Programs
More ways to start conversations that matter.
In addition to Redefining Strength, David P. Otey speaks and coaches in three areas: suicide prevention, communication and storytelling, and speaker coaching.
Each meets a different need. All draw on David’s experience helping people communicate ideas that matter—with clarity, humanity, and connection.
The flagship program
Redefining Strength remains the place to begin.
For organizations exploring workplace mental health, Redefining Strength is David’s flagship keynote. The additional offerings below respond to different needs: a more explicit focus on suicide prevention, communication training, or individual coaching.
Suicide Prevention
A father knew his daughter was struggling with depression. What he didn’t know was how serious that struggle had become—until she survived a suicide attempt during her senior year of college.
At the heart of their story is a moment during Barbara’s recovery—and six words David has carried with him ever since.
A father-daughter presentation
Six Words: A Survivor’s View
In this deeply personal father-daughter presentation, David and Barbara tell the same story from two very different perspectives: Barbara’s experience as a highly engaged college senior struggling beneath the surface, and David’s experience as a parent trying to support someone he loved from hundreds of miles away.
Through candid storytelling and Barbara’s artwork, which gives expression to experiences that can be difficult to put into words, they challenge easy assumptions about what loved ones should have known or done. For those concerned about someone who is struggling, their story offers ways to begin conversations that can help. For those carrying questions or guilt after a suicide loss, it offers a different perspective on what we can, and cannot, know or control.
Audiences leave with greater understanding, practical resources, and a reminder that we don’t need to have all the answers to reach out and connect.
Communication & Storytelling
Expertise has more influence when people can understand it, remember it, and act on it.
David’s work as a speaker began with a simple question: Why do smart people with important ideas sometimes struggle to get those ideas across?
Today, he helps technical and professional audiences communicate complex ideas with greater clarity and connection. His programs explore how structure, storytelling, data, and delivery work together to turn expertise into messages that build understanding, trust, and action.
Topics can be tailored to the audience and may include translating complex information for nontechnical audiences, using stories without sacrificing substance, gaining buy-in without relying on authority, designing presentations around the audience rather than the slides, and delivering ideas with greater confidence and presence.
Recent programs include:
The Art and Science of Connecting
A New Paradigm for Technical Presentations
Influence Without Authority
How Strategic Storytelling Helps Project Managers Gain Buy-In, Build Trust, and Drive Action
Speaker Coaching
You have a story to tell. Make sure it serves the people listening.
David works one-on-one with speakers who are developing keynotes, preparing for important presentations, or figuring out how to turn an idea or lived experience into a message that connects.
Sometimes the challenge is structure: finding the throughline, deciding what belongs, and building a presentation that takes an audience somewhere. Sometimes it’s delivery, confidence, or learning to get out from behind the slides. And sometimes the challenge is more personal: How do I tell my own story in a way that is honest, appropriate, and useful to someone else?
David understands that question firsthand. His own speaking includes deeply personal experiences with mental health and suicide, and he has learned that sharing a difficult story isn’t the same as simply telling people what happened. The story needs a reason to be told—and the audience needs a reason to hear it.
His coaching combines message development, storytelling, structure, and delivery to help speakers create presentations that sound like themselves and serve the people in the room.
Good fit for: keynote speakers developing or refining a talk, professionals preparing for high-stakes presentations, and people who want to use personal stories thoughtfully in service of a larger message.
What conversation do you need to start?
Tell David about your audience, your goals, and the ideas you want people to carry with them.