Free-Soling

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I've always thought about it as just the severity versus probability question. Your odds of bombing on the TED stage were probably higher than they are of you falling when you climb. And there's the sort of misguided feeling that bombing in front of so many people will be almost as bad as dying. But most of the free-soling I've done, I'm totally alone. So if I feel at all uncomfortable, I can just back down and there's no pressure,. There's no expectation. It's just totally internal.

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.