Nothing Is Impossible: Nimsdai Purja / Mountaineer and Former Soldier

Direct Talk

Courtesy of Nimsdai

There are 14 mountains on Earth
higher than 8000 metres.

Climbing one usually takes
months of preparation

and carries a high risk of dying

because the oxygen is so thin.

In 2019,

Nimsdai Purja, a mountaineer from Nepal,

set about climbing all of them
in the fastest time.

The world record was almost 8 years,

until Nims summited all 14 peaks
in just six months and six days.

Shortening the record by seven years
was an enormous physical challenge

which stunned the climbing community.

He called the mission "Project Possible."

Nims now holds more than 10 world records

and makes a living as a
high-altitude mountain guide.

He continues to redefine
what is humanly possible

in the most extreme environments.

Direct Talk caught up with him in London.

First time, you know,
Neil Armstrong went to the moon,

it was outside people's imagination.

So my Project Possible was something
that was beyond people's imagination.

And in my case, it was a mission to climb
all the 14 highest mountain of the world

and to climb that within seven months,

which I did in six months, six days.

It's like Nims saying,
I'm going to swim to the moon.

Nothing is easy in life,

but you need to commit first.

Once you commit,
then you got to work hard for it.

You got to dedicate.

You will always achieve greatness

if anything that you do is not about you.

Your ambition has to be bigger than yourself,

then you will achieve the impossible.

The world's 14
8000-metre peaks

are located in Nepal, China and Pakistan.

Climbing all of them in a single year
had never been attempted.

Nims' ground-breaking record made him
a global mountaineering icon.

The climbing community were stunned

that a Nepalese mountaineer,
not a professional sherpa,

had achieved such a feat.

I think the biggest thing
is I had the purpose

that I solely believed in that was
to show the world that nothing is impossible.

And the second I really wanted to raise
the name of the Nepalese climbers.

Those two mission is what it kept me going
during my difficult times.

The mountain never say, you know,

you are from Nepal,

you are from England,

you are from America,

you are tall, you are short,
you are beautiful, ugly, whatever it is,

it's the same rule.

Okay. If you're really good you will make it
to the top and get back down safely.

It wasn't about how difficult
one mountain is and all that.

It's about

the bigger picture game

that we all have our own
mountains in life to climb

and how we summit them.

Nims was born in western Nepal in 1983.

His father was a soldier
and his mother a farmer.

When they married, they were cut off from
their families both socially and financially

because they were from
different castes, or classes.

As a results, Nims grew up in poverty.

Today everybody see me very successful

but it has taken me 39 years.

As a kid, we didn't even had a flip-flops

just to eat like some meat,

have to wait for like Christmas, a year.

I remember we're sleeping
on the ground floor.

We had like a chicken farm on top of our,
on the first floor and everything

I used to remember like me
and my mom going around the forest

to collect, like, woods,
and we used to sell them.

I used to go for like
crab hunting in a little river

and I loved to be in the jungle,
in the rivers and all that.

It was tough.

But then my two brothers,

they joined the Gurkhas
and they supported the family.

The Gurkhas are Nepalese soldiers
recruited into the British Army.

Nims attended boarding school
thanks to his older brothers

who served as Gurkhas
and paid for his education.

When Nims was 18,

he passed the highly competitive
military selection process

to become a Gurkhas soldier himself.

The Gurkhas have got a huge reputation
of being the bravest of the bravest

the most loyal soldiers in the world.

For me, when I see my brothers
coming into Nepal doing their leave,

I was like, wow,
because they were super fit.

They look really good because
they have been training and all that.

And I just love that military style somehow.

And I just wanted to be
one of those cool dudes, you know?

So that was it.

The selection is very tough

and in my time we had 32,000 applicants

and only 230 could make it.

I think it's hard.

Even now I think like,
how did I did that?

As a kid of like, you know, 15 year old.

I used to wake up you know 1:00 in the morning

run 20 kilometres, sometimes 30 kilometres.

And I used to come in the hostel

because I used to live in a boarding school
at that point.

And I used to have to pretend I'm asleep
with everybody else in the dormitory.

Then I woke up,
then I pretend I'm brushing my teeth.

So I used to pretend
I have never left the compound.

But once I joined the Gurkhas,

I found out,
wow, there's a special unit here.

They do something like James Bond,

but in real life time.

And I was like fascinated by that.

Nims went on to become the first Gurkhas
to join the UK Special Forces,

Britain's elite fighting force.

His first experience of mountain climbing
was not until he was nearly 30 years old,

which is late in life
compared to many mountaineers.

Look, when I serve with the special forces,
I travel all over the world.

And when people kind of like, see me,

they ask me, where are you from?

And I say, I'm from Nepal.

Most of them would know where Nepal is
and some of them wouldn't know.

Then I have to say,
do you know Mt. Everest?

And they would say yes.

I was like,
okay, that's where I'm from.

And they would ask me,

"Have you seen Mount Everest?"

Then I was like, No.

So I was actually embarrassed of saying no,

that I haven't seen Mount Everest at all

And that's the sole reason
I went to Nepal to see Mount Everest.

At that point,

when you think you are the first Gurkha
ever in the Special Boat Service,

you've been all over the world,
have done, you know, this crazy stuff.

You think you're invincible.

And the mountain made me feel
how small I was.

And I love that component to start with.

And that's how we started
going back into the mountains.

Courtesy of Nimsdai

Nims first summited Mount Everest in 2016.

He realised that he had a
unique physiological ability

to perform feats of endurance
at high altitude

after he climbed Everest and two
neighbouring 8000 metre peaks in record time.

I decided to climb Everest,

Lhotse, and Makalu,

and I managed to climb that within five days,

and that's me stopping for two nights party.

Otherwise I could have done that
in three days and,

but most importantly,

when I climb Makalu and
got back down to base camp,

the heli was supposed to pick me up,

but because of the bad weather,
the heli didn't came.

So I ran all the way from base camp to Noom,

which is about, you know,
seven days' worth of trekking,

extreme trekking.

And I did that in 18 hours

and I was still fresh.

You will never know your true ability
until and unless you try.

Just don't judge yourself
on the basis of what you think.

Despite opposition from his family

who were looking to Nims
to provide for his elderly parents,

he left his highly-successful
military career after 16 years.

This meant giving up any retirement benefits.

He wanted to pursue his goal of climbing
all 14 of the world's highest mountains

in less than seven months –

a series of three expeditions
he called "Project Possible."

I got this drive to resign
from the Special Forces,

give my pension, everything,

because my mission was bigger than myself.

No one was happy

because for us that's everything.

Serving with the UK Special Forces
was the biggest thing,

something that I really admire in myself.

So I'm giving obviously
whole of my pension, my career,

to go and do this thing.

Only I know what I was capable of.

I called that Project Possible

because the rest of the world
said it's impossible.

Raising the fund for something
that the world thinks is impossible

is very, very tough.

Very, very tough. That's the hardest thing
I've ever done, I think, in my whole life.

You have to commit yourself first
before you ask from others.

So my commitment was not only
resigning from the Special Forces,

giving up my pension,

but I sold my house, remortgage everything

and put the money into it

because if I don't believe
how other people can believe in that project?

Project Possible was a
physical and mental battle for Nims

and he took on huge financial risk.

He shared his story of one man
pushing at the limits of human endurance

in a documentary named 14 Peaks.

Throughout the project,
Nims was supported by a rotating team

of exclusively Nepalese climbers.

He wanted to spotlight
the Sherpa climbing community

as athletes in their own right,

much more than their usual
reported role as guides for tourists.

For me, in my whole life
is about the fairness.

You know, people who deserve that
credibility needs to be given.

Statistically

it's the most watched sports
documentary of all time.

Straight away you can say that,

of course, it has raised the name
of the Nepalese climbers.

Let me be honest,

I never took the flag of Nepal or the
Great Britain when I went to this project.

It was purely for humanity.
One goal, the primary objective.

The second was, of course,
to raise the name of the Nepalese climbers.

The United Kingdom can also take pride.
Okay, he's our Special Forces guy.

The Gurkhas can take pride.

Nepal can take pride.

My village can take pride.
My school colleague can take pride.

Those people from my caste can take pride.

But no, I'm thinking big here,

because that comes from my heart.

That's why I'm who I am today.

As a soldier and mountaineer,

Nims has gained experience
of leadership and morality

in the most extreme environments on Earth.

He has performed multiple daring
rescue missions of stricken climbers.

Now I'm going to tell this,

I have led 32
8000-metre peak expeditions.

I have never failed in any of those,

not only reaching to the summit,

but bringing my team back
exactly the same way they have left.

Okay. No one in my team
has even got frostbite.

You know, to have that track record,
32 out of 32 is.

I take pride in that.

And it only came from meticulous planning.

Yes, I have to operate in a very,

I would say,
stressful conditions, environment.

But my decision is always right

and that comes with a huge amount
of knowledge and experience.

Nims continues to lead on
record breaking missions.

Even during the COVID pandemic,

he wrote his autobiography.

And, in 2021,

led a team of sherpas to the
first ever winter ascent of K2,

the second highest mountain on Earth.

I think during the COVID, I managed to
write my book Beyond Possible,

which is the Sunday Times bestseller

been translated in
so many different languages.

But also we made the
first winter season of K2 and

that was also during the COVID times.

So again, you always have to
find your way through,

navigate what you can do at that point

rather than moaning about
what you couldn't do.

The Himalayas are a
fragile mountain ecosystem

threatened by climate change
and extreme tourism.

Many visitors leave waste on the mountains.

Nims is working to protect
this unique environment

and reverse the impact of extreme tourism

in a new project called
The Big Mountain Cleanup.

We are cleaning all the rubbish
from popular 8000 metre peaks.

And these are not the rubbish that

the mountaineers who have climbed
this year or last year they have left.

It's been there from since
the history of mountaineering started.

It was so hard

because even like pick up the rubbish
at 8000 metre is tough.

Some of them are like buried with the ice

and even to dig out

is oh my god, it is a very tough mission.

I think we're going back again next year.

But our mission is to go there first
before everybody comes in,

because once people put their tent,

you cannot take them away

because then people might leave their
life saving essential equipment.

So you can't do that.

So we have to be in front of everybody

trying to take as much as we can

and then also go at the end as well.

So that's our mission for next year.

But of course, you got to employ
at least 15 sherpas

who are able to work there.

And of course, you have to pay their salary.

So it is not a cheap mission,

it is quite expensive,

but we are determined to do that.

Everything has to be counter-balanced.

Just now we're sitting the base camp,

everything runs through solar power.

As long as you keep remembering that
whatever footprint you are leaving

has an impact to our home, which is Earth,

that's good enough to have a bigger impact.

To grow his sustainability mission,

Nims launched the Nimsdai Foundation.

The charity supports military veterans

and other causes Nims is passionate about –

which includes giving back
to the Himalayan mountain communities

and inspiring the
next generation of mountaineers.

So we support heavily on Nepal, Pakistan,

but also all over the world.

You know, we sponsor Spanish climber
who is super good, Stefi.

She's a female climber to climb on K2.

I supported a very young talent
from Peru who was 12 year old.

He wanted to climb. He didn't have money.

So we supported him to achieve his goal.

I think what it drives me is

my existence and
my purpose now is not about myself.

It's bigger than who I am,

it's for the people.

So that's what it drives me.

It doesn't matter where you come from,

what your background is,

you can always show the world
that nothing is impossible,

you know, there's no excuses.

And through your hard work,

dedication, commitment,

being disciplined.

And I would say one thing,
you know, to be a successful person,

motivation is not good enough.

You got to be self-motivated.

And with all the things,

you can be on top of the world.

That's my message.

Nothing is impossible