I speak about
the silence.
Ten Ironman finish lines. Stage 2b cancer. Decades in the executive room. None of it was the hardest thing. The hardest thing was a silent delivery room — and I tell that story out loud, so the people who stand in that silence, and the people who care for them, know what holds when everything doesn't.
A father's testimony · A coach's spine · No polish where polish would lie
One story, told straight.
Every audience gets the same true center. What changes is what your people carry out of the room.
And Then It Was Silent: grief is heavy, identity remains whole
After IVF, after the miscarriages, our first child was finally due — bags packed, months of preparing, the excitement out of control. Then the alarms, the rushing, and a room gone silent. This is the story of what that silence takes from a family, and what it cannot take.
It's also the story of what I noticed from inside it: the question fathers never get asked. The way mothers get asked about their bodies while their whole heart is the wound. The couple grieving on different clocks, frightening each other. And the faith that survives the room — not around the grief, but through it.
The rooms where this story works.
Hospitals & healthcare teams
L&D and NICU nurses, bereavement teams, chaplains, perinatal conferences, grand rounds. You were in our room. This talk shows you that day from the family's side of the bed — what we heard, what we couldn't, and the small acts your teams did that we will carry forever. Including the one thing almost nobody in the building did: ask the father.
Your people leave with: the second question, and the words that help in the worst hour.
Churches & men's groups
Where was God in the silent room? I won't hand your people a tidy answer, because I don't have one. I have something better: the true story of a man who had to turn the worst thing over to God and found that every prayer he'd ever prayed was load-bearing. For men's ministries, grief ministries, and congregations learning to walk beside families after loss.
Your people leave with: permission to grieve like men actually grieve, and a faith that holds weight.
Loss organizations & conferences
Keynotes, remembrance events, October awareness month, Wave of Light gatherings, parent retreats, panels. Fathers are rare at the podium in this community — most of us went underground. I stand up there so the dads in your audience see one of their own say the name out loud, and so the moms hear what their husbands may never have found words for.
Your people leave with: a father's voice for the family members who don't have one yet.
Built for heavy things.
Kenny Stoddart spent decades in cybersecurity leadership, finished ten Ironman races, and beat Stage 2b cancer. He founded IronMind Advisors on one conviction — you are not what you lost — and coaches executives and elite performers through the identity hits they can see coming.
Then came the one nobody sees coming. After IVF and miscarriages, Kenny and his wife lost their first child — a daughter — at full term. IronMind Unbroken is what he built from inside that wreckage: a free resource page for grieving parents, and this stage work, so the story does for other families what he couldn't find anyone to do for his.
He speaks as a father first. The Ironman discipline and the boardroom composure just mean he can stand up and get through it — and take questions after.
Kenny Stoddart · Founder, IronMind Advisors
Bring this story to your people.
One email starts it. Tell me about your event and your audience, and I'll answer personally — usually within a day or two.
Book Kenny to speak
Keynote, workshop, panel, or remembrance event · in person or virtual. The email opens with a short form you can fill in.
October fills first. October is Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month — remembrance events, Wave of Light, awareness programs. If your event is in October, reach out early. And if you're a parent-run support group without a speaker budget: write to me anyway.