Amanda Lindhout

Featured Keynote Programs

Raised by a poor single mom in a small city, Amanda Lindhout escaped the violence of her childhood home by paging through issues of National Geographic magazine and imagining herself in its exotic locales. As a young woman, her wanderlust led her to some of the world’s most beautiful and remote places, and its most imperiled and perilous countries.

Insatiably curious about human potential, Amanda became a journalist based in war ridden Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2008 she travelled to Somalia to report from “the most dangerous place on earth.” Abducted by a group of masked men along a dusty road, Amanda would spend 460 days as a hostage, moved between a series of abandoned houses in the desert, surviving on strategy, fortitude and hope.

Her story of survival builds suspense and momentum to reveal life changing insights into mind conditioning. Amanda’s physical and mental pain led to a pivotal moment where she understood that despite everything, she still had choice and control over the mindset with which she faced each day. Using conviction, affirmation, gratitude, and positive thinking, Amanda survived the unimaginable. With astonishing clarity and self-reflection, she teaches through her powerful example that the stories we tell ourselves become our experiences, and that changing our narrative can transform our struggles into opportunities for growth.

Amanda outlines how coping strategies like mindfulness, visualization, and self-talk strengthen resilience. She describes what qualities enable not only survival, but also the capacity to thrive in the face of adversity.

A captivating, unforgettable speaker, Amanda facilitates a shift in consciousness, leaving the audience with actionable takeaways to develop new thought habits, deeply inspired to take on challenges with a new perspective, and empowered to transform stories of pain into stories of power.

In 2008, Amanda Lindhout was kidnapped by a group of criminals while working as a
freelance journalist in Somalia. For 460 days she endured experiences that forced the limits
of her own capacity to survive. A dramatic release brought Amanda’s next set of challenges transitioning home and learning to live with severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

During her struggle for both physical and mental survival, Amanda learned how to find, and
then harness, the innate inner resource of resilience. In this focused keynote based on her
own incredible personal story, Amanda explores the critical components of resilience,
including optimism, mindfulness, cognitive flexibility and awareness. She describes what
qualities enable our aptitude to look inwards, and ultimately cultivate mastery over our
circumstances.

She teaches that by developing a resilience practice anyone can train their mind to prepare
for and rise above adversity, navigate uncertainty, manage stress, and improve the overall
quality of their life.

Amanda’s remarkable example shows that finding gratitude and forgiveness can liberate
our full potential to live happy, healthy lives.