Bruce Kirkby

Speaking topics

Presentations listed below include in-person and virtual keynotes, as well as workshops, fireside chats, and other presentation formats.

• Worlds of Opportunity: The Journey from Hidden Potential to High Performance

  Simple habits of learning better, growing faster, and creating enduring excellence.

  Bridging the gap between employees’ current performance and full potential should be a top priority for every organization. Unlocking the power of all team members creates a purpose-driven culture, boosting engagement, increasing impact, and delivering results.

  In his deeply personal and visually stunning keynote — illuminated with stories of Himalayan kingdoms, Arctic survival, and Mongolian horse thieves — Bruce Kirkby shares a framework for converting unrecognized potential into exceptional performance. He encourages audiences to care deeply, think beyond the expected, and adopt a relentless learner’s mindset.

  A riveting storyteller, Kirkby shares an infectious enthusiasm; a belief that the future is always brighter than it seems, and that the ability to perform at previously unimagined levels is within our control. Ultimately, he reveals that simple habits, applied consistently over time, are the key to developing greatness — in everyone.

  Key learnings include:

  • Aligning individual and organizational goals to create a purpose-driven culture.
  • Becoming a fast, fearless, and agile learner.
  • Creating space for curiosity and innovation in high-demand environments.
  • Maintaining consistency in a world of change and chaos.

• Leadership in the Age of Change, Uncertainty, and Disruption

  Turbulence, uncertainty, change, and complexity have become modern norms. And leading organizations through this chaos is the defining challenge of our times.

  With 30 years of expedition leadership experience, Bruce Kirkby understands that staggering challenges do not always lead to exhaustion, discouragement, and disengagement. Instead, given the right leadership strategies, such obstacles can raise performance to previously unimagined levels, along with morale and engagement.

  Modern leaders may have little control over external circumstances, but they wield astonishing influence over the internal team environment. In this exciting, fast-paced keynote — peppered with stories and imagery of high adventure — Kirkby provides a series of simple and practical tips for:

  • Creating a powerful shared vision.
  • Building a culture of fast and fearless learning.
  • Embracing the awkwardness of being a beginner, again and again.
  • Maintaining consistency in a chaotic world.

• Doing Hard Things the Right Way: Accelerating Performance, Building Grit, and Avoiding Burnout

  With its incessant demands and constant disruption, the modern workplace can be exhausting. There is too much to do and never enough time. No matter how strong our willpower, or how hard we hustle, it is common to feel ground down.  Amid this chaos, how can teams possibly find the time or energy to tackle revolutionary, trajectory-altering projects?

  The highest performers have learned to use the challenges surrounding them to grow. Through employing simple tactics consistently over time, elite teams and organizations are able to clarify goals, sharpen abilities, and prioritize the work that matters most. They use difficulty as a catalyst for growth and, ultimately, greatness.

  In this entertaining and visually stunning keynote — illuminated with tales of Himalayan kingdoms, violent ocean storms, Mongolian horse thieves, and his deeply personal return from a career-threatening injury — Bruce Kirkby demonstrates how any organization can navigate uncertainty and disruption, detailing specific strategies that elevate performance. His presentation is a reminder that every day offers the opportunity to become a better version of ourselves.

  Key takeaways:

  • How to stop grinding though difficulties and stimulate growth instead.
  • Why purpose is critical in the pursuit of excellence — clarifying what it means to each individual can transform a team.
  • Elite skill is not inherited but built through constant practice. Continually setting “just maybe” goals is the foundation of lifelong learning.
  • Consistency will always trump intensity. Great achievements are reached not through heroic efforts but through a process of doing the right thing, day after day after day.
  • To do hard things is… hard. It requires work, vulnerability, taking risks, and occasionally failing. It demands a balance between self-discipline and self-compassion. But the ability to do hard things is what defines us, and ultimately yields the greatest rewards, both in work and life.

• Workplace Safety: Protecting Good People from Bad Decisions

  Simple strategies for mitigating the universal human factors of distraction, complacency, and familiarity.

  High demands and constant distraction define the modern workplace. As employees grow desensitized to hazards and complacent about dangers, it is easy for safety rule adherence to lapse. Even the most well-intentioned individuals and highly-experienced teams can fall prey to biases and heuristics — mental shortcuts that speed operations but unwittingly increase risk exposure as well.

  Having successfully lead teams through volatile and dangerous wilderness environments for three decades, Bruce Kirkby has first-hand experience with these tricky-yet-universal blind spots. Using examples ranging from avalanches and grizzly bears to Himalayan mountaineering and African rafting, he outlines the seven most common mental lapses affecting the workplace / jobsite environments, leaving audiences with a series of simple and easy-to-implement mitigation strategies, designed to keep them safe, day after day, year after year.

  Highly entertaining, rich with actionable content, and immediately applicable, Kirkby’s keynote resonates with audiences in every industry, from pulp mills to pipe liners, health care professionals to shipping departments.

  “The feedback from our employees has been nothing short of amazing. They were all inspired, and you did a really great job of delivering critical safety messages.”

  Scott Arndt
  V.P Operations, ACTO Pipelines