From fast-growing startups to established organizations, universities, summits and conferences, Dan crafts and shares engaging and impactful talks. Click here to book now!

Cutting edge science now shows that when we pursue our passions in the correct way, we can realize the highest levels of personal and professional success.

In this talk, Daniel Lerner defines two types of passion: harmonious, and obsessive. When you’re harmoniously passionate, you not only love what you do, but you are more focused, energetic, and productive, and live a far more fulfilling life. Conversely, obsessive passions are marked by a compulsive, dogged pursuit of achievement, leading to guilt, shame, pessimism, unhappiness, and, far too often, early burnout.

Drawing on a diverse cast of iconic cultural figures—from Richard Branson to Ellen DeGeneres, Nelson Mandela to Kanye West—Lerner illuminates the difference between healthy and dangerous passions, how and why to ignite, explore, and stoke your healthy ones, and even how to find passion in work that you may have given up as passionless long ago. And if you’ve fallen into patterns of blind obsession, Lerner helps you transition out. Ultimately, this keynote is a fiery, fun, and practical primer on how to live a successfully passionate (and passionately successful!) life.

In this fun, inspiring, and information-packed talk, positive psychology expert Daniel Lerner discusses the surprising impacts that well-being can have on the development of excellence and expertise. Lerner’s key message is that ‘success and happiness’ is not an either/or proposition. In fact, science is showing us that well-being can give us remarkable and unexpected leverage in our pursuit of peak performance.

This talk incorporates a host of cutting-edge research, an array of real-world examples, and a diverse cast of iconic cultural figures, including Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Jay-Z, Mone Davis, and Teddy Roosevelt. A mixture of captivating storytelling and useful information, this is a fascinating keynote that will help professionals in all domains improve their mental health, raise their mental game, and realize success on their own unique terms.

For many students, the college experience has shifted from four years of thriving to a harrowing journey merely to survive. Rates of depression and anxiety among students are skyrocketing, expectations and competition are more intense than ever, and with online distractions and social media providing entirely new obstacles, today’s campus is markedly different from that of yesterday.

Featuring highlights from Daniel Lerner’s popular NYU class “The Science of Happiness” (the largest non-101 at the university), this talk will help students make the best of these crucial four years, both inside and outside of the classroom (and offers parents key tips to helping this happen, as well). Fast-paced, engaging, interactive, and immediately applicable, Lerner shares with audiences how to cultivate greater optimism, resilience, willpower, and better relationships. He also reveals the science behind why positive thinking can lead to better grades, a more satisfying social experience, better levels of performance on the stage, field, and in the classroom, and even higher post-grad salaries.

Touching on key aspects of the post-secondary experience—roommates, dating, diet, work, exercise, sleep, study habits, grit, and passion—this talk will help students and parents understand the habits that can get today’s co-eds out of the mode of merely ‘surviving,’ and into that of ‘thriving’—in both college and beyond. This is the talk graduates wish they could have heard while still in school. With the science of positivity, Lerner is changing the way students see school for good.