Keynote speaker for the TCEA Closing Session is Erik Wahl.
From the TCEA program:
Erik Wahl is a recognized artist and speaker who inspires professionals to achieve greater levels of performance, and who challenges organizations to transcend mediocrity through creativity. He is founder of The Wahl Group, a consulting firm that specializes in helping organizations identify and implement breakthrough thinking to achieve extraordinary results. His program, “The Art of Vision,” is uniquely designed to channel innovative strategies to create extraordinary results. By breaking apart the traditional rules, he challenges to redefine their commonly held assumptions and misconceptions about vision, goals, success, and creativity.
Wahl opens by painting a portrait of U2′s Bono and talking about a Pablo Picasso quote:
Every child is an artist. Our challenge is to remain an artist once we grow up.
Our challenge as educators is to retain our passion for lifelong learning and tap into our innate creativity and innovation.
Sometimes it pays to take a risk. The reason for any goal that you haven’t achieved can usually be traced back to fear. We exist in our left-brain logical world 90% of the time. We’re naturally resistant to venture into the unpredictable right-brain world because it’s scary.
We must intentionally slow down, step back and look for new and different ways of accomplishing our goals.
Some people play the game, others change the way the game is played. When the end goal is firmly engrained in your mind, it allows you to explore and try different ways of reaching that goal.
To be successful, our kids need to be able to embrace alternative thinking and imagination. We must not hold them back.
