This April, Neal KUSHWAHA will be discussing his experience climbing Mount Everest and other mountains.
- 2 April 2019: John McCrae Secondary School, Ottawa ON, all teachers
- 10 April 2019: Aden Bowman Collegiate, Saskatoon SK, all students of grades 9-12
- 11 April 2019: Bedford Road Collegiate, Saskatoon SK, students of grade 10
- 11 April 2019: George Vanier Catholic Fine Arts School, Saskatoon SK, students of grade 8
- 16 April 2019: Rogers TV Ottawa interview, to be aired April 21, 2019
Thank you to all the principals and teachers for organising the events. Jason WARICK of CBC dropped by to cover the story. Neal was also invited to CBC Radio where he was interviewed by Stefani LANGENEGGER for the morning show, and later aired on CBC National News – The World at Six.
- EN (CBC News – Saskatoon 2019-APR-12): https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5094684 <- includes the radio full radio segment
- FR (CBC News – Saskatoon 2019-APR-12): https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1163958/alpiniste-mont-everest-sauver-vie-heros-saskatoon
- EN (CBC Radio SK – Morning Show 2019-APR-12, 7m): http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1489978435872/
- EN (CBC Radio One – World at Six 2019-APR-12 @ 25m33s, 2m): https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-8-cbc-news-the-world-at-six/clip/159141-cbc-news-world-at-six-for-20190412-at-2130-edt
Neal’s message to students included the following.
- Fitness: It’s not just training your body, you need to train your mind.
- Humanitarian/Ethics: Your life goals shouldn’t be at the cost of another’s health or life.
- Science (impact of altitude to the red-blood-cells, muscles, extremities, lungs, and brain, the mix of N/O2/CO2/etc. molecules + how it impacts the body, impact of pulmonary oedema and cerebral oedema, the mental impact of all this while trying to maintain focus, and the long term cell and nerve damage).
- Dreams into goals: It’s important to have dreams and big goals. But it is even more important to chase those dreams.
- Resiliency and risk management: Life is the most precious thing. You may need to turn around while being moments away from attaining your goal. You may need to completely change your goals. Discussing how this is normal and okay.
- You never reach the top of anything alone: there is an entire community of people supporting you. That includes mountaineering, business, or school. In Neal’s case (for climbing), Team KUSHWAHA includes his wife, kids, wider family, friends who helped his family every time he has been away, the various people in his life who taught and shaped him (school/university, mountaineering, business, etc.), and everyone who even discouraged him.
- Karma: Upon setting your mind to reaching the summit successfully for months on end, you don’t expect to drop all of that because of other climbers around you. But in my case, after saving this man’s life, I didn’t expect to summit Everest. Losing a day, I wanted to see if my exhausted body and traumatised mind could reach 8,000 m. Well if I didn’t take the day to save this man, I would have likely attempted to summit a day early and the visibility in the late morning at the summit would have left me stranded up there. It was simply meant to be this way. Some of mine call it “god’s will”, others call it good karma.
- Leave no trace: When in the remote areas of the world, one should live by the mantra of “leave no trace”. What does this mean (theory)? How does this work (practice)?
- Your life is the most precious thing. Sometimes you need turn around, even when you are moments away from attaining your goal. In climbing Ed Viesturs says it best: “summiting is optional, coming home is mandatory“.
- Along the way, your goals will change, and that’s okay.