John Amatt is Founder & President of One Step Beyond WorldWide, an innovative educational and motivational company, whose mission is to encourage people to push beyond their self-imposed limitations, to be more personally accountable for the results of their own actions, and to embrace effective teamwork by valuing the contribution of others. In this capacity, he has delivered more than 1,700 presentations and seminars in 35 countries and has been called “The World’s Best Adventure Speaker”.

 A native of Great Britain, for the past 25 years he has been a resident of the Canadian Rocky Mountains and is the Founder of the Banff Mountain Film Festival, widely recognized as the world’s premiere showcase of adventure documentary films.

 John is renowned in the international mountaineering community for making the first ever climb of Europe’s highest and steepest mountain face – the 5000 foot “Vertical Mile” Troll Wall in Norway. He was leader of an early climbing expedition to Western China, which used camels to approach a 24,757-foot mountain before skiing to the summit, this being perhaps the highest peak in the world to have been ascended and descended entirely on skis. And more recently, he was the principal organizer and a leader of Canada’s first successful expedition to reach the top of the world – the 29,035 foot summit of Mount Everest – a climb that was televised live throughout Canada and on ABC Nightline in the United States.

 John’s adventures are related in his autobiography, Straight to the Top and Beyond, in which he uses the metaphor of his own adventures to develop a nine-step approach for scaling the heights in today’s unpredictable global business environments.

 John Amatt knows about tough times and the value of struggle in bringing out the best in teams of people! After all, he was a leader of an Everest team, which suffered four tragic deaths in two unpredictable accidents before putting six climbers on top of the world. His experience on Everest taught him about the danger of falling into the trap of complacency and the importance of always questioning the status quo in seeking new ways of succeeding in a rapidly changing world. He is the perfect speaker to assist your team in navigating through the turmoil of today’s global economic crisis.”

No Mountain too High: Challenging Change with the Adventure Attitude  An educator by training, John uses the lessons learned from his own life and death adventures in the world’s most remote places to articulate down-to-earth strategies for meeting the challenges of challenging times. He uses his amazing storytelling ability and the power of metaphor to address the themes of goals and expectations, risk and adventure, embracing fear and anxiety, the value of commitment, and many more.

Straight to the Top and Beyond: Nine Keys for Meeting the Challenge of Changing Times  By definition, adventure involves dealing with the uncertain, the unpredictable and the unknown, just as change involves moving towards a future in which there are no guarantees. To succeed in the uncertain world, we must learn to embrace change, and to become visionary and adventurous in dealing with the economic, social, and political environments in which we must all operate.

Climbing Your Own Everest  John Amatt’s most popular presentation explores the metaphor of striving to reach the top of the world. Illustrated by magnificent color photography from his successful expedition which climbed Everest, this presentation investigates the qualities we must all bring to bear in climbing to the top in the difficult and unpredictable economic environments.

Meeting the Challenge of Change  Designed as an in-house program, this thought provoking seminar has also been effectively integrated into annual meetings or conventions. Meeting the Challenge of Change will motivate your staff to embrace new opportunities in a changing world, to open up their minds to new realities, and to develop the “Adventure Attitude” strategies that will be the key to success in the future.