Tom Morris

Tom Morris Speaking Topics

• True Success: The Art of Achievement in Times of Change

  This is Tom's most widely requested talk. It's high energy fun, profound, and extremely practical, all at the same time. One major company has asked for this talk more than 60 times, for its various business units. It presents the most universal tools for individual and organizational success, as understood by the great thinkers of the centuries. Many businesses and lives have been changed for the better because of this talk.

  We all need guiding concepts we can trust—ideas that have stood the test of time and can help us achieve success in even the most demanding situations. Tom has an unprecedented ability to bring together the wisdom of the ages in a form that people can use right now. This talk presents a simple, powerful and complete framework of seven universal conditions for deeply satisfying, sustainable excellence in all that we do. His now-famous “7 Cs of Success” have fueled extraordinary results in pockets of excellence around the world, and have never been more important than they are today. In a high-energy and entertaining session, Tom will reveal the most fundamental tools for personal and institutional greatness and provide a practical guide for their use every day. This talk leaves people with a new, well-grounded enthusiasm and a determination to use the wisdom they’ve been given. Once they’ve heard it, they'll never be the same.

• A Winning Culture: The Four Foundations of Greatness

  When you take good care of your people, your people take good care of your customers, and your customers take good care of you. The key to it all is a winning culture. So: What creates a great organizational culture? What guides and motivates us to bring our best to every challenge and work powerfully with others every day? Tom shows that the answers to these questions are simple, profound, and transformational. At a time when pressures are high and companies are focusing on the discipline of execution, the main challenge is getting everyone to believe deeply in what they’re doing and to do it with excellence and care every day. As Tom laid out in his classic book If Aristotle Ran General Motors: The New Soul of Business, Aristotle and a few other profound thinkers have revealed four foundations for reaching and maintaining the highest levels of commitment and greatness in our work with other people. It's all about Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity • four things we rarely talk about, and four things that can transform a culture.

  In this session, Tom presents those four foundations for a winning culture and offers practical guidelines for putting into practice the greatest wisdom for sustainable greatness. This talk will give you a profound diagnostic tool whose use empowers individuals and organizations in a new way, while strengthening all your most vital relationships beyond what you could have imagined. This is a must-have framework of ideas for leaders at any level, as well as for front line people who need to form strong and resilient client relations.

Alchemy: The Power to Change

One day Tom got a call. "Our president wants your Lemons to Lemonade talk, but wonders of you could do it without mentioning lemons." Tom thought to himself, "Ah, the sugar water talk," but only said, "Well, that's interesting. Why do you ask?" The caller explained that life and the market was handing their company truck loads of lemons, and they needed tools to deal with the problem, but the president of the company was a bit shy about admitting in public that they faced a very sour situation. He wanted a talk title that was wholly upbeat, but the tools from Tom's Lemonade presentation. What to do?

The answer ended up being fairly simple. Tom drew on an ancient enterprise that allowed a new metaphor to govern his presentation of the tools needed to deal with difficult change. Over many centuries of the human adventure, the quest of the alchemist was to take something ordinary and create out of it something truly extraordinary, or even to take something undesirable, and create something exceptional. There is nothing in our time more ordinary now than the rapid pace of tumultuous change that we increasingly face in so many ways. And it's often, as it first hits us, perceived as strongly undesirable.

Tom created this version of his change talk to deal with the situation, and it was a huge hit.

There are two kinds of change: The change that happens to us, and the change that happens only because of us. How do you respond creatively and powerfully to change that comes your way? How do you best initiate change that needs to be made? As a rare philosopher who is as full of humor and great stories as he is of insights that can change your business and your life, Tom will explain in this talk the changeless wisdom of the ages on dealing well with change. And there are no lemons in sight.

Socrates in Silicon Valley: The Deep Philosophical Operating System of Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs. What did this man know that we need to know? What were his secrets? What did he do that crosses industries? How can we learn from one of the most unlikely and expansive success stories ever?

Tom digs deep into the myth, mess and magic of Steve Jobs and provides a revolutionary, practical look at what we can adapt from the strange, charismatic and compelling character who basically invented the connected life we all now live. Starting in his parents' garage, Jobs built, in his lifetime, the world's most valuable company. How did he do it? And what can we all do to emulate the best of his practices?

Using great humor, memorable stories and a level of passionate energy that carries on the legacy of Jobs himself, Tom will mesmerize your group and provide the highlight of your meeting.

Steve Jobs was the quintessential California Hippie, with bare feet, long hair, hallucinogenic drugs and a fascination for all things Zen, who believed that the right sort of diet would grant him an exemption from the bathing habits of normal people. And yet, as we know, against all odds, and despite a great many personal flaws, idiosyncrasies, and imperfections, Jobs became a pioneering business visionary and hugely accomplished leader, who ended up practically in a class by himself. The real story of how he did it can now spark people and companies across all industries to new levels of world-class achievement.

Tom has a new take on the amazing success of this modern business icon, and how it can give fresh guidance to leaders at all levels in organizations. Drawing on the principles that catapulted Jobs to the top of the tech world and helped him build Apple into the world's most valuable company, Tom lays out strategies, tactics and actionable takeaways that imbue leaders with the skills necessary to inspire innovation and success and explains how these principles work in a way that no one else can with a level of insight that will leave people immensely excited about trying some of these powerful new ideas right away.

Since the untimely death of Steve Jobs, you've heard all the stories. But now you can bring into your group the empowering perspectives, attitudes and actions that he lived every day and that can now take you to a new level of leadership excellence and success.

The Gift of Uncertainty

In the middle of the pandemic, business executives everywhere were worried about how to handle all the disruptive change coming their way. But in recent months, another related concern has risen to be the new top-of-mind: How to deal with all the uncertainty in the world and in our lives.

Have you ever considered the possibility that uncertainty is a gift? In this talk, our favorite philosopher Tom Morris presents a surprising philosophical insight and explains how we can both embrace and navigate the many uncertainties of the present moment. This talk is full of new empowering insights about what's required to take charge when things seem foggy and map out a clear future amid the mist. It’s about comfort zones, but not just getting out of them—it’s about learning the secret of great athletes and adventurous innovators who take a very different attitude toward comfort zones and learn to operate out of a mindset of mastery even in the most uncertain situations.

This talk is funny, revelatory, fast paced and powerful, and is based on one of Tom’s forthcoming books by the same name

What IS a Balanced Life and How Do We Get One?

This is Tom's innovative talk on life balance. His first main point is that perfect balance is not an option. His second is that balance is a dynamic dance of adaptation and alteration, based on what you value. The word 'balance' is a verb before it's a noun. Understanding what that means will bring emotional liberation and a new focus on our work.

The first group to request this topic was a big regional hospital whose executives and administrators were in need of more balance. The talk was a hit, and the ideas resonated long afterwards.

Things are better with balance, even when the urgencies of the moment demand terribly unbalance focus and monomaniacal commitment. An underlying dynamic process of rebalancing can make even the most extreme challenges work out better. Invite Tom to speak on this topic and give him a chance to show you how.