Michael McRay
Narrative intelligence for leaders, teams,
& the stories shaping their work
“One of Nashville’s leading story experts”
- TEDX
“michael mcray is ONE OF THE BEST STORYTELLING minds IN THE BUSINESS.”
— David Hutchens, internationally-regarded storytelling trainer
(NASA, Cisco, L'Oréal, Walmart)
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.
Michael’s work has been brought to:
where to start?
“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 as 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
For event planners
For conference organizers, association programmers, and corporate event planners filling a stage or a room.
You don't just need another motivational speaker.
You need someone who'll make your audience feel something real, give them something usable, and make you look great for booking them.
Michael delivers keynotes, breakout sessions, and speaker prep that work just as well in a corporate ballroom as in a conference of educators or association of mission-driven leaders. He customizes every engagement to your theme, your audience, and the moment your organization is in.
ENGAGING KEYNOTES
Signature talks and most-requested topics on storytelling, narrative intelligence, leadership communication, and navigating change. Customized for your audience.
INTERACTIVE STORYTELLING EXPERIENCES
Story circles, audience-connection sessions, guided reflection, and curated storytelling showcases. For when you want a session that feels alive in the room — not another lecture. Michael customizes the experience to your audience and outcomes.
workshop &
breakout sessions
Interactive 60-, 90-, or 120-minute sessions for conference programming. Storytelling for leadership, communication, culture, and change. Options available for teaching workshops, or highly-customizable experientials.
author talks
Book-tied keynotes drawn from The Wild Way (2025) and I Am Not Your Enemy (2020 American Book Fest Best Book Award in Social Change). Ideal for conferences with a literary, leadership, or peacebuilding theme.
STORY COACHING FOR SPEAKERS
Prep your TEDx-style speakers, executive presenters, or featured storytellers ahead of your event.
Whether your event includes employee speakers, leadership presentations, or a curated storytelling showcase, Michael coaches on story selection, structure, emotional integrity, and stage delivery—so your people walk on stage courageously, ready to wow.
KEYNOTE + WORKSHOP COMBINATIONS
The highest-ROI format. Open with a keynote that moves the whole room, then deepen the work with selected leaders, teams, or VIPs in a workshop or coaching session.
“Carrie and Josh were absolutely fantastic. Their stories really moved people and energized the audience and their stage presence was spot on. Thank you for all the work you put into their talks. It really shows.”
Have an event in mind?
Tell Michael the date, audience, and what you're trying to make happen — he'll respond within 24 hours.
For leaders & teams
For CEOs, founders, heads of people, L&D leaders, and executive teams investing in how their people communicate, lead, and change together.
Most communication problems aren't simply communication problems — they're narrative problems.
The story your team is telling itself about the work, the change, the strategy, or each other shapes everything downstream.
Michael helps leaders and teams find the right stories, build the skills to tell them, and reckon with the narratives quietly running the show.
He also creates the conditions for something rarer: teams that actually know each other.
Through guided story practice, his sessions move colleagues past the surface scripts of work into the kind of mutual understanding that makes collaboration, trust, and hard conversations possible. The work is rooted in nearly 15 years of practice across Fortune 500 boardrooms, conflict zones, and peacebuilding circles — and it's designed to stick long after the engagement ends.
workshops & training
Half-day, full-day, and multi-day storytelling and narrative intelligence training for teams, leadership groups, and professional development days. Move past inspiration into real practice with world-class programs like The Storytelling Leader.
Certifications & train-the-trainers
License this work into your organization. Michael is the designer and lead trainer for the Certifications in Applied Narrative Intelligence and Experiential Narrative Practice through the Istoria Institute, as well as the Senior Facilitator of The Storytelling Leader’s Train-the-Trainer program.
LEADERSHIP RETREATS & OFFSITES
Facilitation for executive teams, leadership groups, staff retreats, and strategic offsites. Highly experiential—structured enough to keep things moving, human enough to make space for what actually matters.
executive story/
speaking coaching
Private coaching for a CEO, founder, or senior leader preparing a high-stakes talk, all-hands, board presentation, or investor pitch. Make it land—and sound like you. Focus on telling compelling stories, or on leveling up your public speaking communication as a whole.
MULTI-SESSION SERIES & ONGOING PROGRAMS
For organizations that want narrative intelligence to live beyond a single event. Cohort-based programs delivered over weeks or months, customized to your team's strategic moment.
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Used frequently by EO Forums, mission-driven nonprofits, and corporate leadership teams navigating transition, growth, or alignment moments. Formats range from a single day to multi-day immersive experiences.
conflict transformation coaching & facilitation
Specialized facilitation for teams in transition, post-restructure, or in conflict. Drawing on Michael's master's in conflict resolution from Trinity College Dublin's Belfast campus and certification in Conflict Coaching from the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. Michael provides team workshops on learning to navigate conflict, coaching for leaders facing conflict, and mediation.
curious if this fits your team?
Send Michael a quick note about what your team is navigating — he'll respond within 24 hours.
“This didn’t feel like training—
it felt like a breakthrough.
Michael doesn’t just teach presentations; he builds real communicators, and the shift in our team’s confidence, clarity, and engagement was immediate and undeniable.”
— Laura Lerner
Senior Manager of Trade Advocacy, Pernod Ricard
For personal growth & healing
For people in transition, reckoning, or quiet rebuilding—who sense their old story isn't working and want to find what's next.
Sometimes the story you've been living—the one about who you are, what you do, what you can or can't do next—stops fitting. Sometimes a loss, a transition, or a long quiet ache makes that obvious.
Michael's life-story work, gathered under his practice of Becoming Restoried, is for anyone walking through that space. It's not therapy. It's not coaching-as-usual.
It's a structured, story-rooted way of metabolizing what's happened, reclaiming agency, and writing the next chapter—with a guide who's done this work in spaces ranging from prisons to peacebuilding circles to private intensives.
solo intensives
One- or two-day, in-person, one-on-one intensive in Nashville. The flagship experience. Designed for someone in a major life inflection—divorce, grief, career change, identity shift, midlife reckoning — who needs deep, focused, personalized work in a short window.
storytelling coaching
Preparing a TEDx talk? Writing a wedding toast or eulogy? Recording a podcast? Telling a story at Tenx9, Moth, or a memoir reading? Michael coaches individuals on personal storytelling—story selection, structure, emotional integrity, and delivery.
Becoming Restoried 12-Week Cohorts
Small-group cohorts that move through the Becoming Restoried arc together over 12 weeks. For people who want their story work to happen in community—alongside others doing the same.
read the wild way
Michael's October 2025 book, The Wild Way: Navigating the Space Between the Old Story and the New, is the entry point for anyone curious about this work.
Becoming restoried private online coaching
Recurring 1:1 coaching sessions with Michael, online. For people who want ongoing support, can't travel to Nashville, or aren't yet ready for the depth of an in-person intensive
Story Train with Michael
Learn Michael’s approach to storywork through the certifications he leads in Applied Narrative Intelligence and Experiential Narrative Practice through the Istoria Institute
“You gave me my life back. I have told so many people how wonderful it is to have someone who knows your story—your triumph & despair. I have noticed I walk now with my shoulders pulled back and my head up. You gave me that release. Thank you again from the bottom of my heart!”
not sure what fits?
Book a free 20-minute exploratory call with Michael. No pressure, no pitch — just a conversation about where you are and whether this work might help.
Big Ideas,
Real Impact.
What You walk away with:
Communication that moves people. Frameworks for finding, shaping, and telling the stories that actually land — in meetings, on stages, with customers, with teams.
A more honest culture. Tools for surfacing what's true, naming what's hard, and building trust through shared narrative.
A new relationship to change. Practices for navigating the space between the old story and the new — personally and organizationally.
Skills you can use Monday morning. Not abstract theory. Not whispy inspiration. Real, repeatable practice.
see Michael on stage
A six-and-a-half-minute speaker showcase of Michael’s keynotes —for those who'd rather see it than read about it.
Michael McRay is a Nashville-based storytelling expert, narrative intelligence trainer, and keynote speaker. This six-and-a-half-minute showcase features highlights from his keynotes at STORY Gathering, TEDx Nashville, and corporate stages including NASA, TEDx, Cisco, Accenture, Pernod Ricard, and YPO. Michael's keynotes blend storytelling craft, narrative intelligence, experiential facilitation, and trauma-informed insight into talks that move audiences and stick.
Raise your narrative intelligence with Michael’s email series.
In this three-week email series, Michael shares crucial story learning that will level-up your narrative intelligence, cultivate a story mindset, and increase your potential for impact and influence.
Now available
the wild way
navigating the space between the old story and the new
Past Reviews of Michael’s writing
“A muscle, an ache, a practice of asking the troubling questions at the heart of peace.”
“Michael McRay gets poignantly to the heart of the matter. Incisive, smart, and acutely necessary for our times.”
Book Michael
faq
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Yes. I’m a Nashville-based keynote speaker and facilitator who helps teams and conference audiences explore how story shapes leadership, culture, trust, and change. My keynotes blend compelling storytelling with practical insights people can apply immediately—whether they lead a company, a classroom, or a community.
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I offer interactive storytelling workshops designed for teams, leaders, and conference breakout sessions. Common workshop themes include:
Storytelling for leadership and influence
Storytelling for communication and trust
Storytelling for culture and team connection
Crafting your origin story (personal or organizational)
Storytelling as a tool for meaning-making and resilience
Using story to navigate change and challenging conversations
Most workshops can be adapted for your audience, time constraints, and event goals.
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Yes. For organizations that want narrative intelligence work to live beyond a single event, I offer licensing and Train the Trainer programs in The Storytelling Leader.
I also lead personal certifications through the Istoria Institute in Applied Narrative Intelligence and Experiential Narrative Practice. If you're thinking systemically about how story can shape your culture over a year or more, that's a great conversation to have. -
Of course. Though I’ve become the most popular storytelling voice for groups holding offsites in Nashville, I travel frequently to deliver my services—both across the United States as well as internationally. Location is not an issue if my calendar is available.
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Absolutely. Customization is one of the biggest reasons planners hire me. Before your event, I’ll learn your theme, audience makeup, key challenges, and the “moment” your organization is in—so the keynote or workshop feels like it was made for your people, not pulled off a shelf.
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Pricing depends on format (keynote vs workshop vs facilitation), audience size, customization level, and whether we’re stacking sessions across a full day. Most events fall into one of three categories:
Keynote only
Workshop or breakout session
Keynote + workshop + leadership session / coaching add-on
If you share your dates and your budget range, I’ll tell you what’s possible and propose the best-fit option.
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Yes. I offer half-day and full-day workshops, especially for leadership retreats, team offsites, and professional development days. These longer formats allow us to move beyond inspiration into real practice—so participants leave with skills they can use immediately.
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Yes. In addition to keynotes and workshops, I’m available as a retreat facilitator and group facilitator for leadership teams, staff retreats, community gatherings, and strategic offsites.
My facilitation style is highly experiential—structured enough to keep things moving, but human enough to make space for what actually matters.
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I love a great keynote—but my work isn’t just “be inspired and go home.”
I bring a blend of:
storytelling craft
narrative intelligence
experiential facilitation
trauma-informed insight (without doing therapy)
practical tools leaders can actually use
My goal is always transformation and traction: a powerful experience that creates real movement afterward.
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Not necessarily. While storytelling can be performance, most of my work is about storytelling as a leadership and communication skill, and for coming into a deeper relationship with oneself.
This is great for:
executives and managers
teams who need better trust and clarity
organizations in a season of change
educators, nonprofits, and mission-driven teams
people who don’t think of themselves as “good storytellers”
You don’t need to be charismatic—you just need to be a person.
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Yes. One of my most requested sessions is storytelling for leadership and influence, because leaders are always shaping culture—whether they intend to or not.
This keynote/workshop helps people understand:
why story drives buy-in more than information
how to communicate with clarity and conviction
how to lead in complexity without becoming performative
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Yes. I provide corporate storytelling workshops for organizations who want stronger communication, deeper alignment, and more trust. This can include leadership messaging, internal communication, values storytelling, and building a culture that people actually want to belong to.
These workshops are especially helpful for teams navigating growth, burnout, fragmentation, or change.
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Yes. And honestly, it's some of my favorite work.
Many people who come to me are already great communicators—they're just great at it in a conference room, across a bar, or one-on-one over coffee. The stage is a different animal. The slides go up, the room gets bigger, and suddenly they're reading bullet points in a voice that sounds like they're reciting terms and conditions.
That's fixable.
I work with individuals and teams on the full range: how to stop leaning on your slides like a life raft, how to use humor to build genuine trust with an audience, how to make eye contact that doesn't feel like a staring contest, and how to deliver the same presentation forty times without sounding like you've delivered it forty times.
The goal isn't to turn you into a different kind of speaker. It's to make you a bigger, braver version of the one you already are.
If you can hold a room in a conversation, we can teach you to hold one from a stage.
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Yes. If your event includes a storytelling showcase, leadership presentations, or employee speakers, I can coach individuals or small groups ahead of time.
This often includes:
story selection
structure and clarity
emotional integrity without oversharing
delivery support and confidence-building
It’s one of the highest-impact add-ons you can include for a conference.
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Yes. I can facilitate:
story circles
audience connection exercises
guided reflection experiences
curated storytelling showcases
interactive breakout experiences
If you want a conference session that feels alive in the room—this is one of my favorite ways to serve.
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Workshops work beautifully for groups ranging from 10 to 300+, depending on the format.
For deeper interaction and practice: 10–40 people
For high-energy engagement with structure: 40–150
For conference audiences with interactive elements: 150–500+
I’ll help you choose the best format based on your room setup, audience, and the outcomes you want.
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Easy. Fill out the form directly below this and I’ll respond promptly. I aim to respond to all inquiries within 24 hours.
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I help people come alive—in their work, their relationships, and in themselves. The way in is story. The good news is, it's more accessible than you think.
The conversation is just the beginning.
Location: Nashville, Tennessee.