FULL BIOGRAPHY 25 - DESHUN DEYSEL
Inspiring People to Peak Performance
INTRODUCTION:
Deshun Deysel: Mountaineer; Teacher; Facilitator; Coach; Director; Innovator; Entrepreneur; Wife; Mother.
The dream of a young South African girl for adventure took her from a coastal township to that of being dubbed the “first Black high-altitude mountaineer”. Deshun is in the zone, alive, and in her element when she is trying to reach new heights, or helping others to achieve peak performance.
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MOUNTAINEERING:
Inspired by a grandmother’s stories of Edmund Hillary, Deshun grew up hoping that one day she would climb mountains, although it seemed a distant prospect from the perspective of 70’s Apartheid South Africa.
Coinciding with the euphoria brought about by democracy, an opportunity arose which Deshun seized with both feet. Ian Woodall dreamt of planting the new SA flag on Mount Everest summit. President Mandela, keen to instil in the new nation a sense of pride and a can-do attitude, became patron of the venture, and quite naturally wanted the team selected to be representative of not only white men. The Sunday Times put out an advert inviting women to apply.
From over 2000 applicants, Cathy O’Dowd and Deshun Deysel were chosen.
The 1996 Expedition marked the beginning of a ground-breaking series of adventures for Deshun. Despite being marred in controversy, the ‘96 team, through Ian Woodall; Cathy O’ Dowd and Bruce Herod (who sadly perished on the descent) succeeded in reaching the summit.
From 2000 Deshun launched an attempt to scale the 7 Summits - the highest peak on each continent. She summited Kilimanjaro (1996) and Mt Elbrus, then travelled to the Americas. On Mt Aconcagua, she turned back , and on Denali [Mt Mckinley] she reached about ???m.
In 2003 she returned to Everest. She reached camp 4 at just under 8 000m. From there, soon after 11pm on the 12? May, the team headed out, making their way by torch-light, on the arduous trek towards the summit in what is known as the death zone. 500 vertical metres from the summit a storm approached, forcing those on the mountain including Deshun, to retreat. The expedition, however, was successful in that a number of days later when team member Sean Wisedale made a bold attempt to return up the mountain, successfully becoming the first South African to accomplish the Seven Summits.
All in all, Deshun has now been on 15 high altitude expeditions on 5 continents.
She still nurtures the ambition to complete the 7 Summits.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
The 1996 Everest expedition brought with it a flood of publicity and accolades. Deshun was chosen for the FOYSA award, recognizing the talents of Four Outstanding Young South Africans. After an interview on Carte Blanche, anchor Derek Watts saw in Deshun’s story something remarkable, and over lunch offered to introduce her to a speaking agent.
And so began a career as a Motivational Speaker that has spanned a quarter of century. During this time, Deshun has addressed nearly 500* audiences in 17 countries in Africa, America, Europe and the Middle East. (*This figure excludes her facilitation work.)
Deshun has six different keynote addresses. Large corporations have used her as their keynote speaker at events and conferences*. Organisations trust Deshun in this capacity because of her professionalism, presentability and articulate delivery. In this regard, she is also called on to MC conferences.
At first glance she is an elite athlete with an inspiring story in a sport that fascinates the general public in its extreme nature. This experience alone drives powerful insights.
However, it is Deshun’s foundational knowledge that enables her to impart ideas and principles that stay with the audience long after the event. This includes, on an individual level, a considerable body of knowledge gained in the areas of personal psychology and cognitive behaviour. Socially, Deshun offers a profound perspective of not only leading, but also of following. On an organisational level, Deshun helps groups to see how generational behaviour is a key component of finding congruence, and more fundamentally the way the workplace itself as an environment is changing .
Deshun is also able to bridge important divides, reaching disparate groups in a corporate audience. This remains a critical need in South Africa, as organisations continue to wrestle with how to balance the dominance of perspectives that are (too!) often male, and too often “white”.
She balances personal vs social perspectives; the individual vs team performance, and importantly blends theory with experience - all in a manner that is highly engaging.
All this makes for presentations that are perceptive and have necessary depth, are inspiring and profound without trying too hard to be so.
FACILITATION
Deshun’s original tertiary training is in education. In her twenties she taught in the specialised environment of special needs. The art of working with smaller groups is thus in her chemistry.
Facilitation became a natural stepping stone into corporate life.
Facilitating on behalf of Corporate Service Providers
From 2000 to 2014 Deshun consulted on behalf of four different organisations servicing corporates with specific training:
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I can Foundation
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The Pacific Institute
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BCS (Business Communication Skills)
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True North Strategy
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LIMAK Business School (Austria)
At the I CAN Foundation she learned ….
The Pacific Institute provides clients with important insights into cognitive behaviour, and how the brain functions to achieve excellence.
At BCS, Deshun used her own career as a motivational speaker to help others to learn how to present clearly in a corporate setting. She also facilitated a course in Sales strategy, furthering her own knowledge in this critical aspect of business, and by inference the job of “selling ourselves” in our interactions.
GoPeak International Consultancy
Today, Deshun’s business GoPeak International offers her ownworkshops to engender “peak performance.” in teams involved in transition. In this she brings her theoretical and experiential knowledge together, using mountaineering as a powerful metaphor to assist the team to both understand core principles en route to excellence, and to plot the way to get to where they wish to be.
The Tackling the Summit Program coheres around team strategy towards a collective goal that necessitates enhanced performance. The course runs for two full days (12 hours), but variants include a one-day workshop (6 hours), a half-day workshop (4 hours). The format comprises a number of essential framework sessions that embed the program , and then a number of electives from which a client can choose to cater for their specific need.
Deshun also offers a two-and-a-half-hour workshop for clients who are wanting her to work on one specific topic with a team. This is ideal for clients hosting a conference who want one session from Deshun.
COACHING
Deshun is also a coach. In 2014? Deshun embarked on a business coaching course through Miles Downey.
She has a team of 7 coaching associates who can help a corporate team in an ongoing way to push through with the goals and strategies it arrived at during her Tackling the Summit Strategy Workshop.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Since leaving salaried teaching Deshun has always been an entrepreneur. She has built a business that has come to be used and trusted by the corporate and state sectors, and also by civil society groupings - schools; academic institutions; NGOs and churches. However, that is not the full story…
In 2012 she was asked to facilitate an aspect of a program with The Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship, an exciting incubator that has nurtured some wonderful success stories. The entrepreneurs gained a lot from her insights, but the inverse also happened: Deshun became inspired to push her own entrepreneurial instincts so that her insights became once again attached to the world in which she consults.
With the internet transforming the way people do business, as far back as the early 2000’s Deshun came to see that the way corporations were (and still are) doing performance management is outdated, given the changing nature of the workplace, and the younger digital-savvy generation that is rising within it. She recognized that a great opportunity to change the way performance management exists.
First she built the Peak Performance Toolkit, a unique evaluation tool for individuals in the workplace.
Out of that, Emplify was born. Emplify is a human-centred digital platform that aids organisations (employing 10-500 people) with their performance management. Emplify doesn’t speak to a new workforce simply because it is digital, but because culturally it is in tune with the way today’s employees want to work. Moreover, Emplify is in step with a style of leadership today’s workforce prefers. It is also in touch with an exciting trend that is impacting our continent - entrepreneurs coming up with creative solutions that are fit for Africa.
DIRECTORSHIPS:
With her understanding of organization, Deshun has been asked to serve on various boards.
Laureus:
Deshun is the vice chairperson of the Laureus Sport for Good foundation working alongside Brian Habana who is chair. The foundation has raised some R80m to date. This is used to aid community organizations using sport to affect good. [See more at laureus.co.za].
She is also a sports ambassador for the foundation alongside some of SA’s great sporting heroes: Cheslyn Kolbe; Wayde van Niekerk; Elana Meyer, Sean Pollock; Natalie Du Toit; Lucas Radebe, the late Baby Jake Matlala - to mention a few. In 201? She was invited onto the Laureus board chaired by Morne du Plessis, where she still serves today.
DotAfrica
Deshun was pulled into the IT space by Dot Africa, the group who provides domains first for SA, but also now in various parts of the continent. She served on their board from.
Effective Human Intervention
Deshun is a director for Effective Human Intervention, a group that does training mainly in the engineering sphere.
FAMILY
Deshun married in 2009, and was blessed with two children in her 40’s!
Life for her - as with many other women - remains a constant balancing act between family and business commitments. She enjoys swimming, has taken to cycling, and runs (when necessary!). Deshun also has a good ear, and is one of the lead singers during worship services.
CONCLUSION:
Allow Deshun to assist your team in achieving Peak Performance.
Contact
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