Touching the void - inspiration for entrepreneurs!

Simpson

A presenter once mentioned how the movie 'Touching the Void' is a must-see for entrepreneurs... extremely curious as to why - I watched it. And then I watched the movie many more times. It is inspirational!

What do you do when all the odds and natural elements are stacked against your chances of survival? Perhaps if he asked the question, hardly anyone would have told him that they think he could make it out of that one! Everything gloom-and-doom to the first order, do you give up? Even if you don’t give up... perhaps you don't have support and plenty of drawbacks, how do you go the distance?

A lesson that stood out for me was how he (Simpson) kept setting small, reachable targets and when he reached each one, he celebrated it and then set another... and so, 50-feet target by 10-feet target, he reached the five miles he was aiming for. The only option he gave himself was reaching the target!

This is how the movie goes, so don’t read this is you’re going to watch the movie:

• (+) The pair were the first to successfully ascend to the summit of Siula Grande via the almost vertical west face.
• (-) Due to bad weather, the trip took longer than they intended and base camp was about another 3,000 feet below
• (-) Disaster struck. On the descent Simpson slipped down an ice cliff and broke his tibia into his knee joint
• (-) They had run out of water
• (-) The second disaster struck. Yates lowered Simpson with a rope over a 100 foot overhanging cliff where he dangled in mid-air under freezing conditions
• (-) Simpson’s weight on the rope was slowly pulling Yates down the mountain.
• (-) Yates was forced to cut the rope, dropping Simpson into a crevasse.
• (-) The next morning Yates descended the mountain certain that Simpson must have died.
• (+) Simpson had survived, despite a 100 foot fall and broken leg.
• (+) He abseiled from his landing spot on an ice bridge into a void
• (+) He unexpectedly reached a thin ice roof with an opening onto the glacier.
• (+) He crawled out back onto the glacier!
• (+) He spent three days setting targets, crawling and hopping back to the base camp
• (-) He had no food and only splashes of water from melting ice
• (+) He reached base camp a few hours before Yates intended to leave.
• (+) Simpson’s survival is regarded as amongst the most amazing pieces of mountaineering lore.

Somehow, in spite of many hectic unfortunately's (-) one can produce the fortunate legendary ending (+).