We are the ones that we’ve been waiting for. — ALICE

No longer was the fastest person down the mountain the best athlete on the mountain. To really win, you had be creative. “Creativity became the way athletes judged success,” continues Jimmy Chin. “Did I pick a cool line? Did it look stylish? Was I innovative? Did I add anything to the conversation? It’s why so many of these guys now see themselves

The lone-wolf maverick is a myth. When it comes to becoming Superman, we really are in this together.

Always say yes, our final trigger, means interactions should be additive more than argumentative.

Then there’s blending egos—which is the collective version of the same sort of humility that allowed Doug Ammons to merge with the Stikine. When egos have been blended, no one’s hogging the spotlight and everyone’s thoroughly involved.

Familiarity, our next trigger, means the group has a common language, a shared knowledge base, and a communication style based on unspoken understandings.

Why is “together” such an effective strategy? For starters, the obvious. Humans are a social species. We’re competitive, cooperative, sexually attracted, and all the rest.

“We’ll come back from a day of skiing and talk about dumb stuff,” says professional skier, climber, mountaineer, director, and photographer Jimmy Chin. “ ‘I had this rad line through the trees’ or ‘Did you see me hit that cliff?’ What we don’t say is ‘I got into that amazing headspace again, and I fucking felt like God.

Applying this idea in our daily life means breaking tasks into bite-size chunks and setting goals accordingly. A writer, for example, is better off trying to pen three great paragraphs at a time—the equivalent of moving through Mandy-Rae’s kick cycles—rather than attempting one great chapter. Think challenging, yet manageable—just enough