Bertrand Piccard - Solar Impulse

It reassures me a lot to see that the fact that you have a message, that you talk about all this human side, makes you the most followed skipper on the Vendée Globe this year. There is hope for humanity when I see that people are interested, beyond the exploit, in what they can learn. It’s fantastic.

I also noticed to what extent, at first, we try to hold on to what we know. And then we step into an adventure without it being an adventure, we resist. We want to control everything and we want everything to go as planned; and there is a breaking point, a sort of a click which makes us let go and it becomes a real adventure. We let go of everything we know and we step into the unknown. We step into this stage where we are simply open to what happens. And this is where adventure is, adventure isn’t in what is spectacular, it’s in the extraordinary.

We have to be able to overcome these moments and it’s hard. I think that the hardest is the moment when we go from control to the moment when where we tell ourselves “ I have to go for it, I have nothing to lose, it’s my life, it’s what I want to reach”.

In our world today, it really is a message, which should be heard and applied. The way you discuss the message is fantastic. You will become a reference for the people who listen.

Bertrand Piccard, instigator and pilot of Solar Impulse