Creating the atmosphere for genuine collaboration
Inspired Lives is the home of Carl Billington's MC, mentoring and leadership services.
Carl founded Inspired Lives in 2004 as a way of making his unique approach as a facilitator and MC available to others. An experienced facilitator and coach, Carl specialises in building a sense of team that brings diverse (even opposing) groups of people together and creating an atmosphere that enables the most efficient and effective ways to collaborate.
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Working with Carl is quite unlike working with anyone else. Those who have experienced Carl's approach as an MC consistently comment on the kindness, humility and humour he leads with: it changes the atmosphere in the room. Carl is equally comfortable facilitating a room of 200 participants as he working with the smallest of groups. He's a certified extrovert with rockstar tendencies when it comes to fashion, but those who work with him find he has an understated way of shifting focus from his role as MC to the talent, creativity and possibility the participants brought into the room with them.
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He'd love to chat if you'd like some better ways to engage your stakeholders, or even just trade ideas over a hot chocolate or two.
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OUR SERVICES
Mentoring & Coaching
Having a coach or mentor available to resource, challenge and inspire you is invaluable. It's like having your own personal cheerleader, leadership peer and supervisor all rolled into one.
A good mentor brings a fresh perspective to the way you engage with the challenges and opportunities on your horizon, while coaching can help develop a specific skill-set. We'd love to explore how we might help you or your team.
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Facilitation/MC Support
A good MC isn't just someone who can talk in front of an audience - that's the least important skill.
A good MC sets an atmosphere that brings the room together, draws out the doubts and reservations, and subtly scaffolds participants into a productive unity.
A great MC is both obvious and subtle, and participants leave impressed by what they accomplished together - rather than how clever the MC was. That's Carl. Get in touch. If the stakes are high - or even if they aren't - this is where he excels.
Engagement Design
When was the last truly memorable event you attended? When were you last truly engaged, challenged and stimulated?
Carl's event design kete defies convention - drawing on everything from game design, educational theory, social theatre and the psychology of stories, practical aesthetics and best practice slide design and content presentation. But you'll never notice those big words. What you will notice is the level of engagement and attention of your audience. If you've an engagement need, get Carl to help with your event design. (He even does weddings!)
ABOUT
Carl founded Inspired Lives in 2004 as a way of bringing all his creative, community and professional interests together under one umbrella. He's a proud Wellingtonian and public servant who lives life to the fullest and is committed to doing whatever he can to help others do the same.
A certified extrovert and endless optimist, Carl is convinced we can all live more inspired lives.
Carl's formal education includes the usual communication, marketing and management disciplines you would expect, but with a healthy dose of rock music history, human psychology and ethical philosophy on the side.
Outside of work, Carl runs the Inspired Lives School of Self-Defence and is heavily involved in his local community running open mic music nights, community board game clubs, leading the St Mary's Sacred Secular Band, and raising a family of three teenagers and a socially dependent rottweiler with his wife Karla. He is also the creator of the Corporate Rockstar satirical radio drama that combines heavy metal guitar, corporate satire and endless 80s music and popculture references.
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Carl was also equally proud and humbled to win the 2024 Speights Great Mate Award.
