Steve Haffner helps teams break free from mental illusions, driving smarter decisions and improved performance.
5.00 of 5
Top rated!5 of 5
Steve’s program was fascinating, enjoyable, engaging. We got to see something that wasn't a typical HR presentation - something that they can look internally and take away some good lessons and ways to look at their own internal biases.
Ed Volk,
Greater Cincinnati HR Association
Empower your team to overcome subconscious barriers and make smarter decisions with keynote speaker Steve Haffner. With 30 years of corporate experience and insights from psychology and mentalism, Steve delivers actionable strategies that elevate performance, foster innovation, and unlock peak potential for lasting success.
Effective problem solving is essential for leaders and professionals. Unfortunately, we often take an unstructured approach to solving problems—relying primarily on our own intuition and experience.
In this program, audience members learn proven (and often neglected) steps of a strategic problem solving process. Steve engages attendees by illustrating how magicians create the impossible by interfering with their audience’s ability to solve the secrets to their illusions.
Key Take-aways:
- Ask the questions that are essential for success at each step of the problem solving process
- Examine and adjust their current approach to gathering and assessing information
- Check for unrecognized assumptions at key points in the problem solving process
Our performance as professionals depends on our ability to think clearly and rationally. But our own brains can work against us, subconsciously tripping us up with cognitive biases, irrational impulses and logical fallacies.
In this magically entertaining program, Steve takes the audience through some of the most common illusions that can thwart our success. He presents strategies for recognizing them and countering their negative effects, transforming “A-HA” insights into “TA-DA!” performance.
Key Take-aways:
- Learn the secrets of attention control to better defeat distraction and misdirection.
- Prioritize and leverage the massive advantages of high trust relationships.
- Adapt and innovate by recognizing and mitigating the status quo bias
Research shows that prolonged stress in the workplace is increasing and has adverse effects on our thinking, focus, and ability to make great decisions.
In Success under Stress, Steve provides tactics for recognizing and overcoming the effects of long-term stress on our thinking so we can perform at our best as leaders and professionals.
He also provides the audience with interactive magic that illuminates how our own subconscious distortions fool us, and how those illusions are amplified under stress.
Key Take-aways:
- Learn how stress misdirects our attention and how we can re-direct it for better results.
- Discover how to overcome over-reliance on habitual behavior and resistance to change.
- Explore decision making strategies that produce better results under stress
5 of 5
Steve’s program was fascinating, enjoyable, engaging. We got to see something that wasn't a typical HR presentation - something that they can look internally and take away some good lessons and ways to look at their own internal biases.
Ed Volk, Greater Cincinnati HR Association
Steve Haffner
5 of 5
Steve really showed how the brain can be tricked into making certain decisions in a certain way. I was impressed how he built from one model to the next and how he related it to real world decisions and evaluations. It was excellent!
Roger Buskill, Association for Talent Development
Steve Haffner
5 of 5
It was really an engaging, interesting presentation - something you don’t think about when you think about how the subconscious mind controls your day-to-day thinking, including in the workplace. All of our HR professionals were really engaged and they liked that it was a different type of presentation than we’re normally used to. Steve was a great part of our conference and hopefully we can work together again.
Robbie Perkins, President IPMA-Human Resources, Ky chapter
Steve Haffner
5 of 5
He did an amazing job, we laughed, we were in awe, and we love that he brought illusion and neuroscience together. to show us how to overcome mind blocks. and we can really apply that information with our clients as well.
Janice Smith, President, Ky Speech, Hearing and Language Assoc.
Steve Haffner
5 of 5
It was extremely entertaining, it was funny, but more importantly it uncovered some things we didn’t know about ourselves and how we think about many things that are in everyday life and how we’ll think about them differently. I highly recommend it. It was a great presentation and very educational.
Andrew Backen, Executive VP, Touchstone Merchandise Group
Steve Haffner
5 of 5
Steve is one of those rare personalities where his authentic self shines through during his presentations, so you have high likability as well as high level entertainment! I’ve seen Steve present several times and it never feels repetitive, and it never gets old. FIVE STARS!
Maggie Harlow, owner Sign-a-rama Louisville
Steve Haffner
Keynote Speaker Steve Haffner is a renowned mind performance strategist dedicated to helping organizations and teams break free from subconscious barriers that limit performance, decision-making, and innovation. With 30 years of corporate experience at leading companies like EDS, Mercer, and Humana, Steve brings a deep understanding of the challenges professionals face in today’s fast-paced, high-stakes business environment.
Drawing from his unique background in psychology, behavioral science, and performance as a magician and mentalist, Steve delivers dynamic keynotes that captivate and educate. His presentations reveal how hidden cognitive illusions impact productivity, collaboration, and leadership, offering practical strategies to overcome these mental traps. By helping teams recognize and conquer limiting beliefs, Steve empowers individuals to enhance focus, make smarter decisions, and unlock their full potential.
Book Steve Haffner for your event to inspire your organization with actionable insights that drive measurable results. Whether addressing leadership challenges, decision-making biases, or performance barriers, Steve’s engaging and thought-provoking keynotes equip teams with the tools they need to foster innovation, boost productivity, and achieve long-term success. His proven methods create lasting change, making him the ideal speaker for organizations seeking to elevate their performance and stay competitive in today’s evolving marketplace.
Watch Steve Haffner in action
