Keynote Speakers​

Pekka Hyysalo

Pekka Hyysalo speaks about
  • Change
  • Company Culture
  • Diversity, Equity & Inclusion DEI
  • Health & Wellbeing
  • Inspiration & Motivation
  • Interpersonal Skills
  • Resilience
  • Teamwork
Languages
  • English
  • Finnish

Pekka Hyysalo is a former professional free skier who sustained an extremely severe traumatic brain injury back in 2010. Pekka had just graduated from high school and was living his dream when a blast of wind changed his life forever. Today, Pekka tells his story to wide audiences encouraging them to be resilient in the face of adversity, embrace the value of being unique, and  understand the significance of a supportive team and gain strength from empathy. Drawing inspiration from the stories of others who have helped him, Pekka truly believes in the power of sharing his story and the positive impact it can make.

Pekka’s Most Sought-After Keynote Topics

How to Find Resilience via Finnish Sisu

What is Finnish Sisu and how can it be used as a guiding principle to get through adversity and challenges? In his keynote, Pekka tells his story of challenging the boundaries that have been set for him and achieving many of the “impossibilities” which others have determined on his behalf. So, in other words, impossible is nothing. The most powerful aspect of a human being is to choose what you want for yourself and your future and work toward it. It’s clear you can’t shine in every aspect of your life, but when you choose the aspect you want to shine in, you can genuinely become a true success.

How to Reach the Fight-Back Mindset

It all starts with why? Why in fact are we doing what we are doing and how can we find the motivation to continue with it, even in the midst of difficult times?
Through his personal story, Pekka inspires teams to find ambition and faith in what they do. Pekka’s speech emphasizes the importance of a team and why we are truly stronger together than alone. This speech is especially suited for teams that want to raise team spirit, achieve their set goals or in any other way take their culture to the next level.

How to Find Your Superpower in Being Unique

Everyone of us is unique and in this lies the beauty of humanity. By embracing our individual uniqueness we can truly succeed as a team. In Pekka’s inspiring speech, the importance of self-acceptance and self-love is emphasized. In his speech, Pekka invites us to view ourselves from a third-person perspective, a perspective that has guided him in making life’s most significant decisions. It’s a perspective that transforms your life into a captivating story, unfolding before your very eyes. With this newfound narrative, you become the screenwriter, poised to ask yourself daily, “How will I script the next chapter in my unique story?”

From Responsibility to Possibility

Pekka firmly believes that responsibility is not merely a duty, but a golden opportunity to redefine ourselves and our impact on the world. His talk explores how our responsible actions have the remarkable ability to influence and shape nearly every aspect of our lives. Pekka’s keynote is a unique blend of responsibility and fearlessness. Drawing from his personal experiences and teachings, Pekka delves into these themes from an individual perspective. He encourages us to assess our own behavior and actions, fearlessly and openly, as a catalyst for personal growth. Pekka’s speech empowers listeners to embrace responsibility with open arms.

How to Succeed with Empathy: The Power of Love

Everyone of us is unique and together we are stronger. Join Pekka for this insightful and inspiring talk, where he delves into the profound impact of positivity, family, friendship, and community in achieving your goals. Pekka’s message is clear: while we can overcome challenges alone, our journey is made easier and more fulfilling when we do it together. Through his personal experiences, Pekka has discovered the incredible power of love and growing a strong support network. Pekka’s keynote highlights empathy, and the ability to understand and relate to the situations and challenges of others. This speech is a powerful enabler for building team spirit, reminding us that while each individual is unique, our collective strength is unparalleled.

After mountains of rehabilitation, through depression and self-harming thoughts, Pekka has risen to become a praised motivational keynote speaker, inspiring audiences on resilience and finding the Fight Back mindset.

Pekka crashed while performing a difficult trick and fell into a coma for three weeks. After spending half a year in hospitals and what seemed like an endless rehabilitation, he fell into extreme depression and suicidal thoughts entered his mind.

 

“Life had lost all its meaning for me – I couldn’t do anything – all seemed to be lost and I felt so alone.”

 

The worst part was that the prognosis given for his future didn’t sound much better, either… But after laying in his self-pity long enough, Pekka realized the one power he still had: he could give his best at rehabilitation. It was up to him to make the rest of his life count – “I could do it.”

Pekka channeled himself into new thinking and goals, and put in his all. We humans are capable of doing miracles, and Pekka wanted to try and perform one for himself. Ever since this shift in mindset, life has given him a lot and has a new powerful meaning. Almost anything is possible, according to Pekka. After regaining the feeling of agency over his faculties, Pekka fell in love with life.

 

“I worked my ass off (pardon my French) in my rehab, and after losing the ability to produce any kind of speech back in 2010, I have ended up speaking professionally. I was even chosen as the Keynote Speaker/host/instructor of the year in Finland.”

 

Pekka believes in our inner abilities as humans to overcome the deepest of adversities through resilience and a positive mindset towards our goals. In these times of war and, global pandemic, with many of us suffering mental health challenges and poor wellbeing, Pekka’s mission is to continue to spread positivity and give people from all walks of life, the courage to FightBack (the name Pekka has “branded” his recovery with) and overcome the hurdles that are in-front of them. This is Pekka’s mission.

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