Building Unstoppable Teams: Business Lessons Inspired by the World’s Toughest Cycling Race

“A must-read for anyone who’s serious about building top-performance teams!” — Robert Dutton, former president and CEO at Rona and Adjunct professor at HEC Montréal

Blending drama and determination, Sasseville’s Race Across America is a powerful reminder that one man and a bike can symbolize much more with the right team behind him

Today’s business leaders are always on the lookout for the information and tools to help them build high-performing teams, to lead with purpose, to remain engaged and to win the long game. Authors Sébastien Sasseville and Gabriel Renaud masterfully transform the lessons learned in the mind-blowing Race Across America into concrete, actionable and relatable business insights.

When Sébastien Sasseville, an athlete with type 1 diabetes, decided to take part in the Race Across America solo, he knew he was embarking on the most difficult ultra-cycling race in the world. What he didn’t realize was that this experience, and the work that needed to be done ahead of it, would inform his thinking around a team-building model that had application beyond sports and deep into workplaces and boardrooms.

This crossing of the United States from west to east, in a time trial of no more than 12 days, forces the riders to stay in the saddle for about 21 hours a day. The challenge is impossible to accomplish without an exceptional team that follows and supports the cyclist night and day.

Together, Sébastien and co-author Gabriel Renaud, a high-performance athlete, corporate trainer and leader of the race team, have taken the model they used to build the Race Across America team and written Building Unstoppable Teams, a tool kit for building highly engaged teams that can accomplish the exceptional.

Sébastien Sasseville is an author, a speaker, and an endurance athlete. His extraordinary accomplishments include summiting Mount Everest and the Race Across America. He speaks globally on leadership and teamwork, and he is known for his awe-inspiring presentations. He lives in Quebec City, Canada.

Gabriel Renaud is a former collegiate hockey player and professional ice cross downhill athlete with a background in neuroscience. Drawing on his sports experience, Gabriel is the co-founder of Hubu, a company that specializes in team culture to build cohesive and high-performing teams. He lives in Quebec City, Canada.