The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance

by Steven Kotler

In 1998, Shane’s logic led him to Sacrifice. He nailed the line perfectly. Scott Gaffney filmed it—viewable in Something About McConkey—and the hop-and-drop ski technique known as “billy goating” was born. As billy-goating required new skills, it led Shane farther down the flow path, which led to even more skills, which opened up new possibilities, which drove him forward still. “During his big-mountain competition days,” wrote Micah Abrams in one of that era’s preeminent ski magazines, Freeze, “McConkey would routinely point out lines that snaked through rock faces and across gut-churning cliffs to his fellow competitors. More often than not, he was met with blank stares or rolled eyes, to which he would respond empathically: ‘Dude, it’s totally doable!’ Then he would go do it, and then he would win.”