When the ground gives way, so does our sense of who we are.
Claire Wasserman teaches teams and leaders how to steady themselves in turbulent times so that they can make better decisions.
“Engagement was off the charts.” — Allie Pacelli, Reddit
Check availability →Keynote or workshop · in person or virtual
For over a decade she studied what we build our identity on — through financial psychology, polyvagal theory, and 55,000 women telling her the truth about their work and their money. Then a series of traumatic setbacks, including a son born with a medical condition, took her from seven-figure business owner to food stamps.
Everything she had studied, she had to learn again in her own body. That’s what she teaches now.
In Her Words
I started Ladies Get Paid by putting women in a circle and asking them to be honest about work and money. Within a few years it was thousands of people, then a community of 55,000 exchanging three million messages. I went back to school for financial psychology because I kept running into the same wall: no amount of information was changing what people did. What stopped them from negotiating, investing, or opening a statement wasn’t knowledge. It was something they’d inherited and couldn’t name.
Then it happened to me. A divorce, a lawsuit, a pandemic that ended my business model, three rounds of fertility treatment, a son born with severe congenital heart disease, and my own body giving out. A seven-figure business became six figures of debt and a family on food stamps. I made decisions blindly for years — without the capacity to see what I was actually choosing between.
So I went back and studied the part I’d been missing: how the nervous system decides what’s safe before we get a say. That’s what I teach now — to teams, to leaders, and to anyone whose ground has shifted underneath them.
The Talks
Each available as a 45–60 minute keynote or a 90-minute to half-day workshop.
Rewrite Your Money Story
How to change your relationship with work and worth
Every organization runs financial literacy programming. Almost none of it changes behavior — because the problem was never information.
People who can build a budget still don’t open the statement. People who can explain market rate still won’t ask for it. Every money blocker has three layers: the story you inherited, the sensation it triggers in your body, and the behavior that sensation produces. The story fires the sensation, the sensation drives the behavior, and new information doesn’t interrupt the sequence.
Drawing on her financial psychology training and her own reversal — from teaching tens of thousands of women to get paid, to losing nearly everything herself — Claire takes audiences underneath the advice. Participants map their own pattern, learn to recognize which protective state is running, and leave with a method for making the change they’ve been circling for years.
Audience leaves with
- An understanding of their own money spiral and what triggers it
- The ability to recognize fight, flight, freeze, and fawn in their financial behavior
- A somatic anchor they can use before a negotiation, an invoice, or an account balance
- A process for tracing a surface fear down to the belief underneath it
- One concrete next step, sized small enough to actually happen
Best for: financial wellness programming, women’s ERGs, professional development, financial services, universities, member conferences
Anchor in Uncertainty
How to make good decisions when the ground gives way
Every book on this promises calm. Claire’s argument is that calm is often unavailable — and chasing it burns the energy you need.
In sustained distress, you can’t think clearly. If you can’t think clearly, you can’t see clearly. And if you can’t see clearly, you’ll make the most consequential decisions of your career in the worst possible condition to make them. That’s when the reorg goes wrong, when good people leave without warning, and when leaders mistake motion for progress.
Claire spent five years making high-stakes decisions inside continuous upheaval — blindly, without the capacity to see what she was actually choosing between — and then went back to school to understand why. The goal, it turns out, isn’t to empty the bucket. It’s to build a bigger one. Regulation isn’t about feeling better; it’s about restoring enough range to think. She walks audiences through what to do first, before the strategy and before the decision, and why the order matters more than the tools.
Audience leaves with
- An understanding of why decision quality degrades under sustained pressure
- The distinction between chasing calm and building capacity, and why it changes outcomes
- Two regulation practices designed for a workday, not a retreat
- A way to separate present-tense pressure from inherited reaction
- A personal protocol for the first hour after bad news
Best for: leadership summits, change and transformation initiatives, all-hands during transition, manager training, operations and culture teams
From Inner Critic to Inner Compass
How to build self-trust when the voice in your head runs the show
Your highest performers are often your highest burnout risk — because the same drive that makes them excellent also makes them relentless self-critics.
Claire shares her FFRR framework — Face, Feel, Release, Replace — drawn from Polyvagal Theory, somatic processing, and Internal Family Systems. Attendees learn to regulate their nervous system, quiet the inner critic, and build self-trust through micro-actions rather than willpower.
Her research across hundreds of coaching transcripts found the same thing again and again: what looks like a confidence gap is a protective response. You can’t talk someone out of it, and they can’t discipline their way through it. What works is giving the body evidence of safety, then following the fear down to what it’s actually protecting.
Audience leaves with
- How to identify the core fear underneath surface-level self-doubt
- Somatic techniques to regulate in the moment
- A practice that builds self-trust over time
- The FFRR framework as a repeatable method
Best for: wellness programs, women’s ERGs, manager training, high-potential leadership cohorts, burnout prevention initiatives
What Sets Claire Apart
She’s lived it — publicly.
Lawsuit. Debt. Divorce. Medical crisis. Claire doesn’t hide behind polished talking points. She shares the real story, which is why audiences connect instantly.
She has the data.
A decade running a 55,000-member community means Claire knows what women are actually struggling with — not what the headlines say they’re struggling with.
She delivers tools, not just talks.
Every keynote includes actionable frameworks. Event planners consistently report that attendees reference Claire’s methods months later.
She bridges the inner and outer.
With a Master’s Certificate in financial psychology and training in somatic and IFS modalities, Claire goes deeper than tactics — without losing the practical application.
She brings the room to life.
Whether it’s 50 people on Zoom or 5,000 in a ballroom, Claire’s energy is magnetic. Audience engagement is consistently rated “off the charts.”
Trusted By
What Event Planners Say
“She was one of our highest rated speakers. On a recent meeting with a sponsor, our contact shared she’d been promoted — and cited Claire’s seminar as the key resource she used to negotiate her new role.”
— Nicole Soluri, Professional Business Women of California
“Engagement was off the charts. More than one person said they wished we could have talked another hour.”
— Allie Pacelli, Reddit
“Claire is a force, powerful, and a beautiful human being. The positive feedback is raining into our messages.”
— Nelsy Sanchez, The New York Times
“Claire’s eloquence and passion for empowering women is truly inspiring. Her impactful words and strategies resonate deeply.”
— McKenna Kunes, NASA
“I have not learned more in one presentation in a very long time, if ever.”
— Attendee, Eaton
“The most actionable approach I’ve seen. I’m excited to take what I’ve learned and put it into action to stand up for myself.”
— Attendee, Facebook
Speaking Formats
Virtual
- Fireside chat (45 min)
- Full keynote (60–75 min)
- Interactive workshop (90 min)
In-Person
- Keynote (45–60 min)
- Half-day workshop
- Multi-session series
Custom Engagements
- Executive retreats
- Leadership offsites
- Conference programming
- Ongoing partnerships
Bio
Claire Wasserman has taught at NASA, Harvard Business School, Google, the United Nations, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, and more. She built Ladies Get Paid into a seven-figure business and a global community of 55,000 women, wrote a book published by Simon & Schuster, and has appeared on Good Morning America and in the New York Times.
She holds a degree in sociology and a Master’s Certificate in Financial Psychology, and is completing a certificate in Polyvagal Theory under Dr. Stephen Porges. Her research across hundreds of coaching transcripts found that what stops high performers isn’t a confidence gap — it’s a protective response the nervous system runs automatically, faster than conscious thought.
She has produced six conferences, including one for 10,000 virtual attendees. She is consistently rated a top speaker in attendee feedback and has been invited back by multiple organizations, repeatedly. She is available in person and virtually, and has designed year-long programs including a national workshop series for PayPal.
Ready to bring Claire to your event?
For inquiries: claire@ladiesgetpaid.com