Execution is Everything

This is Part 2 of a three part mini-series on KSA's, or Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities. Read Part 1 here.

How do I start today? How do I do this story justice? I could probably break this story down for a whole book or a year's worth of posts it has so many angles to it! Maybe best not to overthink it and just work on executing. Because that’s what this story is ultimately about. It’s not about what you know, it’s not about how confident or motivated you are. Today’s story, at its core, is about execution as the ultimate measure of success. Why?

Because when you’re on the side of a mountain, 3000 feet off the ground, with no ropes or safety equipment, in that moment, skill, flawless execution, is the only thing that matters.

Today is the story of Alex Honnald.

To get you up to speed if you’re just joining me, the KSA concept was created by the US government back in the day to differentiate federal job applicants. It didn’t go well, and made more work for everyone. Uncle Sam at your service, or something. So, I’m trying to modernize how we view and utilize the idea of knowledge, skills, and abilities to make it less of a headache.

Imagine if the test of your knowledge of something and level of expertise in a certain domain was assessed with one question: Are you still alive? That’s essentially the test that Alex Honnald chose to give himself when he free-soloed the face of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.

El Cap is over 3000 feet off the ground and is mostly a vertical wall. That means it’s straight up. It’s not like you can lean forward and just hang out. There are few, if any, actual resting points in this whole climb. Normal people, or really not even normal because you have to be a little crazy to even consider climbing up a 3000 rockface even with proper equipment. But, let’s say, non Alex Honnald people take about 4 days to climb El Cap. While free soloing, Alex Honnald tried to do it in under 4 hours. No, that is not a typo. Four hours! There are no words.

Let’s back up for a second just in case you’re not as obsessed with Alex Honnald as I am. Free soloing, if that term is new to you, is when you climb a rock with no ropes or harnesses. No safety equipment. The chances that you get seriously injured, if you live at all, on any fall over let’s say 50 feet is pretty darn high. Alex Honnald, when he’s free soloing El Cap, is more than 3000 feet in the air! 3000. There’s no grey area here if he doesn’t execute perfectly. And when I say perfectly, I really mean it, because there’s no room for error.

You know, in my role as a mental performance coach I’m usually trying to teach my clients that mistakes are ok and that we can come back from them through refocusing techniques and moving on quickly. In free soloing, you don’t have that luxury. If you mess up once, you are done! That’s what makes Alex’s story incredible. Oscar worthy, in fact, because he and his film crew won the Oscar for best Documentary. It’s incredible not because he’s the most knowledgeable rock climber, which he might be. It’s not because he’s the most gifted rock climber physically and mentally, which he probably is. It’s incredible because his knowledge and abilities mean nothing if his execution isn’t flawless.

Yes, all of these aspects of the KSA model bleed into each other and build on one another, but on the mountain, which do we care about? Which is most important? His skills! The ability to complete every movement of the almost 4 straight hours of climbing straight up. And there’s one particular movement in Alex’s incredible free solo that’s especially worth noting here.

About three quarters into his climb, so, let’s say for simplicity, over 2000 feet in the air, as if it would make a difference WHERE you mess up in this situation, but high up on the wall, there was a section called the boulder problem that’s prominently featured in the documentary. To paint this picture for you, imagine needing to hold all of your weight on one of your thumbs as you leaned over to find a grip of another small hand hold. And yeah, keep in mind you’re thousands of feet in the air here. Ohh, right, AND with your thumb in this position, you also need to kick your leg up and lean it against a wall about 5 feet away from you. I’ve watched this video a bunch of times, and yet my palms as I visualize it in my head right now, are still sweaty! It happens every time. Now imagine actually doing it! It’s just crazy to think about.

But you know what? Alex knew how crazy this part of the climb was, and he knew just knowing WHAT he needed to do and being fit and ABLE to do it were not going to cut it. He needed to practice the specific skills needed to complete the boulder problem. So what did he do? First, he created a yoga routine that he committed to for TWO years in order to get flexible enough for the position he needed to be in. Second, he climbed that section of El Cap WITH ropes a bunch of times in order to be sure that he could, no, that he WOULD execute the move he needed to complete.

He became so skilled at every move on the entire route that there was zero thinking involved, and there was no question of his stamina, confidence, or anything that may have held him back.

In case you’re still nervous about the outcome of Alex Honnald’s free solo of El Cap, you should know that he did indeed make it to the top. He won his Oscar humously, as supposed to posthumously. An odd word, that one. But, probably a way different message here if he had fallen, don’t you think?

Here’s what to take away from today, other than sweaty palms. Can you look at how you prepare for whatever it is you’re preparing for, and ask yourself this question: “If I needed to execute this performance flawlessly, would I? If there was no backup plan, how would I perform?”

Not could I, not an answer with any doubt. Would your skill shine through perfectly? Because when you’ve amassed the knowledge, and are confident in your ability, the only thing that’s left is to SHOW you can actually do the thing.

And that’s not taking anything away from the necessity of knowledge and ability, it’s simply recognizing that there really are three distinct and required pieces to the KSA puzzle, and in a do or die situation, literally in Alex Honnald’s case, we will be remembered for our skill, the application of our knowledge and ability in completing the task.