James Castrission

James Castrission also known as Cas is a premier keynote speaker in Australia renowned for his captivating stories and highly relevant insights on the explorer’s mindset, grit, collaborating to win, teamwork, and resilience.

Having shared his incredible story with over 920,000 people in 40 countries, James has left a lasting impact on audiences worldwide. He inspires people to take action with his world-record-breaking expeditions: kayaking 3318km across the Tasman Sea and skiing 2275km from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole and back – both unsupported.

Cas goes beyond inspiration; he empowers leaders. With his wealth of experience from his 5-year tenure as a management consultant at Deloitte, he tailors his presentations to your organization’s specific challenges, equipping leaders with actionable strategies to unlock hidden potential and drive real results. Many leaders and teams have been inspired to dream big and break limits, empowering them to embrace challenges as opportunities.

In 2013, he founded MyAdventure Group to translate these lessons into impactful corporate adventure-based development programs, equipping your leaders and teams to thrive in today’s dynamic environment.

By inviting James Castrission to your next event, you’ll create a unique transformative experience that ignites an explorer’s mindset within your team, building their leadership capabilities to tackle ambitious goals and achieve the extraordinary.

James speaks about:

The Explorer’s Mindset – This highly motivating story-based presentation teaches audiences the importance and secrets of the ‘Explorer’s Mindset,’ a combination of growth mindset and grit, as revealed through Cas’ record-breaking expeditions in some of the world’s most hostile environments. Through inspiring stories, relevant insights, and practical strategies, they will learn how to navigate challenges, embrace change, develop resilience and achieve ambitious goals.

Collaborating to Win – As well as knowing what it’s like to push your mind and body to its limits, Cas understands how integral it is for people to work well together. In this engaging keynote, he shares how he had successfully established an aligned high-performance team to achieve two Guinness World Records. Teams learn the tools they need to make better decisions and work as one. This is the perfect session on how to develop a “culture” that is geared towards team alignment, collaboration, and eventually success.

Adapting To The Unpredictable – Mastering Change And Uncertainty: This keynote explores how to navigate change and uncertainty in business. Cas combines his experience at Deloitte with his real-world adventures in this talk to motivate and equip the delegates with actionable strategies for building resilience, solving problems, and leading effectively in unexpected situations.

Workshop Facilitation

James’ workshops and simulations can last anywhere from 90 minutes to two days and are designed to deliver sessions that activate organisations and accelerate leadership behaviours.

Developing & Leading High Performance Teams – High-performing teams are SMART (think systems, processes, and strategy) and HEALTHY (cultivating a positive culture, trust, and collaboration). In this workshop, the participants explore the building blocks of a healthy organisation and team. It starts with building a cohesive leadership team, creating clarity on what they are trying to achieve, then effectively communicating that clarity to the wider team and stakeholders.

Energy for High Performance – This workshop addresses the challenges of sustaining high performance over time, especially when managing demanding projects and navigating change. Leaders, executives, and ambitious individuals often face burnout risks. This interactive session with Cas equips participants with a practical toolkit to understand and manage their mental, physical, emotional, and relational energy sources. By recognizing and nurturing these key areas, participants will gain valuable strategies to become more “burnout-proof” and achieve sustained high performance.

Grit – Fueled by the understanding that “grit” – the perseverance and passion for long-term goals – is a key driver of success, Cas’ workshop encourages participants to assess their team’s current “grit level” through a 10-question survey. Following this self-awareness step, the session delves into four actionable drivers that individuals and teams can leverage to cultivate and strengthen their grit, ultimately setting them on the path to achieving long-term goals.

Growth Mindset – Individuals with a growth mindset believe their intelligence, aptitude and behavior are malleable – through hard work and dedication. This trait of success is a learned behavior. In this workshop, participants identify the differences between a fixed and a growth mindset and learn how to develop a growth mindset. Through the process, they become more confident that they can acquire the skills needed to take daunting goals and career progressions.

Guiding Principles for Success – This workshop empowers leaders and teams to forge a clear path to success. Participants gain a deeper understanding of driving performance through action-oriented, targeted behaviors. Through interactive exercises, they re-evaluate both individual and organizational values, shaping them into guiding principles for effective decision-making in a constantly changing environment.

Team Building

Foster a culture of trust, growth, and camaraderie with Cas’ transformative team-building activities:

Indoor Antarctic Survival Exercise – Teams are challenged to set up their tent while wearing polar mitts and without talking. This team-building activity is a simulation of a challenge experienced during a Cas’ world-first expedition. It is efficient in developing corporate teams in the midst of adversity, refining their teamwork, communication, strategic planning and system design & implementation.

My Adventure Race – In this adventure-based team challenge, participants will put their physical and mental skills to the test. Working together to navigate a series of location clues, teams will face obstacles like rock climbing, abseiling, and group puzzles. Bonus challenges and time penalties add another layer of strategy, while successful completion of each obstacle unlocks the next location clue, propelling them to work together effectively and learn to deal with uncertainty.

Growth Mindset High Ropes Course – Cas combines engaging learning with a thrilling team-building activity, creating an avenue for teams to drive learnings from the conference room. In a safe yet challenging environment, teams will conquer obstacles, developing a growth mindset, resilience, and a foundation of vulnerability-based trust. Led by James Castrission, founder of MyAdventure Group, this retreat takes teams beyond the boardroom and into a challenging yet inspiring environment. Drawing on lessons learned from his own expeditions, James designs an adventure-based corporate development program tailored for your team, fostering vulnerability-based trust, collaboration, resilience, and a growth mindset – all critical skills for success in today’s competitive business world.