Deshun Deysel

Deshun Deysel is one of South Africa’s top conference speakers and has addressed audiences around the world over the past eleven years. 

Deshun Deysel was a member of the first South African expedition to Mt. Everest in 1996. She has subsequently been on twelve high-altitude climbing expeditions spanning five continents. She returned to Everest in 2003, and came within 500 vertical metres of the summit.

As one of South Africa’s most articulate conference speakers, Deshun Deysel has captivated diverse audiences at home and abroad with insightful presentations which weave (through word and image) the lessons of high altitude climbing into the lessons of business and life.

Experience

In 2010 Deshun Deysel enters her fourteenth year in the speaking, training and consultancy industry. This, following on the initial five year experience gained as a school teacher in the early 1990’s.

Her key skills are those of motivational speaking; facilitating and training. Using the three skills above, her firm D Deysel and Associates focuses on issues crucial to both corporations and individuals:

• Leadership
• Goal-setting
• Team-building
• Dealing with success and failure

Her goal in each case is invariably the same – to assist individuals and teams in their own development. Her method, however, is customized to the need of her clients. She not only participates in conferences and seminars, but also combines theoretical training with experiential – having lead corporate groups on treks to Kilimanjaro and Everest Base Camp.

Education

Deshun Deysel holds a higher diploma in Education from the Rand College of Education and The University of Johannesburg.

Awards and Recognitions

In 1997 Deshun became a recipient of the prestigious Four Outstanding Young South Africans Award

She is a Friend and Ambassador for the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation

She has been nominated for the Shoprite/Checkers Woman of the Year

Deshun is also an honorary member of the Golden Key international Honor Society

Personal Goals

In 2007 Deshun Deysel embarked on a dream to become the first South African woman to successfully tackle “The Seven Summits” – the highest peak on each continent. To date she has been on five of the seven and summitted two. She recently got married, lives in Johannesburg and has three cats.

Speaking topics

• Tackling the Summit

Tackling the summit is very different from arriving at the summit. In both life and business the majority of focus is on that future achievement while forgetting that preparation is an important part of the journey.

This topic deals with

• confronting fear
• dealing with comfort zones/effective zones
• moving forward without guarantees
• innovating, not imitating
• increasing efficacy
• working flexibly

If the dream is alive these factors tend to take care of themselves.  Instead of chasing the mountaintop let it come to you. All that’s needed is a different approach to the challenge.

• From Couch Potato to Mountaineer

•  
  • the birth of a dream
  • get off the couch!
  • do I really have the guts?
  • sometimes it takes as long as it takes!
  • on the strength of the Sherpa
  • crossing the crevasse – what if I fall?
  • feel the fear and do it anyway
  • Death Zone deprivation
  • when failure isn’t failure

This presentation is light-hearted and pokes fun but it speaks into the issues of fear, doubt, discomfort and, sometimes, disappointment that face us when we go after big goals.

• Mountains and Manicures

How do women cope in extreme environments?   Well, how do women cope at all?
As we always do – with patience, flexibility, respect and humility.  Believe it or not, all these attributes make female climbers more adept at high altitude mountaineering than their male counterparts! Yep, it seems the female of the species even has the required physical attributes for the long, hard grind that expeditions like those are all about.   Most of my fellow male climbers agree.  So how is it then that still more men than women climb the highest mountains in the world?   Some would say that we already know we can do it so don’t have to prove anything!!  However to find the answer it was necessary to study the phenomenon of women participating in extreme sports.

Mountains & Manicures is really about looking closely at the kind of women that are drawn to testing themselves in extreme conditions.   It also looks at how they cope when the going gets tough and the disciplines required to stick to the task, irrespective of immense pain and discomfort.

As a result the real question has become:  is this how women cope in general?
How do women deal with life and work in general?   Are there any lessons that could be learned from this?   Do women have some secret that makes it look so easy? Being a woman is an extreme adventure!

All the presentations include exciting pictures and video images of Deshun’s various expeditions.