"Touching the Void"

by Andrew Bryant - Executive Coach, Author and Trainer of Neuro Semantics and NLP

I recently saw the movie 'Touching the Void' about the British climber Joe Simpson who, in 1985, was left for dead by his partner after he broke his leg and then fell down a cravass on Siula Grande in Peru. Joe survived by climbing out of the cravass and then crawling for three days in excruciating pain from his broken leg. This movie leaves you in awe of the human survival capacity and of Simpson’s mental toughness.

What inspired me was how, when realising the enormity of his task, Simpson set himself twenty minute goals - just to reach the next bolder. It proves that any task however impossible, it might at first seem, can be achieved once you break it down into smaller steps, keep your eye on the outcome and persist, persist,persist.

Another mountain climber, David Lim, recently attended my NS-NLP Certification course.David led the first Singapore team to attempt Everest in 1998. One week later, David contracted Guillain-Barrè (ghee-yan bah-ray) syndrome, a disorder inwhich the body's immune system attacks part of the peripheral nervous system. David was paralysed and hospitalised for 6-months. David has partially recovered, describing himself as having "one and a half legs". He has resumed climbing, getting high again on Everest in 2001 and also summitting several other challenging peaks.