About Naked at the Knife-Edge: What Everest Taught Me About Leadership and the Power of Vulnerability:
Only a relatively small group of individuals have climbed the highest peak on all seven continents of the planet. Known as the Seven Summits, it is a feat that typically takes years and an enormous amount of planning, training, and effort, in some of the most inaccessible places on earth. But Vivian James Rigney was determined to do just that.
Naked at the Knife-Edge: What Everest Taught Me About Leadership and the Power of Vulnerability (Forefront Books, March 8, 2022) is a compelling and often harrowing true account of Rigney’s experience conquering Everest—the seventh and final peak of the Seven Summits he’d faced—offering a unique window into lessons on leadership and what it takes to succeed in any circumstance.
In Naked at the Knife-Edge, Rigney, an executive coach and globally recognized authority on leadership and teamwork in business as President and CEO of Inside Us LLC, reveals how he relied on skills learned in the corporate world in addition to physical training to attempt these summits. And the journey to Everest almost broke him. After enduring avalanches, sub-zero temperatures, and tragedy unfolding around him and his team, the roller coaster of pain, self-reflection, questioning, and above all, loneliness, left Rigney with an ego in tatters. It was then that he discovered an awakening of what real purpose and legacy actually is.
Rigney uniquely combines the hands-on and reflective approach of one of today’s most respected executive coaches with adventure and a raw and revealing personal story. Using Everest as a metaphor in recognizing the power and downsides of drive, ambition, and relentless pursuit of goals at the cost of being human, this powerful and inspiring journey reveals critical wisdom for individuals and leaders in any circumstance.
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Author Bio:
Vivian James Rigney is President and CEO of Inside Us LLC, a boutique executive coaching consultancy, operating throughout five continents. He has helped implement leadership development initiatives for some of the world’s leading companies and their executive teams. As an executive coach for some of the world’s most successful leaders, he is known for building a strong rapport with people and asking tough and incisive questions, with an uncanny ability to help them reveal and become their best version of themselves. A graduate of École Nationale Des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris, he is a renowned speaker and expert on mindset and behavior, whose talks and presentations have inspired audiences globally. A native of Ireland, he has lived in the U.K., Germany, South Africa, France, Finland and currently resides in New York City.