%402x%20(1).svg)
.svg)
.webp)
.svg)
Dubbed a ‘Sensei of Resilience’ by the South African media, Conn Bertish is one of Africa’s top creative thinkers and the country’s top trainer on the subjects of purpose, resilience and mental health – for both humans and business.
His passion for creating award-winning, medically supported mental health tools and training methodology was born from his hard-won experience of beating brain cancer, competing as a red bull big wave surfer, and preforming the role of chief creative officer in the Advertising world. His work merges creativity, purpose, psychology, neuroscience and mental health to optimise the performance and resiliency shown to help people overcome challenges, adopt a growth mindset and move forward with agency and vigour.
He is a seasoned global keynote speaker having performed his talks and training in over 20 countries for the likes Google, Nestle, Merc, Coca-Cola, AirBnb, The Shoprite Group, Cannes Lions, Standard Chartered bank etc.
Book him, if you want your teams to become happier, healthier, more engaged and Harder to Kill.
Conn’s most Notable Achievement is the fact that he has so many accolated in many different and diverse fields.
This very diversity of experiences and projects - informs much of his harder to kill ideology.
His talks and training promote the movement forward to always try new and often scary endeavors that fall outside your comfort zone. Thus his proof-of-concept achievements - include things like: surfing as a Red bull big wave surfer, beating brain cancer, coming back to life after clinical death, Becoming an impact social entrepreneur, performing talks in 20 different countries, winning more than a hundred creative awards in design, advertising, user experience, writing, animation, filmmaking, social media, filmmaking, app and website design, surfing, bodysurfing, stand up paddling, downhill skateboarding, hitchhiking around the world, working in 30 different cities, creating the world’s first ice surfboard, empowering over 2 million South Africans during one mental health month, writing two books, winning South Africa’s first fear factor.
Conn’s accolades are a proof of concept of his life, his survival and his keynote talk on resiliency, agility and living with an open, experimental growth mindset to foster best practice personal resilience and mental fortitude for a happier, healthier, harder to kill life.
Personal Resilience:
- Conn has Beaten Brain Cancer.
- Conn has hitchhiked around the world alone.
- Conn has died and come back to life.
- Conn is the winner of South Africa’s first Fear Factor show
- Conn is the winner of the Red Bull Extreme Hybrid Athlete Award (for being the first and only person to have ever been invited to surf in both the Red Bull Big Wave Africa Surfing events and the Red Bull Downhill Extreme Skateboarding events held in Cape Town South Africa.
- Conn performed keynote talks and training for over 2 million people (as of October 2025)
- Conn has empowered Africa’s largest retailer with purpose and resilience for their 160 000 staff across 7 countries.
Happy People are Harder to KillSeries of Keynote Talks & Training:
- Purposeful teams are nigh impossible to kill.
- Agile creative teams are the Hardest to Kill.
- Purposeful business future-proof their success.
- Agile Purposeful Entrepreneurs are the ones who fly!
Never fight the Ocean – Use its power to get youto where you want to go – A Resilience Program that teaches delegates to thinklike a surfer and behave like a cat.
The Art of Pivotability – Ten toolsto build extreme agility during time of uncertainty.
- A keynote talk – and 10 video series.
21 Ways to Become Harder To Kill
- 21 x 50 minute webinars to achieve Harder To Kill Mental Resilience.
