Keynotes

Audience

This talk is our most popular keynote and is suitable for any audience. In addition to being one of our most inspirational speeches, this talk can be presented as a multi-hour, interactive workshop. The subject matter is presented with an emphasis on leadership when appropriate.

Message

Creating a culture of happiness & high performance in your organization starts with you.

You’ll dive into applied happiness research from positive psychology, neuroscience, and organizational psychology to fuel success in your work – and your life. You’ll understand the financial case and ROI of happiness at work. Then you’ll explore science-based habits for work-life balance and effective leadership. For leadership groups, you’ll walk through a culture change case study that led to a $3M business turnaround for a midsize company.

What would it be like to have a culture of engagement, retention, and resilience in which people in your organization are consistently at their best? You’ll leave with a checklist of habits for personal flourishing and professional success to make it happen…

You’ll get the evidence-based business case for happiness that translates into dollars and cents, best practices for engaging your passion and feeling better at work, and simple actions to create a culture that will help you find, keep, and engage talent.

Audience

This talk is suitable for any audience. In addition to being on of our most inspirational speeches, this talk can be presented as a multi-hour, interactive workshop. The subject matter is presented with an emphasis on leadership when appropriate.

Message

A powerful emotional context permeates all aspects of our lives presently — uncertainty. Global instability, economic pressures, and social division are layered onto our already hectic, demanding lives. How can people not only cope, but thrive personally and professionally?

Happiness Means Business brings the science of positive psychology to bear. With practical advice coupled with funny storytelling, our team provides an inspiring toolkit for resilience! We explore the threat of burnout, shining a light on the three levels of increasingly debilitating stress. We then shift focus to the tools that insulate workers from emotional exhaustion.

Embrace the research results that prove positive emotions come readily when certain skills are learned. See how these skills demonstrably lead directly to greater success. Come away equipped to fuel your personal happiness and create positive contagion amongst the people you influence

Content Highlights

• Three levels of burnout
• Scientifically connecting positive emotions with stress management
• Neurophysiology: how the brain can be re-wired
• Overcoming negativity bias

Audience

This talk is suitable for people with subordinate direct reports and opinion-leaders who have influence on the corporate culture. It can be either a deeply thought-provoking keynote or a multi-hour interactive workshop.

Message

Many leaders come to their roles as a function of their expertise in a specific subject matter, but leadership requires more than job-specific skills. Leadership is a way of being. This talk de-emphasizes what we individually know and instead asks us who we are.

Traditional employee engagement programs often buy the loyalty of employees’ bodies (workers show up) but do not win their hearts and minds. In this talk, learn direct interventions that change the way employees FEEL about their work and their workmates. Leverage positive psychology to bring creativity, productivity, and joy into your workplace!

Management members who influence the behavior of staff can learn a mindset that shifts them from overseers of business processes to genuine leaders—seeing the big picture, articulating the direction, and embracing their team in a collaborative and committed mission.

Transformative organizational change occurs when bosses are coaches who lead with emotional intelligence and profound personal integrity.

Content Highlights

• Role modeling is a reality even when leaders are unaware
• Contrasting true leadership from tasks found in a management job description
• Engaging Hollywood video content that drives points home and inspires discussion
• Emotional Intelligence as a tool to fuel worker commitment

Audience

This talk is our most popular keynote and is suitable for any audience. In addition to being one of our most inspirational speeches, this talk can be presented as a multi-hour, interactive workshop. The subject matter is presented with an emphasis on leadership when appropriate.

Message

How do we find and keep the right people?

The labor market is more competitive than ever—and compensation alone isn’t enough to win. Today’s employees want more from their working lives. In this session, Jackson Kerchis draws on research in happiness, positive psychology, and job satisfaction to explore what people really want—and how leaders can meet their core psychological needs.

You’ll uncover the true drivers of recruiting, retention, and engagement in a post-pandemic workforce. These are often overlooked yet measurable factors like caring, belonging, autonomy, feeling valued, and opportunities for growth. You’ll leave with a leadership checklist to help your organization become a destination workplace.

You’ll get psychological models that promote job and career satisfaction, steps to measure and improve your employee experience, and best practices for leadership that attracts, retains, and engages the right people.

Audience

This talk is suitable for any audience and is the highest energy and least boring talk on mindfulness that you’ll ever hear. In addition to being an inspiring keynote, this talk can be presented as a multi-hour, interactive workshop.

Message

Why the heck is everyone talking about mindfulness these days? Mindfulness is the most researched of all positive psychology interventions. And the evidence is overwhelmingly clear: mindfulness is critical for peak performance and avoiding burnout.

In this session, we draw on Jackson’s four months living as a Zen monk alongside Paul’s 30+ years of experience as a meditation practitioner and teacher. We combine intriguing stories from these experiences on the art of mindfulness and Zen practice with insights from the social sciences to help you craft new ways of working and relating to others.

You’ll hear stories from the monastery that help you rethink work, stress, and leadership. With a bit of humor and an intriguing set of experiences this session will leave you committed to mindfulness, service, and contribution.

Audience

This talk is suitable for any audience. The subject matter is presented with an emphasis on organizational settings when appropriate. In addition to being one of our team’s most original, progressive and inspirational speeches, this talk can be presented as a multi-hour, interactive workshop.

Message

What happens when a Gen X and Gen Z start a company together?

In this talk Paul and Jackson take the stage for a one of a kind dialogue to share just that. Jackson is a member of Gen Z and Paul is a member of Gen X. In this session they create sparks on stage as they share humorous, insightful, and practical ideas to lead across generations.

Gen Z is the most diverse, connected, and values-driven generation in the workforce—and they’re redefining the rules of work. They expect more than compensation: they want purpose, autonomy, and opportunity. Gen X wants these things too but they have many habits, norms, and expectations that don’t always align with younger employees.

This session bridges the gap: you’ll learn how to create a climate that motivates, engages, and retains talent in the years to come.

This isn’t about managing “kids these days”—it’s about understanding and leveraging research on happiness and engagement to bridge generational gaps and future-proof your workplace.

This session is also available as Paul or Jackson’s Gen Z Survival Guide if you can only accommodate one speaker.

Audience

This talk is suitable for all audiences. Participants will leave with a new optimism that they are in control of their lives.

Message

So many of us wake up every day immediately burdened with a crushing feeling of productivity debt.

There are so many things to get done – it can feel like a pile we never quite get to the bottom of. It’s the overwhelming feeling that you must rush to complete everything. Personal needs are time-bound and designed for efficiency, like eating and getting the kids to school. And nearly every day ends just like the day began — with a guilt-inducing perception that we have more to do!

Burnout is everywhere…

Workers resent their work and wish for a different dynamic in their day-to-day lives. Quiet quitting, the Great Resignation, or simply legions of disengaged workers all result from the cultural defect of a “never enough” mentality.

Fortunately, there are cures for this enormous and sometimes crippling pressure. This talk draws from the best research from the fields of positive psychology and behavior-based habits, allowing attendees to build a better system to manage their tasks, projects, and demands and create space for their lives outside of work.

Your audience will see to-do lists from the perspective of getting what they want from life. Not only will they have practical tools for organizing and managing the mundane everyday requirements of modern work, but they will also systematically have tools that fuel success in long-range personal and professional ambitions.

Content Highlights

• Creating an external mind that immediately relieves pressure
• Time blocking and project management
• Intentional rituals for work-life balance

Audience

This talk is suitable for any audience but it is a great fit for people leaders and executives, tech themes, and workforce topic tracks.

Message

Artificial Intelligence is transforming how we work—but it can also transform how we feel at work. In this session, Jackson Kerchis—workforce well-being speaker, author, and advisor—explores cutting-edge applications of AI that go beyond efficiency to fuel human flourishing.

Drawing on psychology, organizational change research, and emerging technology, you’ll learn how to use AI to assess and support your most important asset: your people. We’ll look at practical applications—from predicting burnout and measuring engagement in real time, to creating personalized support systems that keep employees energized and connected. Jackson shows how AI can make cultures of care and engagement scalable without losing the human touch.

You’ll leave with a future-focused perspective—and a roadmap to combine human wisdom with AI insights to create workplaces where people thrive, stay, and perform at their best. Learn to…

• Use AI-driven insights to identify early indicators of burnout, disengagement, and well-being risk in their workforce.
• Apply AI to measure engagement and deliver personalized, human-centered support at scale.
• Integrate human judgment with AI insights to design workplace interventions that improve retention, energy, and performance.