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Erik and Emily Orton
Erik and Emily Orton help audiences trade worry for possibility. Adventure and resilience speakers, they sailed the Caribbean for a year with five children and wrote Seven at Sea, a New York Times top ten travel book.
Erik and Emily Orton spent a year sailing the Caribbean with their five children on a boat they could barely afford, then built a career out of what that year taught them.
Their memoir Seven at Sea, published by Shadow Mountain in 2019, was named one of the New York Times Book Review's top ten travel books. Erik is an Emmy-winning writer who managed Broadway tours including Wicked and The Phantom of the Opera. Emily is a former middle school teacher and a certified boat captain. Together they host the podcast What Could Go Right?
Their keynote takes its name from that question. Erik and Emily walk audiences through the shift from asking what could go wrong to asking what could go right, and they treat it as a method rather than a mood. The talk breaks a large ambition into the same stages a passage takes, choosing a destination, planning the route, leaving the harbor, and adjusting once the weather changes.
Audiences take away a way to size up a risk without freezing, a structure for starting something that looks too big, and a reminder that competence is built in motion rather than before departure. They perform original music as part of the session.
Book them for conferences that need a story the room will still be repeating at dinner.
Topics, sessions and talks
Erik and Emily Orton took a question most people ask in dread, what could go wrong, and turned it around. Drawing on the year they spent sailing the Caribbean with five children and a boat that needed constant work, they walk a room through the move from fear to action, using stories and original music they perform live. The result is a practical way to start something large before feeling ready for it.
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frequently asked questions
Something we've not covered here?
Erik and Emily Orton share the stage throughout, structure the talk around the stages of an ocean passage, and perform original music they wrote themselves live during the session.
Erik and Emily Orton specialize in resilience, risk, and acting before conditions feel right, the themes behind their keynote What Could Go Right? Their authority comes from a year sailing the Caribbean with five children, the memoir Seven at Sea, named a New York Times Book Review top ten travel book, and the sailing expedition business they have run since.
No. PepTalk adds no booking fee, so you pay the speaker's fee and nothing beyond it. The service, from shortlist through to contracts and event-day logistics, is included. For repeat or multi-event bookings, PepTalk can agree preferential rates with your procurement team.
Share your event date, audience, format, objectives and budget, and PepTalk sends a hand-picked shortlist within 24 hours. Each suggestion comes with a profile, a fee and a recommendation on the strongest fit. Once you choose, PepTalk handles contracts, travel and logistics through to event day.
The typical fee range is the speaker's standard in-person fee in their home market, shown in their local currency. It moves with format, location, date and session length: virtual sessions and shorter slots usually cost less, while international travel and peak dates cost more. Send your brief to PepTalk and the team will confirm the exact fee in your currency.
Not all of them, and it makes no difference to your booking. PepTalk's network of 15,000+ speakers covers talent the team works with directly alongside speakers represented by agents and agencies worldwide. PepTalk approaches the speaker, negotiates the fee and handles contracting either way.
Three to six months ahead is comfortable for most events, and 12 months is better for large conferences, peak-season dates or one specific in-demand speaker. Shorter timelines are workable, and PepTalk regularly fills last-minute and replacement bookings within days. Availability is the constraint, so get in touch as soon as you have a date.
