As an avid rock climber for more than 30 years, my whole approach to life and career has been inextricably linked with my development as a climber. I began in my early teenage years, when my stepfather signed me up for a climbing course against my will. ("I'd rather study," I whined.) At the end of the first day, however, I knew I'd discovered one of my life's burning passions. Growing up in Boulder, Colorado, I had one of the world's great climbing centers as my backyard, and some of the greatest climbers in the world as mentors. After visiting Stanford University during my senior year in high school, I effused to my parents about my college choice: "They've got these really cool sandstone buildings to climb on between classes!"

One day during my freshman year, while climbing a new route on the philosophy building in the main quadrangle, I heard a shuffle of feet behind me and then the voice of emeritus philosophy professor John Goheen. "Really, Mr. Collins. Do you think this is the ultimate solution to the existential dilemma?" I named the climb Kant Be Done.

Rock climbing, for me, has been the ultimate classroom, with lessons applicable to all aspects of life, including business, management, leadership, and scientific study. It is a sport from which you do not always get a second chance to learn from your mistakes--death tends to stop the learning process. But I've been fortunate to survive my own blunders and to learn some important lessons that apply to life and work outside of climbing.

Lesson Number 1

Climb to Fallure, not Failure: How to Succeed Without Reaching the Top

My friend Matt and I walked around the bend in the trail, and I stopped dead in my tracks and looked at a beautiful sheet of rock--smooth and slightly overhanging, with a thin, fingertip-sized seam splitting the middle of the silver granite wall. "You can see why I named the route Crystal Ball," Matt said, pointing to a baseball-sized quartzite handhold 50 feet up.

We roped up and I set off up the route, shooting for an "on-sight" ascent. (An on-sight means that on your first try, you lead the climb without prior information about the moves and without any artificial aid. Other climbers have not told you how to climb the difficult sections, nor have you watched anyone else attempt the route.) You get one chance for an on-sight. Once you start to climb, if you blow it and fall onto the rope, you've lost the chance forever.

Ten feet below the crystal, my feet began to skitter about, slipping off slick pebbles, and I curled my thumb around a little edge, thinking to myself, "If I can just get a little weight off my fingers . . ." The adrenaline of the on-sight attempt made me overgrip every hold, clamping down as hard as I could--like an overanxious runner who goes out too fast in the first 800 meters.

"Breath, Jim. Relax." Matt's voice soothed me for a moment.

I gathered a bit of composure, while hooking my thumb and resting my fingers, trying to get my breathing to settle down. But my mind chattered away: "If I get it wrong, no way I can reverse. . . . And even if I get it right, I'm not sure I'll have enough power to pull up to the crystal ball. . . . And if I can't get to the crystal ball, there's no way I'll be able to get the rope clipped into the next point of protection. . . . How far would I fall? . . ."

Tick, tick, tick. The clock ran on while I hesitated.