Above: Friedman at Union Glacier, Antarctica

Hi, this is Dan Morrell, host of Skydeck.

While Ken Friedman (MBA 1983) was at HBS, he and a group of about a dozen friends would get together regularly to play cards. The group vowed to continue to do so after graduation, and would hold annual weekend get-togethers to catch up. It became a brotherhood, Friedman says. But almost fifteen years ago, one of the members of that group was diagnosed with cancer, ultimately passing away after a 15-month battle.

It was a wakeup call for Friedman. He’d had a successful career in investment banking and venture capital, which included being the founder and former president of the investment banking operation of Houlihan Lokey at the age of 28. Houlihan Lokey would go on to become a New York Stock Exchange public company.

But his friend’s death made the next big VC deal or M&A transaction seem much less important. Instead, Friedman reoriented his life, focusing more on philanthropy—and also getting back into one of his favorite childhood pursuits: motorcycle riding. Ultimately, this renewed passion for riding would become an historic mission to ride a motorcycle on all seven continents.

Friedman completed his mission in December of 2019, and in this episode of Skydeck, he and I talk about the challenges he faced during his epic journey—and why he believes that getting out of one’s comfort zone and tenacity are the keys to personal growth.

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Morrell: Now, when you set out to begin riding your motorcycle, did you set out to conquer all seven continents? Was that something you had in mind?

Ken: The answer is absolutely not. I had bought the Harley and started riding in California and up to the Canadian border and down to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

So I embarked upon a ride first in Italy about eight, nine years ago now, and was fully enamored of the experience of riding a motorcycle overseas and all of the challenges associated with that. But it also was a unique prism on travel. People are really interested in you when you're on a motorcycle traveling, especially through these small remote areas.

So I became very enamored of riding into small remote areas on a motorcycle, experiencing the local cuisines, smelling the difference in the terrain as you ride, whether it be the flowers or the crops growing or the vineyards, and immersing myself in local culture, which was definitely facilitated by a motorcycle.

But then what happened was I went to go see a movie called The Highest Pass, And The Highest Pass was a movie about a very young "guru" that embarked upon taking seven motorcycle riders through the highest pass in the Himalayas of India. And I went to go see the movie here in Santa Monica, because there was going to be a Q & A with the filmmaker and with the guru. And the film resonated deeply with me because of the aesthetics of the Himalayas, the challenge of the riding terrain and the spirituality that was very palpable in India.

And in the Q&A, they said they were going to do a sequel. And I said, "I want to be in that sequel. I have no idea where you're riding, but it looks fascinating." Long story short, I was selected with four other riders, to ride for three weeks through the Indian Himalayas, through the four spiritual peaks. And we went with two full-time cinematographers and we each had GoPro type cameras.

That, much like the death of my friend, accelerated this movement and reorientation of values away from the relative unimportance of earning another dollar and kind of unfurling other interests that existed within me and launched me into this worldwide motorcycle travel and international surfing to an extreme.

Morrell: I understand that you were very intentional about your lack of preparation. Why was that so?

Ken: After India, I was so enamored of off-road type of riding and more challenging terrain. I decided that I was going to kind of continue to challenge myself with respect to my riding in more remote, more off-road, more demanding situations. And by going thoroughly unprepared, that meant that I had no GPS. I still don't to this day. I would basically buy a Michelin map, get a ticket, rent a bike, and then spontaneously ride off into these remote parts of the world. I'm thoroughly convinced, that the only manner in which we as individuals can realize personal growth is through getting outside of our comfort zones, whether it's reactive or proactive, tenaciously persevering through whatever the challenge or obstacle is, and coming out the other side better equipped to deal with the inevitable adversity that's going to come our way on a regular basis.

Morrell: Ken, can you get into some of the challenges and obstacles that you faced during your travels?

Ken: Yeah. I think they are manifold quite frankly, from running out of gas in very remote areas to what do you do? I was in Bolivia. This was probably my longest, most challenging day. So I was literally riding through the deserts of Bolivia, which are quite vast, and trying to get to the Uyuni salt flats, the largest salt flats in the world. And I got into an exceptionally deep, sandy area and I'm very skilled in all conditions, but this sand was quite daunting.

So I literally just stopped to take a look at what was ahead of me and the bike was leaning and I dropped it.

So it's now mid-afternoon, it's probably 35 degrees and it's howling wind and there is not a person within, as far as I know, a hundred miles of me. And I cannot pick up this bike. It's not horizontal, but the bags popped off and it's almost 800 pounds of gear on this bike.

I couldn't pick it up. So you got to get real calm in situations like this and what my mind does, what I've trained myself to do, is first of all not panic and focus strictly upon what are the options, which I think in life is an important lesson too.

I'm going to make a very long story short. A couple hours later on the horizon, miles away, I saw some kind of four-wheel drive going through the desert. And I'm dressed in all black Darth Vader attire. And I ran towards them and they stopped about a mile from me... Ultimately they drove up to me and it was a local Bolivian with two French passengers. No one really spoke English, but I convinced them to come over and we turned the motorcycle upright and then had me follow them through the desert for the next couple hours.

And then they pointed me in a direction. I got to the Uyuni salt flats till, it was a magical moment, actually, I got to the Uyuni salt flats at sundown. Had no idea where I was. It's one of the few times I've ever truly been lost. Again, no GPS, intentionally. And four or five hours later, I got to a place to stay that night, close to midnight. But that's a classic example of why I go unprepared, something representative of what you run into when you're unprepared and remote and you’ve got to figure it out.

Morrell: It was about five years ago, after Friedman had successfully ridden on five continents, he began thinking about conquering all seven. Of the two left—Australia and Antarctica—the latter would pose the largest challenge. And not just because of the icy surfaces, but because of all of the bureaucratic wrangling necessary to get Friedman and his specially outfitted motorcycle to the interior of the continent. But after five years of pushing, Friedman landed in Antarctica in December 2019 and he set off on his historic ride.

Morrell: Put me inside your head as you're riding your motorcycle through that unbelievable landscape.

Ken: Disbelief, absolute disbelief. Absolute peace. And then as well, my focus was on, quite frankly, staying upright and learning how to ride on frictionless blue ice and snow that at times I sunk half the motorcycle down into the snow because they had warned me that they have no idea what it's going to be like to ride. I'm on a 500-pound motorcycle, plus my weight, and think about it, that only hits two small points where the tires meet the ice and the snow. They said the amount of poundage you're displacing per square inch could cause that bike to sink. And I would be riding along at times, and then half the bike would sink into the snow without any warning.

So I was riding in these areas that were untouched, visually stunning, and I had this sense of accomplishment, but it did not fully hit me until the last day when I finished my last ride, which by the way, the tire fell off the wheel on that last ride. And we crated up the motorcycle and it was sitting on this glacier and I was standing by it. And that's when just this warmth of emotions of overwhelming accomplishment hit me then, that I had really set out for a goal five years before, tenaciously pursued it, and conquered it. And that felt personally wonderful.

Morrell: So Ken, you have this amazing experience. You meet all these wonderful people, you see all these amazing places. How does that experience connect with the launch of Dance Upon the Precipice Foundation?

Ken: Very, very directly. And that is, if you look at what I have characterized as the mission of Dance Upon the Precipice. It is to encourage and inspire other people to deliberately get outside of their comfort zones, or as I characterize it, stop treading water in life.

And just to be able to look back, Dan, and to have lived a life that's so richly textured, and not monotoned in color is a lesson for everyone, I believe. Because life is really short and death is really long and we should take advantage of it.

So I have never had any social media, never had Facebook, Instagram, website, no presence. Been very private—deliberately. Dance Upon the Precipice is the first time I've grabbed a Instagram handle on Facebook and a website. It's in it's very nascent stages. People can go to Dance Upon the Precipice on Instagram and see it, but conceptually I do not want it to be about me. In fact, there's not even a picture of me without a helmet on right now, nor is my name mentioned yet because I'm still grasping with how much I want to expose myself, quite frankly. But I want this to be what I characterize as a social media hub, where people with inspirational stories and tales can post themselves and those that are seeking inspiration can access it. So it's as though I want to nurture a community of inspiration to encourage other people to go out and dance upon their own precipices.

Morrell: Ken, what do you think your classmate who passed away would think of what you're doing? Do you think he'd be proud of you? Would he feel honored, do you think?

Ken: This definitely can come back to his door with respect to precipitating this stage. That was a nexus point at which I changed from a working existence, reoriented the values, and started to embark on many other aspects of my life. And I think that's something that's an important lesson, I think for many of my classmates. We came out of a class of very successful people financially, but there's so much more to doing another transaction and earning another dollar and accumulating another item. And that's these kinds of experiences that I'm talking about now.

It doesn't require you to go out and buy a motorcycle and do the kinds of things I've done, but each person resides upon a certain precipice as I characterize it and can certainly take it to progressively higher levels. It could be in the arts, it could be entrepreneurs, it could be science, it could be literature, it could be physical. It doesn't matter. Those are vertical markets as I characterize them. It doesn't matter. Either ascend further through challenging yourself within those verticals or go horizontally into a new one and see what happens as a result of tenaciously persevering through it and the result of that.

Skydeck is produced by the External Relations department at Harvard Business School and edited by Craig McDonald. It is available at iTunes and wherever you get your favorite podcasts. For more information or to find archived episodes, visit alumni.hbs.edu/skydeck.

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