How to Actually Show Up: Public Intimacy and Leadership

Rev. Adam Robersmith, PhD, DMin
Wednesday, February 26, 2025, 12:00 pm – 3:00 pm Central
Online
Cost: $50 (Can be waived based on need; contact kkirby@meadville.edu)

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Clergy and educators, activists and politicians, dancers and sex workers, stand-up comedians and actors—everyone in the public eye—must learn how to actually show up authentically in order to lead. Dr. Robersmith is a scholar-practitioner who researches public intimacy, paid labor in which people bring a real, private self into public view. Whether through emotion, spirituality, physicality, or a combination of them, these workers share something real with their audiences, creating an intimate, and perhaps transformative, connection.

This work can be profoundly demanding as well as rewarding. Fame, whether it is a matter of being known at the grocery store or dealing with paparazzi at their airport, complicates one’s ability to just live freely in the world. Being known publicly while struggling to have a private self can result in changing careers, burnout, and even self-destructive actions.

Those of us who do this work have to learn how to share an authentic self, manage our vulnerability and risk, and hold good boundaries in order to thrive in these roles. This workshop will offer you a structure for understanding the work you do, an opportunity to examine how you do it well and how you struggle, and strategies for strengthening your ability to thrive in your work.