The 9 powerful Rules of Mountaineering for Entrepreneurs and Startuppers.
Mountaineering is a significant challenge. Its rules and principles save lives and have a lot to teach entrepreneurship and startuppers. When you create and explore you know profoundly that fate loves the fearless.
Humans have always climbed mountains for pleasure or glory. Their dream of standing alone on a mountain peak above others and dominating nature is ancient.
Mountaineering is a significant challenge.
Generates immense pressure, but also motivation.
The process and principles of mountaineering have a lot to teach the world of entrepreneurship and business start-ups.
Creating a business unicorn is like climbing the Himalayas.
THE 9 RULES OF MOUNTAINEERING
Rule 1: It’s always further than it looks.
The Australian high altitude mountaineering expert, Soren Kruse Ledet, shares his basic rules on how to get to summits and how to cope with overwhelming situations.
Bold trekking on remote trails can, in his opinion, expose mountaineers to extreme and adverse weather conditions for many hours, and depending on the region and the difficulty of the trip, some expeditions will involve traveling on snow and ice with up to 10 kilograms of equipment.
Soren suggests that it is crucial to be realistic about your abilities and goals.
“So much of what you do is not only physical but also psychological,” he explains.
Travelers should strengthen climbing tours and try not to overtax themselves emotionally. While reaching the summit it is important to remember that you are only halfway through your expedition. The real reason to celebrate is when you are finally back down because then you are safe.
Staying focused is the key, as most injuries and accidents happen during the descent.
Starting a company is easy. There are almost no barriers and no costs between a prospective founder and a company on paper. Creating a profitable business that offers real value is complex.
Unfortunately, it is a fact that nine out of ten start-ups fail.
Some would-be successes are only among the walking dead. It’s a marathon and remember that there is always the second part of the journey.
Rule 2: It’s always taller than it looks
By dividing the mountain into sections, the expedition can be made more manageable.
“Let’s say you get to Base Camp, which is a summit; then you get to the High Camp, which is another one; and then hopefully you get to the actual summit, but one day at a time,” advises Soren.
All mountaineering routes of the world expedition are designed to give the travelers enough time to acclimatize.
Summit is taller than it looks and requires special preparation. So before you leave for the mountains, adjust your goals and activity level to your actual condition and state of health. Be honest with yourself, make sure you have provisions, consult with others about your trip, and provide and learn to use appropriate equipment before you leave for the mountains. Arrange your trip according to the activities planned.
The startup launch procedure is chaotic. You do not have time to acclimatize. People start and stop, founders come and go, teams move forward and fall back, and the competitive environment is strange and somewhat unpredictable. It’s easy to get lost in the starting process because so many things are happening at once. Adapt quickly.
Adapt your goals and the level of your activities to your actual condition and your actual financial situation. Be honest with yourself.
Ensure adequate supplies.
Provide suitable personal equipment and learn how to use it. Remember that the mountain is taller than it looks.
Rule 3: It’s always harder than it looks
You can prepare and train as much as possible for a mountaineering trip, but preparation comes with experience. How to behave in unfamiliar and dangerous environments can be a crucial moment in a summit attempt.
“Most people are fine, and nine times out of ten the weather is ‘brochure weather’. The conditions are favorable”, says Soren, “but it’s hard to prepare for bad weather, you have to experience it”.
“People react to stress and pressure, and when you are on a mountain tour you are often overwhelmed, you are outside your comfort zone. Some people cope well and others not so well… and those who do not cope need a lot of support and help” says Soren.
It is crucial to prepare yourself not only physically but also mentally.
“It’s about being realistic — planning for the worst and hoping for the best”.
Jim Huebner
At the age of fifty, Jim Huebner, an amateur climber then, decided that he wanted to climb Mount McKinley; all 20,000 feet. On most climbing expeditions, only 40 percent of those who begin the climb ever reach the summit. When climbing Mount McKinley, temperatures can fluctuate and the wind blows up to 100 miles per hour. Each climber will carry 60 to 90 pounds of equipment all day long.
Many climbers experience extreme dehydration, fatigue, irritability, claustrophobia, and even panic. With this in mind, Mr. Huebner started the ascent and reached the summit at the young age of 50.
When asked what enabled him to finish the ascent, he offered six immutable laws of mountaineering. They are classic:
4. Climb with passion.
Passion is essential for any mountaineer hoping to reach the summit. Summits require passion, regardless of whether they are physical or metaphorical peaks. That summits require passion is an immutable law of the universe. This is true not only in mountaineering and business but everywhere. It applies in every area of human endeavor.
Successful entrepreneurs are those who have a passion for their business and the means to survive their failures and mistakes.
If a company is a machine, an engine for making money, then passion is an emotional fuel that provides the indispensable energies of optimism, creativity, and perseverance. A company that makes money is the result of a properly channeled passion.
The Unicorn makers have a brilliant vision of what the world should be like, and they are determined to make that vision a reality. Or they have an annoying problem that simply must be solved. It is their passion to make the world as they see it, as it could be.
It is very difficult to build a successful business if you are not passionate, even obsessed with what you do and what you sell. Passion is the driving force that helps you- as a founder- to ensure that the tasks are done well. It is far too easy to do half the work or to get to a point where it is “good enough”. Passion for your business and your customers helps you go the extra mile.
If you find the passion in your business, it will help you push more, push longer, perfect more, and deliver better. Without that curiosity and passion, the job is harder.
5. No guts, no glory.
The brave react instinctively to the law of the universe, which rewards risk. Mountaineers like Jim Huebner ponder this law as they stare over the dark abyss of disaster and say: “No guts, no glory”. Similarly, the brave businessman stares over a similar abyss and says: “He who dares nothing wins nothing”.
If you find yourself on a high mountain peak, not playing by the rules of gravity and not respecting them, you will lose lives.
Like gravity, when a person tries to turn a dream or a goal into reality but does not respect the law of risk, this leads to a loss of time, resources, effort, and spirit.
“Security is usually a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men experience it. In the long run, avoiding danger is no safer than complete exposure. Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all”- Helen Keller.
In twenty years, as Mark Twain used to say, you will be more disappointed by the things you did not do than by the things you did. So throw the bowline away. Sail away from the haven. Catch the trade winds with your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Yes, the world admires the brave. But you must be careful not to be idealistic and naive too. Courage will not always bring you fame and rewards; you will occasionally have to pay the price of failure. Only a fool risks what he is not prepared to lose.
6. Expect Dead Ends
In mountaineering as in business, just because you feel lost does not mean that you are.
Sometimes you just need to relax, take a deep breath, and trust the path you are on.
There will be times when you come to a fork in the road and, after careful consideration, choose the wrong way. You will lose much time and money before you can correct your mistake. Accept this.
The secret of strategic planning is to plan both time and money to deal with the unexpected so that your plan does not fall apart when it happens. When you go to the airport to catch a flight, we always allow an extra quarter of an hour if there is a traffic jam. We have no way of knowing where the traffic jam will be, only that there probably will be one.
What appears to be a dead-end can be an arrow pointing you in an unexpected direction.
7. Never Turn Your Back on Your Partner
The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies.
Sometimes the person you’d take a bullet for is behind the trigger.
You should look at betrayal as a gift. It makes it that much easier to sweep it up and toss it out with the rest of the trash. And why is that you ask? Because trash stinks. When it does, it has no more value in your life.
Most of us eventually learn a key bit of wisdom: the highest road to inner peace and lasting success lies through personal loyalty. To accept responsibility for the welfare of another, and then to guard that person’s interest as though it were your own, is the mark of a happy and vibrant life. By manifesting loyalty to another, you learn as well to recognize and trust in that person’s loyalty.
Many individuals attempt to create and build companies alone. They are at a tremendous disadvantage if they try to do so. Well-rounded founding teams do far better. They move faster, avoid more problems, and take advantage of more opportunities than individuals.
Life is not about who’s real to your face, it’s about who’s real behind your back.
8. Never Look Where You Don’t Want to Go
Like your customers, you can do only those things you have already “seen” yourself doing in your mind. You can do only what you have first imagined; when you imagine nothing, then nothing is exactly what you will create.
Preston Bradley, an American author, and lecturer tell us, “The world has a way of giving you what we demand of it. If you are frightened and look for failure and poverty, you will get them, no matter how hard you may try to succeed. Lack of faith in yourself, in what life will do for you, cuts you off from the good things of the world. Expect victory and you make victory. Nowhere is this truer than in business life.”
Tomorrow’s reality is created by today’s imagination.
9.There’s Always Room on the Rope for a Person with Honour
Huebner’s last rule instantly reminds us of a statement made by an old football coach: “When you meet the right person, hire him. Don’t worry about whether you have a position available or the budget for it. Always make room for an excellent employee.”
An influential person pulls everyone around him upward, and when an entire team is doing it together, the result can amaze. With every fresh addition to the staff, the bar is raised, and a new standard of excellence results from it.
Fear and the meaning of Life
Mountaineering and starting and growing a business has to do with fear.
Too many people are not living their dreams because they are living their fears.
When you create and explore you know deeply that fate loves the fearless.
“Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.”–Mark Twain.
The world guarantees nothing to anyone.
Business and especially entrepreneurship is not predictable and filled with stuff that is just not fair.
Everybody of us has to find his answer to the fundamental question:
What keeps us alive? Perhaps fear that we might not be!
