John Amatt

Biography

For over 30 years, John Amatt has led expeditions to remote regions of Northern Norway, Peru, Nepal, China, Greenland and has explored areas of the Arctic on six occasions, making many first ascents of previously unclimbed peaks. At the age of 20, John spent two weeks lashed to tiny ledges while making the first ever ascent of Europe`s highest and steepest mountain precipice - the 5000 foot "Vertical Mile" Troll Wall in Norway.

Later in 1981, he was a leader of the 1st Canadian mountaineering expedition to Western China, which made a lightweight ascent of 24,757 foot Mount Muztagata - the highest peak in the world to have been ascended and descended entirely on skis.

More recently, John fulfilled a lifelong dream by organizing and taking part in Canada`s first successful expedition to reach the top of the world - the 29,035 foot summit of Mount Everest, the world`s tallest mountain.

An educator by training, John established One Step Beyond WorldWide in 1984 and he has since delivered more than 1,800 keynote presentations and seminars to total audiences of over 1,000,000 people in 44 countries around the world. His mission is to encourage people to push beyond their self-imposed limitations, to be more personally accountable for their own actions, and to embrace effective teamwork by valuing the contribution of others.

In his latest book, Straight to the Top and Beyond, he uses the metaphor of adventure to develop a nine step approach for scaling the heights in today`s unpredictable and rapidly-changing global business environments.

"Speaking careers can start in some pretty unusual places"
by John Amatt

My career began in the summer of 1965 when, as an ambitious 20-year old rock climber, I teamed up with two companions to make the first ever ascent of the 5,000-foot Troll Wall in Norway. At the time, this was the highest unclimbed rock face in Europe and it was said to be overhanging for all of its height. In fact, stones dropped from the summit touched nothing until they landed in the valley floor one vertical mile below. More experienced climbers said it was impossible and had turned their backs and walked away. But with the idealism of youth, we were determined to try and prove that the impossible is indeed possible with courage, resolution and resourcefulness.

The climb was eventually accomplished over a 10-day period, with the first attempt being abandoned after a 2-day storm, which soaked us to the skin causing hypothermia and a retreat to our camp in the valley. Three days later, we returned and our journey into the unknown was completed over a further 6-day period, with nights spent standing upright on tiny footholds or sitting on minute ledges with feet dangling over a drop of thousands of feet of thin air. There was never any doubt about which side of the bed we should get out of in the morning!

This accomplishment was later described by the world-renowned climbing icon, Joe Brown, as "... one of the greatest ever achievements by British rock climbers" and it led to invitations for me to lecture on the climb before prestigious audiences throughout the British Isles. Now, since moving to the Canadian Rocky Mountains in 1973, I have been fortunate enough to deliver over 2,000 presentations to audiences in 48 countries, in almost every case relating my experience on the Troll Wall as a metaphor for the "mountains" we must climb in a rapidly changing world. Looking back in retrospect, there can be no doubt in my mind that our success on the Troll Wall was a life changing event, which opened up a crack in the door of possibility that years later would take me to Mount Everest as a leader of the first Canadian team to climb to the top of the world.

Unknown to me at the time was that immediately after our Troll Wall experience, my climbing companion, Tony Howard, sat down to write the manuscript for a book telling the story of our climb, but subsequently shelved it when he became involved in other projects. Intriguingly, 45 years later he was approached by a group planning a climbing museum in Romsdal, the famous Norwegian valley dominated by Trollveggen, the local name for the mountain. They wanted to know if he had any unpublished material on our 1965 ascent. Indeed, he did, and the manuscript once again came to life and was rushed into publication under the title, "TROLL WALL - the Untold Story of the British First Ascent of Europe`s Tallest Rock Face" (ISBN 9781906148287).

Complete details of how this 45-year old manuscript finally made it into print can be found at www.v-publishing.co.uk/blog/2011-01-26---the-wall-of-the-trolls.html or by visiting www.johnamatt.com.

Publications

Straight to the Top and Beyond -- Nine Keys for Meeting the Challenge of Changing Times
In Straight to the Top and Beyond, John Amatt, mountain climber and C.E.O. uses the metaphor of adventure - climbing Mount Everest - to articulate an innovative strategy for addressing the challenges of a rapidly-changing world. He believes that to succeed in the 21st century, we must learn to be risk takers; to become visionary and adventurous in dealing with the new social, political, and economic environments in which we will be forced to live. Straight to the Top and Beyond is a fascinating account of the author`s climb to the peak of Mount Everest; it is also a call to businessmen and women to become adventurers; to seek out difficulty and to stretch their potential.

Titles

No Mountain Too High -- Challenging Change with the Adventure Attitidue

Straight to the Top and Beyond -- Nine Keys for Meeting the Challenge of Changing Times

Climbing Your Own Everest -- What it Takes to Get to the Top

Meeting the Challenge of Change