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Mark Agnew and his three teammates etched their names in history by becoming the first team to kayak the Arctic’s Northwest Passage—a feat achieved entirely by human power in a single season.
This ground-breaking 103-day expedition was fraught with polar bears, towering icebergs, and near-death experiences, earning Mark accolades like European Adventurer of the Year and Endurance Asia’s Extraordinary Feat of the Year. Their journey as “The Arctic Cowboys” was ranked among the Top 10 Greatest Kayaking Expeditions of the Century, with their incredible story making headlines worldwide. Mark has been featured on BBC Breakfast, ITV, Sky News, GB News, and numerous global media outlets.
Audiences will be on the edge of their seats as Mark recounts the polar bear encounter that woke him and his teammates at 5 am, with a deep guttural growl, inches from their heads, or the heart-stopping moment when shifting ice floes nearly crushed them to death. Alongside the thrilling anecdotes, Mark brings deep insights into resilience and teamwork. Before the Northwest Passage, he interviewed top psychologists to learn how to enhance team cohesion and mental toughness. These lessons became the cornerstone of their success, and now he shares them with audiences, helping teams navigate challenges, adapt to change, and bounce back stronger from setbacks.
Mark’s talk is not just an adrenaline-packed adventure—it’s full of actionable takeaways to help your team thrive in the face of adversity, with parallels drawn directly to the workplace. His storytelling is captivating, funny, and inspiring, leaving audiences energized and equipped with practical tools for success.
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Mark later moved to Hong Kong, where he founded The South China Morning Post’s Adventure Sports section. In addition to the Northwest Passage, he has embarked on countless adventures and openly shares lessons from both his triumphs and failures. Now based in London, Mark works as a keynote speaker and author, bringing his extraordinary experiences and insights to stages worldwide.
To thrive in adversity, the key is to sit with discomfort and let go of the outcome. Mark stopped chasing world records, found his inner polar bear and achieved one of the greatest expeditions of our time as a result. Your audience will be gripped by incredible stories of Arctic adventure, while learning about the psychological skills needed to thrive under pressure, in challenging times and through change.
Key Takeaways:
Resilience is not static. It can be learned, honed and training
Mark will teach your people how to ‘sit with discomfort’, so they can feel stressed and thrive in their tasks anyway
Mark will help your audience reframe past failures as learning opportunities, so even failure empower resilience
Intrinsic motivations diversifies your company’s KPIs, which is the ultimate resilience
Entertaining tales from the Arctic
Benefits & ROI:
Resilient staff bounce back faster from setbacks, saving your company time and money
Reframing obstacles as challenges empowers your staff to solve issues before they escalate to costly problem
Resilient people thrive during tough times, giving your company a competitive edge when it needs it most
Mark and his teammates met for the first time just four days before going to the Arctic and achieving one of the most historic feats of our time. In adventure, you depend on each other or you die – learn how to create the ultimate resilient team culture. In modern times, with so many staff working from home, it is more difficult but more important than ever to build cohesion, so workers feel part of a company culture and a common goal.
Key Takeaways:
How to build team cohesion quickly
Building team cohesion with staff who are in the office only a few days a week
Knowing difference between task and social cohesion, and how the two concepts interact, will take teamwork to the next level
Your people can empower each others’ resilience by helping each other ‘sit with discomfort’
Amazing stories from the Arctic
Benefits & ROI:
Socially cohesive teams spend more time on completing the task, and less time on inefficient politics
A happy team goes further faster than a qualified group of unhappy individuals
Employee turnover is lower in happy, productive teams
It really was one of the best presentations I have heard in quite some time. I really appreciate the time you took to blend the entertaining stories of your adventures with a structured break out groups considering aspects of leadership, resilience and adversity – all essential skills for survival in the current NHS!
Mark’s mix of honesty, humour, success, and failure made him an instant selection as a speaker, fit for the specific purpose we had in mind. Mark enables true adventure to be relatable to working life of corporate employees by his engaging storytelling. I’d highly recommend Mark for your event or professional speaking needs, easy to work with, great content and a fast turnaround time. Exactly what we were looking for!
Inspirational Speakers has been providing high profile keynote speakers and entertainers for over 25 years.
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Stratford-Upon-Avon, CV37 1RD
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020 7993 2724
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