the average life expectancy in the UK is
81 years old that means if you’re now 16
you’ve got just 65 years left on this
planet if you’re already 26 that’s just
55 years left what are you going to
achieve with your remaining time on
earth what is your biggest ambition is
it to become a self-made millionaire is
it to travel the world to settle down
and start your family or is it simply
just to be happy my ambition was to
stand on the highest point on earth the
summit of Mount Everest and realized
that there was nothing above me but the
as atmosphere and then out to space I
made this ambition reality not once but
twice before my 27th birthday now I am
NOT extraordinary I am as normal as any
of you I’ve simply adjusted my mindset
to believe that I can achieve something
extraordinary I have unlocked the true
extent of my resilience
now achievement in any form is not
reserved for certain people absolutely
anyone can achieve so I was 21 years old
when I joined my first expedition to the
south side of my Everest but actually I
had a mountain to climb before I could
even leave the UK Mount Everest is an
incredibly expensive mountain to climb
an expedition to either the North or the
South Side can cost anywhere between
like 30 and 80,000 pounds ridiculous
amounts of money and unfortunately I was
a poor university student with nothing
but like thousands of pounds of student
debt yet I somehow had to raise this
huge figure before I gave his step foot
on that mountain so I went about looking
for sponsorship I wanted to get a big
company on board to give me all of that
funding in return for like marketing
opportunities PR opportunities literally
anything I could offer them and I made
this huge big proposal in each week I
would send out like 30 or 40 different
companies and each week I would get
maybe 30 or 40 rejections or I just
wouldn’t hear back from them at all and
this was definitely the first big test
to my resilience those rejections hurt a
lot
so many times I felt like I should just
give up
many times I felt unworthy of getting a
sponsorship deal but a few friends had
told me that funding a sponsorship can
often come through like right at the
last minute so I persevered sending them
all out and just four weeks before I was
hoping to leave for Everest all of my
funding finally came through but can you
imagine if I’d like given up the week
before or if I given up after I got that
first batch of rejections I’ve never
even seen this mountain in real life let
alone reach its summit on the 19th of
May 2012 unlocking your resilience to
deal with that kind of rejection is one
of the most important things to
achieving any ambition now I think it
must have been maybe about a year or so
after the first-ever safe Edition that I
decided I wants to give back but this
time I wanted to climb Everest from the
colder windier and much more technical
northern side of the mountain every
still held this kind of huge allure over
me and I really couldn’t like shake the
feeling that I only experience half of
this mountain
so I spent another three years
sponsorship hunting again training for
three years and then finally at the
beginning of April just last year so
2017 I headed off to Tibet to the north
side of the mountain we spent two
amazing months on this side of mountain
slowly acclimatizing our bodies to the
extreme high-altitude you face on my
Everest and when the weather looks safe
enough
we moved quickly all the way up from
base camp although it’s camp number 3
now camp number 3 on the north side of
my Everest is located at eight thousand
three hundred metres above sea level if
any of you guys ever heard of the Death
Zone before yeah a few of you doesn’t
sound like a great place so that for the
Death Zone is basically a phrase used by
climbers to describe the area above
8,000 meters if you remember the summit
of Everest is all web 8,848 meters above
sea level when we’re climbing in that
last section above 8,000 the such little
oxygen that our body is alike rapidly
deteriorating they’re pretty much dying
on themselves every minute we spend up
there in somewhere we want to spend as
little time as we possibly can but the
really tricky thing about the north side
of Everest is this camp here camp number
three already being at eight thousand
three hundred meters above sea level
you’re already 300 meters into the Death
Zone
every minute you spend up there in your
little tent your body is like rapidly
deteriorating now we arrived at this
10:00 at 4 p.m. on the 15th of May last
year and we’re planning on leaving this
tent at 8 p.m. on the 15th of May so
this gave us just like 4 precious hours
to mow enough snow and ice for drinking
water to rehydrate ourselves to cook
food and eat as much as we could to fuel
ourselves up and I really had to kind of
use these four hours to psych myself up
for a lie ahead stepping out at this
tent out into the Death Zone and what
promised to be the hardest night of my
whole life
by the time I’d reached his tent I was
already physically and mentally
exhausted we had four incredibly hard
days all the way up from base camp and
that idea of getting out the tent and
pushing through the night was so huge
and so scary now the Oxford English
Dictionary defines the word resilience
as the capacity to recover quickly from
difficulties Baxley to me resilience is
much more than that
I think resilience is this ability to
reach your previously thought limit and
when you arrive realising that you can
actually smash through that limit and
you can keep going and keep climbing
higher and higher resilience is
something we all possess but I don’t
believe many of us have yet unlocked the
true extent of our resilience so 8 p.m.
came around super quickly it was pitch
black I don’t remember any stars or moon
that night just as kind of thick
all-encompassing darkness we’re dressed
in our huge Hayashi suits Hayashi boots
oxygen masks goggles completely
encompassed in our own little world
we began out of camp quickly we gained
the northeast Ridge now the northeast
Ridge on my Everest leads you all the
way to the summit but along this Ridge
you have to climb these huge steep
technical rock sections you go down and
you Traverse along the face and you’re
going along tiny little rigid lines with
like endless drops down each side
completely terrifying the whole way and
in a way it was this really kind of like
lonely experience don’t get me wrong I
had like the most amazing team with me
but communication up there is so so hard
I was just in my own head the whole way
willing my body to keep moving
and that altitude that lack of oxygen
you get close to the top furthest is
just the most demanding thing you
literally take one step stop and catch
your breath take one step stop and catch
your breath and with each of their steps
your body is just screaming at you to
stop a rest to go down and get more
oxygen but somehow you just have to keep
your mind that little bit stronger than
your body and keep willing it to move
the next step and higher and higher now
after about eight hours of climbing
something incredible happened and this
is something that happens every single
day but most days we probably miss it
because we’re in our beds asleep but
when it happens in the mountains it’s
the most incredible thing and that is
the first light when that sunrise that
we’ve been climbing in all night starts
kind of evaporate around you suddenly
you can see the size of the ridge you’re
climbing on you can see the whole of the
Himalayas just sprawled out beneath you
literally mountains as far as your eyes
can see and at this point this is when I
finally saw the summit maybe like
another hundred meters or so up above me
and I think this is the point where I
knew I knew I’ll be returning to the top
of the world we pushed on and within the
hour I found myself in this final summit
ridge the huge orange Sun was just
beginning to rise on my left-hand side
there was this kind of like thick
blanket of cloud that just covered the
whole world about a thousand meters down
beneath me and only the highest
mountains in the world kind of popped
out at the top of it it was a complete
honor to reach the summit of Everest in
2012 but I think an even bigger honor to
return to the summit just last year from
the north side that feeling of getting
to the top of the world and those views
around me or my reward for my resilience
now resilient people are not born
resilient they have practiced it and
absolutely anyone can do it like
anything the younger we start practicing
resilience the better we become your
comfort zone that place that feels safe
and easy is right down here at the
bottom of the mountain people that live
their whole lives in their comfort zone
and never going to reach the top they’re
never going to reach their true
potential you need to step out of your
comfort zone spend as much time as
possible in your unlocking zone
and the more resilient you will become
so guys here’s my challenge for you I
want you to think back to that ambition
it could be the one to start or it could
be something completely new it will be
the top of your Mountain it will feel
probably completely impossible and it’ll
be way out of your comfort zone now
there are gonna be times multiple times
probably where you think you can’t do it
you think you can’t push on it all feels
just too big and too scary now when this
happens I want you to stop I want you to
take a breath and I want you to unlock
your resilience trust me it’s there and
the more you can break through that
barrier the easier it becomes now I’m
gonna let you guys into a little secret
so one of my secrets is that I’m
actually pretty scared of heights I hate
Heights
I always have had this fear and I think
I probably always will but by training
my resilience by spending as much time
as possible out of my comfort zone and
inside of my locker zone my comfort zone
has actually increased I’ve learned to
feel comfortable in situations that I
previously thought completely impossible
I’ve learned to control this fear of
heights and I think this has got me to
the top of the world twice but now guys
is up to you I am challenging you guys
to step out of your comfort zones to
embrace the unknown to push the
boundaries of your cumbers in and I am
super excited to see where all of you
guys are going to achieve with the rest
of your time on this planet okay thank
you [Applause]
81 years old that means if you’re now 16
you’ve got just 65 years left on this
planet if you’re already 26 that’s just
55 years left what are you going to
achieve with your remaining time on
earth what is your biggest ambition is
it to become a self-made millionaire is
it to travel the world to settle down
and start your family or is it simply
just to be happy my ambition was to
stand on the highest point on earth the
summit of Mount Everest and realized
that there was nothing above me but the
as atmosphere and then out to space I
made this ambition reality not once but
twice before my 27th birthday now I am
NOT extraordinary I am as normal as any
of you I’ve simply adjusted my mindset
to believe that I can achieve something
extraordinary I have unlocked the true
extent of my resilience
now achievement in any form is not
reserved for certain people absolutely
anyone can achieve so I was 21 years old
when I joined my first expedition to the
south side of my Everest but actually I
had a mountain to climb before I could
even leave the UK Mount Everest is an
incredibly expensive mountain to climb
an expedition to either the North or the
South Side can cost anywhere between
like 30 and 80,000 pounds ridiculous
amounts of money and unfortunately I was
a poor university student with nothing
but like thousands of pounds of student
debt yet I somehow had to raise this
huge figure before I gave his step foot
on that mountain so I went about looking
for sponsorship I wanted to get a big
company on board to give me all of that
funding in return for like marketing
opportunities PR opportunities literally
anything I could offer them and I made
this huge big proposal in each week I
would send out like 30 or 40 different
companies and each week I would get
maybe 30 or 40 rejections or I just
wouldn’t hear back from them at all and
this was definitely the first big test
to my resilience those rejections hurt a
lot
so many times I felt like I should just
give up
many times I felt unworthy of getting a
sponsorship deal but a few friends had
told me that funding a sponsorship can
often come through like right at the
last minute so I persevered sending them
all out and just four weeks before I was
hoping to leave for Everest all of my
funding finally came through but can you
imagine if I’d like given up the week
before or if I given up after I got that
first batch of rejections I’ve never
even seen this mountain in real life let
alone reach its summit on the 19th of
May 2012 unlocking your resilience to
deal with that kind of rejection is one
of the most important things to
achieving any ambition now I think it
must have been maybe about a year or so
after the first-ever safe Edition that I
decided I wants to give back but this
time I wanted to climb Everest from the
colder windier and much more technical
northern side of the mountain every
still held this kind of huge allure over
me and I really couldn’t like shake the
feeling that I only experience half of
this mountain
so I spent another three years
sponsorship hunting again training for
three years and then finally at the
beginning of April just last year so
2017 I headed off to Tibet to the north
side of the mountain we spent two
amazing months on this side of mountain
slowly acclimatizing our bodies to the
extreme high-altitude you face on my
Everest and when the weather looks safe
enough
we moved quickly all the way up from
base camp although it’s camp number 3
now camp number 3 on the north side of
my Everest is located at eight thousand
three hundred metres above sea level if
any of you guys ever heard of the Death
Zone before yeah a few of you doesn’t
sound like a great place so that for the
Death Zone is basically a phrase used by
climbers to describe the area above
8,000 meters if you remember the summit
of Everest is all web 8,848 meters above
sea level when we’re climbing in that
last section above 8,000 the such little
oxygen that our body is alike rapidly
deteriorating they’re pretty much dying
on themselves every minute we spend up
there in somewhere we want to spend as
little time as we possibly can but the
really tricky thing about the north side
of Everest is this camp here camp number
three already being at eight thousand
three hundred meters above sea level
you’re already 300 meters into the Death
Zone
every minute you spend up there in your
little tent your body is like rapidly
deteriorating now we arrived at this
10:00 at 4 p.m. on the 15th of May last
year and we’re planning on leaving this
tent at 8 p.m. on the 15th of May so
this gave us just like 4 precious hours
to mow enough snow and ice for drinking
water to rehydrate ourselves to cook
food and eat as much as we could to fuel
ourselves up and I really had to kind of
use these four hours to psych myself up
for a lie ahead stepping out at this
tent out into the Death Zone and what
promised to be the hardest night of my
whole life
by the time I’d reached his tent I was
already physically and mentally
exhausted we had four incredibly hard
days all the way up from base camp and
that idea of getting out the tent and
pushing through the night was so huge
and so scary now the Oxford English
Dictionary defines the word resilience
as the capacity to recover quickly from
difficulties Baxley to me resilience is
much more than that
I think resilience is this ability to
reach your previously thought limit and
when you arrive realising that you can
actually smash through that limit and
you can keep going and keep climbing
higher and higher resilience is
something we all possess but I don’t
believe many of us have yet unlocked the
true extent of our resilience so 8 p.m.
came around super quickly it was pitch
black I don’t remember any stars or moon
that night just as kind of thick
all-encompassing darkness we’re dressed
in our huge Hayashi suits Hayashi boots
oxygen masks goggles completely
encompassed in our own little world
we began out of camp quickly we gained
the northeast Ridge now the northeast
Ridge on my Everest leads you all the
way to the summit but along this Ridge
you have to climb these huge steep
technical rock sections you go down and
you Traverse along the face and you’re
going along tiny little rigid lines with
like endless drops down each side
completely terrifying the whole way and
in a way it was this really kind of like
lonely experience don’t get me wrong I
had like the most amazing team with me
but communication up there is so so hard
I was just in my own head the whole way
willing my body to keep moving
and that altitude that lack of oxygen
you get close to the top furthest is
just the most demanding thing you
literally take one step stop and catch
your breath take one step stop and catch
your breath and with each of their steps
your body is just screaming at you to
stop a rest to go down and get more
oxygen but somehow you just have to keep
your mind that little bit stronger than
your body and keep willing it to move
the next step and higher and higher now
after about eight hours of climbing
something incredible happened and this
is something that happens every single
day but most days we probably miss it
because we’re in our beds asleep but
when it happens in the mountains it’s
the most incredible thing and that is
the first light when that sunrise that
we’ve been climbing in all night starts
kind of evaporate around you suddenly
you can see the size of the ridge you’re
climbing on you can see the whole of the
Himalayas just sprawled out beneath you
literally mountains as far as your eyes
can see and at this point this is when I
finally saw the summit maybe like
another hundred meters or so up above me
and I think this is the point where I
knew I knew I’ll be returning to the top
of the world we pushed on and within the
hour I found myself in this final summit
ridge the huge orange Sun was just
beginning to rise on my left-hand side
there was this kind of like thick
blanket of cloud that just covered the
whole world about a thousand meters down
beneath me and only the highest
mountains in the world kind of popped
out at the top of it it was a complete
honor to reach the summit of Everest in
2012 but I think an even bigger honor to
return to the summit just last year from
the north side that feeling of getting
to the top of the world and those views
around me or my reward for my resilience
now resilient people are not born
resilient they have practiced it and
absolutely anyone can do it like
anything the younger we start practicing
resilience the better we become your
comfort zone that place that feels safe
and easy is right down here at the
bottom of the mountain people that live
their whole lives in their comfort zone
and never going to reach the top they’re
never going to reach their true
potential you need to step out of your
comfort zone spend as much time as
possible in your unlocking zone
and the more resilient you will become
so guys here’s my challenge for you I
want you to think back to that ambition
it could be the one to start or it could
be something completely new it will be
the top of your Mountain it will feel
probably completely impossible and it’ll
be way out of your comfort zone now
there are gonna be times multiple times
probably where you think you can’t do it
you think you can’t push on it all feels
just too big and too scary now when this
happens I want you to stop I want you to
take a breath and I want you to unlock
your resilience trust me it’s there and
the more you can break through that
barrier the easier it becomes now I’m
gonna let you guys into a little secret
so one of my secrets is that I’m
actually pretty scared of heights I hate
Heights
I always have had this fear and I think
I probably always will but by training
my resilience by spending as much time
as possible out of my comfort zone and
inside of my locker zone my comfort zone
has actually increased I’ve learned to
feel comfortable in situations that I
previously thought completely impossible
I’ve learned to control this fear of
heights and I think this has got me to
the top of the world twice but now guys
is up to you I am challenging you guys
to step out of your comfort zones to
embrace the unknown to push the
boundaries of your cumbers in and I am
super excited to see where all of you
guys are going to achieve with the rest
of your time on this planet okay thank
you [Applause]
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