An accident changed everything. I went from an active, driven young man to a wheelchair — and for a while, I couldn't see a way forward.

Then I decided to climb a mountain.

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Not as a metaphor. Literally.  The biggest one. On 23 May 2009, I stood on the summit of Mount Everest, the 17th South African ever to do so, and  on legs that doctors weren't sure would carry me up a flight of stairs.

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Those mountains didn't just test my body. They taught me things about pressure, decision-making, and leading yourself and others through the hardest conditions imaginable — lessons I've now shared with more than 86,000 people at organisations including Virgin, Deloitte, Pfizer, and Mastercard.

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I don't speak about resilience because it sounds good. I speak about it because I've had no other choice, and because I've watched those same lessons change the way leaders operate, the way teams perform, and the way individuals see what's possible for them.