Gary Guller: Inspirational Speaker

How to climb Mt.Everest with one arm?

By putting one foot in front of the other, says Gary Guller, mountaineer and motivational speaker, who holds the record for being the only man minus a limb to scale the tallest mountain in the world. by Sudha.Pillai@timesgroup.com

1986. Dawns a glorious day. Three young friends – Gary, Jerry and Dave were doing what they loved doing in life – climbing a mountain! This time around it was the Pico de Orizaba, the highest mountain in Mexico. The adrenalin rushed to warm their hearts in the icy cold mountains and stretch their snow flecked faces into perfect smileys. The summit was a mere 100 feet away!

Tethered to each other, the mountaineers were making their way to the top, when one of the friends slipped and all three climbers plummeted down, more than 1,500 feet! And they lay, on the unforgiving lap of the cold mountains, connected to each other by a thick climbing-rope, friendship and courage –for three days! Finally, when the rescue team arrived, Jerry was dead and Gary’s neck was broken.

After two years and many painful surgeries, Gary’s broken neck was fixed. But his paralyzed left arm was amputated. And he was fast hurtling into the dark abyss of life, littered with broken dreams – his dream of climbing Mt.Everest.

The Present

2010. The auditorium at the Labs in Whitefield is filled with energy synonymous with youngsters. Their eyes are trained on the man in the spotlight - wiry hair, broad shoulders and an imposing demeanor, clad in jeans and a blue blazer. In the middle of a line, the man casually removes his blazer and continues talking, knowing well that there isn’t a single eye in the crowded room that isn’t gawking at the `empty’ left sleeve of his blue shirt, flapping in the air-conditioned room. Gary Guller, the only one-armed mountaineer to have scaled the peaks of Mt.Everest is unperturbed. He continues without missing a beat. For, this internationally renowned motivational speaker knows a thing or two about `focus’.

Even as a teenager Gary dreamt of climbing Mt.Everest “one day”. However, he (for a short time) and the world around him (for a longer time) thought it was to remain a dream forever. “After I lost my arm, I felt like climbing was taken away from me,” Gary recollects. “I hit rock bottom. I did my fair share at the local pub and experimenting different paths before I came to grips with what had happened to me. I realized that there were a lot of other people out there who had it worst than me.”

So, he recalibrated his dreams, and put strategies in place to beat the adversities in life.

Scaling mountains

In 2003, not only did Gary realize his dream but he also led the biggest group of disabled people to the Mount Everest base camp at 17,500 feet. “That was one of the most important moments in my life for sure,” says Gary. “The group consisted of paraplegic, quadriplegic, leg amputee, arm amputee, mentally challenged and so on.” It took them 21 days to complete the trek. From then on, Gary and a Sherpa carried on summiting the world’s highest peak. On May 23, 2003, Gary stood on Mt.Everest, proving a point – Dreams have no limitations, physical or otherwise!

“Everybody in the world thought I had lost my mind putting this expedition together. The expedition took two years in the making. It’s all about having a vision, focus, determination and hard work. A one-armed guy shows up and says ‘I want to climb Everest with a bunch of people. How about you write me a quarter-million dollar cheque?’ You knock on 300-plus doors and somebody finally understands that it is about opportunity, growth and showing the world that anything is possible. When you look beyond everything, real chance can happen. My job is to get people to understand that we are all the same, sharing the same planet. I just have one arm instead of two, that’s all. To me it is so simple,” says Gary. The journey was documented in the film Team Everest: A Himalayan Journey.

Gary has been climbing mountains all over the world and challenging himself by pushing his boundaries. In April 2010, he completed the Marathon des Sables in Morocco — a 6 -day, 250- km endurance race across the Sahara Desert, the runners had to carry food, clothes, medical-kit, anti-venom kit, sleeping bag and other things they needed for the duration on their backs. Gary was the only one-armed runner in the race, which attracts thousands of runners from around the world. Now Gary is preparing for a triathlon. “I am sure people are wondering how is going to swim with one arm for the triathlon involves a leg of swimming too,” laughs Gary.

Lessons Learnt

Gary travels across the world as a motivational speaker. Talking about the lessons that he has learnt from the mountains, the Sherpas and his life he says, “Integrity, yes, that’s what the mountains have taught me. You have got to be honest with yourself and the others around you. Generosity is what I learnt from the Sherpas. Give without expecting anything in return.

And my life has taught me to treat people fairly and equally.”

When Gary concludes by saying, “Think Big. Act bold. Treat people fairly. Play to win. Be the best you can be, every day,” you are unable to discard it as yet-another-motivational-speaker-giving-his-spiel-to-clients-with-fat-purses, simply because the `empty’ left sleeve of his blue shirt flaps, and you can almost hear it say to life, “Gotcha!”

For the ‘sleeve’ belong s to a man, who two decades ago, lay on the hard icy floor of Pico de Orizaba, with a dead friend on one side, and an uncertain future ahead; it belongs to the man who climbed the world’s tallest mountain and it belongs to a man who says with a broad smile, “Always make others greater and success is guaranteed.”

Garyisms

- For professional and personal success it is important you practice equality, determination, teamwork and integrity.

- Always look deep into yourselves, motivate yourselves to set goals to maximize your potential.

- Place fear and doubts aside to achieve success in life.

- Mix passion with goals.

- Seize upon opportunity.

- Work collectively

- Lead by example

- Share the lessons learnt in life.

- Respect and value all people

- Continue to raise your own standards, for your organizations and your society.

(Gary Guller was in Bangalore by private invitation for a Leadership Talk Series)

Inspirational Speaker (Gary Guller): One step at a time...

Gary Overcomes Adversity To Get To The Top: By Vanessa Garnica

You can say he is on a journey to change the world one step at a time. But world-class climber Gary Guller never thought his dream of reaching the top of Mount Everest would ever come true after an accident more than 20 years ago left him without an arm.

However in 2003, not only did he achieve his dream but he led the first and biggest group of people with disabilities to reach Mount Everest base camp at 17,500 feet (5385 meters).

“That was one of the most important moments in my life for sure,” Guller said this week in Tamarindo, during a visit to Costa Rica.

“Everybody in the world thought I had lost my mind putting this expedition together.”

After speaking at a Disability Convention in Texas, Guller was approached by someone in a wheelchair and asked if he would ever take someone like him on one of his expeditions.

Gary Guller (right) and Lakpa Sherpa, a Nepalese Buddhist lama who had never seen Mount Everest, admire the world’s tallest peak. Lakpa had lost his right arm after he was bitten by a snake bite when he was a child. Guller said the two had a “connection”, both having lost an arm at a young age.

“That’s how Everest Expedition was born,” he says. “Within three to four weeks, I had a team of 30 plus people with varying degrees of disabilities: paraplegic, quadriplegic, leg amputee, arm amputee, mentally challenged and so on.”

The journey was documented in a film called Team Everest: A Himalayan Journey which illustrates the numerous difficulties the team was presented with on their way to Mount Everest.

They trekked ancient trails still utilized by Nepali, Tibetan and Indian traders. According to Guller, the trails ranged in difficulty from hard to nearly impossible. Altitude became their biggest problem. Guller, who had been to Mount Everest base camp more than 30 times, became the first amputee to summit the world’s highest peak during this expedition. He lost his left arm in a climbing accident in 1986. Guller and two friends, Jerry and Dave, were just 30 meters (100 feet) from the summit of Pico de Orizaba in Mexico, when disaster struck. One of his two friends slipped at a steep, icy section and all three climbers, who were tethered together, plummeted more than 500 meters down the hard, icy face.

They spent three days, badly hurt, not knowing if they would make it out alive. When rescuers finally arrived Jerry had died, while Guller and Dave had survived. Guller was later told he would lose his arm.

As a result, Guller and his friend Dave spent many years apart with absolutely no contact with each other.

“We’ve reconnected and bonded and realized that we survived a pretty horrific accident and there’s something special about that,” Guller explains. “What’s interesting is that our lives were pretty parallel for all those years we were apart… the good and the bad.”

He came to Costa Rica for the first time last year with his friend Dave.
“I came down with him for about four, five days and I just found it to be a great place to communicate and have a sort of a freer mind,” he shares. 

Guller, who spent most of the month of July in Costa Rica, says he loves to reflect, relax and enjoy the energy he gets from the ocean here in Guanacaste.

“Most of my life it’s been spent in the mountains,” Guller explains. “The closest connection that I can get with that tends to be the ocean, which is a very different type of environment than I’m used to.

It was not always that way.

Twenty years ago, shortly after he lost his arm, the climber says he had hit rock bottom. “I did my fair share at the local pub and experimenting different paths before I came to grips with what had happened to me,” he says. “At that time I felt like (climbing) was taken away.”

With few prominent climbers with disabilities, Guller began to doubt he would ever achieve his childhood dream of climbing Mount Everest. Gary Guller and his Nepalese sherpa team members celebrate their summit of Mount Everest in May of 2003. Guller became the first arm amputee to climb the world’s highest peak.

“Then, there wasn’t a lot of role models when it comes to mountaineering and climbing with one arm, doing this sort of extreme type endeavors,” says Guller. “But I realized there were a lot of people out there that had it a lot worse that I did.”

Since, he has traveled the world as a motivational speaker, talking extensively to audiences about equality, core values and the fair treatment of fellow man, something to leave a positive mark on the world.

“(Overcoming this challenge) helped me put this expedition together, it helped me climb another big mountain in the world (in Tibet) with a big international team,” Guller explains.

“It helps me now when I give presentations with regards to not giving up, working as hard as you can for what you believe in, and treating people fairly and equally.”

Guller has no plans to slow down. He wants to organize another expedition to raise awareness for children in Africa who have lost limbs as a result of civil wars or manual labor.

“I want to visit local organizations and see how I can assist them either financially or with volunteers or even by donating equipment,” he says.

Gary recently returned to his home in California after his Asia tour to Fortune 100 corporations.

Inspirational Speaker: Gary Guller returning home from India. Excellent trip.

Gary Guller here, just returning to my home in California. I'll update my blog in the next few days. It was such a special trip to India, we met with most wonderful organisations, we worked hard and the people we visited and spent time alongside, treated me so well. Thank you.

As I like to say, its all about people and team, working together, communicating effectively and being passionate about success in our personal and professional life - And when this happens - Anything is Possible.

Thank you again to all - it was a grand success because of the hard work, preparation and delivery and the from you folks, in me. Thank you again.

Namaste. Gary