(upbeat music)

- Nik Wallenda has beencrossing a high wire

since he was two years old.

His death-defying stuntshave earned him a place

in the "Guinness Book of WorldRecords" several times over.

Once he was hanging froma helicopter by his teeth!

So you might think Nik isfearless, but you'd be wrong.

(swooshing)

- [Narrator] Aerialist,Nik Wallenda, is known

for pushing the envelope.

His televised walks overTimes Square, Niagara Falls,

the Grand Canyon, and mostrecently an active volcano,

takes stepping out onfaith to a whole new level.

Yet, this King of the High Wirehad never experienced fear,

until a tragic accident in 2017,

that changed his life forever.

In his book, "Facing Fear",Nik shares how he got back

on the wire and how you canface and overcome your fears.

- Well, Nik Wallenda joinsus now via Skype, and Nik,

we welcome you back to the show.

- Thanks for having me on again.

- Well, let's go back, if we can,

to your walk across the Masaya Volcano.

The microphones pickedup your voice singing.

What was going throughyour mind as you did that?

- Well, you know, the Biblesays that God will bring us

a peace that passes all understanding.

And the reality is, wheneverI'm in any stressful situation,

I praise the name of Jesus.

You know, I'm constantlywith prayer and thanksgiving,

thanking God for theincredible opportunities

and the platform that He'sgiven me, even when I'm amongst,

over a volcano on a wire.

- Well, obviously you needto have superhuman balancing

abilities to go acrossa high wire anywhere,

but what are some ofthe other considerations

that you need to take into account?

With a volcano, I wouldimagine it was incredibly hot.

- Yeah, it's quite complex.

In fact, I have anincredible team of engineers

and scientists that workaround me that kind of,

do studies and basically letme know what kind of heat

I'll be facing, whatkind of movement the wire

will have under my feet, howheavy the gasses will be.

I had to wear a gas mask for that walk.

I had to wear goggles to protect my eyes.

In fact, that sulfuric gasgot so bad days leading up

to that walk that some ofmy stabilizer cables snapped

because the gas was so thick.

- Wow.

Well, in 2017, I know you andyour family were rehearsing

a pyramid act, which yourfamily is famous for,

and tragedy nearly struck,well it did strike.

Walk us through what happened there.

- Yeah, so in 2017, we weretrying to break our own

world record by doing thehighest four-level, eight-person

pyramid on the wire.

And as we were training,a long story short,

two days before, we were rehearsing

and that pyramid collapsed,and five of my family members

fell to the ground.

By the grace of God, I caught the wire,

which is what I've trainedto do my entire life,

as did my cousin and one other gentleman.

But my family members wereinjured pretty severely.

In fact, my sister had brokenevery bone in her face.

She currently has 73 screwsand plates in her face alone.

- [Terry] Good grief!

- You know what we knowand what we've learned

through faith andthrough our lives is that

whenever we are down, wheneverwe are in a dark place,

that God is up to something good.

And we held onto that, even in this time

where we didn't know mysister was gonna live.

I do remember my sistercoming out of a coma

days after that accident,and she couldn't talk

because her jaw was wired shut.

And she just wrote thatGod's gonna get the glory

somehow out of this.

She couldn't talk, but shewrote that because she knew

that God was at work atthis moment in our lives.

- That had to have a strong impact on you,

just being a part of watchingthat whole thing fall.

You differentiate betweentwo types of fear,

healthy fear and unhealthy fear.

What do you find separates the two?

- Yeah, look, it's certainly a fine line

and no pun intended, but youknow, there's a healthy fear

that tells us, hey, youbetter train and prepare

and you better have agreat team around you

before you get on that wire.

You know, there's anunhealthy fear that tells us

not to pursue our dreams,not to pursue our calling

that God has for us in our lives.

You know, we all havethat analogy, you know,

that analogy of the devil andthe angel on each shoulder.

And the reality is, thatis so true in our minds.

And through this process,I've learned that, look,

we can control where ourminds go, by the grace of God.

You know, the Bible saysto give all of our thoughts

or make our thoughts knownto Him, for He loves us.

And that's what I had tolearn more than anything

through this accident was,

as I was reliving thataccident over and over again,

to the point where it became debilitating,

where I didn't think I couldever get on the wire again,

I had to remember togive my thoughts to God.

- Yeah, how did you practice that?

- You know, it was just that,it was about practicing it.

It's just like getting on that wire.

When I train, I train to walk on a wire

that is five times longer.

There's more heat in theheat suit that I wear

and I wear an oxygendeprivation mask, et cetera,

or I did for that volcano.

Well, it's the same withdealing with these thoughts

that we have that go through our minds.

Look, for some reason,we're prone as human beings,

our minds often go to negative thoughts.

But the more we practicestopping those thoughts

and cutting them off and countering them

with something positive,the more we do that,

the more natural it becomes

and the more positive our lives become.

- Wow, we've seen you doso many amazing things.

What's next?

Do you have something in the wings?

- I am working on several things.

I'm working on a big walk in the UK,

which has been a dreamof mine for a long time.

And then the big one that I'm working on

is something in outer space.

- Wow!

(laughs) Okay, we'll watch for that.

We want our viewers to knowthat you can read more stories

from Nik's career, and they are amazing,

by getting his brand new book.

It's called "Facing Fear",

and it's available in stores nationwide.

Nik, you're an inspiration.

Thanks for being with us.

- Thank you so much for having me again.

- Absolutely.

Wow, what a guy!

- I've watched some of those walks,

and your heart's up inyour throat as you see it.

Okay.