Mountaineering, meditating and motivating

“One only fails when one stops trying. It’s not just a sport, it’s a lifestyle,” says Mirza Ali Baig.

Following the footsteps of canyoneer Aron Ralston, Pakistan’s renowned mountaineer Mirza Ali Baig has added motivational speaking to his resume, setting a trend for his country’s sportsmen to inspire the youth of the country in more ways than one.

Besides forging a career out of an extreme sport like mountaineering, Mirza is also an entrepreneur, a documentary-maker and an advocate of adventure sports diplomacy.

While he agreed that mountaineering requires athletic activities bordering on the extreme, the 29-year-old said hard work has its rewards like glimpsing a more simplistic world view.

With his project ‘Seven Mountains, seven continents’, he emphasises on core values like honesty, hard work and discovering inner strength.

“One only fails when one stops trying. It’s not just a sport, it’s a lifestyle,” Mirza told The Express Tribune before embarking on his expedition to the Mount Everest in April.

“When you stand at the foot of the mountain, you realise how small you are; it’s a spiritual journey. Life during a mountain expedition teaches you of how fragile humans are. The odds are always against us. I’ve lost many friends during an avalanche, so I know how to keep faith. We still pray five times during an expedition.

“Leading a mountain expedition is like running a business. One has to think quickly in crunch time and be well-versed in crisis management and risk factors.” For a man from a small village at the edge of the Pak-China border called Shimshal, motivational speaking is like telling his story.

“I once ended up travelling to nine countries in the same outfit. That is the gist of my lifelong struggle. It is the effort that counts, things like money and recognition from other people pales before this experience.”

Mirza went on to say that for starters, mountaineering should be viewed metaphorically rather than literally as everyone has to scale their inner mountains before attempting the tangible ones.

“I had to fight with my parents for three years to let my sister Samina go for high-altitude climbing with me. I eventually succeeded in 2009 and have never looked back.”

Samina’s historic feat – scaling Mount Everest in May 2013   was the result of Mirza’s tireless efforts spanning seven years. He left his village and spent six years in Karachi, toiling for sponsors to fund the expedition and gaining secondary education simultaneously.

He said that he understands rejection well and draws his material for motivational speaking from the testing times he had to endure.

“My journey began with a pair of boots worth Rs200 that I bought from a flea market in Karachi,” said Mirza. “In 2006, I was sending out 1,000 emails on average per week to different people in the hopes of finding a sponsor. Mountaineering requires proper gear; we need money to pay royalties. My message to the youth is that despite lacking wealth, I never gave up on my dream.”

Saying that he did not scale the Mount Everest last year with his sister so that she may gain the experience on her own, Mirza is planning to climb the highest peak after getting done with Mount Lhotse, the world’s fourth-tallest peak at 27,890 feet.

He added that he received a major chunk of support and sponsorship for the Youth Out Reach from different countries, including New Zealand, Canada and the US.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 1^st,  2014.

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