One slip and you’re dead.
We get a lot of room for error when our feet are on the ground.
But hanging off a rock 900 meters in the air, you don’t get an inch.
When Alex Honnold began rock climbing, he was exceedingly average.
“I’ve never been gifted,” he said. “I just loved climbing.”
Alex climbed every day. And every day, he got a little better.
He climbed so much that his 60-year-old mother got into the sport.
He dropped out of college to travel around in a beat-up van, putting himself on the precipice of death as often as possible.
In the following years, Alex set records for the fastest ascents of most of the mountains you can imagine — without safety lines.
Alex has dangled over death so often that he no longer feels fear — his amygdala no longer activates in the face of danger.
There’s no magic to his ability or success.
He prepares for every ascent by setting small, concrete goals and working towards them every day.
He has placed himself outside his comfort zone so often that the unthinkable has become possible.
And when he’s finished climbing?
“There’s always the next thing you can try.”