The Narrative Body

The body believes
the story
you tell it.

I spent seven years making myself sick with a story. Then I spent twenty making myself well with a better one. Now I study how the stories we tell ourselves become the bodies we live in — and what that means for medicine, organizations, and the way we treat each other.

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Roi Shternin — keynote speaker, author and organizational transformation expert, Vienna Austria

27Countries

7Books

2PIR Posts

F500Advisory

\"The mind can break the body. The same mind can heal it. I know because mine did both — and I spent twenty years understanding why.\"

The Idea

The stories we tell ourselves
become the bodies we live in.

I know this not as a theory. I know it because I ran the experiment — in both directions. I used narrative to make myself sick for seven years. Then I used it to get well. Then I spent twenty years studying why it worked.

What I found is that we are narrative creatures at a biological level. The stories we believe about ourselves — about our worth, our limitations, our right to be seen — don't just shape our psychology. They shape our physiology. They determine who gets heard, who gets helped, and who quietly disappears from the room.

This is the mechanism behind chronic illness. Behind medical trauma. Behind the epidemic of people who have learned to perform wellness because their systems reward the performance and punish the truth.

I call it the Narrative Body. I've been living inside it my whole life. And I've spent twenty years translating what I found there into something the rest of the world can use.

TEDx Talk

The Algorithm Will
See You Now

TEDxMedUniGraz · Medical University of Graz · Nov 2025

It took doctors a decade to find his diagnosis. It took AI ten seconds. This talk reveals how technology — which can feel cold and detached — is actually the key to reclaiming humanity in healthcare. We can use algorithms to dismantle bias and burnout, empowering patients and freeing doctors to truly see and heal.

The Work

Author. Speaker.
Empathy Expert.

The ideas come first. The credentials are the evidence. Click below if you want the full picture.

~100 Doctors. Self-Diagnosed.

33 in the first 7 years. Around 100 in total. All failed. Self-diagnosis, self-rehabilitation — the lived architecture of a system that does not work.

Patient-in-Residence

First-ever PIR at two world-class institutions — bridging patient lived experience with executive strategy at the highest institutional level.

Fortune 500 Advisor

Direct advisory with the world's largest organizations — translating lived experience into board-level transformation strategy.

Global Speaker — 27 Countries

TEDx stages, international summits, and corporate conferences across 27 countries. Messages that challenge, not comfort.

7 Published Books

Seven books on chronic illness, patient rights, healthcare AI, public speaking, and the political economy of bodies that don't comply.

Movement Builder

Founded Chronically 🥄 — the radical honest media movement for the chronically ill. The 🥄 represents the 1 in 5 employees living with invisible conditions. The conversation extends far beyond consulting.

What They Say

Voices from
the room.

Roi doesn't give you the comfortable version. He gives you the true one — and that's exactly what our leadership team needed to hear.

Chief Medical OfficerEuropean Healthcare Institution

I've seen hundreds of inclusion keynotes. This was the first time the room went silent in the right way — because everyone recognized the problem was theirs.

Head of People & CultureFortune 500 Technology Company

The Patient-in-Residence framework changed how we think about patient involvement at an institutional level. Not a consultant — a genuine strategic partner.

Innovation DirectorGlobal Health Institution

How I Work

Services for
serious organizations.

Healthcare institutions, technology companies, and Fortune 500 organizations ready to stop performing transformation and start building it. Every engagement is bespoke — no off-the-shelf programs.

Most Requested Service

Keynote Speaking

A keynote built around one idea: the stories we tell ourselves become our biology, our culture, and our systems. Not inspiration. The uncomfortable truth about why your people are suffering in silence — and what it actually takes to change that. Delivered from 20 years of living it and advising on it across 27 countries.

ConferencesSummitsHealthcare Tech / F500DEI60–90 min EN · HE · DE

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Speaking Fees

Contact-based

Fees vary by event, format, and geography. DACH-region and nonprofit rates available.

Enquire directly or via AAE Speakers Bureau.