Available to book
Ed Jackson
Adversity
Resilience
Growth Mindset
Ed Jackson is a resilience speaker who helps organisations build mental toughness, drawing on his recovery from a life-changing spinal injury to climb mountains. A former rugby player and Channel 4 Paralympics presenter, he co-founded Millimetres 2 Mountains.
International Day of Disability
Positive Psychology
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Celebrity
Rugby
Mindset
Broadcaster
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Author
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Personal Development
Adventurer
International Mens Day
Mental Health Awareness
Athlete
After Dinner Speakers
Ed Jackson is a former professional rugby player, broadcaster, author, and adventurer whose extraordinary story of recovery and reinvention has inspired audiences worldwide. After a devastating spinal cord injury in 2017 left him paralysed from the neck down, Ed defied all odds to walk again, climb mountains, and rebuild his life with renewed purpose.
Today, Ed shares powerful lessons on resilience, perspective, and the strength of the human spirit. Drawing on his background in elite sport and his experience of catastrophic injury, he demonstrates how to overcome adversity through goal setting, reframing setbacks, and embracing discomfort as a catalyst for growth. His story resonates across industries, offering practical insights into leadership, teamwork, and performance under pressure.
Ed’s recovery journey has seen him summit peaks such as Snowdon and Mera Peak, co-found the charity Millimetres 2 Mountains to support others facing adversity, and launch businesses including Vapoura Rum. He has also told his story through the Sunday Times bestseller Lucky, the documentary The Mountain Within Me, and the podcast It's Good To Walk. Alongside his speaking career, he has become a familiar face on Channel 4, presenting Paralympic coverage during Tokyo 2021 and hosting athletics at the Paris 2024 Paralympics.
Ed equips organisations with practical strategies for navigating change and uncertainty. His framework for goal setting, reframing setbacks, and embracing discomfort as a growth catalyst helps teams develop mental toughness and adaptability essential in today's challenging business environment.
Audiences leave Ed's presentations with concrete tools to cultivate resilience during adversity, practical methods to transform limitations into opportunities, and renewed clarity about focusing on possibilities rather than obstacles. His authentic approach creates lasting impact by connecting universal human experiences to everyday workplace challenges.
Book Ed to inspire your team with actionable insights that turn setbacks into stepping stones for extraordinary achievement.
Topics, sessions and talks
After a life-changing accident, Ed Jackson discovered the power of perspective. In this talk, he shares how reframing negative experiences can open new pathways to growth, productivity, and fulfilment. Using personal stories of recovery and reinvention, he demonstrates how a positive mindset isn’t about denial of hardship, but about choosing courage and optimism as tools for transformation in business and in life.
Ed Jackson explores how true resilience is built not in comfort, but through challenge. Drawing from his own recovery and mountain expeditions, he reveals how pushing beyond perceived limits can unlock clarity, focus, and self-belief. With humour and honesty, Ed shows how embracing discomfort transforms potential into performance, helping individuals and teams adapt and thrive in uncertain or high-pressure environments.
In moments of uncertainty, progress often depends on focusing only on what’s directly ahead. Ed Jackson uses his journey of climbing mountains after paralysis to show how breaking down overwhelming goals into small, achievable steps creates clarity and momentum. His message offers powerful lessons in perseverance, adaptability, and maintaining focus when the end goal seems out of sight.
Ed Jackson takes audiences from the height of professional rugby to the depths of paralysis and back to the mountain summits he was told he’d never reach. Through his story of determination and recovery, he explores how to overcome fear, set meaningful goals, and find purpose in adversity. His powerful narrative reminds audiences that progress is measured not by speed, but by perseverance, focus, and belief in the next step.
Ed Jackson delivers powerful insights on resilience and adaptability, drawing from his extraordinary journey from paralysis to mountain climbing, equipping teams with practical strategies to transform setbacks into opportunities. Book this former rugby player and Paralympics presenter to inspire your organisation with actionable frameworks that cultivate mental toughness and drive extraordinary achievement in today's challenging business environment.
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frequently asked questions
Something we've not covered here?
Email ed.jackson@getapeptalk.com or call PepTalk on +44 20 3835 2929 (UK) or +1 737 888 5112 (US), and one of our speaker agents will contact you within hours to confirm Ed's availability and fees. If you can, please include your budget upfront – it helps us fast-track your request. It’s also helpful to know the date, format (virtual or in-person), location, and a bit about your audience.
Ed Jackson structures his talks around first-person narrative drawn from his spinal cord injury, recovery, and subsequent mountain expeditions, using these as sequential case studies to illustrate each principle he presents. He pairs this with a practical framework covering goal setting, reframing setbacks, and embracing discomfort, giving audiences concrete tools they can apply in workplace contexts.
Ed Jackson speaks on reframing adversity, building resilience through discomfort, and navigating uncertainty by breaking goals into achievable steps. He is a former professional rugby player who, following a 2017 spinal cord injury that left him paralysed from the neck down, went on to summit mountains including Mera Peak and write the Sunday Times bestseller Lucky.
No. PepTalk adds no booking fee, so you pay the speaker's fee and nothing beyond it. The service, from shortlist through to contracts and event-day logistics, is included. For repeat or multi-event bookings, PepTalk can agree preferential rates with your procurement team.
Share your event date, audience, format, objectives and budget, and PepTalk sends a hand-picked shortlist within 24 hours. Each suggestion comes with a profile, a fee and a recommendation on the strongest fit. Once you choose, PepTalk handles contracts, travel and logistics through to event day.
The typical fee range is the speaker's standard in-person fee in their home market, shown in their local currency. It moves with format, location, date and session length: virtual sessions and shorter slots usually cost less, while international travel and peak dates cost more. Send your brief to PepTalk and the team will confirm the exact fee in your currency.
Not all of them, and it makes no difference to your booking. PepTalk's network of 15,000+ speakers covers talent the team works with directly alongside speakers represented by agents and agencies worldwide. PepTalk approaches the speaker, negotiates the fee and handles contracting either way.
Three to six months ahead is comfortable for most events, and 12 months is better for large conferences, peak-season dates or one specific in-demand speaker. Shorter timelines are workable, and PepTalk regularly fills last-minute and replacement bookings within days. Availability is the constraint, so get in touch as soon as you have a date.
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