Inspiring Your Team To Reach New Heights.

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What does it take to go beyond your limits? To have an impossible dream and turn it into a reality? 

For beginner climber Bonita Norris it was to reach the summit of Everest but as she came to learn, the biggest challenge wasn’t Everest itself. 

Limiting beliefs, imposter syndrome and being a beginner climber with a seemingly impossible goal meant the biggest mountain was not the one “out there”, it was the one in Bonita’s mind.

This is the story of how with great support, a growth mindset and a clear vision, Bonita conquered the world’s highest peaks and themountain of the mind.

Accompanied by stunning photographs from her expeditions to the Himalayas, Bonita's talk is heart warming, humorous and inspiring. She tells of the lessons she learnt as an ordinary woman who took on an extraordinary challenge - and succeeded against the odds.

Most importantly, Bonita speaks about how great support is fundamental to success. As Tenzing Norgay once said,“Be Great, Make Others Great.”

“Bonita was awesome! Such an inspiring storyteller – funny, passionate, and very polished. She took on our messages and wove them seamlessly into her own story.
We’ve had so much positive feedback from the team – many calling her the best speaker they’ve seen.”

Oracle

The inspirational true story of how data transformed mountaineering

Bonita Norris explores how the first ascent of Everest was made possible by data and scientific rigour after 30 years of failed attempts on the world's highest peak.

The story we all know and love about the first ascent of Everest in 1953 is that of man over mountain: Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's superhuman effort to make it to the summit. But is that the whole story behind the first ascent? This inspiring keynote tells of the unsung hero of Everest, Dr Griffith Pugh, who unlocked the mystery of how to get the two climbers to the top and back down again - alive, using data.

Today, we are grasping to understand how the data and AI revolution will transform our lives. Within this uncertainty there is a reluctance to change, and a fear of leaving old ways behind. We wouldn't be alone in feeling this way: 70 years ago the pioneers of Everest were grappling with much the same- their belief system, so closely held onto, was actually holding them back from realising their potential.

In this talk, Bonita Norris explores how a reluctance to change stifled the British from the first ascent of Everest for nearly 30 years, until an outsider to the climbing community became the disruptor they didn't want- but desperately needed. 

This keynote reframes the story of the first ascent of Everest as a triumph not of man over mountain but of data over dogmatic thinking. 

It explores three key themes:

- How reluctance to change holds us back from progress, becoming the biggest obstacle (bigger than Everest itself) and how we can all fall victim to being change haters.

- How it is outsiders that often become disruptors, often at great personal cost

- It is still humans that harness data and AI- as Bonita knows, even with the world's most advanced data and equipment, she still had to push her body to the extreme to reach the summit of Everest. It's the relationship of the two: human and data, that is a potent force.

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"Loved the talk. A great story, well-told. Her ability to take a room full of self-confessed 'data nerds' into the 'death zone' (and, most importantly, back again!) was a masterclass in storytelling. Bravo!"

Microsoft

Utilising Failure for Greater Success

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Are success and failure at odds with one another, or are they inextricably linked? Are excellent teams the ones that don’t make mistakes, or are they the ones that accept mistakes will and do happen? 

How can we ensure that workplace culture encourages not the making of mistakes but the effective techniques to learn quickly from them, so that they can be avoided in future? 

How can we better harness the learnings within our failings in order to succeed better and connect better with our teams and clients? 

These are the questions Bonita Norris explores in her keynote In the Death Zone.

Bonita will share her story of going from the top of the world to rock bottom, and then back to the top again. 

Your team will learn how failure can inspire, educate and strengthen bonds in ways success cannot, 

Ultimately, being willing to succeed means being willing to fail. 

And if we’re humble enough to realise it: we often don’t end up succeeding OR failing, we often end up with a bit of both.

“Exactly what we were looking for to push our audience to keep on fighting to achieve their goals however impossible the challenge might seem. Moving out of one’s comfort zone to seek new challenges was perfectly voiced.”

Culdesac