PUBLICATIONS
BOOKS:
Wild Success: 7 Key Lessons Business Leaders Can Learn from Extreme Adventurers
Face every business challenge with the skills and spirit of an elite adventurer
Wild Success takes you on a thrilling ride into the world of extreme adventurers―extraordinary men and women whose hard-earned wisdom can be applied to any business situation. The authors combine one-of-a-kind insights from the adventure world with innovative research from the field of neuroscience to provide powerful, proven-effective leadership lessons.
Adventurers know better than anyone that unexpected obstacles and tough situations can force the most creative, innovative thinking. Become a leader of leaders by using the wild wisdom garnered by elite adventurers in the most extreme environments on the planet.
Rowing the Northwest Passage: Adventure, Fear, and Awe in a Rising Sea
"Vallely transports the reader to places few will ever go: the very edges of the earth and of human endurance."
—Evan Solomon
In this gripping first-hand account, four seasoned adventurers navigate a sophisticated, high-tech rowboat across the Northwest Passage. One of the “last firsts” remaining in the adventure world, this journey is only possible because of the dramatic impacts of global warming in the high Arctic, which provide an ironic opportunity to draw attention to the growing urgency of climate change.
Along the way, the team repeatedly face life-threatening danger from storms unparalleled in their ferocity and unpredictability and bears witness to unprecedented changes in the Arctic habitat and inhabitants, while weathering gale-force vitriol from climate change deniers who have taken to social media to attack them and undermine their efforts.
ARTICLES:
Forbes
How An Explorer’s Mindset Can Help You Conquer Workplace Mountains
The best views come after the hardest climb.
That truism is embraced by any self-respecting high adventurer. And in this case, “high adventurer” applies to workplace achievers as well as to people braving the treacherous footholds of Mount Everest.
Perhaps more than ever, people in the workplace must learn to expand their comfort zones. Research shows that by 2030 upwards of 400 million workers around the globe will need to change their roles or learn dramatically new skills. Simply put: adapt or be left behind
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Reach Death-Defying Success Without Risking Your Life
Extreme adventures yield a courageous mindset for the adventurer. You can benefit from that knowledge — whether you partake in extreme adventures or not — to gain valuable self-improvement tips.
"Adventurers are the paragons of human performance," said Kevin Vallely, an accomplished extreme adventurer. The adventurer's courageous mindset pushes the limits "of perceived human ability and forges unknown paths to discover what's truly possible. "Vallely and Amy Posey wrote "Wild Success: 7 Key Lessons Business Leaders Can Learn from Extreme Adventures."
BANK OF AMERICA
Small Business Community
How to Use the Uncertainty of Coronavirus to Innovate, Learn and Lead
Mark Matthews is a “big wave” surfer who faces fear and uncertainty with every extreme ride he takes. And he has something important to teach us in this new coronavirus world in which we live.
You probably have seen people like Mark on TV – those amazing, brave (crazy?), intrepid surfers who ride humungous waves in Hawaii, or Australia, or wherever the endless summer takes them.
Professional Adventurers’ Top 3 Tips For Surviving A Crisis
Article as posted on Arianna Huffington's Thrive Global website
An adventure can be something you actively prepare for and intentionally seek out, but it can also be an experience that hits you broadside with no prior warning and leaves you scrambling for what to do next. The current COVID-19 crisis falls squarely into the latter category and navigating through it is an adventure in every sense of the word.
Book Review — “Wild Success: 7 Key Lessons Business Leaders Can Learn from Extreme Adventurers” by Amy Posey and Kevin Vallely
While reading this book, I was reminded of another business book that I had read some years ago entitled Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership: Executive Lessons from the Bully Pulpit by James M. Strock (Three Rivers Press / Random House).
Adventure, Fear and Awe in a Rising Sea: Recognizing the Difference between Purpose and Goals
In 2013, co-Author Kevin Vallely and a team of three attempted to row a 25-foot rowboat across the infamous Northwest Passage, the sea route that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in the Canadian far north. For centuries, explorers sought a passage through its waters as a trade route to the orient but were always met with defeat. The passage has been perennially locked in sea ice and was impassable. In recent years, the pack ice had begun to melt, and Kevin and his team set out to raise awareness of the changing environment with the lofty goal of rowing west to east across the passage solely under human power. It would be a human first.
McGraw-Hill: How can we navigate tough times and be successful during a pandemic?
A Q&A with McGraw Hill authors, Amy Posey and Kevin Vallely
The world has been thrown for a loop with the coronavirus pandemic, with many having to put their lives on pause. Educators have had to shift their courses online, students are adjusting to home learning, and parents and caregivers are juggling between working from home and homeschooling their kids. So we spoke with McGraw Hill authors, Amy Posey and Kevin Vallely, who wrote Wild Success: 7 Key Lessons Business Leaders Can Learn from Extreme Adventurers, to gain some insight and advice on what we can do to ensure we are embracing and learning from the current challenges and the ones we will face ahead. Check out what they had to say!
It’s not what you think, say these authors and entrepreneurs, in tearing down some common misconceptions about risk and vulnerability.
Success in the world of business requires many of the same skills as success in the world of outdoor adventure. We can speak to this because we do both. Kevin has been pushing the limits in the adventure world for more than two decades and has been recognized as one of Canada’s leading explorers. He also runs a successful architectural design practice and works as a leadership mentor and author. Amy is a management consultant and neuroscience expert but also a paraglider pilot and avid adventurer. We understand adventuring and we understand business, and the two are a lot closer than you think.
YOUNG UPSTARTS
Voice of a New Generation
As Tabitha and Amanda walk out onto the sea ice, testing their snowshoes in the soft snow, it’s apparent Amanda isn’t comfortable. Tabitha marches ahead about 30 yards and turns to find Amanda stopped in her tracks. Tabitha appears to be urging her on, but Amanda shakes her head.
Tabitha: “Come on Amanda, it’s fine. Don’t worry.”
Amanda: “I don’t like being on ice. We don’t know how thick it is.”
Trust is The Lifeline
Adventurers and business leadership experts, Amy Posey and Kevin Vallely explain how both in climbing and in business, trust is everything.
Teetering on a tiny foothold 1,000ft above the ground, I stare down at my partner and yell in the most composed voice I can muster.
“Watch me here Peter. I’m not sure about this!”
“I got you, Kev”, he hollers back, “You got this!”
Peter is holding the rope I’m attached to...
3 Things Business Leaders can learn from Extreme Athletes
How do you navigate through the inevitable fear associated with the unknown? Extreme adventure athletes make a living doing just that.
An adventure can be something you actively prepare for and intentionally seek out, but it can also be an experience that hits you broadside with no prior warning and leaves you scrambling for what to do next.
Refreshing Reads - Amy Posey, Kevin Vallely – Wild Success
How do you navigate through the inevitable fear associated with the unknown? Extreme adventure athletes make a living doing just that.
Not for the faint of heart, this masterfully written expose of adventure meets business reveals the thrill of riding out a 50-foot wave to the terror of the boardroom. Both equally challenging and captivating, of course. You’ll understand the significance of outrunning a boardroom avalanche from the perspective of a surfer riding a slab wave. Exhilarating. The turbulent joy of excruciating fear combined with the compulsory knowledge and determination to succeed are interchangeable.
Real Leaders - How to Apply the Wisdom of an Adventurer to Survive in a Crisis
An adventure can be something you actively prepare for and intentionally seek out, but it can also be an experience that hits you broadside with no prior warning and leaves you scrambling for what to do next. The current COVID-19 crisis falls squarely into the latter category, and navigating through it is an adventure in every sense of the word.
Training Industry - Making the Pandemic Manageable: 3 Ways to Reappraise Like a Big Wave Surfer
The last few weeks have been challenging for everyone. Uncertainty abounds, and difficult decisions weigh on us all. It appears that these trials will only intensify as the COVID-19 crisis continues, so what should we do?