Debra’s Adventures
Debra Searle MVO, MBE was once hailed “Britain’s latest sporting heroine” by The Times, after the 5’4” novice rower continued rowing the Atlantic on her own, when her then husband left the boat. The 3,300-mile journey was initially meant to take Debra and Andrew just six weeks, but once she was on her own, it took over three months to complete. She battled 30-foot waves, squalls and sharks, and had to dodge container ships. But the worst thing, she found, was the loneliness. But she told her self to “choose your attitude”, as it was the only thing she could control in her situation.
But her solo Atlantic row is not the only adventure Debra has been on over her 20+ year career.
Arctic Challenge: Debra’s company led the LeasePlan Women’s Arctic Challenge, seeing a group of 13 women ski-trek across Baffin Island in the Arctic Circle. Sadly, Debra snapped a cruciate ligament 10 days before hand and was unable to take part, but she met the team at the finish line.
Atlantic to the Mediterranean: Debra spent five days cycling from the Atlantic Ocean, through France, and over the Pyrenees Mountains to reach the Mediterranean Sea.
Dragon SUP World Championships: Debra competed in the championships – which includes four-person stand-up paddleboard races – with Team English Roses, where they won the Spirit of the Dragon Award.
Sailing Around Antarctica: Debra joined Team Pindar for the Southern Ocean leg of the Global Challenge Round the World Yacht Race, sailing the “wrong way” against winds and tides.
Yukon Quest: Debra was contacted by the producer of award-winning BBC Series Extreme Lives, and asked if they could film her next expedition. So joining forces with her friend Bruce Parry, they took part in the world’s longest canoe race – The Yukon River Quest – just south of the Arctic Circle in Canada.
English Channel Challenge: After almost a year of training, Debra was part of the helm setting an unofficial world record as the fastest and first ever all-female dragon boat crew to cross the English Channel.
L’Etape du Tour: Debra competed in the L’Etape du Tour, which took the exact route of Stae 15 of the 2007 Tour de France in the Pyrenees Mountains. She had to ride it all in less than 12 hours – she completed it in 11 hours and 39 minutes.
Team Great Britain: Debra’s experience means she was selected for the Great Britain dragon boat team, taking part in the European Championships in Rome, followed by the World Championships in Nottingham. She won a gold medal, three silver medals, and four bronze medals.
Vogalonga: The Vegalonga in Venie is an annual May Bank Holiday pageant where thousands of boats race 32km around the city’s lagoons and canals.
Kilimanjaro: In 2024, Debra passed through lush rainforests and alpine deserts to reach the snowy summit of the mountain.
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Businesses
Social entrepreneur Debra is the founder of a number of businesses:
Shoal Projects: Shoal manages Debra’s extreme adventure habit, allowing her to provide keynote speeches, workshops, books, and videos of her trips.
The Debra Searle Academy: Launched in 2024, the online course platform helps people to take immediate action to implement the mindset tools and strategies that lie behind her professional and personal successes.
Mix Diversity: Founded in 2014 with her twin, Mix is passionate about helping organisations to maximise the opportunities present in a diverse workforce. They offer diversity consultancy, keynote speeches, and unique storytelling projects.
Your Speaking Career: Debra helps teach amateur speakers into professional ones, and helps existing speakers to grow their business.
The Well Hung Art Company: Launched in the 90s, this company promoted the work of lesser known artists via the web, and sold original art to the corporate market.
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Media
Debra’s many achievements have seen her featured on a range of television shows, as well as documentaries on her own adventures for the BBC, ITV, CBBC, Channel 5, and Sail TV. She has appeared on the BBC Six O’clock News, BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, Extreme Lives, Grandstand, Builders, Big Strong Boys, Sweat and Tears, and The Southampton Boat Show.
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Author
Debra is the bestselling author of:
Rowing It Alone (2002): This is Debra’s personal account of her epic adventures, focussing on the task itself but also her emotional growth, motivation, and determination.
The Journey: How to Achieve Against the Odds (2007): This is Debra’s personal account of her solo journey, in which she conveys the feelings of exhilaration, inner calm, emotional lows, loneliness, and that final triumph.
In 2019 she published The Choose Your Attitude Journal (2019); she has also contributed to Kayak Surfing (2004), Extreme Survival (2006), and My Reason For Hope (2008).
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Diversity, Equality, Inclusion
In 2014, Debra opened MIX Diversity Developed LTD, a consultancy that specialises in cultural change, diversity, inclusion, and unconscious bias. Her challenge to ski-trek Baffin Island was part of a wider corporate diversity project designed to provoke conversations around unconscious bias, and challenge stereotypes.
Debra was a founding member of The Business Women’s Network Forum, which is based out of Buckingham Palace, and chaired by Sophie, The Duchess of Edinburgh. She recruited female leaders from major organisations including Google and HSBC, bringing them together to share best practice on gender balance in the workplace.
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Corporate
With over 22 years of experience, Debra is renowned for her ability to tailor her speeches to her audiences and her clients. She is frequently ranked in the top 10 of the Global Gurus public vote for the world’s best motivational speakers, often being named the highest ranking female speaker in the world.
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Speaking Topics
– Adventurers
– Entrepreneurship
– Mindset
– Choose Your Attitude
– Leadership
– Resilience
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Keynote Talks
Mindset Tools: Building a resilient mindset for change, challenge, or times of crisis; how to stop sabotaging yourself and start supporting yourself.
Confidence Builder: Overcoming imposter syndrome; diagnoses and treat your limiting beliefs; rewrite the stories that you’ve been telling yourself.
Overcome Barriers to Success: Strategies for managing unconscious bias; practical skill building to speak up against bias, negotiate, and influence.
Work Life Balance: Establish what work-life balance looks like for you; outsource and delegate; how to let go of the guilt.
Speak With Confidence: Speaking skills and voice training; how to manage nerves; how to write an engaging presentation, whether to colleagues or a conference.
Healthy Body, Healthy Mind: How to develop a work/life/travel-proof exercise plan that you will stick to; how to manage stress; making healthy choices a habit.
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Debra’s most popular keynote talk is Choose Your Attitude, where she shares her story of her remarkable solo row across the Atlantic. She particularly focuses on:
– Choose your attitude: it’s not magic, it’s mindset
– Practical tools for pushing yourself outside your comfort zone and building resilience
– Mindset strategies for not just coping but excelling during periods of change
– Personal motivation ideas for when the journey only seems to be getting harder
– Teamwork: even when miles apart
– Achieving seemingly impossible goals
– How to guard your mental and physical wellbeing when the pressure is
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Debra is available for in-person and virtual events; she has a fully-equipped studio, and having made over 40 programmes for television, she has a wealth of experience to draw on when it comes to presenting to camera.
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Courses, Training, and Workshops
Debra provides training and workshop session that motivate, re-energise, and build leadership capabilities. She specialises in giving employees that opportunity through individual sessions, and fully curated multi-day conferences. Whether you are organising a sales kick-off, conference, or small team meeting, her sessions ignite people’s motivation and re-energise them to go again.
Through The Debra Searle Academy, Debra runs a range of online courses, including:
Empowering Women in the Workplace: This will equip you with the practical tools needed to overcome imposter syndrome and unconscious bias of others, advocate for yourself, and build confidence.
The Motivation Blueprint: Achieve Challenging Goals: A comprehensive online course designed to help you achieve challenging goals. participants will look at going beyond the comfort zone, ambitious goal setting, the myth of motivation, overcoming limiting beliefs and self-sabotage, and rewire the brain for sustainable success.
Your Best Year Yet: A comprehensive online course designed to help you reflect, reset, and build the live you love. With modules including End-of-Year Review, Utilising the Power of the Subconscious Mind, and Mastering Momentum – participants will gain the tools, strategies, and motivation to unlock seemingly impossible goals.
Choose Your Attitude: This course offers practical strategies, psychological insights, and actionable steps to shift from negativity to positive, allowing you to handle challenges with grace, improve relationships, and enhance your overall physical and mental wellbeing.
Foolproof Fitness Strategy For Busy People: Debra shares the blueprint she has used for over 20 years that has helped her build healthy habits, body confidence, and good energy levels.
Masting Public Speaking and Presentations: Having spoken to over 1,300 organisations, Debra shares the practices that transform public speaking from a source of anxiety into an opportunity for impact.
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Clients
Abbott, Airbus, Amadeus, ANZ, Asda, Astellas, AstraZeneca, Bacardi, Bank of America, Bank of Ireland, Bayer, Biogen, Boots, BP, BT, Bupa, Cineworld, Cisco, Co-op, Costa Coffee, Danone, Dell, Delloite, DHL, Dyson, EDF, EMC, EY, Financial Times, Ford, Fujitsu, Gamesa, Google, GSK, Heineken, Hitachi, HSBC, IBM, J.P Morgan, Johnson & Johnson, KPMG, Leica, Lindt, Lloyds Bank, L’Oreal, Marks and Spencer, MasterCard, Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, Mondelez, Nestle, NHS, Nike, Nokia, Odeon, P&G, P&O Ferries, Pandora, PayPal, Pfizer, Philips, PWC, RBC, Roche, Sainsburys, Santander, Schering-Plough, Shell, Siemens, Sky, TechData, TED, Tesco, Twinings, UBS, Ulster Bank, Unilever, Virgin Money, Vodafone, Walmart, Whirlpool
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To check fees and availability for inspirational adventurer Debra Searle contact Great Business Speakers on 0044 (0)1753 439289
