Keynotes, plenary sessions, breakout sessions, concurrent sessions, seminars, and workshops delivered in-person, virtually, or prerecorded. Ask Kit about his breakout and concurrent session pricing!
Stress Sucks. It sucks your time, it sucks your energy and it sucks your productivity. Kit Welchlin is experienced in delivering proven strategies to help manage stress and increase productivity.
TESTIMONIALS
WHAT AUDIENCES SAY ABOUT KIT:
ABOUT S.O.S.
Stress Is Draining
Stress Erodes Productivity
Stress Is Manageable
TESTIMONIAL REEL
Kit Welchlin, Seminars On Stress
AUDIENCES LOVE KIT WELCHLIN:
Presentations by Seminars on Stress have been described as “dynamic,” “relevant,” “entertaining and educational.”
Seminars On Stress can and will provide your organization with the stress management skills it needs.
SEMINARS ON STRESS
We all need to understand enough about stress to prevent as much of it as possible. We all need to identify and handle stress early to minimize the damage. We need psychological strategies and physical remedies to relieve the stress and increase productivity. Can you imagine a workplace where employees are motivated, energized and seeking challenge rather than being physically, psychologically and spiritually fatigued?
Kit Welchlin has delivered over 600 speeches and seminars on stress management to public and private organizations, helping employees to manage stress and increase productivity.
If you want results, contact Kit at Seminars On Stress. Kit will come to your organization, provide a seminar on stress and deliver proven strategies that will manage stress and increase productivity.
KIT WELCHLIN’S SPEECHES AND SEMINARS
Change and Stress and
Doing More
with Less
Handling Stressful Situations
and Difficult Discussions
Stress Management:
Are You a Burnout?
Work and Life Balance:
Balancing The Quickness, Quantity,
and Quality Of Your Life
STP: Stress, Time, and
Procrastination Management
CHANGE AND STRESS AND DOING MORE WITH LESS
Attendees will Learn:
- How to become a quick-change artist
- Strategies for success in fast-changing times
- Techniques to use change to your advantage
STRESS MANAGEMENT: ARE YOU A BURNOUT?
Attendees will Learn:
- How to respond effectively to unavoidable stress
- Fifteen proven physical remedies to reduce stress
- Fifteen proven psychological strategies to minimize stress
STP: STRESS, TIME, AND PROCRASTINATION MANAGEMENT
Attendees will Learn:
- What causes stress and the three questions you need to ask yourself
- Twenty time management tips to get more done in less time
- Five steps to break (or at least manage) procrastination
WORK AND LIFE BALANCE: BALANCING THE QUICKNESS, QUANTITY, AND QUALITY OF YOUR LIFE
Attendees will Learn:
- How to gain control of your time and your life
- How to prioritize and manage multiple priorities without guilt
- How to set reasonable and fulfilling goals in all of the dimensions of your life
BOOK S.O.S.
SEMINARS ON STRESS
KIT WELCHLIN
Phone: 1-888-688-0464
Email: kit@seminarsonstress.com
S.O.S. BLOG
Being Part of a High-Functioning Team Can Relieve Stress
Posted on 3 December 2025 in S.O.S Blog
Recently, I spoke at Forward Bank’s EPIC Event: Engage – Play – Inspire – Connect. One of the concepts I shared is that cohesiveness provides a collective sense of identity. The eight components of cohesiveness include shared or compatible goals, progress toward these goals, shared norms, lack of perceived threat between members, interdependence of members, threat from outside the team, shared team experiences, and mutual perceived attractiveness and friendship.
Sharing our predicaments with a friend can relieve our stress, increase our strengths, and help us create innovative solutions for life’s inevitable ups and downs. I have said for years, make sure you spend time with friends that are supporting you, rather than distorting you. Choosing the right companions is key. Some researchers claim one benefit is that friends make us sharper.
Research shows that a 10-minute chat on a social topic can boost executive function; this type of mental agility can help us solve problems.
It is also important to have friends around us who support us when we take stress-filled risks. Friends reduce our body’s stress response. Studies have shown that when people have a negative experience while one of their friends is present, not only do they feel better about themselves afterwards, but they also have lower levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, during the stressful situation, than those people who did not have a friend present.
We can tolerate so much more stress in life when the right people are there to let us know that we are not alone, in good times and bad. Make friendship a priority and schedule time together. Never take friendship for granted. Join a variety of groups that match your interests. Have different friends for different activities. Choose the best people to work alongside, the best people to enjoy social activities, and the best people share the same home.
Here are Three Suggested Tips for Change & Exceptional Customer Service
Posted on 13 October 2025 in S.O.S Blog
I had the opportunity to spend the morning with Life-Science Innovations. My presentation was on Change Management and Customer Service. Life-Science Innovations (LSI), founded in 2005, is a multi-faceted company comprised of LSI Shared Services, Research & Development, and the Executive Leadership Team. These divisions provide a diversified range of support to their family of companies, helping them grow and develop in their industries.
These companies support industries of engineering, processing, poultry genetics, and agriculture. Life-Science Innovations employs over 1,600 people across multiple states and countries. Life-Science Innovations fosters an environment of discovery, collaboration, and challenging the status quo. They understand the next innovative idea is right around the corner; therefore, they encourage their employees to bring their strengths and ideas to the conversation every day. This event was held at their headquarters located on the beautiful MinnWest Technology Campus in Willmar, MN.
Here are Three Suggested Tips for Change & Exceptional Customer Service.
1. Set Goals and Take Action – Become a Quick-Change Artist
Resistance to change is futile. Being a quick-change artist will build your reputation, while resisting change will ruin it. Being nimble makes you a valuable member of the organization
SMART Goal Setting
Specific / Measurable / Action-Oriented / Realistic / Timely
2. Develop the Right Image – Commit Fully to Your Job
Success belongs to the committed. Work from the heart. Invest passionately in the organization’s objectives. Recommit quickly when change reshapes their work.
Six Criteria of Personal Credibility
Consistently:
1. Appear Warm and Friendly
2. Express Intentions and Motives
3. Demonstrate Trustworthiness
4. Be an Information Source
5. Develop Relevant Expertise
6. Demonstrate Dynamism
3. Master Time Management – Speed Up
Emphasize action, sometimes with radical breakthroughs and sometimes with incremental, step-by-step adjustments. Develop the reputation as one who pushes change along.
Self-Generated Time Wasters
Disorganization / Procrastination / Inability to Say No / Lack of Interest / Burnout / Gossip / Unnecessary Perfectionism
Environmental Time Wasters
Visitors / Telephone Calls / Mail and Email / Waiting for Someone / Unproductive Meetings / Crises (Other Peoples’ Problems) / Coffee Conversations / Unused or Unnecessary Reports
Become a Leader People Want to Follow
Posted on 22 August 2025 in S.O.S Blog
Recently I delivered a keynote presentation at a joint conference for the Minnesota County Recorders Association and the Minnesota Association of County Auditors, Treasurers, and Finance Officers.
My presentation was “Leading in the Digital Age: Become a Leader People Want to Follow.” Much of the presentation dealt with the potential impact AI will have on these county employees, both professionally and personally.
I mentioned in my presentation that resistance to change is almost always a dead-end street. Being a quick-change artist can build your reputation, while resisting change can ruin it. I also suggested that leadership is not just positional; it’s personal.
There are many opportunities that can come from embracing AI in our careers, such as fraud detection, smarter dashboards for public engagement, strengthened cybersecurity, and interdepartmental insights.
With significant change comes significant concern that causes stress, even for the most competent employee. Change can be mechanical, physical, external and situational. When you face changes in technology, organizational structure, and responsibilities, there can be a personal, psychological toll on staff. Often anxiety rises and motivation falls.
Changes for county recorders include the automation of routine tasks, significant job redesign, and challenges associated with integrating outdated government IT infrastructure. Changes for county auditors include automated auditing, real-time monitoring, and nearly instant data reconciliation. Changes for county auditors include automated auditing, real-time monitoring, and nearly instant data reconciliation. Changes for county treasurers include predictive cash flow analysis, automated payment processing, investment assessment, and dynamic budget data. Changes for county finance officers include budget forecasting, expense optimization, grant and funding tracking, and AI auto-generated financial reports that highlights trends.
Transitions for county recorders may include a reduction in the need for manual clerical work, thus potentially changing staffing needs. Transitions for county auditors include moving from manual audits to more of an oversight role of automated systems and time for personal investigation of flagged issues. Transitions for county reasurers include recognizing that AI may suggest investment or timing decisions, however, legal and politicalconsiderations are still best left to human judgement. Transition for county finance officers may include spending less time on reporting, and more time on strategy. County finance officer roles may shift more toward financial planning and risk mitigation.
So, in a nutshell, change isn’t easy. Even the changes we want are sometimes a struggle. One constant you can rely on is that change is inevitable.
Forging Industry Management Development Institute – Effective Business Communications
Posted on 16 July 2025 in S.O.S Blog
For several years in a row, I have presented a morning seminar on Effective Business Communications at the Forging Industry Association Management Development Institute. Communicating with confidence certainly helps you manage stressful situations and difficult discussions.
One of the key concepts is to be an effective listener. When you show others that you’re listening to them, they may feel that they’re important. As a keynote spaker on leadership, I ask my audiences, “When was the last time you were complimented on your listening skills?”
Consider being consistently friendly and helpful, smile easily, greet others, say thank you, you’re welcome, or pardon me. Practice phone etiquette and open doors for others. When we are polite to others, they will be polite to us. What a relief.
When you are polite to others, you can assume they’ll probably like you, so you in turn like them. Why not keep your self-image positive by being courteous to others and reduce stress? In other words, you know the golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” or the platinum rule, “Do unto others as they would like to be done unto.” But did you know it can help us manage our stress.
Just the simple act of smiling has a positive impact on your attitude and emotional well-being. Smiling transmits nerve impulses from your facial muscles to the limbic system, tilting the neurochemical balance toward calm. So, don’t forget to be polite at work. When you take the time to work positively or constructively with your coworkers, you’ll feel better and it acts as a reinforcement to your own self-worth.
FUELING LEADERSHIP THROUGH RESILIENCE AT CHRISTENSEN FARMS
Posted on 19 June 2025 in S.O.S Blog
Recently I had the opportunity to return to my roots and speak to an organization that raises hogs, Christensen Farms. Their headquarters is about 25 miles from where I grew up on a hog and dairy farm. My presentation was “Recharge: Strategies for Managing Stress.”
Animal welfare is important to Christensen Farms. Did you know that nurturing and caring for an animal provides significant psychological and physiological benefits? The psychological benefit of engaging animals in happy talk, light-hearted comments, or speaking in an upbeat tone, can relieve stress and lower blood pressure. It may seem silly, but the one-sided conversation can put you at ease. The physiological benefit of a pet is they elevate the hormones such as oxytocin and endorphins, plus the organic chemical of dopamine, which all relate to happiness and relaxation.
Christensen Farms is one of the largest, family-owned pork producers in the United States, marketing approximately 3 million hogs per year. Headquartered in Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, the company operates throughout the Midwest with facilities in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois and South Dakota. Christensen Farms owns three feed mills, manages 140,000 sows on 44 farms, and oversees more than 350 nurseries and grow finish sites. The company employs nearly 1,000 people and maintains 1,500 contract partnerships.
The Christensen Farms Team is committed to and takes pride in being an industry leader in responsibly producing high quality pork for the noble purpose of providing food to a growing world. Their values include respect, integrity, excellence, adaptability and innovation.
Christensen Farms hosts an annual Leadership Summit in the spring that is sponsored by our three employee resource groups: Latino LEAPP, Women’s LEAPP, and Next Gen LEAPP. LEAPP stands for Learn, Empower, Achieve, Passion, and Purpose. This event aims to provide opportunities for employees to engage in networking and knowledge sharing as well as develop new skills applicable to their jobs.
Last word on stress and animals: studies show that just hanging around an animal decreases your blood pressure. Petting a dog, cat, or horse certainly does, in fact, you may not even need to touch the animal, for instance, just watching a fish casually swim in an aquarium can have a similar effect on lowering blood pressure.
CHANGE MANAGEMENT: ARE YOU SURVIVING OR THRIVING?
Posted on 17 May 2025 in S.O.S Blog
Even the changes we want are stressful. Sometimes you feel like you are the only one struggling. Cohesiveness and connectedness develop through participation. Each activity has the capacity to deepen relationships and build trust. Trust helps us manage the stress.
Take a look at these photos in this blog. These are photos from one of my workshops with one of my healthcare clients that is going through a merger and new identity. The training and planning committee provided fun morning and afternoon team building activities during my sessions. The idea that “we are all in this together” really comes to fruition when people fully participate in these types of activities together.
Organizations like this one are lucky to have a lot of long tenured employees with a deep passion for what they’ve accomplished and done to provide care for their communities, when they weren’t part of a large system. However, along with that also comes a resistance to change. Acknowledging the losses openly and sympathetically and providing training can soothe anxiety and get the organization and their employees and their employees through these types of changes in one piece.
Changing the culture requires the elimination of rigidity. It is necessary to create more fluid processes, assemble temporary teams, and create a work environment where people, ideas, and information circulate freely to deal with specific and ever-changing needs. Curiosity, not certainty, is a critical skill. Engage with each other, experiment to find what works, and support one another through the process.
TESTIMONIAL LETTER - NORTH DAKOTA ASSOCIATION OF COUNTY ENGINEERS
Posted on 24 April 2025 in S.O.S Blog
STAYING UP WHEN THE MARKETS ARE DOWN BY AVOIDING NEGATIVE PEOPLE
Posted on 1 March 2025 in S.O.S Blog
I know how stressful farming can be. I grew up on a hog and dairy farm in southern Minnesota and there were some years we simply volunteered. Agriculture is so sensitive to weather, exports, and commodity prices. We also raised corn and soybeans on our farm and you can imagine how excited I was to be invited back, for the fourth time, to speak at the Watonwan County Corn and Soybean Growers annual meeting. I grew up in Watonwan County knew nearly everyone in the room. It was fun to reconnect with old friends and share 55 strategies for staying up when the markets are down.
One of the strategies I suggested was to avoid negative people. Negative people can be physically, psychologically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually draining. Negative people can be one of life’s biggest stressors.
Both personally and professionally, be careful how much time and effort you invest in a relationship with a negative person. Identify boundaries that will minimize the damage. Boundaries may include limits on actions, physical space, conversational topics, expression of certain emotions, and how topics are handled.
Emotional contagion is the process by which emotions are transferred from one person to another. You catch the mood or attitude of another. It’s like catching a virus. Negativity creates barriers to positive change, blocks productivity, and kills morale.
If you have to interact with negative people, minimize your exposure, and have a survival kit available to pick yourself back up emotionally and mentally. I keep a “survival kit” handy. I carry along a favorite photo of myself when I was young and believed I was invincible, a list of things I love to do, and a list of things I am thankful for. Just reviewing these items lifts my spirits.
Negative people can drag you down and cause you stress. If you must interact with them, try to side-step the negativity, and prepare your own “survival kit” to pick yourself back up quickly.
GENERATIONAL COMMUNICATION
Posted on 15 Feb 2025 in S.O.S Blog
Miscommunication and misunderstandings are part of work life. It is stressful when it happens, especially with difficult discussions and in stressful situations. Coworkers and colleagues often misunderstand each other; whether they know it or not. Mistakes and miscues cause stress. Though we don’t plan or expect to make life difficult for each other, we often mistake the ideas and feelings of a person of different generation. We can understand and improve communication between the generations with some understanding of their backgrounds.
A couple of weeks ago I spoke at the ND County Roads Conference in Fargo, North Dakota. My presentation was “Generational Communication: How to Connect and Communicate in a Multi-Generation Workplace.” Effective Communication is critical for organizational success.
Each generation had significant events during their formative years. These events and trends have affected the way each generation sees the world.
Veterans or Traditionals experienced the Great Depression and World War II. So, they don’t spend money freely and patriotism is very important to this oldest generation.
The Baby Boomers, grew up during the Vietnam Era, the Civil Rights Movement, and Women’s Liberation. This generation experienced being change agents and believe individuals can make a difference.
Generation Xers grew up with Watergate and corporate lay-offs. Gen Xers may not be able to fully trust government institutions or big business. Xers grew up in single-parent homes and are self-reliant and are independent.
Millennials or Generation Y grew up with school violence, terrorism, and multiculturalism. So, Millennials have a concern for personal safety and expect diversity in the workplace.
Gen Z grew up with the internet and leverage technology to simply their work and personal life. They work for organizations where they feel purpose and have passion.
Different life experiences create generational sub-cultures. A culture that has been shaped by the values, standards, and policies of one generation isn’t necessarily going to be compatible with the next generation. Throw in a big dose of technology and the friction gets worse.
MANAGE STRESS BY MAINTAINING A MENTOR RELATIONSHIP
Posted on 24 Jan 2025 in S.O.S Blog
You can manage stress more effectively when you have a mentor that shows you the ropes and introduces you to people that will help you succeed. Sometimes it seems hard to get a mentor relationship started.
You can manage stress more effectively when you have a mentor that shows you the ropes and introduces you to people that will help you succeed. Sometimes it seems hard to get a mentor relationship started. It would be ideal if your organization creates a clear strategy for mentor leadership opportunities. January is National Mentoring Month and you probably want to turn talking into acting. A thoughtful framework helps determine the guiding principles, clarifies reasons for the program, helps define the objectives, and create a plan for implementation. As a corporate keynote speaker, I recommend that the organization must be clear about the purpose of the mentor leadership program. Short-term and long-term goals need to be discussed. Given the scope of the program, it is important to determine who and how many mentors and mentees will need to be recruited. It is wise to consider the characteristics for selecting both mentors and mentees. If we are trying to develop new leaders, then we need to pair seasoned leaders with mentees. If we are seeking retention, we need to pair charismatic, or naturally social leaders, with mentees. It is important to provide skill building training for both mentors and mentees. All of the soft skills become critical, including empowerment, listening, supportiveness, collaboration, and assertiveness. The training should also consider how to assess strengths and weaknesses, how to identify developmental objectives, and how to discuss and clarify the roles and responsibilities of participants. Make sure your organization doesn’t just jump into a mentor leadership program without giving these guidelines some serious consideration. The key to mentor leadership is to take it seriously. As a keynote speaker on leadership, I strongly believe organizations must take the time to train staff. Our members, coworkers, and younger employees need us to provide a thoughtful framework that guarantees success for all. If you need to find a keynote speaker, plenary speaker, breakout speaker, concurrent session speaker, seminar leader, or workshop facilitator who can deliver in-person, virtually or via prerecorded session, Kit Welchlin, M.A., CSP, CVP, is a nationally recognized professional motivational speaker and author and can be found at www.welchlin.com or www.SeminarsOnStress.com.
MENTOR LEADERSHIP: WHAT IS MENTOR LEADERSHIP?
Posted on 14 Jan 2025 in S.O.S Blog
One of the best ways to manage stress is to have a mentor or to be a mentor. When you are new to an organization there many questions, concerns, and awkward moments. Having a mentor relieves a lot of that stress. Being a mentor re-energizes leaders and provides comfort that miscues can be prevented.
Many of us are students of leadership and professional development. Since January was National Mentoring Month, it is probably a good idea to discuss it. Mentor leadership refers to the activity when a leader or a senior member of an organization shares their wealth of experience with a junior or inexperienced member. Mentor leadership is the creation of a personal development relationship between a leader or mentor, and a person in the organization that demonstrates leadership potential. Sometimes the recipient of the mentoring activities is referred to as a protégé, apprentice, or mentee. Mentoring is the act of sharing relevant insight and wisdom that accelerates the mentee’s personal and professional development. Mentoring not only helps the mentee, it also benefits the organization overall. As a corporate keynote speaker, I share that studies show that there is a positive correlation between a positive mentoring experience and a measurable improvement in productivity, retention, commitment, satisfaction, knowledge sharing, leadership growth, and succession planning. Given the positive impact, mentor leadership should be a strategic organizational priority. Signs of a successful mentoring relationship include: willingness of both mentor and mentee to ask questions, challenge ideas and suggestions, freely and openly discuss personal and professional goals, give honest feedback, and express appreciation for each other’s efforts. There are many people that can be magnificent mentors. Mentor leadership should be part of our standard operating procedures. As a keynote speaker on mentor leadership, I remind people that it takes time and commitment from both parties, but I think it is worth the investment. The mentor enjoys the satisfaction of watching someone grow, and the mentee gains a feeling of being valued. Not bad.
STRESS MANAGEMENT: HOW DO YOU FIND DELIGHT IN DELAYS?
Posted on 18 Jan 2024 in S.O.S Blog
Is your schedule full and your stress level high? Do you have any time for distractions or delays? When others drop the ball, does it blow your stack? Often we don’t have room in our calendars for disruptions. How can we respond more effectively to delays?
When we get stuck in traffic, or the flight is delayed, or the train is late, we can start to get stressed out. But there may be a different and more positive way to look at delays in your life. I suggest you find delight in delays. When things don’t go as plan, and our schedule suffers a delay, have a list in hand of things you can do along the way. There are a number of things you can do now in this mobile world to take the pressure off. Here are a few suggestions. You can send a couple of short emails to help move other projects along. Do some brainstorming on a problem at work or at home. Review your calendar, and double check to make sure that nothing else you have committed to, is, or has, fallen through the cracks. Read that article that you just haven’t taken the time to read. Watch that video blog on how to find delight in delays on seminarsonstress.com. You can call your Mom or Dad for a quick chat…just to check in and catch up. You can call a friend back that you haven’t had the time call and at least leave a voice mail message. You can text a couple of people and stay in touch. You can take a couple of pictures, or review your photo gallery, and post to your social media. Simply find delight in the delays. Don’t be obsessed with the delay and with your plans being disrupted. You don’t need to feel trapped. You can feel free. You can delight in the delays Create a list of everything you would like to do, read, or consider. Keep it close and find delight in the delays. If your organization or industry suffering from significant stress, contact me at kit@seminarsonstress.com and I will deliver a presentation with physical and psychological remedies to dial down the stress factor.
STRESS MANAGEMENT: WHAT ABOUT SOME PLANTS?
STRESS MANAGEMENT: WHAT ABOUT REQUESTING SILENCE?
STRESS MANAGEMENT: WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?
STRESS MANAGEMENT: WHAT ABOUT WORRYING?
Seminars On Stress © 2025 All Rights Reserved. Website powered by tena.cious.