When I went blind at 13, I realized that I wasn't going to be a good baseball or basketball player like I enjoyed before. It forced me to look beyond the obvious, to things that I could still do well.

People have the inner resources to become anything they want to be. Challenge just becomes the vehicle for tapping into those inner resources.

People get trapped into thinking about just one way of doing things.

It is exciting to kind of figure things out in yourself and then use other people to help you figure things out so you can really reach your potential.

I've been lucky to have lots and lots of mentors. I think that is incredibly important in anyone's life to encourage and inspire them, let them understand that their own potential is a reality that they can strive for.

I think that it is everyone's obligation they owe to themselves and to their lives to figure out their own way up their own mountain.

Climbing is actually a great sport for blind people and that carried me on to climbing bigger and bigger mountains, snowy mountains, ice faces, and developing different techniques to be able to do that.