Meet Jess!
There are speakers who motivate. There are speakers who inspire. And then there are speakers who permanently change the conversation in your organization.
Jessica Janzen is the third kind.
Her signature keynote, The Hard Work of Joy™, was not built in a boardroom. It was forged through one of the hardest experiences a person can face. After losing her son Lewiston to Spinal Muscular Atrophy, Jessica confronted the defining question her audiences now face every day: Do you stay in survival mode, or do you build forward? She chose to build. That decision led to the founding of Love for Lewiston, a national foundation that has raised over three and a half million dollars and helped ensure that every single newborn in Canada is screened for SMA at birth.
What makes Jessica exceptional is not the story. It is what she does with it on stage.
Known for her electric energy, unfiltered take on joy that corporate audiences don't see coming, and the kind of straight talk that reframes everything after it, Jessica takes audiences from the gut punch of real loss to the practical language of leadership resilience in a single keynote. She makes rooms laugh hard and go completely silent in the same sixty minutes. The feedback lands in the same place every time: we needed this, we did not know we needed it this much, and we are still using it.
Her message is built on one powerful idea: joy is not soft. It is not a reward for easier seasons. It is a discipline. The thing high-performance cultures are built on. The fuel that lets people bring their best consistently, under pressure, when it matters most.
Jessica has spoken across the globe for close to a decade, earning recognition including Calgary's Top 40 Under 40, the Doc Seaman Generosity of Spirit Award, and the Dr. Katie Manders Courage to Inspire Award. She is the bestselling author of Bring the Joy and has spoken for organizations including Microsoft, TC Energy, Novartis, and the Association of Financial Professionals.
She is an author, a philanthropist, a force on stage, and she is just getting started.
Book her now. You will not regret it.
“Resiliency is a choice. It's a myriad of choices made through the course of our days. Choosing to be resilient during life's small setbacks like missing a deadline, losing at a board game, or burning dinner will help give you a mindset and disposition for resiliency that will help carry you through moments of darkness.”
— JESSICA JANZEN
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2014
Jessica quits her 9-5 career and starts her own business.
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2016
Her son Lewiston is diagnosed with SMA and passes away.
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2017
Founded The Love For Lewiston Foundation.
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2020
Bring the Joy is published.
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2022
Jessica is named Calgary’s Top 40 under 40.
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2025
LFL has raised over $3.4 million dollars.
Bring The Joy
Since February 2022, more than 20,000 infants in Alberta have been screened for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). This is thanks to Jessica Janzen Olstad, who once swore that no family would endure what hers went through with her son, Lewiston. “I don’t want a mother to have to sit holding her baby wondering, ‘Is this your last breath?.’
A mother of three children (“two earth-side, one up in heaven”), Janzen works as a speaker and executive coach, encouraging people to find joy, even in difficult circumstances. In 2020, she wrote a book, Bring The Joy, which is available in bookstores and online.
“I’ve learned that you can be mad and that’s okay. You can healthily channel that energy into rocket fuel to continue to create change.”
Why I Stopped Focusing on My Mental Health
How shifting my focus changed everything.
5 Books That Changed My Life
