NSB Logo Erik Wahl Erik Wahl

Erik Wahl

Speaker

San Diego, CA, USA

The Art of Vision: Live on-stage paintings to bring messages to life

Erik Wahl is an internationally recognized graffiti artist making big waves on the international lecture circuit challenging organizations to break free from business as usual and embrace innovation. Erik’s book, The Spark and the Grind, explores the essential elements of turning ideas into disciplined action. It quickly became a bestseller on the CEO Reads list within its first week of publication. His #1 bestselling business book, Unthink, named CEO Read of the Year, is hailed as the ultimate blueprint for leveraging creativity to achieve extraordinary performance. As a business strategist, Erik consults for some of the world’s largest corporations, including Disney, Microsoft, and FedEx. He’s also a guest speaker at TED and the prestigious London Business School. Through this innovative approach, Erik motivates organizations to embrace innovation, boost mental agility, and strive for excellence, driving them towards increased profitability and success.

Keynote Speeches

Virtual Keynotes & Webinars
Contact us for more information about this speaker & their virtual presentations. Click here for some of the most popular formats for virtual events.
THE ART OF VISION

The best sustainable edge in business is the ability to differentiate yourself from your competition. Through this entertaining and highly practical program, we will uncover new ways to make your organization more creative, innovative and profitable, but more so, help your employees see the need to become better storytellers within and for your company and industry.

By embracing innovative strategies, professionals at all levels can achieve superior levels of performance by creatively and visibly differentiating themselves from the competition. No matter what kind of organization you have—from a small company to a large corporation—employees at all levels will better able to embrace the future by becoming more innovative, more productive and ultimately more profitable.

ORGANIZATIONAL EXCELLENCE

  • Differentiation, differentiation, differentiation
  • Telling a better story
  • Outthinking the competition

EMBRACING CHANGE

  • Working smarter, not harder
  • Sustaining excellence in a changing economy
  • Leveraging chaos to capitalize on opportunities
THE ART OF LEADERSHIP

Today’s leaders face a pressure to innovate—or else perish—unlike any other time in history.  Advances in social, mobile and cloud technology, coupled with fierce global competition has made the business landscape nearly unrecognizable from what it was a mere 10 years ago.

Erik Wahl’s entertaining and invigorating Art of Leadership presentation paints a compelling new portrait for what the successful leaders of tomorrow will look like. He inspires audiences to shed old ways of thinking and “business as usual” processes that are outdated, inefficient and detrimental to productivity. Audience members learn new ways to build an emotional connection to drive future employee engagement.  Erik’s presentation stretches traditional assumptions on leadership. The end results include:

  • Innovative solutions to further your organization
  • Attracting and engaging quality employees
  • New efficiencies and the end of detrimental redundancies

Growth and comfort cannot co-exist. When leaders come from a place of authenticity, curiosity, exploration and purpose, this leads to more meaningful connections among team members and with clients and customers—and ultimately, a more profitable organization. An engaged employee equals an engaged customer.

UNTHINK™

Somehow we’ve come to believe that creativity is reserved for the chosen few: the poets, the painters, the writers. The truth is bigger and better than that. Creativity is in all of us. We simply need to rediscover the keys that will unlock our potential. UNthink is the keynote experience that will push members of your organization beyond their traditional thought patterns and habitual levels of performance. UNthink will inspire audiences to realize they are capable of so much more than they have been led to believe.

The UNthink program helps reframe your organization’s thinking so that new creative actions become possible. Learning how to UNthink will inject your daily grind with new passion, allowing employees to see how the organization wants and needs all of their talents and energies, not just the ones they’ve been using so far. You’ll begin the process of rethinking your life as a blank canvas of limitless opportunity on which to create your masterpiece.

This program will allow your organization to:

  1. Step outside convention to discover new and unexpected solutions to business challenges
  2. Challenge pre-conceived notions about what’s possible
  3. UNthink your way to increased creativity, productivity and passion
THE SPARK AND THE GRIND

It’s one thing to understand the importance of creativity to the success of your business, but what most people don’t understand is to how to put a structure in place so that innovation can find its way. The paradox of creativity is that structure creates freedom. Even the wildest minds require extreme orderliness and attention to detail so that they have the space and discipline to create.

Consider:

  • Beethoven sat down everyday at daybreak, regardless of season, and composed until 3:00pm.
  • Kafka started writing at 11:30pm each night.
  • Mozart taught lessons by day and composed only in the evenings.
  • Picasso ate lunch each day with his family in silence and only allowed visitors one day per week.
  • Mark Twain awoke at 5:30 am, ate a hearty breakfast, and wrote until 5:00 pm.

This program will allow your organization to:

  1. Deconstructs the discipline of the creative process to ignite ideas to action.
  2. Explores The Psychology of Success and the Science of Innovation to achieve superior levels of performance.
  3. Harness The mental toughness required to navigate ambiguity and master complexity in a rapidly changing business environment
  4. Disruption is the new normal. Are you creating or reacting?
ERIK AND TASHA WAHL: A CANDID CONVERSATION

Join Erik and Tasha Wahl for a dynamic, 60-minute curated Q&A exploring their journey of building a successful business, consulting for organizations worldwide, and navigating 30 years of marriage. With honesty and insight, they share lessons on growth, failure, resilience, and gratitude, offering a rare behind-the-scenes look at the intersection of creativity, entrepreneurship, and personal evolution.

Audience reviews:

  • Game changing. - Microsoft
  • Brilliant. - Wells Fargo
  • Erik Wahl was the highlight of our entire Conference. - AT&T
  • Epic Keynote experience unlike anything we have ever seen! - Appian
  • Erik transformed the stage and created an epic audience experience. - Grand Canyon University Commencement
  • Game changing. - Microsoft
  • Brilliant. - Wells Fargo
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Speaker Biography

Erik Wahl is a globally acclaimed artist, TED speaker, and No. 1 bestselling author, recognized as one of the most sought-after corporate speakers of 2025. With a unique blend of artistry and entrepreneurial expertise, Erik delivers dynamic keynotes that inspire organizations to embrace creativity, innovation, and mental agility in a world where disruption is the new normal.

His bestselling book, The Spark and the Grind, has been praised as a transformative guide for turning ideas into action. Another of his best selling books, Unthink, is hailed by Forbes as “The blueprint to actionable creativity” and by Fast Company as “provocative with a purpose.”

Drawing inspiration from street art, Erik became an acclaimed graffiti artist, using his talents to raise funds for charitable causes. His performances seamlessly integrate his passion for art and business, leaving audiences both inspired and empowered.

Erik has collaborated with leading organizations such as AT&T, Disney, London Business School, Microsoft, FedEx, ExxonMobil, Ernst & Young, and XPrize. To date, he has delivered over 1,500 keynotes worldwide, captivating audiences with his innovative perspective.

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