As a highly sought after speaker / facilitator with over 20 years delivering engaging and impactful keynotes to hundreds of clients, Jeff has made appearances at dozens of Fortune 500 companies around the world. Jeff takes the audience on a journey to high peaks around the globe, detailing his exciting endeavors as mountain guide, adventurer and philanthropist. These experiences have allowed Jeff to hone his skills of servant leadership, teamwork, communication and handling adversity which he shares in a way that is applicable to everyone in their business and personal lives.
Jeff reminds us that, in fact, we are all guides in some capacity… professionally and personally. By utilizing real life stories, vivid images and thrilling video from his adventures as an expedition leader and guide around the globe, Jeff is able to extract the impactful themes that are applicable for every audience member and weave them into memorable, humorous, thought-provoking and paradigm shifting keynotes.
For over 25 years, Jeff’s experiences have helped him master the skills of selfless leadership, teamwork, communication and trust. Many of these skills have been acquired through guiding blind climber Erik Weihenmayer on extraordinarily challenging objectives including the summit of Mt Everest and a 2nd place finish on ABC’s adventure series, Expedition Impossible. Countless other impactful stories were garnered from his experience as the co-founder and Expedition Leader for the injured US veteran program, No Barriers Warriors.
The culmination of Jeff’s adventures, skills and messaging have been showcased in recent years as he has taken on the role as team lead and chief medic for multiple high intensity medical aid missions. From leading a search and rescue team of Sherpas and helicopter pilots on the flanks of Mt Everest rescuing climbers, to serving as the lead medic for a trauma team on the front lines of the war in Mosul, Iraq… Jeff has committed himself to taking his leadership, teamwork, trust and adversity messaging out into the world in a powerful and dynamic way.
Over the 20+ years of sharing his keynotes for hundreds of clients, Jeff has delivered his message to tens of thousands of audience members, impacted countless lives and changed the way we all approach our roles as guides within our work and family environments.
The cornerstone of Jeff's message, servant leadership is paramount for success in our professional as well as personal lives. Jeff points out that we are all guides, and it's important that we lead from a place that is centered around fostering the success of others instead of focusing on our own personal accolades or summits. Nurturing your team (colleagues, clients or family) helps them identify their models of success and guides them up the route that optimizes their particular skillsets. Jeff describes the selfless attitude of the Sherpa as well as his role as the chief medic in Everest Air to convey the true nature of a Servant Leader.
Whether you are roped up in the mountains, or roped up in a business initiative, you will win together or lose together. Either way, your fate is inextricably connected to those on your team. Jeff has lead countless rope teams throughout his career and one thing always rings true... the “collective power of one” that comes from aligning with teammates can propel us forward. Keep in mind that whether you are leading the team from the front of the rope or bringing up the team at the end of the rope, if your rope team starts to plummet towards the edge of the cliff, it is unimportant who initiated the fall. In fact, you have no time to blame or finger point. You only have time to react and work together to bring that fall to a stop so you can begin climbing again together.
Jeff has honed his communication skills guiding his blind adventure partner, Erik on mountains, rocks and races all over the world for over 20 years. This partnership has been successful only because the two men have placed the highest level of trust in each other…where every step, jump and move matter. Jeff uses many of the situations he has encountered while guiding Erik across challenging terrain to illustrate the power and effectiveness of a "High Comms, High Trust" team.
Adversity is a part of any journey or objective. How we manifest our reaction to that adversity is what differentiates us as effective leaders and teammates. Throughout his keynotes, Jeff reflects back on the numerous events that have threatened to derail the final objective. Whether it’s redirecting and taking another route up the mountain or working to enhance the team dynamic, being an effective leader and guide requires constant reassessment of team health and situational awareness.
Through pre-event discussions, Jeff works closely with the meeting planners and leadership team in identifying and customizing each keynote to reflect the needs of each group.
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