What You Can Learn Traveling The Unpredictable Road To Business Success

By Lief Morin, president, Key Information Systems

Lief Morin, president of Key Information Systems, participated in The Mongol Rally this summer, and he discovered you can draw a lot of parallels between the adventurous rally and building a business.

In a remote region of the Czech Republic, I stopped to put gas into the tank of the least reliable and most uncomfortable car I’ve ever driven. It was a simple decision, one of many my friend and I made this summer during The Mongol Rally, a journey from England to Mongolia to benefit charity. Not being fluent in the Czech language, I inadvertently pumped ethanol into our 43-year old Volkswagen Beetle. The vehicle sputtered to a halt half-a-mile from the station. As we pondered our next steps, an old man saw us broken down on the side of the road, and offered to help. Without any good alternatives, we put our faith in his hands. He towed us to his house, where he had a hydraulic car lift and a garage full of mechanic’s tools. While waiting for the ethanol to drain into his spare jerry cans, he shared a traditional Czech liquor with my buddy as we talked in broken English about life, the universe and everything. It was a glorious mistake that turned into one of the highlights of a difficult trip. More importantly, it underlined the helping spirit of the human race and was an experience we would have missed had our quest gone more smoothly.

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