Free Solo Climbing

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If something isn't cutting edge for me then it's actually quite relaxing and almost sort of meditative. On truly cutting edge soloing I often am not experiencing a lot during the climb itself because I'm sort of an autopilot. In some ways is the joy of it that you're totally lost in what you're doing and you're just doing it. That sounds exactly like how psychologists would describe a flow state. Is that what you're experiencing? Do you just have more intense flow while you're climbing than any other activities you do? Yeah, I think so. To be fair, I'm not really skilled enough at anything else to reach the same levels of flow I don't think

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.