Sterling Hawkins

Everyone should have access to the radical idea behind achieving breakthrough growth #NoMatterWhat. Now it’s your turn. From having come back from the brink to sell companies, finish ultra-marathons and achieve results #NoMatterWhat it took, Sterling has integrated those experiences with extensive research to create a system that unlocks the potential inside of any one and any company.  Meaningful growth, regardless of circumstances, is driven by one thing and one thing only: your culture. You’ll learn the most important systems that have been at the core of — multi-billion dollar wins, industry disruptions and even hardened criminals transforming their lives to get out of jail — to take and implement as soon as you walk out the door. Getting this unique perspective will forever change how you approach business and life.  Sterling uses heart-wrenching personal stories, hilarious anecdotes and inspirational videos that’s not only informational and entertaining, but contains exactly what it takes to transform your business. Audiences participate as an undeniable truth sets in, that each one of them can embody the 5 practices it takes to realize even the most audacious growth under the most difficult circumstances. Participants are left empowered, excited and equipped to change the world, #NoMatterWhat.   

Learning Objectives: 

There’s a difference between what we plan on or what we accept and what’s possible. That difference is The Innovation Gap™. In this talk, Sterling explores The Innovation Gap™ coupled with Innovation Thinking™. Social scientists know that people aren’t built for change. Amazon, Facebook and Apple figured this out and they have experienced organizational and bottom-line exponential growth. Sterling works with his audience todiscover newly what these organizations have already uncovered and then, with the audience, steps into the gap and works from there as a foundation of what’s possible. This is where Sterling’s Keynotes work magic, uncovering the keys to developing a culture of innovation to take advantage of the growth potential an organization hasn’t yet discovered.

Key Take Aways:

1. Access to The Innovation Gap™ requires special kinds of know-how: letting go of everything we think we already know to discover what’s possible and developing a perspective which seeks what’s possible rather than what’s not.

2. Leadership for the future needs to be leadership that embraces change to create a world where transformational performance is possible and proven.

3. Gain insight on how leaders in an organization are the facilitators of the innovation process and become the agents of change, igniting that spirit in others.

4. Sterling shows audiences, throughvarious examples, how to develop innovation thinking to gain perspective and clarity, taking profits to the next level inside the Fourth Industrial Revolution, where anything is possible. 

Action or lack of action determines results. Generally, if we see something as impossible, nothing is done about it. In this talk, Sterling unveils The Illusion of the Impossible™,opening up new possibilities for everyone in attendance. The impossible is an illusion and it can be disappeared. It was impossible to fly before the Wright Brothers. It was impossible to go to the moon with the computer processing power of a desk calculator before JFK. The same limiting “impossibilities” occur within our businesses.

Sterling brings case studies such as IBM, Amazon and Apple together with pop culture references, giving attendees valuable takeaways they’re excited to do something about.

Key Take Aways:

1. There are key tools to unmask The Illusion of the Impossible™. Participants learn to distinguish innovative thought patterns, ideas and possibilities within their organization.

2. Organizations and groups only work as well as the people in them work. Every organization has multiple groups of people who comprise the whole. From this integrated group, an organization creates its culture. Attendees will learn to develop access to impacting organizational culture while minimizing constrained thinking and unleashing the organization’s potential.

3. Seeing an action to take is easy. Seeing the most effective action to take is not. Thinking that there is only one action to take in any given circumstance stops possibility. Lifting the veil of the impossible gives us access to seeing ALL the actions, products, services or solutions that will make the biggest difference.

Recently highlighted as a TEDx talk, the only constant is change. Sterling’s background in working with hundreds of startups and Fortune 500 companies has led to the discovery that innovation isn’t about money, who you know, or even about being in the right place at the right time. It’s about discomfort. 

We explain how embracing discomfort is access to breakthrough growth. People aren’t built for that, though; they’re built for survival. In today’s fast-paced world, change is necessary and learning how to accept it and get out ahead of it is the only competitive advantage. 

Sterling learned that concept working personally with retailers and brands to embrace the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, including robots, IoT and Artificial Intelligence. This simultaneously required Sterling and the companies he worked with to think out of the box to embrace new technology coming together with humanity to unlock something new.

Key Take Aways:

1. Intentionally creating discomfort in the current workplace or organizational situation leads to innovative thinking.

2. See constraints, hardships and problems not as conditions to be rid of but rather as circumstances to be embraced and as the access to innovation.

3. An ecology of people who create big goals allows for and even forces actions that were previously unthinkable.

We live in a culture of consumerism and technology.  In this talk, Sterling explores how we arrived at this point, the surprising future in store for us and how we can create a future which fulfills on our wants and needs. 

When Sterling was growing up in his family’s supermarket, business was all about customers and all about community. Walmart, Amazon and others broke that traditional mold, making it all about scale, expansion and technology.

Venture dollars have accelerated startups flooding the market. Sterling began with his family’s organization and has now spanned the global retail industry shaping how emerging technologies such as robots, drones, artificial intelligence and countless other technologies can and do transform businesses and their people fulfill on their wants and needs.

For those in retail or interested in retail, this talk is a hands-on roadmap of which technologies are part of the present and the future, which organizations are already engaged in using them. He explains how leaders can inspire an organizational culture which embraces the change necessary to keep pace and to eventually become the innovators. 

Sterling’s leadership and vision has enabled retailers and their teams to step past the hype that traditional retail is dead.  He has empowered organizations to use technology to unify experiences and redefine retail as a flourishing force to be reckoned with now and in the future. 

Key Take Aways:

1. Look at the power shift in the supply chain. Hint, customers are now in charge.

2. Opening up new possibilities for a retail group can be based on case studies and real results.

3. Create new possibilities and potential for your retail and brand operations.

Sterling's DeltaV Method is a masterclass on how to create change and open next-level thinking through story. Stand-alone or as a follow-up to his keynote, they are relied upon by businesses of all sizes and customized to produce breakthrough results.