Ep 143: Becoming Singapore’s 1st Professional Adventurer - You Never too Old to Take Risks! | Khoo Swee Chiow

Would you die for your passion?


Most wouldn’t but for 58-year-old 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 the South Pole 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:


3:34 Why Why Why?!

4:12 Fear of heights

5:00 Computer science in Kansas

6:11 Saw Mount Everest from a plane

6:51 Not giving up after 10 years

7:24 The mountain is magical & spiritual?!

9:06 Lessons learned

10:27 Altitude sickness / AMS

12:04 Pulling Singapore’s first Everest expedition together

13:25 You can’t fail!

14:19 What should people know about Everest?

16:45 Quitting his day job

17:45 Antarctica

19:38 Commercialising his adventure business

20:32 Swee Chiow’s value proposition?

22:02 How he builds trust with his clients

24:11 Risks & death

25:11 Any trick to staying calm?

25:24 Drifting to Taiwan & near certain death

27:37 Never let your ego take over

29:28 Dealing with the media

30:55 Never doing K2 again

32:19 The ghosts at Tibet’s Xishapengma

36:12 Adventurers hogging the limelight

37:04 Collaborating with AirAsia X

40:16 How Swee Chiow decides on his adventures

41:43 Advice for those in their 30s

45:28 What’s next?

46:26 The second act of his career?

47:36 Leadership principles to be an effective guide for his
team

49:15 What drives you to push yourself to the extreme each
time?

50:23 Do you feel like you’ve found your why?

51:06 What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind?

51:27 What are the most important qualities of a successful
person?






Special thanks to Limpeh Studios (Hepmil Media) for the studio!





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