How to achieve the seemingly impossible with the resources you have.
Imagine the impact on your outcomes if your entire organisation met every challenge with a mindset focused on solutions, resilience and positivity.
Currently, many individuals and organisations fail to achieve their objectives and reach their potential, their mindset limits their ability to thrive through change and define their own path. Failure to urgently identify and rectify this leads to unmet targets, unfulfilled potential, missed opportunities and lost growth. Gallup calculates that this disengagement costs the global economy $8.8trillion, with the cost to UK businesses alone being £340bn annually.
Jesse Dufton is the world’s most accomplished blind rock climber, his genetics took his eyesight, but not his vision. Awarded a Guinness World Record for being the first blind person to lead-climb The Old Man of Hoy, he has systematically dismantled the word “impossible”, excelling in one of the world’s most difficult and dangerous activities without the faculty widely considered to be essential. He has repeatedly set the global benchmark for the standard of his climbing. Establishing first ascents in some of the world’s most brutal environments, from the frozen peaks of Arctic Greenland to the remote mountain ranges of Morocco. His exceptional mindset lets him consistently excel through adversity.
Aside from his climbing, he has completed a doctorate without being able to read or write in the literal sense, before rising to work at the cutting edge of clean energy technology.
From over 30 years of climbing and 15 years of corporate experience, Jesse has developed a unique mental approach and set of practices, codified as The Crux Paradigm. Jesse’s keynotes equip attendees with this framework, empowering delegates to build resilience by enabling teams to remain committed through times of change and when stakes are at their highest. Catalysing them to set their own path and achieve the seemingly impossible with existing resources, meeting targets and maximising return on investment.
Topics
Resilience
The Crux of Crisis
Jesse’s keynote sets out his universally applicable mental framework, honed through his climbing, as a tool to build and fortify resilience. He is an exemplar of the criticality of agency, illustrated by his choice to continue to lead in his climbing, a powerful subversion of typical disability narratives, he turns a story of reliance into one of purpose, leadership and self-determination. The keynote equips delegates with a set of practical tools and guides them along the path to foster and nourish their own and their organisation’s resilience by reclaiming agency.
Change
Navigating Change When the Path Vanishes
Our world is in constant flux. Jesse’s keynote shows attendees that navigating change isn’t about having a perfect vision of the future. Instead, its key to have the tools to adapt to, and thrive in, the ever-changing environment, whether that is a corporate or a personal context.
Jesse sets out the crucial nature of teamwork and communication as well as practical steps to build these and ensure they function optimally in the most trying of contexts. The keynote is a masterclass on how to build and apply these tools to ensure success in a volatile and unpredictable world.
Adversity
Facing down the Fade
Jesse’s keynote looks past the typical “inspiration” tropes to offer a tactical, high-performance framework for how to remain effective and thrive in the most challenging, high-stakes circumstances imaginable. He provides the audience actionable and widely applicable techniques that allow him to remain cool-headed and objective focused as well as how to accurately assess and effectively manage risk in some of the world’s most hostile environments and harrowing situations.
Adventure
The Unseen Horizon
Adventure is often defined by what we see – the vast landscapes, the towering peaks, the distant horizons. But clearly, there is so much more. In this keynote, Jesse eloquently expands on this limited view, from the importance of preparation and accurate risk assessment and mitigation to the chance to grow, build confidence and develop deep interpersonal relationships. The ability to learn from adventure recasts our approach in all contexts. Jesse relates synergies in the mindset required for success in remote and extreme situations to those attitudes that support achievement in any context.
Testimonials
“His talk was captivating and inspirational. Jesse does a great job of bringing the listener along for the climb, describing the challenges and problem solving he uses to achieve his goals. We received lots of enthusiastic praise from our members for booking Jesse.”
Joe Blandino – Director of Quality Assurance, U. S. Steel
“Jesse was a joy to work with and delivered an emotional, enlightening and focused keynote speech which challenged our people in the way that they lead. His climbing partnership with Molly was a particular highlight that the audience connected with and which delivered on our values of ‘humanity’ and ‘together’ as well as aligning to the event’s theme of ‘Believe in People’.”
Nigel Daly – Lead for Leadership Culture and Strategy, Ministry of Justice
“Jesse epitomized our theme of ‘Culture, Collaboration, and Change’ at our summer event. His speech was truly fantastic, engaging everyone in the room during the Q&A session. What made it even more special was that he spent considerable time chatting with the team afterward. The feedback from the attendees consistently described his presentation as ‘AMAZING.’ Inspired by Jesse’s Greenland expedition, one of our managers plans to implement his approach of sharing responsibilities within the team. Jesse’s phenomenal achievements in the face of adversity left us all inspired and motivated. His quote, ‘The most important thing is the bravery to try,’ will continue to resonate with me.” A true legend!
Hazel Pattison & Sara Jones – Mobile Operations, BT
“Jesse presented his journey into free climbing and his story of conquering some of the global extreme climbs to our World Class Programme athletes on their induction to the Podium Potential Pathway squad. His inspiring talk touched on managing the mental demands of high performance, not letting adversity stop you from doing what you enjoy, and how even the narrowest of handholds brings you closer towards achieving your goals. He kept the room enthralled and amazed in equal measure as his story is of someone who has a disability that make his achievements even more incredible, but does not let it hold him back from doing what he sets out to do”.
David Hamer – Head of Performance Pathways, British Equestrian
“Your talk was a stand out of the show and you as a person just radiated great vibes!”
Danny Bent – National Outdoor Expo
“Jesse’s talk stands out as one of the highlights of our event. An ordinary man with an extraordinary story, he is so genuine, so remarkable yet so humble. He did a great job understanding our audience and was a dream to work with throughout the event. Jesse truly is an inspiration to us all in all parts of our lives. Our audience was captivated by his amazing story, I could not recommend him enough.”
Elaine Lynch – Senior Marketing Manager, BT
Jesse Dufton 
