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Meet Paddy Upton

​South African-born and renowned as a high performance and leadership coach, Paddy Upton has achieved success at the highest levels of sport and business, globally. He lives his professional and personal life whole-heartedly. Pursuing success, innovation, relationships, health, adventure and enjoyment with equal enthusiasm. Questioning convention and happiest operating out the box, he is constantly searching for new experiences and better ways of doing things.

Some of his diverse accomplishments include
  • With Gary Kirsten, assisting to coach first India, and then South Africa to the World No 1 cricket ranking
  • Being the first full-time mental conditioning and strategic leadership coach in world cricket
  • Along with head coach Gary Kirsten, coaching the Indian National cricket team winning the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup (for the first time in 28 years).
  • Sleeping in a tent for 3-months while working as a fishing guide on a remote Mozambique Island
  • Being awarded four degrees from four different universities, including two Masters (with distinction)
  • Being keynote speaker for global corporations
  • Surfing several of India’s lesser-known surf breaks
  • Coaching Directors of leading South African businesses across most industries
  • Being the first full-time fitness trainer in world cricket
  • Backpacking across South East Asia for six months on a budget of $8 per day
  • Coaching some of the worlds leading sportsmen and women
  • Appointed Performance Director to South African (Proteas) cricket team, as well as Head Coach to Rajasthan Royals IPL team
  • Co-authoring the book, “The Beer Drinkers Guide to Losing Weight”
  • Being the first person in South Africa to achieve distinctions for national cricket coaching courses at levels 1,2 and 3
  • Co-founder and managing director of a non-profit Street Children’s organisation
  • Landing a 91kg yellowfin tuna off a boat, and 39kg Giant Trevally off the beach
  • Scoring a century on his first-class cricket debut
  • Winning the SAB Castle Tavern Tour, which meant spending 3-weeks searching the taverns of Europe and the UK for the worlds finest beer
  • Being a university post-graduate guest lecturer
  • Being founder of the annual Sissy Hankshaw Pan-Galactic Gargleblaster tour
  • Getting married to the same woman twice in 2-months (affording him more than one opportunity to not forget his anniversary)

Paddy’s Inspirational Talks offer insights into what the top sport and business leaders in the world are doing to bring the best out in their people. He shares insights and anecdotes from his work with some of the world’s top athletes. Included is the unique approach that he and Gary Kirsten employed in leading the Indian cricket team to the No. 1 Test Team in the world and to win the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup.

Talks will be uniquely tailored to align with the message/ theme of your event. 

Clients report Paddy’s Inspirational Talks to be Inspirational, thought provoking, insightful, authentic, simple, outstanding and refreshing.
​
Inspirational Talk clients include:
Aditya Birla Group (India), Dell India, Royal Bank of Scotland, Pepsi Co, Standard Bank of South Africa, Aon, South African Revenue Services, Oceana Brands, Peregrine Group, Acsis Financial Services, HDFC Life (India), Department of Public Works (Western Cape Government), Foodcorp, Axis Bank (India), Cricket South Africa, South African Institute of Chartered Accountants, Citadel Financial Services, Jupiter Drawing Room, Olam (Nigeria), SAP Plant Maintenance.

Suggested Speaking Topics

THE ART OF WINNING
Inspiring audiences to create their own extraordinary team culture,where enjoyment and winning happens. 
In this talk, Paddy offers revolutionary insights into the leadership and high performance approaches that are
helping sport and business teams to be the best in the world. He shares thought-provoking insights and fascinating anecdotes from his work with some of the world’s top athletes and teams.
 
Included is the unique approach that helped take the Indian and South African teams to the World’s No. 1 positions, India to win the 2011 Cricket World Cup, and then as a first-time head coach, to lead bottom-of-the-log Rajasthan Royals IPL Team to the Champions League final in one season.
 
This talk will be uniquely tailored to align with the message or theme of your event, 
 
Clients report Paddy’s inspirational talks to be ‘thought provoking’, ‘insightful’,‘authentic’, ‘simple’, ‘outstanding’, ‘refreshing’ and ‘motivational’.

THE DIFFERENT FACES OF LEADERSHIP: WHEN TOP PERFORMERS BECOME TOXIC 
Provocative and controversial

Exposing healthy to unhealthy versions of Beta, Alpha and psychopathic leaders, and the corresponding impact they have on their teams
 
High performers and leaders in sport and business generally fall somewhere along the continuum from the harmony-loving happy-to-play-second-fiddle beta (fe)male through the confident, focused, opinionated and action-oriented alpha leader to the highly popular, hugely successful and truly inspirational psychopath*

The problem for teams and organizations arise when these high performers and/or leaders become unhealthy. It for example happens when the beta-male becomes an egotistical and posturing wannabe-alpha when the alpha becomes the arrogant, self-serving and overly-critical bully, and when the psychopaths guilt-free manipulation, lies, callous and cunning ways poison those around them and threatens to ruin their team, organization or industry.

This wonderfully insightful, provocative and controversial talk exposes real world examples of these successful and influential individuals, highlights how they can single-handedly make or destroy teams and organizations, and suggests remedies for each.
 
* Researcher Dr Clive Bodie suggests 1 in 100 people are born psychopaths, and that as many as 1 in 25 business leaders are psychopaths. The incidence is likely to be higher in some industries, including finance, IT, politics and possibly even professional sport. For more about psychopaths in sport and business, 

A CONTRARIAN VIEW ON LEADING/COACHING 
Challenging conventional beliefs

In this Freakonomics-type presentation, Paddy makes a thought-provoking and compelling case for a series of counter-intuitive statements. Each case is supported by research, built upon with intriguing perspectives, and coloured-in by fascinating anecdotes from his work with some of the world’s top athletes. The talk has been lauded by international athletes and business leaders.
 
Paddy will propose that…
  • The coach is possibly the biggest obstacle to success 
  • The best advice you have to offer is mostly useless
  • When a person messes-up, a compliment is over 350% more effective than a reprimand
  • Doing your best to help someone improve on their weakness… is in itself a leadership weakness 
  • Players are smarter than coaches​
“Awesome talk! Really enjoyed it, as did everyone else.” Jacques Kallis – International cricketer

“Paddy’s leadership tactics transcend the various industries and present a positive, inspiring way to motivate any team towards unprecedented levels of performance.  His approach is cutting-edge and his use of “story” drives home the concepts remarkably well.” Teresa Keating - Business Manufacturing Technology Director, The Dow Chemical Company (USA)

"A very interesting and powerful talk. Loved it and very thought-provoking” Alan Dawson –Ex-International cricketer and current business-owner.

“Paddy conducted a performance and leadership workshop for all the staff of RBS Private Banking. Focused on “Building a Winning Culture”, and using his strong foundational knowledge and experience in the areas of teamwork and leadership development, Paddy was able to bring the workshop to life in a practical and well-contextualised manner. This was further enriched by his use of anecdotes, which resonated extremely well with the participants. All participants rated the workshop very highly.” Shiv Gupta – Head of Private Banking, Royal Bank of Scotland Private Banking (India)

“Paddy’s speech at the Dell India Leadership Strategy Meet in 2011 was extremely insightful. The ease with which he was able to relate to corporate issues was simply commendable. Paddy is a delightfully effective speaker whose style is simple, direct and engaging.” Ganesh Lakshminarayanan - President, Dell India.

“Paddy Upton’s presentation to the top 500 managers at ABFSG Day was a great success. It was wonderfully illuminating and was rated as relevant and valuable by 100% of the 500 delegates. Some said Paddy’s presentation changed their life”. Ajay Srinivasan – Head, Aditya Birla Financial Services Group. 

“Paddy is an exceptional coach and trainer who has the skill and knowledge to transform individuals and teams.” Lindy Rousseau - Marketing Director, Cape Grace Hotel
"After having lost in 17 consecutive games…The group workshops with Paddy worked, we went on to win the final 3 games in a row.” Shukri Conrad – Head Coach of Cape Cobras Cricket Team (Professional Franchise)

“Paddy had an amazing ability to bring out positive energy in our senior management team, which allowed us to solve problems we had.” Nick Stodel – Owner, Stodels Nursaries“We are in the process of merging two offices that were previously in opposition to each other. Paddy's session blew us away and we were left inspired, positive and could take away simple and effective tools to use going forward. Paddy’s style is easy going and even the hardest of nuts were cracked and left the day with a feeling of “this can work”. Not only do I recommend Paddy as a coach, but consider him essential going forward.”Ebbie Rabie – Manager, Aon South Africa.

“Paddy's work has transformed the Constantia Uitsig Team.” Tom Glover – GM, Constantia Uitsig Group.

“Thank you, Paddy! Once again, you have helped us move forward as a team.” Tony Romer-Lee – GM, Cape Grace Hotel.

“You made an amazing impact on the team.” Sandeep Desai - Vice President Manufacturing, Unilever South & Southern Africa.

“Paddy's 'Transforming Teams' workshop at the Mainstream Conference (Texas, USA) was rated an overall 94%.  Delegates are still raving about it. I could not recommend a speaker or workshop facilitator more highly.” Steve Morris - Managing Partner Content & Global Production, The Eventful Group

“Very insightful – great storyteller. Most unconventional coach.” Senior Manager, DuPont (USA)

“Excellent! Very inspirational speaker – great perspectives on leadership.” Senior Manager, The Boeing Company
TRANSFORM YOUR TEAM
Raise your game, get ahead of the rest, become extraordinary 
 
Where a keynote address is a one-way sharing of knowledge, the workshop is an interactive format presenting the opportunity for your team to dialogue and then own Paddy’s teamwork and performance concepts. Workshops are
practical, interactive and experiential and focussed on facilitating your team transformation via:
  • Dialogue and gaining an in-depth understanding of cutting-edge team-work and performance concepts
  • Analysis of how and where the concepts are uniquely relevant to your team
  • Identifying and overcoming current obstacles to your success
  • Generating practical and relevant plans-of-action to take your team to the next level, and then to consistently deliver at these new levels
Workshop topics will be designed in collaboration with you, to ensure that they are relevant to your team and its current needs. Some topics could include:
  • Becoming extraordinary
  • Designing your own dream team
  • Aligning organisational purpose, team direction and personal meaning
  • Optimising team and individual intelligence
  • Growing confidence, increasing success
  • Playing to strengths
  • Innovation - Unshackle and advance your team
  • Being your best self, move towards self-mastery

RAISING YOUR GAME
For progressive* sport coaches – raise your game to exciting new levels
 
A full-day workshop for progressive sport coaches who are keen to learn exciting, empowering and more effective ways of leading their players. Deliver long-term success, increased enjoyment, longer-term participation, smarter performers with greater confidence and increased self-esteem.
 
*Not suitable for traditional old-school command-and-control coaches who are unwilling to learn new ways of leading!
 
Topics include:
  • Understanding and leading the changing leadership terrain
  • A new model of learning
  • Building players’ confidence
  • Playing to strengths
  • Coaching for maximum impact
  • The processes of winning
  • Navigating pressure
  • Developing players’ self esteem
  • Being the best coach you can be