# The Greatest Climber Alive: I Shouldn't Have Attempted That Climb!

An episode of [The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1291423644), 19 Feb 2026, 1 h 37 min.

Audio: https://pdst.fm/e/pscrb.fm/rss/p/mgln.ai/e/1390/claritaspod.com/measure/p.podderapp.com/2544644999/mgln.ai/e/1651/episode.flightcast.com/01KHSJW2YD22MKGS0PJAFTSGVK.mp3

The man who risked death climbing 3,000ft up El Capitan, Alex Honnold, reveals how to master extreme pressure, why his brain scan showed zero fear, the science of risk, and his visualisation secrets. Alex Honnold is a professional rock climber and the first person to free solo El Capitan and Taipei 101, the 11th tallest building in the world. He is also the bestselling author of the book, ‘Alone on the Wall: Alex Honnold and the Ultimate Limits of Adventure’ and founder of the Honnold Foundation. He explains: ◼️How to rewire your brain to eliminate paralyzing fear ◼️The visualization technique used for the world’s most dangerous climbs ◼️Why your "purpose" is found in the risks you choose ◼️How to manage extreme stress when the stakes are fatal ◼️The "10-year grind" required to achieve true human mastery (0:00) Intro (2:28) The Real Story Behind What Made Alex Honnold (9:26) Why His Upbringing Shaped His Risk Tolerance (13:50) How Losing His Father Changed Him Forever (18:47) Why Mastery Takes Years (And What Most People Get Wrong) (21:37) What Happens When Fear Hits During Practice? (25:41) The Most Effective Way To Actually Overcome Fear (33:28) Why Modern Life Never Fit Him (38:54) What Success Cost Behind The Scenes (44:42) How Much Was He Really Paid To Risk His Life? (47:26) What He Earned For Climbing Taipei 101 (51:10) What This Means About Risk And Reward (53:18) The Moment You Truly Accept You Will Die (1:10:06) Can You Rewire Your Brain To Eliminate Fear? (1:18:32) What Happens To Fear After Years Of Exposure? (1:19:39) If He Had One Last Climb — What Would It Be? (1:23:39) The Hardest He’s Ever Pushed Himself — And Why (1:26:50) Are Other People Taking Bigger Risks Than Him? (1:32:06) What He Still Wants To Achieve — And What Comes Next Enjoyed the episode? Share this link and earn points for every referral - redeem them for exclusive prizes: https://doac-perks.com Follow Alex: Instagram - https://linkly.link/2ajg9 Facebook - https://linkly.link/2ajgB X - https://linkly.link/2ajh3 Alex’s foundation - https://www.honnoldfoundation.org/donate You can purchase Alex’s book, ‘Alone on the Wall: Alex Honnold and the Ultimate Limits of Adventure’, here: https://linkly.link/2ajgw The Diary Of A CEO: ◼️Join DOAC circle here - https://doaccircle.com/ ◼️Buy The Diary Of A CEO book here - https://smarturl.it/DOACbook ◼️The 1% Diary is back - limited time only: https://bit.ly/3YFbJbt ◼️The Diary Of A CEO Conversation Cards (Second Edition): https://g2ul0.app.link/f31dsUttKKb ◼️Get email updates - https://bit.ly/diary-of-a-ceo-yt ◼️Follow Steven - https://g2ul0.app.link/gnGqL4IsKKb Sponsors: Bon Charge: https://boncharge.com/DOAC for 20% off LinkedIn Marketing: https://www.linkedin.com/DIARY Wispr: Get 14 days of Wispr Flow for free at https://wisprflow.ai/STEVEN

## Transcript

[0:00] It drives me crazy that nobody else thinks about risk.
[0:02] In this way, people look at my life and they're like, well, you're crazy, you're such
[0:05] a risk-taking.
[0:06] Well, at least I'm taking the risks that I'm choosing.
[0:08] Because think of all the people that go out partying every weekend and they get buzzed
[0:12] and they drive home and even send dirty people who are like, well, I don't take risk
[0:15] to stay at home when I play video games, no, you're at a much higher risk of heart disease,
[0:18] like they're taking all kinds of risk that they're not actually choosing to take, and you're
[0:22] still going to freaking die either way.
[0:24] So you might as well take smart calculated risks and do all the things that you want to
[0:27] do and at least die happy when you go.
[0:34] But the conclusion that a lot of people have arrived at is that you don't experience fear
[0:38] because when they look at these two brain scans, you're a mictilist lighting up less
[0:41] when you're shown scary images.
[0:42] I actually hate all the brain stuff because people always put me in this box of like,
[0:46] well, you're different.
[0:47] And I'm like, well, I'm not really like I'm a middle class suburban kid, nobody in my
[0:50] family is athletic.
[0:51] And just after 20 years of climbing five days a week and being really freaking scared,
[0:54] I respond differently than an average person.
[0:56] And there's tons of emotional turmoil throughout it periods where you're just like, I'm
[0:59] trying so hard.
[1:00] I'm just like, not as good as I want to be.
[1:02] You know, I was like living in a car, I had like a couple hundred bucks a month for
[1:04] 10 years, like that's challenging, but you just can't master a craft overnight.
[1:08] I guess that's what people don't see.
[1:10] And so how would you create the conditions to out-passist other people?
[1:14] And then in all your career, when is the moment where you were most scared on an expedition
[1:17] and an article?
[1:18] I kept hoping that it's going to get better and it just kept getting worse, like a die.
[1:21] Do you have a conversation with your partner before you go and do something like this?
[1:24] Because she wrote a letter.
[1:25] Oh gosh.
[1:26] Obviously, this is your worst nightmare, she said.
[1:29] But we all have to do scary things sometimes, Alex.
[1:31] Guys, I've got a favor to ask before this episode begins.
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[1:59] Thank you so, so, so much.
[2:02] Alex, to understand you, I think from everything I've learned about you, from the research I've
[2:11] done, from speaking to your wife, the agent, everybody I could speak to, I think to understand
[2:18] your context, we first need to understand the circumstances in which you were raised
[2:22] and the childhood you had, because it seems to be, I mean, for all of us, there's like
[2:26] fingerprints left on us that define the anomaly that many of us become, including yourself.
[2:32] So what do I need to know?
[2:33] What does the viewer need to know about the early context?
[2:35] I mean, how do you two want to go?
[2:37] I don't want to get a selfie.
[2:38] I need to remind.
[2:39] It's just like, all right.
[2:42] But yeah, certainly there's an imprint from my parents when I was bringing, I mean, they
[2:46] had a very fraught relationship.
[2:47] They eventually got divorced, but they stayed together for the kids and it was a whole like,
[2:51] you know, say a tense home life because neither of them really liked each other.
[2:54] And then my mom is very driven, very, you know, high performing.
[2:59] And then my dad was hard to say, I mean, I think my dad was deeply depressed basically
[3:02] the whole time I knew him because he was in this relationship, you know, it's hard to tell.
[3:06] He wasn't living his best life.
[3:07] And then sadly, after they got divorced, he was, he was much happier than he did.
[3:11] And so then he never really got to see, never really got to see him blossom that much.
[3:16] And your mother's high performing.
[3:17] And did she sort of implicitly demand that view in any way?
[3:20] Yeah, I mean, my mother speaks like seven or eight languages.
[3:23] She like plays every instrument.
[3:24] It's like kind of crazy.
[3:25] She's very artistically minded in that way.
[3:28] Like, you know, the arts and classical sense.
[3:30] But yeah, she wanted us to do all those things to have a deep disappointment in that regard.
[3:35] There was a phrase that I saw when I was watching the documentary that your mother would
[3:40] continually say, which I think translates to something like, not good enough.
[3:44] Like, press going to Kompah, like almost, like, almost doesn't count.
[3:49] It's funny because I feel like a lot of my adult life now, one of my sort of good who's
[3:53] saying is, you know, don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
[3:55] I'm really into like good enough.
[3:57] Like, it's better to like try.
[3:58] It's better to do something, you know, it's better to fail quickly and learn and keep moving
[4:02] forward than to not try something.
[4:04] Like, basically, I don't want to be crippled by perfectionism sort of like my mom is very
[4:07] much perfectionist, you know, like, if you can't do it right, don't do it.
[4:10] I'm sort of like, I think it's better to try and learn and improve.
[4:14] But she's accomplished a lot of things with that approach.
[4:16] Yeah, yeah, she has.
[4:17] For sure.
[4:18] What about emotions?
[4:19] This is something I've had had sort of talked about a lot is in that environment where
[4:23] your mother and father are on getting along well.
[4:26] I think I heard you say that you hadn't seen your father really happy before he'd passed away.
[4:30] Yeah.
[4:32] Was it an emotional household in terms of affection?
[4:34] No, it was a very unemotional household.
[4:36] That said, though, you know, it was a safe, relatively happy household.
[4:39] Like, it was fine, you know, and I was close to a lot of my extended family.
[4:42] And so I had a really good relation with my grandparents and some of my aunts and uncles.
[4:45] And so, I mean, I basically would have characterized it as a totally happy family life
[4:49] until I became older and started seeing other people's families more.
[4:52] And it was kind of like, oh, this seems even happier, you know what I mean?
[4:54] Or it's like, basically, really good until you see what what else it can be.
[4:58] And then you're like, this seems even better.
[5:00] And your mom wasn't ever affectionate.
[5:03] You know, it always feels slightly conditional, you know, where it's like,
[5:07] you know, she cares if you be, you know, if you perform well, like if you do well,
[5:11] like if you're a good kid or whatever, you know what I mean?
[5:14] Well, when did climbing come into your life?
[5:15] Because I've got some, I have found some photos of you climbing and you look here
[5:18] like with your sister, I believe.
[5:20] Here we go.
[5:20] This one here.
[5:22] Yeah, a classic.
[5:23] How would I be there?
[5:24] I don't know, I mean, I don't like six or something or eight.
[5:26] And it served me to tell like medium sized kids ages, why climbing?
[5:31] Oh, why not?
[5:32] So freaking cool.
[5:33] Have you, have you rocked that?
[5:34] I've, yeah, I've had a gym.
[5:36] Yeah, I've, I have, but it wasn't that the freaking cool thing.
[5:39] It was fun.
[5:40] Yeah, for sure.
[5:41] I mean, saying I've climbed when I'm sat with you, I feel like yeah,
[5:44] but you have tried it.
[5:45] Yeah, I have, yeah, as an adult.
[5:47] If you can imagine as a kid how fun that is and then if you just keep doing that nonstop,
[5:51] and then you find that you're, you know, I have some aptitude for it, you enjoy it.
[5:54] It's like, you know, you can imagine going down that path.
[5:58] It's so cool.
[5:59] But is there something about the challenge of climbing that you think just kind of like,
[6:01] was a jigsaw piece for you, your brain, like problem.
[6:04] Well, I think there's something elemental about climbing in the same way as like running or
[6:07] swimming. It's like a basic movement thing that I think is quite enjoyable.
[6:11] And I think that I also, I, I think I have an innate love of like being on top of things,
[6:17] like, you know, being at the top.
[6:18] Basically, I love big views.
[6:19] I like the expansive, you know, I like air and so I like being up on stuff.
[6:25] So I don't know, I think it just hit a few sweet spots like that.
[6:27] I was like, oh, climbing is just so cool.
[6:29] And you, I'm assuming you never thought this could be a career.
[6:31] No, no.
[6:32] And actually, even when I started rock climbing sort of full-time,
[6:35] I still didn't think it could be a career because there just wasn't really professional climbing
[6:38] at that time. It was like much smaller. The industry is way smaller.
[6:41] Climbing is way more fringe and like less of a thing.
[6:44] But you weren't motivated by like money or anything.
[6:46] Because one does not pursue rock climbing to become rich.
[6:49] No, not to become rich, no.
[6:50] Well, so I said though, so my father died, like the season before that.
[6:55] And because my parents had just gotten divorced,
[6:56] he basically left his retirement to my sister and me.
[6:59] And she used it to finish college.
[7:01] I just put it into bonds and was living off like 300 bucks a month or whatever.
[7:04] Which kind of like worked, you know, I was like living in a car.
[7:07] I stole my mom's minivan at the time.
[7:08] I had like a couple hundred bucks a month.
[7:09] And it was kind of enough to just like go to be a 19-year-old just like camping, you know.
[7:15] Was it this minivan?
[7:17] No, that's my second one. That's the Ford economy.
[7:19] That's the first actual van that I bought.
[7:21] I lived in that van for 10 years.
[7:22] For 10 years.
[7:23] Yeah.
[7:24] Yeah, so I bought this van.
[7:25] I mean, this is, this is the classic.
[7:26] But so I bought this van for 10 grand.
[7:29] And, and then originally, this is the last build out, which is the classiest build out.
[7:33] The original one my uncle and I did for free with like scrap wood from his,
[7:36] you know, in his wood shop basically.
[7:39] And so then I lived in that for 10 years.
[7:41] And you're kind of like, yeah, when you live in it,
[7:43] I couldn't even stand in this van.
[7:44] You know, I was like, oh, my back.
[7:45] But, you know, when you're living in your car for 10 years,
[7:48] you say quite a lot of money.
[7:50] Between what ages did you live in your car for 10 years?
[7:53] I probably bought this van when I was 20, so 20 to 30 basically.
[7:57] To the actually, actually, I think that's right because, um,
[8:00] because I think I met my wife when I was 30 and that same year,
[8:03] I switched from this van to the bigger van.
[8:05] If you've seen the film, free solo, that's, um,
[8:07] I bought the, the pro master's like dodge.
[8:09] It was like, I could stand up in my van finally.
[8:11] And I was like, I'm moving up in the world.
[8:12] I can stand.
[8:13] It's pretty exciting.
[8:14] I didn't have any.
[8:14] Well, there was a little stave in this one.
[8:16] Yeah, so this though is the, I did three different build outs of this van over the 10 years.
[8:21] Because like the original one is super scrappy.
[8:23] The second bell was like a little nicer.
[8:24] And then this was like a pretty nice build that I had for, I don't know, five or six years or so.
[8:28] When you live in your van for 10 years and you have a mother who is very performance focused,
[8:33] I've got, um, for here, I believe you can't even go for a classic.
[8:38] Do you not face a lot of external pressure to like go get a real job?
[8:42] Honestly, less so than you would think, um,
[8:45] like to regret it, my mom is always pretty supportive of the whole path.
[8:49] I think, you know, I was kind of lucky that I did a lot of this when I was like young enough
[8:53] that it's all part of like your gap year.
[8:54] Like, you know, it's like you're young and you're finding yourself.
[8:56] And then, and then I think there was enough sort of external validation that that my family could
[9:01] at least look at and be like, well, you seem to be good at this random thing.
[9:04] Even though we don't get it and don't really know what you're doing,
[9:06] but at least other people think you're good at it.
[9:07] So keep doing your thing.
[9:09] And at this point, was it, was it real climbing?
[9:11] Was it free settling?
[9:12] And yeah, it's all a little bit of everything, but basically just being a, I mean,
[9:16] you know, like being a professional climber, quote, I'm quote, some of it's free
[9:19] soliding someone's like speed climbing, some of it's just hard climbing,
[9:22] some of it's going on expeditions, doing new routes, like it's a little bit of everything.
[9:25] And for the average person that doesn't know what free soloing is,
[9:28] what's the like definition of it?
[9:29] That's climbing without a rope.
[9:30] So climbing without protection, which is definitely what I'm most well known for now.
[9:36] But in the context of professional climbing, I've done tons of other things in climbing,
[9:40] like most of the time you have a rope on most of the time you're doing other sorts of things.
[9:43] But it's like the free soling is what you might have been well known for,
[9:46] because that like breaks into the mainstream a lot more.
[9:49] I'm really intrigued generally by people like you who I could take, I mean,
[9:53] take the path less traveled in their career.
[9:55] And then maybe near the end of the graph, pick up traction.
[10:02] And I had to squeeze a paper in this pen, because I'd love if you could,
[10:05] from the age of let's say 80, you're, you're, you're now 40 years old.
[10:09] Yeah, I turned 40 this year.
[10:11] Old, could you draw a graph showing how your career looks in times of success?
[10:18] You can measure that by money or attention or whatever.
[10:20] Let's see.
[10:21] So there's kind of like,
[10:23] no things below a little bit.
[10:25] And then like this ish.
[10:27] Yeah.
[10:27] And then kind of like, and then basically just like in like this,
[10:31] where you basically like kind of flap a growing.
[10:33] And then you have free solo where it jumps a ton.
[10:35] It's like kind of crazy.
[10:36] And then and then it keeps kind of growing.
[10:38] And it's like faster rate than before.
[10:39] And then it basically jumps a ton because of the building thing again.
[10:42] I find this fascinating because most people in their lives
[10:46] wouldn't be willing to endure this phase 18 to 29.
[10:50] What?
[10:50] What are you doing?
[10:51] It's so great.
[10:52] Like I would do that again.
[10:53] I loved it so much.
[10:54] Like I mean, I often think I'd be so happy to just start over from zero.
[10:58] He's like all the places that I go climbing now.
[11:00] I've been climbing there for 20 years.
[11:01] And I've like done most of the things I can do.
[11:03] And you know, sort of like tapped out a lot of stuff in the Western US.
[11:06] And I'm like, man, I would love to just hit the re-zero button and start over
[11:09] because you'd have so much stuff to do and it's so amazing.
[11:12] I guess that's the that's the different.
[11:14] The fault of my question is that I said the one in dual.
[11:17] But you see it as yeah, you get to climb every single thing you see.
[11:20] It's amazing.
[11:22] Yeah, I mean, and that's the thing is like from age 18 to to 30.
[11:25] I basically did try to climb every single thing I can see.
[11:27] Because I was just like, I'm learning.
[11:29] I'm growing.
[11:29] This is amazing.
[11:30] I climb everything.
[11:31] And like now I'm actually much more strategic about it.
[11:34] Because doing tons of easy climbing like doesn't really help me at this point.
[11:37] I'm not going to make like big technique gains.
[11:39] It basically just makes me tired without without the right kind of gains.
[11:43] It'd be like somebody, it'd be like an elite runner.
[11:45] Just jogging for miles and miles every day.
[11:47] And you're kind of like, that's not going to make you,
[11:49] it's not going to improve your marathon time if you're already like kind of elite runner.
[11:53] It might be fun, but it's just not going to like move the needle for you.
[11:56] Through this period of your life, 18 to 30,
[11:58] you're optimizing for just having fun.
[12:00] Doing things you enjoy.
[12:01] Well, I mean,
[12:03] no, I was always, I was always challenging myself like basically,
[12:05] I was optimizing for like, what's the next thing I can do that pushes me a little bit?
[12:09] But you weren't optimizing for how to get rich or, well, then I would have gone to job.
[12:13] If I was optimizing for getting rich, I would have freaking finished my college degree and gone to job.
[12:18] I say this in part because I interview so many people who
[12:21] pursued careers that are often considered not real jobs like comedians or magicians.
[12:26] And I tend to find the same thing between the age of 18 and 30.
[12:29] They optimize for something that isn't necessarily being ritual famous.
[12:33] And then at some point, the graph looks like this.
[12:35] Well, it's because, I mean, I think, I'm sure you know this, but I mean,
[12:39] the world really, it's like a winner-take-all economy type deal.
[12:43] It's like, basically, if you're the dude that does the thing,
[12:45] all of a sudden, your earnings go insane.
[12:48] But until you become the dude that does the thing,
[12:50] if you're like the best magician or the best comedian or the best whatever,
[12:53] then all of a sudden, you make an insane amount of money.
[12:55] But when you're just like one of many struggling comedians,
[12:57] you're struggling.
[12:59] And so I think for me as a climber, you're sort of like,
[13:01] oh, I'm just a dude living in my van climbing.
[13:03] Then at certain point, I'm like the dude that, you know, I'm like,
[13:05] oh, you're that guy that climbs without the rope.
[13:07] And you're like, oh, yeah, cool.
[13:08] And then all of a sudden, your earnings are like,
[13:10] was this a difficult period of your life?
[13:13] This 18 to 30?
[13:14] No, it was like the best.
[13:15] Well, obviously, it was like Friday.
[13:16] You know, I was like trying to juggle really,
[13:19] like I wanted to get a girlfriend.
[13:20] You're a young 20s man living alone in a car,
[13:22] like wanting to be better at something than you are,
[13:24] but not quite knowing the way and not knowing what you're doing with your life.
[13:27] So obviously, there is tons of emotional turmoil throughout it,
[13:30] but no, I mean, retrospectively, it's like amazing.
[13:34] And your dad passes away, which is in part,
[13:36] I guess some of the catalysts.
[13:38] Yeah, honestly, my dad passing away should be the beginning of that graph.
[13:41] It should be, this should basically start at 19,
[13:43] because 18 I went to university.
[13:45] And so then starting at 19, I guess, I went on the road.
[13:50] You're dad passing.
[13:52] What impact did I have on you outside of it,
[13:55] somewhat liberating you to make decisions
[13:57] that outside of his expectations?
[13:59] Well, I mean, obviously, it's sad.
[14:00] It's hard.
[14:01] And especially now, I'm sort of like,
[14:02] oh, it's too bad that I don't have a relation with my dad.
[14:05] And he doesn't, you know,
[14:06] that my kid's not a grandfather and all that kind of,
[14:08] you know, I was like, yes, it's tough.
[14:10] I think that the most immediate impact that I had,
[14:13] maybe it was just reminding me of my own mortality.
[14:15] You know, I mean, he died unexpectedly at 55,
[14:17] just fell over in the airport and just fell over dead,
[14:20] like heart attack.
[14:21] And so, you know, I mean,
[14:23] I think that that reminder of my own mortality
[14:26] has had a big impact on my career, my life,
[14:29] you know, my climbing world, whatever.
[14:31] One might not expect you to go, quote, unquote,
[14:35] do risky things because of...
[14:36] Well, no, because the thing is I think one of the reasons
[14:38] that people don't do risky things is because they have this,
[14:42] you know, mistaken idea that they can live forever,
[14:46] basically, because I'm basically because people don't want to think
[14:48] about their own mortality.
[14:49] And so they're like, oh, I don't want to take any risks.
[14:51] I could die.
[14:51] And you're like, you know, that you're going to die either way.
[14:53] And either way, when you die,
[14:55] you're going to be bummed that you didn't live longer,
[14:56] because, you know, it's like life is back in the US 78.
[15:00] You're like, great, say you make it for men, whatever.
[15:03] Like, say you make it that far.
[15:04] You're still going to be like, man,
[15:05] I wish I had 22 more years to like watch my grandkids graduate college
[15:09] or whatever.
[15:10] You know, it's like, it's still going to feel like too little.
[15:12] And so I'm kind of like, you're better off dying at 55 and an accident,
[15:16] but having done many things that you're proud of
[15:18] and, you know, like, let a life that you're proud of,
[15:21] then dying at 78 and still wishing you had more
[15:24] about having done none of the things that you wanted to do.
[15:26] It is interesting.
[15:27] It does appear that people live as if we think we're going to live forever.
[15:29] Yeah, it's totally insane.
[15:31] I mean, everyone's like, oh, I don't take any risk.
[15:32] And you're like, yeah, well, you can take no risk in your life.
[15:34] And you're still going to freaking die.
[15:36] So you might as well take smart calculated risks
[15:38] and do all the things that you want to do.
[15:40] And at least die happy when you go.
[15:42] What does this mean to you to like live intentionally?
[15:45] Well, that's exactly it.
[15:45] Like choosing the the risk that you're willing to take,
[15:48] making choices, like using your time the way you want to use it.
[15:51] I was looking at, I think it was your,
[15:52] your personality, a personality test you did.
[15:54] You said you liked it.
[15:55] I do it personality test.
[15:58] My how many material did you have?
[15:59] I'm like, Jesus Christ.
[16:00] I've heard it like things do you have?
[16:02] I've unlimited things.
[16:03] I know. I'm so impressed.
[16:05] On this personality test, it says you're,
[16:07] you know, higher on thrill seeking and sensation seeking.
[16:10] But then also significantly higher than the average male on urgency,
[16:13] which I think kind of overlays with what you were just saying there,
[16:15] of like making the decision to do something.
[16:17] Yeah, basically because your time is short and you're going to die.
[16:20] So get onto it.
[16:21] It says you hear you higher on conscientiousness.
[16:24] Very polite, you know, thrill seeking, sensation seeking.
[16:28] You'll low on boredom.
[16:30] I think low on boredom is that, you know, you don't get bored.
[16:32] Perseverance, you're very high on perseverance.
[16:34] Yeah, I think that's the same as low on boredom.
[16:36] And low on neuroticism.
[16:38] That's for sure.
[16:39] And so what's your, what's the definition of the word neuroticism?
[16:42] Is it like, one thing is like to,
[16:44] well, I'm sure there's a clinical definition,
[16:46] but I think of it as sort of general anxiety type stuff.
[16:48] Like, you know, people spinning in their heads about things that don't matter.
[16:51] And has that always been the case when you look back through your life
[16:53] and the feedback you've had as a kid in a teenager?
[16:56] Kind of, yeah, I think so.
[16:57] I think I've never been too concerned about,
[17:02] I don't spin.
[17:03] I mean, obviously, you know, occasionally I stress about things,
[17:06] but which is not the way I think a lot of people do.
[17:09] I'm trying to figure out if that's a lot of behavioral or maybe a little bit learned,
[17:12] and a little bit from your upbringing, genetics, whatever it might be.
[17:16] Because come one learn that.
[17:17] Can one learn to be less neurotic?
[17:18] Or presumably, I mean, like meditation, things like that.
[17:20] I think people can sort of find a way to like go certain things.
[17:24] Isn't this quite, quite interesting?
[17:26] When people ask you questions,
[17:27] inevitably about fear and how you take on such, you know,
[17:31] to models like me, terrifying challenges,
[17:33] there's an element of all of this, which is,
[17:35] you do have a nature and a nurture,
[17:38] which somewhat is impossible for someone like me to replicate.
[17:42] Because your brain and my brain are completely different.
[17:44] Your parents, your early contacts when your brain was being wired
[17:47] and malinated are completely different to mine.
[17:49] So, you know, I always find this is the like the trouble of giving people advice is
[17:55] we're dealing with different, different natures, different natures.
[17:59] But I do feel like, in my case, the biggest difference in nature
[18:04] is the fact that I've just always loved climbing.
[18:05] You know, basically, I think that nurture is the majority of this.
[18:08] Like, if you spend 30 years training a thing,
[18:10] you're going to get better at the thing.
[18:12] And so, I think that the biggest difference between me
[18:14] and somebody who's not into rock climbing is that I freaking love rock climbing.
[18:17] I could go out, I could do it 10 days a week if I could.
[18:19] You know what I mean?
[18:20] But sadly, I get too tired.
[18:21] My body breaks down.
[18:22] And so, you know, I basically have like a limitless capacity
[18:26] to do the thing.
[18:27] I just love doing the thing.
[18:29] And I think that that is probably the biggest difference in nature.
[18:33] You know, because everything else you can kind of overcome.
[18:34] You know, like, if you loved rock climbing as much as I love rock climbing,
[18:38] no matter what your genetic disposition towards like neuroticism and all that stuff,
[18:41] you would just kind of work through all that stuff.
[18:43] And you'd find your own path to getting good at climbing, basically.
[18:47] If your kids came to you, you have two girls, right?
[18:49] Yeah.
[18:49] If they came to you and said, Dad, like,
[18:51] give me advice more, I should aim at in life.
[18:53] Would you tell me?
[18:54] I wouldn't give an advice.
[18:55] I'd be like, you do you.
[18:56] You find the thing you love to do, go hard.
[18:58] You know, basically, like, learn some skills,
[19:00] get good at something.
[19:01] Like, what do you like to do?
[19:02] I mean, that's kind of the thing for me, especially with climbing,
[19:04] is like, if someone had told me, like,
[19:06] you're going to train climbing for the rest of your life,
[19:08] I'd be like, oh, that sounds like kind of a grind.
[19:10] You know, because I mean, it is, it is hard work.
[19:12] You're like hiking uphill, the heavy backpack,
[19:14] and it's cold and it's windy.
[19:15] It's like, it's basically physically uncomfortable.
[19:17] I mean, being a professional rock climbing means that you're physically uncomfortable
[19:20] all the time.
[19:21] We're like, like, often.
[19:22] You know, like, it's, you know, it's hard.
[19:24] Yeah.
[19:25] But if you're doing it because you freaking love doing it,
[19:27] it doesn't feel very hard.
[19:28] And so, I mean, I think the key for a kid is
[19:31] find the thing that doesn't feel like hard work.
[19:33] And when you started,
[19:34] we used to get a big tool rock faces and stuff like that.
[19:39] I mean, yeah, I had like a healthy intimidation of things.
[19:41] I mean, like, my first season of e70,
[19:42] the first time seeing LCAP as a climber, I was 19.
[19:46] And it looks impossible.
[19:47] It looks completely insane.
[19:48] It's like, that's so big.
[19:49] But then, you know, within a couple seasons,
[19:52] you know, I climbed some bigger walls,
[19:53] I learned how to climb.
[19:54] And then a friend and I had the sort of season goal.
[19:57] Like, we were going to climb an e70 all season
[19:59] with the aspiration at the end of climbing LCAP in a day.
[20:01] So basically, there was this long progression on LCAP,
[20:03] specifically where it's like, you go from just trying to get up it,
[20:05] trying to get up faster to try to get up with just your hands and feet,
[20:08] still using protection.
[20:09] But basically, there's like all these steps you can take.
[20:12] And so, over a bunch of seasons, you know,
[20:15] I climbed LCAP like 60 times, different routes,
[20:17] all these different things.
[20:18] And then eventually, you're sort of like,
[20:19] oh, maybe I can start thinking about free selling it,
[20:21] which is where the film free selling comes in.
[20:23] And then eventually, you do this thing.
[20:25] Then people are like, well, aren't you scared?
[20:26] And you're kind of like, well, I've spent 10 years
[20:28] like building up on this thing.
[20:30] I guess that's what people don't see.
[20:32] Yeah.
[20:33] So they do something.
[20:34] I mean, like, the documentary free sold,
[20:35] I think does a pretty good job of showing the direct preparation,
[20:38] like, the training involved in doing that specific climb.
[20:40] But it just doesn't show the like,
[20:44] eight years before that, I guess,
[20:45] because the documentary was filmed over two years.
[20:47] And I guess I've been going since 2006.
[20:49] So it was nine years before that that I've been going to e70
[20:52] and I've been spending maybe three months a year climbing walls.
[20:56] I guess that's the illusion of like,
[20:57] all people that do great things,
[20:58] and become like athletes or sprinters,
[21:00] or whatever Brinaldo or Messi,
[21:02] is you don't get to see the...
[21:04] Yeah, the whole life that they put in to doing the thing.
[21:06] Yeah, yeah.
[21:07] So it looks like a magic trick when we see the outcome.
[21:10] Like, we show up on Netflix to watch you climb Taipei,
[21:12] we're like, whoa.
[21:13] Yeah, hanging with it from his leg.
[21:15] Yeah, I mean, people watch some of those programs,
[21:16] and they're like, he just walked up and did it.
[21:18] And you're like, well, yeah, after 30 years of practice,
[21:21] I just walked up and did it.
[21:22] But no, it's not like just walking up and doing it.
[21:25] Hmm.
[21:26] One of the illusions.
[21:28] Like, I've literally been climbing five days a week
[21:30] for 30 years.
[21:31] Like, that's so much climbing.
[21:32] Like, I freaking love climbing, and I climb a lot.
[21:37] On this idea of like exposure therapy,
[21:39] as it relates to like fear and anxiety
[21:40] and confronting one's things that terrify them,
[21:43] was that in the early days?
[21:44] Well, you, I'm trying to understand,
[21:45] will you like scared at some point?
[21:46] Oh, all the time.
[21:47] That's actually something that I think,
[21:50] you know, I've obviously not so many interviews
[21:52] around fear and like managing fear and all that.
[21:54] And I've talked about fear a lot of different ways
[21:56] over over the years.
[21:57] And I think as a friend older,
[21:58] I've sort of come to realize that
[22:00] that actually you're just scared all the time
[22:02] as a climber, like low level fear, low level,
[22:04] like, but you're, but climbing is fundamentally scary.
[22:07] Like, it's always kind of scary
[22:08] because they're always consequences.
[22:09] Like, even if you're climbing with a rope,
[22:10] you're still always visualizing like,
[22:12] what happens if the rope breaks?
[22:13] Like, what if, you know, like, is this safe?
[22:15] Like, you know, is the gear good?
[22:16] Like, is this actually safe?
[22:18] And so you're always a little bit scared.
[22:21] And so after years and years of always being scared,
[22:23] you get pretty good at managing that kind of stuff.
[22:25] Because there's a lot of misconceptions
[22:27] swirling around this brain scan.
[22:29] Yeah, no, I hate all that stuff.
[22:30] That's just all from the film Free Solo.
[22:31] It was like too short of a scene in the film.
[22:34] They needed a little more.
[22:35] They needed a little breath.
[22:36] You know, explain things a little better, I think.
[22:38] So they scanned a control subject.
[22:40] Another person scans you,
[22:41] looked at the amygdala in your brain.
[22:42] And the conclusion that a lot of people have arrived at
[22:45] is that you don't experience fear
[22:47] because when they look at these two brain scans,
[22:49] your amygdala's lighting up last
[22:51] when you're shown scary images, basically, right?
[22:54] But like, shown just this image,
[22:55] like, what does that even mean?
[22:56] Like, my brain's purple and his brain is orange.
[22:58] You're like, what does that mean?
[22:59] Like, I don't know.
[23:00] But no, I mean, the thing is though,
[23:02] and this is what I wish was explaining the film better,
[23:05] is that this is, we're being shown black and white photos
[23:08] inside an FMRI.
[23:09] So you're inside a sealed metal tube.
[23:11] You're totally safe.
[23:11] You're physically safe and comfortable.
[23:13] And you're being shown black and white photos.
[23:15] And so to me, obviously,
[23:16] that's not going to light up the fear response of my brain.
[23:18] Because you're looking at pictures.
[23:19] You're like, who cares?
[23:20] I'm totally safe.
[23:21] But in a control subject, apparently,
[23:24] your brain sort of responds to images one way or another.
[23:26] But I'm kind of like, I've been climbing for 20 years,
[23:28] so I've been scared quite a lot.
[23:30] And you're kind of like, well, black and white photos
[23:31] start to lose their edge if you've been scared all the time
[23:34] for 20 years.
[23:35] So it's like, obviously, that's not going to trigger much.
[23:37] Yeah, I imagine everybody in their life
[23:38] can think of it as a scenario where they have mastery.
[23:41] That would stand up comedian looking at a stage.
[23:44] Probably wouldn't be as scared as me.
[23:47] Yeah.
[23:48] Because that would terrify me.
[23:50] So again, this is not necessarily some sort of neurological
[23:53] difference.
[23:54] I think the real takeaway is that I have an amygdala
[23:56] and it works.
[23:57] You know what I mean?
[23:59] Because I think if the results had shown that I was missing my amygdala,
[24:02] then I would have all kinds of,
[24:03] I would have died already at youth
[24:04] because I wouldn't be able to function as a human basically.
[24:08] But it shows something like that where there are structural differences
[24:10] or some real change.
[24:12] But this is basically just showing that after 20 years of conditioning,
[24:15] I respond differently than an average person.
[24:17] And you're like, yeah, no kidding.
[24:18] Like if you put a monkey into an FMRI,
[24:20] their brain responds totally differently than an average person as well.
[24:22] Which I actually think is a really inspiring conclusion
[24:25] because it means that we can all grasp our fears better.
[24:28] And even, you know, people won't know this about me.
[24:31] But 10 years ago, I sat down on camera with my friend Ash
[24:35] in his apartment to record a two-minute video.
[24:37] And as I sat there, I was so scared I couldn't get the words out.
[24:40] So you actually, in this two-minute video that comes out,
[24:42] you see it go from night and day in the background
[24:43] because we did that many cuts over seven hours,
[24:45] trying to get me to say two minutes on camera.
[24:47] And obviously after 10 years of being on camera,
[24:49] I can now speak without shitting myself.
[24:51] And I imagine my brain state looks significantly different
[24:53] because of my exposure to that.
[24:55] Totally.
[24:56] Yeah, you should do the FMRI.
[24:58] Yeah, you should have done 10 years ago
[25:00] because then you'd have your control
[25:01] and then you do it now and it'd be totally different.
[25:03] But also the psychologists have sat with all confidence.
[25:05] They talk about exposure to that.
[25:06] Yeah.
[25:07] And I went through exactly the same thing with public speaking.
[25:09] Like I was always so afraid of public speaking.
[25:11] I was also very shy and just not like, it was terrifying.
[25:16] And now because of the free solo film tour
[25:19] and all the public things I've done since then,
[25:22] I'm like basically fine.
[25:23] You know, it's like you still got a little nervous.
[25:25] But it's like basically easy now.
[25:27] And you're kind of like, well, that's a total change.
[25:29] It's like obviously there's a tremendous capacity
[25:31] for humans to learn.
[25:33] People talk to you about fear all the time
[25:34] because I mean, you'll work
[25:37] because climate is really freaking scary.
[25:38] It makes sense.
[25:39] It's totally understandable.
[25:40] Yeah.
[25:41] And they also realize I think at some deep level
[25:44] that the thing holding them back
[25:45] from who they think they want to be
[25:46] or who they aspire to be is fear often.
[25:48] It's judgment of someone else.
[25:49] It's taking a risk.
[25:50] Totally.
[25:51] So you've become, for many people,
[25:52] the like, tell me how to overcome.
[25:56] Yeah.
[25:57] Well, I think that everyone's like,
[25:59] what's your hack to overcome fear?
[26:00] And you're like, there's no hack.
[26:01] You just get really freaking scared over and over
[26:03] for so long and eventually it's not that scary anymore.
[26:06] But I will say that that's like a very enduring way
[26:09] to overcome your fear.
[26:10] It's like, if you're willing to go through that process,
[26:12] then you are actually unafraid.
[26:14] You know, because like, you can do like hacks.
[26:16] I mean, you can, you can like crank up
[26:17] loud rock music and just go for it.
[26:19] You know, like, and there are plenty of examples of that
[26:21] in what I call gravity assisted sports.
[26:23] Like, say, if you're going to jump a cliff on skis,
[26:25] like, you can get to the edge and be like,
[26:27] this is really scary.
[26:28] And then be like, three, two, one, do it.
[26:29] And just like go.
[26:31] In climbing, you can't really do that as much
[26:32] because it's so slow.
[26:34] Like, when you climb, you make one move
[26:35] and then you make another move.
[26:37] And then you're like, do I still want to be here?
[26:38] Like, it basically fear creeps in a lot more.
[26:40] There's sort of in gravity assisted sports.
[26:42] You can have more of that moment
[26:43] where you just like, overcome your fear
[26:44] and then it happens.
[26:45] You know, like making a big drop in a kayak
[26:47] or like skis or things like that.
[26:48] Whereas like, once you commit,
[26:49] it's happening one way or another.
[26:51] Anyway, there's a lot to get into it.
[26:53] Like, no, but I mean, I want to get into it.
[26:55] I watched a video of you climbing half-dome.
[26:57] I think it was.
[26:58] Yeah.
[26:59] And it looks like you got scared half way up.
[27:01] Yeah.
[27:02] Yeah.
[27:02] So that video is actually filmed later.
[27:04] So the voice over in that video
[27:06] is me talking about the experience of me free-soling.
[27:08] When I was totally alone
[27:09] and I did get really scared on half-dome
[27:10] and I had this whole sort of
[27:11] so much dramatic climbing experience
[27:13] near the top of the wall.
[27:14] But then when we went back to film it,
[27:15] I had a different traumatic experience
[27:17] while we were filming less traumatic.
[27:18] But like, very scary for a moment
[27:21] and they got that on camera.
[27:22] So they basically in the film,
[27:23] they just cut the two together
[27:24] as like, because it shows me like being really scared.
[27:27] What's half-dome to start with?
[27:28] And then what was the traumatic experience?
[27:29] Yeah. So half-dome for anyone who hasn't seen
[27:31] is this just totally amazing wall in U70.
[27:34] It's a 2,000-foot granite face.
[27:36] Actually, it's the North Face logo.
[27:38] It's a freaking, that's half-dome.
[27:40] Yeah, so it's like an iconic wall in U70.
[27:43] It looks like half of a dome.
[27:45] But actually, it's more like a hockey puck
[27:46] just shoved in.
[27:47] It's actually a full dome,
[27:48] depending how you look at it.
[27:49] But the Northwest Face is vertical
[27:50] for 2,000 feet is incredible.
[27:52] And so I free-soled.
[27:53] That was one of the first major free-soles
[27:55] I did in 2008.
[27:57] And one of the things that sort of
[27:58] made me a professional climber in a way.
[28:00] But when I did the climb,
[28:02] I did the bare minimum preparation.
[28:04] I basically didn't know.
[28:06] It was the biggest thing I'd ever free-soled.
[28:08] I didn't quite know how to go if I got ready for it.
[28:10] Anyway, I climbed it.
[28:11] And basically hadn't practiced enough.
[28:12] It was really freaking scared.
[28:14] Got off-root, got confused, skipped some stuff.
[28:16] And then at the very top,
[28:17] had this whole moment of extreme panic.
[28:21] Basically, I got up into some stuff
[28:23] and all sort of crumbled mentally
[28:24] and barely managed to finish this upper slab.
[28:27] The hardest part of the climb was right near the top.
[28:30] I was trying to walk across this ledge.
[28:31] Basically, I've walked across that ledge,
[28:33] face in and face out.
[28:34] Normally, people hand traverse it,
[28:35] or they crawl across it.
[28:36] There are different ways to go across the ledge.
[28:38] And I've done it every which way.
[28:39] And then we were up there filming
[28:41] and I was like, I'm going to walk and face out.
[28:43] But it turns out when you walk and face out,
[28:44] it's really freaking scary.
[28:45] And so I made it kind of halfway.
[28:46] And it was like, oh my gosh.
[28:48] And then bailed.
[28:49] And when you say you're having
[28:51] like a crisis in your mind,
[28:54] what is that?
[28:55] Is that just, oh my god, what I mean?
[28:56] Like, how does that sound?
[28:58] Well, I mean, so in this case,
[28:59] walking across this ledge,
[29:01] it's like it starts maybe as a foot wide.
[29:03] So your foot is fully on the ledge
[29:04] and you're shuffling across it.
[29:05] But then at a certain point,
[29:07] yeah, I mean, that's, that's...
[29:08] Put the video up on the screen if anyone wants to.
[29:10] Yeah, that's, that's the ledge.
[29:12] But basically, at the narrowest part,
[29:13] your feet are sticking out over the lip of it
[29:16] and the wall bulges ever so slightly.
[29:17] So it forces your back out a little.
[29:19] And so you're basically like,
[29:20] rocking on your heels with, I don't know,
[29:22] like a 1,700-foot dropper.
[29:24] So they're 1,800-foot-drop, like straight down below you.
[29:27] And so, you know, it's like pretty,
[29:29] it's pretty at deaths.
[29:31] Anyway, and so I thought I was going to walk across it like that
[29:34] and I made it to the bulging part
[29:35] and was so they're like, oh my god,
[29:36] this isn't like, this isn't for me
[29:38] and then managed to like shuffle back
[29:39] and change my strategy.
[29:42] Is it like panic in your head?
[29:45] It's not panic, but you're like, oh,
[29:47] oh, I made the wrong choice.
[29:48] Like, this is bad, this is bad, you know?
[29:50] I mean, it's not like full like five alarm bell,
[29:54] like panic panic, but yeah, you're like, oh, I'm so screwed.
[29:57] And you have fallen a long, long way before.
[29:59] I was hearing it about a time when you were young
[30:01] and you fell off a mountain and called your mother,
[30:03] managed to call your mother in.
[30:04] Yeah, that was like sliding down a nice,
[30:06] cool art type thing.
[30:07] It's a little different than like,
[30:08] free falling off of a cliff.
[30:09] That's like sliding down a mountain.
[30:10] But yeah, I got totally messed up and, uh, yeah.
[30:13] Yeah, and I've like broken my arm
[30:15] several times as a kid falling off things.
[30:17] And then with a rope as a climber,
[30:19] you take big falls like routinely.
[30:21] You know, when you have protection,
[30:22] that's like part of the sport, basically.
[30:23] I mean, it's certainly easy to visualize falling
[30:28] like 70.
[30:28] You know, when you're like standing on a little ledge
[30:30] and you're just bulging and you're looking down,
[30:31] you're, you know, it's easy to be like, oh, my God.
[30:34] You know, it's like, if you just bend forward a little bit,
[30:36] you're just going to take a swan dive,
[30:37] like 70 under the ground.
[30:39] The stance in this sport, uh,
[30:40] I mean, of fatalities.
[30:43] How do they compare to other sports?
[30:44] Uh, safer than you would think.
[30:46] That's things.
[30:46] Everyone thinks it seems crazy,
[30:48] but, uh, it's not that crazy.
[30:50] I don't know actual statistics,
[30:52] but I suspect that it's actually pretty comparable
[30:55] to skiing or something, you know,
[30:57] because like recreational skiers die all the time,
[30:59] like falling into tree wells,
[31:00] or like going off cliffs backs and things like that.
[31:03] Climbing is actually surprisingly safe,
[31:06] which is one of the things I love about climbing.
[31:08] I mean, climbing is very,
[31:10] it's very, uh, sort of binary where it's like,
[31:12] either you're totally safe or you're going to die.
[31:16] And the odds of you dying are very, very, very small,
[31:19] but because they're, they're there,
[31:22] they always keep you on.
[31:23] You know what I mean?
[31:24] Like it basically keeps you alert,
[31:27] but you're never really going to get hurt.
[31:29] Is that including free salivating?
[31:32] Yeah, I mean, for the most part,
[31:34] I mean, a couple of people have died free souling.
[31:35] I mean, people occasionally die free souling for sure,
[31:38] but actually most of the,
[31:40] the sort of cutting edge free solists
[31:42] have not died souling.
[31:43] They've like died in other things.
[31:44] I think it was then in the, um,
[31:46] the documentary on Netflix, um,
[31:47] free salivate with one of your colleagues.
[31:49] Yeah, Tommy, Tommy is like most free solos are dead now, um,
[31:53] which is kind of true,
[31:55] but it's slightly misstated.
[31:57] I mean, you know, he's just like speaking off the cuff
[31:59] and it's not like strictly true.
[32:00] Like a couple of the best free solos have died free souling,
[32:03] but they died on very easy terrain.
[32:04] But then the majority of other great free solos have died
[32:07] in sort of climbing adjacent accidents,
[32:10] like wingsuit based jumping and, uh,
[32:12] like one got swept to sea by a rogue wave.
[32:14] Like while he was out climbing a sea cliff,
[32:16] but he was like standing on shore and got swept out to sea.
[32:18] You know, things like that where you're just kind of like,
[32:20] you know, obviously they're taking risks in their lives
[32:22] and they wind up dead.
[32:24] But it's not the way that people think,
[32:26] you know, you see a photo like that and you're like,
[32:28] free souling, you're going to die for sure
[32:29] and you're kind of like,
[32:29] well, people don't actually really die that way.
[32:32] I mean, they have, I mean, not to say that it doesn't happen,
[32:35] but way less frequently than people would suspect.
[32:37] If I was to try and like, you know,
[32:39] professionally torture you,
[32:40] and again, I'm not talking in extremes here,
[32:42] but what life would I prescribe you to live?
[32:46] Oh, I'll be in like a finance bro or something.
[32:48] Having to like just work spreadsheets my whole life.
[32:50] Is that what you mean?
[32:50] Like what is my like worst?
[32:53] I don't know, something like that.
[32:55] Or honestly being like a choreographer for dance or something like,
[32:59] I just said I couldn't do like,
[33:00] or being like an opera singer.
[33:02] Like, I would just kill myself.
[33:03] I just couldn't do that.
[33:04] Why would we be being a finance bro?
[33:05] It'd be like the worst thing for Alex.
[33:08] Just the idea of sitting in a computer in a cubicle,
[33:11] just like typing.
[33:12] I mean, I'm kind of contrarian,
[33:13] you know, like rules.
[33:14] I don't want to like jump through hoops.
[33:15] I don't want to do arbitrary things.
[33:17] Like, I don't want some manager to come and tell me like,
[33:19] oh, you got to file that report again.
[33:20] You like missed a line.
[33:21] I'd be like, you go after so, you know,
[33:23] I just like walk out of the building.
[33:25] Like it's just, I just like don't know if I could take that.
[33:27] I'd be like, no.
[33:28] But that's like how much to the world live?
[33:30] We kind of, we will live in like, you know,
[33:31] I just don't know if it's for me.
[33:35] I don't know.
[33:35] I mean, doesn't that just seem?
[33:37] I mean, I had this moment.
[33:37] I've been in New York a couple days,
[33:38] and I took the subway down to see some,
[33:40] see some friends, and I was like coming out of tunnel,
[33:43] and it's like packed with people.
[33:44] And I was just like looking at the ground,
[33:45] and I was like, just, you know,
[33:47] following someone else's footsteps
[33:48] up this like beat down path of stairs.
[33:50] And I was like, I couldn't live like this.
[33:52] Like not day in and day out every day.
[33:54] Like this is just, like feeling like you're just doing
[33:56] the exact same thing as everyone else around you.
[33:58] I'm like, oh, it seems so, so boring.
[34:02] It's funny because so many of us look at your life
[34:03] and go, wow, that's not very normal.
[34:06] But actually, maybe at a foundational level,
[34:09] you're living a much more normal life than,
[34:11] when you're out in nature, you're moving your body.
[34:14] Yeah, yeah, in that way, for sure.
[34:17] I'm like, going on a quadventure, isn't it?
[34:19] Going out and, I don't know.
[34:21] I think that's also part of what the sort of attraction
[34:23] and learn with your life, especially when you watch
[34:25] Free Solo is, you do seem to be a free man
[34:30] in a way where most of us aren't free or something.
[34:32] Yeah, I mean, I think we're all sort of aspiring
[34:34] to that, to some extent.
[34:35] I mean, most people see that there was like,
[34:36] they get their vacation for the year.
[34:37] They're planning to retire at some point,
[34:40] and then they're going to have their freedom.
[34:41] And they're kind of like, well, I don't know.
[34:42] I mean, maybe you got to try to live that way as much as possible.
[34:45] If your young girls came up to you, June, and Alice,
[34:48] and said, Dad, what is a meaningful life?
[34:50] What are the principles of living a fulfilling meaningful life?
[34:53] Would you give them advice there?
[34:55] Yeah, I mean, it'd be a long, rambling,
[34:58] multi-day conversation with them about,
[35:00] but following your own goals is, I think, you know,
[35:04] certainly one of the cores of having a meaningful life.
[35:07] Like, having things that you find valuable,
[35:10] I mean, really like living in line with your values,
[35:11] finding things that are important to you
[35:13] and pursuing them with as much as you can give them.
[35:16] You wouldn't look at your early 20s to 30s.
[35:18] It kind of looks like you're living like a Buddhist a little bit.
[35:21] I mean, yeah, I went on a trip once where they called me the monk.
[35:25] Just because I was living such a sort of a seated lifestyle,
[35:28] I was like, reading, I've never, I don't drink,
[35:30] and I don't like party, and I didn't just for personal preference, whatever.
[35:34] That's how I'm just like living in my little man
[35:37] and reading books and climbing all the time.
[35:39] Like, those are the things that I'm into doing.
[35:42] You know, it's like, it's, yeah, it's just doing what you want to do.
[35:46] Have you ever been depressed or?
[35:48] Yeah, probably not like deep clinical depression,
[35:51] but there's certainly periods from time to time where you're just like,
[35:54] what am I doing or why or what are my goals?
[35:56] Like, you know, what's, and I think to me,
[35:59] the most surprising thing is that, you know,
[36:01] I've put like my whole life into climbing,
[36:02] like trying to be the best you can be all the time.
[36:04] And sometimes you put tons effort in,
[36:05] and you just don't see results, like for whatever reason,
[36:07] you just suck, you're like, I'm trying so hard,
[36:09] and I'm just like, not as good as I want to be.
[36:12] And like, that's challenging.
[36:13] You know what that's?
[36:15] I mean, everybody faces that to some extent.
[36:17] And we're like, I'm working hard at a thing,
[36:18] but I'm just not achieving the results that I want.
[36:21] And between that, this sort of that period of moments,
[36:24] like the 2030 where your career hasn't taken off yet,
[36:27] the documentary's not out, you know, climbed Taipei.
[36:30] How much money are you earning from climbing?
[36:35] I mean, the first, my first couple of years,
[36:36] my small show through the North Face was like,
[36:38] I think my first year was like 10k a year.
[36:40] I was like, this is amazing,
[36:41] so I was living in my car.
[36:43] And, you know, making 10 grand when you live by yourself
[36:46] in a van is like more than you need, basically.
[36:49] It obviously went up beyond that at some point.
[36:52] But it was, you know, like in the 10 to 100 range
[36:55] for the first, for the whole, yeah, for years.
[36:59] And then at some point, it increases.
[37:01] Yeah, and then it increases.
[37:02] I mean, then free solos, obviously, like a big thing.
[37:04] And that sort of opened up all these opportunities.
[37:06] Because then I started doing corporate speaking and stuff like that.
[37:09] And I mean, as I'm sure you know,
[37:10] that's just like a whole different world.
[37:12] And so then you go from just like making some money from sponsors
[37:15] to like making money from other corporations.
[37:18] So they're like, okay, now you're making some money.
[37:21] One of the things when I was hearing you talk about
[37:22] some of your incredible climbing stories is
[37:25] I was trying to understand what role visualization
[37:29] or your preparation plays and how that's like transferable
[37:32] to me in my life.
[37:34] We talked a little bit about just how much preparation
[37:36] you did for something like LCAP.
[37:37] But you, it sounds like you really break down the challenge
[37:41] into smaller bits and then really go through those individual steps.
[37:45] Whereas a lot of people just look at LCAP and go,
[37:46] oh my god, they'll be terrified.
[37:48] And that's the impossible.
[37:50] Yeah, which is fair.
[37:51] I mean, I spent years looking at LCAP,
[37:52] me like that's too big, that's impossible.
[37:54] And then, you know, after years of that,
[37:56] I kept hoping that I would look at it and it would like look easy somehow
[37:59] and I'd be like, cool, and now I'm going to do it.
[38:01] And it just never looked easy.
[38:02] And so then finally, I was like, okay,
[38:04] I'm going to have to like put some real work into it.
[38:06] And then I started slowly breaking it down.
[38:09] And then once you like, break it into pieces
[38:10] and start working on the pieces,
[38:11] then you're feeling like, okay, it starts to feel more reasonable.
[38:14] Break it into pieces and start working on the pieces.
[38:17] What does that mean in terms of climbing?
[38:18] So if we, I mean, I've got this model here.
[38:21] Yeah, type of one.
[38:23] So, you know, and this is also a metaphor for any challenge I have online.
[38:27] Okay, but this is actually perfect because it's right here.
[38:28] Yeah. So I scouted this in September of this year.
[38:31] I did the climb in January or whatever.
[38:33] In September, we went and, um,
[38:34] well, we had to like one make sure it was possible before you sort of like commit
[38:37] to it doing a whole TV program.
[38:39] You're kind of like, let's make sure we can do this.
[38:41] And then they all said to get all this sort of marketing material.
[38:43] You like get the photos of the building,
[38:44] like all the stuff that becomes the trailer and whatever.
[38:47] And so we went in September to sort of like do the prep.
[38:50] And so we basically checked out all the different pieces.
[38:53] And so anywhere where you see it looking a little bit different,
[38:57] you know, it's like this whole bottom part is like a low angle slab.
[38:59] It's like punctuated with these two little Ruys.
[39:01] These are like coin things or whatever the clouds are over there.
[39:04] Now, and then there's the dragons on the corners.
[39:06] These are all overhanging like each of these eight blocks.
[39:08] It's like a big, overhanging thing.
[39:09] It feels a little bit different.
[39:10] Then you get up here.
[39:12] There's like these balconies.
[39:13] These are actually overhanging like basically each little segment of this is quite different.
[39:17] And you know, obviously on this model, like looks the same.
[39:20] But each transition between the different pieces is like a thing.
[39:23] So I checked out all of them with ropes.
[39:25] And yeah, you just go piece by piece all the way up the whole thing.
[39:28] And you hadn't ever climbed it before we saw it on Netflix live.
[39:31] Well, I hadn't free saw it.
[39:32] No, but I had climbed it.
[39:33] I climbed all the pieces with the rope for sure.
[39:35] I'd like checked out the different things.
[39:37] Okay, so you look at these as individual challenges.
[39:41] Every step.
[39:42] Yeah, it's like you go, well, even like just getting off the ground,
[39:44] the first move is a slightly different move than any of the other moves.
[39:47] You have to like jump up to a thing and like press it out.
[39:50] Then climbing over these little clouds is a different thing.
[39:52] Each dragon is a different thing.
[39:54] Yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, there's a surprising amount of complexity to it.
[39:58] And so our first on the scout, you know, I had a note on my phone.
[40:00] And I'm just like riding down all the different, basically I'm trying to learn it the way
[40:04] you study anything where I'm just like making notes.
[40:06] And sort of like from floor 54 to 72, it feels like this.
[40:09] I climbed this out of these corner, the left are at, you know, just, and then
[40:13] you're just riding it all down.
[40:14] And I mean, there's this famous photo of you hanging with your leg.
[40:17] Yeah, that's this. These are the rings up here.
[40:19] So you're hanging, you're hanging here from here with your leg.
[40:21] Yeah, now I, this is really a question of endurance.
[40:25] Like how would you plan to have the energy?
[40:28] Like how do you know if you're going to have enough energy when you're up here
[40:31] when you're just planning it?
[40:32] I mean, well, this is what makes it exciting because you can't be sure.
[40:36] But, you know, I've done a lot of climbing in my life and I've done a lot of climbs
[40:39] that were like 24 hours. I mean, I had this experience in Patagonia once.
[40:42] It was a 54 hour push with like the last 20 hours we hiked without food
[40:47] because we got caught in a storm. It's a whole crazy story.
[40:49] But basically, you know, I've had a lot of experience in my life where I've done hard exercise
[40:53] for more than 24 hours. And so this, you know, I expected to take me somewhere in the hour
[40:57] and a half, two hour range. I'm kind of like, yeah, I mean, I'll be tired after two hours
[41:01] of exercise, but I'm not going to be exhausted. You know, I mean, like I know that I have
[41:05] a much deeper reserve than that. So much of the conversation around, um, after you've done this,
[41:10] or some of the conversation was around whether this was a harder challenge than alcapitan.
[41:15] No, no, it's obviously much easier. I mean, I'm doing on live television, you know, it's like,
[41:19] obviously it's easier. But what makes it cool is that it's different, it's fun, it's challenging.
[41:25] Like for me, it's really like in my sweet spot where it is challenging enough.
[41:29] Like it's not easy, you know what I mean? Like saying easier than alcap, it doesn't, you know,
[41:33] alcap was like a 10 year life project that I did an absolute secrecy. I did on my terms
[41:40] on the correct day after years of effort. I had failed attempts. I had, you know, I mean, like alcap
[41:44] was like an all consuming life project for years. Kind of like, obviously you can't do that for
[41:49] live TV. It's like, you just can't put. Anyway, but this was very much in my sweet spot where you're
[41:55] like, oh, it's hard enough that it's, that it's hard. Like it's cool. You know, like it's fun.
[41:59] It's interesting. The climb is engaging. It's, you know, gave me something to train for for months.
[42:03] It's like, it's super fun. But it's not, you know, it's not like the absolute limit of what I can do
[42:08] because you just can't do that on live TV. I mean, if nothing else, so I was climbing the
[42:11] southeast to red because it gets good morning light and it looks beautiful and it's like great for
[42:15] filming. But if I was trying to do the absolute most cutting edge climb I could do. I'd be climbing
[42:19] the northwest to red because it'd be full shade because it'd be good, better conditions, you know,
[42:22] be colder. Like you just don't want to be in the sun and makes your skin, you know, it makes you
[42:25] hot and stuff. And so, you know, just things like that. You're like, what if you're doing it for TV
[42:30] and you're trying to broadcast it, then you want it to look good. But like if you're trying to
[42:34] do it for hard climbing and good conditions, you do in full shade. And Netflix had a 10 second delay
[42:40] just in case you fell. I mean, I'm sure part of it's in case you fall, but part of it's like
[42:44] one of somebody unplugs one of the things or you know what I mean? Like it's so complicated.
[42:47] There's so much stuff going on. It's insane. Was there a hardest part of this? A part where
[42:52] you were a little nervous? The thing I was most nervous about when I started with where the
[42:55] Bamboo Box is like doing these eight Iranian segments because they're just so relentlessly the
[43:00] same move. And it's just it's pretty physical. Like you get tired for sure. I mean, the actual
[43:05] physical hardest moves, like actually randomly one of these corners up here would have been quite a
[43:10] hard move, but there was this freaking security camera bolted out of the wall. And so you use
[43:14] the security cameras, this handle, it was really pretty cool. And it was like bolted on these
[43:17] giant bolts so it like looked super safe and you know, it was like very robust and secure. But
[43:21] it would have been kind of like this extreme jump, which I wasn't, you know, it's probably
[43:25] possible, but would have been like a major thing. But instead, you just refop the security camera.
[43:30] And I was like, it's so cool. There's you said there are a few things like that like individual
[43:34] moves that are kind of mussely. But overall, it's the stamina, like the challenge of doing this
[43:39] over and over for hundreds of feet that was the hardest thing. Do you have a conversation with
[43:45] your girls in their life before you go and do something like this about just in case you don't
[43:49] come back? Not with the kids because they're too young and like they wouldn't they don't understand
[43:53] it anyway. And not with her because she came with me to Taipei or she was there for like the whole
[43:58] end of it. I went a little bit early so I could adapt to the times I'm more and like feel better.
[44:01] But basically she was with me. So, you know, like we went to bed together that night and I woke
[44:06] up that morning and had breakfast together. So it didn't feel like a big goodbye. You know, it was
[44:09] kind of actually she was with me at the base. I mean, we did the start together and then I literally
[44:13] was like, okay, bye and walked over and did the thing and started at the top. So we were only
[44:17] a part like an hour and a half. And I started through the window a couple of times and so it felt
[44:22] like she was just there having the whole experience with me. Did you look at the buildings in the
[44:25] world like the badge? Yeah, I've scouted the birch twice over the years back when this project
[44:31] almost happened in 2013 or something and so I scouted some buildings then. The birch was just
[44:36] a little too extreme. It's just too hard. But someday maybe who knows? Because it's like there's
[44:43] not enough. It's too slippery. Yeah, super slippery. Also, it's just the way the holds are like,
[44:48] I mean, the beauty of type one or one is that the holds like they're good things to hold. They're
[44:52] close together and you're like, er, and you can hold them when you feel secure. The birch I can
[44:56] barely span tip to tip to like reach between the holds. And so then your face is like right
[45:00] against the glass. You're like holding on like this and it's pretty hard. And you have to do the
[45:05] same thing 112 times in a row. It's like pretty hard to do it once. Then you have to do a hundred
[45:09] times. You're like it's kind of hard. There's a thing that I saw online after you'd climbed it
[45:13] about one of two days after everyone took start talking about how much you were paid to do it.
[45:17] I think because you didn't into it. There were some quotes that were kind of taking out a
[45:20] context because yeah, a New York Times reporter asked me how much I was going to pay. And I was kind
[45:24] of like, I don't want to talk about it because it's kind of embarrassing because all my friends,
[45:27] it's like an embarrassingly high amount for my community. Like in the climbing world, if you're
[45:31] getting paid to rock climb, you're like, great success. You're getting paid to climb. That's insane.
[45:35] You know, and so I thought it was like sort of an embarrassingly large amount or I'm like,
[45:39] oh, this is kind of weird. But then he sort of poked around and he started comparing it to like
[45:43] boxing matches and stuff where people get paid like $20 million. Just like fight someone
[45:47] boxing. And I was like, well, no, compared to that, it's embarrassing a small amount. You know,
[45:51] it's like, or if you compare it to like major league baseball contracts and things. And it's like,
[45:55] yeah, it's an embarrassing a small amount. But I was never complaining. Like I thought it was great.
[46:00] I mean, I would do it for free. I mean, I've paid money to go up to the observation deck.
[46:05] The observation deck is way up here at the top. And the view is insane. And the city's incredible.
[46:09] And you know, it's like 20 bucks would ever take the world's fastest elevator to the top of the
[46:12] building. And you know, I've done that in the burge as well where you like, pay the money and you
[46:15] go to the very top of the building and the view is insane. It's like, I do that like anywhere I travel.
[46:20] Like the seer, the Willis tower, whatever the Sears tower in Chicago. Like, I've paid the money
[46:23] to go to the observation deck and see the view. And it's so cool. And I'm kind of like, if someone's
[46:26] willing to pay me to climb up to the observation deck, that's freaking cool. Yeah. I think it's
[46:31] because people again, they're saying that they believe that this is your risking your entire life.
[46:36] Yeah. And so, yeah, they don't think of boxes as risking your entire life in the same way.
[46:40] They kind of are. And they are. Yeah. But they don't see it as that.
[46:44] I know. Of course, they don't see it as that. And that's totally understand why I get that.
[46:46] But I see it as like anybody going into the boxing ring, particularly if they're
[46:51] very mismatched, you know, like, you would think that there is some real chance of grievous injury
[46:57] or like death. You know, I was like, it's insane. And so, I think that people over, the thing is,
[47:03] I think people that don't know anything about anything, like don't know anything about climbing,
[47:06] look at me climbing a building, they're like, it's 50-50 if he lives or dies, like no idea.
[47:10] And you're like, no, if you put this in the context of all the things that I've caught in my life,
[47:14] I felt very confident that I wouldn't fall off the building. You know, I was like, you know,
[47:17] obviously it's never 100% because like whatever it's life, but you know, it feels like 100%.
[47:23] You're like, oh, there's no chance I'm falling off this building. The room is whether you got 500 K
[47:27] to climb it from Netflix. Throughout my whole, like, you know, quote-unquote career as a climber,
[47:32] I basically have never worried about money and I've always just tried to do the thing and let it all
[47:35] play out at the end. And so I've done a ton of work for free over the years. Like, actually,
[47:40] we were talking about that half-dome film earlier, whereas like I'm shuffling long. It's like, I did
[47:43] that film for free. I did tons of films like that from free. Just because you're kind of like,
[47:47] oh, it's part of being a professional climber and I get to go climbing and I'm up with my friends
[47:50] filming on a thing or just like, you're working for free. It's fine. But by doing all that stuff for free,
[47:55] like I never, I never stress the day or eight. Never, you know, I was like, I don't need to get paid
[47:59] to go have fun with my friends on a wall. Like, it's fine. But as a result of that film, you know,
[48:04] a year or two later, they want to do in a photoshoot out there for the cover of National Geographic.
[48:08] And so you just wind up in other things. And then, and then that got seen and I wound up being
[48:13] profiled by 60 minutes, which actually was one of the first sort of career inflection points.
[48:16] It was like the 60 minutes profile in 2011 or something. But basically, I've done a ton of work
[48:22] for free over my life as all part of like, it's all part of the game. I just love playing the game.
[48:27] And so you just like, let it play out. And it's funny because with this building, a lot of people
[48:31] thought that I was sort of underpaid by it. But afterward, you know, some people have approached me
[48:37] about some bonuses and some other work stuff. And like, basically a lot has already sort of happened.
[48:40] And it's only been a couple of weeks since the building. And I'm kind of like, you know,
[48:43] you don't need to get paid for the thing itself because it always works, basically.
[48:49] I'm kind of like, I don't know. I'm like, don't get hung up on how much you get paid.
[48:53] Just do the thing. Make sure it's freaking rad. And it all sorts itself up.
[48:59] Yeah. Yeah. That's also been like, that's completely true for my life as well.
[49:06] Even this podcast, like when we start the podcast in my kitchen, I mean, this is a wrap
[49:09] here of my kitchen. And Jack was here. There was no, there was no payment when we started it.
[49:13] Yeah. Exactly. You're just doing a thing. You make it as good as you can.
[49:15] And eventually it all sort of works. And you're like, cool.
[49:17] I've, because that, that pattern you've just described has played out for 15 years of my life.
[49:22] I now, and again, my, my CFO, my commercial director might not love me saying this.
[49:26] But they know this about me is, and we even talked about it recently with a particular project,
[49:30] is like, don't let the inability to see where the money's going to come from in the near time.
[49:36] Stop you pursuing something that you think is going to create value because
[49:39] history shows that actually value, like giving value out into the world precedes
[49:46] the, the economics. Totally. And so if it happened 15 years of my life,
[49:51] where I remember when I started the social media business and people,
[49:54] someone, a guy sat me down in Google in London and explained to me why I would never make money
[49:58] from that business. He, like, he did the math for me. And the math was solid. He was like,
[50:03] if you do once a day, you won't make any money. And I was like, you're like, yeah, but I don't
[50:07] think that's true. You know, I just, and you have no evidence. But yeah, but you just know it's
[50:11] going to work. Yeah. The Ubersio sat here with me yesterday in that sea. And he was telling me,
[50:15] he was like, the thing is, there's this thing called Kevin's paradox, where when some things,
[50:19] yeah, when they come to them, because more efficient, whenever people think of things in linear
[50:23] progression, but actually there's exponential progression. So when we launched Uber,
[50:27] more people started taking taxi. So all of the models about how big this market were,
[50:31] well, all wrong. And I find the same in that, and I found the same in podcasting when we started
[50:35] about five years ago was, yeah, like you set me down and get, well, Steve CPMs, you're going to have
[50:38] to be getting a million downloads to make, like, to earn a living. Like, but you're like, wait and see.
[50:45] Yeah. Like, let's catch on and let it, let it happen. I mean, you know, from example of that.
[50:49] Yeah. It's always better to focus your energy on being the best of the thing that you're trying to do.
[50:53] Then figuring out how to monetize it or, you know, make money off it. It's like, I don't know,
[50:59] I mean, my whole life is a clamor. I've always tried to focus on, like, how do you send,
[51:03] which in clamoring in terms of means, like, do the hard thing? Like, you always focus on sending,
[51:08] and then everything else follows.
[51:15] Whoa. What's that on your face?
[51:16] This is my bun charge face mask. I've been wearing this for some time now.
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[52:13] I've had so many founders speak to me and say, why didn't this particular ad that I ran on this
[52:17] platform work for me? Maybe the copy wasn't good, the creative wasn't strong, but usually the
[52:22] problem is they're not having the right conversation because that ad never reached the right person.
[52:26] And if you're in B2B marketing, that is much of the game. And this is where LinkedIn ads solves
[52:31] that problem for you. Their targeting is ridiculously specific. You can target by job title,
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[53:05] you'll get an extra $250 credit from me for the next one. That's LinkedIn.com slash diary.
[53:12] Terms and conditions apply. It's funny you're talking about mortality
[53:16] early running. I think in the last couple years, my mortality, like realizing that I'm going to
[53:20] die someday, has been such a wonderful thing to really remind myself of them like a frequent basis.
[53:26] Where do I go? Just because, okay, so there's many things. One of them is
[53:33] the whole idea of like sunk cost bias, where you become successful at a thing. And now you have
[53:40] something to lose. So people go into a state of loss of version where they start to protect what
[53:44] they have. And this narrows your life in a way where you stop taking time and just
[53:47] stop taking rest, stop doing new things. And the other thing generally about knowing you're
[53:50] going to die and really like reminding yourself of that is it liberates you from getting caught up
[53:55] and worrying about things that in the grand scheme of like cosmic rally, I like totally inconsequential.
[54:00] Yeah. I was I was hearing someone say the day like, do you know the the name of your great grandfather?
[54:06] Juno. Juno's first name. Not really. And do you know the life they lived in what they were worried
[54:10] about and how they were embarrassed in their shame? Yeah, exactly. No, you don't know any of that.
[54:14] And the point is like if you don't even know your own families. Yeah. Yeah. Bullshit.
[54:18] Like nobody else cares. Yeah. But even like extremely famous people, a couple of weeks after
[54:22] they trend on Twitter and then a week later, everyone just like gets on with their life together.
[54:26] Well, I'm already experiencing that with this stuff. You know, like the building was like insane
[54:30] for a moment. But now it's the Olympics and there's like going on in the new cycle. And it's like
[54:33] the world moved on. I'm like, great. I'll go back to just like being at home. My family and
[54:37] climbing as much as I can. Being at home with your family, you said earlier that when you're in
[54:41] that van for 10 years, you wanted a girlfriend. Yeah. Now I'm not being funny, but people that fit
[54:46] your profile and to some degree, people that fit my profile struggle in intimate relationships
[54:52] for a variety of reasons. And I think I actually saw this in the documentary when I watched Free Solo.
[54:56] I saw you had a partner at the time. There was an accident on the cliff side where you fell and she
[55:00] was supposed to be protecting you. And generally, I just saw someone who probably is more on the
[55:06] less affectionate, more commitment avoidance side of life. Is that accurate?
[55:11] I don't know about commitment avoiding it because actually I have had long-term girlfriends
[55:15] and things. But yeah, definitely, I'm like less expressive. I'm less emotionally intelligent
[55:19] than my wife. Has she ever given you feedback that she wishes you were more emotionally
[55:25] available? I mean, I get that. I mean, yeah. Yeah. In different words, perhaps, but yeah, basically.
[55:33] Sani. Yeah, Sani. It's her name. She wrote a letter. Oh gosh. That's funny because the first two
[55:39] words are, oh gosh, an intimate letter out loud. Oh gosh. She does know me. Obviously, this is your
[55:47] worst nightmare, she said. That's, she knows me so well. But we all have to do scary things sometimes,
[55:53] Alex, my coach. She said, I remember when you read a book once about a woman who said she was less
[56:01] affected by emotions than most people. For her entire life, people tried to convince her
[56:07] that she was wrong, that she was suppressing her feelings, but at the end of the day, she just
[56:12] wasn't. As you were reading, you turned to me and said something similar, something like,
[56:17] everyone wants to believe that I'm burying all these things, these feelings deep inside,
[56:22] but I'm just not. And I laughed and I joked, don't worry, I know you're dead inside.
[56:28] If I remember correctly, you gave me a hug. But I've thought about this conversation a lot,
[56:34] because as the person married to you, I spend a lot of time trying to understand you. And while
[56:39] there obviously are emotions that drive you, I was mostly joking about the dead inside part.
[56:45] I do think you are far less affected by some feelings like anxiety, fear, shame, guilt or
[56:50] self-doubt than many of us. But the longer I know you, the more I see an ocean of something else
[56:56] hiding beneath the surface, filling the space that would normally be taken out by all these
[57:00] feelings is the ability to truly see things. You move through the world like a hawk,
[57:05] while the rest of us are lost in thought. As a climber, you can see the way up a rock face,
[57:10] the climber ability of a building, or the laid history of a mountain range. As a father,
[57:16] you notice the quiet intrinsic desires of your daughters, or the chores that need doing around
[57:21] the house. And as a friend, you see the raw potential in every person that you meet. Sometimes
[57:27] this is the hardest thing about you. Nothing goes unnoticed. Neither the strengths nor the weaknesses,
[57:33] the moments of dedication or the moments of laziness, you are practical and blunt in your assessment
[57:38] of your choices and our lives. But that's also because you see us. And paying attention is love.
[57:46] Your ability to see the world so clearly allows you to also appreciate it more clearly. And that
[57:51] is a special form of your love. Perhaps there's a well of emotion in there after all.
[57:59] But for the purposes of this letter, Alex, I want to give you your gift back to you and tell you
[58:05] what I see, particularly in the last four years since we had kids. Because I think the way you move
[58:10] through the world with us is a unique love story. I see you rushing down the trail from the climbing
[58:17] area so you can get back in time for dinner with me and the girls. I see you flying the red eye
[58:23] so you can be home a day sooner. I see you cramming in your gym session, even when you have a huge
[58:29] goal on the horizon, so that I have time for my workout too. I see you pushing your body to the
[58:35] absolute limit during the day, but still managing to stay awake long enough to chat to me at night.
[58:40] I see you taking on an extra day of travel, just to convince someone with money to donate your
[58:45] foundation and help save the planet. I see you adjusting your whole training schedule for work
[58:51] opportunities in order to provide a wonderful life for me and the girls. I see the insane juggling
[58:56] act you do every day to not only be a great athlete, but a great dad and husband. I know it's not
[59:02] easy, but I see it and I appreciate it. We love you as you are, Alex. Not overly emotional,
[59:10] but present, committed, and always seeing what others miss. Use sounding.
[59:21] She is very astute. I was like this. I was like, that's why I'm married.
[59:30] She is very astute. I learned a lot about you from reading this.
[59:37] What do you think? We all show our love in different ways, and sometimes I think the conventional
[59:43] way that the world tries to measure love is through verbal expression of it and romantic gestures
[59:50] and those kinds of things, but there's another type of person who often struggles in life's
[59:56] expectations of what love looks like, who show it through acts of service. That was literally
[1:00:02] one of our last big arguments about something like him, Fedio and that, not like a total blow-up,
[1:00:06] but basically she was sort of like, I just need more of the verbal kind, and I was kind of like,
[1:00:12] I'm literally doing all the things, and I always sort of say, you know, action, speak louder
[1:00:16] in the words. I'm kind of like, if you're doing all the things, you're doing the correct things,
[1:00:19] you don't need to talk about them because you're doing the things, you know, and that was basically
[1:00:23] back and forth. I mean, I took her point that occasionally you have to say the right thing too.
[1:00:29] Well, I have the same argument on repeat with my fiance. She needs the words too.
[1:00:35] Yeah, she has a different language. She's speaking Spanish, I'm speaking French.
[1:00:38] Yeah. And also, by the way, I have to say, at some deep level, again, because of my early
[1:00:43] context where, like you, I wished my parents would break up. I wish they would just get a divorce
[1:00:47] because the model of love I saw was not a happy one. I think at some deep level, I have a commitment
[1:00:51] problem or an intimacy problem where even growing up, saying, calling some of my best friend
[1:00:56] somewhat made me cringe, like saying, saying affectionate words to someone at some deep level
[1:01:01] made me feel deeply uncomfortable. And so you can imagine me being ding. And then I've,
[1:01:06] I think like oftentimes we go for the opposite in the person we end up marrying or
[1:01:11] yeah, certainly for me. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, my wife is like way more emotionally intelligent than
[1:01:16] anyone in Mad Harryston family. Yeah, same. This is how you build a rich life is that you basically,
[1:01:21] like, I mean, it's like hiring. You find members of the team who have all the strengths that you
[1:01:25] need. Yeah. It's like the things that you can't do. And it's like filling your blind spots,
[1:01:29] basically. Have you got better at saying the words? No. Any progress? Oh, yeah, progress,
[1:01:34] probably, but very slow. But in a way, that's great. You know, because we're going to be married
[1:01:39] the rest of our lives. And so that could be another 50, 60 years together. And so you need to see
[1:01:43] incremental progress. Because really, there's nothing better in life than making progress. And I've
[1:01:47] started at such a low point and I'm making progress so slowly that I basically have a good project
[1:01:52] for the rest of my life. Oh, and we could kind of touch on it before, but one of the things that's
[1:01:56] been front of mind for me at the moment is actually something I saw in your personality test,
[1:01:59] which was you were high in perseverance. And we talked earlier on about like mastery and how it's
[1:02:06] important to persist to get good at something. But this has just been front of mind for me,
[1:02:12] I think for a long time, because even I like as a podcast, I realized that a lot of the game,
[1:02:16] I'm like five years in now. And when I look at someone like Joe Rogan, he's been going for like,
[1:02:23] I don't know, 15, 17 years or more. And I get like so much of the game in becoming great at
[1:02:30] something. It's grinding. It's just going for an unusual amount. It's like compounding interest.
[1:02:35] I'm like, look at Warren Buffett. Have you ever seen stuff with Warren Buffett where it's like,
[1:02:38] you know, it took him whatever 40 years to make his first couple million or whatever,
[1:02:42] took him another like 10 or 15 years to make his first billion. And then it took him like whatever,
[1:02:46] in the last eight years, he's made like $100 billion, you know, because his whole wealth is like,
[1:02:49] woo, you're kind of like basically if you put enough time into something and you let it compound,
[1:02:53] it like slowly gets bigger and bigger. It's exactly that. And so I've been thinking about all
[1:02:57] those numbers are incorrect, but the shape of the graph is correct. We'll put it on the screen,
[1:03:01] so somebody correct my numbers. But the principle is correct. It's the same as this graph here that
[1:03:07] you drew of your career. It's the same as the podcast growth where three years no one was listening
[1:03:12] and then we have this. Yeah. And I think as a principle, that's why you focus on doing something
[1:03:16] about you because with the podcast, like if you feel like you're doing something useful and that
[1:03:20] you think it's cool and you think there's something there, you just keep doing it and eventually
[1:03:23] people get on board. Okay, so on that train of thought, I've thought a lot about how do I create
[1:03:31] the conditions to out persist other people in the areas that I love. And one such thing, for
[1:03:37] example, with a podcast is like never have a conversation that I'm not looking forward to,
[1:03:41] because that's unsustainable over the long term. Totally. Because then it feels like hard work
[1:03:45] as opposed to something that we're like, this is amazing. Yeah. So when I look at my cat, they'll say,
[1:03:48] oh, this person wants to come and they've got 160 gazillion followers. But you're like, I don't
[1:03:53] care about that person. Yeah, because if I use that as a decision-free month or six, 10 years,
[1:03:57] I'll quit. Yeah. Do you think about that like the conditions to out persist in your domain?
[1:04:02] I mean, kind of, yeah. I mean, I haven't had to think about it too much because I freaking love
[1:04:05] climbing in all its forms. And so basically climbing it comes easily. But like in terms of the
[1:04:10] work stuff I do, I figured I think I was starting to need before we started recording. But I host
[1:04:15] this podcast called Planet Visionaries. It's like a Rolex perpetual planet. Like I interview
[1:04:18] scientists and conservationists and whatever. And for whatever reason, every time I do this podcast,
[1:04:23] I come out of it feeling all energized and like, I should train more. I should study. I should
[1:04:26] learn something basically because the people that I'm interviewing are also uniquely good at what
[1:04:31] they do. And they're all trying to save the world in different ways. It's like, you know, marine
[1:04:34] biologists like exploring the deep sea floor and things like that. Yesterday I interviewed these two
[1:04:39] women about the fact that we've only explored .001 percent of the deep sea, which represents
[1:04:44] two-thirds of the planet. So basically two-thirds of the planet we know like literally nothing about.
[1:04:48] And there's like this rich underwater world of like cool stuff going on in the ocean floor that
[1:04:54] we've never seen and nothing about. And it's insane. And I was like, that's so cool. And I got
[1:04:57] all fired up about it. And so I come out of work thing, you know, quoting quote work things like
[1:05:01] that. And I'm like energized and excited to learn and grow, you know, push myself. And I'm kind of
[1:05:06] like, that's the type of work that I want to do as much as possible. And then there are other kinds of
[1:05:10] things where, you know, I'll do like corporate speaking or something where you show up at a conference.
[1:05:13] And you just like get ground down. You know, when you leave and you go back to your hotel and all
[1:05:18] you can do is just like, why they're on the bed for an hour being like, oh, what am I doing my life?
[1:05:22] You know, you feel like kind of wrecked. So it's like, if you can focus on the work where you come out
[1:05:26] of feeling inspired and like excited to try hard versus the work that makes you want to
[1:05:31] like mindlessly scroll on something for hours. You know, me because sometimes you're just like,
[1:05:35] oh, I'm just so over it. Yes, once said that's I mean, in my career, they said like,
[1:05:39] whenever you find domains that make you feel expansive, like totally, you should double down on
[1:05:44] those domains because you're, that's the path to master. You're going to be able to continue.
[1:05:48] Yeah, because you can just keep pushing super hard. And yeah, for climbing, that's always just been
[1:05:53] that. Like I just forget love climbing. It's so great. You should do it more. I know you,
[1:05:57] you make us all want to climb more Alex. That's one of the, I think the great consequences of
[1:06:02] watching you do something like Taipei. I mean, there was loads of kids in the streets of Taipei.
[1:06:06] I think that we're all trying to climb buildings. There was loads of like funny videos. Then
[1:06:09] obviously they were really getting like a meter up. Oh, yeah, before they fell. I was like, hopefully,
[1:06:13] it's, yeah, hopefully it's not too much copy-getting, but yeah, we got some crazy numbers from Netflix
[1:06:18] that I think half of people or more than half of people who have an Netflix subscription in in Taiwan
[1:06:23] watch the building climb on like in in Taiwan, it was like in sand, like literally everybody watch.
[1:06:29] It's such a, it's such a singular striking building in Taipei. It's like a total national icon,
[1:06:35] you know, it's like a, it's, it's insane. Have you already started thinking about what you're
[1:06:39] going to do next? People are always like, you know, what's your next big thing? And I'm kind of like,
[1:06:43] you know, if you just focus on doing lots of little things all the time, occasionally the big
[1:06:47] thing just happened. And you can't totally know ahead of time. Well, so at least, so I mean,
[1:06:52] I have climbing goals going back 20 years. I have all these notes on my phone. I always have,
[1:06:56] like, to do lists of, especially when I lived in the band and I was traveling, you're like
[1:06:59] seasonally moving between climbing destinations on stop. So I'd lay, I'd layer out all these
[1:07:03] different types of goals, like I want to do these types of things. Certain goals lead to other
[1:07:06] goals because they're same type of fitness, let's say. So like doing really big things help you do
[1:07:10] even bigger things later, but doing like really hard and intense things help you do other hard and
[1:07:15] intense things later. You know, so in some ways, in the way you stack your goals, you can kind of
[1:07:19] build up to big things or like build up to really hard things or whatever. And so I've always had
[1:07:24] running to do lists of like, I'm going to try to do all these climbs this year. And realistically,
[1:07:30] I normally do like half of them or some of them I never even get to because it's like the weather's
[1:07:33] not good. I wind up going to a different area. I don't go to that that climbing destination at all
[1:07:37] and so I never even try the project. But I've always had tons of goals like that. And looking back
[1:07:43] years and years of that type of those types of lists, I just see that it's slightly hard to predict
[1:07:49] when you're going to achieve the things that are like cutting edge or groundbreaking or whatever.
[1:07:53] You just have to keep doing the things nonstop. And every once in a while, some of them rise to
[1:07:57] the top. I mean, this kind of goes back to the same like value creating things like you don't know
[1:08:00] which things are going to be rad. You just do all the things and some of them wind up being rad.
[1:08:05] And the decision framework there is to just do things you love and that challenge you.
[1:08:10] Yeah, things that push you and like things that are new for you that are hard for you that are
[1:08:14] challenging the right ways. But you just can't, you don't always know ahead of time which of those
[1:08:19] things are going to stand out or not. But you just do them anyway because you're learning from them,
[1:08:24] you're excited about them. They're hard. And then you know, some are cool. Some aren't. Some you
[1:08:29] never even try. And like that's fine. You just keep doing things. The CEO of you, but Daryl was
[1:08:33] was at the yesterday and one of the contrarian pieces of life advice he gave which is kind of
[1:08:37] overlaid with what you just said. If he said people need to stop making young people in
[1:08:41] particular need to stop making life, life plans. Because it narrows them to the serendipity and
[1:08:47] opportunity and things that might happen if they're broader than mine did. Well, or my wife and I
[1:08:53] sometimes joke, it's that we both have very strong opinions loosely held where it's like, oh,
[1:08:57] I'm totally sure of a thing right up until I get some data that shows that that's wrong and then
[1:09:00] you're like, I never ran through that way. And that's kind of how a lot of my to-do lists have
[1:09:03] always been or like my goals where I'm like, oh, I have all these goals. But if I take a slight fork
[1:09:08] in my year where it's like turns out, you know, for whatever reason, like something else lines up
[1:09:13] and it makes sense to do all these other things. And I'm just like, oh, right turn and just change.
[1:09:17] You know, and it overlaps with what you said earlier about like not worrying so much about like how
[1:09:20] much it's going to pay me today or what the big thing is or it's kind of like just just keep doing
[1:09:25] cool things and it all worked out. I would love if we could scan your brain and look at all the
[1:09:30] cancers, especially in the context I learned about this particular region of the brain called the
[1:09:34] anterior mid-singulate cortex, which I heard Andrew human talking about. And it's a part of the
[1:09:39] brain they discovered quite recently that lights up when you do things that you don't want to do.
[1:09:45] So not things that you enjoy doing that are somewhat like difficult like running a marathon,
[1:09:48] but things that you actively avoid and resist but do anyway, pain, fear, effort, discipline.
[1:09:53] This is the circuit that decides whether you quit or you push through and it grows the more you do
[1:09:57] things you don't want to do. So it's like they now consider it to be the muscle of willpower in
[1:10:00] the brain. Look at athletes, they have bigger ones when they make sense who are struggling or less
[1:10:06] and more sedentary or struggling with their way. They often have smaller ones. Anyone that
[1:10:10] avoids discomfort has a smaller one. So in the context of the way you've lived your life,
[1:10:17] you've continued to do things that are hard. I mean, you can love climbing, but you don't necessarily
[1:10:21] love yeah, but just doing like one more set every time is like that's that's always a challenge.
[1:10:26] Yeah, always like my whole body hurts, but I'll just do a little more. Yeah, and I think the
[1:10:31] thing I guess here is like about neuroplasticity, which is going to be a ton of people listening
[1:10:34] right now that are so far away from their Taipei, from their Taipei 101. They're so far away from
[1:10:40] that. They're in a job they just don't like. They're maybe the finance brother, you know,
[1:10:43] you talked about a second ago, and their life is absent of adventure. And they probably look at
[1:10:48] you and go, well, you know, he just has something I don't have. I know, but I just don't, you know,
[1:10:53] I mean, I've structured my life in a different way, and I've made many different choices and all
[1:10:57] that, but that's the things I don't really think I have anything different. I mean, I actually hate
[1:11:01] all the like brain stuff because people always like use that to put me in this box of like,
[1:11:06] well, you're different. And I'm like, well, I'm not really like I'm a middle class suburban kid,
[1:11:10] both my parents like nobody in my family is athletic. Like nobody is good at sports at all, you know,
[1:11:16] it's like like basically if you were to like look at the, you know, like if I was a video game
[1:11:21] character and you were to look at all my little bars, you'd be like, that guy's not going to be an
[1:11:24] athlete. Like he's not good at this. You know, it's like my parents professors and we freaking red
[1:11:28] books. Like I'm not there's no aptitude for anything really. And I was like, bad at sports as a kid,
[1:11:34] I'm not good with balls. Like, you know, there's no reason. But I mean, really, I just have loved climbing
[1:11:38] enough that I've been willing to put in a tremendous amount of time and effort and eventually get good
[1:11:43] at it. And I'm kind of like they hear people say like, oh, your brain's different. You're kind of
[1:11:46] like, well, everybody's brain is a little bit different in some ways. It doesn't mean that you can't
[1:11:50] devote yourself to something that you care about. But with this in mind, and with all the neuroscientists
[1:11:54] that have interviewed, your brain is different in part because you've taken, you've done different
[1:11:59] things. And neuroplasticity says you can change your brain right the way up throughout your entire
[1:12:04] life. One of my friends, Tom Billews, a good example of that. He's a big podcast. You might
[1:12:08] know Tom Billew. I don't know if you know so. But he, you know, he was, I can't remember the
[1:12:11] rough age, but I'm going to say he was 30 years old. He was so in his words lazy that he would
[1:12:17] lay in bed all day. When his girlfriend came home, he said he would jump up out of bed just so
[1:12:21] she didn't believe that he was in bed all day. And he didn't want to be embarrassed. And when he
[1:12:25] asked his, at the time, girlfriend, if he could ask her dad if he could marry her, dad said no.
[1:12:31] He was, he described, it was like lazy and down and out. Over the next 10 years, he makes decisions
[1:12:37] to take on more difficult challenges. Builds a billion dollar company sells it. If you meet this guy
[1:12:42] today, you'd think like, athlete, genius, super smart, motivated. You'd beg him for advice on
[1:12:46] discipline and motivation. Like, he's that kind of guy. What, yes, or what do you do? He ran a book
[1:12:51] about neuroplasticity. And he realized that he wasn't stuck. He read, he learned about neuroplasticity,
[1:12:56] which means that at any age in your life, the decisions you make change your brain. And that's why
[1:13:00] I love this discovery of this anterior mid-sincular cortex, because it means that like maybe, in part,
[1:13:05] the reason why I'm not taking on my Taipei 101 is because I haven't taken on my Taipei 101.
[1:13:12] Yeah, well, you haven't taken on your Taipei 101. Your Taipei, your Taipei 12 or whatever,
[1:13:18] just the little pieces at the bottom, because that's the thing is like, and actually, this is
[1:13:23] why when you ask about any big goals, sometimes I think the big goals are slightly limiting,
[1:13:27] because if you're your friend who's laying in bed, Taipei 101 is not the appropriate goal.
[1:13:33] You know what I mean? You need Taipei four. You need to just get out and do a little thing.
[1:13:37] You need to do a cheese from success. You need to see that you can do something. And you need to
[1:13:41] take on appropriately sized challenges, because I think having a great white whale is great sometimes,
[1:13:47] but that's not always what you need. And partially, for me, right now, we're raising two little kids,
[1:13:53] and we're just like in the midst of it. It's like bed time right now is hanging. It's just like,
[1:13:56] it's a lot. And I'm like, I don't need an LCAP size goal right now, because we're just trying to
[1:14:02] make it through a certain phase of life, really. Not to say that I'll never have other big goals,
[1:14:06] but you're kind of like, you want your goals to be appropriate to the time and space that you have
[1:14:13] available. I have this psychologist say to me about this idea of just setting yourself a Taipei
[1:14:17] one, like a small goal. The reason why people don't do it is because they see it as almost so
[1:14:23] embarrassingly small that they don't think it matters. Yeah, but I mean, that's why you'd focus on
[1:14:28] it doesn't matter to you. Like, is it something that you haven't done? Like, is it good for your
[1:14:31] growth? Is it challenging for you? It's good enough. But that seems like college has told me that
[1:14:36] when they were dealing with a patient who was so demotivated and that they couldn't get out of their
[1:14:40] bedroom, which was stacked to the ceiling with plates and cutlery, that day one was bringing the
[1:14:45] Hoover into the room. That was day one. Day two was plugging it in. That was day two. And by day 30,
[1:14:51] they're outside. This is someone who was scared of going outside. They're outside walking around
[1:14:54] the room is clean. But he said to me that people don't take that first step because it's so
[1:14:59] embarrassingly small that it's almost shameful to say like today, what you're going to bring the
[1:15:02] Hoover in. Yeah, but that's the thing is it's always better to take a step than to not take a step.
[1:15:07] You know, and that's, yeah, I mean, that's how I've always felt with all these things.
[1:15:10] You're like, well, you might as well go out and do the thing, like do something.
[1:15:15] You remember the being I was like, you know, like perfect, be the enemy of good, like you do the
[1:15:18] good thing, you know, because it like it's like don't let perfectionism cripple you. You know,
[1:15:24] it's like, that's why I think, you know, type I 101 if that's kind of like your perfect goal.
[1:15:29] It's like, don't let that hold you back from going out and climbing type A4 or type A8 or,
[1:15:33] you know, like some of the surrounding little buildings, because it's like a practice on which you can.
[1:15:36] I guess back to this point of perseverance, I read Equipment E as I go that said,
[1:15:39] um, greatness doesn't exist. Greatness is just good repeated.
[1:15:42] I mean, this is what I'm saying about having lots of little goals is that I would actually say that
[1:15:46] if you repeat good enough, every once in a while some of those are great actually, but you just
[1:15:50] don't totally know. You know, I noticed that a lot like in my climbing life, like in the long
[1:15:54] arc of climbing, there are tons of things I did in E 70, we're like in a season I'd have like five
[1:15:59] or six goals in E 70 and I do all the things. And one of them for whatever reason would wind up
[1:16:03] being like that's rad and it would, you know, like makes climbing news and things like that.
[1:16:08] And the other ones, you know, maybe less so, but you don't totally know ahead of time which ones
[1:16:12] are cool or not and which ones are going to stand the test of time. Like at one point in the not
[1:16:16] too distant past, I held a speed record on every major formation in E 70. Now a few of them have
[1:16:20] been broken over time and, but those are the kinds of things where you never really know like how
[1:16:24] long those types of records will last because sometimes you do them and then your friend comes and
[1:16:27] breaks at the next season and you're like cool and you go back and forth and it's all part of a fun
[1:16:31] game. And then some of them you set a speed record in the last like 15 years and you're sort of like,
[1:16:35] oh, I didn't realize that this was going to be like such a milestone, you know, it reminds me of
[1:16:40] the Steve Jobs quote about how you can only really connect the dots looking backwards.
[1:16:43] Totally. Totally. Steve Jobs quote from his commencement speech was, you can't connect the dots
[1:16:49] looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will
[1:16:53] somehow connect in your future. Clarity isn't a prerequisite for action. It's the reward you get
[1:17:00] after you move. And that's that's the thing is I think because I do so many interviews with like,
[1:17:04] you know, when was the moment you decided to be a professional climber and I'm like, there's no moment
[1:17:08] like I just did the thing for years and years and now looking backward, it looks like this amazing
[1:17:12] arc, you know, but at the moment, you're always, you know, I spent years being like, I go back to
[1:17:15] college, like, do I need to agree? Like, and then I spent a few years wondering if I should go back
[1:17:19] and get like an executive MBA or something or something because I was like, I don't want to go back
[1:17:23] to undergrad. I've been living in my band for 10 years and, but you're kind of like still, I need
[1:17:27] that validation. I need, you know, I want to jump through the hoops and then really it's only now
[1:17:30] that I'm kind of like, I don't think I need that. And part of the reason why we so many of us get
[1:17:35] forced into procrastination when we're trying to connect the dots looking forward is because we
[1:17:38] face these questions from society, which is like, what should plan, what should career, what are
[1:17:41] you aiming at? And we don't have answers, so we fill in the gaps. We have to say something to
[1:17:45] mum and dad. You have to say, like, what's the plan for the future? You can't say nothing. No, no, no,
[1:17:49] are you just saying, I'm living. I'm just letting it play out or just see what happens. It's going to be
[1:17:54] a grand adventure. And I mean, I kind of hope my kids feel confident with that, you know, just kind
[1:18:00] of like, well, I'm doing the best I can. I'm practicing the things that I care about and we'll see
[1:18:04] how it plays out. We'll see how it plays out. Because either way, it's going to play out with me
[1:18:08] and them and everybody else dying. You're like, you know how it's going to play out at the end,
[1:18:12] and so you're kind of like the whole space up to there is like, oh, you just have to fill it with
[1:18:16] as many things that you're proud of as you can. It's a remarkably simple way to live in a world
[1:18:20] that's increasingly complex, Alex. Well, I mean, it doesn't need to be that complex.
[1:18:28] This is why I think spending some time in nature like helps remind you of some of those sorts of
[1:18:32] things. This company that I've just invested in is growing like crazy. I want to be the one to
[1:18:35] tell you about it because I think it's going to create such a huge productivity advantage for you.
[1:18:39] This flow is an app that you can get on your computer and on your phone on all your devices,
[1:18:43] and it allows you to speak to your technology. So instead of me writing at an email,
[1:18:46] I click one button on my phone and I can just speak the email into existence and it uses AI to
[1:18:52] clean up what I was saying. And then when I'm done, I just hit this one button here and the whole
[1:18:56] email is written for me and it's saving me so much time in a day because Whisper learns how I write,
[1:19:02] so on WhatsApp it knows how I am, a little bit more casual, on email a little bit more professional.
[1:19:06] And also, there's this really interesting thing they've just done. I can create little phrases
[1:19:10] to automatically do the work for me. I can just say Jack's LinkedIn and it copies Jack's LinkedIn
[1:19:14] profile for me because it knows who Jack is in my life. This is saving me a huge amount of time.
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[1:19:22] they're now a sponsor of this show. And Whisper Flow is frankly becoming the worst kept secret
[1:19:27] in business productivity entrepreneurship. Check it out now at Whisper Flow, spot w-i-s-p-r-f-l-o-w-dot-a-i-slash-diven.
[1:19:36] It will be a game change if you if you knew that you only had one week left to live and this was
[1:19:42] the week and you could only do one last climb. You go back and recapture the record, go do our cap
[1:19:47] again, I don't know, a different building. You have one week and assume you're sufficiently prepared
[1:19:53] for whatever the climb would be. What would you do? I'm allowed to do like cutting-edge futuristic
[1:19:57] things. Yeah. Oh, well, well then I'm like, I don't know. I mean the birch like it'd be insane.
[1:20:02] But no, like the free triple in Yosemite is like the three biggest walls in Yosemite.
[1:20:11] It's LCAP, Half Dome and Mount Watkins. Mount Watkins is kind of like a half-dome sized wall
[1:20:15] that's further a valley. So it was a three big walls in Yosemite. So Tommy Caldwell and I have
[1:20:20] free climb the triple. The two of us did it together with ropes, but we like climb the whole thing.
[1:20:24] And then I've soloed the triple. So I've done all three with ropes by myself. It was like 18 or
[1:20:29] 19 hours or something of climbing. But it's never been free-solid. I've free-solid Half Dome
[1:20:35] individually and I've free-solid LCAP individually. No one's ever free-solid Watkins.
[1:20:39] But the idea of doing all three in a day would be like I think totally like next generation
[1:20:43] achievement. There's certain things like that where I'm sort of like if I was starting over,
[1:20:46] if I was like an 18-year-old who was like trying to make it as a professional climber nowadays and
[1:20:50] had a higher level of skill than I do now, you know, basically was like trying to do this again.
[1:20:55] There are things like that that would be sort of like the obvious next generation challenge.
[1:20:58] Free-solid all three in the same day. Yeah. Yeah, I'd probably take a little bit under 24 hours,
[1:21:05] probably. What is your training right, Sherman, to these days? Is it just going to rock
[1:21:10] ramen a lot? Today I did a little workout in the hotel gym this morning. Your hands are quite
[1:21:14] different. They're quite big hands. Well, that's something, you know, I think like a stone
[1:21:18] basin just like grinding away their whole life. I see. I don't know if the people can see that on
[1:21:23] camera but it does look like you have very wide fingers. Yeah, my fingers have taken a lot of
[1:21:30] abuse in their time. Because I see you like putting them in in between walls and stuff. Yeah,
[1:21:35] crack climbing is like you basically put your fingers into a crack and then you torque them. So like
[1:21:39] the side-to-side pulling does sort of make your connective tissue bigger. And does that help?
[1:21:44] Yeah, I was wondering when you're going up hell, when you're doing a well with good technique,
[1:21:48] it's not that painful. It depends on the type of rock, but some rock is kind of sharp and kind of
[1:21:51] painful. But yeah, this goes back to strengthening your, what's the part called in your brain?
[1:21:56] I'm tearing my sinking of cortex. Yeah, exactly. That guy, I mean, that's the thing is that
[1:22:00] even when done well, climbing like it hurts your fingers and toes, you know, crack climbing,
[1:22:04] you're like jamming your toes into a crack and you're torquing them side-to-side and you're like
[1:22:07] wedging your fingers in. I mean, when you're doing it well, it has a pleasant feel of safety to it
[1:22:12] because you can really like lock into cracks and it feels comfortable and you feel like you're swimming,
[1:22:16] you're like, this is beautiful. But when you really come down to the sensations, you're still
[1:22:19] crushing your bones and you're a crack like a star. When I look at this kind of photo,
[1:22:24] where you're, it looks like you're hanging by one and a half hands. Yeah. And you're going to fall
[1:22:31] to your death if your grip isn't sufficient. It makes me think you must have the world's greatest
[1:22:36] grip strength. I definitely don't. But I mean, while you have your grip thing, you can find out
[1:22:41] what's below you there in this photo. Well, actually, so there is like a sloping cliff thing below
[1:22:46] me. So I'm actually only like 30 feet off the ground, but if, or 40 feet, but if you fell,
[1:22:51] you'd bounce off and you'd go, you know, basically to where it looks like down on the valley floor
[1:22:54] down there. It's terrifying, for sure. It's funny, actually, have you seen Frisola? Yeah. Do you
[1:22:59] remember the camera guy that like can't look? Yeah. The guy that's like shooting the long shot on
[1:23:03] the ground, Mikey. He's a really good friend of mine. I've done tons of things to them. He shot
[1:23:06] the Taipei climb as well. Now, Mikey was the photo assistant for this photo. He was like holding the
[1:23:11] photos and he did the whole shoot just like looking into the wall. He just never looked at any of
[1:23:17] the things happening. Like Jimmy Chen was taking the photo and Mikey was like did all the the
[1:23:22] rigging and the lights and everything. And Mikey did the whole shoot just like looking into his arm
[1:23:26] like looking at the other way. He was like, I'm not part of this. I'd like to see his brain
[1:23:30] sky. He was stressed. But I mean, he's an elite climber himself and he's amazing. But like,
[1:23:34] basically watching Frisola is stressful and nobody wants to do it if they don't have to.
[1:23:38] When is the in all your career? When is the moment where you were most scared,
[1:23:41] where you thought maybe you had pushed it too far? Oh, it's actually, I've had several moments
[1:23:46] with actually mostly with ropes on. That's the thing is that because when you're Frisola and you
[1:23:50] generally keep it within a healthy margin or you practice ahead of time, you know, basically because
[1:23:54] you're going to die, you make sure that you can do it. But when you have a rope on, you're way
[1:23:58] more willing to push into the unknown because you're kind of like, surely I'll get some protection
[1:24:01] eventually. I'll just keep looking and I'll keep looking. And so like I've had, I was on an
[1:24:05] expedition and an article actually in 2017 and did a bunch of climbing that was very extreme,
[1:24:12] but like with a rope. But it's, you know, saying articles really freaking cold conditions
[1:24:15] of challenging the rock is crumbling, everything is scary. And you just keep hoping that it's
[1:24:19] going to get better and it just keeps getting worse instead eventually. You're sort of like,
[1:24:23] because the thing is having a rope on doesn't mean anything unless you get good protection,
[1:24:26] which means you have to be able to put gear into the rock. And if you can't find places to put
[1:24:30] gear into the rock, then you can go, you know, the rope is 200 feet long. If you go 200 feet without
[1:24:34] getting good gear, then you're looking at taking a 400 foot fall before the rope catches you,
[1:24:39] which is almost certainly fatal. You know, I mean, if you fall that far, even though the rope will
[1:24:42] catch your corpse, you know, but you're still just going to hit the wall after 400 feet like you're
[1:24:46] screwed. So anyway, my scariest experiences have all been situations like that for the most part.
[1:24:52] This is why I'm saying climbing, you get scared a lot.
[1:24:57] And I was like, that expedition, we were climbing basically day on day off.
[1:25:01] Each day, we would go climb one of these crazy spires and we'd have these experiences where I'd
[1:25:04] be like, so scared. And then the next day, we were just sitting the tent because it's an article.
[1:25:07] It's like really cold. You're in the cook tent. Now, basically just spoon, you tell it all day,
[1:25:11] totally shell shocked, like totally, like just completely traumatized. And then you'd be like,
[1:25:16] rest enough and you go out the next day and do it again. And we just did like day on day off of
[1:25:20] full trauma fear for the whole trip. And then we climbed everything in the ranges. Amazing,
[1:25:25] it was an incredible trip. So you do get scared. Yeah, so scared the whole time.
[1:25:29] Are there any techniques that I've proven to be effective for you to deal with that fear?
[1:25:32] Like people talk about breath work and yeah, it takes some deep breaths, try to compose yourself.
[1:25:36] I mean, I try to stay rational, you know, like am I in danger? Because sometimes, like in this
[1:25:41] case, in Antarctica, I am actually in danger, like if I fall, I could die. But oftentimes you feel,
[1:25:47] you get those feelings of fear and you're not actually in danger. It's your mind running away from
[1:25:51] you. And so sometimes you can sort of rationally rain in a little bit where you're like,
[1:25:54] no, I am safe. The protection will hold me. The rope is, you know, my gear is good.
[1:25:57] And then you just take it deep breath and you just carry on. And do you visualize folding? I'm a,
[1:26:01] oh, yeah, I'm in, of course. Yeah, I mean, you have to understand what the consequences will be.
[1:26:06] Because I mean, that type of visualization is also how you can know when you're safe.
[1:26:11] Because like if you have a rope and gear and you're trying to visualize, like if I fall,
[1:26:14] am I going to hit the ground or is the gear going to catch me before I hit the ground? I mean,
[1:26:17] there are often situations like that where you're like, if I fall, am I going to hit that ledge
[1:26:20] and break both my legs or am I going to clear the ledge and fall into free space in which case,
[1:26:24] it's totally safe. And so it helps to be able to have a clear eyed visualization of, you know,
[1:26:29] because most people visualize the worst case. Like if I fall, I'm going to die. And you're like,
[1:26:32] well, oftentimes if you, I'm talking about with a rope, if you fall, you're going to be fine.
[1:26:37] But it's important to know the difference. So you don't avoid the confrontation with
[1:26:42] the negative outcomes. No, because you're trying to avoid the negative. Like you have to think
[1:26:47] about it because of how else you mitigate that kind of stuff. But you can't let that stop you
[1:26:51] taking actions when the risk profile is okay. Yeah, exactly. I mean, this is like a whole rant
[1:26:56] about risk taking and everything. But like, I mean, that's the thing is you want to be taking the
[1:27:01] risks that you want to take. And it drives me crazy that nobody else thinks about risk in this way.
[1:27:05] Because think of all the people that like go out partying every weekend and they get like kind of
[1:27:09] buzzed and they drive home and whatever. And it's like, they're taking all kinds of risk that they're
[1:27:13] not actually choosing to take. You know, I mean, like they're just choosing to go out and party and
[1:27:17] have a good time. But then they're like driving a little buzzed and they're like, no, it's fine,
[1:27:21] but you're like, no, obviously, you're taking risk or like you're putting yourself into situations
[1:27:25] where you're like in a vulnerable situation because you're in capacity because you're drunk or whatever.
[1:27:29] And so, you know, you're putting yourself at a higher risk for crime, things like that. And so
[1:27:33] you're taking risks. You just haven't chosen to take those risks. I'm kind of like the thing with
[1:27:37] climbing is that I'm choosing to take the risks. And I'm pretty clear-eyed about the risk that I'm
[1:27:41] taking. Like, I mean, I'm not going to say it's perfect. But for the most part, I think I have a
[1:27:45] pretty good idea of which aspects are dangerous. Like when the consequences are high, what will happen
[1:27:50] if I do fall? You know, it's like you try to think it all out as much as you can. And I'm kind of
[1:27:54] like how many people in normal life actually think through all the risks that they're taking. And even
[1:27:57] totally sedentary people who are like, well, I don't take risks. I stay at home when I play video games.
[1:28:01] You're like, no, you're at a much higher risk of heart disease. Like you're going to die from other
[1:28:04] things. You know, it's like, and you're still going to freaking die either way. That's, okay,
[1:28:08] I'm done ranting. I'm sorry. No, no, but it's really important because you know, I think we are
[1:28:12] all taking risks. But some of us on intentional about the risks we're taking essentially. That's
[1:28:17] exactly it. Like even if you take no risk, you're going to die. You're taking a different set of
[1:28:21] risks. And so people look at my life and they're like, well, you're crazy. You're such a risk
[1:28:25] taken. I'm kind of like, well, at least I'm taking the risks that I'm choosing. And I'm choosing
[1:28:28] them very intentionally. And I'm pretty careful about them. And I mitigate them as much as I can.
[1:28:32] I'm kind of like, well, can you say the same for the risk that you're taking? Or, you know,
[1:28:35] I'm sort of like the average person, I think, doesn't think about risk as much as they should.
[1:28:39] And is there anything that you would give them as a framework to help them be more intentional
[1:28:42] about those risks? Is it just that it's like, well, you're going to freaking die either way. So choose
[1:28:47] the things that you care about and then do them well. And do them well. Prepare. Yeah, execute.
[1:28:54] Like have a plan. You know, but don't just like take risk willingly. Like don't just get drunk and
[1:28:58] go out and do a thing. You know, because like that's stupid. Like that's not the risk you should be
[1:29:02] taking. You know, like don't put all your money on black and just like hope, you know what I mean?
[1:29:06] Like basically don't just like roll the dice. Like don't let fate just like roll the roll the dice
[1:29:10] with your life. Like make choices. And free soloing is, you know, there's a bigger existential risk
[1:29:16] with no margin for error. But very intentional. Very intentional. Drinking as a risk is like a volume
[1:29:24] knob. The more you do it, the more the risk increases. And the other one is kind of like an on-off switch,
[1:29:28] which you can exactly today. And then yeah. So grip strength. I wouldn't be even a little bit
[1:29:35] surprised if you can pull that more than I can actually. But look, I'm going to both try.
[1:29:38] Okay. This is a grip strength meter. Okay. So let's see, we're zero kilograms would be extra
[1:29:43] small. I mean, the thing with these like, okay, actually, let me just prep this with like I've
[1:29:47] had tons of people be like, well, surely you're going to break the machine. I'm like, no, because
[1:29:50] for climbing, you just have the strength that you need to do the things that you're trying to do.
[1:29:53] And how much do you weigh right now, like 165, 165, which is actually basically the heaviest
[1:29:59] ever been, maybe 163 if I'm lucky right now. So 165 pounds in kg is a quivicle to 75 kilograms
[1:30:07] roughly. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. 49 or 50, 45.9. I'm going to draw this one. It's just like,
[1:30:17] yeah, 49. You know, but those are just kind of like, it's just, it's just a different thing.
[1:30:23] You know, I mean, like, that's not climbing. 49 kg and pounds is
[1:30:29] 108 interesting. Yeah, let's see yours. But yeah, like I'm saying, it's about the same with both
[1:30:35] hands. It should be 62. Yeah, see, there you go. I can't lift my body weight. Like I might be able to
[1:30:45] like, yeah, I mean, I might be able to muster a little more in it, but 63. I don't think
[1:30:54] do you work out like you do weights and stuff. I lift them dumbbells, but I'm not doing anything
[1:30:58] grippy. I culled and stuff, but I don't do anything grippy. I know I'm at 50 and a half.
[1:31:02] How many pull ups can you do? Don't know, but I can, yesterday I did, I did a couple one arms
[1:31:07] like, like, yeah, I basically pull up. Yeah, which is very hard. Yeah, I don't think I can do one arms.
[1:31:14] Yeah, well, that's the thing. That's why grip strength stuff. You're kind of like,
[1:31:16] nah, we're actually so, like, have you done weighted pull ups in a gym?
[1:31:20] Weighted pull ups. No, I just do, I'll just do my own body weight. And I, you know, I weigh a lot.
[1:31:26] So I'm like, deceptively heavy. Really? Yeah. Very dense. Very dense.
[1:31:30] Capsule and water. No, like, big bands. You're just six. How much kilograms do you think,
[1:31:35] I wait, I mean, in pounds, you'd know, but this is one arm. No, I'm guessing. I don't know,
[1:31:38] like, now that you're saying that you're big, I'm like, oh, maybe 185 or something.
[1:31:42] What a two 11. Yeah, with actually each other, that's another thing with grip strength is like,
[1:31:46] it makes sense to your grip strength is proportionate. I mean, you're like 25% bigger than me. Yeah,
[1:31:51] yeah, like, you know, basically. Yeah. So it's like, you would expect it to at least 25% stronger
[1:31:57] right there, just because like, you can do body weight pull ups. You're going to be much stronger. Yeah,
[1:32:01] but we have, we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the longest guest leaves a question
[1:32:05] for the next guest, not knowing who they're leaving it for. And the question for you is,
[1:32:12] what do you want to achieve in your life outside of your mainline job that you haven't yet achieved?
[1:32:19] No, I mean, that seems, there are basically two other avenues that I care about in my life.
[1:32:23] You know, my family, I want to be a good dad. I want to make sure my kids grow to be
[1:32:28] healthy, well-adjusted people that, you know, like, live their best lives. And then I have a
[1:32:32] foundation that supports community solar projects around the world. And I'd love to see that thrive.
[1:32:36] I mean, basically, I mean, you know, we give as much as we can to solar projects around the world.
[1:32:41] I'd love to see that do more on that point of your foundation. What is, what is the sort of the thesis
[1:32:46] that you want to facilitate projects? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, solar. It's basically energy access around the
[1:32:50] world. Okay. Yeah, I think now we've given, I know, over 13 million to something like over 100
[1:32:55] partners around the world, basically like small scale community solar projects. So people getting
[1:32:58] access to energy for the first time, busy using solar for anything ranging from light to, you know,
[1:33:05] say food refrigeration to pumping water, I mean, whatever, whatever people need energy for,
[1:33:10] which is basically everything. 13 more than 13 million across 130 projects and 30 countries,
[1:33:17] impacting 650,000 people and creating 1,200 plus jobs, protected 15 million acres of
[1:33:24] bio diverse forest as well. Yeah, some of those things are sort of like the secondary and
[1:33:30] tertiary benefits, where it's like when you empower certain kinds of communities, then they're
[1:33:33] better able to take care of their lands and things like that. Some of that has to do with
[1:33:36] indigenous sovereignty and things like in the Ecuadorian Amazon and places where it's like when
[1:33:40] the local people have power, suddenly they can protect their land from illegal logging, illegal
[1:33:46] mining, things like that. And so then you wind up having this knockoff like environmental benefit.
[1:33:50] It's like also great. In addition to the human aspect where you're like, what these people are living
[1:33:53] better lives and help save the planet. And you're giving away roughly a third of your wealth
[1:33:58] to cover the majority of the foundation's overheads. So yeah, I've been given roughly a third of my,
[1:34:04] of what I make every year since 2012. And that's basically just sort of coincidentally tracked with
[1:34:11] the overhead for the foundation. So it just means that anything that people contribute goes straight
[1:34:14] to projects, because I basically cover all the staffing and everything. How does one contribute to that?
[1:34:19] Honolulu Foundation.org is the easiest way. You can support directly. I mean, you can see all the
[1:34:23] projects that we're working with. And donors can go there if they want to contribute to this.
[1:34:26] They can go to the website. Okay, but I'll link the website below. And if anyone is interested
[1:34:31] in continuing to support the great work you're doing there, I highly recommend they go and make
[1:34:35] a donation. It's also just a way I think to give back to you as a person for the inspiration,
[1:34:39] you've given so many of us. I appreciate that. Yeah. I mean, to me, the foundation has always been
[1:34:45] my attempt at doing something useful. It's like, I love raw climbing. I think it's so fun.
[1:34:49] But at the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter in the world. And I feel like the work
[1:34:53] that we're doing through the Honolulu Foundation, at least material improves the well-being of other
[1:34:57] humans, you know, like it actually has a real impact both in environment and for people.
[1:35:01] Well, I don't know. I think watching you climb Taipei and watching the millions of people
[1:35:06] around the world climb Taipei was an expansive moment for all of us, because it holds a mirror
[1:35:13] up to us in a really inspiring way and goes, what obstacles can you overcome in your life? And
[1:35:19] the many, many millions of people now have that visual. And sometimes it isn't absurd visual,
[1:35:25] that does that and is most memorable, like it etched into their brains. And that means that they
[1:35:30] in their own life are looking for their own Taipei ones or Taipei servants or Taipei 101's.
[1:35:35] And if you play that forward as like a ripple in the ocean of how people are going to strive and maybe
[1:35:38] live more intentionally, maybe it does really really matter. Maybe the whole conversation, which
[1:35:44] was my entire Twitter feed, for days and days and days of people saying, this is a miraculous human
[1:35:49] achievement. There's like, that's the first half of a sentence. The other half of that sentence
[1:35:54] which we never really hear is like, so now what can I do? And that is a profound thing. Well, that's
[1:36:00] definitely the best frame. Like that's the framing that I hope for. And that's, you know, but I think
[1:36:06] that's like the best case scenario for my climbing. And like I hope that that's how people take it.
[1:36:10] But I will say that the work through the combination at least has a direct material
[1:36:13] impact immediately. You're kind of like, oh, you don't have to hope for ripples or anything.
[1:36:16] You're like, well, this person can now read after dark for the first time ever. And you're like,
[1:36:19] that is game changing. If anything, you know, I've been talking a lot about like action speaking
[1:36:23] a lot of the words. And I'm like, yeah, I hope to, you know, it's like, it's great if the climbing
[1:36:27] I do inspires people like, that's all good. But at some point you just do a direct thing that
[1:36:31] actually helps people's lives do. And you're doing both. Yeah, yeah, aspiring to do my best.
[1:36:36] The tangible and the exactly tangible. Alex, thank you so much. Thank you. Amazing conversation. Thank you.

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