Dr. Jody Carrington
Renowned Psychologist | Human Connection Expert | Bestselling Author
Book Professor Maja, Communication Speaker
About This Speaker
Professor Maja is the leading expert on gendered confidence killers. A sociologist, she is known for her charismatic storytelling on the everyday obstacles women face in building confidence. As an authority on confidence and apologetic communication, she addresses the personal and professional barriers women encounter globally. Professor Maja believes confidence is a muscle that strengthens with use and a skill that can be built. Action comes first, and confidence follows.
Her passion for women’s confidence began 12 years ago at a conference, where she heard women downplaying their achievements and speaking apologetically. She observed similar tendencies in her undergraduate students during her ten years in academia. This led her to leave academia and focus on independent research full-time.
In 2019, Professor Maja launched the largest global qualitative study on women’s confidence, which is still ongoing. With over 425 women interviewed across 26 countries and over 2,000 hours of interview data, she engages women from various industries and cultures about the factors influencing their confidence and communication habits.
Professor Maja authored Hey Ladies, Stop Apologizing…and Other Career Mistakes Women Make, along with an accompanying workbook. Her audiobook is a compilation of her books and TV appearances.
In 2019, Professor Maja gave her first TEDx talk, “How Apologies Kill Our Confidence.” Soon after, TED IDEAS interviewed her and published the most-read article of 2019, “Sorry to Bother You, But Do You Say ‘Sorry’ Too Much?”
Professor Maja’s talks, whether in television, conferences, or private companies, are both inspiring and practical. They are filled with “a-ha” moments, leaving audiences empowered and energized. Her compelling stage presence blends sociology with sequins for a unique, non-traditional experience.
Known for being a little extra—like her personal style—Professor Maja is often described as an exclamation point, and there’s a lot of truth to that!
Contact an agent to get Professor's availability and ratesSpeaking Topics: Professor Maja
Confidence under Construction: Overcoming our confidence killers 
Self-confidence is a skill that can be developed, it is not something we are born with, it is something we learn through practice. Unfortunately, there’s an entire culture that is built on the idea that women need to be “fixed”, or that we innately lack confidence. This is the confidence cult or culture we live in. We’ll explore why the business of self-improvement is disproportionately directed at women, which, you guessed it, ends up hurting our confidence. We will explore the internal influences on our confidence, such as the inner critic. Lastly, we’ll discuss the external hurdles to our confidence, namely, gendered expectations and the unequal household division of labour.
Join Professor Maja in this unique and energizing keynote to learn the truth about confidence. Let’s dismantle the idea that women innately lack confidence and need to be fixed. You’ll walk away with a new understanding of confidence and strategies to buffer the social and personal forces that so often hurt our confidence.
Join Professor Maja and learn:
• How and why the self-help industry disproportionately focuses on women’s “lack of confidence.”
• How the internal factors of self-criticism and rumination hurt our confidence.
• How external factors such as the household division of labour and gendered expectations negatively impact women’s confidence.
• Strategies to address both internal and external factors.
Join Professor Maja in this unique and energizing keynote to learn the truth about confidence. Let’s dismantle the idea that women innately lack confidence and need to be fixed. You’ll walk away with a new understanding of confidence and strategies to buffer the social and personal forces that so often hurt our confidence.
Join Professor Maja and learn:
• How and why the self-help industry disproportionately focuses on women’s “lack of confidence.”
• How the internal factors of self-criticism and rumination hurt our confidence.
• How external factors such as the household division of labour and gendered expectations negatively impact women’s confidence.
• Strategies to address both internal and external factors.
Forget the Apologies and learn to lead with Confidence
Apologies are confidence killers. So, why are women apologizing so much? Women have a lower threshold of what they consider to be apology worthy moments. However, with every needless apology we give out, it chips away at our confidence.
Professor Maja is on a mission to turn the apologetic communication styles of women into confidence-building lingo. Apologies have become a habitual way of communicating for so many of us, and it is intimately linked to deflection of praise, humbleness and gender stereotypes.
Join Professor Maja for this very popular keynote and learn:
• Why women over apologize.
• How apologetic communication patterns like feminine modesty and deflection of praise, hurts women’s confidence.
• How gender stereotypes and biases influence our communication habits.
• What to say instead of sorry.
Professor Maja is on a mission to turn the apologetic communication styles of women into confidence-building lingo. Apologies have become a habitual way of communicating for so many of us, and it is intimately linked to deflection of praise, humbleness and gender stereotypes.
Join Professor Maja for this very popular keynote and learn:
• Why women over apologize.
• How apologetic communication patterns like feminine modesty and deflection of praise, hurts women’s confidence.
• How gender stereotypes and biases influence our communication habits.
• What to say instead of sorry.
Failure Myths: Why Mistakes are the Secret to Mastery.
Everyone fails, so why do we internalize our failures so much?
When we make a mistake, or fail, why do we often feel like failures? Worse, why do we get stuck in that negative critical self-talk, a world of “I should have…” reminding ourselves of our mistakes and shortcomings, rather than recognizing our successes?
Join Professor Maja and learn:
• Why we’re so self-critical and why it’s detrimental for us
• Why perfectionism and multitasking are so damaging to our confidence
• How to reduce self-criticism & strengthen our compassionate self-talk
When we make a mistake, or fail, why do we often feel like failures? Worse, why do we get stuck in that negative critical self-talk, a world of “I should have…” reminding ourselves of our mistakes and shortcomings, rather than recognizing our successes?
Join Professor Maja and learn:
• Why we’re so self-critical and why it’s detrimental for us
• Why perfectionism and multitasking are so damaging to our confidence
• How to reduce self-criticism & strengthen our compassionate self-talk
Overcoming Imposter Syndrome: why you’re not a fraud:
Imposter Syndrome is heavily promoted as an individual problem, requiring individual solutions. But we don’t spend enough time discussing how and why our confidence gets chipped away at in the first place, which then leads to us feeling like imposters.
Join Professor Maja in this energizing and information-jammed keynote to explore why the imposter syndrome affects so many of us and how to effectively manage it. We will discuss both the internal and external influences on our self doubt, including perfectionism and people-pleasing.
Learning Objectives:
• Understand the common fears behind the imposter syndrome and identify how it shows up in our lives
• Discuss how our confidence & communication styles are influenced by perfectionism, people pleasing and gendered expectations.
• Discuss actionable science-backed strategies on how we can grow our confidence & hold others accountable
Join Professor Maja in this energizing and information-jammed keynote to explore why the imposter syndrome affects so many of us and how to effectively manage it. We will discuss both the internal and external influences on our self doubt, including perfectionism and people-pleasing.
Learning Objectives:
• Understand the common fears behind the imposter syndrome and identify how it shows up in our lives
• Discuss how our confidence & communication styles are influenced by perfectionism, people pleasing and gendered expectations.
• Discuss actionable science-backed strategies on how we can grow our confidence & hold others accountable
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