Lewis Pugh's mind-shifting Mt. Everest swim

147,989 views ・ 2010-07-30

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00:15
Last year when I was here, I was speaking to you about a swim
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which I did across the North Pole.
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00:21
And while that swim took place three years ago,
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I can remember it as if it was yesterday.
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I remember standing on the edge of the ice,
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about to dive into the water,
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and thinking to myself, I have never ever
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seen any place on this earth
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which is just so frightening.
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The water is completely black.
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The water is minus 1.7 degrees centigrade,
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or 29 degrees Fahrenheit.
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It's flipping freezing in that water.
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And then a thought came across my mind:
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if things go pear-shaped on this swim,
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how long will it take for my frozen body
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to sink the four and a half kilometers
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to the bottom of the ocean?
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And then I said to myself, I've just got to get this thought
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out of my mind as quickly as possible.
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And the only way I can dive
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into that freezing cold water
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and swim a kilometer
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is by listening to my iPod and really revving myself up,
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listening to everything from beautiful opera
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all the way across to Puff Daddy,
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and then committing myself a hundred percent --
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there is nothing more powerful than the made-up mind --
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and then walking up to the edge of the ice
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and just diving into the water.
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01:31
And that swim took me
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18 minutes and 50 seconds,
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and it felt like 18 days.
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And I remember getting out of the water
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and my hands feeling so painful
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and looking down at my fingers,
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and my fingers were literally the size of sausages
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because -- you know, we're made partially of water --
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when water freezes it expands,
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and so the cells in my fingers
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had frozen and expanded
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and burst.
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And the most immediate thought when I came out of that water
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was the following:
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I'm never, ever
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going to do another cold water swim
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in my life again.
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Anyway, last year, I heard about the Himalayas
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and the melting of the -- (Laughter)
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and the melting of the glaciers
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because of climate change.
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I heard about this lake, Lake Imja.
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This lake has been formed in the last couple of years
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because of the melting of the glacier.
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The glacier's gone all the way up the mountain
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and left in its place this big lake.
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And I firmly believe
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that what we're seeing in the Himalayas
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is the next great, big battleground
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on this earth.
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Nearly two billion people --
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so one in three people on this earth --
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rely on the water from the Himalayas.
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And with a population increasing as quickly as it is,
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and with the water supply from these glaciers --
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because of climate change --
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decreasing so much,
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I think we have a real risk of instability.
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North, you've got China; south, you've India, Pakistan, Bangladesh,
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all these countries.
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And so I decided
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to walk up to Mt. Everest,
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the highest mountain on this earth,
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and go and do a symbolic swim
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underneath the summit
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of Mt. Everest.
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Now, I don't know if any of you have had the opportunity to go to Mt. Everest,
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but it's quite an ordeal getting up there.
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28 great, big, powerful yaks
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carrying all the equipment up onto this mountain --
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I don't just have my Speedo,
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but there's a big film crew who then
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send all the images around the world.
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The other thing which was so challenging about this swim
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is not just the altitude.
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I wanted to do the swim at 5,300 meters above sea level.
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So it's right up in the heavens.
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It's very, very difficult to breath. You get altitude sickness.
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I feels like you've got a man standing behind you with a hammer
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just hitting your head all the time.
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That's not the worst part of it.
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The worst part was this year was the year where they decided
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to do a big cleanup operation on Mt. Everest.
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Many, many people have died on Mt. Everest,
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and this was the year they decided to go
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and recover all the bodies of the mountaineers
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and then bring them down the mountain.
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And when you're walking up the mountain
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to attempt to do something
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which no human has ever done before, and, in fact, no fish --
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there are no fish up there swimming at 5,300 meters --
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When you're trying to do that,
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and then the bodies are coming past you,
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it humbles you,
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and you also realize very, very clearly
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that nature is so much more powerful
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than we are.
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And we walked up this pathway,
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all the way up.
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And to the right hand side of us
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was this great Khumbu Glacier.
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And all the way along the glacier we saw
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these big pools of melting ice.
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And then we got up to this small lake
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underneath the summit of Mt. Everest,
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and I prepared myself
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the same way as I've always prepared myself,
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for this swim which was going to be so very difficult.
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I put on my iPod, I listened to some music,
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I got myself as aggressive as possible --
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but controlled aggression --
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and then I hurled myself
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into that water.
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I swam as quickly as I could
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for the first hundred meters,
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and then I realized very, very quickly,
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I had a huge problem on my hands.
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I could barely breathe.
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I was gasping for air.
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I then began to choke,
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and then it quickly led to me vomiting in the water.
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And it all happened so quickly:
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I then -- I don't know how it happened -- but I went underwater.
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And luckily, the water was quite shallow,
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and I was able to push myself off the bottom of the lake
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and get up and then take another gasp of air.
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And then I said, carry on. Carry on. Carry on.
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I carried on for another five or six strokes,
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and then I had nothing in my body,
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and I went down to the bottom of the lake.
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And I don't where I got it from,
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but I was able to somehow
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pull myself up and as quickly as possible
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get to the side of the lake.
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I've heard it said that drowning
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is the most peaceful death that you can have.
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I have never, ever heard
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such utter bollocks.
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(Laughter)
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It is the most frightening and panicky feeling
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that you can have.
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I got myself to the side of the lake.
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My crew grabbed me,
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and then we walked as quickly as we could
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down -- over the rubble --
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down to our camp.
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And there, we sat down,
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and we did a debrief about what had gone wrong
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there on Mt. Everest.
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And my team just gave it to me straight.
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They said, Lewis, you need to have
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a radical tactical shift
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if you want to do this swim.
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Every single thing which you have learned
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in the past 23 years of swimming,
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you must forget.
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Every single thing which you learned
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when you were serving in the British army,
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about speed and aggression,
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you put that to one side.
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We want you to walk up the hill in another two days' time.
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Take some time to rest and think about things.
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We want you to walk up the mountain in two days' time,
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and instead of swimming fast,
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swim as slowly as possible.
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Instead of swimming crawl, swim breaststroke.
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And remember, never ever swim with aggression.
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This is the time to swim
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with real humility.
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And so we walked back up
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to the mountain two days later.
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And I stood there
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on the edge of the lake,
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and I looked up at Mt. Everest --
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and she is one of the most beautiful mountains on the earth --
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and I said to myself, just do this slowly.
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And I swam across the lake.
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And I can't begin to tell you
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how good I felt
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when I came to the other side.
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But I learned two very, very
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important lessons there on Mt. Everest,
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and I thank my team of Sherpas who taught me this.
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The first one is
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that just because something has worked in the past so well,
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doesn't mean it's going to work in the future.
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And similarly,
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now, before I do anything,
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I ask myself what type of mindset
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do I require
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to successfully complete a task.
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And taking that into the world of climate change --
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which is, frankly,
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the Mt. Everest of all problems --
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just because we've lived the way we have lived for so long,
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just because we have consumed the way we have for so long
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and populated the earth the way we have for so long,
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doesn't mean that we can carry on
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the way we are carrying on.
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The warning signs are all there.
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When I was born, the world's population
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was 3.5 billion people.
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We're now 6.8 billion people,
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and we're expected to be 9 billion people
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by 2050.
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And then the second lesson,
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the radical, tactical shift.
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And I've come here to ask you today:
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what radical tactical shift
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can you take in your relationship to the environment,
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which will ensure
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that our children and our grandchildren
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live in a safe world
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and a secure world,
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and most importantly, in a sustainable world?
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And I ask you, please, to go away from here
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and think about that one
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radical tactical shift
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which you could make,
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which will make that big difference,
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and then commit a hundred percent to doing it.
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Blog about it, tweet about it, talk about it,
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and commit a hundred percent,
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because very, very few things
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are impossible to achieve
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if we really put our whole minds to it.
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So thank you very, very much.
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09:34
(Applause)
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