Name: What Motivated Nims Purja to Climb 14 of the World's Tallest Mountains
Uploaded: 2022-03-09T18:10:29.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'What Motivated Nims Purja to Climb 14 of the World's Tallest Mountains' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-03-09. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'What Motivated Nims Purja to Climb 14 of the World's Tallest Mountains' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-03-09. Transcript available.

the Joe Rogan experience when did you decide that you were gonna do this 14
Peaks thing and then film this and like what was what was the moment where this
idea came into your head so Jody obviously you got you asked me two
questions let me break down so 2019 at this point I serve with the UK Special
Forces for ten years I've been around the world I have obviously done some
crazy shit you know that you know people wouldn't probably see on the movies
and
all that so what happened in 2019 was I found the purpose and look just to just
to even put things into perspective at this point I had served 16 years in the
British military I had only six years left to get the full pension so you know
so
if you look from the the financial perspective you know I'm really there to
get the full pension but then I got this idea like the 14 Peaks so why I'm
doing
this so I had two purpose the first one was look doesn't matter where you come
from
what your background is whatever that is you can literally show the world
nothing
is impossible no excuses and the second one was look the Nepalese climbing
community the
serpas are the king of a thousand does but we never had the right you know like
credits and
I wanted to raise the name of the Nepalese climbers and those two purpose gave
me the strength so
what happened after that was straight away I went to the HR I put my
resignation and
people went mental they're like you know my brother is specifically like names
you
know what you're so selfish because at this point I used to send you know a
chunk of
my salary every month to my mom and dad I really believe that in our parents
you know they look
after us when we were like kids and vulnerable and as a give back to them when
they get older
they're also invulnerable they cannot work and all that so I was always you
know like sending
them money so when I when I decided about this project and when I put the
resignation I know that
there's no money going to them my brother went really mentalist like names you
know you are the
the most strongest financial contributor in our family and you know what none
of the
Garg has have ever been there you should you should complete your career and I
was like
no brother and and we didn't talk for three months me and my brother and he's
like my father he's the
one who sent me to boarding school I'm gonna slow you down here so you had this
idea and because of
this idea you decided to resign yeah and this idea of climbing the 14 Peaks
when when it first came
in your head what was your goal it was just to elevate the Nepalese climbers
was it to raise
money was it to raise awareness no so it was again literally to show the world
that nothing is
impossible there's no excuses but that's I wanted but that's not a career right
so you're not a
you're quitting you're quitting your career to show the world that nothing is
impossible I I didn't
only quit my career my brother I put everything on the line and and I'll go in
details what I mean by
that so I resigned and it was really tough look I came from this completely
different role special
forces background I had never experience of doing the fundraising and when I
first talk start talking
about the project people were like names it's not possible so for those people
who doesn't understand
what I was trying to do was so there are 14 mountains in the world above 8,000
meters and 8,000 meters is is the
death zone peak and the fastest some thousand excuse me 8,000 meters is what it's
a death zone is death zone so
the reason why it's called this zone is from that altitude nobody can survive
the human body is literally dying
dying so that's why it's called the death zone peak because all those 14 are
above 8,000 meters so you can
only be up there for a very small area yeah yeah and so the fastest time was a
week sort of eight
years to be precise it was seven years 11 months and 14 days and the guy who
tried to break that record
broke it only by one week so that was that was that and then I said I'll do
that in seven months and
people were like no it's impossible again you know those guys who are listening
just to put this into
simple perspective so if the record for full marathon is now two hours what I
was saying there then was
I'm gonna do that in 10 minutes and that's why nobody believed in and enjoy it
was crazy you know I used
to wake up at like four o'clock write the email take early train to London meet
all this you know
entrepreneurs you know corporate organizers and peace them repeat the same
thing come back home quick food
then I write again and the follow-up email hey nice to meet you today and you
know follow-up email
let me stop you there hold on so you have this idea you don't have any
experience in filmmaking you
don't have any experience in the media you have no experience in doing anything
in the public eye
no everything you've done has been just grinding as a gurkha grinding as a
special forces operator
this is what you're doing and then you just decide I'm gonna do this and I want
to make a movie about it
yeah so yeah who do you contact how do you even start that process yeah so it
was it was tough so
the first thing was to get the money to to go and climb so how did you even
know how much money you
needed um so you know the high altitude mountaineering is is quite expensive
let's say even if somebody
want to do this the whole 14 peaks um it will roughly cost around two millions
two million dollars and
because I was going as a very like bare minimum because I don't need that much
support you know
I put roughly under a million margin and you know what brother nothing there
was no funding after one
year of like going everywhere and then what I did the first thing was when you
say go everywhere like
how do you even start like I don't have any experience in that so I don't know
who would I contact to
to fund a giant project where I'm going to climb 14 peaks I'll just give you
this example
so one of the example was you know I wrote a hand written letter to um who's
the owner of virgin
I google it ah Richard Branson yeah yes and you know I had I write that in a
very long later full hand
written and I cover that and put the put those in his stamp so that you know it
will you know
gonna get his attention and nothing came so I was just going after everything
anything from outdoor
companies outdoor clothing and this is already after you'd already quit your
job I have already quit
so I have already made the decision and that's why it was so stressful because
now all my family are
suffering because of my decision my poor wife she was like you know and my for
the first time you know
like I had to suffer through this kind of you know like this stress look mate
you know I have I have
done HR I have been deployed all over the world I have operated in very like
that that split seconds kind
of you know like environment where your decision has to be like bummers and and
that doesn't stress me out
but here it was mental my eyes how are you making a living this was like that
how are you making money
so at this point we didn't we didn't have money no money so how are you eating
how are you paying your
rent so whatever we had a bit of saving and all that it was there so you were
burning through your
savings while trying to achieve this goal yeah yeah and so what was the first
thing that hit that let
you know that this is possible because i believed in it no no no that's not
what i mean what was the
first thing where someone said yes where someone said i'll give you money no so
what happened was
the the funding was really really struggling and what i did was you know what
people don't believe it
because of course in their eyes you know like what even red bull says it's like
swimming to the moon
you know so even when they say things like that so of course you know people
were like oh it's it's too
much stuff then what i did was i remortgaged my house and put every money i can
put into this project
and that was like only like less than i would say seven percent of the whole
funding and this is before
anybody's contributed yeah yeah so you have no investors nothing you don't even
have netflix
forget netflix and i'll come into that story later on brother so at this point
and eventually i started
doing go funding i had like no social media so in march 2019 when i resigned
from the special forces
i had no idea but i didn't even have facebook instagram anything nothing
nothing so i had to learn
how to do this all this hashtag and everything my it would it would drive me
nuts do you do all your
social media now is still yes so you reached out to me from social media that's
actually you yeah
because i never know and i'm like this might be something that was me yeah so i
never know because
i i think it might be some assistant somewhere a pr team yeah i i have a team
now but i still
i still you know do my thing because then it's authentic i do too i do i do my
thing too wow wow
so going back into that one joe what i really believed in was okay people doesn't
believe now
but if i start climbing this mountain in the manner and in the style that i
said i would do it
it's going to be possible so i took the flight to nepal with 15 of the funding
then there were a bit
of like in a small like you know um i would say sponsorship came in a few money
from gofundme and
at that point when i fly to nepal i had 15 of the total funding so the first
mountain i choose was
annapurna so in annapurna is like where every four climbers who try to climb
three dies trying
so that was my first mountain and you know what this was the first time ever in
the history of my
life hold on you said every four climbers three die yeah isn't it every four
climbers one die no that's
not on annapurna this is that's really okay too this is annapurna that's k2 so
most people die
yeah jesus so this is that's your first one first one and this so i guess if
you were gonna die you're
gonna die quick let's just get it over with that's so nuts what now what are
they dying from are they
dying from from avalanches it's the mountain where you see like you know like
avalanches crumbling
every like you know every minute that is so crazy every four climbers three die
yeah that sounds so
insane mate that's that's crazy that mountain and uh jamie's looking it up
right now he's freaking out
too no one's quicker at looking shut up than jamie by the way yeah yeah and you
know what this mountain
you know the the big thing what i was trying to say joe was how do you spell
that mountain it's annapurna
annapurna annapurna yes so how many people have climbed it all told i'm not
gonna lie i have no
clue here it goes 32 percent there have been fewer than 200 summits of the
mountain and 61 people have
lost their lives so it's not quite that much no you know what because i changed
that statistics in 2019
when i went there and set the fixed lines with my team more than i think 50
people submitted in 2019.
right but here's the stat every three people reach the top one person dies so
you got it reversed
that makes more sense okay it's close i think it's still but you know what it's
still very very
dangerous in last it's not like it's less impressive okay you know what joe i'm
not gonna argue on that
but in last two years he's a wizard i'm telling you in in last two years um i
think there are around 80
summits i'm i can't believe there's one but anyway what the is wrong with these
people stay home
so that that that is insane though that that many people die yeah yeah and you
know
annapurna is and you know what this was probably the first time in my history
where i was out of my shape
because every energy i had was on the computers writing email and i was oh you're
out of shape
as you see on the movie um i was 10 kg heavier i hadn't trained at all and i
was like you know what
you have insane cardio that's one of the things from the movie that was so
evident you have
very very unusual cardio um do you think that some of that is uh you're just
gifted or do you think
that's from the training that you had when you were a young boy do you think
you just like made
yourself have insane cardio from those runs you did when you're 16 years old
because when they were
doing that vo2 max test on you yeah that's insane man i mean your cardio is
like elite of the elite
yeah i think it's it's that muscle memory you know where i have been i've been
training you know since
i was kid and yeah you know like non-stop and obviously which you know we
discussed earlier i think
that's what what it it made me who i am today um you know the hard work that
the training and training
and training um but joe you know like a lot of people think probably you know
like oh yeah nims is
from nepal he's from the mountains and and he climb all this peak you know i
grew up in the most flat
and the hottest part of nepal how flat is it what's the altitude it's like
almost like in a sea level
and it is like it's sea level 40 45 degrees hot celsius oh that's very hot that's
very hot even the
flies would die on the road yeah what is 45 degrees celsius that's like a
google it buddy i want to say
that's like 110 is it higher yeah 113 113 it's crazy mate and it's that hot
sometimes you know those and it's
like sea level

What Motivated Nims Purja to Climb 14 of the World's Tallest Mountains

the Joe Rogan experience when did you decide that you were gonna do this 14
Peaks thing and then film this and like what was what was the moment where this
idea came into your head so Jody obviously you got you asked me two
questions let me break down so 2019 at this point I serve with the UK Special
Forces for ten years I've been around the world I have obviously done some
crazy shit you know that you know people wouldn't probably see on the movies
and
all that so what happened in 2019 was I found the purpose and look just to just
to even put things into perspective at this point I had served 16 years in the
British military I had only six years left to get the full pension so you know
so
if you look from the the financial perspective you know I'm really there to
get the full pension but then I got this idea like the 14 Peaks so why I'm
doing
this so I had two purpose the first one was look doesn't matter where you come
from
what your background is whatever that is you can literally show the world
nothing
is impossible no excuses and the second one was look the Nepalese climbing
community the
serpas are the king of a thousand does but we never had the right you know like
credits and
I wanted to raise the name of the Nepalese climbers and those two purpose gave
me the strength so
what happened after that was straight away I went to the HR I put my
resignation and
people went mental they're like you know my brother is specifically like names
you
know what you're so selfish because at this point I used to send you know a
chunk of
my salary every month to my mom and dad I really believe that in our parents
you know they look
after us when we were like kids and vulnerable and as a give back to them when
they get older
they're also invulnerable they cannot work and all that so I was always you
know like sending
them money so when I when I decided about this project and when I put the
resignation I know that
there's no money going to them my brother went really mentalist like names you
know you are the
the most strongest financial contributor in our family and you know what none
of the
Garg has have ever been there you should you should complete your career and I
was like
no brother and and we didn't talk for three months me and my brother and he's
like my father he's the
one who sent me to boarding school I'm gonna slow you down here so you had this
idea and because of
this idea you decided to resign yeah and this idea of climbing the 14 Peaks
when when it first came
in your head what was your goal it was just to elevate the Nepalese climbers
was it to raise
money was it to raise awareness no so it was again literally to show the world
that nothing is
impossible there's no excuses but that's I wanted but that's not a career right
so you're not a
you're quitting you're quitting your career to show the world that nothing is
impossible I I didn't
only quit my career my brother I put everything on the line and and I'll go in
details what I mean by
that so I resigned and it was really tough look I came from this completely
different role special
forces background I had never experience of doing the fundraising and when I
first talk start talking
about the project people were like names it's not possible so for those people
who doesn't understand
what I was trying to do was so there are 14 mountains in the world above 8,000
meters and 8,000 meters is is the
death zone peak and the fastest some thousand excuse me 8,000 meters is what it's
a death zone is death zone so
the reason why it's called this zone is from that altitude nobody can survive
the human body is literally dying
dying so that's why it's called the death zone peak because all those 14 are
above 8,000 meters so you can
only be up there for a very small area yeah yeah and so the fastest time was a
week sort of eight
years to be precise it was seven years 11 months and 14 days and the guy who
tried to break that record
broke it only by one week so that was that was that and then I said I'll do
that in seven months and
people were like no it's impossible again you know those guys who are listening
just to put this into
simple perspective so if the record for full marathon is now two hours what I
was saying there then was
I'm gonna do that in 10 minutes and that's why nobody believed in and enjoy it
was crazy you know I used
to wake up at like four o'clock write the email take early train to London meet
all this you know
entrepreneurs you know corporate organizers and peace them repeat the same
thing come back home quick food
then I write again and the follow-up email hey nice to meet you today and you
know follow-up email
let me stop you there hold on so you have this idea you don't have any
experience in filmmaking you
don't have any experience in the media you have no experience in doing anything
in the public eye
no everything you've done has been just grinding as a gurkha grinding as a
special forces operator
this is what you're doing and then you just decide I'm gonna do this and I want
to make a movie about it
yeah so yeah who do you contact how do you even start that process yeah so it
was it was tough so
the first thing was to get the money to to go and climb so how did you even
know how much money you
needed um so you know the high altitude mountaineering is is quite expensive
let's say even if somebody
want to do this the whole 14 peaks um it will roughly cost around two millions
two million dollars and
because I was going as a very like bare minimum because I don't need that much
support you know
I put roughly under a million margin and you know what brother nothing there
was no funding after one
year of like going everywhere and then what I did the first thing was when you
say go everywhere like
how do you even start like I don't have any experience in that so I don't know
who would I contact to
to fund a giant project where I'm going to climb 14 peaks I'll just give you
this example
so one of the example was you know I wrote a hand written letter to um who's
the owner of virgin
I google it ah Richard Branson yeah yes and you know I had I write that in a
very long later full hand
written and I cover that and put the put those in his stamp so that you know it
will you know
gonna get his attention and nothing came so I was just going after everything
anything from outdoor
companies outdoor clothing and this is already after you'd already quit your
job I have already quit
so I have already made the decision and that's why it was so stressful because
now all my family are
suffering because of my decision my poor wife she was like you know and my for
the first time you know
like I had to suffer through this kind of you know like this stress look mate
you know I have I have
done HR I have been deployed all over the world I have operated in very like
that that split seconds kind
of you know like environment where your decision has to be like bummers and and
that doesn't stress me out
but here it was mental my eyes how are you making a living this was like that
how are you making money
so at this point we didn't we didn't have money no money so how are you eating
how are you paying your
rent so whatever we had a bit of saving and all that it was there so you were
burning through your
savings while trying to achieve this goal yeah yeah and so what was the first
thing that hit that let
you know that this is possible because i believed in it no no no that's not
what i mean what was the
first thing where someone said yes where someone said i'll give you money no so
what happened was
the the funding was really really struggling and what i did was you know what
people don't believe it
because of course in their eyes you know like what even red bull says it's like
swimming to the moon
you know so even when they say things like that so of course you know people
were like oh it's it's too
much stuff then what i did was i remortgaged my house and put every money i can
put into this project
and that was like only like less than i would say seven percent of the whole
funding and this is before
anybody's contributed yeah yeah so you have no investors nothing you don't even
have netflix
forget netflix and i'll come into that story later on brother so at this point
and eventually i started
doing go funding i had like no social media so in march 2019 when i resigned
from the special forces
i had no idea but i didn't even have facebook instagram anything nothing
nothing so i had to learn
how to do this all this hashtag and everything my it would it would drive me
nuts do you do all your
social media now is still yes so you reached out to me from social media that's
actually you yeah
because i never know and i'm like this might be something that was me yeah so i
never know because
i i think it might be some assistant somewhere a pr team yeah i i have a team
now but i still
i still you know do my thing because then it's authentic i do too i do i do my
thing too wow wow
so going back into that one joe what i really believed in was okay people doesn't
believe now
but if i start climbing this mountain in the manner and in the style that i
said i would do it
it's going to be possible so i took the flight to nepal with 15 of the funding
then there were a bit
of like in a small like you know um i would say sponsorship came in a few money
from gofundme and
at that point when i fly to nepal i had 15 of the total funding so the first
mountain i choose was
annapurna so in annapurna is like where every four climbers who try to climb
three dies trying
so that was my first mountain and you know what this was the first time ever in
the history of my
life hold on you said every four climbers three die yeah isn't it every four
climbers one die no that's
not on annapurna this is that's really okay too this is annapurna that's k2 so
most people die
yeah jesus so this is that's your first one first one and this so i guess if
you were gonna die you're
gonna die quick let's just get it over with that's so nuts what now what are
they dying from are they
dying from from avalanches it's the mountain where you see like you know like
avalanches crumbling
every like you know every minute that is so crazy every four climbers three die
yeah that sounds so
insane mate that's that's crazy that mountain and uh jamie's looking it up
right now he's freaking out
too no one's quicker at looking shut up than jamie by the way yeah yeah and you
know what this mountain
you know the the big thing what i was trying to say joe was how do you spell
that mountain it's annapurna
annapurna annapurna yes so how many people have climbed it all told i'm not
gonna lie i have no
clue here it goes 32 percent there have been fewer than 200 summits of the
mountain and 61 people have
lost their lives so it's not quite that much no you know what because i changed
that statistics in 2019
when i went there and set the fixed lines with my team more than i think 50
people submitted in 2019.
right but here's the stat every three people reach the top one person dies so
you got it reversed
that makes more sense okay it's close i think it's still but you know what it's
still very very
dangerous in last it's not like it's less impressive okay you know what joe i'm
not gonna argue on that
but in last two years he's a wizard i'm telling you in in last two years um i
think there are around 80
summits i'm i can't believe there's one but anyway what the is wrong with these
people stay home
so that that that is insane though that that many people die yeah yeah and you
know
annapurna is and you know what this was probably the first time in my history
where i was out of my shape
because every energy i had was on the computers writing email and i was oh you're
out of shape
as you see on the movie um i was 10 kg heavier i hadn't trained at all and i
was like you know what
you have insane cardio that's one of the things from the movie that was so
evident you have
very very unusual cardio um do you think that so