Matt Heyward - Hire Keynote and Guest Speaker

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Key Points for Matt Heyward

A long time mental health advocate Matt Heyward was also a key member of the team behind the multi award winning preventative health initiative The Arts Wellbeing Collective, an Arts Centre Melbourne initiative that promotes positive mental health and wellbeing in the performing arts industry.
Matt has been a respected and sought after member of the performing arts industry for over 20 years. His career began in the original Australian cast of the hit show Mamma Mia! and has gone on to include working on some of the most high profile shows in the world - Les Miserables, The Phantom of the Opera, Mary Poppins, and Billy Elliot to name but a few. His career has also seen him work alongside some industry greats including Dame Julie Andrews.
From his experience in both the performing arts industry and the mental health and wellbeing sector Matt has extensive skills and knowledge, offering a unique lens on the power of storytelling and its impact on personal and organisational effectiveness.
Matt’s perspective and storytelling brings with it the more interesting angle of the performing arts world, making him a more appealing presenter / speaker for many audiences. He can also offer a musical performance piece as part of his presentations if appropriate.

Topics for Matt Heyward

Helping to shift the narrative around: Self-care, mental health and wellbeing
The stories we absorb about self-care, mental health and wellbeing from the media, our friends, families, peers, and workplaces can be confusing and even conflicting. What does it really mean to “fit your own oxygen mask first”? Is self-care really selfish? Is mental health the same as mental illness? This session offers practical insights about self-care, mental health and wellbeing, and address some of the most common myths and misinformation about these vital topics.
Helping to shift the narrative around: Performance anxiety and imposter syndrome
Feeling nervous before a performance, a big meeting, an audition or a job interview is normal – and usually, the stress resolves once the situation resolves. What sorts of strategies can we drawn on to make those nerves help us, rather than hinder us? And what about that sneaky voice in our heads saying we’re going to be ‘found out’? Where does it come from, and why can it take such a hold on us, even when we know it’s illogical? This session focuses on performance thriving – identifying and understanding those stories that hinder our performance, and what strategies we can engage in that will instead energise and empower.
Helping to shift the narrative around: Resilience, stress and burnout
“Resilience” is a hot topic – whether we’re being told to be more resilient or build resilient organisations, it feels like we’ve moved a long way from what resilience really means. Stress and burnout often go hand in hand in stories about resilience in the workplace. What do these concepts really mean? Can we be more resilient? If so, how? Is stress unavoidable? Is it always bad? What about burnout? What’s the difference between stress and burnout? This session addresses the stories we’ve created about resilience, stress, and burnout, and offers strategies to reframe the stories we tell and help us thrive.
Shift the narrative: Working well in the performing arts
Storytelling is in our DNA. As performers, we engage with stories deeply – knowing characters, context, motivations, and movements. But how much attention do we pay to the stories we tell ourselves? About what it means to be creative. To be a performer. Or the stories we tell when we feel like we’re not good enough, not working hard enough, or not ‘successful’ enough. These stories can drive us, but they can also hold us back. This session focuses on identifying and understanding the stories we tell – and sell – ourselves in the performing arts industry, and empowering, energising strategies to help you thrive.
Shift the narrative: From strategy to action
Are you struggling to move from ‘talk’ to ‘walk’? Do you feel like your organisation builds great plans and strategies that just sit on a shelf until they’re due for an update? Do you have major projects and initiatives that you’d love to work on, but never get to them? This practical, tactical workshop focuses on your unique needs, and identifies the stories, beliefs, and assumptions that might be getting in the way of doing great work. An empowering, energising session centred around your goals, objectives, and unique context.
Shift the narrative: Stories from the creative industries
Storytelling is the central work of performing artists and creative workers. However, those who work in the creative industries often experience a blurring of work life and home life, a deep passion that can lead to burnout, and continuous pressure to do more with less. Chances are, at lease of some of these factors feel familiar to your context. Having spent many years researching, responding, and better understanding these challenges, this session investigates the challenges faced in the creative industries, their transferability to other industries, and key strategies for thinking differently about how we live and work.
Mental health first aid
Learn how to assist adults who are developing a mental health problem, experiencing a worsening of an existing mental health problem or in a mental health crisis, until appropriate professional help is received, or the crisis resolves.
Narrative Shift Consulting offers Standard Mental Health First Aid via a blended online option, which offers a self-paced e-learning component, followed by two x 2.5-hour video conferencing sessions. Sessions are delivered by experienced, passionate instructors.
Standard Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training helps mobilise and empower adults in the workplace and community by equipping them with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to recognise, understand and respond to another adult experiencing a mental health problem or mental health crisis.
(Minimum group size 10 people).

Testimonials for Matt Heyward

Matt Heyward provided an impactful presentation on the topic of Imposter Syndrome for our team of mental health professionals. The workshop had us engaged from start to end. Importantly, the power of the session extended for some time, with staff still referencing various aspects of the talk months afterwards. Matt shared stories from the Performing Arts context, which had strong resonance and interesting parallels to our field of healthcare. He respectfully left the application of these ideas to us – allowing us to be inspired in our own way – in doing so, prompting a deeper personal connection to the material. We had high hopes for Matt’s session and he exceeded all our expectations. I’d have Matt work with our team again in a heart-beat.
Principal Psychologist