CONNECTION SHOULDN’T BE CONVENIENT. IT SHOULD cost you something.

LET’S CONNECT

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I’M CHRIS SCHEMBRA: SPEAKER, AUTHOR, and QUESTION ASKER.

For the past decade, I've hosted over 800 Gratitude Experiences, serving tens of thousands of people, and partnered with more than 400 companies, from Google and Microsoft to Dell and the U.S. Navy, all built around one premise: meaningful connection requires friction. Not friction as obstacle. Friction as ingredient.

It started with a pot of pasta and a single question at 7:47 PM. What I discovered is that we're not suffering from a lack of technology, productivity, or information. We're suffering from what I call Soul Poverty, the quiet devastation of succeeding at everything you were told to optimize for and still feeling empty. The Surgeon General called loneliness an epidemic. I call it the tax on convenience.

My work, from keynote stages to executive sessions to intimate gatherings, gives leaders the language, the framework, and the lived experience to build the kind of connection that actually holds weight. Not the networking kind. The earned kind.

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CHRIS in THE ROOM

“Chris has a unique gift in connecting with others to help us be our best selves at work! His thoughtful and authentic focus on gratitude in engaging ways fostered camaraderie amongst the Citi team during our Gratitude Experience, building true connections and a meaningful shared experience.”

—Morgan McKenney, Chief Operating Officer, Citi
"On the battlefield I've seen the effect that energy and enthusiasm plays as a force multiplier. Chris brings a level of passion that permeates his audience and positively affects the morale of everyone he comes in contact with."

—Colonel David Sutherland (Bronze Star and Purple Heart Award, US Army)
“Chris is a fiercely committed person to what he believes in, the Power of Human Connection through his keynotes and experiences. He is a person who brings the good out in others and his positive energy is contagious from the stage!"

—Michael Roberts, Former President and COO, McDonald’s Corporation
"A completely new way to connect with our customers, prospects, and teams, but more importantly - a way for them all to connect with one-another! Chris Schembra is the inventor of this type of human connection construct, and never before has this been deployed in the world of Enterprise Software / Cloud."

—Tony Safoian, President, CEO at SADA Systems
"Many of our employees said this was the best 90 minutes they'd ever spent at Dell. I connected with someone that I had not before. It got deep and personal quick. We haven’t been able to connect like that, and people are really going through some things right now. The world is on fire right now and you're here to help them put out those fires."

—Erik Day, SVP Small Business Dell Technologies
“Chris’ keynote at our Mastermind Summit helped me find gratitude for some of my greatest setbacks and adversities.”

—Ryan Serhant
“Chris, you radiated authenticity. A unique trait I hope to grow and develop myself. I took away so many nuggets of wisdom pertaining to our field, but with that out-of-the-box perspective. Something I feel that everyone needs and can benefit from, but rarely receive. One of our biggest goals from the keynote address and you pulled it off!”

— Alyson Stoffer, Co-Chair, North Carolina Philanthropy Conference

We engineered FRICTION out of our lives and called it PROGRESS. The result? SOUL POVERTY.

We replaced dinner tables with Slack channels, handwritten notes with auto-generated messages, and real questions with small talk. And now we're paying for it. One in five employees feels lonely at work. Engagement just hit a ten-year low. Burnout is at an all-time high. These aren't engagement problems. They're connection problems, and you can't solve a connection problem with another survey, app, or offsite with a trust fall.

Our work helps leaders and organizations reintroduce designed friction, the purposeful, intentional effort that makes connection cost something again, so it finally means something again.