Trainer Bio

Steve Banno, Jr. lives and works outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Steve is an award-winning high school educator spanning a twenty-five year teaching career. He created and taught one of the first high school courses on happiness and altruism in the United States.

During this time, Steve has also been a presenter, consultant, speaker, writer, and has started his own
professional consulting company. Steve’s work has centered on empowering teens, adults, and organizations to proliferate well-being, benevolence, kindness and positivity in their professional and private lives.

Steve’s expertise is the application of positive psychology, human flourishing, human development, and mindfulness-based stress reduction. Steve is highly skilled at simplifying and codifying the science of wellbeing and fundamental psychological needs into actionable tools and strategies.
Steve’s in-person or virtual workshops are result-oriented processes. While there is never a one size fits all approach for businesses, organizations, individuals and communities, Steve has an extraordinary ability to help individuals identify the 20% of inputs that will drive 80% of key results: people developing into better versions of themselves at work and outside of it.

Steve delivers a variety of training and coaching topics involving stress management, emotional awareness and regulation, time management, focus and attention, and developing a healthier work-life balance. Steve’s talks, training, and courses are interactive, fun, collaborative and experiential.

Steve is the author of Teaching What Matters: Activating Happiness, Kindness and Altruism. The book distills two decades of Steve’s work. It also translates the best scientific research into accessible exercises and applications that create positive changes we all wish to see: optimism instead of cynicism, flourishing instead of languishing, compassion instead of combativeness, and cooperation instead of isolation.

Steve holds a B.A. from Duquesne University where he studied history, philosophy and English Literature while competing as a scholarship NCAA Division 1 tennis player. He also holds a Master’s degree in Secondary Education from the University of Massachusetts with a specific focus on human development and urban education.