Rafał Kochan – trainer, entrepreneur and and MBA lecturer. Od ponad 20 lat pomaga firmom budować strategie, zespoły i odporność w działaniu. He conducts workshops on leadership, motivation, and change management. Privately, he is an amateur athlete who in November was preparing for December’s Patagonman 2025 extreme race in Chile. He shares with Business HUB readers how he combines his passions for sports, education, and personal development.
Is the Patagonman event similar to Runmageddon, which is popular in Poland?
Definitely not. Runmageddon is a great, spectacular obstacle course competition, but Patagonman is a completely different dimension of effort and logistics. It is an extreme triathlon in wild Patagonia: starting in the icy waters of the Aysén Fjord, 180 kilometers of cycling on rough, windy roads, and a marathon ending in the mountains. There are no obstacles in the sense of structures – nature itself is the obstacle. It’s a race that’s more like an expedition than a competition. You earn every meter yourself, and every mistake costs you dearly. Patagonman does not test your arm strength or jumping ability – it tests your resilience, determination, and ability to stay calm in unforgiving conditions.
It is an extreme experience – both physically and mentally. Why would a coach and consultant with over twenty years of experience need this?
Because development begins where comfort ends. In my work as a coach and consultant, I tell entrepreneurs that change requires consistency, courage, and action. Patagonman is a practical application of what I preach professionally. It’s not a hobby – it’s a laboratory for mental resilience. Here, I learn humility, flexibility, risk management, and how to work with my own emotions. I then translate all of this into my work with leaders and companies. Extreme conditions reveal the truth: what works, what doesn’t, where we deceive ourselves, and where we can achieve more than we thought possible.
Your company’s website features the following quote: “Knowledge alone is not enough, you have to apply it… Willingness is not enough, you have to act.” Is Bruce Lee an unusual business and coaching mentor?
Perhaps unusual, but absolutely accurate. Bruce Lee spoke simply about what we now call “execution” – the ability to translate knowledge into action. In business, we often have everything: strategies, presentations, tools. But what is missing is what Lee called “action.”
Fot. Maciej Czarczyński.
Why are his words important to me? Because they remind me that in the end, it’s not declarations that count, but action. Not the theory of change, but change itself. And this is clearly evident in Patagonia: you won’t swim, drive, or run there by talking – only by doing.
Are sports and business related?
Here and there, strategy and team support are needed? That’s a huge impact.
Sport teaches what business often fails to work out in training rooms:
- a strategy that is simple, specific, and tailored to the conditions,
- consequences that cannot be avoided,
- teamwork, even if you run alone—because without the support of people who guide, advise, and motivate you, the finish line would be unattainable,
- regeneration, which entrepreneurs often forget about,
- making decisions under pressure when there is no time for calculations.
Patagonman requires a plan, but also a readiness for that plan to fall apart. And that is a vivid picture of running a business.
Is success about winning, or just reaching the finish line?
In extreme triathlons, success has a completely different definition. It’s not about the podium. It’s about whether you did everything you could.
Sometimes success is a strong result. Sometimes it’s just showing up at the starting line. And sometimes it’s pushing forward despite crises, cold, pain, and doubt.
The finish line is important, but it doesn’t define a person. What defines them is the journey, the process, the daily work, the hundreds of hours of training, and how they bounce back after failures.
Are you ready? What would you say to entrepreneurs who are just starting out or facing a crisis?
I am ready for whatever comes my way. At Patagonman, you are never 100% ready—and that is precisely why you have to get started.
I would say three things to entrepreneurs:
First: Courage does not come before action. It only comes during action. So don’t wait for the perfect moment.
Second: Every crisis is like cold water in a fjord. The shock passes. Then the work begins. First you breathe, then you swim. It’s the same in a company.
Third: Take small steps, but take them every day. It’s not the one who moves the fastest who wins, but the one who doesn’t stop. And one more thing: You don’t have to be indestructible. You have to be persistent.
Interviewed by Jaga Kolawa
Fot. Maciej Czarczyński.
SPORT AND MANAGEMENT, WHEN STRATEGY AND SUCCESS ARE BORN
This text was written just before Rafał Kochan’s start in the extreme Patagonman 2025 triathlon. In sports, as in business, there are moments when the cold takes your breath away and your plan seems fragile in the face of reality. Then only one thing matters—support. Rafał Kochan, coach, entrepreneur, and business development expert, combines two worlds in this personal story: sports and management. He shows that success does not come from courage at the start, but from the ability to reach the finish line—together with the people who are there from the first to the last kilometer.
Support is not a luxury.
It is a condition for survival. In Patagonia, dawn smells of salt, wet rock, and cold air from the mountains. This is how I imagine the first image I will see on December 7. The colors of the sky will change as if in a fast-forward movie – from navy blue to purple to steel blue. The mountains will remain motionless, and the fjord in front of us will only appear calm, because its water will be four degrees Celsius and will bite into the body like thousands of tiny needles. Standing there at the starting line, I know I will feel the same knot in my stomach and the familiar shiver down my spine that accompanies me before every great challenge. But before the signal sounds, I will look for her — my closest friend, my Supportwoman.
He’ll be there. In a puffy jacket, a hat pulled down over his ears, with the same calm smile I’ve seen dozens of times before. A smile that says, “You’re ready” — regardless of whether I’m about to swim across an icy fjord, lead a workshop for a team of managers, or sit down with an entrepreneur who, for the first time in a long time, admits that he doesn’t know what to do next. Because it is precisely then, in moments of greatest uncertainty, that true strategy is born — in sports and in business.
My thoughts return to 2019. The first MBA class in the “Business Plan Development” module. A group of students – experienced people with achievements under their belts, but with that slight uncertainty in their eyes that I also see in competitors before the start. The room smelled of freshly ground coffee, and the projector was quietly working in the background. We started with the question: “Is a business plan a tool or a formality?” Someone in the front row said, “It’s more like paperwork for banks, right?” I smiled and said, “That’s like saying that a triathlon route map is there to look nice on a poster. Without a strategy, you won’t finish the race. Without a good business plan, you won’t make it through your first year in business. In both sports and business, you need support. Someone who will support you in times of crisis.”
I know that on December 7, the first dip in the water will be brutal. My breathing will quicken, my heart will start pounding like a hammer, and my body will scream, “Get out!” But then I will remember how often I have seen the same moment in my work with entrepreneurs: the first steps in implementing change, the first decisions to hire a new person, the first openness to risk. There is always coldness. There is always resistance. And always the body, or rather the organization, screams, “Get out!” And yet you have to stay a little longer. Stick to the plan. Let the shock pass and the rhythm return.
Then clarity appears in your head. Just like in water, after a few dozen seconds everything calms down, your breathing normalizes, and the world takes on the right proportions. It’s the same in business — when a leader endures the initial discomfort, they suddenly begin to see where the finish line really is.
During my MBA, I often drew two columns on the board: SPORTS START and BUSINESS START. I wrote down the same points: schedule, budget, risk analysis, mental preparation, team role. I said: “You can be a great athlete or have a brilliant idea for a company, but if you don’t have people who will follow you, you will be alone at the crucial moment. And loneliness on the road and in the company costs the most.” Because support is not a decoration. It’s not a bonus. It’s a foundation.
I know that after getting out of the water in Patagonia, the wheels of my bike will take over, and the wind will hit me from the side – sharp, cold, with the smell of wet earth and pine needles. And I know that somewhere behind me will be the familiar sound of an engine – support is riding close behind. This sense of security in sport is exactly the same as in business: an operations department, a partner, an employee who “senses” when it’s time to step in and help.
I remember one of the participants in my business management workshop. He ran a small manufacturing business. He told me how his main customer withdrew from an order a week before it was due to be fulfilled. “I thought it was the end,” he said. “But the team found a new customer on their own. I came back to the office and they had a contract ready.” That’s what it’s all about — trust that works both ways. If you want your team to respond in a crisis, you have to let them make decisions, make mistakes, and have influence beforehand.
When I run a marathon in Patagonia, the road will smell of dust, grass, and wind from the mountains. Each step will be harder than the last, but somewhere along the route, I will see her with a water bottle in her hand and the same expression on her face: “You’re closer than you think.” I’ll take a sip and feel my energy returning. In business, it’s the same moment – when someone on the team comes up with a solution that saves the project, when an impulse appears that restores meaning and faith.
The finish line is still ahead of me. I imagine the cheers of the fans, the smell of hot tea from the refreshment station, the weight of my legs, and the fleeting relief. I know one thing – without her, there would be no finish line. Just as in a company, no strategy will work if you don’t have people who stand by you from start to finish.
In November, I look at the participants in my training courses and see in their eyes the same mixture of fear and excitement that I myself will feel in Patagonia. I tell them: „Take the first step. The rest will come along the way. But remember – you can’t do it alone. In sports and in business, success is a team effort. Find your support and take care of it as much as it takes care of you.”
The vision of the end gives meaning to every start. Because whether you’re running a marathon, building a company, or managing people, in the end it all comes down to one question: who is standing next to you when it really starts to get cold?
Fot. Maciej Czarczyński.
Post scriptum
The race went exactly as I had described. Even better. I was in my rhythm. Calm, focused. Silence in my head, fire in my heart. Everything I had trained for started to work like clockwork. And for a long time, I had the feeling that this time I would really “see it through” to the end. The best split times of my life.
And then — at the 112th kilometer of the cycling section — one pothole. One dull thud. And suddenly, something that was supposed to carry me further fell apart. The drive broke down. The start was over. DNF.
And you know what hurts the most? It’s not that there is no finish line. What hurts is that for a moment you feel as if someone turned off the light just when you finally see that you can do it, that you will make it, that you will do it.
But there is also another truth. A more important one. I wasn’t alone there.
Every kilometer was accompanied by my support team and people who believe in me when I fall silent. Messages that arrive at the worst possible moment. Cheering (shock) that turns a person into a rock. Family, team, friends, business partners, observers — everyone who added even one “you can do it.”
They were my driving force when training wanted to break me.
Today, I don’t have a medal. Today, I have something more difficult: gratitude and the decision to come back.
Because in extreme situations, sometimes metal breaks. Sometimes plans break. But if you have people around you, you don’t break!!!
Rafał Kochan
The interview and article appeared in the December issue of Business HUB.: READ HERE.