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Sharing insights on living a full life with a disability

Niek van den Adel

travels from Netherlands

Niek van den Adel believes his disability has taught him much about life. After a cord injury, he's focused on sharing the insights he's learned during personal development and recovery.

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5 out of 5 stars

Niek is able to make his unique experience relevant for everyone, personally and professionally. He challenges his audience to think about what really matters in life – and actually do something about it! Niek has energized and challenged the Coloplast Netherlands and UK teams – and we keep coming back to him for more.

Annemarie van Neck, CEO, Coloplast UK See all references

Why you should book Niek van den Adel for your next event

  • Audiences are captivated by Niek’s inspirational story about overcoming one of his biggest life challenges to find love, happiness, and fulfillment.
  • His presentation inspires audience members to overcome adversity, encourage leadership, and remain customer-focused. Niek’s breakout presentations inspire standing ovations.
  • Niek’s book, Crash, sold more than 20,000 copies and is still selling after it has been translated to English. It’s his story of strength in love and a decision to continue living life to the fullest even in the face of disability.
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About Niek

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Every year he speaks with international audiences about his life on the global stage. After becoming a consultant and achieving most of his dreams, a serious injury caused him to rebuild everything. Along the journey, Niek found out that he still had a lot to learn about people. Niek immersed himself in personal development and psychology literature, as well as visiting gurus for guidance. In the midst of this journey, he realized the answers he sought were within. Niek shares an extraordinary journey with people across the globe.

Why you should book Niek van den Adel for your next event

  • Audiences are captivated by Niek’s inspirational story about overcoming one of his biggest life challenges to find love, happiness, and fulfillment.
  • His presentation inspires audience members to overcome adversity, encourage leadership, and remain customer-focused. Niek’s breakout presentations inspire standing ovations.
  • Niek’s book, Crash, sold more than 20,000 copies and is still selling after it has been translated to English. It’s his story of strength in love and a decision to continue living life to the fullest even in the face of disability.

Niek van den Adel suffered a painful spinal injury, which disabled him. His near-death experience caused him to focus on living his best life. In the midst of the pain and challenges, he fell in love with his occupational therapist, who he later married. The couple have three beautiful children. Niek’s life is totally transformed by focusing on the value of people.

After immersing himself in personal development, he realized his life purpose. His book Crash has sold more than 20,000 copies. He’s a speaker, trainer, and coach who travels the world inspiring others to live a full life of purpose. His keynotes focus on leadership, effectively handling change, customer service, and following purpose. Niek inspires audiences with his story, and he is an in-demand speaker and coach.

He leads listeners back to remembering their inner guidance with his belief that inspiration comes from within. Niek has been featured on television, podcasts, YouTube, and other media. He is the founder of a group called Unhindered Hospitable. With 25 colleagues, he helps to make the world accessible and customer-focused for others. By sharing his uplifting story, Niek inspires audiences across the globe to move past challenges to living a fuller life.

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Keynote by Niek van den Adel

Resilience

Nick is a valuable, passionate speaker on resilience due to his unique experience and tireless perseverance in dealing with change. And you can learn it too! Niek knows how to get his autobiographical story across to your colleagues or audience in such a way they will not soon forget.

Niek shares his 5 factors of success, making sure you can use them in your daily practice right away. Change, stress or setbacks can throw you off your game, whether it is at your job or at home. A coffee machine is placed somewhere else, your partner invited friends over without consulting you first, your faithful four-legged friend has (also without consultation) defecated in your house. Resilience is coping and moving along with change. It’s a muscle you can train and Niek teaches you how.

What to expect:

  • An inspiring autobiographical story with tears of pity and tears of laughter, that will be talked about for months.
  • Lots of practical tools you can use right away, for you as an employee, team and organization.
  • Insight and research, specific to your industry, with a clear plan of action.
  • A backpack full of energy and directly applicable tips and tricks on how to develop resilience for yourself.
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Keynote by Niek van den Adel

Leadership

What is a ‘resilient leader’? Does one have the sole responsibility for making employees resilient? Are they not able to do that themselves? As speaker leadership, Niek is pleased to guide your organization into the new way of leadership. One that focuses on ownership, adaptability and resilience.

The term ‘resilient leadership’ suggests a leader is meant to teach individual employees how to cope with change. A noble goal, but looking at the bigger picture, is that a leader’s only added value?

In his inspiring and motivating keynotes, Niek answers the following questions:

  • How to use your influence for yourself and your surroundings.
  • How to keep yourself and your employees aligned to your mission.
  • How to build agile teams, in which you have the role of inspirator and activator.
  • What is needed from a leader in times of change?
  • How to stay in control of the future.
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Keynote by Niek van den Adel

Customer Focus

Customer service, generosity, and friendliness are all known as hospitality. These are of huge importance to any organization. In fact, it does not even matter in which branch you are active in. At a bank, in a supermarket, in education or in healthcare: we just forgot how to interact with one another, with our customers and our visitors.

Niek is determined to give managers, entrepreneurs and executives practical tools to build and strengthen a customer-focused culture.

As a speaker on customer-focus Niek teaches you and your colleagues:

  • To achieve more employee- and customer-happiness.
  • To reconnect with the essence of your profession.
  • How to work on future skills.
  • How to get intrinsic motivation and a power boost.
  • To understand why corporate culture is key to a legendary customer experience.
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Keynote by Niek van den Adel

Healthcare

His whole life, Niek worked in hospitality as a host but just like that, things switched around and he became a guest himself. As a guest in healthcare, he experienced staff shortages, heavy workloads and high staff turnover. That is exactly the reason why he is so passionate about contributing to this field. As a healthcare speaker, Niek uses his own experiences during his training and inspiration sessions.

Niek delivers the remarkable message: put the patient second.

“The best job in the world is taking care of others. Well, it should be. Caring for others is entwined in the DNA of healthcare employees, but they don’t manage to care for themselves. Because of the high workload and administrative matters, healthcare professionals no longer see how amazing their job is.” –Niek van den Adel

Niek will:

  • Tell you about his own experiences as a healthcare guest, bringing you tears of pity and tears of laughter.
  • Motivate you to work on resilience, adaptability and willingness to change.
  • Teach you the solution always starts within yourself
  • Teach how to transform setbacks into resilience
  • Convince you to put the patient second
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Keynote by Niek van den Adel

Inspirational speaker

A spinal cord injury and a syrinx: that’s two things you wouldn’t wish to anyone. But Niek thinks differently. According to him, it is the ideal combination for tough guys. On stage he teaches people that the key to happiness could lie in embracing pain. An inspirational speaker? Oh yes! But also one who activates you and gives you practical tools, to start doing things differently right away.

All Niek’s life has been one big process of change. What can we learn there as participants, as a team or as an organisation? He shares his inspiring story, unique research and gives practical tips and skills in how to deal with setbacks and how to stay agile. Why does one seem to dance through life, while the others get caught up? Why are some companies thriving, whilst others are drowning?

As an inspirational speaker Niek discusses these topics:

  • Inspiration to activation to perspiration (dealing with change).
  • Resilience as key to success.
  • We don’t lack innovation, but the capability to innovate.
  • Adaptability as the most important trait for the future.
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Watch Niek van den Adel in action

Niek Van Den Adel - Painfully Happy

Watch Niek van den Adel in action

My roadmap to success | Niek van den Adel | TEDxStendenUniversity

See keynotes with Niek van den Adel

References

As COO of Equipe healthcare companies, I asked Niek to contribute to a national culture program. And here too Niek shows that speaking in front of groups is his passion. In smaller training courses he creates a safe atmosphere but is very clear, confrontational and always looking for change, which makes him a great added value to our company culture.

Jaco Donselaar

COO Equipe Healthcare companies

The book wouldn't let go of me from the first page. You read it in one breath. It is inspiring for everyone who works in healthcare because it shows you from a very personal point of view how you can really make a positive difference in healthcare, but also how you can sometimes completely miss the point (however well-intentioned). Truly a great inspiration for everyone!

Mirjam van Veldhuizen

Executive Board UMC Utrecht

Niek is able to make his unique experience relevant for everyone, personally and professionally. He challenges his audience to think about what really matters in life – and actually do something about it! Niek has energized and challenged the Coloplast Netherlands and UK teams – and we keep coming back to him for more.

Annemarie van Neck

CEO, Coloplast UK
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US: +1 347 223 5128 UK: +44 (0)20 3744 5675
Niek van den Adel
Niek van den Adel

5 out of 5 stars

Niek is able to make his unique experience relevant for everyone, personally and professionally. He challenges his audience to think about what really matters in life – and actually do something about it! Niek has energized and challenged the Coloplast Netherlands and UK teams – and we keep coming back to him for more.

Annemarie van Neck, CEO, Coloplast UK See all references

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