Okay. I'd like to present 
a hypothetical idea.

A way to practice taking risks, 
because after all,

practice makes perfect. Right?

So I want you to picture a stadium. 
The biggest stadium you've ever seen.

and it's got a huge arch 
over the top of it,

a hundred meters high.

Now, most people think that that arch 
is simply there for supporting the structure.

But others believe that arch is also there
so that we can tie a rope to the top of it,

we can stretch that rope
all the way to the rim of the stadium

and do a huge rope swing 
all the way across.

And better still, we can do that 
in a kayak.

But wait! What if the rope breaks? 
You could die!

Okay, maybe you didn't ask that question. 
But I'm pretty sure that you did ask,

"What's a professional kayaker, 
and what's he doing on our stage?"

I haven't done much to change the world,
but I have made a career

out of exploring remote rivers.
And the rivers taught me

just about everything I need to know.

Growing up in South Africa
was a good life, but a simple life.

No TV, no video games, 
but I did have a kayak and a river.

I had the disadvantage of having 
very few kayak mentors

to teach me what could be done in a kayak, 
but I had the distinct advantage

of having nobody to tell me 
what could not be done.

I remember as a young teenager, 
hearing about a French rafting expedition

that had attempted to take on and navigate 
the world's biggest rapids,

on the Congo River.

I saw this old photocopy 
of the Paris Match magazine,

and this was the last photo ever taken of them.

Right about the same time,

I saw an old newspaper 
with this photo of Marco Begni

kayaking off a waterfall near my house.

If you look at the top left of the frame, 
you'll see a kayak there.

I clearly remember walking into the kitchen 
and saying to my parents,

"I'm going to kayak down 
that waterfall one day."

And my dad said, "Well, son, 
if you work hard and practice,

maybe one day you'll be good enough."

About ten years later I found myself 
kayaking off that very waterfall.

And about 15 years later I found myself 
standing next to the Congo River

on the very same spot where 
that last photograph was taken.

Now I think the best way for me 
to introduce you to my Congo expedition

is to play the trailer to the film that 
I made about it. Have a look.

Some call it a calling. 
I think of it as an obsession.

Inga.

World's biggest rapid.

Almost every attempt to survive it 
causes death.

I've been kayaking my whole life. 
But when is enough enough?

I first heard the story, and seven people 
died having their attempt.

Now I've waited half my life for my turn.

All I have to do now is call a team of the best,

put my friends' lives on the line...

I've definitely been struggling with it. 
I've woken up quite a few mornings

and just almost felt like calling the boys 
and saying,

I just don't know 
if I'm in for this one.

This is the obsession: to release yourself 
by accomplishing the goal.

Or by being stopped by something outside of your control.

But once you start this journey, 
even if you don't want to go,

you have to.

(Energetic music)

You can run all the big water you want, 
but how do you prepare for something

that's never been done before?

In a place where help is not on its way.

Congo.

A place where experience is just a word.

The lesson that we learned today 
is not to fuck with these rapids.

Fisher messed up because he got off 
to the side where whirlpools form,

where all of this stuff goes down out here.

I may have had the closest call of my life, 
but I didn't come here to die.

I came here to win.

(Helicopter noise)

(Music slowly builds)

-Steady bro!
- Fuck, they're not gonna make it dude!

(CONGO: The Grand Inga Project)

All right, so. Spoiler alert: we survived.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

So what you just saw 
in the introduction there, is

even us extreme sports guys feel trepidation 
as we approach a new challenge.

And in this case, it was fearing 
that if we took the next step,

the voyage itself would take on a life 
of its own, and drag us along with it.

It would be like faring out into a huge river 
with a strong current,

and you can't stop.
It's a commitment.

So how, then, do we prepare for something 
that's never been done before?

In my profession I have a small box

that I start with 
that has five tools in it.

My equipment: I make sure 
I have the right gear.

My physical well-being: I make sure that 
I've prepared physically for the task.

The location: I make sure that I'm 
in the perfect place to do what I do.

And once I've checked those three off, 
I use those to develop the other two,

which are the skills and the experience.

But you can't use any of these tools 
until you demistify risk.

We can mitigate risks purely 
by understanding them,

and the way that we understand them

is that we take a seemingly impossible idea 
and we break it down

into little digestible parts, 
and we look at each step individually

and see if that is attainable.

What happens then is what we're doing,
is that we find that many of our fears

are unjustified,

and very often we find 
that what's before us

is far less risky than we thought.

So... give me a second. 
Might need some applause here.

(Applause)

So you know, as humans, 
we are not inherently risk averse.

We evolved by taking risks, so it's okay 
if there are risks in what we do.

We simply need to understand those risks, 
and once we understand them,

we're ready to take the first step. 
So let me show you what I mean.

Let me show you how I put that to use 
every time I look at a rapid or a waterfall.

As I paddle up to the top of a waterfall, 
the first thing I do is climb out of my kayak

and I walk down the side of the river 
and I look at the pool below.

That's my goal, that's where I want to be.

And it's only then that I turn back 
at the rapid, and Oh my gosh!

If I look at the whole rapid 
it's far too daunting.

So what I need to do is break it down 
into smaller chunks, into individual moves

and see that I can do 
each move individually,

and only then do I figure out 
how to link those moves together.

So let's zoom in on this photograph. 
If I would have shown this top part of the rapids

to even an intermediate kayaker, 
they would say,

"Okay. Well that looks fairly chunky, 
but it's good to go."

And if I showed them the next part, 
they would say,

"Oh, that's a pretty straightforward job. 
Yeah, let's go do it."

And if I show them the last part, 
they would say,

"Okay, it's pretty spectacular but it's a straight shot.

You don't really need to do anything. 
It's good to go."

You'll have to take my word for that.

But the job is not done there. 
Once we cut a problem horizontally,

the next thing we need to do 
is cut it vertically.

What we're trying to do 
is establish the path

or line that we're likely to be on.

And the reason that we're doing that 
is to eliminate the parts

of the rapid that don't affect us.

The parts of the rapid where we will not be.

Because if we do that, then we can look and see 
if there are any deadly features.

If those deadly features are in the eliminated part 
we never have to think about them again.

And if those deadly features are in our path, 
and they're unavoidable,

well then we don't go. It's far too risky.

That's how extreme sport works. 
Sorry to disappoint you guys.

(Laughter)

So imagine you're walking along 
a trail like this.

You're walking along 
and you've got a cliff on your left side.

You're thinking about 
what you're doing while you walk.

You're not thinking about 
the cliff the entire time.

It's only if you turn towards the cliff 
and start approaching it

that it becomes a real danger.

And then you stop.

Okay, so how do you know 
if you're on the right path,

and what happens 
if you're on the wrong path?

Well, in kayaking there's no turning back.

So what that teaches us 
is not to panic when things go wrong.

When the unexpected occurs 
we have no choice but to solve the problem

and keep on moving.

But fortunately, as in life, 
if we zoom back just a little bit,

perhaps to where we haven't yet

climbed in the kayak 
and made the commitment,

we get to see that very often

we can start down a path, 
realize we're on the wrong path,

turn back and reset the plan.

Let me show you what I mean.

(Laughter)

Have you ever heard the cliche, 
"never give up?"

Well tonight we're canceling it. 
We don't say that anymore.

From now on we say, 
"Don't give up too easily."

On this particular trip, 
our plan was to use a rope to rappel down

into the base of Victoria Falls

and kayak through the rapids 
at the very base of the falls.

Once we got down there, 
we found the unexpected.

The wind and the spray 
from the falls themselves

were so strong 
that it was impossible to kayak,

so we had to fall back 
on to our contingency plan

and climb a hundred meters back up the rope

and cancel the whole idea.

But guess what? The TV show we were 
making about it, turned out great,

and we got this photograph. We gave up but 
we didn't have to feel ashamed of it.

if you refuse to give up on an idea, 
then you inhibit your ability to experiment.

But if you're willing to give up 
after a good effort, then when you do give up

there's no reason to feel guilty.

Okay, so I think that now 
you're starting to get to know me a little bit,

so I think that we're ready

to talk about the stadium idea again.
How do you guys feel now?

But wait! What if the rope breaks? 
You could die!

The rope is not going to break, 
and here's why.

Right from the start, 
we're going to use a rope

that is thousands of pounds stronger 
than it needs to be.

So we've used the right equipment 
to eliminate the problem

and we never have to think about it again.

We've eliminated the "what if" factor. 
It's called "pointing positive".

We can now focus on the how, 
and in this particular case,

the more important question is,

"How long does that rope need to be 
to make sure that we don't hit the ground

on the way down?"

And once we're finished, 
how are we gonna get

from the end of the rope 
back to the ground?

Now, with a few simple 
mathematical calculations,

these are pretty easy problems to solve.

So we're ready to go. 
Are you guys ready?

Audience: Yes

All right, let's do it.

(electronic music)

(Wind noise)

All right. (Applause)

I can see you want to do that, don't you?

All right. So when we imagined 
this idea, first of all,

the idea sounds crazy. But once 
we break it down and demystify the risk,

then we suddenly find that it's so safe 
that this very swing has now become

a fully fledged commercial operation.

Yes. You too can go to Durban, South Africa. 
You can pay your money,

and you can go and do a giant rope 
swing across a stadium.

You can take a leap of faith. 
And hundreds of people do.

And guess what the most common thing 
that they say is afterwards?

"Man! It just really wasn't as bad 
as I thought it was going to be,

and I feel as if "If I can do that,

I can do anything!" 
And guess what? They're absolutely right.

So right now, we all live always 
at the edge of uncharted waters.

And no matter that they're something 
meaningless like kayaking down a rapid,

or meaningful like changing the world, 
the principle is always the same:

We need to buck up 
and add our piece to the puzzle.

It reminds me of a quote that I heard once.

I was in the deepest gorge in the world, 
in Tibet.

One of the boys ad-libbed 
a quote out of a book

called "The Wanderer" by Sterling Hayden.

And I'll give you just one line.

"Ive always wanted to sail 
the seven seas, but I can't afford it.

What these people can't afford is not to go".

End quote.

Thank you very much, Athens!

It's been a pleasure and a privilege. 
Good night!

(Applause)