Transcriber: Rosa Sekar Mangalandum Reviewer: David DeRuwe
Have you ever had an adventure change the course of your life?
For me, it was Denali, a mountain in Alaska.
At over 20,000 feet, Denali is the tallest mountain in North America,
and because it sits near the Arctic Circle,
it’s actually colder than Everest.
This was the first big adventure my friend Steve Gasser
and I set out to do to test ourselves against the mountain.
As we flew in, our team of six novice mountaineers
stared out the window in awe at this overwhelming mountain.
It was just bigger than ourselves and what we could possibly imagine.
When we stepped off the plane onto the glacier,
the reality of the work in front of us started to set in.
Our first objective was to climb up to14,000 feet
with over 100 pounds worth of gear.
We hauled 55-pound packs and 45-pound sleds,
and worked our way up the glacier.
After a long day of climbing, we thought we were done.
We got to our first night, and we had to build a wind wall
out of 100 blocks of snow in order to protect our tents.
In the photo, we’re looking strong and confident.
In reality, we were totally exhausted.
This photo shows us looking good,
but in reality, our confidence got shattered almost immediately
as the climbers started dropping out.
The first to go was our climber who was the strongest technically,
but he just started complaining about it was too hard to carry his load.
Although he was technically strong, he just wasn’t willing to do the work.
As we got up to 14,000 feet,
we heard the news that two climbers just in front of us on the ridge line
had fallen to their death,
and another climber was missing after falling into a crevasse.
Perhaps this was the news that started the spiraling doubts
in another climber of ours, who all of a sudden
started questioning everything from the gear to the weather.
I could look in his worried eyes and see that his doubts were defeating him
and that there was no way he’d make it to the summit.
The next afternoon, he was headed for home.
By 16,000 feet, our two strongest climbers were physically spent.
They were forced to drop out.
I was stunned.
I couldn’t understand why a skinny guy like me was still climbing,
and they were done.
They had not realized
that it was a mental game of efficiency,
and they had tried to muscle their way up the mountain.
So now it's just Steve and I and our guide.
And as we ascended up this narrow ridgeline to 17,000 feet,
the wind whipped up, and a snowstorm set in.
And now the visibility is like 20 feet in front of us
and the temperature drops to 40 degrees below,
minus 70 with the wind chill.
And to make it worse, Steve starts feeling awful from altitude sickness.
Pretty soon, he’s incapacitated with a massive headache
and vomiting associated with cerebral edema, which is very dangerous.
As we hunkered down in the tent to get out of this storm,
there was little I could do for Steve.
The storm prevented us from descending that narrow, dangerous ridgeline,
and we couldn’t call in a helicopter.
All I could do for Steve was try to keep functioning,
manage the situation as best I could, and hope that he would get better.
After three grueling days of wrestling with my own anxiety
and trying to keep calm, Steve had enough strength to get out of his sleeping bag,
but the storm was still raging.
After six long days, the storm finally stopped, and the sun came out.
And there we were. We made a decision to keep pressing on towards the summit.
So the next morning we got up, we set out, and we had to trudge
our way through the thick snow all up the last 3000 feet to the summit.
And here we are taking in the view
and grateful for all that we’d been able to accomplish.
(Applause)
Unfortunately, this was the last adventure Steve and I had together
because within three months, he suddenly passed away at age 46.
So in honor of my friend and climbing partner,
I committed to do the Seven Summits, and in honor of him,
I took his photo with me to the summit of Everest.
I learned more from Denali than any of my other climbs.
I’m so grateful for the lessons I’ve learned
because they enabled me to receive that world record
for being the only person to have climbed the 7 Summits and sailed the 7 Seas.
Here are the four key things that I learned:
First, self-efficacy.
That is the belief in our own capability to achieve our outcomes in life.
It was actually after we summited Denali
that I then started to envision this whole idea,
while we were still on the mountain,
of doing the seven summits and seven seas.
Secondly, its determination,
and I realized and gained the insight that determination is much more than grit.
It includes all the elements, like the initiative -
taking initiative for problem solving, planning, perseverance,
all the things that need to come together
in order for us to continually succeed in life.
Third, resilience.
Denali tested me in new ways
and challenged me to find ways to manage my anxiety
and to come up with new ways of coping.
Because of that, I’m better able to manage uncertainty and take on risk
and find new opportunities to succeed.
And fourth, and most importantly,
this adventure taught me about an adventure mindset -
this willingness to engage in challenging opportunities
for personal growth and to take on these adventures,
and that as we do, we gain an increased tolerance for uncertainty,
our ability to take on desirable difficulties,
and to use that to build our resilience and our capability
so that we can endure through temporary discomfort and deferred gratification.
(Applause)
Fortunately, not all adventures have to be so extreme for them to be effective.
What’s key is that each one push us outside our comfort zone
and challenge us in novel ways.
It's the unpredictability of adventure that makes adventure enable us to grow.
If we, as adventure participants, aren’t able to truly affect the outcome
of the experience, we don’t grow from the experience.
In fact, it’s really just entertainment, and we don’t gain much from that,
(Applause)
no matter what our mountains are that we’re considering climbing.
Some are very visible.
Others are invisible and within us that no one can see.
I know that every adventure starts with a choice.
We choose to either stay in our comfortable status quo,
or we choose to venture forth
down a path of uncertainty that leads to personal growth
and the fulfillment of achieving new summits in life.
I also know that as we make progress down that path,
we become the hero in our own journey,
and feelings of hopelessness and despair fall by the wayside,
and they’re replaced by thriving.
I love adventure.
This is why adventure matters.
Thank you.
(Applause)