Would you die for your passion?

Most wouldn’t but for Swee Chiow, Singapore’s first professional adventurer, it’s a question he must face every day.

And it all began when he caught a glimpse of Mount Everest from a plane.

He was working in IT (Singapore Airlines) then, but he decided from that one glimpse that he wanted to climb Mount Everest - a dream that took him a mere 10 years to achieve!

The journey was hard.

He knew nothing. So he read many books & even went on a 10-day mountaineering course at Mt Cook that he flunked because he wasn’t fit enough!

In 1998, he joined Singapore’s first Mount Everest expedition. It was a disaster at first because:

❌ Their tent collapsed during a freak storm

❌ Their first attempt at summiting Mount Everest failed as they didn’t have enough rope - the Singapore media hounded them & issued headlines declaring that the expedition had failed

But they didn’t give up.

Their second attempt was a success!

But an exhausting one.

In the midst of the media glory, Swee Chiow knew he had to take advantage of it so he immediately launched Singapore's first Antarctic expedition.

Since then, he has:
Climbed Everest x3 and K2
8,000km cycle from SG → Beijing (China) = 2003
Swam 40 km across Malacca Straits
Kayaked 3,000km across Philippines
Broke his first Guinness World Records for the longest scuba submergence (220 hours)
Rollerbladed 6,000km from Hanoi SG in 94 days (and broke the Guinness World Records in 2008)

Highlights:
0:00: Introduction
3:19 Why Why Why?!
3:57 Fear of heights
4:45 Learning computer science at Kansas?!
5:56 Saw Mount Everest from a plane
6:36 Not giving up after 10 years
7:09 The mountain is magical & spiritual?!
8:51 Lessons learned
10:12 Altitude sickness / AMS
11:49 Pulling Singapore’s first Everest expedition together
13:10 You can’t fail!
14:05 What should people know about Everest?
16:30 Quitting his day job
17:30 Antarctica
19:23 Commercialising his adventure business
20:17 Swee Chiow’s value proposition?
21:47 How he builds trust with his clients
23:56 Death
24:56 Any tricks to staying calm?
25:09 Drifting to Taiwan & near certain death
27:22 Never let your ego take over
29:13 Dealing with the media
30:40 Never doing K2 again
32:04 The ghosts at Tibet’s Xishapengma
35:57 Adventurers hogging the limelight
36:49 Collaborating with AirAsia X
40:01 How Swee Chiow decides on his adventures
41: 27 Advice for those in their 30s
45:13 What’s next?
46:11 The second act of his career?
47:21 Leadership principles to be an effective guide for his team
49:00 What drives you to push yourself to the extreme each time?
50:08 Do you feel like you’ve found your why?
50:51 What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind?
51:12 What are the most important qualities of a successful person?


Special Thanks: Limpeh Studios ( @hepmilcreatorsnetwork5697 ) for the studio in Singapore for this recording!

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🎙️Show notes/transcript for this episode: https://www.sothisismywhy.com/143

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WHO AM I:
I'm Ling Yah, a Malaysian lawyer & host/producer of the So This Is My Why, where I interview inspiring people about how they found their why, and their blueprint for turning that why into a reality. I’ve interviewed Olympians, Michelin-starred chefs, top entrepreneurs, VC founders, Hollywood actresses, and more.

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