9 Life Lessons from Rock Climbing

By: Matthew Childs

Rating: ***

This is a solid article that gives important life lessons of rock climbing from an experienced and down to earth speaker.

In this TED talk, this experienced rock climber gives 9 life lessons he’s learned over the course of his 35 years of rock climbing. He gives lessons such as, learning how to rest, never letting go, and etc. In addition to his lessons, he gives in-depth explanations as to why or how that lesson is beneficial to the climber. He also gives photos and comments with each lesson and gives some background information on each location and what it is like to climb it.

This has affected me because, I’ve never had much knowledge of the mentality and physicality that rock climbers must achieve when doing climbs. For me, the most experience i’ve had with rock climbing is when i’d go to a rock climbing trip with my outdoor education class, in an indoor environment that’s considered fairly easy. From this, i’ve thought about how much determination it takes to do the climbs that he has shown in his TED talk. If it can even be hard doing the indoor climbs I have done, which again, are fairly easy, I could not imagine what it would be like to climb in a harder environment and with different equipment (e.g self harness) I’ve learned many lessons from the speaker, but what really stuck out was the lesson of, learning how to rest. The speaker explains that in extreme situations, the best climbers are the ones that know how to rest in the hardest positions. This shows that rock climbing takes time, a lot of thinking, and recuperating. In addition, he also goes to explain that rock climbing takes a lot of analyzing, mapping and no hesitations. This has inspired me to take the lessons he’s learned through rock climbing and try to use them in reasonable real life situations. Whether it would be in my sports activities, or small daily activities. Finally this will change my behavior towards rock climbers, as now, I will have more respect for their sport and doings, based on their hard works, and determination when it comes to rock climbing.

Childs, Matthew. "9 Life Lessons from Rock Climbing." TED Talks. TED Talks, 1 Feb. 2009. Web. 8 Jan. 2015.