WBHS presents an evening with Jake Bailey

Jake Bailey is an internationally acclaimed educator on resilience, the youngest #1 bestselling author in New Zealand history, and as a Commonwealth Study Conference alumnus has been recognised as one of the most promising emerging leaders across the Commonwealth.

Jake first caused a global sensation aged 18, when his prize-giving speech as head boy at Christchurch Boys’ High School went viral. A week before this speech, Jake was diagnosed with the most aggressive form of cancer known to man and given two weeks to live if this went untreated. Jake persevered to give his speech from a wheelchair, the video of which went on to touch the hearts of tens of millions and draw praise from across the globe.

Once in remission, Jake’s experience left him with questions: what exactly enables people to overcome adversity? Are we born with these skills, or are they trainable? And if so, what does it take to create people able to not only recover, but to grow from immense setbacks?

Following his study in positive psychology, Jake has shared his work with over 85,000 people, through thousands of presentations across dozens of cities. He has developed resilience strategies for corporations, organisations, and schools across the globe, educating audiences ranging from elite athletes to children in outback towns, Fortune 500 CEOs to prison inmates, and foreign governments to retirement homes on evidence-based tools to enable us to most effectively overcome the challenges we all face in life.

Jake is driven by having himself seen the powerful impact that resilience has had on his own life both during and post-cancer, and consequently knowing the potential which these trainable and attainable skills can have on the success and happiness of others.