The Unexpected
Recently I am very proud to say that I completed the Amsterdam Marathon. After 7 months of training and running over 330miles in preparation, the day was very hard, but went as well as I could have hoped.
However, it is not always the case that things go as planned and from time to time the unexpected can happen – even after all the preparations in some case
These are just a few speakers we work with that experienced the unexpected and speak on how they overcame those challenges, and what lessons they learned.
Debra Searle is a solo Atlantic rower and entrepreneur and speaker on motivation, achieving against the odds, and dealing with change
Debra Searle MVO MBE first hit the headlines when she set out to row across the Atlantic with her husband. Unfortunately, he had to be rescued so Debra, a novice rower, continued alone and rowed 3000 miles from Tenerife to Barbados. It should have taken them six weeks but, to achieve her goal, Debra ended up spending 3 ½ months at sea alone, encountering 30′ waves, sharks, and force 8 squalls in her 23-foot plywood boat. Since returning from this adventure, Debra has gone on to undertake solo & team expeditions across the globe, including canoeing the Yukon River for a BBC documentary with Bruce Parry, sailing the Southern Ocean, and racing in the Monte Carlo Rally in a 1957 Alfa Romeo.
Debra powerfully illustrates her speaking engagements with slides and stunning video footage, leaving her audience in no doubt of their own ability to achieve the extraordinary.
Joe Simpson, one of the world’s best-known mountaineers, has drawn from his experiences to become a leading author and motivational speaker. “Touching the Void”, the story of his amazing survival, having shattered his leg and been left for dead in a crevasse high in the Andes, has sold over a million copies worldwide.
Joe Simpson brings his knowledge and powerful stories to the corporate sector as an amazing motivational speaker. His story, Touching the Void, can be tailored to provide relevance and motivation for virtually every type of business audience.
John McCarthy is a journalist, author, and motivational speaker who was Britons longest-held hostage in Lebanon, where he spent five years in captivity before his release.While working in Beirut for a television news agency in 1986, John realised that it had become too dangerous to stay in the country and was on the verge of leaving when he was kidnapped at gunpoint by Islamic fundamentalists en route to the airport.
John was to spend the next five years, often blindfolded, and petrified and in a small cell in Lebanon where he endured great hardship, solitary confinement, and often torture. John tells his story of how he stayed resilient during this time and how to remain strong in difficult times.
Darren Edwards is a former mountaineer and Army Reservist who sustained a life-changing injury in the summer of 2016. The near-fatal climbing accident would leave Darren permanently paralysed from the chest down. With determination, grit, and positivity, Darren has overcome adversity by becoming a Disabled Adventurer, Expedition Leader, and Motivational Speaker.
On the 6th of August 2016, Darren’s life changed forever. Whilst rock climbing in North Wales, he was involved in a serious fall that would leave him with a life-changing injury. As he climbed a 120ft (36m) exposed rockface, a section of rock unexpectedly shifted below his feet, and he was sent tumbling uncontrollably towards his climbing partner below. The injury he sustained would leave him instantly paralysed from the chest down and with a severe spinal cord injury.
Refusing to let the word disability define who he is as a person, and committed to helping challenge the perception of what those with a disability can achieve, Darren has gone on to lead a record-breaking and world-first expedition (Kayak 4 Heroes), which saw him lead a team of five injured/wounded veterans in kayaking 1,400 kilometres from Land’s End in Cornwall to John O’ Groats in Scotland.
Chris Moon is an inspiring and motivating speaker on overcoming adversity after losing an arm and a leg when he trod on a mine in a minefield in East Africa.
A former British Army officer, Chris had left the armed forces to work for a charity clearing landmines in Asia & Africa. Having already survived being taken prisoner in Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge and negotiated his release and that of two colleagues from threatened execution, Chris was supposed to be in a safe area in East Africa when disaster struck.
Fourteen hours after the explosion Chris arrives in South Africa for treatment, the doctors are aghast and amazed that someone with such a small amount of blood left in their body is still alive. Chris had managed to initially treat himself, which in many ways saved his life, but beyond that, he recovered far quicker than anyone expected and within a year had run the London Marathon, raised significant sums to help disabled people in the developing world, worked to ban landmines and completed a full-time Masters Degree.
And lastly, it may have been inadvertently self-inflicted, but one comment by Gerald Ratner changed things.
Gerald Ratner is a British businessman and retail speaker and after-dinner speaker, best known for his gaffe that pushed his family jewellery business to near bankruptcy.
Gerald Ratner was the Chief Executive of Ratners Group, the world’s largest jewellery retail company when he was asked to speak at an event at the Albert Hall for the Institute of Directors in 1991. During his speech, he described one of his products as total crap.
Having successfully taken over his family’s jewellery business in 1984 and grown it to 2,500 stores, 25,000 employees, annual sales of 1.2 billion, and profits of 121 million by 1990, his gaffe plummeted the value of Ratner’s by around £500million and nearly resulted in its bankruptcy.
As an after-dinner speaker Gerald entertains his audiences with tales of his wild, up-and-down roller coaster ride in business, in his inimitable humorous and erudite style, and what lessons he has learned and what not to do in business and how to bounce back
If we can help with any enquiries please email us at enquiries@scampspeakers.co.uk