Extreme risk, extreme achievement

Because it’s there

Alex Honnold is a mountain climber, but such an unadorned description is akin to saying that Pele could play soccer, or Einstein dabbled in math. The term does not adequately capture the reality-defying nature of what he does.

Honnold is the world’s foremost practitioner of a climbing style known as free soloing, which eschews equipment that could aid in progress, with the added disadvantage of no ropes or harnesses for protection in case of a fall.1 With a small chalk bag worn around his waist and snug footwear as his only gear, he scrambles up rock faces with the deftness of a mountain goat.

On June 3, 2017, he single-handedly extended the boundaries of human possibility, climbing the legendary El Capitan in California’s Yosemite Valley, following a route that scaled 900 vertical meters (3000 feet) in one shot. He surmounted one of the most imposing rock formations on the planet, which attracts climbers from around the world looking to conquer a pinnacle of the sport.2

At numerous points Honnold’s life depended on successfully maintaining friction against invisible holds on slick granite or locking his fists into long fissures and shimmying upwards along vertiginous sections of rock. At the most crucial moment he braced his outstretched leg on a wall and balanced over the void, held in place only by tensed muscles and exquisitely coordinated movements.

A single lost grip, a misplaced foot, a momentary lapse in concentration—anything would be enough to instantly end his record-breaking attempt, along with his life.3

While the achievement was preposterous and seemingly gratuitous, it was anything but reckless. Honnold had been climbing for decades and had scouted and contemplated routes up El Capitan for years. He patiently and methodically charted different paths, often in tandem with other world-class climbers. He trained with a discipline rivaled by medieval ascetics, tuning his diet and working his body into peak condition. A favorite exercise involved hanging by his fingertips, which he could practice on an implement hung inside the van that doubled as his residence for much of his adult life.4

There was no glory waiting on the summit, which can in fact be accessed relatively easily by a hiking trail on the back side. Few thought a climb without protection could be done and none had seriously attempted it. News about the sport was sprinkled with the obituaries of free soloists and other daredevils who tested their limits, finding out too late that they had surpassed them. Honnold’s friends and climbing partners, intimately aware of the dangers he faced, tried unsuccessfully to dissuade him.

And yet there was something ineffably gripping about his achievement, in which one person discovered an untapped vein of potential and revealed our current understanding to be inadequate and limiting. His emergence on the top was almost a rebirth after several harrowing hours in the grip of death itself, fought temporarily to a standstill.5

Change the model

On a more earthbound plane, a similar threshold in athletic performance was crossed in 1954 when Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile barrier on a track in Oxford, though the risk he faced for failure was notably less consequential than Honnold’s. The race was the first in a long stream of record-setting running performances that has only recently plateaued6.

Interestingly, Bannister was a medical student at the time, and his training was unconventional. The morning of the meet also brought less than ideal weather and track conditions. None of this mattered in his quest to be first.

No one had achieved the mark prior to Bannister, but in the years following hundreds of runners did so, spanning the range from someone over 40 to a high school student. Human physiology has not changed, and improved shoe designs can only have so much impact. But seeing what was possible shifted the entire window of top performance in track running. The four-minute mile is now breached consistently by elite runners, who receive little of the acclaim that accrued to Bannister.

Honnold’s free solo hasn’t yet had similarly catalytic effects, but the progression of achievements in simply climbing El Capitan shows how each generation built on the trailblazing efforts of those that came before. Early climb durations were on the order of weeks and required expedition-type camps and equipment. It has been topped in less than four hours without so much as a carabiner, or less than two hours when taking a more safety-conscious approach.

In every field there are those who venture beyond what is conventionally accepted, to probe the options that lie outside of standard practice. They take risks both personally and professionally, and most fail in their attempts. Yet absent their efforts the broader world remains unexplored, and the foundation for the next level of achievement remains unlaid.

Push the limits

So why take a chance, when most attempts fail? For some the process of trying what has never been done before is enough. The potential outcome is less important than preparation, deep exploration, and the knowledge that every existing path has been considered, with the only option remaining to find a new one. The result is less significant than the process of trying to reach it.

In many endeavors failure is the default outcome. Not many free soloists stick around the top of their sport for very long—they either choose discretion and quit while they’re ahead, or the mountain that has waited impassively for the slightest mistake finally claims its due.

Entrepreneurs face similar odds, knowing that very few startups will deliver on their promise. Popular neighborhoods can count on the continued openings of new and trendy restaurants, even though the chances of surviving the first year are only around 10 percent.7 Most venture capital investments are a bust. New product launches rarely gain traction. Most new television series get cancelled, if they even make it past the pilot stage.

Fortunately, most of us operate in a world that resembles Bannister’s more than Honnold’s. Still, the path taken by the latter is instructive in a world where the path to success can be exceedingly narrow:

• Make the stakes radical and obvious. Ropes are available for climbers, but they make peak focus and performance less necessary. If you lead a company struggling to make it to the next level of growth, consider the irrevocable strategic move, knowing that if it doesn’t work your customers or suppliers will revolt. Get up on stage to give that critical presentation sans notes, knowing that you have no fallback and so must have total command of your content. Without serious risk of failure, there is little chance to achieve something great. Just as muscles will not strengthen unless stressed past normal limits, individuals or organizations will not realize their fullest potential without serious discomfort.
• Prepare while still on the ground. In a talk describing his planning Honnold said “I had to consider every possibility while I was safely on the ground.” Past a certain point on the mountain turning back was no longer viable, and improvising would likely be deadly. He knew every step and hold before setting out, and even after summiting claimed he was fresh enough to do it over again. Given the nature of his project he was also able to trace the route with safety gear in advance multiple times. Success wasn’t guaranteed, but this approach minimized the variables. Winging it makes sense in some fields, but others reward deliberation before commitment.

Bannister’s all-out performance sparked a boom in middle distance track, resetting the baseline for greatness. Against the monolithic backdrop of El Capitan Honnold was an imperceptibly tiny speck, but for a moment he became as large as the mountain itself. The chapter in climbing that follows Honnold’s has yet to be written, but for some young athlete just starting out their world of possibility just expanded.

Consider the wild bet. The odds of failure are high, but what could be waiting for you on the other side?

References

The award-winning documentary Free Solo captures Alex Honnold’s hair-raising climb. He also discusses his accomplishment in a TED talk.

Climbing has an overview of the milestone progression on El Capitan.

Harvard Business Review has an article on the mental barrier that was broken by Bannister’s accomplishment on the track.