Singaporean Entrepreneurs

Many business consultants will make a correlation between mountain climbing and running an enterprise, from the mix of confidence, optimism, determination to the rigour, skills, and help needed to make it to the summit. There is a very great difference though between mountain climbing and business that makes one deadlier than the other- in climbing full concentration is on the work at hand, in business it is muddled with politics, egos, and sometimes even lack of purpose.

And perhaps it is this very simplicity in purpose of a mountain ascent that beckons many in the business world to try to summit the most challenging mountains in the world. A mix of adventure that can go wrong and an incredible sense of accomplishment, complete with bragging rights that only a few have ever achieved the same, makes most entrepreneurs appreciate the climb. The daring and unknown end of a difficult mountain ascent is a microcosmic version of entrepreneurship sans that stuff that make it dreary.

Interestingly, while reading about this subject matter, it was brought to my attention that author Jon Krakauer who wrote Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster has pointed out that that it is actually harder to climb the second-highest peak of each continent instead of the highest. Collectively, they are known as “the Seven Second Summits”, each of the seven being the highest peak of their continent.

SYNOPSIS FROM WIKIPEDIA
In Asia K2 (8,611 m) demands greater technical climbing skills than Everest (8,848 m), while altitude-related factors such as the thinness of the atmosphere, high winds and low temperatures remain much the same. The summit of Mount Kenya (5,199 m) is a rock climb, while Mount Kilimanjaro (5,895 m) can be ascended without any technical difficulty.

In North America, some sources consider Mount Logan a more difficult climb than Mount McKinley (generally known as Denali in the climbing community), although the climbing and outdoor recreation website Summitpost considers Logan no more difficult than Denali, because it is neither technical nor steep.

In South America Ojos del Salado involves a short scramble while Aconcagua is just a walk. In Europe Dykh-Tau is a considerably harder climb than Mount Elbrus. In Australia Mount Townsend is a considerably more challenging climb than Mount Kosciuszko, even though both are relatively easy.

I find this fact fascinating … does the same case play out in the businessworld? Is it easier to be / stay first or second?

The last time I was in a car accident it was a fender bender with a huge jolt. The person at fault was the guy behind me who was driving a car that needed new brakes. He basically slammed into my van as he screeched down the road. Passersby saw him trying desperately to stop and stop he did, with my help.

In that case, as in 2 other previous cases, it was always the other party at fault so I never had to worry about insurance. Last year though, I was in another accident where I was clearly at fault and boy I had no idea what was in store for me when it came to paying automobile insurance premiums this year.

I had been getting 50% discounts due to not having made any claims for seven years running so I knew it would go up, but not by as much as it did. This is when I started hunting for insurers again and found that it is not for the faint of heart.

First, I was amazed by the number of car insurers there are in Singapore. For such a tiny country, we have a lot of insurance agencies.

Second, as is standard in the insurance industry, there is in fact “no standard”. In other words, they all have such varying terms and conditions that it is impossible to compare policies at a glance. It requires a lot of knowledge, time, and effort to pore through those documents.

Third, the price differences can not only range greatly, there are also various freebies to entice you to join a particular agency, from petrol vouchers to free car wash, oil change and even bonus accident coverage. Of course, nothing is really free, so the more attached freebies, the harder it is to tell what has been shaved off.

Anyway, I gave up after a few weeks of looking through several insurance companies and just asked a friend to find the best one for me. Who needs the internet for research when you’ve got friends?

There’s a book called Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, Third Edition by Stanford biologist Robert Sapolsky where he argues the case that wild animals are not susceptible to stress-related orders unlike their human counterparts despite their lives being under threat everyday.

Stress in fact is life-saving, especially when our lives are actually under immediate threat. Energy is mobilized to the tissues that need them the most, our heart rate and blood pressure increase, and digestion, growth, immunity and reproductive systems are inhibited for later processing. After all, they are not important if you’re dead. Moreover, stress actually blunts pain, sharpens cognition and improves certain aspects of memory.

But chronic stress as we humans experience it – simply depletes us instead of helping us. The hormone glucocorticoids are released into our system in high quantities over long periods and is actually more damaging than whatever is actually causing the stress.

Funny thing is, even though most of us intuitively know this, we do very little to change our condition, perhaps because we are in a hormone-induced state of pain-freeness. How much does “balance” and “wellness” factor into your busy life as an entrepreneur?