He Lost it All, Then Did the Impossible

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 Morrison 00:04:30 - 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 times 00:32:56 - 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/0tEVrfNp92a7lbjDe6GMLI https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-oprah-podcast/id1782960381

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Oprah Winfrey?

  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, 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?

• 0:43Oprah Winfrey?

  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.

• 1:22Oprah Winfrey?

  But my guest today is someone who endured unimaginable loss and then used 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 gonna 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.

• 2:03Oprah Winfrey?

  Let's watch. Every year, hundreds of adventure seekers flock to Nepal to attempt to climb the tallest mountain on Earth, Mount Everest's south side. On the north face of Everest, the route known as Hornbein Kular 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 route. It's a 9,000-foot wall of snow, rock, and ice.

• 2:42Oprah Winfrey?

  Last year, a group of mountaineers and filmmakers, including Academy Award-winning documentarian Jimmy Chin, successfully completed the notorious Holy Grail of climbing, the Hornbein Kular. Then, one man in that expedition, Jim Morrison, became the first person ever, only human being, to ski down the grueling vertical descent of the north face. Jimmy Chin 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.

• 3:26Oprah Winfrey?

  Everest: The Other Side will play in theaters and IMAX worldwide starting October 30. 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.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  I'm happy to be here.

• 3:47Oprah Winfrey?

  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?

• 4:06Speaker 01

  A little bit of that, a little bit of...

• 4:08Oprah Winfrey?

  Hard palpitations?

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Hard palpitations, but a lot of just... I'm very proud of it.

• 4:14Oprah Winfrey?

  Proud.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  And it was quite a journey, quite an adventure.

• 4:18Oprah Winfrey?

  You know what it took to do that?

• 4:20Speaker 01

  And, yeah, drinking from the cup of life in a very direct way and...

• 4:27Oprah Winfrey?

  Ooh, I love that.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  Being really alive and really present and really focused.

• 4:32Oprah Winfrey?

  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 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?

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 4:55Oprah Winfrey?

  And while they are taking selfies and yay, yay, yay, and rah, rah, rah-ing, you are preparing to ski down.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  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.

• 5:32Oprah Winfrey?

  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, or you're not?

• 5:41Speaker 01

  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 gonna relax.

• 5:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Jimmy, the director?

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 5:53Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, we're gonna 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 frickin' camera on your back and do that. Yeah. Yeah. And so Jimmy, who you had gone to and asked him at some point years ago to film this,

• 6:38Oprah Winfrey?

  was your partner, and you had said what to Jimmy?

• 6:40Speaker 01

  I had just told him that if I made a mistake or something didn't go right, I was gonna relax, because it was in the type of condition that if you fall or you lose an edge, you're gonna go to the bottom of the mountain in a hurry, and it's all gonna 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.

• 7:07Oprah Winfrey?

  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 Everest? What do you have to have? What do you have... What have you got that we ain't got?

• 7:42Speaker 01

  I would argue that you have a lot of it.

• 7:44Oprah Winfrey?

  I do not have that.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  You have an extreme amount of tenacity and will and drive and direction in your life and...

• 7:52Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, for other things.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  For other things.

• 7:54Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  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.

• 8:10Oprah Winfrey?

  So what made you think you could not only get to the top, but then ski down?

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Well, I had an amazing team of really elite Sherpa and climbers from this team from Ecuador that I've climbed with before.

• 8:26Oprah Winfrey?

  I think everybody knows what a Sherpa is by now, but can you explain it?

• 8:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, Sherpa is a community that is from Nepal, and they are incredible mountaineers, incredible... They've lived at high altitude.

• 8:42Oprah Winfrey?

  They've lived there their whole lives, and so they...

• 8:44Speaker 01

  And 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 the camps.

• 8:57Oprah Winfrey?

  This is what they've been doing all of their lives.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  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.

• 9:06Oprah Winfrey?

  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

• 9:50Oprah Winfrey?

  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.

• 10:17Oprah Winfrey?

  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?

• 10:39Speaker 01

  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.

• 11:17Oprah Winfrey?

  You all had been together as skiing partners and partners for how long?

• 11:22Speaker 01

  Four, seven years.

• 11:23Oprah Winfrey?

  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?

• 11:43Speaker 01

  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...

• 11:58Oprah Winfrey?

  Were you there?

• 11:59Speaker 01

  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 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're at 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. And eventually I found her two days later and she had been killed in the fall.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  And my, yeah, my whole world closed again. And I was devastated. And I was really grateful to have found her. But it sort of started this, this journey of grief and loss for the second time in my life, losing my partner.

• 13:04Oprah Winfrey?

  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?

• 13:23Speaker 01

  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, we had a VW bus, a 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 young age, went to my parents and said, I'm going to be a skier. And they said, okay, well, how, 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.

• 14:07Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow. And then you met somebody who was the perfect partner.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  And then I met Katie. She was from Lexington, Kentucky. She walked onto 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.

• 14:32Oprah Winfrey?

  And what was your business?

• 14:33Speaker 01

  It's a construction business in Lake Tahoe, building homes.

• 14:37Oprah Winfrey?

  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.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I didn't ever turn it off, but I certainly did a lot less of it and was, 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.

• 15:02Oprah Winfrey?

  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, can you share what was going on, what had happened and how you found out?

• 15:16Speaker 01

  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.

• 15:31Oprah Winfrey?

  She was flying?

• 15:32Speaker 01

  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 got in 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, your partner. And, 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.

• 16:17Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  And I, I just had a, I was really concerned and about...

• 16:25Oprah Winfrey?

  By that time, you're not even thinking about your injury. You're thinking about what, what has happened to my family.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 16:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Thirty-seven-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 PM 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.

• 17:12Oprah Winfrey?

  She liked art and making jewelry and loved riding her bicycle right behind her big brother.

• 17:19Speaker 01

  About an hour later, I got a phone call from someone and he had, he was a friend of mine that I had reached out to. And he 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.

• 17:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  And I, I couldn't conceive of that. I was like, what do you mean? Explain, what do you mean? Where are they? And I got off the phone and I just was broken in every, in every capacity, losing your wife and kids in the same moment. My whole world was gone. And I, I didn't know if I would just disappear. I, I just, 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.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  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, and keep me afloat. And I just lived months and really years of life and shock and grief.

• 18:53Oprah Winfrey?

  Just belief 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.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I felt like, and I, I feel like it's a good metaphor for what grief feels like. It's like, it starts, it's 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, in my lifetime.

• 19:45Oprah Winfrey?

  You don't move past it, but have you found that the blanket gets lighter?

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, you, you dry it out and maybe it, 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. And I don't want to get rid of it. It's my connection to them and it's my tie to them. And I don't, 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, it's not something I want to leave behind.

• 20:28Oprah Winfrey?

  And so do you feel that you do commiserate with them?

• 20:32Speaker 01

  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, a good place and...

• 21:12Oprah Winfrey?

  A different form?

• 21:13Speaker 01

  A different form. And they've, you know, I strongly believe that...

• 21:21Speaker 01

  They, particularly my children, somehow serve their purpose here with us and are in a different form in a different place.

• 21:31Oprah Winfrey?

  I heard that they spoke to you when you were on top of the mountain. Tell me, tell me about that.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  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? Some, something like that. And what she meant is when you're in this like extreme environment with very little oxygen, you, you almost feel like you can reach into this other dimension.

• 22:09Oprah Winfrey?

  Tell us, what do you mean by the other dimension?

• 22:11Speaker 01

  Like a, a place where we aren't meant to stay and maybe a place where the other side of our reality.

• 22:24Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  I, 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.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  But I, 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 Everest and, and to the top of Lothsee, which is a neighboring mountain and

• 22:51Oprah Winfrey?

  So this was your

• 22:52Speaker 01

  This was the first

• 22:54Oprah Winfrey?

  This was your first trip?

• 22:55Speaker 01

  I, I had climbed another 8,000 meter peak called Cho'ou'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, we were turned around on our, 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

• 23:24Oprah Winfrey?

  For years.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  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.

• 23:32Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  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 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.

• 23:59Oprah Winfrey?

  This is while you were still in the climb?

• 24:02Speaker 01

  Still in the climb.

• 24:03Oprah Winfrey?

  To the summit?

• 24:04Speaker 01

  Short of the summit and

• 24:06Oprah Winfrey?

  Did you, do you, do you think you physically saw them? Or do you just felt their energetic presence?

• 24:13Speaker 01

  I just felt their energetic presence. I didn't, I didn't physically see them. They, they didn't actually appear. It wasn't just a, a vision. It was just an energy that I felt.

• 24:24Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  And it was spectacular and profound for me and something I'd been trying to will into existence for many years.

• 24:34Oprah Winfrey?

  And it comes when it comes.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:36Oprah Winfrey?

  Comes when it's ready.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  And I, I took all of it and loved it.

• 24:39Oprah Winfrey?

  And so I'm sure that helped you getting to the top, right?

• 24:43Speaker 01

  It did.

• 24:43Oprah Winfrey?

  It did.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 24:46Oprah Winfrey?

  And so when was the decision that after Hillary passed in 2022, the decision was that you were going to go, I'm sure you, that grieving process was its own. Because now it's as you, 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, you lose another love of your life, a partner where you thought you, you, you guys were just

• 25:22Speaker 01

  Inseparable.

• 25:23Oprah Winfrey?

  Inseparable, symbiotic, yeah, relationship.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:28Oprah Winfrey?

  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.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, we had a, a ceremony at this wonderful historic temple in Kathmandu. And I had a, an amazing community of support there and a bunch of seven monks that led this service. Her brother was, flew, flew over. Jimmy Chin was there, a number of my other friends were there and this process was really profound for me and I

• 26:13Oprah Winfrey?

  The process of the finding and the burial?

• 26:15Speaker 01

  The process of the, of the finding was part of it.

• 26:19Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 26:19Speaker 01

  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 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.

• 26:49Oprah Winfrey?

  So do you think it would have been better for you to see it?

• 26:51Speaker 01

  Perhaps. And when I lost Hillary, I went through this terrible process of trying to find her. And I dug her out of the, the snow and the ice. And I physically carried her to the helicopter and, and I was very intimate with her, her body afterwards and took her to this cremation ceremony and then

• 27:19Oprah Winfrey?

  Very intimate with her body, meaning

• 27:21Speaker 01

  Just around it and, and you know, it was, it was wrapped in this, prepared in this beautiful cloth and it wasn't like we were actually with her, her physical body, but she would

• 27:33Oprah Winfrey?

  She was there.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  Her body was there.

• 27:35Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  And it was placed on this fire and it's a, you know, it's a real fire with logs and there's these boys tending the fire the whole time. And in my

• 27:46Oprah Winfrey?

  And you're watching the body burn.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  Personality, I'm thinking, okay, I need to manage this. I need to make sure they do it just right.

• 27:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  I have all this pressures are on my shoulders to perform this in a, 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. I, when I found her, I knew her soul wasn't in her body. But now I've taken her body and it's cremated it. And I bring the ashes back home and

• 28:33Speaker 01

  I just had such an ability to take a step forward with that and, and not be haunted by what happened, where she was. Was she okay somehow was? I didn't, I didn't have all those stories that I'd had with my family for 11 years.

• 28:51Oprah Winfrey?

  You sat there and you witnessed it.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. And it actually gave me a lot of comfort and understanding of, of my, my wife and children as well. And just acceptance that something similar had happened to them.

• 29:05Oprah Winfrey?

  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 move, begin to move forward. And I understand too, that during this whole, after this whole process, that you read Eckhart Tolle's book, The Power of Now, and that, 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.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, a very, 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, and it had a profound effect on me. And I loved the concept and I'd listened to it over and over and over. And then I ended up going flying to Vancouver and sitting down with Eckhart and spending time with him and trying to live and understand his, his teachings and that concept of the past being gone, there's nothing you can do about it. It's over.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  And the future, not, I love his saying of nothing has, in his little Yoda voice.

• 30:28Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  Nothing has ever happened in the future. Nothing, ever. It doesn't, it's impossible.

• 30:34Oprah Winfrey?

  That's right. Everything only happens in the now.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 30:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, that's why it's called The Power of Now. I would have to say it was life-changing for me too.

• 30:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:42Oprah Winfrey?

  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, calendars fill up and you find yourself back in motion again,

• 31:26Oprah Winfrey?

  taking the kids to school, running errands, heading home after the sun sets. During these busy days, it's the people who show up in small, steady ways who make the season feel a little lighter. The friend who stops by with a home-cooked dinner. The partner who surprises you by filling up your gas tank. These are the everyday moments that remind us, we are supported. That kind of support matters on the road and in life. Geico helps you stay 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.

• 32:12Oprah Winfrey?

  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?

• 32:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:41Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  I think absolutely. It's kind of become my, my, my passion and mantra of how I try to live my life is you only have right now. And certainly faced with all the adversity of, of getting up the mountain and all the things that could go wrong and are going wrong and aren't just right.

• 32:59Oprah Winfrey?

  You all were out there six weeks.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 33:02Oprah Winfrey?

  Six weeks just getting up the mountain.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  Six weeks on the third expedition to try to do this. So we, 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.

• 33:24Oprah Winfrey?

  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 gonna 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.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  The, the second time I did walk away thinking, okay, we're done. And

• 33:54Oprah Winfrey?

  That this isn't gonna happen in my lifetime.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  This isn't gonna happen. And on the travels home, I started to think, well, I really, I know I can do this. And my friend Conrad Anker, 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, you go back, you figure out.

• 34:15Oprah Winfrey?

  What did you learn the first time?

• 34:17Speaker 01

  Well, we've learned how to, 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, the route was undetermined. And we learned about how to organize the team on the face. If we put the ropes in above Camp One, the avalanches are gonna rip them out. So, 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.

• 34:56Oprah Winfrey?

  So what did the second run teach you that didn't work?

• 35:01Speaker 01

  That the, 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, about doing this. And, I mean, this, this is like anything in life. We, we picked an impossible goal and said, we're gonna do it, we're gonna achieve it. And, and how we did that is we put together an incredible team of people that really believed that we could do it.

• 35:31Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  And didn't want to give up.

• 35:33Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, you have to have everybody that believes what you believe.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  We all worked together and they were absolutely committed to it. And we said, we're gonna give this our best effort. And we might not achieve the goal, but we're gonna try really hard.

• 35:45Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 35:46Speaker 01

  And we kept going.

• 35:48Oprah Winfrey?

  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 documentarian Jimmy Chin, who directed this film along with Chai Vessarelli. So Jimmy is joining us. Jimmy, thank you for joining us.

• 36:11Speaker 02

  Hi, hi, Oprah.

• 36:13Oprah Winfrey?

  Jimmy, I just wanna weep. I just wanna 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?

• 36:37Speaker 02

  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

• 36:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 36:58Speaker 02

  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 as a filmmaker. And, you know, I had made the decision years ago that this, the North Face was something I wasn't gonna do in this lifetime. So I had moved on from it.

• 37:39Speaker 02

  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, 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

• 38:05Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. So that's why you felt inevit-- and also a part of you thought, okay, I thought I wasn't gonna do it in this lifetime, but I guess I'm supposed to try it again?

• 38:14Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, I'm also a bit like them, you know? They, they believe in achieving these impossible goals. And, and so I knew it would be impossible for me not to be involved, which is why it felt a little inevitable.

• 38:34Speaker 01

  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 Anker on Olvotana and was on that sort of wave and high of coming back from a great success. And we

• 38:52Oprah Winfrey?

  Chose that moment.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  decided this is our moment to go in and pitch him on this idea.

• 38:56Oprah Winfrey?

  So Jimmy, you're not only, as I was saying to the audience earlier, you're not only climbing the most treacherous route up Everest, you're also, you're carrying the camera equipment and you're making a film and you gotta 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, your boards and you're looking at what you're gonna shoot tomorrow. I mean, how?

• 39:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, like any huge project, you have to start breaking it down. And, and for me, it's, it's really the foundation of the project. And, and just to be clear, I'm not the only person carrying a camera. There, 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.

• 40:08Speaker 02

  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, and safety. And, you know, you're, 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 Everest is 9,000 vertical feet of no-fall zone.

• 40:51Speaker 02

  So, you know, I understand, I have to look at that as an athlete or as a peer in that way, because the, the needs of the film can never supersede the needs of the athlete or like the climb. Like, meaning the, the cameras and production can't interfere with what he's doing, because if he makes a mistake because of our presence...

• 41:21Speaker 02

  You know, we would never be able to live with that.

• 41:25Oprah Winfrey?

  The 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.

• 41:51Speaker 02

  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. So, and I know all of the team that he surrounded himself with all feel the same way.

• 42:33Speaker 02

  So, you know, that, that sort of inspiration for us was really critical. And that is a leader not even trying to be a leader. He's just, he's just leading by example.

• 42:48Oprah Winfrey?

  He's just doing what you need to do to get the job done.

• 42:50Speaker 02

  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 think he was the, I knew he was the one person on the planet that might be able to pull it off too. And I think everybody knew that as well.

• 43:12Oprah Winfrey?

  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 was, 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.

• 43:57Oprah Winfrey?

  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?

• 44:06Speaker 02

  I mean, I had some ideas about what the film could be, but you, in documentaries, you never know what's gonna happen. And, you know, Hillary died while we were making this film. And so it's been a real journey and, 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? But I think people will come into the film thinking it's about climbing and skiing Mount Everest.

• 44:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 44:45Speaker 02

  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.

• 45:15Oprah Winfrey?

  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, a solo film, fantastic, wonderful, beautiful. You have outdone yourself here. You have outdone yourself.

• 45:29Speaker 02

  Oh, we'll see.

• 45:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Outdone yourself. Thank you so much.

• 45:32Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me.

• 45:33Oprah Winfrey?

  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 gotta get this guy and I gotta get this woman and I get this, and now I have the team that can do this?

• 45:57Speaker 01

  I think it's, it's a little bit of inherent knowledge and instinct.

• 46:02Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  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, try to treat people the same way, empower people to do their best work and give people the room to be their own self.

• 46:22Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  And take responsibility for themselves, but inspire them to do their best.

• 46:27Oprah Winfrey?

  I want to go back to, can we look at the film for a moment? Because as I was saying earlier, that when everybody else is like, Sophie-ing 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.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I'm, I'm looking at this, the snow and the little ripples of, of ice and where there's somewhere I can edge and making sure.

• 46:59Oprah Winfrey?

  Because this is all icy this day. This is.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  It's really firm.

• 47:03Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 47:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. And.

• 47:06Oprah Winfrey?

  That part right there, right there, where it's like a straight down?

• 47:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then I'm thinking right here, well, I could, I could rappel, 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 used the rope through a section of the rocks there where it was impossible to ski. And, uh, yeah, I'm just appreciating the, the moment and I'm, I'm very much in what, you know, 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.

• 47:49Oprah Winfrey?

  I didn't know you could edge like that. Like when you're, like, you're going a straight down a slope, you can still hold yourself on the mountain? What, what is your, what is the rest of your body doing to keep yourself upright?

• 48:00Speaker 01

  Well, you have to be very engaged. Your, your sense of fear says pull back.

• 48:05Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  Which would put your edges at a steeper angle to the snow and make you slide.

• 48:09Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 48:10Speaker 01

  You actually have to lean forward and push yourself forward and commit to every single turn.

• 48:15Oprah Winfrey?

  So you lean into the fear.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  You're leaning into the fear and you're, and you're moving over it. And I, and the fear is really not something that, that's driving me. The fear is, the fear comes, this looks really scary, how am I gonna 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.

• 48:40Oprah Winfrey?

  Because you are absolutely 100% just in this moment, just with this foot, just with this edge.

• 48:48Speaker 01

  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.

• 48:56Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 48:57Speaker 01

  What's literally right in front of me?

• 48:58Oprah Winfrey?

  I, I, I heard you say that you were the most fully present you've ever been in your entire life. Yeah.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  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, this is, this is what you're here for. And I, 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 gonna go in. And I just, and I was, the ball kept going in every shot. And it, it's a special moment to, to get to that place in life and.

• 49:43Oprah Winfrey?

  What does getting to the bottom feel like when you got there?

• 49:50Speaker 01

  Uh, it was a surreal, spectacular moment, crossing what we call the Bergstrand, which is the, the crack where the glacier's pulling away from the, the face. And getting into a, a safe environment for the first time in days. I just had a.

• 50:13Oprah Winfrey?

  Because by now, by that time, the altitude is what? Where are you?

• 50:16Speaker 01

  20,000 feet.

• 50:17Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, you're now at 20.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  So now there's just like the incredible amount of oxygen up at 20,000 feet. I, I'm actually pretty comfortable at that altitude because I was so well acclimatized and I just have this emotional release that's.

• 50:32Oprah Winfrey?

  So your whole body sort of relaxes, yes?

• 50:35Speaker 01

  My body relaxes. I, I wonder, how am I still standing? How am I still 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, I talked to her and, uh, just felt the light, the.

• 51:01Oprah Winfrey?

  Did you feel her presence with you?

• 51:03Speaker 01

  The presence of her, I felt her there. I felt her on the summit where I just spread some of her ashes. Now it's for you, Hal. Now it's for you.

• 51:20Speaker 03

  That was hard to stick through. A lot of years. A lot of hard work. Oh, my gosh.

• 51:33Speaker 01

  I felt like she was with me in a in a way similar to that story I told you about

• 51:39Oprah Winfrey?

  About your children.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  My children, yeah. I just felt her energy there. And I felt 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

• 51:56Oprah Winfrey?

  So are there more mountains to climb? Are there more mountains to climb? Or have you done the thing you came to do?

• 52:02Speaker 01

  That's 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.

• 52:22Oprah Winfrey?

  Because you did the thing.

• 52:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:24Oprah Winfrey?

  From the highest point.

• 52:24Speaker 01

  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, so.

• 52:35Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, gosh. All right.

• 52:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a really it was a really special day for us. And I'm really thankful that I was able to do it with this incredible team and and share that as much as I could or could be done with Hillary.

• 52:52Oprah Winfrey?

  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.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Couldn't have done it without them. And I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to them.

• 53:10Oprah Winfrey?

  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?

• 53:31Speaker 01

  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 in 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 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. And we're in this beautiful world, the sun shining, the birds are chirping.

• 54:15Speaker 01

  And I think appreciating those moments.

• 54:18Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 54:18Speaker 01

  And moving forward with your community 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 tragedies.

• 54:45Oprah Winfrey?

  Terrible losses and obstacles. Well, you are a great teacher. I know that, you know, 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're 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 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.

• 55:21Speaker 01

  Love that.

• 55:21Oprah Winfrey?

  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. You and everybody you know and your family should see this film. Go well. Meet up again next time, everybody. See ya. Our listeners tell us that the podcast is resonating with you and is serving as a bright spot in your day. That means a lot to me. So here's the thing, I would really appreciate it if you like and subscribe to the Oprah Podcast on YouTube or wherever you podcast.

• 56:05Oprah Winfrey?

  It's just a quick tap of the subscribe button. And that way you won't miss an episode in your queue. You don't have to pay anything. I know subscribe usually means you're paying something, but this time it means you just are notified when there's something new. There are many more to come that we're excited about. So thank you for watching and listening.