“I was told I couldn’t walk properly anymore, but I ran around the globe 8 times!!”
Ernst Schuler | Founder
My Story
I was born in 1958 in Sattel, in the canton Schwyz, in Switzerland. Sattel is a tiny village with a population of 1500. Both my parents are from this village and I was the third out of five children. As a young child, I grew up in this beautiful, peaceful village with the longing to leave this small village and to see the big world out there. At the age of 12, I already knew that someday, I was going to marry a foreign girl.
In January, 1983, I married my Japanese wife who I met in an English language school in Edinburgh. We lived together in Switzerland for a brief 10 months after our marriage, then relocated to Tokyo, Japan for 16 years where we were blessed with 3 lovely daughters. Following this, through my career progression, I moved to Hong Kong and lived there for 20 years.
In my professional life, I started my banking career at Credit Suisse in Zug, Switzerland at a young age of 16. I worked with Credit Suisse for 8 years and 37 years with UBS out of which 10 years was in Switzerland, 16 years in Japan, and 19 years in Hong Kong. Since 1996, I was the Country Team Head for the Japan International Wealth Management of UBS and in 2004, I was nominated as a Managing Director.
Currently, I live in London with my wife and my youngest daughter and her husband. I continue to live my life to the fullest as a loving husband, father, and a mentor in hopes to help anyone find their own success and fulfilment in life.
My turning point was being told I was not doing enough
I was 12 years old was when I got in my life changing ski accident where I severely twisted my left knee. After what seemed like endless torture, I was in a cast for 4 months. After some rehabilitation, we were convinced that my leg was back to normal, only to realise that 1 year after the accident, I could hardly walk. My leg health took an extreme downturn when the accident stunted the growth of my thigh bone and also caused my left tibia to grow out of line. Due to this, my left leg was shorter than my right and I could hardly walk.
To correct this, I had to endure 5 major operations, 1 operation every year to fix my knee in hopes to make them the same length again. During this time, I suffered from serious stomach ulcers due to mental and physical stress of the operation and the lack of mobility I had that my weight plummeted to 32kg and had to be hospitalised to regain my strength.
At 18 years old, I had my fifth and final operation. I began to feel better day by day and attended my rehabilitation. After some time, I went to see my doctor for my check up in hopes that he will tell me now that it will be over now. But he took one look at me and bluntly said, “Ernst, you are not doing your best, this is not enough progress. I did my best to fix the length of your legs, now it is your turn to make them stronger to support you or you will not be able to walk properly ever again.”
I was shocked and felt a big pit in my stomach, confused with his blunt words. On my train ride back, I reflected on his words carefully and as soon as I got home, I went into the forest and began walking uphill on my crunches as tears began to roll down my cheeks. The pain was excruciating but my will to improve was stronger. From this day on, I walked everyday, up the hill in my crutches. After about a few weeks, I noticed my legs beginning to strengthen and I was able to transition to walking uphill without the use of crutches. This then, moved on to a fast walk, to a light jog, to running and I noticed how much the running helped me fuel the positive energy in my mind.
Those words from the doctor telling me that I was not doing enough 45 years ago had a life long lasting impact on me and I became addicted to running. Since then, I ran for 32 years non stop without a single day of break and have ran about 350,000km which is approximately 8 times around the globe! Today, I still do a lot of sports but since June 2019, I transitioned to cycling to adjust to my new life cycle and for my knee health but I have kept it up doing my best every day!!
