How the Himalayas have changed my attitude to entrepreneurship

We want to share with you the story of Nihar Sawant, co-founder of Exposure, who is sure that a trip to the Himalayas has changed his attitude to entrepreneurship.

Recently I was in the Himalayas for two weeks. During these two weeks I had practically no contact with the outside world. Climbing to a height of 14,000 feet in the wild has left my mind completely devastated.

By the time I got home, I felt like a blank sheet — it was as if I had been reborn. It helped me to look at my life in a completely different way.

Over the past five years, I've been doing a lot of introspection, as well as observing the people around me. I realized that most people do what they don't want to do, what they absolutely don't need, and, most importantly, they don't think about themselves.

Instead of thinking about what they really need, people just buy advertised things to seem cool and modern.

They don't like their job, waste weekdays, live in anticipation of the weekend and tweet about what a stupid job they have and what a jerk their boss is.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.
Steve Jobs

I have always thought that I am not like all these people: I am much better, even more correctly, higher than them. Instead of stupidly following fashion trends, I always asked myself: "Why should I do this?".

I thought I was listening to my inner voice, not to the external noise around me. I tried to live a simple life, and not fill my life with things that I don't need. I believed that I lived the way I wanted.

But I was wrong.

When I returned from the Himalayas, I appreciated my former life. I looked at the people I followed on Twitter; the newspapers and magazines I read; the blogs I subscribed to; the events I used to attend. And I realized that I was not an exception to the rule at all: I was no different from the people I put myself above.

Since college, I've wanted to become an entrepreneur. And not because I really wanted to, but because I was inspired by the example of Paul Graham, Jack Dorsey, Bill Gates, Elon Musk and others.

I wanted to change the world because Steve Jobs said so in a video. I created my own startup because I read a lot TechCrunch. That is, I followed trends in the same way as the people around me. The only difference is that entrepreneurship and startups are very ambitious trends.

What is entrepreneurship?

After I realized this, I decided to drop my digital life. I deleted about 70% of my Facebook friends* (and was almost ready to delete my account for good), significantly reduced my list of «read later », which contained about a thousand articles, and eventually unsubscribed from almost all blogs that only do what they write about startups.

I was surprised when I noticed how easy it is to let go of all this digital existence. After living in such isolation for a week, I asked myself: Why am I doing this?». And the answer was quite simple: thrills.

The reason I decided to go to the Himalayas, traveled 650 kilometers and refused a job with a high salary and the opportunity to move to North America: it made my heart beat faster.

Entrepreneurship is not a science to acquire and not a way to get a million dollars. These are thrills, unpredictability, various limitations, a business with which you constantly have to push yourself to a new level and be an innovator.

I crave it and enjoy every moment. That's why I chose entrepreneurship.

Our life is beautiful: we are free to do whatever we want. Do you want to change the world? Go ahead and do it. Just ask yourself first if you really want this. Or is it just because you saw a similar thought in someone's autobiography?

Dedicate your life to your favorite business. So that in your old age you don't have useless regrets that you spent your life not doing what you wanted. When you do what you love, you really enjoy life and only then do you live to the fullest.

Otherwise, you will simply die of boredom, waiting for the next awesome weekend.

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