Question the label
Separate what happened, what others called you, and what you choose next.
Speaking with Misti King
Different rooms need different kinds of honesty.
From student assemblies and youth leadership workshops to conversations with the adults who support young people and story-centered community talks, Misti adapts the depth, examples, and interaction without losing the honest backbone of the message.
Signature student talk
Keep Trading. Keep Climbing. Keep Building.
A student-facing talk about trading old labels for new possibilities, climbing through discomfort, and building a future one responsible choice at a time.
Built for young people carrying pressure, doubt, anger, grief, hard beginnings, or labels they are tired of wearing, this talk pairs lived experience with humor, accountability, and a framework students can actually remember after the room clears.
Best fit
- Middle and high school students
- JROTC and youth leadership programs
- Intervention and juvenile-justice settings
- Community youth programs
30–60 MINFlexible
Q&AOptional
WorkshopReady
Expect the climb
Growth can be uncomfortable without discomfort meaning failure.
Build the next choice
A future is created through small, repeated decisions, not one perfect moment.
Ways to bring Misti into the room.
Some rooms need a keynote. Some need conversation. Some need enough space to work with the message instead of only hearing it.
Student Assembly
A story-driven, student-facing talk for larger groups. Misti uses humor, lived experience, and the Trade / Climb / Build framework to help students question old labels, expect discomfort as part of growth, and recognize the power of their next responsible choice.
Best for assemblies, conferences, JROTC groups, intervention programs, and other settings where the message needs to reach a larger room.
- 30–60 minutes
- Optional Q&A
- Limited audience interaction
- Adaptable by age and setting
Youth Leadership Workshop
A facilitated, more interactive experience for young people who are ready to work with the ideas rather than only hear them. Participants use discussion, reflection, scenarios, and practical exercises to explore identity, responsibility, resilience, leadership, and future-building.
Best for smaller groups, leadership teams, JROTC units, youth programs, retreats, and follow-up sessions after an assembly.
- Can stand alone or follow the signature talk
- Discussion and reflection
- Practical application
- Customized to the group
Before You Give Up
A survivor-informed talk or facilitated conversation for adults working to earn trust with guarded young people—without abandoning boundaries, responsibility, or appropriate expectations.
Available as a staff talk, professional-development conversation, conference session, or workshop.Community Talks
Honest, humorous storytelling about rebuilding, belonging, identity, and becoming who you are without pretending the past never happened.
Before You Give Up
Earning Trust with Guarded Young People
What if the young person who will not open up is also watching to see whether you leave?
Guarded young people do not always trust on an adult’s timetable. When frustration turns into withdrawal, another relationship can end before trust has had a chance to form. That can reinforce what the young person already expects: adults eventually become tired of them, disappointed in them, or gone.
Misti brings a survivor-informed perspective, direct experience working with young people, and practical storytelling to conversations about earning trust, staying consistent, holding boundaries, and supporting young people without shaming, rescuing, or giving up too soon.
Trust takes time
Accountability without shame
Support without rescue
Boundaries without abandonment
The cost of giving up too soon
Survivor-informed and experience-based. This is not therapy, clinical training, or
trauma treatment.
For community & adult audiences
A life can be rebuilt more than once.
Misti brings honest, humorous storytelling to rooms exploring identity, belonging, resilience, reinvention, and what comes next. Her story includes hard beginnings and repeated rebuilding, but the point is never pity. It is what becomes possible when the past is acknowledged without being allowed to write every chapter that follows.
Civic groups
Nonprofits
Leadership rooms
Community organizations
Women’s groups
Trade. Climb. Build.
The framework travels.
The emphasis changes with the audience, but the framework travels: trade what no longer serves you, climb through the difficult middle, and build through choices that can be repeated.
01
Trade
- Students
- Labels and stuck stories
- Adults
- Assumptions, shame-based responses, and old patterns
- Community
- Identities or chapters that no longer fit
02
Climb
- Students
- Discomfort, responsibility, and uncertainty
- Adults
- Patience, consistency, and difficult trust-building
- Community
- Rebuilding through hard transitions
03
Build
- Students
- Next choices and future direction
- Adults
- Trust, relationship, and sustainable support
- Community
- The next chapter
What people carry out of the room.
The goal is usable language people can carry back into hallways, classrooms, programs, relationships, and hard conversations.
Let's talk about your audience.
Share who will be there, what you are planning, and what you hope people will carry out of the room. Misti will help shape the stories, depth, interaction, and format around the audience and the moment.
Pre-event planning
Audience-specific customization
Q&A when appropriate
Workshop options
Clear conversation about fit