KEYNOTE SPEAKER · AUTHOR OF MORE THRIVING, LESS GRUMBLING
THE BOOK IN THE ROOM
Send everyone home with the book.
Copies of More Thriving, Less Grumbling are available at a quantity price for your attendees, and every reader can download the free Companion Workbook. The talk starts the work. The book keeps it going.
Talks that leave leaders with something to do on Monday morning.
Mike Ferrell brings the Rule of St. Benedict to business, ministry and church audiences: faith-connected, practical, and drawn from over 40 years of strategy and leadership coaching across 75 industries.
KEYNOTES
Two keynotes from the book
KEYNOTE 1 · 45 MINUTES
Stop Living the Divided Life
Most Christian leaders know the feeling: successful by every outside measure, one person at church on Sunday and another at work on Monday. St. Benedict had a word for what follows: grumbling, the low hum that sets in when the work has lost its reason. Drawing on the Rule, four decades of coaching and his own collapse and recovery, Mike shows how five monastic principles rebuild an integrated life and a fully human organization.
Everyone leaves with a one-page Personal Rule of Life, started in the room.
For Christian business groups, breakfasts and luncheons, men’s and women’s conferences, church leadership gatherings.
KEYNOTE 2 · 45–60 MINUTES
Your Business Needs a Rule
Benedict didn’t hand his monks a mission statement and wish them well. He gave them a Rule specific enough to govern an ordinary Tuesday. Mike introduces Strategic RULE (Reflect, Understand, Lead, Execute), the planning system he built from the Rule and four decades of strategy work. Leaders learn why every plan starts with Reflect, how to tell a real strategy from a tactic wearing its clothes, and the two habits that keep a plan alive past March.
Everyone leaves with the one decision their team keeps re-debating, and a way to settle it.
FORMATS
Built around your event
Keynote. 45 to 60 minutes, in person or virtual.
Two-hour session. Either keynote, with guided work time. People leave with a finished first draft, not just notes.
Keynote to workshop. A talk for the whole room, then a working session with its leaders.
Leadership retreat. A half or full day for a leadership team, built on one Monk Principle.
Podcast and media. Interviews for shows that serve leaders, business owners and people of faith.
ON THE AIR
“He hands you real tools, not just theory, and he does it with the kind of honesty that makes you trust every page. This is a book for the leader who’s still standing, still building, and ready to do it from a deeper place.” — Becca Powers, USA TODAY Best-Selling Author
FOR EVENT HOSTS
About Mike
Mike Ferrell, OblOSB, known as The Monk Guy, is a Benedictine oblate and a strategy and leadership coach with over 40 years of experience across 75 industries. He founded Principled Flourishing Group, co-founded the Certificate of Integrated Leadership at the Benedictine Leadership Institute at Mount Marty University, and co-hosts Resonance: A Podcast for Leaders. He is the author of More Thriving, Less Grumbling, Ultimate Breakthrough Planning, The Sweet Spot and Sell Like a Monk.
Mike’s books: Ultimate Breakthrough Planning: The Business Funnel Approach and The Sweet Spot: Where Business Strategy, Positive Psychology and Faith Principles Converge and Sell Like a Monk: Timeless “Rules” For Modern Selling. Mike’s newest book, More Thriving, Less Grumbling: A Field Guide to Monastic Principles for Leading Wisely and Creating Impact will be released November 10, 2026.
Podcasts and media
Mike co-hosts Resonance: A Podcast for Leaders with Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Steve Azar and business strategist Randy Harrington, Ph.D., and is a regular guest on shows for leaders and people of faith.
Listen: Resonance: A Podcast for Leaders That Unpacks The Power Of Song, Silence and Strategy → resonanceleader.com
Conversations Mike can bring to your show
· The divided life, and how leaders end it
· What a 1,500-year-old Rule teaches about burnout
· Why most plans die in March, and how a Rule keeps them alive
· Profound Hospitality: turning customers into cheerleaders
