Keynote Speaker
Book Jay for Your Next Event
Jay Papasan is a bestselling author, CEO, and executive coach who has spoken on stages from TEDx to Google to Fortune 500 boardrooms.
Through his keynotes, Jay shares a simple, actionable formula for teams and individuals to achieve greater clarity, build stronger habits, and attain extraordinary results. Backed by years of research and real-world experience building companies, he shows how working from a clear sense of priority elevates results and alleviates stress.
Jay's Speaker Reel
Jay's Speaker Bio
Jay Papasan [Pap-uh-zan] is a bestselling author, CEO, and executive coach who helps business owners navigate the pivots, setbacks, and ceilings that effort alone can’t solve.
He has co-authored 12 books, including The ONE Thing with Gary Keller — a #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller with over 4 million copies sold in 40+ languages. Jay’s books have sold nearly 7 million copies worldwide, and six have become national bestsellers.
Jay is CEO of Produktive, the training and coaching company behind The ONE Thing methodology, and host of The ONE Thing podcast. Each Friday, he writes The TwentyPercenter — a newsletter helping business professionals do more of what matters.
Before becoming an entrepreneur, Jay edited at HarperCollins, lived in Paris, and earned an MA from NYU. He calls himself a “Nerdpreneur” — a curious introvert who fell in love with books in the 4th grade and turned that obsession into a career building companies and writing bestsellers.
Jay lives in Austin, Texas, and believes the breakthroughs that matter most don’t come from working harder — they come from becoming the person your next chapter requires.
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Some of Jay's most popoular keynotes include:
The Busyness Trap: Why Doing More Is Making You Less Successful
Here's an uncomfortable truth. Most people who describe themselves as busy aren't actually productive. They're hiding.
Busyness is what happens when your calendar fills up before your priorities do. Goal drift sets in quietly. Overwhelm follows. And next year ends up looking a lot like this year – which looked a lot like last year.
In this interactive talk, Jay Papasan helps audiences see the real cost of their out-of-date commitments and gives them a simple framework to win back their time. Download. Delegate. Decrease. Three moves that can free up four or more hours every week – starting now.
The question Jay leaves every audience with isn't how do I get more done? It's does my calendar actually reflect what I care about?
The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results
Most people think success is complicated. More hustle. More goals. More tools. But the research tells a different story.
In this talk – built on the ideas inside the 4-million-copy bestseller The ONE Thing – Jay Papasan challenges the most common lies we tell ourselves about productivity: that everything matters equally, that multitasking works, that willpower is always on call. Spoiler: none of it's true.
What does work is simpler than you'd expect. When you identify the one activity that makes everything else easier or unnecessary, then protect the time to do it, results compound fast.
Audiences walk away with the Focusing Question, a practical time-blocking system, and a clear answer to the only question that matters: What's my ONE Thing?
Jay's most personal talk – informed by ONE Thing principles
Building Lighthouses: Your Hardest Seasons Inspire Your Most Impactful Work
Most high achievers hit a season where the wheels come off — not just in business, but in life. Jay Papasan hit that season and it lasted six years. Surgeries, burnout, grief, and the unexpected loss of two decades of intellectual property. All while navigating the tension between private storms and a public stage.
In this keynote, he shares the internal battles he faced, the seven strategies that pulled him through, and a truth that changed everything: the hardest things you go through become the most powerful things you create – lighthouses.
Your lived experience is your ultimate differentiator. Stop burying your hard seasons and start building from them.
Jay has given hundreds of keynotes. Please inquire if you have other topics in mind. We’d be happy to meet and explore other subjects with you.
Testimonials
I can’t even begin to tell you how great it was to have Jay speak at our sales meeting on Monday. He was terrific, and the amount of incredible discussion that resulted has been amazing.
I have no doubt that our business, and the individuals in it, will grow as a result. I am truly grateful that he was willing to speak to our group. I had sales people with 5, 10, 20, to 40+ years of tenure with our company tell me that this was the best sales meeting we’ve ever had. I believe that starting the meeting off with Jay’s keynote is a big reason why the response was so positive.
In a world of relentless and competing priorities, Jay Papasan and The One Thing represent the quintessential solution for achieving real success.
Calling out the lies that often mislead and derail us, Jay identifies researched based solutions that provide exceptional clarity on the elements needed to achieve long-lasting results. Leaders looking for a definitive, clear, and attainable path for achieving exceptional results will benefit greatly by embracing The One Thing.
The ONE Thing resonated with our long-term approach to decision making and a platform-based approach to innovation.
It was a natural fit for our organization and quickly infiltrated our culture, spawned book groups, and left a lasting and sticky impression. The principles in The ONE Thing help leaders create strategies grounded in a core, foundational platform, or as Gary and Jay put it, one domino at a time.
Jay spoke for a group of our executive directors at Dell, and his messages really resonated. His focus on prioritization, time management, and clear habits were applicable to their work and their lives.
Jay is also an extremely engaging & charismatic speaker, & his examples & stories brought the content to life in a way that made the audience fully attentive through the whole presentation. His session was very highly rated by our executive participants-most of them bought the book after the session! This is a great topic for business leaders.
Jay Papasan delivers every time! Out of close to 100 speakers at our event he was rated #1.
Not only do our people walk away with tremendous, applicable value, but they consistently comment on Jay’s ability to relate with them on a level like many other speakers are unable to get to. He does his homework and makes sure he is ready to deliver every time.
Jay is a dynamic, well-spoken, articulate speaker who asks the audience a vital question and keeps them engaged. ‘What’s the one thing you can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?’
As an attendee, Jay’s speaking style and message kept me focused on how the only thing that stands between me and my goals is the ability to dismiss all else and focus on ‘the one thing.’ A fantastic lesson for executives and leaders looking for extraordinary results.
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