Episode 39: Lessons from the other side
Outdoor adventure is not just about the arduous preparation, the sheer physicality of the event and the post event celebration and pics. There is far more to it and a surprising amount of it happens in your mind and changes your thinking for the better.
As a veteran endurance athlete, Binod sets out his top dozen lessons from 14 years of hiking, cycling and mountaineering across four continents including the highest peaks in Africa and Europe and the highest trekking peak in South Asia.
From teamwork to luck to dealing with failure to pushing yourself to having fun, Binod sets out with characteristic candor and clarity some timeless lessons that are valid whether in adventure or corporate life once you cross over to the other side.
Listen, learn, grow.
You can check the entire video episode on youtube or enjoy reading the transcript below.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
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Binod Shankar:
This is Binod Shankar and you’re listening to the real finance mentor podcast from the realfinancementor.com. The real finance mentor is your go-to resource for insight and inspiration on careers in finance, CFA and more. Now you might think, why this podcast? Well, my goal is to deliver insight and inspiration for your financial career, by making it, one: relatable. I mean this is not theoretical stuff. We zero-in on the critical, practical issues. Number two: authentic. No bullshit, no side-stepping. The topics, guests and questions are all from that perspective. And number three: insightful. Take a Chartered accountant and a CFA charter holder, add 17-plus years as a corporate warrior, mix in 10-plus years of entrepreneurship, and throw in a decade of full-time CFA training. Add speaking, mentoring, cycling, mountaineering and other endurance activities, and that’s me! Welcome to The Real Finance Mentor, or as I call it: RFM.
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Binod Shankar
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Learning from adventure
Hi everyone. Welcome to yet another episode of the Real Finance Mentor podcast, the podcast that delivers insight and inspiration to drive your career. This episode in stark contrast to most RFM episodes isn’t an interview with another guest. It’s a solo episode which is what happens when I get hit with some interesting thoughts that I feel must share with my audience. Let me start by saying that I am an endurance athlete. What that means specifically is that I am a hiker, mountaineer and long-distance cyclist. I have been doing this for the last 14 years.
I have summited thirteen mountains across Europe, Africa, Nepal, and India including seven 5,000 + meter mountains. The peak list includes Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, at 5895m the highest in Africa and the world’s highest free-standing mountain and one of the seven summits. The list also includes Mt Elbrus in Russia, at 5,642m the highest mountain in Europe and another one of the seven summits. The highest I have ever been to is Mera Peak in Nepal at 6,476m. My latest summit success was Kangyatse 2 which stands 6,250m tall in Ladakh, India in July 2022.
Cycling is another passion
It all started with the 120km long Cape Argus ride in South Africa in March 2008, a non-stop ride that started and ended in Cape Town and took me by vineyards, Ostrich farms, quaint little towns, the seaside, up some cliffs etc on a weekend when thousands lined the roads to cheer the 35,000 odd road cyclists.
I have also cycled from Manali to Leh to Khardungla India with 22 others. This was a 10-day, 500 km long adventure through freezing mountain passes as high as 5,400 meters above sea level and through wide flat plains and camping in tents overnight before starting cycling at 7 am the next day.
In 2014 I cycled from Pune to Goa in India, a distance of 449km, over 5 back-to-back days with 18 others. This was a tough trip on rolling terrain that ended on the flat and sunny Mandrem beach in Goa.
Why am I talking about all this? Why should you be interested?
Because it struck me that there are many life (and career) lessons to learn from adventure. It’s not just (at least for me) about the preparation, the big physical effort, the instagrammable pics or the Facebook posts.
From long-distance cycling to hiking to mountaineering here are 12 ways an extended outdoor activity can change your life in no particular order:
1. You get a sense of awe and how small you and your problems are:
You look at the distant snow-capped peaks and your mind starts operating differently.
The majesty of the mountains, forests, valleys, oceans and rivers strikes you immediately.
You think of how many millions of years they’ve been around. You think of how long before you were born, they existed and how long after you are gone, they will still be around. The key thoughts that come to mind are longevity, permanence, infinity. In the context of all this, your mortality becomes glaringly clear.
Your problems (personal and professional) will seem trivial and almost absurd in comparison.
This is why some say that many of the contemporary mental illnesses like depression and anxiety is due to a lack of contact with nature and that time spent outside the pervasive concrete jungle is one effective and sustainable way to get back to reality and hence sanity. At least that’s what Johann Hari emphasizes in his insightful book Lost Connections. It does make sense. After all, for hundreds of thousands of years, we wandered as foragers and hunters in the wild and that’s our natural habitat and where we came from.
2. You get physically fitter
Sustained endurance activity can burn calories and fat like crazy so even if you eat a lot, you burn more than you eat. You also build cardiovascular capacity as the heart and lungs work harder and get stronger. Your muscles and joints get stronger as you move more especially if you are carrying a backpack.
3. You breathe in far cleaner air
The air in some cities are not just unhealthy it’s downright dangerous and it can eventually kill you.
Homes, vehicles and industries all emit the life sucking poisons that we breathe in day in and day out.
When you are with nature its automatically far away from urban areas. Hence the air is noticeably, visibly cleaner and purer. Its so pure your lungs takes some time to adjust to this higher level of cleanliness because it has been used to polluted air for so long.
4. You find out how far you can go mentally and physically
You very rarely face any serious physical challenges in day-to-day life, the maximum is probably climbing three flights of stairs because the elevator isn’t working temporarily. Hence you have never known what that magnificent machine called your body is capable of. So, in a sense outdoor activity is spurred by curiosity which by the way is almost always the precursor to passion.
You also find out how far you can go in your mind. They say the mind gives up way before the body does, probably at around 60% of the body’s capacity. This is a default feature of our brains meant to protect us from destroying ourselves but when it comes to challenges the brain can be a bit of a spoilsport.
The fascinating question is how far can you successfully manage the mind-body dynamic. I have discovered that once you start crossing boundaries the mind is less of a nuisance and you get less of the often-irrational fear of the body collapsing or being in any form of danger. This happens when you, through experience, know exactly how much stress your body can take and what it requires to keep it going in a specific environment and for a defined duration.
5. You connect to a network of like-minded people
I have been on many hiking, mountaineering and cycling expeditions and some of my good friends were gained from those experiences.
Like during my adventures in Kyrgyzstan in 2014 where I’d tried to climb my first 7,000-er (Peak Lenin- 7129m).
I badly underestimated the difficulty of alpinism and was mentally and physically unprepared and had to turn back at 5,200m.
Joining me were two (relative) youngsters - David Demarest from San Diego & Cameron Petie from Melbourne (I instantly nicknamed them David Cameron). They turned back on Lenin due to exhaustion after making it to 6,100m at Camp 3.
So, all of us failed. But the adventure wasn’t a total failure.
Because we suffered together and that unexpectedly bonded us despite the differences in age and nationality. Thankfully David Cameron were a tough, down to earth bunch who didn’t take themselves too seriously. They also had a terrific sense of humor and we clicked immediately and laughed together during and after the climb. A lot.
Cameron visited me in Dubai in 2016. Eight years later David Cameron and I are still very much in touch and I hope we climb together again someday.
Something similar happened during my grueling 10 day, 500km mountain biking expedition from Manali to Leh to Khardungla in 2013. 22 of us cycled through five mountain passes, camping in remote locations at night before cycling again the next morning. It remains one the toughest and most bizarre experiences of my life. I made some great friends and we are still in touch (with an active WhatsApp group!) 9 years later.
The kind of people you often meet in outdoor activities are usually positive, fit, engaging, adventurous and helpful.
6. You realize what you can control and what you can’t
This is especially true in high altitude hiking and mountaineering where you are in close proximity to (and have to confront) the unpredictability of nature.
Look there is stuff you can control. These are mainly the quantity and quality of your gear, your physical preparation for the climb (diet, training, sleep etc.), your mindset, your nutrition on the climb and the selection of the right mountain guide.
But there is also a lot you can’t control which mainly relate to nature which can be wildly unpredictable and is always uncontrollable and is mostly to do with weather and terrain.
Crevasses, avalanches, high winds, snowfall, dust storms, rock falls, unstable rocks come to mind. But it’s not all just about the mountains. Even your body behaves unpredictably at high altitude especially in its susceptibility to altitude sickness. You can be as fit and as experienced at high altitude as you want but Altitude and Mountain Sickness (AMS) can still hit you because it’s partly your genes that make you less or more susceptible to AMS.
What all this does is make you very aware that what you plan and what happens can be two very different things.
This also takes me neatly to my next point which is….
7. You learn to deal with failure
I have failed on three mountains so far. Peak Lenin in Kyrgyzstan in 2014, Dhaulagiri VII in Nepal in 2017 and Dzo Jongo in Ladakh in 2022. By which I mean I didn’t make it to the summit.
The failure on Lenin was the first and its true what they say- you never forget your first! It was also the toughest to handle especially after spending 4 months training and 3 weeks of precious time away from work in the mountains. But the toughest part was the humiliation that came with the awareness that you are not good enough and not as good as you thought you were. It took me weeks to come out of that funk.
The second failure on Dhaulagiri VII was disappointing but I recovered much faster- within a few days. The recovery from the third failure on Dzo Jongo even faster.
I realized long ago that unlike many sports, failure is an integral part of mountaineering. My friend Maria failed on Denali twice before making it on the third attempt, a process that took a decade. Many legendary mountaineers including the Man Himself Reinhold Messner, the first human to summit all 14 8,000 m peaks and that too without bottled oxygen, have failed several times on the big mountains.
If you can’t handle failure, you have no business climbing. Yes, it can seem like a massive waste of time, money and effort but if it’s your passion then perhaps it’s worth it. Failure makes you focus on the value of the journey and who you meet rather than just the destination (i.e., the peak). It is also worth doing for the many big benefits of being outdoors that I have mentioned in this episode.
Failure also taught me several interesting things about myself. For example, I found that my mind almost always gave up before my body does, that I do much better when with a large, supportive team etc.
8. You grasp the criticality of teamwork
You can of course cycle alone or climb alone although the last isn’t recommended for safety reasons. I have never climbed or cycled on an expedition alone and because of that I discovered the criticality of teams on several of my adventures.
Why are teams crucial?
One is to get inspired. I have been impressed and inspired by some of the people I have met. I have seen many examples of skill, courage, generosity, physical stamina, humility etc. and that has made me think of how much more I could do and how far I had to go.
Another plus is the support. At Mera Peak in Nepal in 2016 on summit night I almost didn’t leave my tent at High Camp at 5,800m thanks to a fear of high winds and a worry about a slight fever that seemed to have suddenly developed at 11pm. But my tent buddy Fred Foster, a young 24-year-old from London, cheered me up and reassured me and told me to gulp down some paracetamol. Seven hours later I was at the summit, which at 6,476m remains my highest till date. I cringe when I think of how much my regret would have been had I stayed in that tent. On Kangtayse recently I was roped to my fellow hiker Shwet Tripathi and we kept encouraging & guiding each other all the way to the summit and even back from the peak to the crampon point.
9. You have fun
I have a well-developed sense of humor and am so strongly biased that it’s one of my criteria for making good friends.
Humor in the mountains is even more important to keep away the tedium of sitting for countless hours in camps. It’s also required to manage the stress that comes with thinking of what lies ahead and to handle the occasional failure. Some of the best times I have had were due to the outrageously and wickedly funny people around me.
On my 2014 Peak Lenin expedition the three of us (Cameron Petie, David Demarest and myself) hit it off so well we laughed so much even after our combined failure on the mountain. At times it was almost farcical with (for example) the creation of the International Marmotology and Tamerlane Foundation (IMTF) where I was the Secretary. Marmots because they are small furry creatures that lived in burrows in the mountains and we kept seeing them and Tamerlane ( aka Taimur) because that genocidal monster came from those parts in Central Asia.
On my July 2022 Ladakh expedition the quartet of Shwet Tripathi, Rajat Sharma and Naishad Soneta plus me (incidentally all chartered accountants so don’t tell me that CAs don’t have a sense of humor!) used to recall incidents, vibe off each other and laugh so much I once had to walk out of the dining tent to get my breath back!
10. You learn to appreciate the conveniences of modern life
When you are with nature, unless you are glamping your conveniences are reduced to the bare minimum.
There is no Wifi, internet, Netflix, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, books, food deliveries etc. You sleep without pillows or proper bed in cramped tents, have no privacy as you are sharing tents, suffer the extreme cold especially late at night and early mornings, eat whatever the cooks make, shit and pee in a hole in the ground (or behind a rock or bushes outside camp) etc.
Usually by the time an expedition ends I am craving for civilization, especially my spacious apartment, big bed, nice clean bathroom, the huge variety of food on the Deliveroo app and the scorching 40-degree Dubai heat and promising myself I will never complain about the Dubai climate again.
All this makes you grateful for what you have, a sentiment I feel is sorely lacking in many nowadays.
11. You realize the role of luck
Bad weather? Bad luck.
Good weather. Good luck.
Avalanche? Bad luck.
New crevasse opens up? Bad luck.
You get hit with altitude sickness? Bad luck.
Your fellow hikers or cyclists are a fun, friendly bunch? Good luck.
Before outdoor adventure I never believed in luck, dismissing it as an excuse made by unprepared people, people who were too lazy or ignorant to nail their goals. That’s probably largely true in many controlled situations where there is a strong and direct link between efforts and outcomes. An exam is a good example- the curriculum, the learning outcomes, the exam format, exam duration, exam admin rules and even the way they ask questions are all clear well before the exam. There isn’t much role for luck.
But when you step outdoors you will have to engage with Lady Luck who is by definition someone who is unpredictable, uncontrollable and whose effect can be wildly, significantly positive or negative. You will believe in chance and accept it. You have to. And once you accept it the whole experience becomes less stressful and more enjoyable.
12. You achieve things you previously thought impossible
When I think of some often stuff that I have pulled off, I am often struck with a sense of disbelief even now, nearly a decade after it all went down. The ones that still stick with me:
Summit night on Kilimanjaro in March 2011, slowly almost sleepwalking up the mountain in the moonlit night. It was utterly quiet and all I could see were silvery cloud banks many meters away on either side of me and nothing else. I didn’t know what lay beyond or below those clouds. I couldn’t see the summit. It felt scary and very bizarre.
Or cycling in August 2013 with 20 others on a flat wide road straight as far as the eye could see, at a cold and dry high altitude and through the vast, emptiness of Ladakh in North India, with big mountains in the far distance and stunningly cloudless blue sky, something I thought never existed in such a congested and overpopulated country.
Or cycling on the same trip in 2013 up from Leh at 3500m to Khardungla at 5359m, a vertical climb of nearly 2 kilometers and a cycling distance of 39kms on an unprepared road. This was one grueling, epic 8-hour saga, cycling slowly up to the mountain pass through increasingly thin and cold air as I gradually and painfully gained altitude. Thankfully I was encouraged and guided throughout by one of the lead cyclists, a fantastic 55-year-old who kept cycling behind me and kept regaling me with fascinating stories of his racing days and his days as a herpetologist to keep me motivated while I simply nodded and mumbled Yes Sir, too tired to do anything but push the pedals. It was a surreal experience.
So that’s my list of the dozen invaluable upsides of outdoor adventure.
This is 100% based on MY experience and what I went through physically, mentally and emotionally. All of these experiences are unforgettable and some of these trips are probably even worth repeating.
Head for the great outdoors wherever you are, whenever you can. There are hiking, running, cycling etc. groups in many cities around the world. There are frequent and affordable flights to almost everywhere these days. Just go online and prepare for some transformational experiences that will stay with you for life.
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This podcast is brought to you by the real finance mentor. Thank you so much for listening and I really hope you found it insightful and inspirational. If you did enjoy this episode, please drop us a review and spread the word. You should check out more exclusive content on therealfinancementor.com and my LinkedIn profile which is: Binod Shankar, FCA, CFA. Let’s keep in touch! Just add your name to the mailing list on therealfinancementor.com, and we’ll tell you about new episodes plus book reviews, upcoming events and blogs. Till the next time, onwards and upwards.
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