Keynote Speaker
No fluff. No filler. Just Rashad Hayes bringing the fire that sparks real change.
Keynote Speaker
No fluff. No filler. Just Rashad Hayes bringing the fire that sparks real change.
Choose Your Own Breakthrough
Three Keynotes That Inspire Transformation
Rashad’s presentations blend heartfelt storytelling, humor, and hard-earned wisdom to engage audiences on both a personal and professional level. He creates a safe space for vulnerability and reflection while offering practical, forward-thinking strategies to break through barriers and move confidently into the future. Most importantly, Rashad equips participants with immediate, actionable tools that drive lasting transformation well beyond the event.
Keynote ONE
Don’t Burn Your Cake.®- Healthcare Professionals & Leadership Teams
Healthcare professionals don’t burn out because they don’t care. They burn out because they care deeply in environments that demand constant emotional presence, high-stakes decisions, and sustained pressure. In this powerful and relatable keynote, Rashad Hayes draws from his lived experience as a cancer survivor, medical social worker, and burnout researcher to reframe burnout not as a personal failure, but as a signal calling for recalibration.
Using the Don’t Burn Your Cake® mindset and the CAKE Methodology (Continue to Learn, Always Love Yourself, Know Your Worth, Enjoy Your Life), Rashad helps healthcare professionals recognize early warning signs of burnout, release guilt tied to rest, and build practical habits that protect emotional and physical energy. With raw honesty, well-timed humor, and real-world application, this session empowers caregivers to continue serving with purpose without losing themselves in the process.
Ideal for: Hospitals, clinics, healthcare conferences, social work organizations, and helping professionals seeking sustainable care.
Don’t Burn Your Cake.®- Leadership Teams
Burnout is rarely a motivation problem. It’s a culture problem. In this engaging and thought-provoking keynote, Rashad Hayes challenges leaders to rethink how pressure, expectations, and systems influence performance and well-being. Drawing on his background in healthcare, research, and organizational burnout, Rashad reframes burnout as a leadership signal, not an individual shortcoming.
Through the Don’t Burn Your Cake® mindset and the CAKE Methodology (Continue to Learn, Always Love Yourself, Know Your Worth, Enjoy Your Life), leaders gain insight into how they shape the “oven” their teams operate in. This session equips leaders with practical strategies to build clarity, protect capacity, and foster cultures where people can perform at a high level without burning out. The result is healthier teams, stronger engagement, and performance that lasts.
Ideal for: Executive teams, managers, supervisors, leadership retreats, and organizations committed to sustainable performance.
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
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Recognize the early warning signs of burnout before it’s too late
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Shift mindset to view challenges as opportunities for growth and renewal
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Build practical habits that protect energy and sustain motivation
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Cultivate emotional strength to navigate uncertainty and pressure with grace
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Create a balanced path that fuels both personal fulfillment and professional success
TESTIMONIALS FROM ATTENDEES
Hear What They’re Saying!
Keynote two
Same Oven, Different Heat
Resilience, Pressure, and the Cost of High Performance
Not everyone experiences pressure the same way.
The same environment can produce growth for some and exhaustion for others.
Same Oven, Different Heat explores how identity, expectations, and lived experience shape how people respond to stress and performance demands. Rashad draws from his journey as a cancer survivor, social worker, and professional speaker to help audiences understand resilience beyond grit and hustle.
This keynote invites individuals and organizations to rethink performance, equity, and support, recognizing that sustainable success requires flexibility, awareness, and compassion.
Ideal For:
Universities, healthcare systems, DEI initiatives, leadership conferences, and organizations navigating change.
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
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Key Takeaways:
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Understand why pressure impacts people differently
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Recognize hidden factors that influence resilience and burnout
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Build awareness without lowering standards
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Create pathways for high performance that honor humanity
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Audiences Love Rashad
Testimonials & Audience Feedback
WALTER BOND
CEO & Professional Speaker, Walter Bond Worldwide Inc.
Tanya Shadburn
Teacher at Southside Preparatory Magnet Academy
GREG COLEMAN
Keynote Speaker/Author, Former NFL Punter
Audiences Love Rashad
Testimonials & Audience Feedback
Need a Keynote Customized to Fit the Needs of Your Event?
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KEYNOTE THREE
Clean the Kitchen
Clean the Kitchen: High Performance Starts With the Environment
Clean the Kitchen, from Don’t Burn Your Cake, shifts the conversation from individual coping to organizational responsibility. Because you can teach people all the self-care in the world, but if the kitchen is dirty, chaotic, and unsafe, the cake will keep burning.
This message challenges leaders and organizations to examine their culture honestly.
- What behaviors are being tolerated?
- What systems are quietly exhausting people?
- What messes keep getting ignored in the name of “performance”?
- And who keeps paying the price?
Burnout thrives in cluttered kitchens: unclear expectations, poor communication, lack of psychological safety, inconsistent leadership, and cultures that reward overwork while calling it dedication. People don’t break because they’re weak. They fail because the environment keeps demanding without restoration.
