Monika Sattler – Achieve the seemingly impossible!
What does it mean to overcome boundaries, step out of your comfort zone and pluck up the courage to take on big challenges?
1368 km, 56000 metres in altitude, 124 passes, 26 days. Monika Sattler’s second cycling record. But the numbers represent far more than just a sporting goal.
It was about implementing an idea in the shortest possible time, finding sponsors, building a team of five people, and managing the organisation and logistics. And then there was also training for the bike record!
In these times of constant change, pressure and stress, how do you get everything under one roof and still achieve your best physical and mental performance?
Monika Sattler uses her experiences from cycling and her unusual life story in lectures and workshops. She talks about what it means to fail, to overcome failure and still get up again, to motivate a team to successfully strive for seemingly impossible goals.
With a lot of authenticity and approachability, humour and pragmatic tips, Monika Sattler conveys a story that touches every audience. She provides practical tools on how everyone can achieve their own goals – whether professional, private or sporting.
Monika Sattler lecture topics
- Leadership: How to lead your team to big goals in the long term
Monika Sattler turned an idea into a project in just a few months. She built up a team of five that she had to trust 100% right from the start. Her cycling record shows that change management and the right mindset are crucial to getting out of your comfort zone and achieving big goals. Leadership skills are essential to master seemingly unattainable goals. Her mission is to inspire women in particular to take on challenges and leave their comfort zone.
- Diversity: How they promote diverse thinking
Despite great efforts to achieve gender equality, some industries are still heavily male-dominated. This is not meant to be an “anti-male” statement, but women often feel uncomfortable and unwelcome in such environments. Cycling and the IT sector are examples of this, as Monika Sattler knows from her own experience. Although she is often the only woman in her group, she feels comfortable in both areas. She explains five key points that help her to succeed in male-dominated environments and how other women can apply these principles in their own lives, be it in sport, work or life in general.
- Motivation: How to stay motivated, especially in difficult times
Monika Sattler wanted to set a seemingly impossible 3000-km cycling record that 80% of people thought was unfeasible. In addition to the doubts of others, she had to face her own insecurities. Why should she of all people be able to complete such a huge challenge? Was she doomed to fail in front of everyone? It was a crucial moment: should she stay in her comfort zone or take the big leap and face her fears? Many would have given up before they even started, but Monika did not. In her talk, she uses her 6P Success Mindset model to explain how she overcame fear, faced the challenge and persevered. She shows how these key principles can be applied to your own goals in sport, work or life.
- Achieve seemingly impossible goals. Here you will learn how
When we strive for a goal, we see the end goal in the distance and the path to it as a black box full of fear, the unknown and uncertainty. The bigger and more distant the goal, the bigger and darker this box appears. What do we do? Often nothing, for fear of failure. Monika Sattler shows how to overcome this black box thinking and develop an attitude that inspires us to pursue even big goals.
Monika Sattler – the story behind
Monika Sattler had a promising career: After graduating, she worked at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in Washington DC, and later as a management consultant at IBM in Zurich and Melbourne. But despite her professional success and financial security, she was not happy. Her dream of becoming a professional athlete would not let her go, so she decided to radically change her life.
Neither family nor friends were happy about her decision, but she quit her secure job and followed her inner calling. This led her to Malaga in Spain, where she ventured a new beginning without any concrete plans or language skills. There she became the first woman to set a cycling record by completing the 3000 kilometre Tour of Spain in the same conditions as the professionals. This achievement symbolised that it is possible to achieve seemingly impossible goals.
In 2022, she once again set herself a major challenge. She rode all 124 Swiss passes in 26 days. That was 1389 kilometres and 56,000 metres in altitude. The film documentary “Freigefahren” was made about this.
As an executive coach and two-time record holder in women’s cycling races, Monika Sattler shows individuals and managers how they can set and achieve big goals. Her “6P Success Mindset” model illustrates what it means to face big challenges and pursue them with courage.
Monika Sattler now lives in Switzerland and works as a sparring partner to help others achieve their highest mental level in the long term. Through clear goal setting and targeted execution plans, innovative approaches, sharp focus and effective stress and time management.