What if the only way out of the darkest place in your life was to throw yourself off a cliff—literally?
Jeb Corliss is one of the world’s most well-known BASE jumpers and wingsuit pilots. But his story isn’t about adrenaline. It’s about depression, survival, and rebuilding a life through fear.
As a teenager, Jeb didn’t want to live. Then he saw a man fly off a cliff on television—and it gave him something to live for. Over the next five years, that vision pulled him back from the edge. It gave him purpose, and eventually, peace.
I sat with Jeb to explore what it means to use fear as medicine, risk as clarity, and pain as a teacher. He shares the truth about what he’s lost, what he’s broken, and what he’s built in its place.
This isn’t about stunts. It’s about philosophy, presence, and how to live like it matters.
Lessons from the Episode
- Fear isn’t something to escape. It’s something to work with.
- Depression doesn’t make you weak—it’s often where your clarity is born.
- Extreme experiences aren’t about thrill. They’re about waking up.
- Emotional resilience comes from owning your pain—not avoiding it.
- You can’t appreciate life until you’ve come close to losing it.
What Happens When You Stop Running From Fear
Some people spend their lives trying to avoid fear. Jeb Corliss built a life by walking straight into it.
When I first found Jeb’s videos over a decade ago, I remember sitting frozen in front of my screen. The cliffs, the speed, or the proximity to death... Watching him made me realize how narrow my own relationship with fear had been.
When we finally spoke, Jeb didn’t romanticize what he does. He was blunt. Base jumping, he said, isn’t just dangerous—it’s far more dangerous than most people can comprehend. He’s watched countless friends die. He’s shattered nearly every part of his body several times. He’s survived impacts that should have been fatal. And still, he’s clear about one thing: basejumping is a path you choose when nothing else will hold you.
That honesty sets the tone for everything Jeb shares.
What surprised me most was that Jeb didn’t find base jumping because he was fearless. He found it because he was struggling to survive himself. As a teenager, he was deeply depressed and suicidal. He didn’t want a future—until one moment gave him a point on the horizon. Seeing someone step off a cliff and fly gave him something to move toward. Not happiness. Not joy. Just a direction.
The irony, as Jeb tells it, is that by the time he finally made his first base jump, he no longer wanted to die. The discipline, the patience, the process itself had given him a reason to live. Base jumping didn’t save him because it was thrilling—it saved him because it demanded presence.
Fear, in Jeb’s world, isn’t something to eliminate. It’s something to manage, to listen to, to work with. He doesn’t deny being scared. In fact, he says he’s more afraid now than when he started. The difference is that fear no longer controls him. It sharpens him. It forces him into the moment in a way few things can.
He spoke about pain the same way—without sentimentality. Pain isn’t an enemy to be numbed or avoided. It’s information. A signal. Something earned. Jeb doesn’t take painkillers unless absolutely necessary, not out of bravado, but out of principle. Covering up pain, he believes, robs us of the chance to understand reality as it is. And reality, for Jeb, is where meaning lives.
What stayed with me from this conversation the most was his insistence that it wasn’t the beautiful jumps that changed him—it was the crashes. The long rescues. The months in hospitals. The relearning how to walk. Those were the moments that taught him how precious life is. Any day you can get out of bed on your own, he said, is a beautiful day.
You might be surprised but this conversation wasn’t another adrenalin chat. It was about responsibility. About accepting the consequences of your choices with eyes wide open. About understanding that death is guaranteed, whether you live cautiously or boldly.
The real question, Jeb argues, isn’t how long you live—but how honestly you live.
What Jeb seems to love is doing what others believe is impossible. Not to impress, but to explore the limits of the human mind. To test how fear transforms focus. To experience what monks train decades to touch—complete presence—through a different, harsher doorway.
It was clear that Jeb has made peace with fear. And maybe that’s the challenge of this episode: not to jump off cliffs, but to stop anesthetizing ourselves from the parts of life that feel uncomfortable. To stop pretending fear, grief, and pain are mistakes instead of teachers. To remember that the moments we’re given matter precisely because they don’t last.
Because if there’s one thing I learned from Jeb, it’s this:
You don’t need to eliminate fear to live fully. You just need the courage to move forward while it’s screaming at you to stop.
My 5 takeaways from Jeb:
- Live honestly, or don’t bother.
- Survival isn’t the point. Being fully alive is.
- Fear doesn’t mean stop. It means look closer.
- Impermanence isn’t a threat. It’s a clarifier
- Courage isn’t confidence—it’s clarity.