Presenters: Tammy Winner, Ph.D., and Michelle Hamilton, CEO

Format: Full-Day Interactive Workshop

Category: Leadership and Professional Development workshop

Workshop Description: Two women. Same playground. Same bully. Fifty years later, two very different paths to success.

What if the experiences that challenged us most became the foundation for our greatest professional strengths?

Fifty years ago, two young girls encountered the same bully on the same playground. Although they shared the experience, they developed different responses to adversity. One cultivated resilience, determination, and courage. The other developed empathy, compassion, and an understanding of others.

Today, those two girls are accomplished professional women and lifelong best friends.

In Same Playground: Different Paths. Powerful Leaders., Tammy Winner, Ph.D., and Michelle Hamilton, CEO, transform their personal story into an engaging, hands-on leadership development experience.

Through storytelling, interactive exercises, small-group challenges, and practical workplace scenarios, participants explore how adversity influences their professional identities, decision-making, relationships, and leadership styles.

At the heart of this workshop is a powerful idea: Adversity does not have to define our limitations. It can become a source of strength.

Participants will discover how to recognize the strengths they have developed through challenging experiences, reframe setbacks as opportunities for growth, and intentionally cultivate resilience and empathy as complementary leadership capabilities.

Using the five-step Scar-to-Strength framework—Recognize, Reframe, Respond, Reconnect, and Rise—participants will move beyond reflection to practical application.

Throughout the day, participants will collaborate on realistic workplace challenges, practice navigating difficult professional relationships, and develop strategies for responding to conflict, uncertainty, criticism, and change.

By the conclusion of the workshop, every participant will have created a personalized Scar-to-Strength Leadership Playbook—a practical resource for transforming personal experiences into professional strengths and leading with greater confidence, empathy, and purpose.

This workshop is not about remaining defined by what happened to us.

It is about discovering who we can become because of what we have learned.

Participant Takeaways

Participants will leave with a personalized Scar-to-Strength Leadership Playbook, practical strategies for addressing workplace intimidation, tools for developing resilience and empathy, techniques for navigating difficult professional relationships, and a 30-day leadership action plan.

Intended Audience

This workshop is designed for professionals at all career stages, including emerging leaders, managers, technical professionals, project leaders, educators, and executives seeking to strengthen their leadership capabilities, improve workplace relationships, and respond more effectively to adversity.

No previous leadership training is required.