Clare Bowditch is a best-selling ARIA Award winning musician (Best Female), Logie Nominated actor (for TV Show Offspring), Best-Selling Author (for her recently released memoir Your Own Kind Of Girl), experienced speaker, M.C, broadcaster, and mother of three (including identical twin boys).
As a public speaker Clare was fortunate to be trained and mentored by both Leadership Expert Fabian Dattner and folk singer and group-facilitator Fay White. Later, in 2008, whilst researching her best-selling album 'The Winter I Chose Happiness', Clare also agreed to challenge her cynicism and undertake training as a 'Life Coach' (turns out, she bloody loved it). This culminated in her forming Big Hearted Business - a company designed to teach creative people about business and business people about creativity. After running two un-conferences and dozens of smaller events, her place as a keynote speaker, M.C. and facilitator was firmly established.
Previous Experience
Author: In Oct 2019 Clare released her fist book “Your Own Kind Of Girl” through Allen & Unwin. Its themes of shaping yourself through the stories we tell ourselves and taming your inner cirtic, have immediately found their audience, with a debut position of #7 in the Neilsen Book Chart#, #1 Best Seller on Booktopia, #1 Bestseller at Readings, #1 Bestseller at Dymocks, Book of the month at Dymocks for December, Audio Book #5 bestseller on Amazon. It won the 2020 ABIA for “New Writer of The Year” Award.
Music: As a musician, she’s toured extensively with musicians such Leonard Cohen, Paul Kelly, John Butler, Cat Power, and Gotye, to name just a few.
Media: As the beloved host of the “Afternoons” radio show on ABC Melbourne, she spoke and made friends with over 250,000 listeners daily.
Host and MC: In her work as a host, broadcaster and MC, Clare has interviewed and facilitated hundreds of events and conversations with the likes of authors Jeanette Winterson and Zoe Foster-Blake, singers Linda Rondstadt and Jackson Browne, both local and federal politicans (including former PM’s Julia Gillard and Malcolm Turnball - not at the same time), famous sportspeople, astrophysicists, mental health experts, and remarkable people who may not have ‘famous names’ but who have equally fascinating stories to share.
She is as confident leading intimate single-day workshops with a dozen executives as she is leading an audience of 12,000 at the M.C.G. in a 'Mass sing-along’ (she knows how to harness our collective terror of group singing and turn it into a skill-building exercise the likes of which you may never have seen before).
Talking Points
Self Leadership: How to Count Yourself in For Life
This talk is about counting yourself, warts and all, and living a life of purpose and joy. Self Leadership: How to Count Yourself in For Life
Using stories from her own struggles and triumphs, Clare teaches us to face and name our inner critics. In doing so, we tap in to our ability to live full, amazing lives.
During her “Self-Leadership” talk, Clare discusses;
- The myth of motivation; how to get stuff done regardless of whether you “feel like it” or not
- How to recognise and tame your inner-critic
- Her personal journey from working in a call-centre to being an ARIA Award Winning Musician; one which very
nearly didn’t happen thanks to her fierce inner-critic.
- How to transform personal struggles and turn them into fierce strengths.
- How to stop caring about what other people think of you.
- How to develop our own inner-champion.
The Day Diet Died: How to Celebrate your Wobbly Bits
A deeply personal keynote about coming out from the shadows of our body-shame and learning to own our so-called ‘imperfections’ so that we can get on with the business of living full, glorious, brilliant lives. The Day Diet Died: How to Celebrate your Wobbly Bits
In this keynote, Clare will:
- Crack open the secret stories so many of us tell ourselves about how our bodies aren’t good enough yet (and
how our real lives will begin once we hit that “perfect size”).
- Tell personal stories from her own “wobbly bits”, including;
- her early experience of being a fat kid, then a skinny kid, then a fat kid again, and what it taught her
about human nature.
- Her experience of being a curvy woman making her living in high-pressure, male-dominated, image-
conscious industries (media, popular music and acting), and the power of being an anomaly.
- Simplify the complex relationship between our body-size and our sense of worth by explaining;
- How our “diet failures” are actually “evolutionary wins”.
- That we have a choice about whether buy in to the inherited cultural and societal narratives that lead
smart people to waste so much time on trying to change their bodies
- A technique for separating our body size from our sense of self-worth.
- Give you the chance to reflect on the true gifts of so-called “imperfection”.
- Conclude by giving a powerful frame-work for self-care and wellbeing that does not include dieting or body
shaming.
In this keynote Clare also plays guitar and sings Amazing Life and/or Woman. She may also teach the audience a part to sing with her.
Singing For People Who Say They Can’t Sing - Lessons for Leadership.
This interactive workshop/key-note offers something incredibly unique to the world of public speaking, and is the perfect point of difference for any conference or team-building event. Singing For People Who Say They Can’t Sing - Lessons for Leadership.
Clare is a highly skilled group facilitator who, for the past sixteen years, has used humour and the power of story telling to encourage small and large groups of “non-professional-sings” to get over themselves and SING. The twist: her special gift is teaching people who say they can’t sing… to prove themselves wrong.
In 2001, Clare completed her initial training - “Singing and Community Leadership” - with Vic Health (who believed then, and have now proven that singing is not only good for your physical health, it’s also incredibly good for your emotional and mental health). She has been honing and perfecting her techniques ever since.
To date, every one of her public ‘singing and self-leadership’ workshops (‘Sing Song Showtime’) have sold out thanks to word of mouth referral from participants.
Whether in a group of ten, or an arena of 10,000, Clare uses the metaphor of singing (and the stories we tell ourselves about how we can’t sing) as a method of teaching people the true power of saying “YES” to life, and how to overcome their limiting stories.
Video
Clare Bowditch| Speaker Show Reel
Clare Bowditch singing Amazing Life
Clare Bowditch on music, meaning & money: National Press Club Address
In this address from May 2021, musician Clare Bowditch explores the impact of Covid-19, lockdowns and uncertainty on the creative industries. Presented with Women in Media."Clare is one of those effortlessly mesmeric communicators. Her rare blend of insight and charisma means that people cannot help but be thoroughly engaged when she speaks." - ... keep reading Waleed Aly
“She is that rare combination of creative talent, intellectual insight and evident empathy for the human condition. She is a compelling speaker on a range of topics relevant to most of us, and has both a gifted and humorous capacity to make large and small audiences feel immensely welcome and involved”
Clare’s talk at Atlassian’s Design Week was nothing short of inspirational. Everyone could relate to the creative challenges she has faced and were touched by how open and vulnerable she was in sharing her story. Claire’s keynote was one of the most discussed sessions during the week.
Clare was fabulous! She managed to lead the whole room in a rendition of 'happy birthday' for Malcolm Turnbull, much to his surprise. Please pass on our heartfelt and huge thanks to her. Yes... she was perfection. She really made the announcement come alive with her warmth, intelligent insights about music and radio, plus her ability to get the whole crowd engaged and excited.
What an amazing performance today - your performance was the only part of the day where the room was actually quiet! You could have heard a pin drop! Loved your warm approach and your challenge to the suits; who else could have got the whole room singing!! I think you really helped everyone connect with what Smiling Mind is all about.
When Clare speaks she brings everyone in the room with her. Clare injects this special kind of electricity into each and every audience member, making them feel bigger, bolder and braver
I have worked with the inestimably gifted Clare Bowditch on a number of occasions, and witnessed her in a number of guises - hostess, emcee, troubadour, broadcaster, party planner. In each she has shone beyond expectations. She is a natural when it comes to working a crowd and I would trust her with any event. I could not recommend her more highly, and plan to vote for her repeatedly when she inevitably runs for Prime Minister of Australia.
Clare Bowditch has that deep magic that opens hearts. I've watched her made a sold-out theatre of women and men cry, and then laugh hard, and then all sing... within moments. Clare is the beautiful kind of power: pure love with one of a kind talent.
What an amazing performance today - your performance was the only part of the day where the room was actually quiet! You could have heard a pin drop! Loved your warm approach and your challenge to the suits; who else could have got the whole room singing!! I think you really helped everyone connect with what Smiling Mind is all about.
When Clare speaks she brings everyone in the room with her. Clare injects this special kind of electricity into each and every audience member, making them feel bigger, bolder and braver
