How to take risks in business and expeditions without fearing failure: Seven rules from Hongkonger who's scaled the Seven Summits
Maths whiz, mountaineer and entrepreneur Paul Niel - conqueror of highest peaks on seven continents - on how to take calculated risks in expeditions and business, the value of failure, and why he’s not planning to return to Everest any time soon
Hong Kong-based adventurer, mountaineer and entrepreneur Paul Niel has been climbing mountains since before he could walk. His father was a mountain guide and mother a ski instructor, so he spent the first year of his life being carried up mountains on his father’s back.
“It took me around 15 years of my walking life to climb as many mountains as I climbed in that first year and a half in my dad’s backpack,” says Niel, who hails from a small village in lower Austria.
Niel, also a speaker and social entrepreneur who has worked with various charities in Hong Kong, Nepal and Kenya, studied statistics in Vienna and Sydney. “I’m a very analytical person. My background in mathematics has really shaped the way I approach adventures,” he says. “As a statician I like to structure things, weigh off certain odds – and that plays a big role in risk management for expeditions.”
Take it one step at a time