It's not hard if you are patient | Ed Viesturs | TEDxRainier

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.

Ed Viesturs is widely regarded as this country's foremost high-altitude mountaineer. He has climbed Mount Everest seven times. In 2005, upon reaching the summit of Annapurna, he completed an 18-year quest to climb all 14 of the world's highest mountains without the use of supplemental oxygen, becoming the first American and the fifth person in the world to accomplish this. Here with a motivational speech on subjects such as team work and overcoming major obstacles.

Host: Ed, there are lots
of things I'm curious about.

We have just a couple of minutes.

Tell me how your decades
of high-altitude climbing

have influenced how you navigate
life here at sea level.

(Laughter)

Ed Viesturs: Well, you know ...

Everything that seems hard
isn't really hard.

And I've discovered that I've learned
a lot of patience and temperance

from climbing mountains and, as I said,

that you have to make a plan
and try to fulfill that plan.

But in everyday life,
there's stumbling blocks.

There's things that change the way
you hope things are going to happen.

And so the key thing that I've learned,
I think, is just being patient.

But I'm so happy I did what I did,
I'm so glad I left Illinois and decided

(Laughter)

to do something where people
were saying, "You're crazy!"

Even my friends that I've now
reacquainted myself with

that I grew up with in grade school,

when I left, they thought
I was crazy and now they go,

"Ed, you're one of the few people
we actually know that actually did

what he said he wanted to do
and lived his dreams."

Host: And how is it influencing
how you're raising your kids?

Ah!

(Laughter)

You know, that's my new Annapurna.

(Laughter)

It's this multi-year project, and again

(Laughter)

you have to be patient.

I try to-- I'm so used
to accomplishing something every day!

I mean, I used to be
used to that, and now ...

(Laughter)

I think I'm going to do this today,
and then it all goes out the window.

But it's so fun, and there's
so many people that say--

My wife and I, we're
in the thick of it right now,

and it's stressful,
we're exhausted, and they go,

"Oh, but it goes so quickly,
it goes so quickly!"

And I go, "Well,
it could go a little faster!"

(Laughter)

Help us out here.

- Ed, thank you so much.
- Thank you.

- ... for coming in and talking to us.
- Thank you.

(Applause)