For Erik Wahl, an all-American boy from Seattle, failure was never an option. Raised in what many would refer to as a traditional learning environment, Wahl was praised for getting straight As, earning a business degree, marrying a wonderful woman and having three wonderful children, and opening his own business as a broker who helped others achieve financial independence. Failure was not an option—until it was the only option.
When the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, Wahl ironically found himself no longer financially independent. His family had lost everything—investments, 401Ks, retirement savings, college funds for their three boys—not to mention a sense of security, peace of mind and so much more.
This major life disruption, while devastating, is ultimately what propelled Wahl to a place of greater success than he had ever dreamed of—and he is taking what he learned with him to ABC Convention 2025.
“Pain, frustration, loss, shame, doubt. It was a crazy, difficult time in my life,” Wahl says, “and I turned to art to heal, to find new perspective and purpose. And then I never walked away.” For Wahl, finally embracing art and creativity for the sake of it—rather than as a reward for finishing his school work—was intoxicating. There had to be a way to marry the two halves of himself—the logical business side and the creative artsy side—to find success anew.
“I was looking to expand my consciousness,” he says, “to something outside that traditional learning environment of my childhood. I went deep into the psychology of performance.” Wahl began writing constantly, which quickly led to speaking gigs and even his first book in 2013. Having performed for audiences for close to two decades now, Wahl has honed his craft of creation and communication, but no two shows are exactly the same. Wahl tailors his message to each audience, and for those in attendance at ABC Convention 2025, his message will be one of new ideas: music mixed with videos mixed with art and more. “All to create that sense of intellectual curiosity that there’s something greater than what we have right now,” he says. “And on the other side of that is intellectual curiosity, that growth mindset, continuous improvement. A focus on abundance over scarcity, on hope over fear.” As someone who has experienced life-changing disruption firsthand, Wahl says his specialty is preparing other minds for disruption—not only for how to handle it, but how to thrive in it. He recently sat down with Construction Executive to relay a sneak peek into his upcoming performance.
Have writing and speaking always been something you’ve had a talent for? When did you first recognize that your words, no matter the medium, made an impact on other people?
I come from a very academic-oriented, success-oriented, money-oriented background. I understand corporate language, what they’re looking for and what to understand as far as competition. But I noticed that many artists have an expanded consciousness. They have this idea of transformation and creativity, but no accountability for it, no understanding of branding and marketing leadership. A lot of artists sabotage themselves because no one’s appreciating their art. And so, understanding the difficulties in how artists face the world, I found solutions to that. Then I realized that on the corporate side, [those professionals] have great execution and accountability and disciplined marketing, but they didn’t have that openness to new ideas, innovation, adapting to new climates.
What was your first-ever speaking gig like? How did that experience inform how you perform today?
We got booked for our first program for a thousand dollars to go and talk to a company that doesn’t exist anymore. It was different. It was a smaller audience. They paid us and they paid for my hotel and my ground transportation to drive up to Los Angeles to give the presentation. I told my wife, ‘Please don’t ever let me forget this experience, that someone would actually pay to have me come up and share ideas with them.’ I just felt blown away that it was actually happening.
As much as I’m a creative, free spirit onstage, I’m a control freak backstage. I happen to be a very natural storyteller. I also have this unique, artistic gift that I learned late in life that I actually weave into my presentations. And the very first audience that I spoke to was so blown away they gave me a standing ovation, and I hadn’t experienced anything like that before in my entire life. But that was the start of this crazy, wild ride. People from that audience told friends at other companies and we just kept getting asked to perform show after show after show. It exploded so quickly because the presentation was so engaging and unlike anything that anyone had ever experienced before.
When did you incorporate art into your career path and then into your performances?
I remember very vividly in fourth grade, my teacher was Mrs. Williams. The class was doing an art project, and mine was all over the place, but it had a lot of things that I liked about it. When she saw it, she said because I didn’t follow the rules, because I didn’t color within the lines, that a future as an artist wasn’t something that I would be acclimated for. I don’t remember the exact words she said at that time, but I remember how it felt. And at that point, I closed myself down to all of my art potential or creativity. I’m not an artist. I’m a numbers guy. Children migrate towards what they’re affirmed for—I was affirmed for getting 20 out of 20 on my spelling test. I was affirmed for doing well on my science test. I was never affirmed or encouraged to be creative or artistic. After the hard work was done, I could then do a little bit of doodling as a reward for doing my other homework first.
And that [experience] wasn’t just about painting. It was about writing. It was about understanding. It was about learning. It was everything. Those soft skills that were never really taught to me in school—I open up the audience to be able to see where they can use them in their everyday lives, in their businesses, in their communities and families. It is an engaging and fun experience for the audience, and for myself as a keynote.
What was the impetus for your first book, “Unthink: Rediscover Your Creative Genius”?
Long before the book was launched [in 2013], in one of my moments of despair, I had a lot of access to creative thinking as well as analytical, logical thinking. And I noticed that [those schools of thought] didn’t have a space to cross paths. I started writing furiously. It was something that I really felt deeply about—how our human mind has been limited and where it can be transformed to create new ideas, new success. I started capturing thoughts, ideas, notes and literally spreading them out over the kitchen floor.
So, I wrote a show. At that time, it didn’t include any painting or artwork. That part grew over time. I started just talking to corporations about innovation and creativity. It blew up right away. It had a lot of momentum behind it. People who saw it once wanted to see it again, they wanted to share it with their employees. I realized that this was an explosive opportunity: to be this mix between both the business world as well as the creative world.
When you craft a keynote speech, what’s your preparation process?
As I get closer to the ABC Convention keynote, I will become a contractor. I will become a builder. How do they see the world? Feel the world? Every audience that I speak to, every presentation that I give is very, very different on the content, because it’s important to me that it doesn’t feel like a stock keynote, but rather that I understand the audience’s challenges. I understand their opportunities. I understand what they do in their business day in and day out, who they’re reporting to, who they’re taking orders from and trying to relay orders to, to be able to get the project built on time as well as under budget if they can.
There are a lot of things that I use to customize the show. And so that is my writing process. It’s important to me to be flexible as I craft. Disruption is happening around us all the time, and I feel like that’s where I have the most expertise: to shape minds, to perform, to relate, to be empathetic.
Considering the variety of audiences for whom you’ve performed, what made you say yes to ABC Convention?
I’m familiar with the construction industry; I’m familiar with real estate; I’m familiar with business around those areas. When ABC came to us with an invitation, they shared with me quite a bit about the audience. We don’t accept all opportunities, but this is a large audience of highly educated, highly precise people in the industry of construction.
Considering what’s going to be happening in the world between now and February 2025, I will continue with the customization process of my presentation for this audience: What are the biggest frustrations? What are the biggest challenges? What are the biggest opportunities? How does innovation and creativity fit in their business model? I want them to take something from this speech back to their office and to their team.
Whether someone is a performer, a speaker, a construction professional or field worker, what is the significance of having a solid support system?
It is critical. I think everybody should have a support system in place. Everyone in the audience will have experienced a very difficult time in their own life, professionally or personally, surrounding maybe their health, their mental health, maybe losing a loved one or having a loved one that’s not doing well, or knowing someone who is in a dark place who needs a support system. I end up actually addressing that in my presentation because I went through a very difficult experience, but because of my support system, because of my wife—we’ve been married 30 years—she helped me nurture myself back to health.
I was so focused on business and execution and accountability. After losing all of that, financial independence was our goal. To have the kids’ college paid for, to have a 401K, to have retirement funds—those were all the things that were taken from me when I lost everything. It was very disorienting for me to be a 30-year-old man with three young boys and a wife to try and rebuild from nothing.
One of the things that we did early in this space of transformation is we changed our definition of success. Our new definition of success was going to be having a good meal with our family of five at the end of the day. And I could continually hit that each day. I was always successful because that was what we focused all of our efforts toward: family, relationships, connection, authenticity, trust, love. So, even after I lost everything, I was able to be successful every day.
That was also the time that I began writing and crafting the presentation that I wanted to share with others. That’s when my mind became so open. It was about how we access that part of our mind. The purpose of art is to produce thinking, not to produce a finished product. Once we start thinking differently, that’s when our ideas are transformed.
