Stories forged by experience. Lessons built for real life.
David Burnell speaks on courage, resilience, preparedness, leadership, service, faith, and the decisions people make when circumstances become difficult. His perspective comes from decades of lived experience: more than ten years of service in the United States Air Force, years of training law enforcement officers, military personnel, federal agents, security professionals, and civilians, humanitarian work in disaster- and conflict-affected environments, rescue experience, business, teaching, writing, and a lifetime spent studying how people respond under pressure.
David does not speak from theory alone. His presentations are built around real stories, practical lessons, and moments that reveal what preparation, leadership, and service look like when tested.
Available For — Keynotes, Conferences, Corporate & Organizational Events, Public Safety, Faith-Based Events, Veterans Groups, Community Organizations, Educational Settings, Podcasts, Interviews & Selected Workshops.
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“When you’re looking for a compassionate, motivating speaker, David Burnell is the man you want to bring to your organization. David’s ability to share his worldwide experiences and adventures in a lesson-learning format keeps you hoping the session will not end. I have worked with many large corporations, and Mr. Burnell is the answer to enhancing and developing the skills you want in your leadership team and your front-line employees. If you want to make a difference in your team and work environment, call David Burnell for those results. You will not be disappointed.”
— Mike Olson
Speaking Topics
SPEAKING TOPIC
Prepared Before It Happens
Most people begin thinking seriously about preparation only after something has already gone wrong. David’s presentation challenges that pattern by showing how preparation before the crisis can shape everything that follows. Drawing on military service, rescue work, training, and real-world emergencies, he explores how stress affects judgment, why people often freeze or react poorly under pressure, and how simple habits, planning, and mental rehearsal can improve outcomes. The message is practical and adaptable for businesses, public-safety professionals, educators, churches, community groups, and organizations that want to strengthen resilience, personal responsibility, emergency readiness, and decision-making under stress.
SPEAKING TOPIC
Courage Under Pressure
Courage is often mistaken for the absence of fear, but David presents it as the ability to act with purpose amid fear, uncertainty, and pressure. Through stories from military service, rescue, humanitarian work, crisis response, and ordinary people in extraordinary moments, he examines the habits, values, preparation, and choices that make courageous action possible. The focus is not simply on dramatic acts of bravery, but on the quieter disciplines that help people step forward when circumstances ask more of them than they expected.
SPEAKING TOPIC
Leadership When It Matters
Titles do not create leaders. Pressure reveals them. Drawing on military service, training environments, rescue work, business, and humanitarian missions, David examines responsibility, preparation, judgment, trust, accountability, and what it means to remain useful when others depend on you. Rather than relying on abstract leadership theory, he uses real experiences to show how credibility is built, how trust is earned, and why many of the most important leadership decisions are made long before the crisis arrives.
SPEAKING TOPIC
Leave No One Behind
What does rescue teach us about leadership, service, and the people around us? Drawing from decades of rescue-related experience and humanitarian work, David explores the deeper meaning of refusing to abandon people who are lost, wounded, grieving, forgotten, or carrying burdens no one else can see. The presentation moves beyond physical rescue to examine responsibility, presence, compassion, and the importance of staying with people when there is no easy solution. It can be adapted as a leadership keynote, a service-centered message, or a faith-based presentation.
SPEAKING TOPIC
The Weight We Carry
Not every wound is visible, and not every burden can be solved from the outside. David speaks about stress, adversity, responsibility, loss, and the unseen weight people often carry quietly through work, family, leadership, and life. He explores how leaders, teams, families, and communities can become more aware of those around them without assuming they can fix every problem. The central message is simple: sometimes the most meaningful thing we can do is remain present, make room for another person’s burden, and refuse to leave them alone inside a difficult season.
SPEAKING TOPIC
Lessons From the Field
Some lessons cannot be learned in a classroom. David shares stories from military service, rescue work, humanitarian missions, training, business, travel, and the people he has encountered along the way to explore what experience can teach when we are willing to examine it honestly. Each story becomes a starting point for a larger lesson about preparation, service, leadership, resilience, responsibility, and endurance. The presentation is flexible and can be tailored to different audiences while keeping the focus on one question: what can we carry forward from what we have lived through?
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Faith-Based Speaking
David is a lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and faith has become an increasingly important part of his writing and speaking. For faith-based audiences, he speaks about rescue, service, discipleship, adversity, grace, repentance, remembering the forgotten, and the Savior’s work of bringing people home. These presentations draw from both scripture and lived experience, connecting the language of rescue with the ministry of Jesus Christ in a personal, practical, grounded way. They can be adapted for firesides, conferences, young adults, men’s groups, service organizations, church gatherings, and other Christian audiences.
For keynote, conference, corporate, public-safety, faith-based, educational, podcast, or interview inquiries, contact David directly at david@burnell.me