What Does It Feel Like to Be Up on a Rock With No Ropes?

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Climbing can feel invigorating, exhilarating and amazing at the same time. It really just depends on the difficulty of what you're climbing and your preparation. There are also things that you have access to that nobody else in human history has experienced. If you're not prepared for it and you actually think you're going to fall off then it can be truly horrifying and everything people have nightmares about.

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.