Since we are a Swiss-Arab platform and our readers might wish to know – Do you have any connections with the Arab world? Have you attended any conferences or events in the Middle East?

I have met a number of Middle Eastern sovereign fund managers. Some with well established relationships looking for adventures. There are a few sovereign wealth owners who have partnered in our deals. My world stretches all over the globe. I could be working with investors anywhere. I have no limitations to what I do; my decisions are driven what I see as potential opportunity on the market. Right now I’ve seen an opportunity to bid against the US dollar and go for gold.

I haven’t attended any conference in the Middle East yet, but I would love to. I was invited to Jordan by King Abdallah II, but our calendars clashed and I did not have the chance to attend. The conferences in which I participate should fit exactly the model which I am working on. I would only accept an invitation when I feel that I can add value.

Should we organize events in the future, would you be willing to participate as a speaker?

Absolutely. I am very interested in the Arab world, it is a culture I am willing to learn about, and who knows what opportunities lay there. The Arab world has to reinvent itself. The wealth funds of the Gulf region: Oman, Abu Dhabi, etc. They are inventing themselves, and diversifying away from the petrodollar. I am curious as to how will they do that and what will be the way forward. I have also met some very interesting, highly educated Arabs, and I am always curious as to what they are working on, and what are their problems that need solving?

In connection with our earlier discussion, you talked about three main elements for an entrepreneur: fear, intuition and wisdom. What do you mean by that?

Fear is a warning mechanism, it tells you: “Pay attention to the details, look at the gap.” Like the example of crossing a busy road, if you are not fearful of the traffic, you will be hit by a car. The wisdom component is about finding a suitable place to cross the road. Finally, intuition is about understanding the pattern of the cars’ speed and the density of the traffic, which helps in choosing the right time to across the road. As a business leader you need to know your market, to understand your product line and investment, but also know your staff.

Building something for the first time could be scary, but sometimes business leaders over-analyze, they study too much but never execute; it is a sort of fear that’s paralyzing. But then there are other times, when people don’t think all the details through – they’ve missed something and they get hit. For me fear is my ally that always warns me at the right time.

I cannot but ask you – with your experience in sailing and diving, did you ever want to have an academy for sailing?

My passion is sailing, and there are a lot of academies that teach sailing. I did not want to compete with established schools – that was not my passion. My passion was utilizing my personal yacht to bring economic and political leaders together. There is no academy for things like that, this is built on relationships. If I go to a sailing academy I can charge somebody may be 20 or 25 dollars a day, but working for such amount does not pay the taxes. I may work a year on something that cost me a lot of money and a lot of time but the payout is substantial, so I am very selective about how I spend my time, because the most valuable commodity to me is my time and my freedom. I have seen brilliant business deals, incredible opportunities, but those opportunities were going to limit my freedom.

One characteristic of the entrepreneur is that he or she is willing to do it alone. What are your views on this?

One of my core companies is my motivational speaking business. I like running it just me and my wife. We do team building programs on the boat. If I want to scale this up instead of owning multiple yachts I just hire an extra team and train them. It is nice to have the flexibility of an entrepreneur. As self-employed, you have the freedom to choose at what profit or margin you wish to run your business with a small team or if you hire more people, how will those margins change?

How important is teamwork in running a successful business?

This is a question about specialized knowledge versus comprehensive knowledge. When you have a yacht, you have a crew – everyone with their own expertise. You also have a captain who knows what he needs to do and what all of those people on the boat need to do; he knows their weaknesses and strengths. At the end of the day all decisions are ultimately made by the captain with the input of the crew based on their expertise.

Part of the attendance during the Start Summit in St. Gallen, March 15-6, 2018

But when you are racing solo you have to know not just what’s good on the boat, you have to know what the external threats are. Did the builder build the boat right to sail? Do you have the right information? The same goes for running a business. As a CEO you have to understand things beyond your team. Now as entrepreneur I need to understand things holistically. I need to have a comprehensive knowledge of how to pull my team together to work on a deal, so I would hire people with very specialized knowledge.

I am a solo racing yachtsman – however, in order to execute a campaign to race alone around the world requires huge efforts from a very diverse team. I see my job as a leader of this team in the same way a music conductor looks at his orchestra. There are multiple moving parts that are happening in conjunction with each other and my job is to pull all the required expertise together and deal with their sometimes conflicting demands. (Excerpt from ‘Leadership and Solo Racing.’)

Neal Petersen during the intervention which elicited the feelings of the public, St. Gallen, Switzerland, 16 March 2018.

“As a CEO you have to understand things beyond your team. You need to understand things holistically.”

When it comes to building your own project, isn’t having a part time job the best thing to do as it brings you revenue while working on your project at the same time?

I would say yes and no. When building my boat, I was working in mining, and in the diving industry on different platforms and types of underwater operations. At that time my dream was to build my own yacht. So for few years I was working offshore and in my limited time I would work on my boat, but I was making little progress. After a while, I lost my job. My colleagues were very upset, but for me this was my blessing. I had savings and I finally got the boat done.

There comes a time when you have to bite the bullet. You need to commit fully to fulfill your dream. If you stay one foot in one out, you better learn how to do the splits, and you better have very long legs! I prefer to be all in. I may not always have all the answers, but I always find a way. You always need to start somewhere. People who wait probably don’t make it, because there will never be a perfect time.

Neal Petersen on the podium accompanied by his wife after his speech that attracted the attention, St. Gallen, Switzerland, March 2018.

Neal Petersen had big dreams… why shouldn't you?

*THE END*  .... read part 1