how to improve mental strength and get out of your comfort zone with Caleb Beavers

meet Caleb,

a slackliner, record-holding highliner, and the founder of Space Age Slacklines.

it might sound contradictory to describe the act of highlining as grounding but when you talk to Caleb, you’ll find that he’s found a way to root himself in the present with a sense of peace, strength, and courage a result of immersing himself in the sport.

it’s not uncommon to hear that the only way you’ll become who you want to be is by actually taking that first step, and while the results may not always be as instantaneous as they are on a slackline, it’s still pretty solid advice.

Caleb exemplifies how one decision can truly transform your life from the inside out. i hope that after reading this conversation, you’ll be inspired to take the first step out of your comfort zone, too.

Do you remember the first time you slacklined? 

The first time I ever slacklined was with my friend in a park, and he just had one of those two-inch rapid kits and we had a lot of fun just trying to stay on the line and walk across it. I always liked balancing and stuff as a kid, so it was cool. I didn’t immediately get it; I don’t think anybody does. It was cool to work on that and over a few days, being able to walk all the way across made me want to get my own and get as good as I could at it. Me and that same friend that showed me, we would basically slackline and go home and start watching videos of Andy Lewis or all the crazy people that I would see highlining. Pretty early on, I made a conscious decision that I just wanted to highline one day. 

Like you said, you just went straight for it. You made the decision and you kept going. Have you always had that personality where when you take it, you see it through? Or was it different with this?

I would say it’s pretty different with this. I skateboarded as a kid and I always wanted to be able to do a triple kick-flip down stair sets or whatever, but I never quite got there. Slacklining was kind of unique for me in that I really just loved it - like every moment of it. So I did make that conscious decision that I wanted to highline, but I worked up to it. It took me like eight months of slacklining and getting better and progressing that before I took it to a highline and after that, it was kind of just history.

It is balance and you have to work yourself up to it, but it’s so much more than that. What is the hardest part, or something you wish people knew about the sport?

It’s mostly work and not actually walking on the highline. There’s obviously a lot of taking the time to rig the line properly, taking the time to get the line across, sitting around while your friend highlines, you know? Nowadays we’re kind of leaving lines up a little more often so you don’t feel bad if you want to highline for an hour. But that’s a longtime to highline, straight for an hour. A typical day of highlining would be maybe only forty minutes collective of walking on the line, but the rest of the day is hiking to a spot, rigging, checking the anchors, all this stuff. There’s just a lot that goes into it.

Right, and let’s talk about the rigging. Because from my perspective, I imagine in some ways you just become used to the process, but it’s so important. You cannot mess it up; it’s serious. Do you get nervous?  Do you triple-check things, or have any routines or rituals? 

It’s definitely a lot of double-checking and triple-checking, making sure everything’s fine. At a certain point, there are things you accept to just be good. Like, say there were bolts in the rock, at a certain point, you accept that, “Alright, I can put my rope through the bolt and that’s a strong point. Awesome.” Eventually, you want to start checking the bolts and stuff, but every highline has a different rig and how you set it up, so each time truly does feel like a different puzzle to put together. I wouldn’t call it challenging anymore; it’s more just taking the time to ensure that what you set up makes you feel good and like, warm and fuzzy inside - that’s what we like to say. Redundancy is kind of a main thing that we preach, meaning that every point has a backup, or there’s no one point. You don’t want to say, “Oh my gosh, my whole highline is on this one shackle. If this shackle blows, the whole highline is going down.” That is what we avoid at all costs. There would be a second shackle and a second rope and that definitely helps to alleviate some of the worry. You can tell yourself, “Well, even if that thing breaks, which it won’t, I’m caught by something else.” And yeah, at this point, rigging is pretty second nature and easy to me. I have my techniques and my process down really well, but it also depends on who I rig with. With some friends, it’s just really seamless and fluid. With some people, sometimes it’s like you’re teaching them a little bit. Every time is different but it’s a lot of checking. 

Speaking of friends, the highline community seems to be really tight knit and varied. Sometimes you’re teaching someone else, and sometimes you’re out with your best friends. There’s camaraderie and leadership. 

The highlining community is a pretty special, interesting, unique thing that I’ve never experienced before. In high school, I had my group of friends. In college, that’s kind of when I started highlining, and I had some friends that I went to class with, but most of my friends were just highliners at a certain point. The community is really inclusive and uplifting. When I wanted to start highlining, I just started meeting up with the local slackliners at the park, right? I found a Facebook group. It was cool that people would post that they were going to this place and all are welcome and I would just have to show up, which was kind of intimidating for me. I’m a bit of an introvert, so to walk up to a group of slackliners in a park and hang with them was kind of a barrier for me. But they let you in. The highlining community is really cool. Now I am at a point, and the community is at a point, where the community is so big and I like to kind of stick to my group of main riggers, like my best friends. At this point, all my friends are just highliners, so that’s pretty cool. But yeah, there was a time a couple years into my highlining where I kind of started to realize this thing about the community, that it can be too inclusive. For instance, one time me and like three friends, we rigged this highline and it took a couple hours to rig and we were ready to sesh it all day. And then throughout the day, fourteen other people just started showing up. And you know, I knew [them] and I’m friendly with [them], but it was like, “Alright, none of you helped haul all this gear up or helped rig,” but it’s kind of the culture to let you get on my highline because you’re another highliner. Like, “You’re a rare breed, you’re a highliner. Get on my highline.” So, that day kind of changed it for me in that I like having the community and having all this stuff, but I became, I don’t know, a little more exclusive almost, just because you have to be. There’s so much work that goes into it. You have to kind of limit the amount of people. And I think that says a lot about the highlining community in that it’s a pretty tight-knit community of people that all really feel like you can meet up with people and interact with people whenever. Like, if I were to go travel anywhere in the US, I could probably contact the local slackliners and then go rig a line with them. But yeah, at this point I kind of have my group of highline friends.

It sounds unique because on one hand, it’s awesome that there are probably no other activities where you can go in with no experience and you’re welcome and for all you know, the person who went in front of you is a record holder. But at the same time, you’re not always doing all that work to then teach, or adjust your flow and the vibe of the day for someone at a different level. 

Totally. That’s another change in that people don’t just show up at highlines anymore, expecting to get on. Sometimes we have those days where we leave multiple highlines up for a whole weekend and anybody and everybody is welcome, and we’re kind of all hanging out. But when we want to go rig a special line and sesh it and then go home, we have a closed group. It’s not open to the community. And the teaching thing is another interesting aspect. There’s a guy making YouTube videos about how to rig highlines and stuff recently, so that’s kind of a new thing that people can learn through, but for the longest time, you learned how to highline from another highliner. That’s how I learned. Recently I’ve kind of been seeing a lower standard of rigging in the newer generation, and so that’s something that I kind of take a responsibility for. I’m kind of taking on a young padawan and teaching him how to highline and I’m gonna teach him how to rig, too. I think it’s really important that we continue to do that so the standard stays high and doesn't diminish.

That’s another question I have for you, because when I see people randomly join in on a highline or a slackline, my thought – and this might show how boring I am – is always about liability. What if someone who isn’t experienced gets hurt, or like you said, the person who did the rig took shortcuts? Does that ever go through your mind?

Absolutely. I’ve walked up to highlines and decided not to get on because I didn’t think the rig was up to my standards. Typically, if I didn’t rig the line, I’m checking the anchor myself. And there is a pretty good attitude about that. Check other people’s rigs. Don’t feel like you have to just blindly trust. Be critical. I think that helps keep rigging clean and good is when people bring up concerns. So like, for that highline that I didn’t end up getting on, it was rigged and left like alone. When I hiked up there by myself, there was no one there. I inspected the anchor like I always do and determined, “This is not exactly up to my standard.” I couldn’t see the other anchor because it was a pretty big highline, and I couldn’t hike to the other one, so maybe the other one was even worse. I went down from that but I ended up talking to the people that rigged that line and brought up my concerns. Luckily, they were really receptive and they were like, “Yeah, you’re right. We should have done this and that.” So at least there is a community about that and people accepting criticism about rigging. 

You hike, rig, and set up, and then once you get on the line, it’s pretty different. What’s it like? What goes through your mind? 

That depends on each highline and I guess the day, even, you know? Mostly, it’s pretty meditative in that I’m kind of in the moment of like, “Don’t fall off the line. Stay balanced.” I’m taking in the 360 scenery, the space that I’m in. Sometimes, it’s like I’m walking in the park and whatever is going through my head that day, that’s what I’m thinking about. Sometimes when it’s a big record line or a new PR, what’s going through my head is definitely, “Don’t fall,” or self-encouragement.

When I’m on a record highline, I’m like, “Alright, just don’t fall. Don’t fall.” And I just keep walking. 

You bring up a good point, being in the moment. You posted a photo a while back and it genuinely freaked me out. You were slacklining blindfolded, I think my reaction was me seeing the negative, because it really makes you focus even more. I imagine it heightens all of your other senses.

Highlining blindfold[ed] is kind of a whole other thing. You don’t realize how much of your balance, like inner equilibrium, comes from your vision - visionary references and things moving, and so blindfold highlining is really cool to do to 100% just tune into the body and feel. It’s weird. Some days I have it, and I can walk the whole line blind, and it’s crazy. Some days I don’t have it at all and I can’t take more than a few steps blindfolded just because something in my head is different. It’s definitely a little scarier. It’s scarier to start blindfolded. I put the blindfold on while I’m sitting down and stand up into the walk, and that section is kind of scary compared to regular highlining. But I will say blindfolded [makes it] really easy to find that flow when you’re in it. You stand up and the first few steps are kind of scary, squirrely, webby, but then if you can find that balance and rhythm, then it’s really meditative and more about inner-focus. It’s kind of weird. You can tell it takes a lot more mental focus to stay in that blindfolded flow space. When I’m doing really good blindfolded, I’m literally just visualizing myself on the line, or sometimes I’ll visualize my feet touching the line each step. And then if I maybe take forty steps and my mind starts to not visualize anymore, that’s when I start to start wobbling again and sometimes that makes me fall. It is really interesting how much more focus it takes because you’re really tuning into your body, whereas when you don’t have the blindfold on, maybe you can kinda tune out, but you’re still seeing, so you’re subconsciously making corrections. Blindfold highlining is a cool, lifelong journey because at this point, I’ve sent a thousand meters with sight, but I haven’t sent more than two hundred meters blindfold. It’s way harder, so it’s cool to like have that side-challenge that’s a little more introspective. 

You’ve truly built your skill level up and you’re now a record holder. That doesn’t happen by accident. What is the prep work like, as far as mental and physical fitness goes? 

The mental strength is something that I think most people struggle with. People that struggle with highlining struggle with the mental. If you want to train to a point where you can walk a three-hundred-foot slackline, you can get there pretty fast in the park, just like, skills, right? But then you go to the highline and then all kind of doesn’t matter because you’re way up high, your body is kind of in this flight or fight response, and it’s just different. Most beginner highliners don’t walk the whole line, right? My first highline, I think I could only take seven steps. but I had walked way longer in the park, so at a certain point, a mental practice - overcoming that fear and walking through it.

That fear part of your brain is like any other muscle in your body; it only gets stronger by working it out.

And so for highlining, the only way you can work that out is by highlining. I still try and get out every week, but for the first few years, I was still in college and I was religiously highlining every weekend, sometimes both days on the weekend, having multiple sessions in a day. Doing that kind of built mental resilience in my walking to a point where now I can be pretty much completely comfortable in my mental state. Exposure and the heights don’t affect me anymore. I think that’s the biggest thing for people that are aspiring to highline that struggle with that fear… the only way that’s gonna get better is if you keep putting yourself in that fear place. 

Definitely. To go from only seven steps to now, where you have set records and thousands of meters. You have PRs, but you aren’t done yet. What is your proudest accomplishment so far?

I’d say what I’m most proud of is definitely the US record that we set in October of 2020. We rigged the longest highline in the United States at 1000 meters long, or 1 kilometer. And that was kind of a big number in my mind for a while - the 1k. After sending 500 meters pretty easily, that kind of became the goal and yeah, that project went really smoothly and the rigging was cool. The rigging feat alone was interesting, and then you know, there was a bunch of anxiety in myself leading up to that, like, “Oh, my God, a US record, like a thousand-meter highline… it’s insane,” right? There was a lot of anxiety in myself leading up to my walk on it, and the fact that I only had one chance… we all only had one chance on the line because we had a three-day window with twenty people trying to just cross it, and most people taking at least an hour. So, we kind of all settled that we each have one chance and I was really proud of myself that I was able to walk the whole thing, first try, without falling. That’s probably my proudest accomplishment. We rigged another highline last year on top of a mountain here in Colorado, at like 13,000 feet elevation and that was a cool overall athletic feat - that a long height, at altitude. We highlined at the top, and then we went down, like all in a day. That was just really cool. 

That’s intense. Altitude is no joke.

Yeah, that one was wild. It was 140 meters long, which to me is kind of short, but I only walked it one way because at the end, my fingers were tingling, like I had vertigo, just all this stuff. We had hiked six miles, I was up at 3:30am, the line was really tall, it was just a crazy experience and [a] pretty proud accomplishment.

How important to what you do are goals, and being able to measure progress?

To me, I think they’re really important. There are a lot of highliners that will say like, “Fuck sending,” or, “Just have fun,” and yes, just have fun. We’re here to have fun. But it’s also an amazing athletic thing for a human to do, to like walk on this little wobbly thing way up in the air. You’re not only overcoming physical balance, you’re overcoming mental stuff and sending bigger and bigger highlines. At a certain point, if you can balance on a highline, like you can balance on any highline – doesn’t really matter. But being able to stay in that space for longer and longer periods becomes a mental practice and to me, it’s been really important and really fun to push that PR and use it as a metric of personal progress. Some people could, like, take it egotistically, like “Well, I have a bigger PR than you,” or, “I walked this,” but I think it’s all about how you personally perceive it, and to me, it’s just a great metric for my personal, athletic progression. I think it’s important.

I agree. When you’re on a highline, although it isn’t necessarily the main focus, you’re able to see things from a very different point of view. How does what you do and the way that you see things influence how you see our environment, or life in general?

It’s definitely made me appreciate nature and our environment way more. I always loved the outdoors and I always cared for the outdoors – things like leave no trace or picking up trash if I saw it outside. But experiencing it from a different perspective of just being on a highline and seeing it from a different angle makes you appreciate it more, utilizing public lands and nature. I care about the environment way more. Especially in Boulder, it being such a big hiking place to live, it’s like, if you don’t hike, you’re not cool in Boulder, I guess. Or if you don’t utilize the public lands that we have, you’re not taking advantage of what we have. There are a lot of times where I see so many people outside and you can kind of see how people affect the environment just by being there. Even at some of the highline places we go to that are really popular that a lot of people rig at, you can see some erosion - just from people being there. I care about conservation way more wherever I go.

Whether someone is outdoorsy or not, what is one thing everyone should know how to do? 

Everyone should definitely know how to change a tire. That can happen to anyone. I guess a kind of more profound answer is that everyone should know how to find happiness with themselves. You don’t need someone else for happiness. You don’t need a thing for happiness, you know?

Finding something that brings you joy and being able to dive into that is pretty important.

I think everybody should have that thing. Everybody should have something that they can go to that will only bring joy. And that’s definitely highlining for me. I’ve never had anything like that where, without fail, I know that if I go slackline or highline in a day, I’m going to feel better after. I’m at this point where right now, I’m excelling at the sport. And I never considered myself athletic as a kid - I played sports but I was never that good at them. I never was like a star player, so to excel at something, it feels good, for sure.

You’ve also found yourself on the other side of the sport with Space Age Slacklines. What’s that like?

I always liked building things, I was really good at math, so naturally I did engineering in college and I learned a lot of cool things there. Right around junior year was when I started highlining and so, towards my senior year, I was really starting to think critically about some of the gear that we had. As an engineer, you’re kind of taught to like make things more efficient or find problems and fix them, right? So, naturally, after rigging highlines for over a year, I was like, “Man, this one thing could be a lot better,” or, “Why do we just accept this one thing that happens that we don’t really like?” And so I kind of just had a few ideas of my own for slackline gear and started designing stuff and then I got lucky enough to learn how to like take it from idea to a thing. I learned how to work with metal and precision machining. Then I got to start making my own slackline gear, which was really cool - doing the whole design process of designing, prototyping, testing, redesigning. We’ve had two products at this point. One was a weblock, which is a device that holds your webbing and retains a bunch of strength, and it had some cool features that I think are pretty important. One of the issues with every weblock on the market was webbing slipping over time. It would just slip through, just because it’s fiber and it changes tension. Each time it slips through, we’d have to do fancy tail tie-off to keep it safe. My device had a tie-off within the device to make it nice and seamless. Right about the time I made mine and started testing it, other companies kind of came out with their own version, because that the talk at the time was webbing slippage, and if you don’t mitigate it, it could cause really bad issues. And recently, we have a product that’s a leash ring, which is your tether to the line. What makes mine cool is that it has this really large diameter, because we’ve started connecting our highlines together. For example, the 1km highline we rigged had a connection every 50 meters; it had twenty connections. That makes things safer in a way, but you have these kind of bulky connections to walk over, and the leash rings we used to use would get stuck. So I made one that’s much wider and smooth and stuff on the inside, and goes straight through. I’m currently working on more prototypes at the moment, too, so it’s been cool to exercise that part of me. I like making things and coming up with ideas. 

That’s really interesting. What does a day in your life look like?

A day in my life always starts with coffee and a breakfast burrito. Usually I’ll go to the gym because I like lifting weights and I’ve kind of been working on my strength recently. And then it’s what I do for work, which is making my slackline gear, but I also make other things for people. Right now, I have a custom project I’m working on for a friend, making him some like ski poles. It’s usually coffee, breakfast, gym, and then I go to the metal shop and I work. And if I’m not working in the metal shop, I’m at home doing computer stuff, like business, research, math. When I highline, it’s highline all day. 

With highlining, one try has kind of led to a new lifestyle, including a business, and you can’t imagine life without it at this point. Do you ever feel burnt out, or do you ever doubt yourself?

I love highlining and I think my lifestyle is kind of catered to allow me to highline as much as I can, when I want. I’ve had like full-time jobs in the past that led to burn out and that’s why I’m not at the jobs anymore, because working for someone else, giving a lot of your time to them, for me is kind of a soul-draining thing - especially when I have this passion of highlining that’s so important to me and being able to do it when I want to, when I need to. Like, last month I was able to go and take a trip down to Utah to highline for a week. If I had a full-time job, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. But there’s the other side of that where the doubt comes in. My paycheck isn’t necessarily regular and consistent. I always do fine, something always ends up working out, but there’s definitely a lot of doubt, like, “Maybe I should just go be a weekend warrior.” But I’m really fortunate that I have Space Age Slacklines and this other side hustle that’s actually doing well, keeping me busy enough, and bringing in enough money to pay my bills and allow me to highline whenever I want. 

Would you say the doubt stems from that internal monologue, or do you feel pressure from outside sources at all? 

It’s all from me at this point. Senior year, I felt pressure, like, “Oh, my God, where am I gonna work? I’m graduating in two months, what am I gonna do? I gotta go find a job.” I was looking for jobs all the time, having interviews. I never really got much pressure from my parents; they’ve always been really supportive and want me to be happy, first and foremost. So that’s been really nice. I don’t have my parents breathing down my neck, like, “When are you gonna get a job?” They never do that. My fiancé, Monique, is the same way. She saw me when I was at a job that I hated and was obviously not doing okay mentally because of it. She tells me, “You better not get a job! Just keep doing what you’re doing.” I don’t really feel much pressure anymore, or put much pressure on myself, but all the doubt comes from within. 

At the very beginning, you could have let doubt get in your head too much and stop you from approaching those slackliners in the park. What would you say to someone who is letting that doubt, or maybe an insecurity, keep them from trying something new?

Through highlining and other parts of my life, I’ve learned that interesting and good things happen when you step out of your comfort zone.

If you stay in your comfort zone, then all you’re ever gonna know is what you know.

If you don’t step out and put yourself out there, then you’re never gonna learn and yeah. That was highlining for me - stepping out of my comfort zone, walking up to a group of random dudes that were slacklining in the park, asking if I could get on their line. Doing that over and over again helped me socially. And then highlining, that’s a totally different stepping out of your comfort zone. That’s like, a primal instinct, like, “Don’t go over the cliff, or you die.” You literally have to step out of your instinctual comfort zone to highline and it’s only brought me joy and good things. Stepping out of my comfort zone to go on a date is how I met my future wife. Life experiences start outside of your comfort zone, and if you can take your comfort zone and keep expanding it until there is no comfort zone and you’re just living life, then I think you’ve got it pretty figured out. And I’m not even there; I still have a comfort zone. I still have some things that I don’t like to put myself out there for, but you have to assess risk as you live your life. There are certain things that you may not feel comfortable with but have no risk whatsoever. Say you’re going for an interview for a job that you really want with a company that you’d like to work for…  like, that’s pretty intimidating to go and interview. That’s stepping out of your comfort zone, that’s putting yourself out there, but there’s not much risk in that. The worst thing that happens is you’re not gonna get a job. But free solo highlining, for example, that’s stepping out of your comfort zone and I think anybody would be scared of that. But not anybody should just go and step out of their comfort zone and do it. Assess that risk first, and think about things critically. But I’ve definitely learned through highlining and other things in life that it’s good. It’s good to step out and put yourself out there.

seven questions with caleb beavers:

I can’t go a day without… coffee.

Everyone should watch... The Peanut Butter Falcon. 

Life is better with a little… dog. I think dogs are amazing. A little bit of dog in your day will brighten the day.

Everyone in their 20s should…  travel outside of the country.

One insider thing to do in Boulder…  free solo the second flat iron. It’s easy and fun if you’re into an extreme, more risky type of thing. I could name about a thousand hikes that are less traveled that would be good for people to do.

What the world needs right now is… for people to chill out a little bit, about everything. Chill out and think about what’s really important. Everybody can have their own opinion on that, but I think we just need to relax a little bit.

One way to spread love is… if you love yourself. Then you naturally spread love to others.

Follow Caleb on Instagram.

Check out Space Age Slacklines here.

Last photo courtesy of Justin Wagers.