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Leadership is rarely calm. Peace as a leader is even more rare. Pressure, conflict, and constant change can test even the most seasoned professionals. In today’s climate of layoffs, disruption, and uncertainty, a leader’s state of mind can make—or break—a team. Stress, anxiety, and negative emotions don’t just live inside you; they leak out and shape the culture around you. But lasting success—and personal peace—come from mastering yourself first. In this keynote, Dr. Tom McDougal shares 11 timeless lessons for leading with composure, humility, and intention. Drawing on decades in executive leadership, he explores how emotionally aware leaders build trust, create stability, and make better decisions—no matter what challenges they face. In an era of disruption and uncertainty, these principles offer a steady foundation for leading with confidence, credibility, and calm.

  Friction is inherent in the sales cycle in the form of Cost Frictions and Bias Frictions. To improve your close rate and speed to close, you must recognize, manage, and remove these frictions. This innovative and groundbreaking approach teaches you the how and why with practical theory, strategies, and case studies. 

“I never understood why decision makers acted as they did during the sales cycle – now I understand. With this strategy, I am much more effective in my methods, and I am closing more deals faster.” 

Whether you are a sales professional, a sales team leader, or a company leader, you need this strategy to improve your sales efficiency and margins. 

Selling to the Pain: Closing More Deals in Healthcare Sales (2016) is a revolutionary strategic methodology to improve sales efficiency and close rates. The pain a potential customer is experiencing is the result of a lack of performance in financial, quality, or satisfaction key metrics. To be successful, you must diagnose the pain, communicate your solution effectively, and close the deal. 

During the past two decades, the culture of decision making has changed but many companies have not pivoted their sales strategy to be effective long term. Competition is fierce. Selling to the Pain is proven to create a competitive advantage to drive results in what matters – efficiently closing more deals.

Through Dr. McDougal’s insights and advisement in of the Selling to the Pain strategy, you can achieve an advantage over your competition by capturing the decision maker’s attention and improving efficiency to close more deals. 

Prior to 2019, Dr. Tom McDougal’s work with companies selling solutions to healthcare organizations led to revolutionary strategies and accelerated sales growth. During his time as a professor at Samford University, he instructed graduate students in Economics and developed a passion for Behavioral Economics. His first book, Selling to the Pain, was growing in impact in the industry. But, Dr. McDougal developed a new curiosity related to patient decision making of when and why they choose to purchase healthcare services, and from which healthcare provider.

In late 2020, Dr. McDougal published Predicting Patient Decisions which has sold 1000s of copies and is used in the same Samford University Economics course he created. Economics, and more importantly Behavioral Economics, provides clear insights into why, when, and from which organizations patients will choose healthcare services. Before spending substantial time or capital, healthcare executives of all levels need to understand the why of patients. The ROI can be substantial.