Pete Mockaitis

Peter Mockaitis is helping transform students into leaders with hilarious, interactive programs.

TOPICS


  • Apathy
  • Career Planning
  • Character Development
  • Leadership
  • Myers-Briggs
  • Officer Training
  • Organizational Development

KEYNOTES


Pete Mockaitis helps students turn into leaders.

Getting to know

Pete Mockaitis

Pete Mockaitis (Muh-KITE-iss), is an author and coach who’s served clients in over 50 countries. Pete’s work has enhanced Fortune 100 corporations, high-growth startups, major nonprofits and an assortment of student groups.

Having led nine student organizations, he believes students should make a tremendous impact right now—rather than waiting for “when they become leaders.” This conviction led him to write The Student Leader’s Field Guide and Team Up while a student at the University of Illinois.

Pete began his “real-world” career at The Bridgespan Group and Bain & Company, a firm CNN has called the “the elite in the already elite field of management consultants.”

His work with students has earned him recognition from the Jaycees as 1 of 10 outstanding young people of Illinois, alongside professional athletes and other notables.

Peter Mockaitis is helping transform students into leaders with hilarious, interactive programs.
Pete has served clients in 50 countries, led nine student organizations and has written two books… but most importantly, he’s know how to have fun with his audiences and lead engaging and creative keynotes.

Pete’s on a mission to help students achieve greatness by sharing the most powerful wisdom that makes it happen. Students love Pete’s quirky blend of humor, interactivity, and ENERGY! Their organizations benefit from his practical, research-based insights and follow-up materials that reverberate across campus.

PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS

To help you promote your event with Pete, CAMPUSPEAK has created promotional templates you can use. In this folder, you will find resources for social media, a promotional poster for printing, and press photos you can use for your event.
Link to Promotional Materials

LOGISTICAL MATERIALS

In-Person Event AV Needs (PDF)
Speaking Introduction (PDF)

SEE WHAT PEOPLE HAVE TO SAY About Pete Mockaitis!

KEYNOTES

One Year to Make It Happen

You’ve got a new, energetic group of officers and big plans to dominate this year. But a few years rarely results in legendary leaps. Most only maintain the organization’s status quo. How do you make sure that THIS year—your year—amazing things will happen? How do you make this year the one where membership multiplies, events rock, finances flourish and you emerge a hero on the other side? In this transformational keynote, Pete illustrates practical approaches to catapult your organization to the next level. Pete reveals proven strategies for students to:

  • inspire high engagement among members,
  • keep it real and promote thoughtful exchanges,
  • ensure that members follow through on their commitments,
  • stay passionate and focused in the heat of challenges, and
  • learn important lessons from their successes and failures.

Pete’s hilarious, passionate delivery provides enough laughs and real-world examples to kick your organization into high gear. You can make this a legendary year, and Pete will show you how.

Learning Outcomes As a result of attending this program, students will learn:

  • how to inspire meaningful engagement among members,
  • how to keep it real and promote thoughtful exchanges,
  • how to ensure that members follow through on their commitments,
  • how to stay passionate and focused in the heat of challenges, and
  • how to effectively learn from their successes and failures.
How to Get a Real Job, Real Fast

Times are tough for recent college graduates and their wallets. The average graduate walks off stage with a diploma and a record-high $35,000 in student loan debt. It takes, on average, 21 years to pay that loan off. Meanwhile, nearly half of recent graduates have settled for jobs that don’t actually require a college degree. Getting a “real job” after graduation is becoming more and more critical…yet more and more difficult. There’s hope. In this powerful, practical keynote, Pete shares his best insights gleaned from conducting over 400 1-on-1 career coaching sessions with clients from over 30 countries. He provides actionable wisdom in this essential guide to job hunting for college students. Pete dispels myths, shares insider secrets, and helps students sharpen the key skills required to nail each stage of the job hunt.

Learning Outcomes As a result of attending this program, students will learn:

  • Reflection: How to discover your passions and the work you’d love to do.
  • Research: Where to look for the opportunities.
  • Networking: How to find the right people to impress—and then impress them!
  • Writing: How to craft killer resumes and cover letters.
  • Speaking: How to answer the toughest interview questions.

When the economics of being a 20-something feel overwhelming, Pete brings the peace of mind that comes from building a solid plan.

6-Figure Salaries and 6-Pack Abs

You’ve probably heard older folks refer to today’s generation of college students as the “entitlement generation.” Maybe you find that label unfair and inaccurate. Or maybe it feels about right. Either way, it’s easy to be misled that results come easily in the age of Zuckerberg, reality TV stars and Tim Ferriss’s 4-Hour Body/Workweek. In this eye-opening keynote, Pete reveals how we’ve been deceived by pop culture and what to do about it.

Pete provides a thought-provoking ride from The Bachelor to infomercials that resets our expectations. With hilarious stories, multimedia illustrations, and insightful data, Pete destroys myths and spells out the real success factors required to achieve our dreams. In his keynote, 6-Figure Salaries and 6-Pack Abs: What our generation is really “entitled” to—and how to get it. You can rise above the myths to turn dreams into reality with Pete’s formula for success. These timeless five steps empower you to turn dreams into plans—and plans into reality.

Learning Outcomes As a result of attending this program, students will learn:

  • how marketing machines, internal bias, and our upbringing all jerk our expectations out of line,
  • about the “glamorous” behind-the-scenes world of actors, dot-com millionaires, and bankers/consultants,
  • what kind of cash you can really expect to make when you graduate,
  • why winning still takes hard work, and
  • the five keys that differentiate those who dominate from those who drift.
The Four Frustrations of Student Leadership

Student leaders have challenges coming at them from every direction. Sometimes, it’s enough to drive you to the edge of sanity! Have you ever found yourself losing sleep because too few members are coming to meetings? Too few officers and chairs are doing their stuff? Too few people are coming to events? Too few members are paying their dues on time or meeting deadlines? Have you ever just felt exhausted from the whole “leader thing?” There’s hope.

In this engaging keynote, Pete helps you put things into perspective and offers tactics to immediately transform frustrations into possibilities. This program can be conducted as a keynote for a large group, or an interactive workshop or a breakout session for smaller groups. Pete offers his perspectives and then facilitates group dialogue so everyone’s solutions can be used to restore the fun—and successes—to student leadership.

Making Meetings Matter

It’s okay to admit it. Sometimes meetings suck. Attendance is low and those who do show up talk around in circles, achieving little. Or maybe you’ve just got a nagging feeling that your meetings have some extra hidden potential. In this hands-on workshop or breakout, Pete combines his hard-earned insights from corporate consulting and student organizational leadership to transform your meetings forever. Pete will reveal practical, how-to tips spanning the whole meeting process. Student leaders will leave better able to:

  • determine if a meeting is the best means of achieving their immediate goals,
  • establish meeting objectives,
  • ensure ample attendance,
  • gain broad participation,
  • think effectively as a group,
  • have fun while building camaraderie,
  • follow up on individual commitments toward action items.

This program is a perfect addition to new officer training and transition events and may be added to any of Pete’s keynotes at no extra charge. Meetings can be a source of tremendous energy and excitement, and Pete will show you how to make it so.

Why Must I be Surrounded by Idiots?

If you’re dealing with cliques and conflicts in your student leadership, you may be overlooking a powerful phenomenon just below the surface: personality type. In this interactive workshop, Pete blends his expertise as a former student leader and current certified Myers-Briggs practitioner to offer a crash-course on the most trusted personality tool. Understanding this powerful framework can enhance your ability to understand yourself and lead others. Students will learn:

  • why you click with certain people and not others,
  • the four powerful questions that divide people into distinctive personality types, and
  • your personal, four-letter type “code,” and what it means.

Pete brings an ordinary topic to extraordinary life through highly-relatable stories and interactive exercises that leave students nodding their heads, laughing, and excited to learn more about their members’ uniqueness. Let Pete show you how to turn personality conflicts into a source of great strength.