I was super skeptical about doing TV. I said no three times, part of which was confidence because I didn’t really understand that world. I know how to climb mountains and do all that, but I wasn’t a TV person.
That for me was a great liberator to realize that the show isn’t about me running around, jumping off stuff and flexing muscles, it’s about inspiring people. That makes me really happy.
I started to get so many letters from unlikely people; a single mum going, “I watch your show, I’m not into survival, but I hold down four jobs and I get it when you say it’s about persistence and putting a positive attitude into things during difficult times.”
I loved climbing because of the freedom, and having time and space. I remember coming off Everest for the last time, thinking of Dad and wishing that he could have seen what I saw. He would have loved it.
I miss him still today: his long, whiskery eyebrows, his huge hands and hugs, his warmth, his prayers, his stories, but above all his shining example of how to live and how to die.
What I’ve learned over the years is that the path less traveled always makes for a more interesting journey. If you simply do what everyone else is doing, how can you ever expect to excel and create something wonderful and unique in your life?
“But, we’re also going to learn to look after each other, who to work together and who to understand and manage that risk.” That’s what it’s about, you don’t empower kids if you don’t expose them to risk.
Textbook survival says stay still, don’t take any chances, wait for rescue. That’s a boring TV show. My thing was always, “Listen, shoelace, dead squirrel and no other way down this rock face. You can do this!”
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