An endurance athlete and a social advocate – as well as a reformed corporate lawyer. As a World Vision ambassador, Samantha Gash uses endurance expeditions to achieve her mission: to remove barriers to education for the world’s children.
Samantha said, “I accepted to speak at PCOA18 because every chance I get to share my insights and stories with companies motivates me tremendously. My work as a speaker allows me to not only train companies in resilience and leadership, but to also share my vision of how you can achieve great goals with a lot of small steps.
“Any team or leader will encounter obstacles – it’s how you respond to them that matters. I use my running expeditions to show how I achieved this: by taking a lot of small steps every hour of every day, even the smallest person can achieve something great.
“My experiences have taught me that methodical preparation is crucial but the key factor in success is your willing to be adaptable. My presentation shows the power of agility whether you are running through the desert, leading a team or working towards long term personal goals”.
PCOA18 delegates will take away three key messages from Samantha’s presentation
(1) Execution is key.
Dreaming big is important – doing is always the hard bit. Planning, risk mitigation, and responding to failures are cornerstones of great execution. I will share insights on framing failure, and relentless forward motion needed to ensure execution.
(2) Building and Leading a Highly Functional Team
Identifying and empowering your ‘support team’ is often a key enabler. A ‘misfit’ team of non-runners, family, friends, and mavericks supported our push to achieve our mission. Diversity, hilarity and tears were ever present in these endeavours, and you might find some gems in my approach to team building.
(3) Composure and resilience under duress.
Making the right decisions when under extreme stress can be the defining factor. Using a harrowing story, Sam shares a lesson on the human psyche, and how it relates to leading (and following) in chaos.
Samantha advises those entering the ever-changing events industry. People are looking for an an experience that will not only help them perform better at work, but may change their whole lives for the better. Instead of looking for mild entertainers, look for speakers that are willing to share the truly tough insights that will lead to real change in people’s lives.
Fire and Ice: Purpose, Fear and Resilience From the Smallest Girl in the Desert – Sponsored by ICMI Speakers & Entertainers
Click here for more information on the 11th Annual PCOA Conference and Exhibition, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, 9 – 11 December 2018