Josh Schlotterbeck · Speaker & Storyteller
Honest, story-rich messages about leadership, resilience, faith, fatherhood, emotional health, and the distance between the life we expected and the life we are actually living.
More than a message
They need language for what they are already carrying.
The most meaningful talks do not simply impress a room. They help people recognize themselves, name something true, and imagine a different way forward.
My approach combines lived experience with thoughtful research, practical insight, and honest storytelling. I have spent years speaking from pulpits, classrooms, meeting rooms, and community spaces—but the goal has remained the same: create a conversation people can carry home.
Every message is shaped around the audience, the setting, and the outcome you hope to create. No canned keynote. No borrowed certainty. Just careful preparation, human connection, and something worth remembering.
Signature talks
Expectation · Reality · Meaning
Every life contains distance between what we expected and what actually happened. This talk explores what becomes possible when we stop treating that gap as failure and begin meeting it with honesty, curiosity, and courage.
Trauma · Armor · Healing
The armor we build can keep us alive—but eventually it can also keep us alone. Drawn from Josh’s book, this message helps audiences understand emotional protection and the slow work of becoming reachable again.
Masculinity · Emotion · Connection
A healthier vision of strength—one that makes room for emotion, accountability, vulnerability, and connection without abandoning courage, responsibility, or resolve.
Change · Identity · Leadership
Change disrupts more than plans; it unsettles identity, confidence, and belonging. This talk gives leaders and teams a human framework for moving through uncertainty without losing purpose or one another.
Author-led conversations
“The armor kept you alive. Now it’s keeping you alone.”
The Anatomy of a Hard Heart gives audiences a compassionate framework for understanding trauma, emotional numbness, spiritual dryness, and the protective patterns that keep people disconnected from themselves and one another.
Book-centered talks, interviews, church messages, facilitated conversations, and event bundles can be tailored to your community.
Engagement formats
Story-driven featured talks for conferences, leadership gatherings, organizational events, and retreats.
Interactive sessions that move beyond inspiration into reflection, discussion, and useful application.
Thoughtful messages for churches and community spaces shaped by grace, honesty, and spiritual formation.
Age-appropriate conversations for students, educators, and academic communities centered on identity, resilience, and purpose.
What audiences carry forward
Words for experiences people have felt but struggled to name.
Room to be honest without being reduced to the hardest part of the story.
A grounded next step that turns reflection into meaningful action.
A perspective with range
Josh brings together leadership and consulting experience, graduate education in business and organizational change, thirteen years of pastoral ministry, classroom teaching, military service, authorship, and the lived perspective of raising five children.
That range allows him to speak across professional, educational, faith-based, and community contexts without losing the human thread connecting them.
15+ yearsLeadership, marketing, and consulting
13 yearsPastoral leadership and public speaking
MBA + MABusiness, leadership, and organizational change
Author & EducatorStorytelling, teaching, and meaningful dialogue
The booking process
Share your audience, event, goals, location, and the moment you are trying to create.
We select or customize a talk and align on format, tone, outcomes, and logistics.
I prepare for your people—not simply the topic—so the message belongs in the room.
Bring the conversation to your room
Speaking engagements are developed through a custom proposal based on the audience, format, location, preparation, and scope of the event.
Invite Josh to speak