I’m still buzzing from the ATD 2015 conference last week. There’s more to come on the ATD but let’s start where we ended.
The final session of the conference was delivered by Erik Wahl – graffiti artist and entrepreneur. What a privilege to be in that audience. He painted live on stage delighting the room with striking images of Bono, Steve Jobs and Einstein, sharing his passion and desire to encourage people to unleash their creativity.
He posed the question to the audience – can you draw? A modest number of hands went up. He then describes asking the question to a room of kindergarten kids where without fail the room erupts and everyone puts their hands up believing they can draw
Erik questions that if every child is an artist, how can we remain a child when we grow up?
His final call to arms challenged us to consider not what our definition of success is but what our definition of failure is.
He encouraged us to consider negatives vs. growth. Deficiency vs. learning. Loss vs. opportunity. Weakness vs. Development.
Erik urged the crowd to fail forward, fail first and fail often to ensure we keep on growing.
Wahl to rapturous applause declared to the talent development industry – “I am one of your tribe”.
Thanks Erik Wahl for inspiring us all and ending the conference on such a high.
Erik’s book Unthink: Rediscover your creative genius (2013) aims to inspire everyone to realise that we are capable of so much more than we are pre-conditioned for.
I was lucky enough to chat entrepreneurship with Erik after the conference…
