Javier Llerena 🇺🇸🇪🇸

Distinguished Fellow Coach 

I empower leaders to cultivate team dialogues that foster confidence, collaboration, and psychological safety.

Is your team feeling disconnected, stuck in silos, or playing it too safe to innovate?

You’re not alone—and you don’t have to fix it alone.

I’m Javier Llerena, Executive Facilitator and Leadership Coach at Re-Invent Consulting. I help leaders like you build teams that trust each other, communicate openly, and innovate with purpose.

With 30+ years of executive leadership experience, I know how hard it is to align people, manage change, and keep teams engaged—especially in hybrid or high-growth environments. That’s why my workshops are designed with you and for you, blending proven frameworks, real connection, and powerful facilitation that move teams from friction to flow.

Here’s what we’ll achieve together:

🔹 Build trust and open communication
🔹 Strengthen collaboration and decision-making
🔹 Ignite creativity and innovation
🔹 Align your team around a shared vision and clear goals

From nonprofits to Fortune 500s, I’ve helped organizations transform their culture—creating spaces where people feel safe, heard, and motivated to lead boldly.

If you’re planning a leadership retreat, launching a new team, or need to reset your culture, let’s create a transformational experience that sticks.

📩 jllerena@re-invent.consulting
🌐 www.re-invent.consulting
📅 Book a Clarity Call: https://meetings.hubspot.com/llerena/discovery-call-

Professional Development Facilitator ►Leadership and Mental Fitness Coach► Workshop Creator

WHAT I DO: As a Transformational Leadership Development expert and a virtual facilitator experience maker, I help leaders and organizations create positive change! It’s that simple. My objective is to help leaders optimize their mission and maximize their growth by increasing profit, employee retention, ongoing sustainability while creating a positive company culture shift.

WHY IT MATTERS: 💥 Positive organizational change creates internal best practices, bringing together resources that initiate change within an organization. Improving these processes can be the key to unlocking the potential for your organization.

Such changes improve staff morale, levels of engagement, and communication, which all lends itself to a positive environment of productivity, effective processes, and higher retention of employees. This can be applied for the individual level all the way to the system (organization,)

 MY STORY: 👤 I am a passionate and resilient entrepreneur with 25 years of experience in bringing out the best in individuals and driving organizations to exponential growth. I thrive on coaching and facilitating inquiry-based conversations with individuals and groups that lead to endless positive changes in their organization. I am always learning new techniques and partnering with fellow consultants, coaches, and transformational facilitators to create a movement of cutting-edge organizations.

HOW IT WORKS: We start with a complimentary strategic session via Zoom to discuss your needs. We provide a detailed review of your current challenges, opportunities, and aspirations. We offer strategies for exponential outcomes regarding identity, resilience, and peer and systems change.

READY TO TALK? 

☎ Reach out to me directly on LinkedIn or email me at jllerena@re-invent.consulting

Javier Llerena 🪄

Ask Deep Questions

I lead comprehensive training programs designed to elevate facilitation skills across both in-person and virtual settings. I help leaders transform meetings, workshops, and trainings into dynamic, engaging environments that prioritize inclusivity and ensure every voice is heard, regardless of the setting.

💻 Facilitation Skills Trainer

If you’re looking for an engaging speaker and storyteller about human connection, facilitation, or team building, let's chat! My talks are highly interactive and keep audiences coming back.

🎤 TEDx and Interactive Keynote Speaker

I design group learning experiences that create deep connections and belonging. By facilitating meaningful experiences for events, conferences and teams I turn small talk into deep connections.

✨ Workshop Facilitator and Experience Designer

I help workshop instructors, presenters and facilitators take the overwhelm out of the tech, so they can focus on what they do best.

🎧 Zoom Host, Producer & Consultant

ASK DEEP QUESTIONS is more than just a deck of cards with thoughtful questions that go below the surface to create meaningful connections. 

I am working on creating more tools to empower people who feel disconnected to start a conversation that matters and I'm also supporting community builders (workshop facilitators, program leaders, conference organizers, retreat facilitators, managers, ...) to facilitate deep connections for their members, teams and attendees - online and offline.

🔥 Founder and CEO

Viewchanger

Teaching improv skills for personal development

Improv Teacher

Big3 Video Agency

Self-guided online Course teaching entrepreneurs and aspiring thought leaders how to create videos that sell.

🖥️ The Powerful Video Formula Online Course

🎥 Cinematographer

Helping businesses and entrepreneurs deeply connect with their best clients online with powerful videos.

We have helped our clients create videos that sell with our combined experience of over 20 years, worked on award-winning feature documentaries and created 200+ promotional business videos. Yes, we even helped one of our clients gather over 1.2 million views, 3,200 likes and 400+ comments for just one of their videos, turned our clients into YouTube celebrities and got invited to give “Being Charismatic on Video” workshops at various conferences across Canada.

We discovered that the most important thing for business owners who need to be on video to promote their business is to be happy with the way their videos look and the way they look on camera. If they are embarrassed about the way they come across on video, they will never use it to promote their business. 

So we created THE POWERFUL VIDEO FORMULA - a self-guided online course that teaches entrepreneurs and aspiring thought leaders how to create high quality video content.

🎬 Co-Founder | VP

Red Gecko Productions

Cinematic, documentary storytelling for organizations, foundations and businesses.
From videography services to editing promo videos.

🎬 Video Producer

I have produced, directed, filmed and edited several award-winning documentary short films about topics ranging from urban farming to intentional travel.

🎥 Documentary Filmmaker

Ghosts Media

As the Assistant Editor to the feature length, award-winning animal rights documentary "The Ghosts in the Machine" by Liz Marshall, I honed my skills in the art of visual storytelling and editing narratives that engage and resonate.

Assistant Video Editor

Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival

During North America's largest documentary film festival I ensured all media and technical aspects ran smoothly in the industry lounge, leading to an improved experience for delegates.

IT Support Technician

M.U.C.K. Film Festival

Organization, promotion and marketing for monthly film festival screenings as well as
ordering, screening and programming potential documentaries.

Festival Coordinator/ Co-Programmer

Landeszentrale für poltische Bildung Baden-Württemberg

Organize a booth at games conventions with educational games for kids teaching them about politics.

Event Manager

Stuart Samuels Productions

Conducting audiovisual research for different documentary films (e.g. NightFlight: Reborn which premiered at the Los Angeles Filmfestival 2008), assessing and designing presentation materials and creating narratives in close collaboration with the production team. Additionally administrative tasks in the production office.

Documentary Researcher, Production Assistant

Bechtle

Summer job setting up meetings, preparing and maintaining audiovisual equipment. Organizing and facilitating team building events for the organization.

Event Management Assistant

Are you tired of the same old, unproductive meetings and workshops? Do you feel like you're not getting the engagement or results you need from your team?

🗣️ Let me tell you a secret: it's not your fault. The truth is, engaging people in a way that builds trust and connection is an art form. And as a recovering shy guy and people-loving introvert, I'm passionate about creating experiences that foster deep connections.

🤝 As a trainer, facilitator, and experience designer, I help empathetic leaders and teams create meaningful, inclusive experiences that build trust, empower vulnerability, and foster deeper connections. My mission is to ensure everyone feels seen and heard, especially the introverted, quiet and shy people.

If you're struggling with low engagement, difficult team dynamics, or participants who don't trust each other, I've got you covered. My workshops and programs are designed to tackle these challenges head-on, helping you and your team work better together.

💡 Together, we'll turn crickets into conversations, and side conversations into productive collaboration. No more wasting time on small talk or cringey icebreakers. Instead, we'll work together to create experiences that make your team feel seen, heard, and valued.

🤔 Don't believe in icebreakers? I get it. But trust me, my approach is different. By creating brave spaces and using ice MELTERS, my connection activities actually make people feel comfortable and engaged, not uncomfortable and anxious.

🌍 Over the past few years, I've trained thousands of people to create highly inclusive, engaging, and meaningful experiences when we can't be in the same room together. And now, I am writing my first book at icemeltersbook.com

🌟 At the end of the day, my goal is simple: to help people feel less alone and more connected. So if you're ready to take your team to the next level, let's talk.

📩 Send me a message and let's create magical human moments together - online and beyond.

Jan Keck

The facilitator held up a stack of cards with pictures of animals on them and said, “To find your group, make the sound of your animal. Don’t show the card. Just make the sound. Go!” 

The room erupted.

Half the group laughed and jumped right in. Someone let out a confident lion roar. Another flapped their arms like a chicken. A few people committed so hard it felt like a theatre warm-up.

But across the circle, I saw the other half.
The people who froze.
The ones who scanned the room, silently begging for a different option.
The ones who held their cards against their chest, hoping someone else would moo first so they wouldn’t have to.

One woman pressed her lips together, exhaling through her nose like she could shrink herself out of the activity completely. Another stared at her card long enough that I wondered whether she’d bolt for the door.

Nothing dramatic happened. Nobody cried. Nobody complained. But the moment was clear: This activity wasn’t designed to offer a safe way in for everyone. It lit up the confident few and left the rest to manage their discomfort alone.

From the outside, it’s just a playful moment. On the inside, someone’s body is sounding an alarm.
​
Researchers from Harvard, UCLA, and Purdue have found that when people feel excluded or unsafe in a group, the same areas of the brain activate as when they experience physical pain.

🚨 Exclusion doesn’t just feel uncomfortable. It hurts.

This explains why even “simple” icebreaker activities can feel like a punch to the gut when the design doesn’t support you.

They assume everyone feels equally comfortable, equally ready, equally visible. And that has never been true.

Quiet people, reflective people, new people, marginalized people, people who need a moment before speaking, ... they often get left behind before the session even begins. They think, process, and participate in different ways.

When you design with these differences in mind, you don’t just make space for the quiet ones. You improve the experience for everyone and unlock engagement that would have never surfaced otherwise.

👉 Learn more at https://lnkd.in/e4W_iqgR

As I walked into the conference, I felt myself shrink a little. Everyone seemed to know someone. Everyone looked like they belonged. I wasn’t sure if I did.
I could already predict how the evening would go. A dozen versions of the same small talk questions:

“What do you do?”
“Where are you from?”
“How’s your week?”

I could play along, keep it light, stay at the surface. But something in me felt tired of performing. I craved genuine human connection that evening, but I wasn’t sure if this was the kind of room where I could be myself without it feeling awkward.

So I took a tiny risk. I changed the script. And instead of “What do you do?” I tried, “Imagine we were meeting a year from today with a bottle of champagne — what are we celebrating?” (a powerful question I learned from Jayson Gaignard).

A few people blinked. One laughed politely and escaped toward the coffee. For a moment, I thought, “Maybe I misjudged this. Maybe this was a mistake.”
But then I met Jonas.

Something in him relaxed the moment he heard the question, as if he’d been waiting for permission to have a real conversation. We ended up sitting together for the rest of the event.

Before leaving, I joked that we should actually schedule that champagne meeting for a year later. Surprisingly, he agreed.

Twelve months later, I arrived early at the restaurant, half convinced he wouldn’t show up. But he walked through the door, sat down, and without any warm-up, we picked up right where we left off — talking about our wins, our doubts, our year.

That single moment of courage in a buffet line created a connection that lasted an entire year without a single message between us.

And it taught me something I now see in every room I facilitate:

👉 Nothing meaningful happens until someone takes a small risk.

Walking into a group space can feel like stepping into cold water. You test the temperature. You look around to see if anyone else is brave enough to go first.

Every participant arrives with the same quiet question:
“Is this a place where iI feel safe enough to take a small risk?”

Not a dramatic leap. Not a reveal-everything moment. Just a tiny step beyond what feels comfortable. And that step matters. In a group setting, that stretch might look like:

🔹 Trying a new activity that feels unfamiliar
🔹 Speaking after being silent
🔹 Sharing a personal insight
🔹 Disagreeing respectfully
🔹 Asking for help

These moments seem small from the outside, but inside someone’s body, they are full of shaky adrenaline. They are the building blocks of confidence, courage, and genuine connection.

As the facilitator, your job is not to push your participants, but to engineer conditions where a small risk feels doable.

* * * * *
Follow me, as I am writing my book "Ice Melters" in public. I love to share ideas, strategies and activities to create engagement, trust and connection in groups - without making people cringe.

One of my pet peeves in virtual sessions: A Q&A slide that is taking up the whole screen and stays up for the whole 20-30 minutes!!!

Can we stop doing this and just stop screensharing, so we can see the speaker or even better: each other?!

Thank you 🙏

On Saturday I went to get inspired by the amazing speakers at TEDxHeilbronn and picked up a couple of ideas for my upcoming TEDx performance at TEDxFreiburg in March 2026!

What makes a memorable TED Talk for you

390 ... 

That is the number of followers I hope to attract by 31.12.2025 so I can cross off a box on my Vision Board Bingo card that I have been carrying over each quarter wind the start of the year:

"Attract 10,000 followers on LinkedIn."

Ok, that might sound a bit cryptic for anyone who didn't see my Bingo Card yet, where I track the progress and momentum to achieve my goals. In business, personal, family, health, lifestyle and wealth.

After 2 years with this process I am excited to teach more people about it. Should I host a workshop on this topic? Share my canva template? Record a video walkthrough?

Let me know in the comments.

And if you're not a follower yet, and want to learn how to create more human experiences, invite even the quiet people into contribution and create a sense of belonging, then you know what to do 🙂

No alternative text description for this image

Skipping Black Friday. Celebrating 8 years instead! 🎉

This Friday my company, Ask Deep Questions, turns 8 years old this week and before we celebrate, I want to ask you something that might shift what's coming next...

But first, a short story.

Back in 2017, I organized a small camping trip north of Toronto, Canada.
To help everyone connect on the long drive, I printed a handful of questions on little slips of paper.

That was it. No decks. No brand. Just a simple way to spark better conversations.

I remember floating in a canoe in the middle of a lake with the stars above us as we shared vulnerable stories with each other. It was magical.

After the trip, something unexpected happened: Everyone wanted to keep the questions. People started using them at family gatherings, staff meetings, and even on dates.

So I kept iterating.
Refining questions. Testing them with groups.
Watching what opened people up and what didn’t.

Eventually, I put the very first Ask Deep Questions deck out into the world on November 28, 2017.

Within the first few year:

🎉 80+ people showed up to the first release
🎉 333 backers supported the Kickstarter
🎉 The decks were shipped to more than 20 countries
🎉 And (this still blows my mind), by now, over 300,000 deep conversations have been sparked because of it.

Eight years later, I’m still following that same spark:

Helping people warm up groups, build trust, and create connection without the cringe. If by the end we feel less alone, my mission is complete.
​
And today, I’d love your help shaping what I build next with a quick 3-minute check-in. I built a short guided check-in to better understand where you’re at and what would actually help you next year.

👉 Take the check-in here​: https://lnkd.in/ev5Xzptg
​
+ + + + +  + + + + +  + + + + +

A small anniversary thank-you (early access) 🎉

Because it’s the 8-year anniversary, I’ve also put together a small thank-you: Up to 50% limited-time discounts on my cards, self-guided courses and digital tools.

Everyone who completes the check-in will get immediate access. For everyone else, I will send the details for the Ask Deep Questions Anniversary this Friday on my email list: https://lnkd.in/e6_SZmCr

❌ This isn’t a Black Friday sale, and part of me always cringes when this time of the year comes around. But I want you to help me with my mission, and if that means more people will see it, I am okay with that! 
​
Thanks for being a part of this journey ❤️

8 years ago I printed some cards...

I am preparing for a Christmas themed Murder Mystery Dinner this weekend and am having way too much fun customizing the characters based on the guest's favourite holiday movies 😍

Plus, the murder scene will have a soundtrack and smoke 😳

Now, I just need to find a small team that will hire me to create a custom experience for them ...

Seriously, this would be a dream project!!

Most facilitators know what it feels like when a session slips away from them.

😮‍💨 The energy drops.
📣 The loudest people dominate.
🤐 Quiet voices stay silent.

You’re adapting in real time, but it feels like guesswork instead of skill.

And it’s frustrating because you know the session could have been meaningful, engaging, and inclusive.

That’s the problem: traditional facilitation trainings don’t teach you how to handle the real moments. They give you models and tools, but not the ability to read the room, intervene skilfully, or create psychological safety when it matters most.

Most facilitators are left to learn by trial and error in front of a group.

I designed "The EPIC Facilitator" to fix that.

This advanced facilitation skills training helps you master the four pillars of unforgettable experiences:

🔹 Engagement: micro-engagements, temperature-checking, and adapting your facilitation like a thermostat.

🔹 Purpose: designing sessions people remember, building buy-in, and keeping discussions on track.

🔹 Inclusion: co-creating practices that make every voice heard and accessible by design.

🔹 Collaboration: turning groups into teams and managing “difficult” behaviours with confidence.

And unlike other programs, we don’t stop at theory. You practise real scenarios in the High-Stakes Practice Lab, where you can safely test your skills before applying them in front of stakeholders or clients.

If you want to level up your facilitation in a way that actually shows up in the room, this is the container for it.
​
📆 Early-bird pricing ends December 31, 2025, and we start in February 2026.
👉 Save your spot before the price increases: https://lnkd.in/eFj8xphw

If you’ve been considering joining, now’s the right moment.

* * * * *

PS: What I love the most about this training are the diverse voices and experiences in the room. In the current cohort, we had people from Canada, Ireland, Germany, the USA, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom and Colombia, who all brought unique perspectives and approaches to common group challenges.

I truly believe that my job as the trainer/facilitator of this program is to mine the wisdom that already exists in the group, which is why you won't get long PowerPoint slides to watch; instead, you'll get to learn through experience and from each other.

taplio

The Battle

Javier Llerena 🪄

Jan Keck

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreJan Keck's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Javier Llerena 🪄

Jan Keck

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Jan Keck's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreJan Keck's LinkedIn Performance