The Oprah Podcast - He Lost it All, Then Did the Impossible

Episode Date: October 20, 2026

In this episode we’re joined by Jim Morrison, the first person ever to summit and ski down the North face of Mt. Everest, a seemingly impossible feat. Oprah and Jim talk about his process of preparing for his historic ski run after previously attempting the climb twice before. Jim also reflects on the unbelievable tragedies in his life and how he managed his grief. Jim lost his wife and children in a plane crash in 2011, then his partner and fellow famed mountain skier, Hilaree Nelson, died in 2022 in an avalanche right in front of Jim. Academy Award winning filmmaker Jimmy Chin joins the conversation to give his perspective on how he and their film crew prepared to record this extraordinary accomplishment for a new documentary, “Everest, The Other Side.” WATCH THE MOVIE“Everest: the Other Side” will play in theaters and IMAX worldwide starting October 30th. 00:00:00 - Welcome Jim Morrison00:04:30 - What goes through Jim’s mind on top of Everest 00:07:12 - What drove Jim to ski down Everest 00:09:25 - Jim lost his partner Hilaree 00:12:12 - Jim’s loss of his wife and two kids 00:17:00 - Jim’s definition of grief 00:30:00 - He failed to summit Mt. Everest 3 times00:32:56 - Director Jimmy Chen joins 00:49:50 - A well-lived life Follow Oprah Winfrey on Social:https://www.instagram.com/oprahpodcast/https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey/Listen to the full podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0tEVrfNp92a7lbjDe6GMLIhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-oprah-podcast/id1782960381

My guest today is someone who endured unimaginable loss and then used that loss to fuel an endeavor that was simply impossible. Jim Morrison became the first person ever to ski down the north face of Everest. What made you think you could not only get to the top, but then ski down? There was someone missing, your life partner, Hillary Nelson. She was killed in a climbing accident three years earlier. And in 2011, your wife, Katie, and your two children were killed in a plane crash. How do you recover from that? Are there more mountains to climb or have you done the thing you came to do?

Hi, everybody. And so great to be with you on the Oprah podcast, whether you're in your car or you're on a walk right now or you're taking a break from work or all the caregiving that's going on in so many people's lives. I understand, I am grateful to be a part of your day, wherever you are. And you know, all of us face obstacles in our lives and losses in our lives. None of us are immune from that. If you keep living, it's gonna happen at some point

where you run into an obstacle or you have some loss. But my guest today is someone who endured unimaginable loss and then use that loss, to fuel an endeavor that was just impossible. It was simply impossible. And his life is a lesson that we can all learn from. I'm telling you, whatever you're going through right now, you're going to be so moved, so inspired by the tenacity, by the adventure,

and the living a fully alive life from my guest today. Even if you see what he accomplished, it is still hard to believe it. Let's watch. Every year, hundreds of adventure seekers flock to Nepal to attempt to climb the tallest mountain on earth, Mount Everest, south side. On the north face of Everest, the route known as Hornbine Kulah in Tibet is far more remote and even more challenging. Only five people in the history of the world have successfully climbed what's known as the super direct way. It's a 9,000-foot wall of snow, rock, and ice.

Last year, a group of mountaineers and filmmakers, including Academy Award-winning documentarian Jimmy Chen, successfully completed the notorious holy grail of climbing, the Hornbine Coolar. Then, one man in that expedition, Jim Worson, became the first person ever, only human being to ski down the group of the group. down the grueling vertical descent of the North Base.

Jimmy Chen and his team, who carried their cameras and gear over this unrelenting terrain, turned their breathtaking footage into a must-see documentary called Everest, The Other Side. This two-hour film follows Jim Morrison's heart-stopping journey. Everest, The Other Side, will play in theaters and IMAX worldwide starting October 30th. National Geographic calls Jim Morrison's incredible feat the most audacious ski run in history. Well, that it is. Jim Morrison, I'm so happy to have you here in the tea house.

I'm happy to be here. Listen, my eyes start watering and my heart starts palpitating when I look at that because I'm just like a blue-level skier. I'm not even trying to ever get to blacks. So when I look at that, I start to feel, What do you feel when you are looking at that? A little bit of that, a little bit of... Hard palpitations.

But a lot of just... I'm very proud of it. And it was quite a journey, quite an adventure. You know what it took to do that? And, yeah, like drinking from the cup of life in a very direct way. Ooh, I love that. Being really alive and really present and really focused. So what is actually going through your mind when you're skiing down a sheer cliff of ice on the world's highest mountain?

Well, first of all, just, you know, moments before, you've summited to the highest place on Earth. There is no higher point on Earth than where you were. You and your teammates, right? Yep. And while they are taking selfies and yay, yay, yay, and rah, rah, roaring, you are preparing to ski down. I'm preparing to ski down and it's very, what's in front of me is very serious

and very scary and the conditions are really difficult and I just kind of tuned everything out and got laser focused and took a real lifetime of experience and convinced myself in my doubt that you got this. This is what you're here for.

This is your moment. Go do it. And is there a part of you also that feels in that moment this could be the last moment? You were very much aware that this could be the last moment. I was very much aware that if I made a mistake, I had told my partner, Jimmy, if I make a mistake and I fall, I'm just going to relax. Jimmy, the director.

Correct. Yeah, we're going to talk to Jimmy Chin later because when you're looking at all those magnificent shots, those of you who are not just listening to us, but also viewing us here. those magnificent shots will become a movie that you must go see this movie. And when I first saw

just the few clips that I saw and was able to preview, I started to weep because of the majesty of it all because I just can't even imagine what it would be like to actually be there, but also to carry that freaking camera on your back and do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And so Jimmy, who you had gone to and asked him at some point years ago to film this was your partner. And you had said what to Jimmy? I had just told him that if I made a mistake or something didn't go right, I was going to relax. Because it was in the type of condition that if you fall or you lose an edge, you're going to go to the bottom of the mountain in a hurry. And it's all going to be over. But at the same time, I knew I could do it. And my team knew I could do it. I had everyone around me, had a lot of confidence and instilled a lot of confidence in me.

Mm-hmm. So are you just a superhuman? Is there a different way of thinking about life that you have that most of us don't have, that drive to do the impossible? I mean, I don't have any of that. I don't have that adrenaline-sinking thing. I mean, like a brisk hike up a mountain is about all I can handle, you know. And so what's inside?

you that makes you take on a challenge, like skiing down the most unforgiving side of Mount Ephraist? What do you have to have? What do you have the, what do you got that we ain't got? I would argue that you have a lot of it. And I do not have an extreme amount of tenacity and will and drive and direction in your life. Yeah, for other things. For other things. And for me, this was my passion. It feels like who I am and what I'm here for is to do this. That's what I'm good at. I've been dreaming about it and visualizing it

and thinking about it my whole life. So what made you think you could not only get to the top, but then ski down? Well, I had an amazing team of really elite Sherpa and climbers from this team from Ecuador. that I've climbed with before. I think everybody knows what a Sherpa is by now, but can you explain it? Yeah, Sherpa is a community that is from Nepal,

and they are incredible mountaineers, incredible. They've lived at high altitude. They've lived there their whole lives. And so they... On these guys and girls that I worked with were just experts at climbing big mountains and what it takes to move equipment and move ropes. and get up the mountain and move to the camps. This is what they've been doing all of their lives.

This is what they do. This is their career. And they do this for a living. And it's also a deep passion for them. Maybe you're feeling it too with so many ways to reach each other. It can be easy to mistake being reachable for being truly connected. But I've learned that what many people are longing for is just to be heard, truly heard by another person. That's what we're trying to do here on the Oprah podcast.

I see you contemplating and I can see that you're seeing yourself a different way after he said that. Making space for real connection because every time we stop and actually listen to each other, something shifts, something opens. AT&T believes that too. The right connection at the right moment between the right people can change the course of a day. A relationship and even a whole life. So the next time you reach for your phone to call someone you love, know that AT&T is with you, keeping that connection strong because AT&T is there when the connection matters.

And connecting changes everything. Okay, so you were up there with 11 other climbers, but there was someone missing, your life partner, Hillary Nelson, and you all were planning to ski down, but she was killed in a climbing accident three years earlier. So what did you want people to know about Hillary? Hillary was an incredible influence on my life. And we met climbing a mountain not far from Everest and started to see the world through a similar lens and spent years climbing and skiing and chasing our dreams and she was a passionate mother and a passionate friend and I think she had an incredible influence on her community and young women and men in the ski world as just a real leader

of passion and drive and grace and beauty and you all had been together as skiing partners and partners for how long for seven years for seven years and you'd been doing this and going on these great life adventures and you were skiing three years prior. And I didn't understand, did she activate the avalanche or the avalanche had already started and she was overcome by the avalanche? Yeah, she started skiing

and she started a very small avalanche, like the size of this room we're in. And just a small pocket of snow broke free and she was swept off her feet. and had a... Were you there? I was. She was just above me and slid right by me

and the snow actually hit me and I sort of skied out of it and stopped and just spent hours trying to get down to her and help her and find her. And I just was convinced she was okay and she needed help. And that turned into me skiing off the other...

We were at 26,000 feet when this happened. So we were at experience. extreme altitude and I skied off the other side of the mountain and got a helicopter and tried to go look for her and find her and rescue her. Eventually, I found her two days later and she had been killed in the fall. And my whole world closed again. And I was devastated. I was really grateful to have found her. It sort of started this journey of grief and loss for the second time in my life, losing my... So let's go back to the first time in your life. So you grew up on a mountain and you grew up being really connected to nature and were you like a hiking, skiing young boy?

Was your family adventurous? Yeah, I grew up in Walnut Creek, California. and my parents were very interested in getting us outside. My mom certainly just pushed my brother and I outside and didn't want us to spend too much time inside. And we had a VW bus of Volkswagen van, and we drove around in that and camped in it and traveled across the country in it.

And just from a young age, nature was a big part of my life and a really important part. And then I just got excited about skiing and started from a really real, really young age, went to my parents and said, I'm going to be a skier. And they said, okay, well, how are you going to do that? How are you going to make money? And I said, I don't know, but that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to be a skier. Wow. And then you met somebody who was the perfect partner. And then I met Katie. She was from Lexington, Kentucky. She walked on to the

Georgetown basketball team. She was from a completely different world. And she knocked my socks off. and I pivoted 180 degrees and really just fell in love with her and got married and started a family and started a business. And what was your business? That's a construction business in Lake Tahoe, building homes. So I'm asking because you got married, had a business, and say, okay, I'm going to put some of that, I'm going to put that skiing thing aside. Yeah, and I didn't ever turn it off, but I certainly did a lot less of it and was driving to the ski hill on a really good day. after it snowed and turned the car around and went back to the office because I became really passionate about my work like I was passionate about skiing and just had a different lifestyle.

And then in 2011, your wife, Katie, and your two children, six-year-old Wyatt and five-year-old Hannah, were killed in a plane crash. Can you share what was going on, what had happened, and how you found out? They were in Los Angeles visiting a friend and flying to Las Vegas to be with a friend of Katie's whose husband was going through some chemotherapy and cancer treatment. She was flying. She was flying, the plane. She was a pilot. And she was with both of our children. And the plane crashed.

and I at that moment was skiing and gotten an accident and hurt myself pretty badly, hurt my ankle. And I was calling her, looking for her help. Trying to figure out what I should do. It's what you do. You call your partner. And she didn't answer. And so I started to look for her and figure out where she was. And I called the person that she was supposed to meet at the airport.

And they said she never showed up. and I called the FAA, which is kind of like calling the police on your partner. Yes. And I just had a, I was really concerned. And about it. By that time, you're not even thinking about your injury. You're thinking about what has happened to my family. 100%.

37-year-old Katie Morrison was an experienced, licensed private pilot. She was working on her commercial license and had recently completed her first angel flight. to transport patients. On March 20th, 2011, Katie, along with her six-year-old son, Wyatt and her five-year-old daughter, Hannah, took off in a single-engine Cesta from John Wayne Airport

headed for Las Vegas. At around 12.40 p.m. that day, witnesses say their plane spiraled out of the sky in a fiery crash outside Barstow, California. Wyatt was a kindergartner. He loved to ski just like his father. Little Hannah was in pre-kindergarten. She liked art and making jewelry and love riding her bicycle right behind her big brother.

About an hour later, I got a phone call from someone, and he was a friend of mine that I'd reached out to, and he'd worked in the air traffic control world, and he had called some friends in the air traffic control tower, and he just said they're gone, Jimmy. Wow. And I couldn't conceive of that. I was saying, what do you mean? What do you mean? Where are they?

And I got off the phone and I just was broken in every capacity, losing your wife and kids in the same moment. My whole world was gone. And I didn't know if I would just disappear. I remember standing, I was right in my. next to my front door pacing back and forth trying to figure out what happened and got this phone call and thought I might just turn into sand. And then hour by hour, I just started to go to the kitchen sink and drink a glass of water. And people came over.

My community showed up. People started to come into my house. And I had a wonderful community. try to support me and keep me afloat. And I just lived months and really years of life and shock and grief. Disbelief that this has happened, yeah. I know. I heard you say once that grief is a blanket.

Grief is like a blanket, like you were, meaning you were covered in it. Yeah, I felt like, and I feel like it's a good metaphor for what grief feels like. It starts just like a big, heavy, wet blanket. It really weighs you down and you feel suffocated by. And over time, I've learned to crawl out from under the blanket and dry it up and fold it up and carry it with me.

It's not something that you move past or take off of you or get rid of. It becomes part of you and something you carry with you. and it's not something I think I'll ever move past in my lifetime. You don't move past it, but have you found that the blanket gets lighter? Yeah, you dry it out, and maybe it doesn't just get lighter, but you get used to carrying it. And I walk uphill a lot, often with a backpack. And I just feel like that blanket is just, it's always with me.

I don't want to get rid of it. It's my connection to them, and it's my tie to them, and I want to talk about them every day, and I want to commensurate with them every day, and I want to live my life in their honor every day, and it's not something I want to leave behind. And so do you feel that you do commiserate with them? I do often.

I have moments where I have beautiful, I see beauty in the world, and I think about them and I talk to them once in a while, and I don't, I spent many, many years waiting for them to come visit me, waiting for flowers to be on the table when I came home, waiting for the light to turn on and have some divine intervention and was just a little upset or a lot upset at when was this going to happen. And I think over time I just started to accept that,

they're in a good place. A different form. A different form. And they've, you know, I strongly believe that they, particularly my children, somehow served their purpose here with us and are in a different form in a different place. I heard that they spoke to you when you were on top of the mountain. Tell me about that. Yeah.

So seven years after this accident, I climbed Mount Everest for the first time. And just before I left on the trip, Hillary asked me, when you're up there, up really high, what do you think about the netherworld, something like that? And what she meant is when you're in this extreme environment with very little oxygen, you almost feel like you can reach into this other dimension. Tell us what do you mean by the?

other dimension. Like a place where we aren't meant to stay and maybe a place where the other side of our reality. Okay. I guess it's sort of a metaphor for if you were to go over the other side of the ridge, you're not going to come back. You're going to perish over there. You have to stay very focused on what's in front of you and take care of yourself. But I turned to Hillary and I said, I don't know, that's a really good question. And she had been up there before. She'd been to the top of Everest and to the top of Lozze, which is a neighboring mountain.

So this was your... This was the first... This was your first trip. I had climbed another 8,000 meter peak called Cho OU, not far from there. And I'd been on Makaloo with her a few years earlier, but I didn't make it to the summit. we were turned around on our attempt. And so as I'm climbing on Summit Day, I'm ahead of my team, I'm by myself,

and I have this visitation from my children, this thing that I'd been staring out into the ocean waiting for or being on a river hoping they would appear out of the forest on the other side of the river and just give me a sign that they were okay. And for the first time, After this conversation with Hillary, I had this moment where I felt like they were with me and they were cheering me on. And I laughed and I cried.

And it lasted for like 30 minutes. It was a surreal, wonderful, just invigorating experience where I got a lot of comfort that they were okay and that they wanted me to keep going. This is while you were still in the climb. Still in the climb. To the summit. Short of the summit. And did you do you think you physically saw them? Or do you just felt their energetic presence?

I just felt their energetic presence. I didn't physically see them. They didn't actually appear. It wasn't just a vision. It was just an energy that I felt. Yeah. And it was spectacular and profound for me. And something I'd been trying to wheel into existence for many years.

And it comes when it comes. Yeah. It comes when it's ready. And I took all of it and loved it. And so I'm sure that helped you getting to the top, right? It did. It did. Absolutely.

And so when was the decision that after Hillary passed in 2022, the decision was that you were going to go, I'm sure that grieving process was its own? Because now it's as we said earlier in this conversation, This is the second time you lost your wife and children in 2011. And now 11 years later, you lose another love of your life, a partner where you thought you guys were just. Inseparable. Inseparable.

Symbiotic, yeah, relationship. And now she's gone. How do you recover from that? I know that you shared with us that you went back. It took several days to find her body. And then she was cremated there. There was a ceremony there. Yeah, we had a ceremony at this wonderful, historic temple in Kathmandu.

And I had an amazing community of support there and a bunch of seven monks that led this service. Her brother flew over. Jimmy Chin was there. A number of my other friends were there. this process was really profound for me. And I... The process of the finding and the burial?

The process of the finding was part of it. Yeah. So when I lost my wife and kids, I, the coroner told me he didn't think I should come see them. And I almost argued with him and he said, look, I'm not preventing you from doing this. I'm just recommending you to. don't do this. I don't think this is the last way you should see them. And I was haunted by those

visions that I created and concocted in my own mind for many years. So do you think it would have been better for you to see it? Perhaps. And when I lost Hillary, I went through this terrible process of trying to find her. And I dug her out of the snow and the ice. And I physically carried her to the helicopter and I was very intimate with her body afterwards and took her to this cremation ceremony

and then type of... Very intimate with her body, meaning you... Just around it and and you know, it was wrapped in this prepared in this beautiful cloth and it wasn't like we were actually with her physical body, but she was there. Her body was there. Yeah.

And it was placed on this fire, and it's a real fire with logs, and there's these boys tending the fire the whole time. And in my type A personality, I'm thinking, okay, I need to manage this. I need to make sure they do it just right. I have all this pressure are on my shoulders to perform this in the right way. And at the very end, they move these grasses that they constantly put on top, that keep the heat in. And those grasses light on fire for the first time

and just disappear in a matter of seconds. And what's left is nothing but ashes. And that moment was so profound for me that she truly was gone. When I found her, I knew her soul wasn't in her body. But now I've taken her body and it cremated it. And I bring the ashes back home and I just had such an ability to take a step forward with that

and not be haunted by what happened where she was. Was she okay somehow? I didn't have all those stories that I'd had with my family for 11 years. She sat there and you witnessed it. And it actually gave me a lot of comfort and understanding of my wife and children as well. and just acceptance that something similar had happened to them. Well, that's so interesting that you use the word acceptance

because that is the last stage of the five stages of grief. Once you get to acceptance, that and only then can you begin to move forward. And I understand, too, that during this whole, after this whole process, that you read Eckartoli's book, The Power of Now, and that helped you. Tell me how. You know, Eckhart is a dear friend of mine, and I've been preaching Eckhart, teaching Eckhart, living Eckhart for, you know, since the early 90s. Yeah, a very good friend of mine, somebody I looked up to recommended that I read The Power of Now. And then he asked me if I would listen to it as well.

And I did, and I was just fascinated by it. And it had a profound effect on me. And I loved the concept. And I'd listen to it over and over and over. And then I ended up flying to Vancouver and sitting down with that cart and spending time with him and trying to live and understand his teachings. And that concept of the past being gone, there's nothing you can do about it. It's over. And the future, a love his saying of nothing in his little Yoda voice. Nothing has ever happened in the future.

Nothing, ever. It doesn't, it's impossible. That's right. Everything only happens right now. That's it. Yeah, that's why it's called the power of now. I would have to say it was life-changing for me too. Yeah.

And through every crisis, every challenge, every difficulty, it has been essential, but also just incredible in terms of how I live my daily life. Yes. Every story we share on the Oprah podcast comes from a place of intention. Each guest has their own journey, and my hope is that sharing it with us here can help light the way for somebody else. And as the official insurance partner of this podcast, Geico understands that every journey feels a little easier when you know you have support along the way. It's the time of year when the weather changes, days get shorter. Calenders fill up and you find yourself back in motion again.

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Geico helps you stay covered through the turn. covered through the turns, the transitions, and the everyday miles. Because with the right support, we keep driving forward. And that, dear listener, is everything. Let's go back to the mountain. You chose the north face, the steepest, most dangerous possible route. I hear it's been called the most beautiful route on Everest, which is also a good book title, may I say. And I'm wondering if you use those principles getting up the mountain and getting down the mountain, the principles of you only have this now.

Yeah. Yeah. I think absolutely it's kind of become my passion and mantra of how I try to live my life, you only have right now. And certainly faced with all the adversity of getting up. up the mountain and all the things that could go wrong and are going wrong and aren't just right. You all were out there six weeks. Yep. Six weeks just getting up the mountain.

Six weeks on the third expedition to try to do this. So we went, we failed. We came back another year. We failed again. And we came back a third year and lived through all these storms and all this bad weather. And then finally got the moment. The universe finally granted us our first chance to go to the top. So Jim, tell me, what is it in?

you? Were you always this way, even as a young boy, that no doesn't mean no, failure doesn't mean failure. It just means, let's find another way. Let's find another way. Because, I mean, the first time I could say, okay, I'm going to try it again. And then the second time, I'd say, well, that is God speaking to me, telling me I need to move in another direction. The second time I did walk away thinking, okay, we're done. And this isn't going to happen in my lifetime. This isn't going to happen. And on the travels home, I started to think, well, I really, I know I can do this.

And my friend Conrad Anchor, who's an influential climber and mentor of mine, he said, look, sometimes these things take three tries. You learn a little bit the first time. So what did you learn the first time? Well, we've learned how to cross the river, how to get to the camp, how to get up to the face, which all were things people hadn't done in more than 10 years. So the route was undetermined. And we learned about how to organize the team on the face.

If we put the ropes in above Camp 1, the avalanches are going to rip them out. And we learned more about that the second year when we had an accident from going too high, too early in the season. And so year after year, we learned how to put the right team together and how to safely climb this face and get to the top. So what did the second run teach you that didn't work? That the team itself needed to be organized in just the right way. And we needed the right people who were, who really wanted to be there, who were really passionate about doing this. And I mean, this is like anything in life.

We picked an impossible goal and said, we're going to do it. We're going to achieve it. And how we did that, as we put together. together an incredible team of people that really believed that we could do it. Yeah. And didn't want to give up. Yeah, you have to have everybody that believes what you believe. We all work together and they were absolutely committed to it.

And we said, we're going to give us our best effort. And we might not achieve the goal, but we're going to try really hard. Okay. And we kept going. So speaking of the team, Jim and his team are featured in this, when I tell you, extraordinary, extraordinary new documentary with National Geographic Academy Award-winning documentary, Jimmy Chin, who directed this film

along with Chai Vesarelli. So Jimmy is joining us. Jimmy, thank you for joining us. Hi, hi, Oprah. Thank you for having. Jimmy, I just want to weep. I just want to weep, weep, weep, weep, and I bow to thee, I bow to thee for this accomplishment.

This is so extraordinary, and the visuals are so spectacular. So you say when Jim and Hillary first approached you to film their summit, that you felt both dread and inevitability. Why is that? Yes, I felt a lot of dread and I felt inevitability. You know, I think, as Jim has said, this is kind of like the holy grail of ski mountaineering. It's kind of like the last great challenge or the last greatest ski line that everyone in our

world knew about, but no one's been able to do. And I had spent two months there in 2002 and attempted it and failed and, you know, really got a good sense of what it was. And so I understood the scope and the scale, the risk and the difficulty of the proposition, both as an athlete, but also. was a filmmaker. And, you know, I had made the decision years ago that this, the North Face was something I wasn't going to do in this lifetime.

So I'd moved on from it. When they came to me, that's why there was some dread, because I definitely understood what it meant. I also understand Jim and Hillary. And, you know, they're very close friends of mine. And I knew they were the best possible team in the world to be able to pull it off. And I also knew that if they were bringing it up, that there was no stopping them from going to play. Yeah.

So that's why you felt in evidence. And also a part of you thought, okay, I thought I wasn't going to do it in this lifetime. But I guess I'm supposed to try it again. Well, I mean, I'm also a bit like them. You know, they believe in achieving. these impossible goals. And so I knew it would be impossible for me not to be involved, which is why it felt a little inevitable.

We picked a moment that was really good timing for him. He had just come back from Antarctica, just had this great success on this climbing this mountain with Conrad Inker on Olvatana and was on that sort of wave and high of coming back from a great success. And we decided this is our moment to go in and pitch him on this idea.

So, Jimmy, you're not only, as I was saying to the audience earlier, you're not only climbing the most treasurous root-up efforts. You're also, you're carrying the camera equipment, and you're making a film, and you've got to decide what shots you want. How does that complicate things for you, and how do you even begin a shoot like this? You know, most directors, you know, you have your boards, and you're looking at what you're going to shoot tomorrow.

I mean, how? I mean, like any huge project, you have to start breaking it down. And for me, it's really the foundation of the project. And just to be clear, I'm not the only person carrying a camera. There are people doing what I think is so much heavier work on the mountain than me. But I have an incredible team, just like Jim said, the Sherpa team is just, extraordinary, you know, they're actually carrying way more literal weight than I am. But, you know, like I said, in terms of thinking about how you kind of plan for a shoot like this,

you really have to break it down. And the first thing I think about is I approach it as an athlete first, you know, because the risks are so high. So you have to, like, really plan the production around the risks and safety. and you know you're filming one of your best friends doing something that no one has ever done before where the stakes are life and death and there's there's really no room for mistakes and you know he's skiing in what we call the no fall zone where you you can't make a mistake right if you if you blow an edge you're gone and the north face of ever says 9,000 vertical feet of no fall zone so you know

I understand, I have to look at that as an athlete or as a peer in that way, because the needs of the film can never supersede the needs of the athlete or like the climb, like meaning the cameras and production can't interfere with what he's doing. Because if he makes a mistake because of our presence, you know, we would never be able to, responsibility of that. So I heard that you call this expedition a masterclass in leadership and teamwork on Jim's part. How did Jim, that's also a good title for a book, how did Jim make the team believe in this seemingly impossible thing? I mean, this is a study in leadership.

It really is. And, you know, I've always believed that the greatest leaders lead by example, right? And Jim has lived this extraordinary life and really suffered more loss than anyone should ever experience. But the way he's decided to move through grief and his loss is something that, You know, I've been truly moved by and inspired by. And I know all of the team that he surrounded himself with all feel the same way. So, you know, that sort of inspiration for us was really critical. And that is a leader, not even trying to be a leader.

He's just leading. He's just doing what you need to do to get the job done. Yeah, and, you know, I got to see the choices that he made in life, and the team really respects him so much more as a human than as an athlete, even though, you know, I knew he was the one person on the planet that might be able to pull it off to, and I think everybody knew that as well. Yeah, yeah. So, first of all, congratulations on this magnificent piece of art that you've created,

art from the art, from the world of art. So I felt such majesty and power and also a deep sense of humility, just watching what you had filmed. And I just thought, wow, everybody in the world should see this film, and everybody in the world should take their families to see this film. it's just the kind of thing that you would you come away from it and you're just like you feel expanded by it you feel humbled by it and expanded by it that's what I felt when you were creating it what did you want people people to feel I mean I had some ideas about what the film could be but

in documentaries you never know it's going to happen and you know Hillary died while we were making this film. And so it's been a real journey. But at the heart of the films that I want to make is just, you know, there's this idea of kind of expanding people's understanding of the human experience, right? Yeah. But I think people will come into the film thinking

it's about climbing and skiing Mount Everest. Yeah. But it's really a story about love and loss. and how you move forward through life. And I want people to see the choices Jim has made even in the worst possible circumstances and how he still chose life. But not just life, you know, an extraordinary life

and to achieve the impossible. And I hope people are inspired by him. Yeah. I think the world is going to be so inspired by this story. and inspired by the way you told it. I mean, I thought the solo film, fantastic, wonderful, beautiful. You have outdone yourself here. You have outdone yourself.

Oh, we'll see. Oh, done yourself. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. So I just interviewed Jim Collins, you know, who is one of the world's leading experts on leadership, and he says that leadership is the art of getting people to want to do what must be done. Is that something you inherently knew or no,

or you just know instinctively, I got to get this guy and I got to get this woman and I get this and now I have the team that can do this. I think it's a little bit of inherent knowledge and instinct. Yeah. And I've worked with a lot of teams my whole life and in my business and in the mountains

and go back and forth between both of them and try to treat people the same way, empower people to do their best work. and give people the room to be their own self and take responsibility for themselves, but inspire them to do their best. I wanna go back to, can we look at the film for a moment? Because as I was saying earlier,

that when everybody else is like, Sovying and we made it and we got to the summit, you're thinking, I gotta get down this thing. You gotta get down this thing. And so in every moment, are you thinking, now I'm gonna turn and now, Are you thinking about where your knees are? Well, that's what I'm thinking.

I'm looking at the snow and the little ripples of ice and where there's somewhere I can edge and making sure. Because this is all icy this day. This is really firm. Yeah. Yeah. And that part right there, right there, where it's like a straight down. Yeah.

And then I'm thinking right here, well, I could repel, but I want to make these turns. This is my one and only chance to do this. This is my dream. This is what I've worked for. So I'm gonna make two more turns, and then I'm gonna ski over to the rope. And I use the rope through a section of the rocks there,

where it was impossible to ski. And yeah, I'm just appreciating the moment, and I'm very much in what some would call the flow state. I'm very focused on it. And as I get further and further down the mountain, into areas that on the way up, I didn't think I could ski. I didn't know you could edge like that. Like when you're going straight down a slope,

you can still hold yourself on the mountain. What is the rest of your body doing to keep yourself upright? You have to be very engaged. Your sense of fear says pull back, which would put your edges at a steeper angle to the snow and make you slide. You actually have to lean forward and push yourself forward and commit to every single turn. So you lean into the fear?

You're leaning into the fear and you're moving over it. And the fear is really not something that it's driving me. The fear is, the fear comes. This looks really scary. How am I going to do this? Okay, well, I know I can turn there and I know I can turn there. And that the rest of the fear, the irrational part that says fight or flight or freak out or get emotional. I just, that doesn't affect me.

I just turn that off. Because you are absolutely 100% just in this moment, just with the, this foot just with this edge. I have to be. And I'm only thinking about what's between here and six feet or 20 feet or 50 feet in front of me. What's literally right in front of me? I heard you say that you were the most fully present you've ever been in your entire life. Yeah.

Yeah. It was a special, it was a very special four-hour descent. And as I got further and further down the mountain, I gained more and more confidence. and what I'd seen on the way up and what I'd been afraid I wouldn't be able to ski because of the conditions once I got there, I just said,

you got this, this is what you're here for. And I felt like if I were to take a shot from the three point line and there were two seconds left on the clock, the ball was going to go in. And I just, the ball kept going in every shot.

And it's a special moment to get to that place in life. and what does getting to the bottom feel like when you got there uh it was a surreal spectacular moment crossing what we call the bird trend which is the crack where the glaciers pulling away from the face and getting into a safe environment for the first time in days I just had a extreme... By the time the altitude is what? Where are you?

20,000 feet. So now there's just like an incredible amount of oxygen up at 20,000 feet. I'm actually pretty comfortable at that altitude because I was so well acclimatized and I just have this emotional release that's... So your whole body sort of relaxes, yes. My body relaxes.

I wonder how am I still standing? How am I still standing? physically able to ski down to camp. And then I have this moment with Hillary, this connection to everything we had worked on together, everything we dreamed about together, finally getting down the mountain. And I talked to her and just felt the light, the air, the presence of her. I felt her there. I felt her on the summit where I just spread some of her ashes.

That was for you, Hal. Now it's for you. That was hard to stick through. A lot of years. A lot of hard work. Oh my gosh. I felt like she was with me in a way similar to that story I told you about... About your children.

My children. Yeah. I just felt her energy there. And I felt like she was proud of me and she was pushing me forward and she was happy that I'd persevered and stayed the course and saw this through. Yeah, I was...

So are there more mountains to climb? Are there more mountains to climb? Or have you done the thing you came to do? It's life. So there's certainly, there'll be new mountains in front of me that I didn't plan on and more mountains that I keep climbing for the rest of my life

because I love it. But there isn't another ski run that I have been thinking about and wanting to go do and laser focused on. Because you did the thing? Yeah. From the highest point. It's the thing. I mean, I'd like to go to the moon and see if we can maybe ski something there. But you can't go any higher on this planet.

Oh, gosh. All right. Yeah, it was a really special day for us. I'm really thankful that I was able to do it with this incredible team and share that as much as I could or could be done with Hillary. You're the guy who gets the credit because you're the face of it, and you actually did come down the mountain, but a whole team had to work to actually get you there.

Absolutely. Couldn't have done it without them. And I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to them. So I often ask this question on this podcast. What does a well-lived life look like? And in your tribute to Hillary, you wrote about that idea on Instagram. So can you share your thoughts about that? What does a well-lived life look like?

Well, I think it's different for all of us, but for Hillary and I, I think it looks like setting your intentions on something, you think is right, being able to push yourself and something you're afraid of, setting goals and achieving them by perseverance and hard work, and bringing other people along with you and sharing that joy of this magical thing that we call life. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to be sitting here with you. We're in this beautiful world, the sunshine, the birds are chirping, and I think appreciating those moments and moving forward with your community and in a way that hopefully uplifts the people around you.

And look, there's a lot of bad things that happen in our world every day and a lot of people go through a lot of hard moments. And I certainly feel extraordinarily fortunate to be where I am and doing what I'm doing and living the life that I've lived, even though I've had terrible tragedy. Terrible losses and obstacles. Well, you are a great teacher. I know that from the time you were a little boy,

you go to your parents and you say you were meant to ski, you didn't know that at the time that you were becoming this great skier, adventurer, would also make you a great philosopher and teacher for the rest of us. Because what I've gotten just from your story, even though I'm waiting on the ball, book, Jim. What I've gotten from your story is that all of us need to find our own ways of drinking more fully from the cup of life. So thank you for that. Thank you for that. Congratulations on that

remarkable and historic ski run for the ages. I also, Jimmy Chen, thank you so much. Their movie will be released as a national geographic documentary film. It's fantastic. It's magnificent. and everybody you know and your family should see this film. Go well. Meet up again next time, everybody. See you. Our listeners tell us that the podcast is resonating with you and is serving as a bright spot in your day.

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