Member Article

Climbing Everest to success

It’s Entrepreneurship Week on Bdaily. Here, Rebecca Stephens, director of Seven Summits Performance Ltd. writes about how climbing Mount Everest gave her a change in career path and inspired her in business.

There is one secret to success, and that is to listen to your inner voice and work out what truly works for you - not what other people think might work for you. It is only with authenticity that comes from being on the right path that we have a hope to inspire and engage others along the way – and don’t be kidded, we’re not a lot of good on our own.

I learned this big time on Everest – I so badly wanted to climb that mountain and yet know I couldn’t possibly have succeeded without the team – and have made every effort to follow my true path and not be shy to reach out for helping hands ever since. It isn’t always easy. Most jobs involve a degree of drudgery and there are times when financial necessity drives you to work you might otherwise not have done. But having a sense of purpose is the rudder, and energiser, that keeps you on course.

I gave up a perfectly good job in journalism to climb Everest, and returned to unemployment, so in many ways it was a natural time to set up independently. There was a degree of opportunism. I had no idea there was a market in keynote speaking but soon had transferred my communication skills from the written to spoken word. ‘There’s a barrier between you and us,’ said a wise delegate at my first conference. ‘You’re up on stage and we’re in the audience. Don’t create another by being anything other than yourself.’

I still write, though more about what we can learn about the human condition in the extreme elements of the natural world, than about finance, which had been my special interest before. Now my work straddles the two: mountains and business, story telling from the former to inform the latter, delivered in talks or as is my preference, master classes, with freedom to exchange and expand idea. Leadership is a common theme, along with the workings of a team, the importance of communication, project management, strategy, attitudes to risk, and a particular favourite of mine, the impact of emotion on decision-making.

It’s important in business to keep evolving. In the last three years I’ve fused my love of trekking with experiential learning for international MBA students on Kilimanjaro, and this year it’s being embedded as a signature MBA leadership module at Erasmus University in the Netherlands. Nothing beats this. The remoteness, beauty and challenge of the mountain environment has had and continues to have a profound impact on my life, and to witness this transition in others as well makes my work worthwhile. Again and again I receive feedback about boosted confidence, a deep understanding of our inter-dependency, and clarity of vision and purpose. It’s wonderful to pass this on to a younger generation, and the reason I couldn’t resist an invitation to be judge of the National Council of Women’s SpeakOut competition that gives young women and teenage girls an opportunity to have their voice heard and make a difference themselves.

Certainly there are challenges to running your own show – I work a lot longer hours than when employed – but there’s flexibility, and with a family that’s precious, and importantly it allows me to be true to myself.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Rebecca Stephens .