Speaking & keynotes · Shaun McClure
Some stories get applause. The right ones create movement.
Shaun McClure brings lived experience, mental health advocacy, justice-system insight, and hard-earned perspective into rooms that are ready for a real conversation.
No performance of perfection. No recycled motivational speech. Just truth, tools, and a reason to move forward.
Why Shaun
Lived experience without the polished edges.
I know what it means to be talked about by systems instead of talked with. I also know what happens when somebody finally gives you language for what you have lived through—and tools for what comes next.
My path includes childhood trauma, addiction, more than two decades of incarceration, mental health recovery, peer leadership, advocacy, community education, radio, public speaking, CIT training, and the long process of turning survival into service.
I don’t speak from a textbook about what it means to get stuck. I speak from the years I spent there—and the years I’ve spent learning how people move again.
The goal is not to impress a room. The goal is to reach the person sitting in it who has already decided nothing is going to change.
Signature topics
Talks built to stay with people.
These presentations can be adapted for keynote, workshop, panel, classroom, staff training, or community-event formats.
Signature Keynote
From Prison Bars to Purpose
A lived-experience journey through trauma, addiction, incarceration, mental health, recovery, identity, and rebuilding a life after years spent believing the story had already been written.
- Trauma and survival
- Addiction and incarceration
- Identity beyond your worst choices
- Recovery, service, and purpose
Framework
The Five Gears
A practical model for understanding change without pretending growth happens in a straight line. Participants learn how to identify where they are and what the next shift actually requires.
- Awareness & Acceptance
- Seeking Help & Research
- Discipline, Healing & Growth
- Purpose, Momentum & Legacy
Men’s Mental Health
The Warrior’s Mind
A conversation about masculinity, toughness, vulnerability, trauma, emotional literacy, discipline, and why asking for help can require more strength than staying silent.
- Strength versus emotional shutdown
- Anger, shame, and vulnerability
- Discipline without self-destruction
- Redefining what it means to be strong
Justice & Behavioral Health
Mental Health & the Justice System
What systems can learn from people who have actually lived inside them. A direct discussion about crisis, incarceration, trauma, recovery, reentry, stigma, and the moments when human connection changes outcomes.
- Lived experience and system contact
- Trauma-informed response
- Crisis intervention and communication
- Recovery and reentry
Formats
Not every room needs the same microphone.
Programs are shaped around your audience, time frame, goals, and the conversation your organization actually needs.
- Keynotes
- High-impact storytelling and practical takeaways for conferences, summits, organizational events, recovery gatherings, and community audiences.
- Workshops & Training
- Interactive sessions built around the Five Gears, lived experience, mental health, stigma, justice-system issues, resilience, communication, and recovery.
- Panels & Conversations
- Moderated discussions, panels, fireside-style conversations, school events, podcasts, radio, and community forums where dialogue matters more than a podium.
Who I speak to
Built for rooms where the conversation matters.
Every audience is different. The through-line is the same: mental health becomes more useful when we stop treating people like case studies and start talking to them like human beings.
Schools & Youth
Age-appropriate conversations about mental health, stigma, help-seeking, identity, pressure, resilience, and what strength actually looks like.
Behavioral Health
Lived-experience perspective for clinicians, peer professionals, treatment providers, and organizations working where systems meet real lives.
Justice & Crisis Response
Human-centered insight into incarceration, reentry, stigma, crisis response, addiction, trauma, de-escalation, and recovery.
Conferences & Community
Keynotes, panels, workshops, nonprofits, leadership events, recovery gatherings, mental health conferences, and community conversations.
More than a story
The Five Gears give people somewhere to go next.
A powerful story can open a door. A framework gives people a way to walk through it.
The Five Gears turn the lessons behind Shaun’s lived experience into a practical progression audiences can remember after the event is over.
- 1Awareness & Acceptance
- 2Seeking Help & Research
- 3Discipline, Healing & Growth
- 4Purpose & Momentum
- 5Mastery & Legacy
In the room
Lived experience backed by real-world leadership.
Shaun’s work spans mental health advocacy, community education, crisis-intervention education, public speaking, radio, peer leadership, and conversations with schools, behavioral-health professionals, nonprofits, justice-system partners, and community organizations.
Bring Shaun Into the Room
If your audience is ready for a real conversation, let’s build one worth remembering.
Tell me about your event, audience, location, format, and what you want people to walk away with. We’ll shape the right presentation from there.
Read Shaun’s full biography · The Stigma Shift podcast
Available for keynotes, panels, workshops, school presentations, conferences, behavioral health events, justice-system audiences, nonprofit events, podcasts, and community conversations.