Entrepreneurial Mindset: Mental Fitness for Startup Success

Are you an aspiring or early-stage entrepreneur, innovator, leader or changemaker looking to actively shift from a negative to a positive mindset? Join SpinUp and TalentRise in a special University of Toronto Entrepreneurship Week workshop about the fundamentals of Mental Fitness and how it can help you become a stronger and more effective leader.

About the Workshop

Today’s leaders are like elite athletes. They chart their visions of success, set audacious goals, and treat every day like it’s game day. They rely on their ability to build high-performing teams and embed themselves deeply into the performance and engagement of their people.

Culture matters. But having your head in the game matters more.

Join us in a conversation about the fundamentals of Mental Fitness and how it can help you become a stronger and more effective leader. Leveraging the groundbreaking research of Dr. Shirzad Sharmine, founder of Positive Intelligence, we learn how to navigate uncertainty and stress by improving our mental landscape and emotional intelligence. Mental fitness hones your ability to actively shift from a negative to a positive mindset regardless of the obstacle.

In this session, Laura Barker, Director, Coaching and Leadership Development at TalentRise, will help you understand your own mental fitness journey by diving into the ways we, as humans, self-sabotage our performance and effectiveness. You’ll start to flex your mental fitness muscles as you learn proven tools and tactics to help navigate overplayed strengths. You’ll come away from this session with a fundamental understanding of how to make lasting, impactful, positive changes that will benefit you, your colleagues, and team.

Learn how this groundbreaking work disrupts common negative thought patterns by equipping you with scientifically validated entrepreneurial mindset tools that lead to successful startup leadership. Leave knowing how to build a healthier and happier mental landscape after gaining awareness and insight into your primary saboteurs.

Who is this workshop for? 

This workshop is designed for both aspiring and current entrepreneurs, innovators, changemakers and leaders who are ready step up their Mental Fitness. Learn proven tools and tactics to help navigate the ways we, as humans, self-sabotage our performance and effectiveness. Leave the session with a fundamental understanding of your own mental fitness journey, and learn how to make lasting, impactful, positive changes that will benefit you, your colleagues, and team. Don’t miss this opportunity to transform your entrepreneurial journey during Entrepreneurship Week at the University of Toronto!

*This event has a limited number of spots. If you register and can no longer attend, please let us know by emailing spinup@utoronto.ca. If maximum capacity is reached, we will open a waitlist and offer spots as they become available.


About TalentRise

TalentRise is an executive search, coaching, and leadership development firm based in Chicago. Our purpose is to discover leaders and elevate organizations for a people-centered tomorrow. An industry player since 2008, TalentRise provides flexible, customized leadership and organizational solutions to early- to mid-market employers primarily based in the professional services, healthcare, consumer and industrial manufacturing, technology, financial services, and retail sectors. TalentRise, an Aleron Company, is connected to several sister-companies who provide global workforce solutions for over sixty years. We specifically support early-stage and high-growth businesses through our emerging enablement solutions business, Viaduct, and at TalentRise where our business is leadership. 

Meet the Speakers

Laura Barker has 20+ years of business experience in HR and project management, including compensation and benefit program design and review as well as talent management and performance improvement programs. She has extensive international corporate experience in cultural transformation especially related to mergers and acquisitions.

She has worked with small, mid-market, and large national and international companies in the pharmaceutical, hospitality, employee engagement, supply chain, and food manufacturing industries.

Laura focuses on leadership coaching, specifically, steering with purpose, developing key leadership skills, and gaining clarity to maximize personal insight and professional growth.

Laura holds a B.A. from McGill University and is coach-certified with the International Coaching Federation (ICF) and Co-Active Training Institute (CTI). Laura is also a PCC and CPCC Certified Coach. She is Past Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee, Member of the Board of Governors for an independent school in Toronto, and is Co-Founder of 100 Women Who Care’s Toronto West Chapter.

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