Paul Epstein has spent nearly 15 years as a pro sports executive for multiple NFL and NBA teams, a global sports agency, and the NFL league office. He’s transformed numerous NBA teams from the absolute bottom in league revenue to top-two in financial performance. He’s broken every premium revenue metric in Super Bowl history as the NFL’s sales leader. He’s also opened a billion-dollar stadium, helped save the New Orleans NBA franchise, and founded the San Francisco 49ers Talent Academy—where he became known as the “Why Coach”.
To amplify this impact, Paul has since installed his leadership and high-performance playbook with Fortune 500 leaders, Founders and CEOs, MBAs, and professional athletes.
As a global keynote speaker, #1 bestselling author of “The Power of Playing Offense”, and host of the “Playmakers: ON PURPOSE” podcast, Paul explores how living and working with a focus on leadership, culture, and purpose can transform organizations and individuals anywhere to unleash their full potential. When he’s not on stage, he’s putting his insights to daily practice, serving as Chief Impact Officer for PurposePoint (host of the world’s largest Purpose Summit) and Chief Purpose Advisor for the Why Institute (the world’s fastest way to discover your purpose)—on a mission to inspire leaders and lives to meet the unique challenges of our era.
Global upheaval, unrelenting change, and economic uncertainty have us all playing defense.
The result: confidence gaps that drive defensive mindsets and actions at organizations all over the world. But what if you had a playbook for playing offense — proactively pursuing and achieving meaningful goals and breakthrough performance — while everyone else is sheltering in place?
This is exactly what Paul delivers in this flagship keynote inspired by 15 years of leading teams in the NFL/NBA and his bestselling book, The Power of Playing Offense: a Leaders Playbook for Personal and Team Transformation.
Every audience member will walk away with a 5-pillar Playing Offense framework and WIN MONDAY playbook, curated for universal insights and actionable takeaways to implement in any industry or organization.
Keynote Outcomes
- Inspire your team to leverage purpose as a driver of commitment and performance
- Cultivate a culture of resilience to endure any climate of heavy change and uncertainty
- Understand the best and ‘next practices’ of trust building, collaboration, and growth
- Know what the greatest leaders do, and how to scale these behaviors across organizations
- Identify the keys to attracting, engaging, and retaining talent with confidence
Takeaway Resource for Attendees: Paul’s 52 Week Action Plan to WIN MONDAY
Even the most elite performers can rush to bad judgements, become paralyzed by indecision, or get worn down by decision fatigue.
In this keynote, Paul reveals the streamlined three-step process he’s used to turn around major sports franchises — from the locker room to the boardroom. Avoid decision traps, move forward clear and confident, and make the best out of your MVDs: Most Valuable Decisions.
Discover the key to making fast and effective decisions for the questions that keep you up at night:
- Should I choose Strategy A or B?
- Which candidate should I hire?
- What should I spend my time on?
- Do I take this deal, or call it off?
- What are my goals for next year?
The secret? The Head-Heart-Hands equation: a simple and repeatable process that taps into the power of our three most basic human tools for making better decisions faster.
Keynote Outcomes:
- Flip fear and uncertainty into clarity and confidence
- Empower leaders and talent to become highly decisive, aware, and intentional in their actions
- Acquire an operating framework designed for speed, efficiency, and winning time back
- Build high-trust teams through heightened authenticity and collaboration
- Leave with a playbook where everybody knows what to say “yes” to and what to say “no” to
- Takeaway Resource for Attendees: Paul’s 52 Week Action Plan to WIN MONDAY
Culture can only scale when EVERY person in it takes full ownership, accountability, pride, and a commitment to daily excellence.
That’s the spirit of a champion, and culture (when done right) is our ultimate competitive advantage.
This keynote is inspired by Paul’s 15 years as a culture-building practitioner in the NFL & NBA (including multiple national awards for his work as Founder of the San Francisco 49ers Talent Academy), then stress tested across his training and consulting practice to deeply examine: what do the greatest cultures in the world have in common?
The biggest needle moving insights are revealed in this talk.
Warning: this is not a classic ‘top down’ approach to culture. This is a framework where every individual owns their local culture, feeling seen, valued, and recognized.
As a result their buy-in, performance, and contributions skyrocket as individuals, and it spreads deep and wide through your organization.
Welcome to a championship culture, that scales.
Keynote Outcomes
- Learn the nuances of culture building for a team of 50 vs a team of 50,000.
- Understand the keys to a YES IF culture over a NO BECAUSE culture, inspiring growth and collaboration across teams
- Scale a values-obsessed team that can endure any market disruption or adverse environment
- Discover future-proof insights around recruiting, engaging, and retaining your star talent
- From organizational to individual purpose, learn to align and connect both
- Takeaway Resource for Attendees: Paul’s 52 Week Action Plan to WIN MONDAY
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