There are millions who follow their passion for mountaineering around the world, yet only few of us would have friends within our network who are entrepreneurs known to have climbed some of the highest mountains.
TiE New Jersey (NJ) can speak with pride about four (4) of its charter members who are entrepreneurs with that distinction - Ashok Krish, Shyam Kumar, Raghu Rao and Pravin Patil.
While Ashok, the most experienced and insatiable mountaineer in this list was climbing the Mount Rainier summit in WA on Friday July 26th, I had the wonderful opportunity to anchor an event organized by TiE NJ aptly named Scaling New Heights - a member summer mixer to coincide with the opening of the 2024 Olympic games in Paris.
The aim of this mixer event was to introduce TiE NJ’s new members, highlight its alignment to the pool of global women entrepreneurs and, as a special feature - to dialogue with serial entrepreneur, investor and mentor, Shyam Kumar on his first remarkable and revealing 12 days expedition to the Mount Everest base camp.
The gathering was meant to explore how the Everest expedition for Shyam offered practical reflections for entrepreneurs and leaders who climb the ladders of unique potentiality in their personal voyages into the unknown.
Successful serial entrepreneurship makes one wonder what drives the entrepreneurs’ motivation to start new ventures, and what enables them to make time and remain focused on multiple businesses while they widen their network, pursue their inner creative needs and sensitize themselves towards their spiritual calling. They are often known for taking risks in unconventional ways by following their deep-seated instincts for newer ways of conceiving decisive actions for generative business outcomes.
Shyam founded his first company in 2001 and before the end of 2023 he went onto becoming co-founder of four (4) successful tech companies in the United States. He is currently baking his 5 th venture that is perhaps his most exciting tech-business gig till date.
Additionally, he is Co-Founder of Mikro Grafeio, a fast-growing tech enabled management company and is also co-founder of a tech powered not-for-profit company called eCirkle. Shyam Kumar is a coach and mentor to many startups, teaches on college campuses, is a humanitarian and a community volunteer. He is also a movie buff, a massive music lover, and an avid badminton player.
Being an active participant in many of his businesses and social initiatives, I could see that no matter what Shyam ventured into, his teams could always access him, as he made time for all of them when needed.
During the second quarter of 2023, at the peak of many important projects, in the middle of business expansion plans and, big decisions across our group businesses, came a kicker moment.
Shyam suddenly announced that he was going to take a break and go away for nearly three (3) weeks for a journey by foot to the Everest base camp with little or no mobile connectivity during this period.
When a leader like him at the helm of so many people’s livelihood, aspirations and as existential anchor of sorts, suddenly decides to make such a bold and arduous journey, everyone in the ecosystem, most prominently the family members, sit up and start to think hard about what the consequences of such a decision could be.
Most of us know from inference that going to the Mount Everest is a journey of self-sacrifice based on an unexplainable hope. It perhaps comes only to those people who want to genuinely experience the leaving of the past behind, and reaching out for a new unknowable, larger than programmable human life experience. Following a stringent schedule of active hiking, and dietary changes, Shyam diligently trained for months under the expert guidance of his indefatigable hiker friend Uma.
Come September, and he flies in to Lukla (2860 meters) for the 9 days hike into the sky to the Everest Base Camp located at 5380 meters height.
Of all the hideous constraints that come with such an expedition, I was aware about a mysterious phenomenon - the mountain sickness. A terrible condition that can grip anybody regardless of the training one has undergone. When it happens, the guide of the expedition (the ‘Sherpa’ in this case), assesses the affected climber’s health condition and based on very specific symptomatic markers, could calibrate a decision on the high risk for the mountaineer in continuing the journey forward.
If the markers cross the time-tested and prescribed threshold, the climber is categorically instructed to abort the journey and return home to seek immediate medical attention. Shyam was hit by the sickness on day one (1) and was asked to abort his journey. It was a critical decision made to also avoid impeding the chances for the others who were part of the expedition. It tested his determination like nothing else in life so far, and he chose to press forward to the next stage with the group risking everything. What ensued changed his perspective on life challenges in general for himself and perhaps for the others with him in that moment.
From the experiential wisdom of seers and mountain climbers, many have heard and understand the Himalayas as being a library of a different information data bank on the planet. It is said that celestial entities from unknown dimensions have a localized presence in that vortex, and they communicate with the processed humans who venture into those regions.
As we progressed that night into our dialogue at the TiE mixer, the group explored how the entrepreneur in Shyam, the husband in him, the father in him, the man in him, the very life form in him, all related to the hour of God moment that unfolded in the mountains within and without him.
We lounged in the beautifully laid out setting of the Mauryas restaurant in Princeton that night and wondered about the passage of time, space and all the causations of a mountaineer’s existence in that surreal technological instance. The inquisitiveness of the TiE members and the questions that came forth was appreciable.
It was becoming clear that whatever physical and mental preparation one undertakes before embarking on a long - physically, mentally and emotionally demanding journey, nothing prepares you for what is to come. And yet, nothing happens without preparation. No awakening magic happens without taking ‘the plunge’. All of which would sound very familiar to an entrepreneur’s unique voyage into the unknowns of the solitary journey at the top of their business world.
In South India a journey of this sort on foot is referred to as a “Padayatra”. A journey by foot with a new, audacious mission in the heart, that helps one re-evaluate priorities or perspectives on what truly matters to oneself. A compelling position and an intelligent springboard for an entrepreneur to touch and awaken that expressive force of the universe encapsulated within as a seed technology.
In the hustle, bustle and pressures of the marketplace, we may lose ourselves as entrepreneurs. So, keep walking to distill your inspiration and meditativeness towards the realization of a wideness and power within you - like from being within the Johnnie Walker to becoming the Luke Skywalker.
Written from the inspiration of Shyam’s Padayatra.
By Santhosh Kumar, Chief Development Officer - International for Mikro Grafeio.
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