Ann Daniels is a renowned female inspirational speaker whose resilience, courage and commitment to conservation and equality have made her a powerful voice in today’s world.

As a polar explorer, advocate for environmental protection and champion of diversity and leadership, Ann draws on decades of firsthand experience leading expeditions in some of the planet’s harshest environments — and emerging with a message of hope, resilience and purpose.

Her story and insights offer a unique blend of personal grit and social conscience — emphasising mental strength, inclusive leadership and the urgent need to protect our world.

In this exclusive interview with the London Keynote Speakers Agency, Ann shares her thoughts on leadership, resilience, mental strength, the role of women in leadership, and what the realities she’s witnessed in the Arctic teach us about climate change and human potential.

From your experience leading teams in extreme environments, what practical advice would you give to business leaders who are struggling to motivate their people during challenging periods?

I think it’s important to keep your team motivated, and you have to remember, for me, some key things. So how you are with your team, your behaviour yourself, will have an effect on your team.

So when you’re feeling that everything is impossible and it’s down, well feel it, we’re normal human beings, but then check it, put your game face on if you will, and think of all the positivity that you can and portray yourself in that way to your team, because your mood will affect them, and equally their mood affects you. So that for me is really important.

The other thing about your team is to remember that it’s your job to empower them and to give them a great environment to working so that they can thrive and not be down.

And by that I mean trust them, let them know that they can come to you if they’ve got problems and you’re not going to judge them, be supportive of them and actually just remember it’s about them. And if you support your whole team and help them to be the best that they can be, then as a team, that to me is when the magic happens.

Why is it still critical that we actively encourage more women to step into leadership roles and pursue high-level achievement?

It’s hugely important to encourage women to lead and achieve. We’re just not there enough yet. Women are leading and they are achieving, but not enough. I think we don’t have the courage of our own convictions. We don’t believe in ourselves enough, so if you don’t encourage the women they may not feel confident, and women have so much to give.

We’re still underrepresented in sports sponsorship, business board rooms, politics. Women need to be encouraged and we need more women out there. They need to be accepted more. We need to believe in ourself more, and when we have an equal world, we’ll have a better, more successful world.

From a leadership perspective, how vital is diversity in building high-performing teams and inclusive working cultures?

I think a diverse team is hugely important. The world is made of diverse people and everybody is different. If you have a team with the same skills, the same colour skin, the same racial background, the same cultural background, you will always just do the same thing.

If you have a mixed team of many different people, all those skills, all those ideas, they will make that team more powerful and make it be able to perform better. And equality comes across the whole range, and it just is for a better, more successful, happier world. And why people think that it’s not, I just don’t even understand that. So diversity is powerful, it’s huge, and it is hugely important.

How do you personally build mental resilience when things go wrong, and what habits help you maintain a healthy mindset over time?

So how do I build mental resilience? I build it just by practising things. So how do I build mental resilience when things go wrong? I will think about that, and at first I will always start with, I will allow my normal human emotions to come out because I think that’s important. And then when I’ve allowed that, I start to really think about what’s happened.

For instance, on my first and only solo expedition to the North Pole, I wanted to get to the North Pole as the first woman to do it solely, and all the permits were removed from every expedition that year, so it completely failed. There was nothing I could do about it. No amount of positivity was getting me to the North Pole. It had failed.

And at the beginning I was devastated, and then I began to think about it really, what had happened. I’d had the most amazing journey on the Arctic Ocean on my own, so I’d felt it all. I’d had five encounters with polar bears, which was just the most incredible experience.

I had done that without really any experience 15 years ago, no money, no experience, and it had stopped on day 21. And it either had stopped because I may have been going to kill myself the next day because an awful thing would have happened, or I might have got to the Pole, but I can’t say it crushed my dreams because I don’t know what the next bit of the journey would be.

And so I really thought about it and I began to feel privileged and enjoy the journey and stop worrying about the fact I hadn’t achieved. And what could I do with this knowledge that I had to make my future direction better?

So I used my failure to help me to be positive about the future. And that’s part of resilience, because we’re going to fail. Small steps, and each time you do it then just think about the good things, the skills you’ve learned, and go on to do something else. And if you keep doing that, you will build resilience.

Start from school age. If you fail one exam, fine, work harder and get another exam or do something different. It is a step and a process. So for me, resilience is about taking all those difficult challenges, owning them, and then moving on and thinking how fortunate you are to do them in the first place.

This exclusive interview with Ann Daniels was conducted by Sophia Hayes of The Motivational Speakers Agency.