BMUFSD: Briarcliff Middle School Students Attend An Assembly On Living In The Moment

Press release from the Briarcliff Manor Union Free School District:

2024-05-30

Most school assemblies begin with the presenter walking onto the stage to greet the audience.

That will not do for John Beede.

Mr. Beede, an avid mountain climber, climbed on top of one of the chairs in the middle of the district auditorium, much to the students’ surprise and delight.

After eventually making it to the stage, Mr. Beede delivered a presentation which was part of Wellness Day at Briarcliff Middle School, and which was all about being present in the moment.

Mr. Beede is a motivational speaker who has climbed all of the summits of the tallest mountains on every continent – a rare accomplishment. In fact, more people have traveled to outer space than have climbed all seven summits.

During his presentation, Mr. Beede shared strategies that he used while climbing and lessons learned over the past 10 years that taught him about the importance of living in the moment.

“It is a gift to have an adult who believes in you in the same way that your teachers believe in you,” he said to the students, and asked them to stand up and clap for them.

“Being present is important because it makes us feel connected, and it allows us to be more efficient and find meaning in every single moment,” he said. “If you are not living in the ‘right now,’ you are not living in reality. You are living in your head, and it’s making up the definition of reality in your head. That’s why presence is important.”

He discussed two ground rules.

Ground rule one is that to change anything in your life, you have to first play in the unknown.

“When I climb a mountain, I’m scared every time I go, but it’s overcoming that fear that’s important,” he said. “It’s in these moments that we push against the thing that scares us, but still stay in the realm of safety – that’s where we grow as human beings. All it takes is 10 seconds of courage.”

Ground rule two is to commit to being in the “now.”

He spoke about a yak who was swept in a river and floated two miles down until it was rescued.

“The yak simply shook the water off his back and got back on the trail and kept walking,” he said. “We need to be more like the yak – he wasn’t worried about the past or future, he was in the present. The joy of life, the magic, happens in the ‘right now.’”

He shared the story of his two-month climb of Mount Everest, which he did together with his Sherpa, Nuru.

“If I stacked over 95 statues of liberty on top of one another, that would be the altitude of Mount Everest,” he said. “We climbed higher than planes in the sky.”

He took a break from the story to share his method for finding your purpose.

“Every human being has three decision-making centers: our heads, our hearts and our gut. Each one of us has a primary decision-making center out of those three,” he said. “If you primarily use your head, ask yourself what you are willing to be trained or educated in. If you use your heart, ask yourself who do you admire and what life have they led. Then, try to live the life they lead. Ask that person what they did to become who they are today. Those who use their gut should ask what their future self will regret not doing – and that is the thing they should be doing now. This is how you find your purpose.”

He spoke about climbing in the “death zone” on Mount Everest, which has very little air.

“When you are climbing mount Everest, the air that you are breathing is one-third of the air you and I are breathing right now,” he said. “You can take full breaths of air while you’re up there, but it doesn’t do anything for energy. This is how I learned to be in the moment: in each step I had to find out how to re-energize my body. I had an oxygen bottle but at one point Nuru told me it was empty. He was able to climb up to bring me another oxygen bottle. This saved my life.

“We climbed so high on the curvature of the earth that we were looking down on the Milky Way galaxy and I could see the stars.”

According to Mr. Beede, breathing can help you get in the moment.

He discussed several breathing techniques that can help us be in the moment and also prevent anxiety.

Another way to be present is to name your current emotion.

“You are not your emotion, and by naming it, you say ‘I am not that thing, I am a person watching that thing.’”

Another way to be present is to ask for help; when you ask someone for help, you are saying “I want to be in the moment and learn from you.”

Mr. Beede answered students’ questions at the end of the presentation, and students learned more tidbits about his life and his climbing adventures. For example, they learned about the logistics of climbing Mount Everest and that it cost him $50,000 to climb it. He also shared that he once had to be airlifted after getting fluids in his lungs during a climb in South America.

He ended by telling the story of his favorite climb – it was on Mount Kilimanjaro, and it was his favorite because he did it together with his father.

“After the climb, my definition of success changed,” he said. “It was no longer about getting to the peaks of these mountains. Instead, it was about the people and the team that I took with me. That is the real meaning of success. That is why you should find presence in your life. Because the people that matter most to you – you can be here for them.

Students found the presentation compelling and useful.

“The presentation was really cool, I learned some new breathing techniques that I can use when I have trouble sleeping,” said Reagan, a sixth grader.

This press release was produced by the Briarcliff Manor Union Free School District. The views expressed here are the author’s own.