Meagan Martin is the stuff of Ninja Warrior legends. She's a professional rock climber, climbing coach, and an American Ninja Warrior Vegas Finalist (Season 7). When she's not taking on the Warped Wall, Meagan is coaching at ABC Kids Climbing Gym in Boulder, CO teaching the next generation of climbers.

After years as a professional climber and Ninja, Meagan has some incredible insight and advice into keeping your competitive edge on and off the course, which she shared with us shortly after her course run in Indianapolis.

Girls are thriving in the climbing world

“I do think that for girls, feeling strong is something that attracts them to climbing. It’s definitely a sport where you can keep up with the guys a lot more. More so than some other sports. The difference between men and women isn’t actually as large as in other sports.

"It’s cool because it’s not just doing the sport with one gender. You climb with everybody. There’s a lot of diversity in that way. You learn how people do certain things differently, and you hear their skill sets.”

Approaching a problem in rock climbing or life

“It is kind of like a math problem. That’s why, in bouldering we call the climbs ‘problems.’ You're trying to solve the problem, and sometimes there isn’t only one way to do it. Sometimes you can figure it out quickly. Other times it takes awhile, and you have to be persistent and really try. I think it creates a work ethic in the kids, which is awesome because they’re having to work for what they want. Pretty early on they realize that things aren’t always going to be easy. Sometimes they’ll figure things out really quickly, but there’s other times when they have to put a little more work into it.”

Fear

“The determination of wanting to complete something you’re working on overpowers the fear a lot of times. So it’s kind of like forget about the fear and just finish it. And then when you get done you can be like, ‘OK, that was terrifying. I don’t want to do it again. But I’m happy I did it."

Falling

“I fall all the time. I always say if you’re not falling you’re not trying hard enough. If you’re just doing everything you’re clearly not pushing yourself enough. I spend most of my time falling."

Staying calm in a tricky situation

“One of the first things I do is I try to breathe. I think it’s easy when you get nervous, (and this goes back to any situation) you get really tense and freak out. Then not enough oxygen is getting to your brain, and then how would you be able to figure anything out if you can’t really breathe? I try to talk myself through what’s happening, and bring everything back down to reality and not get over stressed about it.”

Words of wisdom

“The best piece of advice I’ve gotten is to do what you love and be happy with what you’re doing. If you’re not (happy), then maybe you should find something else to do, because we should all be happy and enjoying life.”

Follow Meagan on Instagram here.