Josh Sundquist

Josh's keynote presentations blend clean comedy with soulful storytelling. Hilarious audience interactions are punctuated by moments of profound silence. Your attendees experience a roller-coaster ride of laughter, tears, chills and still more laughter. His storytelling format engages, entertains, and instills hope in people who are facing challenges both personal and professional. Key takeaways include how to fall forward by learning from disappointments and failures, why our results are based more on our response to adversity than our response to success, and how to keep swinging when we feel like we have struck out.

HOW JOSH CUSTOMIZES

Josh will study the unique challenges and opportunities facing your audience to tailor his presentation for your event. If possible, he will attend your entire conference or convention up until his speech, sitting in on general sessions to hear speeches by your leadership and industry experts. He will take part in your social functions and chat with attendees in the hall during breaks. This cultural immersion allows Josh to give a speech that weaves together his own story with the story of your organization, to interact with members of your leadership team and individual audience members by name while he's giving his talk, and to impart relevant 1mt1mt's your audience can do to elevate their performance.

YOUR AUDIENCE WILL LEARN:

1MT1MT

When Josh was training for the Paralympics, his motto was 1MT1MT (one more thing, one more time). What's the 1MT1MT you could do today to get closer to the future you are training for? What's that little bit of extra effort you could make to better serve your customers?

CHANGE IS OUR CHANCE TO GROW

Josh had to give up his childhood dream of playing for the local travel soccer team. But as a result, he discovered something even better: the dream of a Paralympic uniform. When we accept change—in our lives, our workplace, and our industry—we create the space necessary for new growth.

YOU ONLY STRIKE OUT WHEN YOU QUIT

Josh went up to bat in a softball game a month after his amputation. He got three strikes in a row. But his friends let him keep swinging. It took more than twenty to get a hit. That game was a lot like life. In most endeavors, you only strike out when you quit. How many strikes are you willing to take?

SELL SOLUTIONS, NOT PRODUCTS

An airline employee offered Josh a seat with “extra leg room” because he has one leg. Which is funny since he gets extra leg room...automatically. She wanted to help, but she made the most common mistake in customer service: offering a solution before understanding the problem. Don't tell your customers what you want to sell before learning what they want to buy.

IT'S NOT HOW FAST YOU SKI, IT'S HOW FAST YOU GET BACK UP

In his first ski race, Josh fell. Five times. In sports, in life, in business, the principle is the same—you will fall. The question is, how fast can you get back up? How quickly can you learn from a mistake and then recover by implementing that new knowledge?

WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS, MAKE HALLOWEEN COSTUMES

We all have problems. We all have things we wish we could change but can't. And we certainly all have stress. But sometimes within those situations we can find a bit of humor, and that can make the challenges a little easier to endure.

LEADERSHIP IS PUTTING YOURSELF IN THEIR BOOT

Josh's first ski instructor had two legs, but he took off a ski and balanced on one leg to give Josh an example to follow. Whether you are a business leader, a community leader, or a student leader, that's an illustration of how to be effective: put yourself in their boot. And leave a trail they can follow.

COLLABORATION DOUBLES OUR RESOURCES

For years, Josh accumulated a box of unused left shoes. Then he met his solemate, Stephen, an amputee missing the opposite leg. Now Josh and Stephen exchange shoes and each have twice as many as before. Likewise, when we collaborate with co-workers and with other divisions, we all end up with more.