FindingLife on Mt. Everest

Every mountain has two summits. One is made of rock and ice. The other lives inside us. Most people spend their lives chasing the first and never reach the second. This is the story of what happens when you finally do, when the pursuit of something higher transforms into purpose, when a life defined by struggle becomes one rooted in belonging, and when the hard won hope you find at the top becomes the service you offer to others.

Elia Saikaly’s path began far from the peaks of Everest. Raised in a strict fundamentalist home, he was expelled from school, lived on the streets, and learned to survive but not how to belong.

In his teens, a chance encounter with a world champion strongman changed the trajectory of his life. Under his mentorship, Elia learned the power of discipline, visualization, recovery, and mindset. By seventeen, he had broken a world record in powerlifting. The strength he built in the gym would one day help him endure the storms of the world’s highest peaks.

In his early twenties, drawn into the entertainment industry as a model and actor, Elia lost himself to perfectionism, body dysmorphia, and depression. Success on the surface only deepened the void within.

A single phone call changed everything. Invited to join a Canadian expedition to Mount Everest, Elia had never slept in a tent. His role was to film Dr. Sean Egan, a sixty three year old professor attempting to become the oldest Canadian to summit the world’s tallest mountain. Sean never made it home. His death became a defining moment that set Elia on a path of purpose.

Determined to honour his friend’s legacy, Elia returned to Everest to finish what Sean had started. That climb would change his life forever. Taking a leap of faith, he invested everything, his savings, his reputation, his heart, and still fell short of the summit, forced to turn back just 500 feet from the top due to unstable weather. Battered and broken but unwilling to give up, he transformed failure into fuel and created FindingLife, a non profit initiative that virtually brought more than twenty thousand Canadian students to the top of the world, teaching that true success is not about achievement but alignment.

Those students, inspired by his mission, went on to fundraise for a well and a school for orphaned children in Nepal, turning tragedy into tangible impact.

Elia teaches that the greatest climb is not up a mountain, it is within ourselves. He takes audiences deep into the ways he confronted and healed the relationships, beliefs, and stories that once defined his pain. Through forgiveness, reconciliation, and surrender, he learned that real strength is not found in control or conquest but in acceptance, humility, and the courage to come home to oneself.

In FindingLife on Mount Everest, Elia shares how that transformation unfolded, how a life once defined by struggle and survival became a story of purpose, healing, and meaning. Through breathtaking visuals and raw storytelling, he reminds audiences that each of us has a mountain to climb and that the ascent toward our truest self begins the moment we stop chasing the summit and start finding meaning in the climb itself.