NSB Logo Bill Carr Bill Carr

Bill Carr

Speaker

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Award-Winning Comedian & Motivational Speaker

Bill Carr is known as a multi-media artist, an actor, humorist, writer, speaker and social activist. For over twenty-five years, Bill has been making people laugh at what’s trivial while helping them think deeply about what counts.

Keynote Speeches

Virtual Keynotes & Webinars
Contact us for more information about this speaker & their virtual presentations. Click here for some of the most popular formats for virtual events.
Safe Spaces at Work: A Holistic Approach to Safety

The concept of “Safety” can mean a lot of different things to different people. In the modern workplace, safety can reflect diverse ideas that include physical, social, emotional, mental health and cultural considerations. This is the expansion of the concept of workplace safety that is thankfully taking hold in many workplaces and it needs to be taken up for all workers, at all times, in all places. Bill helps participants examine both their own and others conceptions of “Safety” and then encourages them to reflect and perhaps transform the way safety is operationalized and “lived out” on a daily basis, from accident prevention to the way that we communicate with others at work. For Bill, empathy is the key ingredient and he believes that a more holistic approach and deeper appreciation of safety is what will ultimately contribute to a safer workplace on many levels.

Thinking About Thinking: The 3 Keys to Get Beyond Either/Or

Do we ever think about what we think, why we think that way or how we can think better? That would require a lot of thinking about thinking but it is so important that we make time and space to do this. In times of change and with increased pressure on resources and time, the importance of thinking clearly, critically, and creatively has huge implications. With our leaders, newscasts and modern social discourse increasingly becoming split into the two groups of those who are “right” and those who are “wrong”, we have to learn to consciously challenge this “either/or” thinking, and try to become comfortable with the nuances, the grey areas and the unknown. Simply put, the better we think the better we can perform and the better our relationships can be at work and in life. Bill will share the 3 keys that work for him.

Act Up: 5 Steps to Resilient Living

This is an invitation to explore and expand the role we play. At work, at home we often play very different roles and rightly so. It is critical to understand not only how you play each role but also how it is perceived. Expectations in a workplace need to be managed and understood by both the “player” and the “audience”. With humour and insight Bill invites us to ask questions and find answers about who were are in the world and how our ”show” is going. Shakespeare said “all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely player”. Bill also explores the very mental and emotional mechanisms at play in the act of creation itself. He also shows how resilience is both innate and learned. He shares his own 5 Steps for Resilient Living gained from what he describes as as life of “trial and error”.

Deep Service

Every industry is a service industry, every life a life of service on some level. The deep truth is whether at work, in our community, or in our home life -we do, in fact, serve somebody. As leaders and managers, we serve our company, our fellow employees and our clients; and to an important, and often neglected sense, we serve our community, our society and our world. At home we serve our families, our neighbourhoods, and again our society and the world. The depth and quality of this service is directly affected by how we see ourselves as being “in service”. Perception drives performance. When our lives are seen from a “service” perspective, it deepens our understanding of our place and mission in the world. Deep Service explores the idea of servant leadership in your specific industry context.

Work Inspired

Bill explores research into how the brain works and how we can use this knowledge to create an environment that will nurture a creative response to change and keep a healthy perspective in unhealthy times. Bill focuses on empathy and what he calls “contagious inspiration” and discusses how nurturing our relationship with ourselves and others can re-wire our neuro-pathways and change surviving into thriving and tragedy into strategy.

Additional Presentations

Audience reviews:

  • Your performance combined the perfect blend of political satire with slice-of-life comedy that's accessible to all. We were especially impressed with the extent to which the Right Reverend seemed to know about us: our concerns, new developments in our workplace and the priorities of this organization.

    - Credit Union Central of Saskatchewan
  • With the perfect blend of stand-up comedy and personal touching stories, Bill Carr delivers tremendous and applicable messages for business and life in general. His presentation set the perfect tone for our tradeshow weekend — so much so that we have invited him to speak again.


    - President, Canadian Health Food Association
  • During his speech he knew exactly how to get people’s attention for the whole time. He made us stop and think, got us emotional, serious, and made us laugh so much. He really knows how to tell stories that people can relate to their professional and personal life. Everyone here loved it and we wouldn’t hesitate to refer him to anyone.

    - Assistant to the President, Triton Digital
  • His presentation was interesting, thought provoking and hilarious. I was amazed by the emotion he evoked from the entire room. I think everyone took something important home with them that day. He was the best speaker we’ve had to date and I hope to work with him again in the near future.

    - The Regional Municipality of York
  • Bill was fabulous! He made us laugh till it hurt and also made us truly think about what is important. His ability to make people feel special for supporting us was wonderful.

    - Alzheimer Society of Thunder Bay
 

Speaker Biography

Bill helps people see their world in new and exciting ways. His unique blend of humour and insight inspires laughter and consideration, offering his audience a fresh perspective on what they face everyday. At the root of all of Bill’s work is the use of humour to help people reflect on their own innate human nature and understand who they are in a greater social context.

Bill’s career has seen him perform on stages across the country most notably in Nova Scotia at Neptune Theatre, Mermaid Theatre and the Atlantic Theatre Festival. He has written and performed in numerous radio dramas and news programs for CBC and has appeared on countless television programs, several movies and more advertisements than he would care to think about. 

Bill studied Philosophy, English and Theatre at Acadia University, and Theology at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Indiana, and the Atlantic School of Theology in Halifax. Bill is a dedicated volunteer and serves in various capacities for a number of good causes such as the Alzheimer Society of Nova Scotia, Community Justice Society, ACTRA, Unicef, Canadian Breast Cancer Society, CNIB, YMCA, and the Abilities Foundation. He is an honorary Trustee of the IWK Hospital for Children and helps to host the IWK Telethon each year.

He is a founding partner of the Atlantic Restorative Company, a social entrepreneurship focused on creating space for authentic human exchange and the use of restorative practices in all aspects of social life. Bill’s latest work includes directing the documentary shorts “A Way Through” and “Whirlwind”. He is also collaborating with Mermaid Theatre and Mulgrave Road Theatre to create the one-person show “Adam Mudd” which will apply restorative practices in a theatre context.