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Big Hairy

Audacious Goals

Sasha DiGiulian

Professional Climber | Red Bull Athlete | Founder of SEND Bars

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Big goals are

not achieved by talent alone—

they’re achieved through process,

commitment, and the people you do them with.

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Setting and Achieving Goals:

6 Main Takeaways

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Name the goal that scares you
Choose your team with intention & over communicate
Chart out the plan; Break it down into sections/pitches
Obsess over the process, not the applause
Expect friction & unseen obstacles but control the controllables and make a plan (a-c) for the unknown
Fully commit when it counts

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Where It All Started

WHO I AM & HOW I GOT HERE (5 minutes)

For those of you who don’t know me—I’m Sasha, and I’ve been climbing for most of my life.

Most people assume that I grew up in the Rockies, or that climbing was somehow baked into my family culture—that I had parents who climbed or a mountain town in my backyard. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

I actually grew up in Washington, DC. Not exactly a hotbed of adventure sports at the time.

Today, climbing gyms are everywhere—you can find one in almost every major city in the world.

But when I was growing up, climbing gyms were barely a thing. It wasn’t mainstream. It wasn’t cool.

It certainly wasn’t a clear path to anything resembling a career.

I found climbing almost by accident. My parents were looking for a birthday party idea for my brother, who was turning eight, and they stumbled on this small climbing gym in DC.

I remember tagging along and immediately being more interested than anyone expected.. What started as a one-off birthday party when I was 6 years old turned into going back twice a week. Then one day, I wandered into the gym and saw a flyer for a local youth competition. I entered without really knowing what it meant—and somehow won the 11-and-under category at seven years old.

That moment quietly changed the trajectory of my life. It’s funny looking back, but I’ve always done things a little differently—maybe because I grew up in a city, maybe because climbing came to me through pure kismet. There was no roadmap, no legacy to follow. Just curiosity, consistency, and a willingness to keep showing up.

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Balancing Life as a College Student

… and Pro Climbing

Columbia University

I started as a competitor. I grew up in climbing gyms, chasing structure, rules, and measurable outcomes. I loved the clarity of it: you either clipped the chains or you didn’t.

There was something comforting about that kind of simplicity—especially as a kid trying to understand what I was good at and where I belonged.

I poured myself into training, into learning how to win, into understanding what excellence looked like inside the confines of competition climbing.

As I kept showing up, I started rising through the ranks. Regional competitions turned into national ones. National championships became something I trained toward year after year

—and eventually, I was winning them. When I was twelve years old, I signed my first endorsement deal. I didn’t fully understand what it meant to be a “professional climber,” but I understood effort, discipline, and focus.

My world narrowed in a good way: train hard, compete well, win. That was the equation.

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First Principle

Name the Goal that Scares You

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Audacious, All-encompassing, and Alive

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Curiosity is often

the real starting line of ambitious goals.

That curiosity—about what I was capable of when things were uncomfortable—became the driver behind every major goal I’ve set since.

Over time, I stopped asking, “What can I do next?”�And started asking, “What’s the thing that scares me the most—and why?”

Big walls and the travel associated with them became my classroom.

They demanded everything: physical preparation, mental resilience, creativity, teamwork, adaptability.

You don’t just show up and perform.

You relentlessly plan… then you problem-solve in real time when those plans inevitably change. You make decisions with imperfect information. You commit without guarantees.

Sound familiar?

That mindset—of choosing terrain that forces growth—inspired me.

That’s exactly why big wall climbing became more than a discipline for me — it became a mirror.

It forced me to look at how I respond when things are unclear.

When outcomes aren’t guaranteed.

When effort doesn’t immediately translate into progress.

And over time, a series of experiences began to reshape not just how I climbed — but how I set goals.

There were a few major catalysts that led me to keep dreaming bigger and setting more and more audacious goals.

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Second Principle

Choose Your Team with Intention & Over-communicate

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The Trilogy

Grit isn’t just endurance.

It’s presence.

So I set out on this mega goal without this key piece of the puzzle; a set climbing partner.

Instead, I went the route of having people around me to support this solo mission.

And - what I learned was that even if you are the only one climbing, nothing about succeeding on a big wall is a solo mission.

On paper, it was about difficulty. In reality, it was about ownership.

About leadership.

About recognizing that my success didn’t come just from how much I could train physically — it came from the work I had done and the decisions I was willing to make with the team I was building – when things got hard.

Finding the right people to be a part of supporting me through the climbs; that would hike out for 5-6 hours to get to the base of a cliff that then we’d spend 12 or more hours climbing.

**That project cracked something open for me.

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Spark: the thing that excites you

Stretch: the intimidation factor

Stakes: the moment when preparation turns into commitment

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But growth isn’t linear.

In 2020, I set my sights on a big wall goal in Mexico. It was meant to be the next step forward. Instead, it became a turning point in a very different way.

There was an accident.

Our team lost a man who was on our trip helping to rig the lines for the video crew that would be filming me climb the route next. He was climbing the route, and a ledge that he was standing on dislodged and cut his rope in the fall; leading him to fall 1500 feet to the ground.

This was a loss that shook me deeply and changed how I approached risk, grief, and purpose.

I couldn’t shake this feeling of guilt, as well as this knowledge that I was up next on the climb - that this could have happened to any one of us.

And at the same time, the world shut down. COVID hit. Plans dissolved. Structure disappeared. Uncertainty became constant.

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Embracing the

Unknown

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Third Principle

Chart out the Plan; Break it Down into Sections

I went through double hip reconstructive surgeries– in which the surgeon cut my pelvic bone into 4 pieces on both sides, rebuilt the ball in socket joint to be deeper, shaving my femur head down and securing it with pins – then knitting together my labrums. I was told, more than once, that I might never climb professionally again.

That maybe it was time to start thinking about what came after climbing.

That’s a hard thing to hear when your identity has been built around movement, strength, and performance.

But here’s what goal setting taught me in that moment:

You don’t always get to choose the setback — but you do get to choose how you show up inside it.

So I put my head down.

I showed up for rehab the way I used to show up for training.

I leaned on my team — doctors, physical therapists, trainers — and treated recovery like a long-term project, not a temporary inconvenience. I learned the difference between what I could control and what I couldn’t.

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Fourth Principle

Obsess over Process rather than Applause

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No Big Return Happens Alone

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Fifth Principle

Expect Friction & Unseen Obstacles

After successfully climbing Logical Progression in Mexico I felt this draw to push myself beyond what I had achieved before my hip surgeries and to start compiling these lessons that I was learning along the way to see what next big thing I could do.

That came in the form of this climb called Rayu, one of the world’s most challenging big wall climbs in Picos de Europa, Spain.

I put together a team of women to go and attempt to climb the hardest graded big wall climb ever achieved by a female team. I had set this record with a male climbing partner back in 2017, and now I wanted to lead a team of women.

Cutting past the training and physical preparation that led to this climb, the logistics involved us hiking all of our gear and equipment for a month through a mountainous valley to establish a basecamp at the base of the wall.

Our plan was to establish a camp here, and then to work on the climb from basecamp.

Every day we’d make incremental progress, until we were ready to go for it - during which our new camp would be on the wall.

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In preparing for something like this - there are just variables that you go in knowing you can control - and variables you can’t, but you have to have a risk mitigation plan for things like unforeseen weather, rock fall, and a myriad of events that can make things go sideways.

We experienced this; through a hurricane that made us retreat

- to even a rock breaking on the hardest portion of the climb - which didn’t actually present a safety hazard, but now the hardest pitch of the climb was even harder.

But what I learned from it – was that through having a plan -

through knowing that we had the right gear, food, water, and plans to get through these uncontrollable elements – we were able to stay in it, and send it.

This was a dichotomy from the lessons learned from the expedition that I led right before this.

One in which I led a team to a remote island off the coast of Ghana.

Where we had trained really hard, prepared our gear, food, logistics - and everything we thought we needed; but lacked one important variable: proper communication.

When we experienced a month of rain- the team fractured.

We didn’t have the right framework of communication, and we did not find a way to complete the climb.

This is what I was most proud of about the success of Rayu. That I had built the team, and that we had executed the logistics and the preparation; but importantly; when things went sideways, we stayed solid as a team and we were able to get the job done.

That’s when I knew I was ready for bigger walls. Bigger objectives. And eventually — the Platinum Wall.

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The Platinum Wall

El Capitan

INTRODUCING THE PLATINUM WALL

The Platinum Wall is the longest free-climbable route on El Capitan. Nearly forty pitches.

Thousands of feet off the ground. Sustained difficulty from bottom to top.

This is not a route with a warm-up. There are no “easy” sections.

The climbing is technical, insecure, and relentless.

Only a three people had ever successfully climbed it.� And no woman had.

When I first looked at it, nothing about it felt secure. Nothing about it felt obvious.

Even the idea of trying felt bold. Frankly, near impossible.

But I had learned from my past that it’s the terrifying goals - the ones that feel so big, complex, and audacious, are the ones to chase.

Because in the very very slim possibility it works out; they bring the most reward. And when they don’t; you still learn the most.

And that’s how I knew it was the right goal.

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Breaking

the Impossible

into Pitches

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Commitment:

The Point of No Return

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No One

Climbs a

Big Wall

Alone.

I found a climbing partner in Elliot Faber, who had developed this climb over the course of a decade in the earlier 2000’s and had had 2 failed attempts before.

In him I found motivation, knowledge, and enthusiasm around the climb.

And what mattered most– an element of trust that we both had for each other and in the big process that lay ahead of us.

Trust that we could communicate clearly under pressure.� Trust that we could adapt when things went sideways.� Trust that we were equally invested in the outcome.

Your best hedge against unexpected obstacles is having the right partner on the other end of the rope.

In any ambitious project, your number one metric should be this:

Are the right people in the right seats?

Because even the most visionary and experienced among us can’t predict what’s coming around the corner. The people you choose determine whether you stall—or solve.

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We began the process - or should I see - pre process of the push.

We calculated that we would need 14-16 days of food, water, and gear on the wall to support our climb.

This meant calculations down to every single meal and drop of water we would drink.

That was a lot of water, off the math of 3 Liters of water per person per day, we hiked and stashed over 200 pounds of water to the top of El Cap and rapelled in to the climb, on the ropes we had climbed to fix on the route -

to build out two basecamps at different vertical points; one at 1400 feet and the next at 2600 feet.

We mapped out our projected climbing days, and where we would be vertically after each day.

We looked at the weather forecast for our best feasible window. We waited. And when it came earlier than expected, we agreed that we should go for it.

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Expectation

vs. Reality

Reality, of course, had other plans.

On our 10th day of climbing, at about 2600 feet up the 3000 foot climb, we got hit with storms.

Rain. Thunder and Lightning. 50 mph winds. Ice. Snow.

Days pinned down on the wall in the portaledge, which is essentially a 4 foot by 6 foot tent structure that hangs vertically off the side of a cliff.

And here’s the hardest part:

We hadn’t even reached the hardest climbing yet.

By all means, the climbing we had done to get to this point was rugged; at our physical limit, and epic.

But - the route is unique in that it just keeps getting harder and harder all the way to the top.

The real cruxes were still above us.

This is where most goals quietly die.� Not in failure — but in fatigue.

This is where you ask yourself if staying committed still makes sense.

What kept me there– sitting inside my tent without seeing outside its walls for 9 days - cold and wet and hungry – and voraciously bored - wasn’t optimism.� It was the decision I had already made.

I had committed before conditions were perfect.� Before success felt likely.� Before I knew how the story would end.

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After the storm,

some of the hardest parts of the climb were still above me.

And now, they were

soaking wet.

EXPECTATION VS REALITY

When the storm finally broke, I had spent 9 days cooped up in my tent without the ability to stretch or move.

My objective during the storm was to stay warm enough, and dry.

I would wrap my wet clothes around my bare body to try to use my body heat to dry them. Then I would rotate to the next item. I added weight to my tent with our gear outside of it to keep the portalege from swinging around and collapsing from the heavy winds.

I just tried to stay hopeful that I would have an opportunity to go for the climb - to give it my best shot - when the weather broke.

When the storm finally passed, the entire final section of the route was a waterfall.

I was heartbroken as I looked up at this dream that I was so close to realizing.

But while also knowing that some of the hardest parts of the climb were still above me.

And now, they were soaking wet.

When I had checked out some of these sections in my preparation for this wall, I knew they entailed really hard rock climbing. That I’d have to turn it on.

Now, something that we as climbers rely on – chalk and friction to dangle from our finger tips on steep terrain off of hardly there credit card line protrusions from the rock - had water flowing over them.

My climbing partner, Elliot, who had become support to me when he recognized that I was the one succeeding to free climb every pitch and his preparation had fallen short for his ability to – he asked me �“What are you going to do, it doesn’t look like it’s going to dry…”�I said.

I’m going to climb it wet.

And that was a big turning point moment for me. I didn’t really know that I could.

But I told myself that I would.

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Mindset is Everything

Mindset is everything. What we tell ourselves is everything, if you tell yourself you can do it, if you keep a positive attitude, even in the face of daunting odds you can achieve incredible things… but if you start letting excuses crowd your thought process, if you stop thinking about solutions and just keep thinking about the problems you will get stuck - in life and on the wall.

For me - to climb – Regardless of my bleeding finger tips - which I super glued shut each pitch to mitigate from bleeding so much on the rock.

When I put a size smaller climbing shoe on to my frost bitten foot so I could feel more tension in my toes because I had lost that feeling.

When I just kept going for it.

Being open to failure but knowing I’d give the rest of the climb absolutely everything left in my tank that I had because this is what I wanted to do; this is what I came to do.

My body was exhausted. I was nearing more than 3 weeks on the wall.

But all I felt was the adrenaline to keep going; to give it my best shot.

Big goals rarely unfold the way we imagine.

The skill isn’t predicting reality.�It’s adapting to it without abandoning the mission.

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The Summit

& What it Really Meant

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Name the goal that scares you
Choose your team with intention & over communicate
Chart out the plan; Break it down into sections/pitches
Obsess over the process, not the applause
Expect friction & unseen obstacles but control the controllables and make a plan (a-c) for the unknown
Fully commit when it counts

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We all have a Platinum Wall.

A goal that feels too big, too uncertain.

But those are the goals that shape us.

The wall will always look

bigger up close.

And that’s exactly why

it’s worth climbing.

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Thank you!

Sasha DiGiulian