“Don’t hurry, you don’t have time to waste”

Steve House is one of the most accomplished climbers in history.

His resume includes a first ascent on the Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat, considered by many to be one of the biggest and most difficult walls in the world. Instead of sitting back and resting on his achievements though, he is teaching us.

(Steve wrote two blog posts that I think are worth reading. You can find them here and here.)

Anyone who has ever participated in any type of mountain sport understands that gear and knowledge will always be secondary to our capacity of accepting risk.

Of course, domain knowledge is essential and, of course, having the right gear is helpful. But none of that matters if you are unable to step into the void, the unknown, the areas that you can’t control.

Steve educates climbers on how to grow their capacity to accept risk by increasing their awareness, make proper risk assessments, do, rest and repeat.

I don’t think there is a better skill to develop for your art or your project than to develop a greater capacity to take risks.

Taking risks doesn’t mean pushing all your chips in the center. No. It means knowing that this might not work but having the guts to ship it. It’s knowing your true limits (and rejecting false ones). It is about dancing on the edge of something great and daring, to really see how far it is you can go.

What’s scarce is not time, money or other resources. I think what we need more of is courage. Courage to follow our hearts, to put our best work into the world and to share with those we seek to change.

Steve started Uphill Athlete earlier last year, it is a “platform for openly sharing proven training knowledge.”

Did you read that? Educational resources from one of the best climbers in the world all for free.

Yes.

What Steve understands is that building a tribe doesn’t cost anything extra to add one more person to it, all the while he is building more trust and more attention in the process. Most people won’t buy his specific training programs when there is so much readily available. That’s okay. It’s the few that are eager to pay that will allow Steve to make a living and continue his work.

About the quote: Steve mentioned it in one of his blog posts. It is sound advice. If you don’t have time to do it right, how are you going to have time to do it over?