Alex Honnold, who probably is regarded as weird and misfit by mainstream society, is a paradigm for will and perfection. He is inarguably the best rock climber in the world, who had stunned the climbing community and the aficionados of the sport by free soloing the El Capitan, a gigantic vertical monolithic wall of smooth granite, rising 3000 feet above the Yosemite Valley in California. Free Soloing borders on absolute madness and involves climbing without ropes or harness, safety gears, screws and bolts and is a tryst with death in every breath and movement. Free soloing epitomizes man’s deepest, yet evasive desire of conquering himself, challenging the status-quo, his rebellion with the impossible, treading the uncharted territories, transforming probabilities into possibilities and thereby pushing the frontiers of human excellence.

Doubt is the precursor of fear and perhaps the singular deterrent in man that differentiates mediocrity from excellence. Alex was born to climb, discovering his true passion and vocation in the transience of human drama, setting targets and reaching milestones to rediscover the joy of existence and liberation of the self. Mastery of skill is the foundation for free living and exemplified by his rigorous training, practice and perseverance to accomplish insurmountable goals, establishing new benchmarks. The thin line which separates the victor and the vanquished is the choice of will.

Social scientists, behavioral theorists and strategic thinkers have empirically concluded that deliberate practice is the basis of mastery in any field and have quantified the pre-requisite minimum of 10,000 hours of dedicated and concentrated engagement to become an expert. This sweeping 10,000-hour perspective was first popularized by the Canadian journalist and public speaker Malcolm Gladwell in his best-selling book, Outliers. Alex Honnold had traversed the walls of El Capitan for over a decade, climbing it more than 50 times, both soloing and partnering with harness and safety equipment, mapping every pitch in the route, visualizing all cracks and holds, memorizing hundreds of distinct hand and body movements, sequencing and executing that routine for over a year before embarking on the perilously impossible free solo. 

Consequently, on the day of his iconic free solo, he could easily attain a Zen like concentration, his movements simulating a choreographed dance, living entirely in the power of freedom of the moment. Between danger of the wind and the wall and the hunger of the abyss below, the calm assurance of perfection directs the steps.

Experts have expanded memory and a formidable combination of domain expertise and memory are exceptionally rare. Training indefatigably and consistently with a single-minded devotion to a goal not only makes you an expert, wizard or a genius, but also instills the maturity and discipline to conquer fear. Fear is contagious-it ruins societies, families and individuals.

According to Nobel Prize winning psychologist, Daniel Kahneman, skill and expertise is a System I thinking consummated through reinforced practice. System I is that part of the human brain associated with fight or flee and its operation in our lives is automatic, effortless and impulsive. It helps us to coherently interpret the world around us instantaneously and prepare us for appropriate actions. It is the same impulse that guides us when we jump over a pool of water while walking on the road on a rainy day or the instant thought of fleeing in the event of an earthquake or a tsunami or a feeling of disgust and a frown of the face when you witness an inappropriate behavior by someone in a social setting- screaming obscenities or ill-treating a destitute on the street. 

A doctor may diagnose an ailment in two minutes or a brilliant engineer could fix a fault in five minutes. We pay these specialists a premium for their outstanding services and they charge not for the few minutes of engagement but for their decades of enriching experience and scholarship meticulously and painstakingly achieved through dedicated practice. For domain experts, solutions come naturally and instinctively as a System I thought. No proverbs are untrue and ‘practice makes a man perfect’ will still be true across space and time, accents yet unknown, societies yet unborn and ages yet unseen. 

System I thoughts and its complex constellation of responses occur unconsciously in our minds which, is the same principle governing skill, mastery and excellence. By virtue of a clear strategy, meticulously planned repetitive actions, willingness to identify, experiment and learn from mistakes on its journey, mapping danger, minimizing risks and managing fear, you metamorphize into an expert where tasks are nothing but smoothly executing routine, stored in your associative memory.

When we are enthralled by unbelievable feats of excellence- the magic of a slam dunk by Michael Jordan or the unmatched genius of a Diego Maradona or a Lionel Messi, the enigmatic volleys of a Roger Federer or the divine music of an Ilayaraaja or a Hans Zimmer, the heavenly rendering of a Yesudas or a SP Balasubramaniam or the soulful performances of a Frank Sinatra and a Luciano Pavarotti- we are only seeing the fruits. What is invisible to us are the roots- their years of endurance and practice, the long hours of routine hard work, the relentless grind, their personal and social sacrifices and the lonely input to get better every day in whatever they did. When the roots are deep and strong, the fruits are formed naturally and beautifully. To an onlooker, it is mesmerizing…  

This is the essence of greatness and the bedrock of success in any sphere of human activity. Here art becomes an artless art when you have internalized perfection. And when you internalize perfection, you make rules.

About the author: Jaykhosh Chidambaran is an accomplished management professional with over 20 years of diverse industry experience in MNC’s and is currently an EdTech Growth and Strategy Consultant for India & Middle East.
He is an alumnus of Chicago Booth School of Business