One rowed solo across the Atlantic. The other led an expedition to the South Pole. Both learned valuable lessons about human resilience in the face of adversity — lessons that are readily transferable to the entrepreneurial experience.
When you’re founding and raising a business from the ground up, pushing yourself to the limit comes with the territory.
Serial entrepreneurs and explorers Dr Jack Kreindler, CEO of WellFounded, and Sam Glover, Partner at SG Capital Partner, take this notion to its logical extreme. The former recently undertook a medical research expedition to study the limits of human resilience; the latter completed the world’s toughest row, solo, across the Atlantic.
An endless icy tundra, and a vast and unknowable ocean: it’s not hard to draw comparisons to the endurance challenge of trying to launch and grow a business in today’s economy. In front of an audience of fellow extreme entrepreneurs at Boardwave Live, Jack and Sam’s shared some salient lessons for founders and CEOs about entrepreneurial endurance.
Chasing an iconic goal
Boardwave CEO Phill Robinson spoke about how Europe needs mission-driven business leaders to drive sustainable growth for our industries.
It helps when the mission is as ambitious, aspirational, and daring as a Trans-Antarctic expedition. “You have to have an iconic goal to do something this crazy. No one aspires to climb Highgate Hill 3000 times, they want to climb Everest,” says Jack - adding that it helps to have “the entrepreneurial genotype” - something every one of Boardwave members can relate to.
“I love difficult things”, echoed Sam, exemplifying the entrepreneurial gene. “There are times during the process when you don’t think you’re going to make it.”
How did they persevere through some of those challenging moments? Both had a firm belief in what he had to do, even when there was uncertainty about how to achieve it. An iconic North Star powerful enough to sustain the mission through rough patches.
In fact, for Sam, the scale of the challenge itself was cause for reflection and acceptance. “The scale of the waves, the multitude of blues — there aren’t words to describe it. I found myself in an incredible bliss state, where you tune into the elements.”
Seeing success in small increments
Success isn’t always a straight line – nor does it come overnight. It’s important to treasure the small wins, safe in the knowledge that you’re pulling towards something great.
Rowing solo across 3,000 miles of ocean provides the ultimate example. “You can’t let yourself think it’s 3000 miles”, Sam says. “If you do, you'll find it incredibly difficult.”
Setting incremental milestones was key to building a resilient mindset. Every four hours, there was a satellite pole. So Sam broke his journey down into these four-hour cycles, each one inching him closer to the finish line. “33 strokes if the wind was behind me, 60 strokes if the wind was on my beam”, he says. “I was literally counting every single stroke – getting to the next mile, and the next, and the next.”
On his Antarctic research expedition, Jack found himself in similarly intimidating surroundings. “All it is, is this massive, endless white disc with a blue, blue sky”, he says. “The only thing that changes, no matter how hard you work, is your shadow.”
“It’s incomprehensible how far away the target is. You’ve just got to think about what’s going to give you reward, hope, landmark, in the smallest possible chunks. You just have to break it down.”
Treasuring teamwork and camaraderie
Leading a business through harsh times can be a lonely endeavour, but Sam and Dr Jack’s transcontinental exploits put things into perspective.
Rowing solo across the Atlantic meant going four or five days without communication, receiving only snippets of tracking data. “I couldn’t speak to people very often”, says Sam. “The key thing for me was that four rows of data every four hours”, showing speed, heading, and dintance to finish for him and his three nearest competitors.
Dr Jack’s Antarctic research, meanwhile, was all about studying why women preserve muscle mass more than men, group dynamics in a hyper-endurance challenge, taking sentiment scores throughout the expedition. His team found that having a team to talk and bond with doesn’t just affect your mindset – it literally changes your physiology and psychology.
“All of the scores came out top on teamwork, comradery, support… what we saw is that when people started to speak to each other – even when out of breath – they started to get less out of breath and move faster.”
The lesson for lone founders here may be trite, but it rings true: surround yourself with the right people, and you’ll soon be racing towards your goals.
Jack capped off the day with a rallying cry to summarise his journey. “What I realised is that every single minute of your life counts. You should relish those moments of pain and difficulty because you are alive, and life is the most precious thing that you’ve got.”
If we’re going to catapult Europe to global software ascendancy by 2034, that’s just the kind of spirit we need.
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