I would like to say that I always dreamed of climbing Everest. That even as a toddler I had photos of Everest and legendary climbers plastered on the sides of my cot. The truth is perhaps a little different. I grew up in Egypt. And Egypt, although a beautiful land full of charming people and countless natural and historic treasures, it is not a very mountainous land. Luckily, it is also not a very cold land. In fact, outside of your kitchen freezer, the chances of encountering ice is very remote. Some folk say it snowed here once some two hundred years ago. Perhaps this is true and is recorded in some dusty journal somewhere but to me and several generations before me, this seems a most unusual occurrence. So how does an Egyptian decide to climb Everest? Is he merely mad or perhaps there is a string of unlikely events that have led to this. Let me tell you a little story. As a child I wasn't particularly sportive. My parents took me to the?occasional tennis practice. Born in Wimbledon round the time the?tournament was being played, they probably thought I am destined to be star. that the cosmos was trying to tell them something. Sadly, I was never much of a tennis player, neither did I like playing it that much. When I was 11 I developed a nasty chest Asthma. I would wake up in the middle of the night breathless. I eventually went to a doctor and he said it would gradually go away as I reached?adolescence. That, or you can start running and it will go away faster. This somehow reminds me of the movie Forrest Gump for I ran and then I ran some more. In many ways I have never stopped running. The Asthma?disappeared in 1 or 2 months. I took up Squash for several years and then during one summer I grew several inches so started playing basketball which I did competitively for many years. I remember Everest always amazed me but I had never given climbing a second thought.? At the age of 16 I went to Switzerland during my school holiday. It wasn't only the first time I saw snow, but I also walked in it and I climbed, a small 2000 and something meter mountain in the Alps. It was a short trip but it kindled something inside me. I?realized how much I loved the mountains and my fitness allowed me to climb well. I still remembering getting to the top ?of the mountain first and finding a logbook under some rocks with many pages of people who had summitted that mountains. I flipped through it quickly to find that I was the only Egyptian. I felt proud making that entry, I wrote my name, drew our flag and some pictures of some pyramids. I got back home, played basketball and forgot all about mountaineering. ?? In 2000, at the age of 21, having recently graduated from the American University in Cairo with a BA in Economics, I left Cairo to pursue my dreams of working and making a successful career for myself abroad. Everything went as planned. I landed a cushy job in a bulge bracket investment bank, did very well there and had an ever blossoming social life. On one sunny London afternoon, i met with a friend for lunch. Him and I would meet occasionally to talk about our current lives and future ambitions. We would often fantasize about how we would one day travel the world and explore its many cultures and landscapes. On this day we spoke about something a little more specific, he proceeded to tell me about a cycling trip he had done alone from Nice to Naples. The idea, albeit so alien to me at the time, excited me in many ways and surely enough, four months later i was alone on a plane to Sevilla with a bicycle and a map of Andalusia. The two weeks i spent touring the region were physically grueling but evoked many feelings and thoughts that had been waiting to surface. I realized how passionate I was about traveling, exploration, pushing my own personal limits and comfort zones and I began thinking deeply about many things I had previously taken for granted.? This was almost 5 years ago. Since then, while building my career, I have travelled to more than 35 different countries immersing myself in as many cultures as possible. I developed a passion for understanding human interaction and for the outdoors. Perhaps my strongest connection was with the mountains. At first I was happy to walk in the mountains, breathing the crisp air and admiring their snow capped peaks from afar but soon this was not enough and I wanted to get to the top of those very peaks myself. I began developing my climbing skills. First in South America and then all around the world. Every time I try to climb something a little more challenging, slowly developing my skills and abilities. I became convinced that one day I would seize the opportunity to attempt Mount Everest but when and how I didn't have a clue. I've always been inspired by tales of great explorers and adventurers. It would amaze me that despite how little their endeavors made sense at the time, they were always fueled by something greater than themselves to endure with it. For me it has always been a sense of national pride. I have taken the Egyptian flag with me on every mountain I climbed since that first Swiss climb at the age of 16. Today, I am still developing myself and I am fueled with an ambition of doing things that impact the world in a positive way, both professionally and personally. In October 2005, I began my MBA at London Business School, a move I am extremely proud of. It gave me a chance to develop my skills and pursue my professional ambitions. I am looking forward to working in an environment where I can grow and help as I believe it is important to proceed with passion and enthusiasm in all aspects of life. Then the unexpected happened.?Three months into my MBA program and a classmate announced he wanted to organize an expedition to climb Mount Everest and was gaging interest in the school. When I read that email my heart skipped a few beats. I always knew doing an MBA would be extremely demanding but an opportunity to fulfill a life-long dream, climb the world's highest mountain and be the first? Egyptian to do so, is too hard to resist. Besides, I was never one to shy away from challenges and so the decision was taken. It has now become increasingly clear to me that one can plan their lives as much as they want and although this is good, one must be ready with all their learnings and experiences to follow their intuition and forge their own paths. In many ways, you can say that Everest has chosen me but in many others, and regardless of whether I succeed or not, I feel that I was born to do this.?