Iterate To Great

Practice makes perfect. 

It’s a cliche adage we’ve heard since childhood. 

But buried in the saying is the iterative process that helps us reach goals, and the freedom and knowledge awarded from failure along the way. 

One man who has lived by the “practice makes perfect” expression to overcome the odds is Alex Honnold, one of the most accomplished free-solo rock climbers of all time. If you’ve seen the 2018 documentary Free Solo, you watched him become the first person to reach the top of Yosemite’s esteemed 30,000 ft El Capitan formation without ropes.

What’s required for a safe and successful free solo climb is more than skill or will, but an intimate knowledge of the surface you intend to climb. 

Gathering that knowledge involves taking an iterative approach. 

Honnold scaled El Capitan wearing a harness dozens of times. After each climb, he'd fill his notebooks with descriptions of each of the 30 sections, or pitches, on the rock, which he then memorized, along with the moves necessary to navigate them.

• Pitch one - Stay left towards the top. 
  Splitter it, feels more secure.

• Pitch two - Trust the right foot.
  Rock on, trust the feet. 
  Right hand to the last under cling. 

• Eight - Easy rump, go fast. 

• Nine - Stay outside of the down climb,
  Careful of blocks.

• Pitch 26 - Sort of lie back and up the corner. Key left-hand pinch thing. Right foot back-step on the lower edge. Left foot faced against the wall. Stand up. 

After repeatedly scaling the mountain and carefully clarifying the key touch points of his journey, he was able to achieve his seemingly insurmountable goal of becoming the first person to ascend to the top of El Capitan without a harness.

But it doesn’t have to be life or death for iteration to matter. 

Next time you have that important pitch or launch, think of Honnold and take an iterative approach to solving your business problems and reaching your desired goals.