Radical Vulnerability Can You Find it Within Your Own Story

[Applause]

six days before my 11th birthday

on the other side of the world my father

alex lo made the last split-second

decisions of his life

on the flanks of an immense snowy peak

in the tibetan himalaya

a massive avalanche of ice and snow

roared down towards him

and his best friend and climbing partner

conrad anchor

alex ran one direction and conrad the

other

in their attempt to escape

conrad survived and alex did not

my father was one of the most renowned

mountaineers of his day

known even beyond the borders of the

climbing world

but to me he was my role model

my protector my best friend and my hero

as i walked to school that morning news

of his death reached the outside world

with tearful eyes my mom pulled me from

class

and as we walked to the car i knew

something had changed

she told me my hero wouldn’t be coming

home this time

the dad was gone and my world closed in

around me

it is this singular event that has

impacted my life

more than any other and looking back

on my story now having examined it in

ways i never thought to

before i’ve come to understand

how and to what degree

conflict and resolution is at the heart

of almost

every story throughout the history of

storytelling

most involve a protagonist going up

against an undefined darkness

insurmountable odds or a journey beyond

reckoning

this at its core is the most human ideal

to identify and overcome great adversity

and then arrive at a place of

enlightenment and happiness

but what if we miss a central character

in ourselves in the narrative of our own

life

what if the journey carries on the

monster remains unslain

and the plotline continues waiting for a

realization

and perspective

conrad returned from tibet and through a

shared grief became closer to our family

eventually he would go on to marry my

mother jennifer

and adopt me and my two younger brothers

sam and isaac

and together we would rebuild from what

had passed

to many outside speculators this was the

end of our story

a tragedy but one with a happy

conclusion

alex’s story became something of lore in

the community of people who knew him

and thus so did the story of our family

it felt like it wasn’t something that

belonged to me though

and more something that was just

happening around me

the story of my life up into that point

wasn’t my story and so it was hard for

me to see a place

for myself as a central and acting

character in it going forward

as a documentary filmmaker i’ve come to

understand

that empathy and vulnerability are at

the core of human narrative

when i bring my lens to bear on someone

asking them to share their deepest self

with me

to discuss past trauma or insecurities

shameful wrongdoings or painful

realities

i have to be in that with them i have to

give myself to that relationship

and shared objective so that they might

feel trust enough to let go of things

that would otherwise feel

impossible to

it’s also through my experience as a

storyteller

that i’ve come to understand that many

of our own qualms

and conflicts come down to a balance

between ego and empathy

our ego or sense of self can allow us to

do incredible things

by letting us believe that we’re capable

of the impossible

in the same breath though it can also

trap us within

obscuring our ability to see our own

weaknesses and faults

or confront inner turmoil

in contrast a deep embrace of empathy

and vulnerability

can allow us to see our direct

impression on the world around us

and thus a more real and true sense of

who we are by how we fit within

in the spring of 2016 my life again

changed in an irreversible way

when my mother called me early one

morning

in a muffled voice she told me the

climbers had discovered two

bodies melted from the glacier at the

base of shishapangma

the mountain where alex had disappeared

all those years ago

never to be seen again or so i had

thought

she told me it was very likely that one

of those bodies was that of my dad

and the other his friend and partner

dave who had been killed with him

that fateful day 17 years prior

my mind raced as i tried to grapple with

what this meant

emotions that had sat dormant in me

since i was just a boy

and a story that i had sealed off and

left behind in a former self

came rushing back to the forefront of my

reality

how would i grapple with these two

clashing ideas of myself going forward

as a family we decided to travel to

tibet

to collect alex’s remains and put him to

rest

together

it’s hard for me to remember most of

that journey to be honest

my mind grappling with the strange

normalcy of our first full family trip

abroad in some years

while at the same time following in the

exact footsteps that alex conrad and

their expedition team had taken in the

early fall of 1999

i reveled in awe at the life that alex

had led

that now brought us under these strange

and dark

circumstances

to this beautiful and wild place

while at the same time i grappled with

the stress

pain and trauma i saw re-emerging in

each of my family members in different

ways

and in myself

i imagined seeing alex again

my long-lost hero once again

face to face

before we embarked on this journey a

friend and mentor reached out with a

grain of advice

he suggested that perhaps i process this

experience to come

using the tools i knew and owned as a

storyteller

and document our journey

heeding this would lead me to my first

step

towards reclaiming my place in a story i

had seen

as not mine

and with the permission of my family

i committed to filming our trip to tibet

alongside my younger brother

sam

as we approached shishapangma this

mountain i had seen

in my dreams as a boy as a veiled

monster that had taken my life

from me and thrown me down a path

unplanned

we documented our story as it unfolded

before us

on that day as the sun rose and

illuminated the mass expanse of the

himalaya before us

my stepdad conrad went ahead with the

rest of our recovery team

i remained behind unable to go

any further towards alex’s last resting

place

i sat at the base of the ice fall

looking up at this beautiful

pristine snowy peak

imagining alex’s last moments of life

in that moment i turned my camera on

myself

and in that i gave myself the chance to

speak

my feelings my fear and my pain

what followed was without a doubt one of

the hardest 24 hours i will ever live

carrying alex from that mountain and

placing him on a pyre that sent him

skyward

and back into the peaks that brought him

so much joy and life

and played the last stage to his and his

story

ushered mine into motion

i processed this experience as i only

knew how

by living it in all its visceral

intensity and pain

and then trying to move on

trying to be strong for my family and

for myself

as we’re told to do in the face of such

things

looking back on the moment i’d lost my

dad as a ten-year-old boy

this is how i reacted then as well

it’s a knee-jerk reaction i think to

close ourselves off

and steal ourselves to pain fear and

unknowing

so that we can go back to living

even though i knew the power and potency

and vulnerability i’d found as a

storyteller

my ego-driven sense of self-preservation

made it almost impossible

to explore those dark corners i had

glimpsed within myself

in tibet

it wasn’t until the following september

when a friend and facilitator of a

summit here in big sky

called hatch reached out and asked if i

would be

willing to share about my experience in

tibet

did i even really begin to think about

the broader implications they’re in

it was in fact not until i stepped up

onto that stage

in front of a crowd of more than a

hundred or so

peers friends strangers alike and began

to speak

did i truly even begin to understand the

power

and taking that vulnerability i knew to

be so potent

in storytelling and turning it inward on

myself

with microphone in hand i told my story

unleashed my trauma my fear

my pain and broke into tears

unable to grapple with what i’d stumbled

into

walking off that stage i knew something

was different

the only way i can really explain it was

a sense

of enlightenment this feeling of

weightlessness from something i’d held

on my chest since i was just

a boy

in that break in radical vulnerability

i found the commitment to try and

continue to explore those dark corners

i had glimpsed in tibet and then

rediscovered on that stage

and make a film from what we’d begun

documenting

in tibet

it’s now been more than four years and i

stand here before you tonight with a

completed opus

to that break in radical vulnerability

in the form

of a feature doc about our lives

our story slated to release later this

year

i had conversations i may never have had

uncovered memories that may have

remained

like that hidden

and experienced emotional relief i

possibly never

would have attained under other

circumstances by the journey

it was of course a difficult path and

one with many points of darkness and

self-doubt

i often found myself sitting wondering

why

i was dragging this darkness back out

into light

why i was reopening these wounds long

scarred over not only for myself

but for my family and those i love most

and it all kept coming back to this idea

that

if we cannot analyze treat

and clean our own wounds

then how can we ever begin to truly heal

for me weaving a story from the quiet

pain i had held within all those years

was the path i knew to reach that end

now i don’t think you need to go and

make a feature documentary film about

your most painful

life experiences to find the same

perspective that i did

anyone can analyze their own life

using the idea of your story and place

in it

it’s when you look at your own life as a

story that you almost give yourself a

window to look down on yourself as a

character in your own narrative

and by it see more clearly your own

faults misgivings

fears and give yourself the chance

the space and the stage to speak your

truth

it was when i placed myself as a

protagonist within my own story

that i was able to put more validity and

weight on my own actions

thoughts and feelings

in our modern understanding of

storytelling we see it as a means of

entertainment and escape

we can see ourselves and the characters

and the narratives we observe

and movies tv shows and books

being stronger braver more vulnerable

and stepping up to do the things we

always wish we had the power to do

but what if instead of imagining

ourselves in those characters

and projecting the traits we idolize in

them

the truths we couldn’t speak the actions

we couldn’t take until it was too late

because our ego held us back

we’ve reimagined our own stories place

ourselves as the protagonist that steps

up

onto that stage faces their darkness

and draws it into light

and in that break and radical

vulnerability

and shift in perspective finds that

we’re capable of being the hero of our

own stories

all along thank you so much

[Applause]

you