Michael McRay
Keynote speaker.
Author of The Wild Way.
Narrative intelligence trainer for leaders, teams, and the rooms in between.
three signature talks.
One conviction—
better stories make better futures.
Michael blends storytelling craft, narrative intelligence, experiential facilitation, and trauma-informed insight (without doing therapy) into talks that move audiences and stick.
The goal is always transformation and traction.
Recent keynote audiences include leaders at:
the storytelling leader
Logic moves files. Story moves people.
Read more →
the wild way through
Every transformation has a dark forest.
The wild way is how you walk through it without losing yourself.
Read more →
I am not your enemy
The skill we need now isn't a better pitch.
It's the courage to stay in the room with a story that sounds nothing like ours.
Read more →
The Storytelling Leader
Giving Your People a Story They Can Grow Toward
Your team doesn't need another directive. They need a story they can grow toward.
For leaders trying to land a new strategy and keep getting nods in the room and crickets in execution. For executives navigating a pivot, a merger, or a culture reset where the org chart is clean and the narrative is fractured. For sales teams who can feel a deal slipping into the spreadsheet. For anyone who's realized the plan isn't the problem. The story around it is.
What your audience leaves with:
Why facts don't change minds — and how story does
The three stories every leader is telling whether they realize it or not, and the one that decides whether their team is growing or grinding
A working method for restorying — diagnosing the narrative running their team and reshaping it without losing the thread
A simple framework for telling the kind of stories that move people now and point them somewhere worth going
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Conference keynote. Executive offsite. Sales kickoff. Leadership development cohort.
Often expanded into a half-day or full-day workshop, an Applied Narrative Intelligence cohort for senior teams, or licensed as The Storytelling Leader program for internal facilitators.
the Wild way Through
Navigating the Space Between the Old Story and the New
Every transformation has a dark forest. The wild way is how you walk through it without losing yourself.
For audiences in the in-between. For founders, leaders, and people who are quietly walking through their own dark forest while still showing up for everyone else's. For conferences, gatherings, and offsites that want a closing keynote with depth — not a motivational sugar rush — and a speaker willing to go first.
What your audience leaves with:
A frame for the threshold many of them are already in — Old Story, No Story, New Story — and why skipping the middle costs them
The folklore and neuroscience of transformation, told through Michael's own story of unraveling and reweaving
A reframing of wildness — not chaos, but a radical acceptance of one's own enoughness
Permission, language, and a sense of company for the work they're already doing
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Conference closing keynote. Founder retreat. Leadership offsite with a personal-growth thread. Faith-based leadership gathering.
Often paired with a book signing, a follow-up Q&A, or a Becoming Restoried coaching engagement.
Want to read the book before booking the talk?
the wild way
navigating the space between the old story and the new
I am Not Your Enemy
Storytelling Across the Divide
The skill we need now isn't a better pitch. It's the courage to stay in the room with a story that sounds nothing like ours.
For leaders inside organizations working through polarization that didn't come with a playbook. For internal communications and culture teams trying to communicate across deep difference inside their own walls. For foundations, journalists, and mission-driven nonprofits wrestling with whose stories get told and by whom. For faith-based leaders trying to keep a fractured community in the same room.
What your audience leaves with:
A working ethic for telling stories that aren't yours — power, profit, and participation
Practical tools for staying in the room when stories collide and the temptation is to leave it
A reframing of "the other side" — and why curiosity is the only honest starting point
Permission to say something true in a season where most people are saying something safe
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Conference keynote on civil discourse, peace-building, or culture. Foundation or journalism convening. Faith-based leadership gathering. Internal comms or DEI offsite.
Often paired with a workshop for teams on storytelling ethics or cross-difference communication.
Want to read the book before booking the talk?
I am Not Your Enemy
stories to transform a divided world
“I get the privilege of curating one of the world’s premier gatherings for storytellers. After over 10 years of events and 100+ speakers, Michael remains one of our top-rated and most-loved speakers. That’s why we have continued to partner with him not only as a speaker, but a go-to coach for our community.
He’s quite simply one of the best there is.”
Harris III
— Founder of Istoria Collective, Creator of STORY Gatherings
beyond the keynote
A keynote opens the door.
Most of Michael’s partners walk through it.
Here's what tends to come next.
Workshops & Cohorts
From half-day team workshops to multi-session leadership cohorts. Storytelling Leader programs for teams. Applied Narrative Intelligence cohorts for senior leaders. Ethics-of-storytelling workshops for nonprofits, journalists, and mission-driven teams.
Certifications & licensing
Train-the-Trainer licensing for The Storytelling Leader. Certifications in Applied Narrative Intelligence (ANI) and Experiential Narrative Practice (ENP) through Istoria Institute. For organizations and practitioners ready to build narrative capacity from the inside.
coaching
One-on-one and small-group coaching rooted in narrative identity work. The Becoming Restoried framework for leaders, founders, and people in the in-between. Six-month engagements; selective intake.
About Michael McRay
Michael McRay is a Nashville-based storytelling facilitator, narrative intelligence trainer, experiential coach, and keynote speaker. He helps leaders and teams communicate with clarity, build cultures of trust, and reckon with the stories shaping their work—so they can lead, sell, and change with greater impact.
Michael’s work has drawn clients like NASA, TEDx, Cisco, Accenture, Cigna, Pernod Ricard, WD-40, and the UK's Merlin Entertainments. He holds a master's in conflict resolution from Trinity College Dublin's Belfast campus and an executive certification in Public Narrative from Harvard's Kennedy School.
Michael is the founder of Becoming Restoried, a life-story coaching practice; the founding host of Tenx9 Nashville, where he has curated more than 1,200 true personal stories over 12+ years; and the designer and lead trainer for the Certifications in Applied Narrative Intelligence and Experiential Narrative Practice through the Istoria Institute.
He is the award-winning author of I Am Not Your Enemy and The Wild Way: Navigating the Space Between the Old Story and the New (October 2025), receiving praise from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Ishmael Beah, Colum McCann, Michelle Alexander, and Pádraig Ó Tuama.
He lives in Nashville with his 6-year-old son. He is, on most days, still trying to take his own advice
Book Michael
Have a room that needs a story?
Schedule a 15-minute call. We'll talk through your audience, the moment, and the talk that fits.
No pitch.