The Seven Lessons of the Mountain – Business Initiatives

When British cycling at the start of the millennium looked back, he found that he had won an Olympic medal in 1908. David Brailsford was invited to lead British cycling and when asked what he would do, he replied: “I don’t have any secrets, I’ll try to improve by one percent in every task”, High-performance physiologist Alexandre Marques, who was one of the 26 members to climb Kilimanjaro, says during a “two-to-two conversation — is Portugal the next Mount Kilimanjaro?” during the Portuguese Inspirador Awards.

But David Brailsford made a promise: “In five years we’ve won the Tour de France.” He started doing things that made sense, like improving and improving training, improving the bike with lighter tires, and outdoor underwear to be more aerodynamic. Then move on to the conditions for improving sleep and eating. Alexandre Marquez said he won the 2002, 2003 and 2005 Tour de France, but the peak was at the 2012 Olympic Games in the UK, with the latter winning 70% of indoor cycling medals. “It’s a message from James Clear’s small gains, which was how we started and ventured on our Kilimanjaro climb, always improving on small steps,” Alexandre Marquis said. He concluded, “The conquest does not outpace the others, it climbs the further we go.”

Alexandre Marquez and Benedetta Ayres, lawyer and partner of Vieira de Almeida, who was also part of the group of climbers who reached the summit of the African mountain, prepared the Seven Lessons for the Mountain. “There are seven key messages that have parallels in our personal lives, in our professional lives,” said Benedetta Ayres.

1. Purpose
Purpose must be present in personal life, in organizations, setting direction, text, strategy, and planning around a common goal. “Our common goal was to conquer one of the Seven Summits of the highest mountains in the world, Kilimanjaro summit. Why? Because it was a unique and unforgettable experience,” says Benedetta Ayres. This purpose also had an element of solidarity, with the Salvadoran association, in the fight against inequality in adapted sport, Alexandre Marquez said, “but also of solidarity with those in Africa who have also gone through the Covid-19 pandemic”.

2. Planning
“Planning is very important and it is reflected in what we do on a day-to-day basis and not only in overall planning, but also in more individual planning,” says Benedetta Ayres. To climb Mount Kilimanjaro, which is more than five thousand meters high, you need to plan your training, taking into account that it will be necessary to climb, and this began five months in advance. But planning was also present in the selection of things for a backpack with a maximum weight of 15 kg. Whatever we choose will be behind our backs, said Alexandre Marquez. They began to prioritize “to face adversity and conditions that we may face, such as weather, painkillers, food, because there may not be enough food on the mountain, and we took a lot of chocolate and energy bars,” said Benedetta Ayres.

3. Risks
“The mountain teaches us the lesson of learning to appreciate what we have taken for granted,” said Benedetta Ayres. They get to the mountain, live in tents, sleep on mattresses on the ground, there is no running water, hot showers, and the weather is very dusty and very cold. They have to accept vulnerabilities and the unknown, test boundaries. “We live the essentials in time, in the time we are. It’s a great opportunity for reflection because we spend a lot of time alone. There are six days when there are no outputs, when we have to talk and talk among ourselves, no one else, ”Alexander Marquis recalls.

4. Team
“The team has a huge impact on the mountain, it’s the team effort, it’s the collective team, that takes us to the top of the mountain, the parallel to our business life is very clear, not just our people, or the people who work directly with us, our peers, our customers, our stakeholders, who work as a team, they have a much greater potential for success and that’s a very big lesson we’re learning,” says Benedetta Ayres. In a team, leadership was important, especially on the ascent of a mountain, where it had to define strategy, ensuring group cohesion, trust, and security. And Benedetta Ayres emphasized the ability to make decisions in favor of the group, as when, before the last stage to reach the summit, a climber, not feeling ready, decided not to continue.

5. Consistency
The start to the top of the volcano was at 11:30 pm, you climb at night so you don’t see the slope and safety because if you go up during the day you risk staying at the top during the night. There are 12 to 14 hours of climbing at minus 12 degrees, step by step in a constant, consistent effort to reach the goal. “Consistency is much better than intensity. The key to winning is consistency step by step, in the little things, and it was consistency that got us to the top,” Alexander Marx noted.

6. Humility
There are many ways of looking at humility, but on this expedition they were all worth the same, made of the same local dust, with the same hardships, and helped by people who used to climb 25 to 30 times a year, who stretched out their hands and sang your songs. “We got here because there are a group of porters and guides who carry our knapsacks on our backs when we can’t carry another gram, or they take our knapsacks and they take us, or if they realize we’re going to drown, they go and get some tea to help us,” said Benedetta Ayres. , The humility of relying on others around us and the humility of accepting this step is a step to reaching the top, accepting what the nut mountain brings, and what life gives us.” .

7. The opportunity
The group of 25 climbers reached five thousand eight hundred on October 25, 2022 at eight in the morning. It is a moment of realization, of overcoming, a moment of true transformation. “It is the opportunity for a new path to open, to open the doors to the next goal and to many things that have been set and that we will do in our lives. Today we know that the end is the beginning of many other things,” concluded Benedita Ayres.
“It is an opportunity to learn, from the lessons we have learned, from the difficulties we have overcome, and that it is possible to overcome them, and translate them into our personal and business lives, the difficulties will appear, it is a guarantee,” Alexandre Marquis believes.

The last lesson
“Transforming Portugal into the next Mount Kilimanjaro requires the intervention and assistance of everyone, step by step in the midst of humility, planning and risk, leaving the comfort zone to go further in the time it needs to be. It will run more than one marathon, ”summarizes Alexandre Marquis.