Alan customizes ALL presentations to the meeting objectives and audience. He works closely with the organizers and meeting planners to ensure a seamless and successful event. These are a few of the Keynotes he suggests:
Leadership Lesson from Mt. Everest
The Keynote is designed for a general audience and takes the audience to the summit of Everest. Alan briefly discusses why he climbed Everest and invites the audience to consider their “why” and how it applies to their personal and professional lives.
Alan began the talk with a gripping video of being blown off a mountain and breaking his leg in three places. He and his climbing partner wait five hours for rescue. Alan uses this story to begin and end the presentation, demonstrating resilience and determination in adversity.
The multimedia presentation features seldom-seen images and videos of his Everest climbs, accompanied by a firsthand account of three attempts before reaching the summit on his fourth attempt. He conceals this fact from the audience until near the end to illustrate one of his many mantras: “Is it hard or impossible?”
The talk ends with a few slides that offer leadership lessons from my climbing experiences, which apply to everyone in the audience, regardless of their role or title.
Purpose and Passion: Making Your Mark on the World
Alan’s high-impact multimedia presentation for corporate audiences. What’s your passion, your purpose? Alan’s presentation takes audiences to the summit of Mt. Everest to answer these questions. Along the way, he shares his humorous and startling first-hand accounts of surviving a fall into a crevasse, extreme illness near the summit, and burying a teammate high on the mountain. Audiences consider these dilemmas: Is this hard, or is this impossible? Are you hurt, or are you hurting? And there are 1000 reasons to stop and only 1 to go on.
Alan’s Leadership presentation touches on these points:
- understanding the challenge
- staying focused on the goal
- attention to the smallest detail
- shared purpose
- acknowledging contributions
- staying motivated
- commitment in tough times
- overcoming obstacles
- fact-based decisions
- learning from experience
- leadership and followership
- celebrating success
Alan summited Mt. Everest with Kami Sherpa of IMG at 5:00 a.m. on May 21, 2011. Alan uses this video in his presentations, which were filmed by Panuru Sherpa, who climbed with Karim Mella, the first Dominican to summit Everest. At 56 seconds in the video, Alan is shown on the summit, making an audio dispatch to this website.
K2: Fighting for the Summit and Life
Designed for Corporate and outdoor audiences: Alan ties his summit of K2 in July 2014 with the struggles and achievements of a seemingly impossible goal.
On his 58th birthday, Alan made history by becoming only the 18th and oldest American to summit Pakistan’s second-highest mountain in the world, K2. This unbelievable presentation has videos never seen from K2 as Alan candidly talks about four times he had deadly go/no-go decisions. He drew deep to find the strength to continue making the summit at 8:30 am with his team.
This presentation takes audiences through a journey of difficulty, doubts, challenges, obstacles, and eventual success, but Alan paid the price for his summit. Audiences are saying this is the best mountaineering talk ever, plus the lessons are timeless yet meaningful for today.
Lessons from Alzheimer’s: From the Summit of Everest
Designed for Alzheimer’s Caregivers, families, or anyone impacted by this disease: Alan brings home the realities of Alzheimer’s with his candid presentation about his mother’s struggle.
The one-hour presentation starts with Alan introducing his mom, Ida, through a brief video. He shares poignant stories of how he and his family discovered she was sick with Alzheimer’s and not simply aging. Alan talks about how it shook him to his core and compelled him to think broadly about making a difference. As a result, he set the goal of climbing the highest mountain on each of the seven continents. Alan spent only one-year conveying hope, need, and urgency to people worldwide that the current Alzheimer’s environment was unacceptable and must change. Today, in 2023, the situation, while improved, remains unacceptable.
He then takes audiences on a whirlwind tour of all eight mountain climbs, showing stunning pictures and videos and telling incredible stories that inspire the audience. He uses the questions of “Is it hard or impossible?” and the mantra of “1000 reasons to stop and only 1 to go on.” Alan asks audience members to consider their struggles, find hope, and push on each day despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles. He goes in-depth on climbing Mt. Everest’s summit, showing the audience amazing pictures and videos revealing the extreme conditions. His video of making a dedication to his mom from the summit brings the entire presentation into an emotional crescendo. He concludes with a dose of humor and his thoughts on Alzheimer’s journey with points about “If I knew then what I know now” and “What I would have done differently.”
The address is ideal for an annual meeting or fundraising event.
PBS’s My Generation featured Alan’s 7 Summits Climb for Alzheimer’s: Memories are Everything project. His Alzheimer’s keynote presentations expand on the themes he discusses in the film.
Learning by never giving up: Becoming an overnight success through a thousand failures
In this presentation designed for small businesses, entrepreneurs, and anyone striving to build a business or meet a challenging goal, Alan takes his audience through his flat-land youth in Memphis, Tennessee, to the summit of Mt. Everest and then to become the oldest American to summit K2, the world’s most challenging peak, at age 58.
He emphasizes how he learned from every climb. He viewed each “non-summit” as a lesson, not a failure. He learned to choose his partners carefully, as well as his guides. He knew the hard way about making investments that failed to result in achievements. Halfway through his 37 climbs over 20 years, Alan refocused his efforts to serve others when his mom, Ida, died from Alzheimer’s Disease. This event changed his life and propelled him to achieve summits he had never dreamed possible.
- Understanding and accepting the IMPACT of those in your life
- Life BALANCE helps achieve the impossible
- SURROUND yourself with the best to learn (and teach)
- HIRE the best to minimize risk
- Balance AMBITION with REALISM to progress faster
- LEARNING from ‘Failure’ is the key to growth and learning
- Knowing when to QUIT is a path to success
- RECOGNIZING the need to CHANGE is the difference between success and failure
- PUSHING the limits is the only way to break thru
- Accepting REALITY is sometimes hard but also the only way forward
- LIFE LESSONS for learning to Never Give Up
Everest for KiDs
Alan uses his inspirational and educational multimedia presentation about Mt. Everest to help children of all ages learn about the culture, geography, and opportunities of taking on a huge challenge like climbing Mt. Everest. His presentation of Everest for KiDs is used in school curricula worldwide today, and now Alan is taking it on the road to present to schools. Teachers, parents, and administrators all agree that his ability to relate to children is unique.