Matthew Child's 9 life lessons from rock climbing - Jeremy Campbell

Matthew Childs’ 9 life lessons from rock climbing

TED Talk by Matthew Childs

Rating: ****


This TED talk delivered by Matthew Childs gives 9 helpful tips that should be taken into consideration while rock climbing. These tips are 1: don't let go, 2: hesitation is bad, 3: have a plan, 4: the move is the end, 5: know how to rest, 6: fear sucks, 7: opposites are good, 8: strength does not equal success and 9: know how to let go.

Even though I am not by any means a serious rock climber, I do enjoy indoor rock climbing from time to time and these tips can be just as helpful indoors as they are for outdoor climbing. While rock climbing I often let go because I don’t think I can complete a climb because I know that I am attached to a rope or that the ground is very near, so falling won’t hurt me. But I never actually know if I could really complete the climb because I never really put my full effort into it. Now that I reflect on our rock climbing trips as a class, I probably would have been much more successful if I didn't let go. A tip that I figured out for myself while rock climbing is number 7, opposites are good. I learned that using opposing forces was a very easy way to keep yourself up, like pushing outward on both sides, or pulling inward on both sides instead of just clinging to the wall. The last tip, know how to let go, probably would have made my trips quite a bit more enjoyable than they already were  because when I would find myself about to fall, I would sometimes helplessly grab for other holds on the wall without thinking and scrape my hands which caused a fair amount of pain, especially because it happened repeatedly. If I would have known to think when I fell what the best possible move was instead of acting immediately, then my hands would have enjoyed my experiences rock climbing almost as much as I have. The tips provided in this TED talk seem very helpful, and I’ll be sure to keep them in mind on my next rock climbing excursion.  

By Jeremy Campbell


Childs, Matthew. 9 life lessons from rock climbing. TED Talks, April 2009.