Neil Pasricha

Speaking topics

Presentations listed below include in-person and virtual keynotes, as well as workshops, fireside chats, and other presentation formats.

• The Happiness Equation: Science-Backed Habits to Cultivate Positive Mindset

  We live in a world where we’re bombarded by change, expectation, and uncertainty. News media hijacks our brains while social media tells us we are never good enough. Anxiety, depression, and loneliness rates are at record highs. What we need is a splash-of-cold-water talk that is science-backed, story-laden, and full of laughs.

  Based on Neil Pasricha’s #1 international bestselling book, The Happiness Equation, audiences will learn how it’s possible, despite larger tectonic plates they cannot control, to use specific research-backed tools and practices to cultivate a habit-based, positive mindset every day.

• Be Happy First: Resilience and Breakthrough Performance in Times of Change

  After Neil Pasricha’s wife left him and his best friend took his own life, he crash-landed in an empty downtown bachelor apartment. Just 12 months later, he was working directly for the CEO at Walmart, running the International Academy of Digital Arts and Science’s “Best Blog in the World”, and had just published The Book of Awesome, which stormed the New York Times bestseller list and sold over a million copies. The lesson was clear — resilience and growth can come from challenge and change. This inspiring keynote presentation shares action-based ways to lift performance to new heights.

• The Science of Positive Growth Mindset

  Does great work lead to happiness? Or… does happiness lead to great work? Neil Pasricha shares counterintuitive, research-based answers in this fun, fast-paced, research-grounded tour of the emerging neuroscience and positive psychology landscape.

  Pasricha will show audiences how cultivating a positive mindset results in 31% higher productivity, 37% higher sales, and 300% greater creativity — and then share how to get there. Based on fresh research that Pasricha published in Harvard Business Review, this is a high-energy, takeaway-laden talk that gets audiences buzzing.

• Lead Yourself Before You Lead Others

  Which company is #1 on the Fortune 500 and has been for over a decade? Walmart. The retail behemoth’s rise to half a trillion dollars in sales with over two million employees has been well-documented. But what hasn’t been documented is how they develop, nurture, and grow leaders up through the ranks.

  Neil Pasricha served as Director of Leadership Development at Walmart and worked for the CEO while partnering with Harvard Business School to develop the first global leadership program inside the retail giant. In this talk, he shares how leaders can use science-backed practices to help themselves show up to lead teams of two, two thousand, or two million. It starts with yourself. Pasricha will show you how.

• Happy Habits: Tiny Changes, Massive Results

  Why do so few people say, “I love my job”? Gallup reports a whopping 79% of the global workforce is disengaged. But what if there were simple habits that could help turn employees into their most engaged, creative, and productive selves? It’s not crazy talk; it’s actually happening.

  Using his unique blend of science-backed models and lean-in-and-laugh stories, Neil Pasricha shares simple happiness habits and, more importantly, teaches audiences how to make them stick. The result is an easy and research-backed way to build small, simple habits to help create workplaces where people show up inspired to do their best work every day.

• Building Trust in Distrustful Times: Three Ways to Increase Trust with Customers

  According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, trust in media, business, and government are at an all-time low. We have never believed less, agreed less, or trusted less. Yet, building trust, and developing the community that surrounds it, remains imperative for any organization, influencer, startup, or brand. So what are the new ways to build trust and community in an era of mistrust?

  With his signature humour, in a talk he debuted as the featured keynote at SXSW, New York Times bestselling author Neil Pasricha shares three modern ways organizations can build more trust:

  • Finite over infinite: In an era of infinite choice, the value of curation skyrockets.
  • Human over algorithm: In an era of bots, we trust brains.
  • Go all in, show all in: The more chips you push into the middle, the more we buy your hand.

  Through sharing current business examples, Pasricha reveals what works, what doesn’t, and how to figure out who to really believe and rally behind.