What feeling is that to lose a dear friend on an expedition with you? What feeling is that to have your one arm amputated? And despite this, what feeling is that to be on top of the world? Meet Gary Guller, the first person with one arm to reach the summit of Mt. Everest as he throws light upon his journey as he asks you to move onward and upward in his attempt to ‘Make Others Greater’.
‘We all climb our own Everest’
We all face challenges every day and some of them could be of the size of Everest. We keep thinking about these mountain-sized challenges and a lot of times, that prevents us from even trying. They seem to be preventing us from achieving our own goals. When someone wants to lose a little bit of weight, what’s the hardest thing? Getting off the couch! But at most times, we talk ourselves out of going for a jog so much so that we end up spending 45 minutes justifying why we don’t want to do it and create our own Everests that will prevent us from getting off the couch. We need to learn to climb these lofty mountains and reach the base camp. Sometimes, my biggest inspiration is that woman who has lost her husband, is raising three kids and working four jobs, and still doesn’t whine about wake up every morning to make ends meet.
People who are aware of their challenges and try to make a difference are the ones who know how to scale their own Everests. Sometimes, we fall but we need to learn to pick ourselves up and keep moving forward in our climb.
72 hours of darkness
It was one of the saddest days of my life. I was climbing a mountain that high for the first time in my life. Those were initial days of my career when I was fast-paced and raring to go. When I met with the accident, I lay down helplessly and the only thing running through my mind was that I was about to die. At that moment, my climbing partner and I said to each other, “Let’s just go to sleep. We did try our best and we are at the point of accepting our ends.” I woke up the next morning but my friend did not; he did meet with his end. Initially I was glad to have woken up but after that I was guilty that I had left my friend behind.For a moment, it didn’t matter to me whether I lived or died. It was a difficult two-three years of my life but I think God had a different plan for me. It’s at times like those that when we are pulled down, either we get sad and run away or pick ourselves up and keep moving forward. Nobody embraces death but we all think about it. The challenge is to sit back and wonder what makes life so special and worth living. This period taught me to embrace the gift of life and realize that life can be so much more different if we just reach out and give that extra 5% or 10% everyday.
Life Begins
I was a free-spirited teenager. I wasn’t very structured and never felt that all the rules applied to me. I had gone through the divorce of my parents when I was a kid and thus, was a little lost in my ways. The accident definitely gave me a little thump. I can probably say that losing that arm and coming back gave me that drive to scale that mountain. I am not sure if I had that true determination before the accident. The accident was a blessing in disguise. Although I gave people a lot of reason to abandon me, I had a core group of people who were willing to stick with me and pushed me to scale the peak.
There is a very important life lesson that I have learned after the 72 hours; that I need to take some time out and tell people how grateful I am and how important they are to me. Making them feel special magically invigorates their lives too. Take for instance, the coffee shop guy at the end of this road. I take four shots of coffee from him. He probably sees a thousand people in a day but for me, to look him in the eye and say ‘thank you‘ is going to take me a millionth of a second. That lifts him up. The next person who comes to the coffee shop sees the vendor all pumped up and that lifts him up. They both go in two different directions after that but they take that energy with them. Just do the math for the magic that this millionth of a second can recreate in lives. When I ran a marathon in the Sahara desert (That’s 252 kms in 6 days in 140 degree heat!), I wanted to give up every single day. But every time I had that discouraged feeling, I would look to my right or to my left, make eye contact with a fellow athlete and both of us would be spurred on to move ahead. We might not even speak the same language but that’s the power of people.
’35 years of passion, focus and dedication for 35 minutes on top of the world.’
I never gave up on my dream. I did have my pitfalls and challenges but I never lost sight of what I wanted to accomplish.
Did I try shortcuts? Yea. But the 35 years taught me that there aren’t any shortcuts in life. We get lucky at times but we create that luck from the opportunities we get.
I did the Ironman 70.3 Hawaii trialthon in 2012. How long was the swim? 58 minutes. But how many hours did I spend in the water before that? 1000s of hours. Was it worth it? Absolutely.
The journey for me was not the 58 minutes under the water. The journey was proving to myself that I showed up every single day to get into the water to remind myself that I was going to make it through.
First person with one arm to reach Mt. Everest
My Everest challenge was birthed out of an Inclusion Summit that I had attended. IIS is about raising awareness for people with physical challenges. We need to change the perception with which we see the differently-abled people. They are human beings. Don’t put them in a box. Look at them with a ‘person-first’ perspective. Their disabilities don’t define them. I would prefer to be remembered as ‘Gary Guller was the first person with one arm to reach Mt. Everest‘ and not ‘Gary Guller was the first one-armed person to reach Mt. Everest‘ because the arm that I lost was not even there when I scaled the peak! What helped me was my mental and physical strength coupled with hours of training and a beautiful bunch of people to spur me on. In this summit, we need to learn to value lives as ‘people first’ and that is going to make the world a better place to live in. Your race, colour and region don’t define your worth. The fact that we are human beings first puts us right up there on the value-scale.
Some quick questions:
1. One thing you did that you want to do again.
People ask me if I want to do Everest again. I am going to give Everest its special place and leave it there. I will remember it for the most diverse group of people I made friends with.
What I want to do is probably something that is totally out-of-the-box. Something that will push my endurance levels and make me think differently and positively.
2. One thing you regret doing.
Got 2 hours of your time? (We all share a good laugh!)
After my accident,the doctors came in to see me in the hospital. They said that I would be smart if I spoke to a few people about my injury and about the death of my friend. But I thought I could handle it on my own. Sometimes, listening to our peers and voicing out our thoughts saves us a lot of headache.
The time frame from my accident to the beginning of my journey to the top of the world would have been drastically shortened if I had heeded the doctor’s advice and let go of my self.
That’s a great question, by the way. (KYS pats itself on the back)
3. Current biggest fear.
Snakes!
On a more serious note, not maximizing the potential of my experiences that benefit others in a positive way is my biggest fear.
KnowYourStar.com(KYS) interviewed Gary Guller as part of India Inclusion Summit(IIS). IIS is a platform that brings awareness and drives inclusion of specially abled people at corporates, schools, policy makers and NGOs. Yes, KYS is backing IIS whole-heartedly in a thirst to see an Inclusive India.
Gary Guller is also a motivational speaker who uses his experiences to share with audience the importance of equality, hard work, team-spirit and determination. Do Read Gary Guller Biography.