7 Inspirational Leadership Lessons from An Adventurer:

7 Inspirational Leadership Lessons from An Adventurer:

The dangers of life are infinite, and among them is safety. - Johann Wolfgang Goethe

Have you ever found yourself in an extreme situation? Did you learn something from that experience and apply that lesson to your personal or professional life or both?

My childhood dream was to be an adventurer discovering and exploring territories beyond the Swiss mountains where I grew up. And it's who I am today.

Aged 21, I initiated RUN FOR HELP - a solo run across the Alps in less than five days to raise funds for homeless children in Romania.

Two years later, in 2001, I launched BIKE FOR HELP - a 10,000 km bicycle ride from India to Switzerland to help leprosy sufferers.

Crossing war zones and negotiating with rebels and army leaders, I cycled through some of the most inhospitable parts of the world, including the Taliban hub of Baluchistan and more than 4,000 km of desert.

Thanks to donations from around the world, the project financed hospitals, rehabilitation programmes and orphanages for leprosy patients. It was a project for and with people who needed help.

Clearly, few of us run or cycle across continents. But this doesn't mean that we don't face extremes at some points in our personal and professional lives, whether that's making difficult decisions, motivating teams or experiencing failure and success.

So when the unexpected happens, we need to be ready and able to make sound decisions.

In 2010, I was back on my bike crossing the Himalayas, cycling along the highest tracks in the world to raise funds and awareness for mentally ill and marginalized women. A rock-fall caught me by surprise and a stone hit me on the head. The impact was so severe it crushed my helmet.

To make matters worse, on the same trip I also had severe altitude sickness and crashed my bike several times. The award-winning documentary Alegria - A Humanitarian Expedition tells the story of this adventure.

As well as my expeditions, I worked for 10 years with the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) and the UN in conflict zones in the Central African Republic, Colombia, Nepal, Israel and Palestine.

Facing personal and professional extremes, both with others and alone, has taught me invaluable lessons that I believe could be helpful in life and the workplace.

Here are seven things I've learned from my life on the edge.