capable and committed to the communities they serve. They’ve already proven they can deliver. But even the strongest leaders hit a wall when they carry too much for too long.
Erin delivers high-energy, research-backed keynotes and workshops designed for public service leaders who want to:
Do more with less, without burning out themselves or
their teams
Lead with clarity when they answer to everyone
Spot burnout early, before it costs them their best people and future leaders
Walk out with an action plan they start using the day they’re back
Hi CSDA Team!
I would love to be the keynote speaker at your upcoming General Manager Summit in Lake Tahoe. Having lived in Sacramento for years and visited Tahoe many times, it would be a joy to come back to the area. I’d be happy to customize a keynote that works for your audience and look forward to working with you. Thank you!
Session Description
Burn Bright, Not Out
The blueprint for public service leaders and teams to be unstoppable.
Special district leaders keep California running. The water flows, the fire engines roll, the parks stay open, and almost nobody sees what it takes. You answer to a board, the public and your staff, all at the same time. You’re asked to do more with less, keep aging infrastructure working on tight budgets, defend fee increases to people who don’t want to hear it, and figure out who takes your place someday. All while AI rewrites the job in real time. And so much of what’s at stake sits outside your control.
Most leaders don’t see burnout coming. They’re not lazy, weak or doing anything wrong. They’re just running a system that was never designed to last. In this honest and humorous keynote, Erin shares what it actually takes to stop surviving and start burning bright again. This is a talk about what’s possible when you stop running on empty and start showing up as the leader your team, your board and your community need, without losing yourself in the process.
Keynote Includes
45-90 minute session to be a mix of thought leadership, humor, vulnerable story telling, interactivity and actionable take-aways
Anonymous pre-event survey to all participants to deepen alignment and customization
Unlimited planning calls
A customized video for social media/email promotion of the session or event
Burnout toolkit available for everyone to download
Burnout assessment available for everyone to download
Mental health toolkit available for everyone to download
Additional free downloads and worksheets
Bulk-buy discount on my best-selling book The Type A Trap from $28 to $17 (Minimum 32 books)
Optional book signing
Post-event debriefing call
Speaking fee: $20,000 plus up to two nights hotel
Trusted by public agencies and global brands.
Erin has delivered keynotes and leadership programs helping thousands of leaders and teams stay focused, energized and unstoppable under pressure.
WATCH ERIN
High-Energy, High-Impact, Entertaining,
Results-Driven Keynotes
Watch Erin ignite rooms with practical strategies for burnout prevention, energy management and peak performance.
Key Takeaways
After this keynote, your audience will:
Recognize the warning signs of burnout before they cost them their health, their relationships or their leadership
Understand why the most dedicated public leaders burn out, and why the fix isn’t caring less but leading differently
Know how to lead with energy and clarity when they answer to everyone and control only part of the outcome
Leave with practical, no-fluff strategies to protect their energy, and their team’s, through budget pressure, constant change and doing more with less
See why sustainable leadership is their best succession plan, and how to build a job the next generation actually wants to step into
These aren’t surface-level tips. They’re realistic shifts your leaders can start using immediately.
Why Public Leaders
Choose Erin Stafford
Erin doesn’t just talk about leading under pressure.
She’s lived it at the highest levels.
As the former Head of Marketing for the largest healthcare staffing company in North America, Erin helped lead an $11 billion, hyper-growth organization that scaled 27x. During the pandemic, she played a key role in the largest deployment of healthcare personnel in history, when communities needed it most. She understands firsthand:
What it takes to lead when the stakes are high and resources are stretched
The pressure of leading through a crisis when the people you serve are counting on you
How to keep a team energized so they don’t burn out or walk out
Today, Erin combines…
→ A master’s degree in social psychology from the University of Cambridge
→ Executive leadership experience
→ Decades of research on burnout, performance and resilience
To deliver keynotes that are:
→ High-energy and humorous
→ Practical and inspirational
→ Science-backed
→ Emotionally powerful
→ Immediately actionable
