Speaking
For thirty years I’ve worked alongside senior leaders at the most important moments of their careers, first as founder of World 50 and now through ONYX and M1. I’ve delivered more than 250 keynotes, including on the TED main stage, and written books that follow the full arc of a leadership career, from The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers to Pretirement.
Companies, conferences and private events ask me to speak often, but my current commitments leave room for only a few engagements each year.
The idea behind both talks
The first thirty years of a career run on potential and momentum. The next thirty work differently. Roughly ten to fifteen of them are spent in senior leadership, and fifteen to twenty more in what I call Pretirement. Over that second half the pendulum swings back, and finishing strong means reversing many of the habits that built your success. I call this the Great Inversion.
The Great Decade:
Finishing Strong at the Height of Your Leadership
Senior leaders in their final decade in the role are worth more than at any earlier point in their careers. They have decades of judgment, relationships and credibility behind them. Most still run the playbook that got them there: having every answer and making themselves indispensable. In this keynote, Rick Smith uses the Great Inversion to show leaders how to turn peak experience into impact that lasts. It’s an energizing, practical talk about making your most valuable decade count, for you and for the organization you’ll leave behind.
Five things to start doing now
- Trade answers for questions. Guide others to discover the answer themselves, so your judgment lives on in the leaders around you.
- Build what outlasts you. Develop successors and push decisions down so the organization runs well without you.
- Spend your capital. Use your credibility while it’s at its peak to make the hard calls and sponsor rising leaders.
- Bring the outside in. Take a board seat or outside role that sharpens your judgment and starts building your runway.
- Invest in belonging. Build relationships based on trust, inside and outside the company, that will outlast your title.
Ideal for: senior leadership meetings and offsites, CEO and executive peer forums, board and governance conferences, CHRO and talent conferences, and private equity portfolio CEO summits.
Pretirement:
Designing Your Next Twenty Years
Leaving a senior role is one of the biggest transitions a leader will ever face. Most prepare for it financially and leave everything else to chance. When the title goes and the calendar empties, an identity built over thirty years has to be rebuilt. Drawing on his new book and the stories of leaders like Leanne Caret and A.G. Lafley, Rick Smith offers a practical playbook for the fifteen to twenty years that follow. He shows audiences how to apply the Great Inversion to life after the corner office, so the next chapter becomes the most meaningful one yet.
Five takeaways
- Don’t become a PIP. Spot the “previously important person” trap early and build an identity that goes beyond your title.
- Find your New North. Decide what will give the next chapter its direction.
- Build a portfolio life. Use the Three-Role Portfolio to balance roles with different levels of commitment.
- Run 90-day experiments. Try new roles at low risk before you commit to them.
- Shift from accumulating to deploying. Put your wealth and experience to work while you have the health and energy to enjoy them.
Ideal for: wealth management and private banking client events, retirement plan providers and insurers, executive transition and offboarding programs, alumni and executive networks, and longevity and healthy-aging forums.