Is There a Real Threat When You're on a Wall?

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I think looking back on it now, I see it more as a gradual erosion of my mental state. There were a series of missteps where I got slightly off-rooted at a certain point. It's funny to hear you say that with reappraising because I don't know the terms for it but I often talk about that with fear. And I'm like, why don't people treat fear the same way they treat hunger?

In 2017, Alex Honnold did what even the world’s best rock climbers thought was impossible. He climbed to the top of El Capitan– a granite rock mountain more than 3,000 feet high– without a rope, harness, or net. His audacious feat was the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary “Free Solo,” and it left Adam Grant with some burning questions about what we can learn from his unique approach to managing fear. In this episode of ReThinking, another podcast in the TED Audio Collective, Alex opens up about how he regulates his emotions when he’s hanging on by just a few fingers, what still scares him, and how he stays motivated to pursue ambitious goals. For the full text transcript, visit go.ted.com/RWAG2. And for more conversations on how the world’s most interesting people think, follow ReThinking with Adam Grant wherever you're listening to this.