A T.E.D. Talk Worth Talking About
Recently I have become increasing interested in the world of climbing. Especially bouldering, a form of free-climbing, which entails short technical climbing without the use of ropes or harnesses. The main reason that this sport has drawn my attention is the idea of overcoming obstacles and problems that come into play. So while I was looking at the list of TED talks that could be choose for this blog post, seeing one such as Alex Honnard's peaked my interests. Both as a person dealing with life's everyday challenges and as an athlete seeing a new hobby and inspiration.
In addition the main reason that I picked this talk was because I had a lot of fear and doubt in my life last year, especially with lacrosse. I didn't feel confident in my abilities toward the end of the season causing me to not perform at the top of my game. After hearing this talk it has really helped me with dealing with these fears and re-instilled confidence back into my life as well as the sport of lacrosse.
P.S. Shout out to Madison Mueller for talking about climbing during lunch and basically inspiring me to being pursuing the sport of climbing.
Alex Honnard open his talk with what he calls "30 seconds of the best day of my life", a scene from the now released film of his free-solo of El Cap, a 3,000 foot tall rock face that for years was thought to be unclimbable. One of the most impactful portions is when he talks about his spontaneous free-solo of Yosemite's Half Dome. He talks a lot about doubt, and how as he tried a new unplanned path he began to doubt himself. From that doubt began to rise fear and created a lack of confidence. This lack of confidence made him unsure of his abilities at the very end of his solo. Showing how dangerous fear and stress truly are and that if you can't manage these factors then you might end up in a situation that you can no longer control. The next of his important arguments in his talk came from visualization of problems. So by being able to materialize your problems and break them down in preparation, then you will be far more successful when it comes time to face the actual challenge held on. The next part of his argument that was interesting was knowing the distance between being good at something, and being great. He talks about how when he was preparing and thinking about summiting El Cap he didn't want to just get lucky, he wanted to be able to perform at his maximum. Pushing himself to become the best climber that he can in preparation for his biggest project of his career. These were his main points that supported his claim but had the largest impact on the story that he was trying to tell as well as on the audience in their understanding.
So now when looking at the speaker-audience-subject relationship with Alex Honnard's talk the main motif seems to stem from the emotional connections that Alex is bringing to his audience. So Alex, the climber, is well versed in the sport of climbing with over 20 years of experience under his belt. With the highlight of his career being the first to ever free-solo the 3,000 foot El Cap rock face, as well as other highly regarded free-solos over his years of climbing. With all of this climbing over the years he strongly believes that in order to be a good climber, you can't allow fear and the elements overcome you. Being able to deal with these forces through different techniques can greatly change how you are able to overcome those problems. He mainly supports this argument by sharing his personal stories are his experience on El Cap to further back his claims about dealing with stress.
Honnard, throughout his talk mainly focuses on the approach of 'visualization' in order to overcome problems or obstacles. When talking on the subject he says, "I worked to cultivate that mindset through visualization, which basically means imagining the entire experience". So while he was training for this summit of El Cap over the course of the 1 year period he would review each of the thousands of complex moves that he would have to make along his climb. Recreating the holds and routes over and over again. This in turn built his confidence, alleviating the fear that he held, because not this summit seemed to be second nature, engraved in this head. So Honnard takes us on this journey as we the audience walk with him through his climbing history as well is the process of visualization. And along the journey and the duration of this talk, as the audience, we are able to trust him as due to his prior exposition of his career and feats of accomplishment.
When looking at how Honnard get his message across to the audience it can be seen that he enlists the help of ethos, logos, and pathos.
First he uses ethos as a way to persuade his audience to accept the information that he is giving them and to accept this new way of problem solving and conquering fear. And because he has this incredible reputation as a climber having been in these situations dozens of times he knows how to deal with them. So the audience should take note of these methods and lessons that he is teaching. Because although not many people will be summiting El Cap in their lifetimes, they can still use his teachings and apply them to their everyday lives.
Next with the use of logo in his argument, logically speaking his argument and justification is incredibly sound. The way in which he is able to weave his prior experiences and his climbing history into his talk was impactful to both the story of the incredible summit as well to the overall message that he preached to the audience. This soundness in their argument can also be seen in the arc of their story where he used more of a basic problem-solution type of style, but he was able to spice it up with interjections of past experiences in order to aid in the story telling aspect of the preparations as well as the climb itself.
Lastly Honnard uses pathos to provoke a relationship between himself and his audience. He is trying to make them feel the same emotions that he felt while he was on the climb as well as the emotions of fear. Because, again, although we aren't summiting El Cap each of us has dealt with fear in out lives. And at some points that fear has probably one. But what he is trying to make you feel this that although there will always be some fear in our daily lives, there should be a sense of comfort with the propper preparations and practice. So the emotion goes from the fear to our everyday lives to the feeling of security and comfort after he teaches us how to deal with those feelings. I do think that emotion is important when making an argument because without it, then the speaker seems disconnected with their subject. If there is no subsequent passion or connection between the audience and the speaker, then no information will be conveyed effectively.
Link to TED Talk
In addition the main reason that I picked this talk was because I had a lot of fear and doubt in my life last year, especially with lacrosse. I didn't feel confident in my abilities toward the end of the season causing me to not perform at the top of my game. After hearing this talk it has really helped me with dealing with these fears and re-instilled confidence back into my life as well as the sport of lacrosse.
P.S. Shout out to Madison Mueller for talking about climbing during lunch and basically inspiring me to being pursuing the sport of climbing.
Alex Honnard open his talk with what he calls "30 seconds of the best day of my life", a scene from the now released film of his free-solo of El Cap, a 3,000 foot tall rock face that for years was thought to be unclimbable. One of the most impactful portions is when he talks about his spontaneous free-solo of Yosemite's Half Dome. He talks a lot about doubt, and how as he tried a new unplanned path he began to doubt himself. From that doubt began to rise fear and created a lack of confidence. This lack of confidence made him unsure of his abilities at the very end of his solo. Showing how dangerous fear and stress truly are and that if you can't manage these factors then you might end up in a situation that you can no longer control. The next of his important arguments in his talk came from visualization of problems. So by being able to materialize your problems and break them down in preparation, then you will be far more successful when it comes time to face the actual challenge held on. The next part of his argument that was interesting was knowing the distance between being good at something, and being great. He talks about how when he was preparing and thinking about summiting El Cap he didn't want to just get lucky, he wanted to be able to perform at his maximum. Pushing himself to become the best climber that he can in preparation for his biggest project of his career. These were his main points that supported his claim but had the largest impact on the story that he was trying to tell as well as on the audience in their understanding.
So now when looking at the speaker-audience-subject relationship with Alex Honnard's talk the main motif seems to stem from the emotional connections that Alex is bringing to his audience. So Alex, the climber, is well versed in the sport of climbing with over 20 years of experience under his belt. With the highlight of his career being the first to ever free-solo the 3,000 foot El Cap rock face, as well as other highly regarded free-solos over his years of climbing. With all of this climbing over the years he strongly believes that in order to be a good climber, you can't allow fear and the elements overcome you. Being able to deal with these forces through different techniques can greatly change how you are able to overcome those problems. He mainly supports this argument by sharing his personal stories are his experience on El Cap to further back his claims about dealing with stress.
Honnard, throughout his talk mainly focuses on the approach of 'visualization' in order to overcome problems or obstacles. When talking on the subject he says, "I worked to cultivate that mindset through visualization, which basically means imagining the entire experience". So while he was training for this summit of El Cap over the course of the 1 year period he would review each of the thousands of complex moves that he would have to make along his climb. Recreating the holds and routes over and over again. This in turn built his confidence, alleviating the fear that he held, because not this summit seemed to be second nature, engraved in this head. So Honnard takes us on this journey as we the audience walk with him through his climbing history as well is the process of visualization. And along the journey and the duration of this talk, as the audience, we are able to trust him as due to his prior exposition of his career and feats of accomplishment.
When looking at how Honnard get his message across to the audience it can be seen that he enlists the help of ethos, logos, and pathos.
First he uses ethos as a way to persuade his audience to accept the information that he is giving them and to accept this new way of problem solving and conquering fear. And because he has this incredible reputation as a climber having been in these situations dozens of times he knows how to deal with them. So the audience should take note of these methods and lessons that he is teaching. Because although not many people will be summiting El Cap in their lifetimes, they can still use his teachings and apply them to their everyday lives.
Next with the use of logo in his argument, logically speaking his argument and justification is incredibly sound. The way in which he is able to weave his prior experiences and his climbing history into his talk was impactful to both the story of the incredible summit as well to the overall message that he preached to the audience. This soundness in their argument can also be seen in the arc of their story where he used more of a basic problem-solution type of style, but he was able to spice it up with interjections of past experiences in order to aid in the story telling aspect of the preparations as well as the climb itself.
Lastly Honnard uses pathos to provoke a relationship between himself and his audience. He is trying to make them feel the same emotions that he felt while he was on the climb as well as the emotions of fear. Because, again, although we aren't summiting El Cap each of us has dealt with fear in out lives. And at some points that fear has probably one. But what he is trying to make you feel this that although there will always be some fear in our daily lives, there should be a sense of comfort with the propper preparations and practice. So the emotion goes from the fear to our everyday lives to the feeling of security and comfort after he teaches us how to deal with those feelings. I do think that emotion is important when making an argument because without it, then the speaker seems disconnected with their subject. If there is no subsequent passion or connection between the audience and the speaker, then no information will be conveyed effectively.
Link to TED Talk
Hey John, I loved your post, had no idea you were into climbing but that's dope. I particularly liked how you broke down the speakers use of the various appeals, I thought it was really interesting and well thought out. Keep up the great writing.
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