Ideas you can feel as well as think about
Research-informed talks and immersive experiences about work, change and what comes next
Resting Powerhouse sits somewhere between an ideas talk and a wellbeing experience.
Led by organisational behaviour academic, researcher and founder Dr Gemma Lord, our festival sessions bring together thoughtful perspectives on how we work and live with practical reflection, conversation and whole-person experience.
They are designed to leave people with more than an interesting idea - something to notice differently, something useful to work with, and something they can take away.
Available for festivals, ideas stages, wellbeing programmes, retreats and curated events.
Stop Forcing the Answer
Best suited to: ideas stages, wellbeing programmes and personal development spaces.
Thinking clearly when you don’t know what comes next
30 or 45 minute interactive talk
What if the answer becomes clearer when you stop trying to force it?
Dr Gemma Lord explores why difficult questions can become harder under pressure, and what changes when we create better conditions for thinking.
Expect research-informed ideas, guided reflection and a practical way to approach what comes next.
Participants leave with: a different way of understanding uncertainty, a practical tool for making a difficult question more workable, and a clearer sense of what deserves attention next.
When the Way You’re Working Stops Working
Best suited to: work, leadership, future-of-work and wellbeing programmes.
What pressure can reveal about pace, responsibility and how we want to work
30 or 45 minute interactive talk · 60 minute workshop available
Sometimes the problem isn’t that we need to cope better. Something about the way we are working no longer fits.
Drawing on organisational behaviour and research into work and organising, Gemma explores pressure, pace, responsibility and the things we quietly begin to treat as normal.
The session helps participants distinguish between personal patterns, relational expectations and the conditions surrounding their work - and consider what working differently might begin to look like.
Participants leave with: a richer understanding of what may be creating pressure, greater clarity about what they can change or influence, and one practical experiment to take back into working life.
Space to Think
Best suited to: workshop, wellbeing and retreat spaces.
A Resting Powerhouse experience for questions that need more room
45, 60 or 75 minute immersive session
Bring one question that deserves more room. Designed as a deliberately different pace within a busy festival programme, Space to Think gives people room to pause, process what has been occupying their attention and work more deeply with one question that matters.
In this immersive Resting Powerhouse experience, Gemma and the Resting Powerhouse team guide participants through practical mapping, quiet reflection, thoughtful conversation and an embodied reset.
There is no forced sharing and no pressure to solve everything. The session creates structured space to slow a question down, see what is actually going on and notice what deserves attention next.
Participants leave with: their own completed reflection tool, perspectives they may not have reached alone, and something tangible they can return to after the festival.
What makes a Resting Powerhouse session different?
Resting Powerhouse sessions are not lectures with a wellbeing exercise added at the end.
The thinking and the experience belong together.
We work with the idea that the conditions around us shape what we are able to notice, question and imagine. A good session therefore creates movement between ideas and experience - between thinking, noticing, the body, reflection and human connection.
Depending on the format, a Resting Powerhouse session might include guided reflection, a practical mapping tool, a short embodied or sensory practice, structured conversation, music or something tangible to take away.
Nobody is required to disclose personal material to participate meaningfully.
The aim is not to manufacture instant clarity.
We create the conditions in which something can become clearer.
Why Resting Powerhouse?
Resting Powerhouse grew from the idea that people do not always need more advice, information or pressure to make a decision.
Sometimes they need enough room to notice what is actually happening.
Our work brings research-informed thinking about work, organisations, care, change and decision-making into experiences that are accessible beyond academic and organisational settings.
The Rest Reflect Rebuild experience brings together practical tools, reflection, conversation and embodied practice. Participants have described questions becoming clearer, kinder and more manageable, and particularly valued the combination of different perspectives, practical structure and a carefully held experience.
That same approach underpins our festival work: intellectually substantial, human in delivery and useful beyond the moment itself.
About Dr Gemma Lord
Dr Gemma Lord is an organisational behaviour academic, researcher and founder of Resting Powerhouse.
With a PhD in Business & Management and extensive experience teaching, speaking and facilitating, her work explores how people experience work, care, responsibility, change and what comes next.
Through Resting Powerhouse, she brings research-informed thinking together with reflection, practical tools, conversation and whole-person experience.
For festival and event programmers
Resting Powerhouse sessions can be adapted to different programme settings, from a 30-minute ideas-stage talk to a smaller 60-75 minute immersive workshop.
Formats are designed to work with light technical requirements and can be shaped around the character of the programme while retaining the core Resting Powerhouse approach.
Available for:
Festivals
Ideas and talks stages
Wellbeing programmes
Workshop and retreat spaces
Workplace festivals and employee events
Curated experiences
Short and longer programme descriptions, biography, imagery and production information are available for listings and submissions.
Bring Resting Powerhouse to your programme
If you are planning a festival, talks programme, wellbeing space or curated event and think one of these sessions could fit, we’d love to hear what you are creating.
Talk to Gemma about your programme