It drives me crazy that nobody else thinks about risk in this way.
People look at my life and they're like, well, you're crazy.
You're such a risk taker.
Well, at least I'm taking the risks that I'm choosing, because think of all the people that like go out partying every weekend and they get buzzed and they drive home, and even sedentary people who are like.
Well, I don't take risks.
I stay home and I play video games.
No, you're at a much higher risk of heart disease.
Like they're taking all kinds of risks that they're not actually choosing to take.
And you're still going to freaking die either way.
So you might as well take smart, calculated risks and do all the things that you want to do and at least die happy when you go.
He's done it.
Alex Honnold has made history again.
Scaling one of the world's tallest skyscrapers.
But the conclusion that a lot of people have arrived at is that you don't experience fear because when they look at these two brain scans, your amygdala is lighting up less when you're shown scary images.
I actually hate all the brain stuff because people always put me in this box of like well, you're different.
And I'm like, well, not really.
Like I'm a middle class suburban kid.
Nobody in my family is athletic.
I, just after 20 years of climbing five days a week and being really freaking scared, I respond differently than an average person.
And there was tons of emotional turmoil throughout it.
Periods where you're just like, I'm trying so hard and I'm just like not as good as I want to be.
You know, I was like living in a car.
I had like a couple hundred bucks a month for 10 years.
Like that's challenging.
But you just can't master a craft overnight.
I guess that's what people don't see.
And so how do you create the conditions to out, persist other people?
And then, in all your career, when is the moment where you were most scared?
On an expedition to antarctica, i kept hoping that it's going to get better and it just kept getting worse, like i could die.
Do you have a conversation with your partner before you go and do something like this?
Because she wrote a letter.
Oh gosh, obviously this is your worst nightmare, she said, but we all have to do scary things sometimes.
Alex Guys, I've got a favour to ask before this episode begins.
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Thank you so, so, so much.
Alex, to understand you, I think from everything I've learned about you, from the research I've done, from speaking to your wife, your agent, everybody I could speak to, I think to understand your context, we first need to understand the circumstances in which you were raised and the childhood you had, because it seems to be, I mean, for all of us.
There's like fingerprints left on us that define the anomaly that that many of us become, including yourself.
So what do I need to know?
What does the viewer need to know about the early context?
I mean, how deep do you want to go?
I need to get a sofa.
I need to recline.
Just be like, all right.
But, yeah, certainly there's an imprint from my parents, my upbringing.
I mean, they had a very fraught relationship.
They eventually got divorced, but they stayed together for the kids.
And it was a whole, like you know say, a tense home life, because neither of them really liked each other.
And then my mom is very driven, very... you know, high-performing.
And my dad was hard to say.
I mean, I think my dad was deeply depressed basically the whole time I knew him because he was in this relationship.
You know, it's hard to tell.
He wasn't living his best life.
And then sadly, after they got divorced, he was much happier, but then he died.
And so then never really got to see him blossom that much.
And your mother's high performing.
And did she sort of implicitly demand that of you in any way?
Yeah, I mean, my mother speaks like seven or eight languages.
She like plays every instrument.
It's like kind of crazy.
She's very artistically minded in that way, like, you know, the arts and classical sense.
But yeah, she I mean, she wanted us to do all those things, too.
I'm a deep disappointment in that regard.
Yeah.
There was a phrase that I saw when I was watching the documentary that your mother would continually say, which I think translates to something like not good enough.
Like, presque ne compte pas, like, almost doesn't count.
It's funny because I feel like a lot of my adult life now.
One of my sort of go-to things is don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
I'm really into good enough.
It's better to try.
It's better to do something.
It's better to fail quickly and learn and keep moving forward than to not try something.
Basically, I don't want to be crippled by perfectionism.
My mom is very much a perfectionist.
If you can't do it right, don't do it.
I'm sort of like, I think it's better to try and learn and improve.
But she's accomplished a lot of things with that approach.
Yeah, she has, for sure.
What about emotions?
This is something I've heard you sort of talked about.
A lot is in that environment where your mother and father aren't getting along well.
I think I heard you say that you hadn't seen your father really happy before he had passed away.
Yeah.
Was it an emotional household in terms of affection?
No, it was a very unemotional household.
That said, though, you know, it was a safe, relatively happy household.
Like it was fine, you know, and I was close to a lot of my extended family.
And so I had a really good relationship with my grandparents and some of my aunts and uncles.
And so I mean I basically would have characterized it as a totally happy family life until I became older and started seeing other people's families more.
And it was kind of like, oh, this seems even happier.
You know what I mean?
Where it's like basically really good.
Until you see what else it can be.
And then you're like, this seems even better.
And your mom wasn't ever affectionate.
You know it always feels slightly conditional.
You know where it's like.
You know she cares if you be.
You know if you perform well, like if you do well, like if you're a good kid or whatever.
You know what I mean.
Where did climbing come into your life?
Because I've got some.
I have found some photos of you climbing and you look like with your sister, I believe.
Here we go.
This one here.
Yeah, classic.
How old were you then?
I don't know.
I mean, I don't know, like six or something or eight.
It's hard for me to tell, like medium-sized kids' ages.
Why climbing?
Oh, why not?
It's so freaking cool.
Have you rock climbed?
Yeah, I have.
Have you gone to a gym?
Yeah, I have.
And wasn't it the freaking coolest thing?
It was fun, yeah, for sure.
I mean, saying I've climbed when I'm sat with you is, I feel like... Yeah, but you have tried it.
Yeah, I have, yeah.
As an adult.
If you can imagine as a kid how fun that is.
And then if you just keep doing that nonstop and then you find that you have some aptitude for it, you enjoy it.
It's like
You can imagine going down that path.
It's so cool.
But is there something about the challenge of climbing that you think just kind of like was a jigsaw piece for you?
Your brain like problems.
Well, I think there's something elemental about climbing, in the same way as like running or swimming.
It's like a basic movement thing that I think is quite enjoyable.
And I think that I also, I think I have an innate love of like being on top of things, like you know, being at the top.
Basically, I love big views.
I like the expansive, you know, I like air.
And so I like being up on stuff.
So I don't know.
I think it just hit a few sweet spots like that where I was like, oh, climbing is just so cool.
I'm assuming you never thought this could be a career.
No, no.
And actually even when I started rock climbing sort of full time, I still didn't think it could be a career because there just wasn't really professional climbing at that time.
It was like much smaller.
The industry is way smaller.
Climbing is way more fringe and like less of a thing.
But you weren't motivated by like money or anything?
Because one does not pursue rock climbing to become rich.
No, not to become rich, no.
Well, so I said, so my father died like the season before that.
And because my parents had just gotten divorced, he basically left his retirement to my sister and me.
And she used it to finish college.
I just put it into bonds and was living off like 300 bucks a month or whatever which kind of like worked.
You know, I was like living in a car.
I stole my mom's minivan at the time.
I had like a couple hundred bucks a month and it was kind of enough to just like go to be a 19-year-old, just like camping, you know.
Was it this minivan?
No, that's my second one.
That's the Ford Econoline.
That's the first actual van that I bought.
I lived in that van for 10 years.
For 10 years?
Yeah.
Yeah, so I bought this van.
I mean this is classic.
But so I bought this van for 10 grand and and then originally, this is the last build out, which is the classiest build out the original one my uncle and i did for free with like scrap wood from his, you know, in his wood shop basically, and uh, and so then i lived in that for 10 years and you're kind of like yeah, when you live in it i couldn't even stand in this van.
You know, i was like on my back, but you know, when you're living in your car for 10 years you save quite a lot of money.
Between what ages did you live in your car for 10 years?
I probably bought this van when i was 20, so 20 to 30 basically.
Actually, I think that's right because I think I met my wife when I was 30 and that same year I switched from this van to the bigger van.
If you've seen the film Free Solo, I bought the ProMaster that's like Dodge.
It was like I could stand up in my van finally, and I was like, I'm moving up in the world.
I can stand.
You can cook in there really well.
There is a little stove in this one.
Yeah, so this though, is the – I did three different build-outs of this van over the 10 years because, like the original one was super scrappy.
The second build was like a little nicer, and then this was like a pretty nice build that I had for I don't know, five or six years or something.
When you live in your van for 10 years and you have a mother who is very performance-focused – I've got her here, I believe.
You're climbing with her.
Yeah, classic.
Yeah.
Do you not face a lot of external pressure to like go get a real job?
Honestly, less so than you would think.
Like to her credit, my mom was always pretty supportive of the whole path.
I think you know I was kind of lucky that I did a lot of this when I was like young enough that it's all part of like your gap year.
Like, you know, it's like you're young and you're finding yourself.
And then I think there was enough sort of external validation that my family could at least look at it and be like well, you seem to be good at this random thing, even though we don't get it and don't really know what you're doing.
But at least other people think you're good at it.
So keep doing your thing.
And at this point, was it rock climbing?
Was it free soloing?
Yeah, it's all a little bit of everything, but basically just being a I mean, you know, like being a professional climber, quote unquote.
Some of it's free soloing, some of it's like speed climbing, some of it's just hard climbing, some of it's going on expeditions doing new routes.
Like it's a little bit of everything.
And for the average person that doesn't know what free soloing is, what's the definition of it?
That's climbing without a rope, so climbing without protection, which is definitely what I'm most well-known for now.
But in the context of professional climbing, I've done tons of other things in climbing.
Most of the time you have a rope on, most of the time you're doing other sorts of things.
But it's like the free soloing is what you might have been well-known for, because that breaks into the mainstream a lot more.
I'm really intrigued generally by people like you who...
I mean take the path less traveled in their career and then maybe, nearer the end of the graph, pick up traction.
And I have this piece of paper in this pen because I'd love if you could from the age of, let's say, 80.
You're now 40 years old.
Yeah, I turned 40 this year.
Getting old.
Could you draw a graph showing how your career looks in terms of success?
You can measure that by money or attention or whatever.
Yeah.
Let's see.
So it was kind of like... Nothing, nothing.
Slow a little bit.
And then like this-ish.
Yeah.
And then kind of like... And then basically just like this.
Where you basically like kind of flat but growing.
And then you have free solo where it jumps a ton.
It's like kind of crazy.
And then...
And then it keeps kind of growing at a slightly faster rate than before.
And then it basically jumps a ton because of the building thing again.
I find this fascinating because most people in their lives wouldn't be willing to endure this phase.
18 to 29.
Well, but it's not enduring.
It's so great.
Like, I would do that again.
I loved it so much.
Like, I mean, I often think I'd be so happy to start over from zero.
Because, like all the places that I go climbing now, i've been climbing there for 20 years and i've like done most of the things i can do and you know, i've sort of like tapped out a lot of stuff in the western us and i'm like man, i would love to just hit the re-zero button and start over, because you'd have so much stuff to do.
It's so amazing.
I guess that's the.
That's the different.
The fault of my question is that i said the word endure, but you see it as yeah, you get to climb every single thing.
You see, it's amazing.
Yeah, I mean, and that's the thing is like, from age 18 to 30, I basically did try to climb every single thing I could see because I was just like I'm learning.
I'm growing.
This is amazing.
I climb everything.
And like now I'm actually much more strategic about it, because doing tons of easy climbing like doesn't really help me at this point.
I'm not going to make, like, big technique gains.
It basically just makes me tired without the right kind of gains.
It'd be like somebody, It'd be like an elite runner, just jogging for miles and miles every day and you're kind of like that's not going to make you, That's not going to improve your marathon time if you're already like an elite runner.
It might be fun, but it's just not going to, like, move the needle for you.
Through this period of your life, 18 to 30, you're optimizing for just having fun doing things you enjoy.
Well, I mean...
No, I was always challenging myself.
Basically, I was optimizing for what's the next thing I can do that pushes me a little bit.
But you weren't optimizing for how to get rich?
Well, then I would have gotten a job.
If I was optimizing for getting rich, I would have freaking finished my college degree and gotten a job.
I say this in part because I interview so many people who pursued careers that are often considered not real jobs, like comedians or magicians.
And I tend to find the same thing between the age of 18 and 30.
They optimize for something that isn't necessarily being rich or famous.
And then at some point, the graph looks like this.
Well, it's because I mean, I think I'm sure you know this, but I mean the world really it's like a winner-take-all economy type deal.
It's like basically, if you're the dude that does the thing, all of a sudden your earnings go insane.
Right.
But until you become the dude that does the thing.
If you're like the best magician or the best comedian or the best whatever, then all of a sudden you make an insane amount of money.
But when you're just like one of many struggling comedians, you're struggling.
And so I think for me as a climber you're sort of like oh, I'm just a dude living in my van climbing.
But then at a certain point I'm like the dude that – I'm like oh, you're that guy that climbs without the rope.
And you're like, oh, yeah, cool.
And then all of a sudden your earnings are like –
Was this a difficult period of your life, this 18 to 30?
No, it was like the best.
Well, obviously it was like you know.
I was like trying to juggle like I wanted to get a girlfriend.
You're a young 20s man living alone in a car, like wanting to be better at something than you are and not quite knowing the way and not knowing what you're doing with your life.
So obviously there was tons of emotional turmoil throughout it.
But no, I mean, retrospectively, it's like amazing.
And your dad passes away, which is in part, I guess, some of the catalyst.
Yeah, honestly, my dad passing away should be the beginning of that graph.
This should basically start at 19.
Because at 18, I went to university.
And so then starting at 19, I guess, I went on the road.
Your dad passing.
What impact did that have on you outside of it, somewhat liberating you to make decisions that outside of his expectations?
Well, I mean, obviously it was – you know, it's sad.
It's hard.
And especially now I'm sort of like oh, it's too bad that I don't have a relationship with my dad and he doesn't – you know that my kid's not my grandfather and all that kind of – you know it's like yeah, it's tough.
I think that the most immediate impact that it had maybe was just reminding me of my own mortality.
You know, I mean, he died unexpectedly at 55, just fell over in the airport and just fell over dead um, like heart attack.
And so, you know, i mean, i think that that reminder of my own mortality has had a big impact on my career, my life.
You know, my climbing world, whatever one might not expect you to go.
Quote unquote do risky things because of well no, because the thing is, i think one of the reasons that people don't do risky things is because they have this, you know, mistaken idea that they can live forever.
Basically,
And basically because people don't want to think about their own mortality.
And so they're like, oh, I don't want to take any risks.
I could die.
And you're like, you know that you're going to die either way.
And either way, when you die, you're going to be bummed that you didn't live longer because...
You know, it's like the life expectancy in the U.S. is 78.
You're like, great.
Say you make it for men, whatever.
Like say, you make it that far, you're still going to be like man.
I wish I had 22 more years to like watch my grandkids graduate college or whatever.
You know, it's like it's still going to feel like too little.
And so I'm kind of like you're better off dying at 55 in an accident, but having done many things that you're proud of and you know like led a life that you're proud of, then dying at 78 and still wishing you had more, but having done none of the things that you wanted to do.
It's interesting.
It does appear that people live as if we think we're going to live forever.
Yeah, it's totally insane.
I mean, everyone's like, oh, I don't take any risk.
And you're like, yeah well, you can take no risk in your life and you're still going to freaking die.
So you might as well take smart, calculated risks and do all the things that you want to do and at least die happy when you go.
What does this mean to you to live intentionally?
Well, that's exactly it.
Like choosing the risk that you're willing to take, making choices.
Like using your time the way you want to use it.
I was looking at, I think it was your personality, a personality test you did.
Did I do a personality test?
I'm like, how much material do you have?
I'm like, Jesus Christ.
How many things do you have?
I have unlimited things.
I know.
I'm so impressed.
On this personality test.
It says you're higher on thrill-seeking and sensation-seeking, but then also significantly higher than the average male on urgency, which I think kind of overlays with what you were just saying there of making the decision to do something.
Yeah, basically because your time is short and you're going to die.
So get on with it.
It says here you're higher on conscientiousness.
Very polite, you know, thrill seeking, sensation seeking.
You're low on boredom.
I think low on boredom means that you know you don't get bored.
Perseverance you're very high on perseverance.
Yeah, i think that's the same as low on boredom and low on neuroticism, that's for sure.
And so what's your?
What is?
What's the definition of the word neuroticism?
Is it like one thing, is like the?
Well, i'm sure there's a clinical definition, but i think of it as sort of general anxiety type stuff, like you know, people spinning in their heads about things that don't matter.
And has that always been the case?
When you look back through your life and the feedback you've had as a kid and a teenager?
Kind of, yeah.
I think so.
I think I've never been too concerned about – I don't spin.
I mean obviously, you know, occasionally I stress about things, but just not the way I think a lot of people do.
I'm trying to figure out if that's a learned behavior or maybe a little bit learned and a little bit from your upbringing genetics.
Whatever it might be.
Because can one learn that?
Can one learn to be less neurotic?
Well, presumably.
I mean, like meditation, things like that.
I think people can sort of find a way to let go of certain things.
Isn't this quite interesting?
When people ask you questions, inevitably about fear and how you take on such you know, to muggles like me, terrifying challenges.
There's an element of all of this, which is you do have a nature and a nurture which somewhat, is impossible for someone like me to replicate, right.
Because your brain and my brain are completely different.
Your parents, your early contacts, when your brain was being wired and malignated, are completely different to mine.
So you know, I always find this is like the trouble of giving people advice is we're dealing with different, Different natures.
Different natures.
But I do feel like in my case the biggest difference in nature is is the fact that I've just always loved climbing.
Basically, I think that nurture is the majority of this.
If you spend 30 years training a thing, you're going to get better at the thing.
And so I think that the biggest difference between me and somebody who's not into rock climbing is that I freaking love rock climbing.
I could do it 10 days a week if I could.
You know what I mean?
But sadly, I get too tired and my body breaks down.
And so I basically have a limitless capacity to do the thing.
I just love doing the thing.
And I think that that is probably the biggest difference in nature.
Because everything else you can kind of overcome.
If you loved rock climbing as much as I love rock climbing, no matter what your genetic disposition towards like neuroticism and all that stuff you would just kind of work through all that stuff and you'd find your own path to getting good at climbing, basically.
If your kids came to you, you have two girls, right?
Yeah.
If they came to you and said dad like, give me advice on what I should aim at in life, would you tell them?
I wouldn't give them advice.
I'd be like, you do you.
You find the thing you love to do.
Go hard, you know, basically like learn some skills, get good at something.
Like what do you like to do?
I mean, that's kind of the thing for me, especially with climbing, is like if someone had told me like you're going to train climbing for the rest of your life, I'd be like oh, that sounds like kind of a grind.
Because, I mean, it is hard work.
You're like hiking uphill with a heavy backpack and it's cold and it's windy.
It's like it's basically physically uncomfortable.
I mean, being a professional rock climber means that you're physically uncomfortable.
All the time, like often, you know, like it's, you know, it's hard.
Yeah.
But if you're doing it because you freaking love doing it, it doesn't feel very hard.
And so, I mean, I think the key for a kid is find the thing that doesn't feel like hard work.
And when you started, were you scared of big, tall rock faces and stuff like that?
I mean, yeah, I had like a healthy intimidation.
I mean, like my first season in Yosemite, the first time seeing El Cap as a climber, I was 19 and it looks impossible.
It looks completely insane.
I was like, that's so big.
But then you know, within a couple seasons, you know, I climbed some bigger walls, learned how to climb and then
A friend and I had the sort of season goal like we were going to climb Yosemite all season with the aspiration at the end to climb El Cap in a day.
So basically, there was this long progression on El Cap specifically, where it's like you go from just trying to get up it to trying to get up it faster, to trying to get up it, with just your hands and feet still using protection.
But basically there's like all these steps you can take.
And so over a bunch of seasons, you know, I climbed El Cap like 60 times different routes, all these different things.
And then eventually you're sort of like oh, maybe I can start thinking about freesailing it, which is where the film freesail comes in.
And then eventually you do this thing.
But then people are like, well, aren't you scared?
And you're kind of like, well, I've spent 10 years like building up on this thing.
I guess that's what people don't see.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean like the documentary Free Soul, I think does a pretty good job of showing the direct preparation, like the training involved in doing that specific climb.
But it just doesn't show the like eight years before that, I guess, because the documentary was filmed over two years.
And I guess I've been going since 2006.
So it's nine years before that that I've been going to Yosemite and I've been spending maybe three months a year climbing walls.
I guess that's the illusion of, like all people that do great things and become like athletes or sprinters or whatever Ronaldo or Messi is, you don't get to see the— Yeah, the whole life that they put into doing the thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it looks like a magic trick when we see the outcome.
Like, we show up on Netflix to watch you climb Taipei.
We're like, whoa.
He's hanging with it from his leg.
Yeah, I mean, people watch some of those programs, and they're like, he just walked up and did it.
And you're like, well, yeah, after 30 years of practice, like, I just walked up and did it.
But no, it's not like just walking up and doing it.
I mean, like I've literally been climbing five days a week for 30 years.
Like that's so much climbing.
Like I freaking love climbing and I climb a lot.
On this, on this idea of like exposure therapy as it relates to like fear and anxiety and confronting one's things that terrify them.
Was that in the early days where you, I'm trying to understand, were you like scared at some point?
Oh, all the time.
That's actually something that I think, you know, I've obviously done so many interviews around fear and like managing fear and all that. and i've talked about fear a lot of different ways over over the years and i think as i found older i've sort of come to realize that that actually you're just scared all the time as a climber like low level fear low like but you're but climbing is fundamentally scary like it's always kind of scary because there's always consequences like even if you're climbing with a rope you're still always visualizing like what happens if the rope breaks like what if you know like is this safe like you know is the gear good like is this actually safe and so you're always a little bit scared and so after years and years of always being scared, you get pretty good at managing that kind of stuff.
Because there's a lot of sort of misconceptions swirling around this brain scan.
Yeah, I know.
I hate all that stuff.
That's just all from the film Free Solo.
It was like too short of a scene in the film.
They needed a little more.
They need to let it breathe, you know, explain things a little better, I think.
So they scanned a control subject.
Another person scans you, looks at the amygdala in your brain.
And the conclusion that a lot of people have arrived at is that you don't experience fear because when they look at these two brain scans, your amygdala is lighting up less when you're shown scary images.
Basically, right.
Yeah.
But, like, shown just this image, like, what does that even mean?
Like, my brain's purple and his brain is orange.
You're like, what does that mean?
Like, I don't know.
But no, I mean.
The thing is, though and this is what I wish was explained in the film better is that this is we're being shown black and white photos inside an fMRI.
So you're inside a sealed metal tube.
You're totally safe.
You're physically safe and comfortable.
And you're being shown black and white photos.
And so to me obviously, that's not going to light up the fear response in my brain, because you're looking at pictures.
You're like, who cares?
I'm totally safe.
But in a control subject, apparently your brain sort of responds to images one way or another.
But I'm kind of like, I've been climbing for 20 years, so I've been scared quite a lot.
And you're kind of like well, black and white photos start to lose their edge if you've been scared all the time for 20 years.
So it's like obviously that's not going to trigger much.
Yeah, and I imagine everybody in their life can think of a scenario where they have mastery, like a stand-up comedian looking out at a stage probably wouldn't be as scared as me.
Yeah.
Because that would terrify me.
So, again, this is not necessarily some sort of neurological deficiency.
No, I mean, I think the real takeaway is that I have an amygdala, and it works.
You know what I mean?
Like...
Because I think if the results had shown that I was missing my amygdala, then I would have died already at youth, because I wouldn't be able to function as a human basically.
But had it shown something like that where there are structural differences or some real change.
But this is basically just showing that after 20 years of conditioning, I respond differently than an average person.
And you're like, yeah, no kidding.
If you put a monk into an fMRI, their brain responds totally differently than an average person as well.
Which I actually think is a really inspiring conclusion, because it means that we can all grasp our fears better.
And even you know people won't know this about me, but 10 years ago I sat down on camera with my friend Ash in his apartment to record a two-minute video.
And as I sat there, I was so scared I couldn't get the words out.
So you actually, in this two-minute video that comes out, you see it go from night and day in the background, just because we did that many cuts over seven hours to try and get me to say two minutes on camera.
And obviously after 10 years of being on camera, I can now speak without shitting myself.
And I imagine my brain state looks significantly different because of my exposure therapy.
Totally.
Yeah, you should do the fMRI.
Yeah, you should have done 10 years ago because then you'd have your control.
And then you do it now and it'd be totally different.
Yeah.
But also the psychologists I've sat with all confirm this.
They talk about exposure therapy.
And I went through exactly the same thing with public speaking.
Like I was always so afraid of public speaking.
I was also very shy and like just not like it was terrifying.
And now because of the free solo film tour and you know all the public things I've done since then.
I'm like, basically fine.
You know, so you still get a little nervous, but it's like basically easy now.
And you're kind of like, well, that's a total change.
It's like, obviously there's a tremendous capacity for humans to learn.
People talk to you about fear all the time because, I mean, your work.
Because climate's really freaking scary.
It makes sense.
It's totally understandable.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And they also realize, I think, at some deep level, that the thing holding them back from who they think they want to be or who they aspire to be is fear.
Often,
It's judgment of someone else.
It's taking a risk.
Totally.
So you've become, for many people, the like, tell me, tell me how to overcome.
Yeah.
Well, I think that everyone's like, what's your hack to overcome fear?
And you're like, there's no hack.
You just get really freaking scared over and over for so long.
And eventually it's not that scary anymore.
But I will say that that's like a very enduring way to overcome your fear, is like, if you're willing to go through that process, then you are actually unafraid, you know, because like you can do, like hacks.
I mean you, can you like crank up loud rock music and just go for it?
You know like, and there are plenty of examples of that.
And in what I'd call gravity assisted sports like say, if you're going to jump a cliff on skis, like you can get to the edge and be like this is really scary.
And then be like, three, two, one, do it and just like go.
In climbing, you can't really do that as much because it's so slow.
Like when you climb, you make one move and then you make another move.
And then you're like, do I still want to be here?
Like it basically fear creeps in a lot more.
But sort of in gravity-assisted sports.
You can have more of that moment where you just like overcome your fear and then it happens.
You know, like making a big drop in a kayak or like skis or things like that.
Whereas like once you commit, it's happening one way or another.
Anyway, there's a lot to get into it.
No, but I mean, I want to get into it.
I watched a video of you climbing Half Dome, I think it was.
Yeah.
And it looks like you got scared halfway up or... Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, so that video is actually filmed later.
So the voiceover in that video is me talking about the experience of me freestyling when I was totally alone.
And I did get really scared on Half Dome and I had this whole somewhat traumatic climbing experience near the top of the wall.
But then when we went back to film it, I had a different traumatic experience while we were filming.
Less traumatic, but, like, very scary for a moment.
And they got that on camera.
So they basically in the film.
They just cut the two together because it shows me like being really scared.
What's half dome to start with?
And then what was the trantic experience?
Yeah.
So half dome for anyone who hasn't seen is, uh, is this just totally amazing wall in Yosemite.
It's a 2000 foot granite face.
Actually, um, it's the North face logo.
It's a freaking it's that's half dome.
Okay.
Yeah.
So it's like an iconic wall in Yosemite.
Um, It looks like half of a dome, but actually it's more like a hockey puck just shoved in.
It's actually a full dome, depending how you look at it.
But the northwest face is vertical for 2,000 feet.
It's incredible.
And so I freestyled.
That was one of the first major freestyles I did in 2008.
And one of the things that sort of made me a professional climber in a way.
But when I did the climb, I did...
The bare minimum preparation, I basically, like, didn't know.
It was the biggest thing I'd ever free soloed.
I didn't quite know how to, like, go by getting ready for it.
Anyway, I climbed it and basically hadn't practiced enough, was really freaking scared, got off route, got confused, skipped some stuff and then, at the very top, had this whole moment of extreme panic.
You know, basically like got up into some stuff and all sort of like crumbled mentally and like sort of barely managed to finish this upper slab.
Like, the hardest part of the climb was, like, right near the top.
I was trying to walk across this ledge.
Basically, I've walked across that ledge face in and face out.
Normally, people hand traverse it or they crawl across it.
There are, like, different ways to go across the ledge, and I've done it every which way.
And then we were up there filming, and I was like, oh, I'm going to walk it face out.
But it turns out when you walk it face out, it's really freaking scary.
And so I made it kind of halfway and was like, oh, my gosh, and then bailed.
And when you say you're having, like, a crisis in your mind, what is that?
Is that just, oh, my God, what am I – like, how does that sound?
Well, I mean, so in this case, so walking across this ledge, it's like it starts maybe as a foot wide.
So your foot is fully on the ledge and you're shuffling across it.
But then at a certain point, yeah, I mean, that's the video.
I'll put it on the screen for anyone watching.
Yeah, that's the ledge.
But basically at the narrowest part your feet are sticking out over the lip of it and the wall bulges ever so slightly so it forces your back out a little.
And so you're basically like rocking on your heels with I don't know like a 1700-foot drop or something, or 1800-foot drop, like straight down below you.
And so...
You know, it's like pretty intense.
Anyway, and so I thought I was going to walk across it like that.
And I made it to the bulging part and was suddenly like, oh, my God, this isn't for me.
And then managed to like shuffle back and change my strategy.
Is it like panic in your head?
It's not panic, but you're like, oh, oh, I made the wrong choice.
Like this is bad.
This is bad, you know.
I mean, it's not like full like five alarm bell, like panic, panic.
But yeah, you're like, oh, I'm so screwed.
And you have fallen a long, long way before.
I was hearing it about a time when you were young and you fell off a mountain and called your mother, managed to call your mother.
Yeah, that was like sliding down an icy cooler type thing.
It's a little different than like free falling off of a cliff that's like sliding down a mountain.
But yeah, I got totally messed up.
And yeah, yeah.
And I've like broken my arm several times as a kid, falling off things and And then with a rope.
As a climber you take big falls like routinely.
You know when you have protection.
That's like part of the sport basically.
I mean, it's certainly easy to visualize falling 700.
You know, when you're like standing on a little ledge and it's bulging and you're looking down, you know it's easy to be like, oh my God.
You know, it's like if you just bend forward a little bit you're just going to take a swan dive like 700 feet to the ground.
The stats in this sport are...
I mean, of fatalities.
How do they compare to other sports?
Safer than you would think.
Everyone thinks it seems crazy, but it's not that crazy.
I don't know actual statistics, but I suspect that it's actually pretty comparable to skiing or something.
Because recreational skiers die all the time, like falling in tree wells or going off cliff spikes and things like that.
Climbing is actually surprisingly safe, which is one of the things I love about climbing.
I mean, climbing is very...
It's very sort of binary where it's like either you're totally safe or you're going to die.
And the odds of you dying are very, very, very small.
But because they're there, they always keep you on.
You know what I mean?
Like it basically keeps you alert, but you're never really going to get hurt.
Is that including freestyling?
Yeah.
I mean, for the most part.
I mean, a couple of people have died free soloing.
I mean, people occasionally die free soloing for sure.
But actually most of the sort of cutting edge free soloists have not died soloing.
They've like died in other things.
I think it was in the documentary on Netflix, Free Solo, where one of your colleagues.
Yeah, Tommy is like most free soloists are dead now, which is kind of true, but it's slightly misstated.
I mean, you know, he's just like speaking off the cuff and it's not like strictly true.
Like a couple of the best free solos have died free soloing, though they died on very easy terrain.
But then the majority of other great free solos have died in sort of climbing adjacent accidents, like wingsuit base jumping and like one got swept to sea by a rogue wave, like while he was out climbing a sea cliff, but he was like standing on shore and got swept out to sea.
You know things like that, where you're just kind of like you know obviously they're taking risks in their lives and they wind up dead.
But it's not the way that people think.
You know, you see a photo like that and you're like, free soloing, you're going to die for sure.
And you're kind of like, well, people don't actually really die that way.
I mean, they have.
I mean, not to say that it doesn't happen, but way less frequently than people would suspect.
If I was to try and, like you know, professionally torture you and again, I'm not talking in extremes here, but what life would I prescribe you to live?
Oh, being like a finance bro or something.
Having to like just work spreadsheets my whole life.
Is that what you mean?
Like what is my like worst, I don't know, something like that.
Or honestly, being like a choreographer for dance or something like I just I couldn't do like.
Or being like an opera singer.
Like I would just kill myself.
I just couldn't do that.
Why would being a finance bro be like the worst thing for Alex?
Just the idea of sitting a computer in a cubicle, just, like, typing.
I mean, I'm kind of contrarian.
I don't like rules.
I don't want to, like, jump through hoops.
I don't want to do arbitrary things.
Like, I don't want some manager to come and tell me, like, oh, you got to file that report again.
You, like, missed a line.
I'd be like, you go F or something.
You know, I'd just, like, walk out of the building.
Like, it's just, I just, like, don't know if I could take that.
I'd be like, no.
But that's, like, how most of the world live.
We kind of, we all live in, like, you know.
I just don't know if it's for me.
I don't know.
I mean, doesn't that just seem I mean, I had this moment.
I've been in New York a couple of days and I took the subway down to see some see some friends.
And I was like coming out of the tunnel and it's like packed with people.
And I was just like looking at the ground and I was like just you know, following someone else's footsteps up this like beat down path of stairs.
I was like, I couldn't live like this, like not day in and day out every day.
Like.
This is just like feeling like you're just doing the exact same thing as everyone else around you.
I'm like, oh, it seems so, so boring.
It's funny because so many of us look at your life and go, wow, that's not very normal.
But actually, maybe at a foundational level, you're living a much more normal life than I mean.
You're out in nature, you're moving your body.
Yeah, yeah, in that way for sure.
I'm like going on cool adventures and going out and I don't know.
I think that's also part of what the sort of attraction and allure with your life, especially when you watch Free Solo, is.
You do seem to be a free man.
In a way where most of us aren't free as such.
Yeah, I mean, I think we're all sort of aspiring to that to some extent.
I mean, most people see that though as like they get their vacation for the year.
They're planning to retire at some point and then they're going to have their freedom.
They're kind of like, well, I don't know.
I mean, maybe you got to try to live that way as much as possible.
If your young girls came up to you, June and Alice, and said, Dad, what is a meaningful life?
What are the principles of living a fulfilling, meaningful life?
Would you give them advice there?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean it'd be a long rambling, multi-day conversation with them about, but I mean, following your own goals is is, I think you know, certainly one of the cores of having a meaningful life, like having things that you find valuable.
I mean really like living in line with your values, finding things that are important to you and pursuing them with as much as you can give them.
When you look at your early 20s to 30s it kind of looks like you're living like a Buddhist a little bit.
I mean yeah, I went on a trip once where they called me the monk, just because I was living such a sort of ascetic lifestyle.
I don't drink and I don't party just for personal preference or whatever.
So I'm just living in my little van and reading books and climbing all the time.
Those are the things that I'm into doing.
It's just doing what you want to do.
Have you ever been depressed or?
Yeah.
Probably not like deep clinical depression, but there's certainly periods from time to time where you're just like what am I doing or why?
Or what are my goals?
Like, you know, what's, and I think to me, the most depressing thing is that, you know, I've put like my whole life in the climate, like trying to be the best you can be all the time.
And sometimes you put tons of effort in and you just don't see results.
Like for whatever reason, you just suck.
You're like, I'm trying so hard and I'm just like, not as good as I want to be.
And like that's challenging, you know, but that's I mean, everybody faces that to some extent where you're like I'm working hard at a thing, but I'm just not achieving the results that I want.
And between that period of No Man's Land, the 20 and 30 where your career hasn't taken off yet the documentary's not out.
You've not climbed Taipei.
How much money are you earning from climbing?
I mean the first, my first couple of years.
My sponsorship through the North Face was like.
I think my first year was like 10K a year.
I was like, this is amazing.
I was living in my car and you know, making 10 grand when you live by yourself in a van is like more than you need basically.
It obviously went up beyond that at some point.
But it was, you know, like in the 10 to 100 range for the first for the whole.
Yeah.
For years.
And at some point it increases.
Yeah.
And then it increases.
I mean, then free solo is obviously like a big thing.
And that sort of opened up all these opportunities, because then I started doing corporate speaking and stuff like that.
And I mean, as I'm sure you know, that's just like a whole different world.
And so then you go from just like making some money from sponsors to like making money from from other corporations.
And they're like, OK, now you're making some money.
One of the things when I was hearing you talk about some of your incredible climbing stories is I was trying to understand what role visualization or your preparation, plays and how that's like transferable to me in my life.
We talked a little bit about just how much preparation you did for something like LCAP.
But it sounds like you really break down the challenge into smaller bits and then really go through those individual steps.
Whereas a lot of people just look at LCAP and go, oh my God, they'll be terrified.
Yeah.
And that's impossible.
Yeah, which is fair.
I mean, I spent years looking at El Cap and being like, that's too big.
That's impossible.
And then you know, after years of that, I kept hoping that I would look at it and it would like look easy somehow.
And I'd be like, cool, now I'm going to do it.
And it just never looked easy.
And so then finally I was like, okay, I'm going to have to like put some real work into it.
And then I started slowly breaking it down.
And then once you like, break it into pieces and start working on the pieces, then you're kind of like okay, it starts to feel more reasonable.
Break it into pieces and start working on the pieces.
What does that mean in terms of climbing?
So if we, I mean, I've got this model here of Taipei 101.
So, you know, this is also a metaphor for any challenge I have in my life.
But this is actually perfect because it's right here.
Yeah.
So I scouted this in September of this year.
I did the climb in January or whatever.
In September we went, and well, we had to like one, make sure it was possible before you sort of like commit to it doing a whole TV program.
You're kind of like, let's make sure we can do this.
And then they also had to get all this sort of marketing material.
You like get the photos with the building, like all the stuff that becomes the trailer and whatever.
And so we went in September to sort of like do the prep.
And so we basically checked out all the different pieces.
And so anywhere where you see it looking a little bit different.
You know, it's like this whole bottom part is like a low angle slab.
It's like punctuated with these two little rubies.
These little like coin things or whatever, the clouds or whatever they are.
And then there are the dragons on the corners.
These are all overhanging.
Like each of these eight blocks is like a big overhanging thing.
It feels a little bit different.
Then you get up here.
There's like these balconies.
These are actually overhanging.
Basically, each little segment of this is quite different.
Obviously, on this model, it looks the same.
But each transition between the different pieces is like a thing.
So I checked out all of them with ropes.
And you just go piece by piece all the way up the whole thing.
And you hadn't ever climbed it before.
We saw it on Netflix Live.
Well, I hadn't free-sold it, no.
But I had climbed all the pieces with a rope, for sure.
I'd checked out the different things.
Okay, so you, so you, you look at these as individual challenges.
Every step yeah, it's like you go well, even like just getting off the ground, the first move is a slightly different move than any of the other moves.
You have to like jump up to a thing and like press it out.
Um, then climbing over these little clouds is a different thing.
Each dragon is a different thing.
Yeah, i mean, it's just, you know, there's a surprising amount of complexity to it.
And so our first, on the scout, you know, i had a note on my phone and i'm just like writing down all the different.
Basically, I'm trying to learn it the way you study anything where I'm just like making notes and sort of like.
From floor 54 to 72, it feels like this
I climb the southeast corner, the left arrette, you know, and then, yeah, just writing it all down.
And, I mean, there's this famous photo of you hanging with your leg.
Yeah, that's this.
These are the rings up here.
So you're hanging from here with your leg.
Yeah.
Now, this is really a question of endurance.
Like, how do you plan to have the energy…
How do you know if you're going to have enough energy when you're up here, when you're just planning it?
I mean, this is what makes it exciting because you can't be sure.
But you know, I've done a lot of climbing in my life and I've done a lot of climbs that were like 24 hours.
I mean, I had this experience in Patagonia once.
It was a 54 hour push with like the last 20 hours we hiked without food.
Um, cause we got caught in a storm.
It's a whole crazy story but basically you know, I've had a lot of experience in my life where I've done hard exercise for more than 24 hours.
And so this, you know, I expected to take me somewhere in the hour and a half, two hour range.
And I'm kind of like yeah, I mean I'll be tired after two hours of exercise, but I'm not going to be exhausted.
You know what I mean?
Like I know that I have a much deeper reserve than that.
So much of the conversation around after you'd done this, or some of the conversation was around whether this was a harder challenge than El Capitan.
No.
No, it's obviously much easier.
I mean, I'm doing it on live television.
Obviously, it's easier.
But what makes it cool is that it's different, it's fun, it's challenging.
For me, it's really in my sweet spot.
Where it is challenging enough...
It's not easy.
You know what I mean?
Saying easier than LCAP, it doesn't.
LCAP was like a 10-year life project that I did in absolute secrecy.
I did it on my terms, on the correct day, after years of effort.
I had failed attempts.
You know what I mean?
LCAP was like an all-consuming life project for years.
Kind of like obviously you can't do that for live TV.
It's like you just can't put – anyway.
But this was very much in my sweet spot where you're like, oh, it's hard enough that it's hard.
Like it's cool.
You know, like it's fun.
It's interesting.
The climate is engaging.
It's, you know, gave me something to train for for months.
It's like it's super fun.
But it's not the absolute limit of what I can do because you just can't do that on live TV.
I mean, if nothing else, I was climbing the Southeast Arrette because it gets good morning light and it looks beautiful and it's great for filming.
But if I was trying to do the absolute most cutting-edge climb I could do, I'd be climbing the Northwest Arrette because it'd be full shade, because it'd be better conditions, it'd be colder.
You just don't want to be in the sun.
It makes your skin hot and stuff.
And so just things like that.
You're like well, if you're doing it for TV and you're trying to broadcast it, then you want it to look good.
But if you're trying to do it for hard climbing in good conditions, you do it in full shade.
And Netflix had a 10-second delay just in case you fell.
I mean, I'm sure part of it's in case you fall, but part of it's like what if somebody unplugs one of the things?
You know what I mean?
It's so complicated.
There's so much stuff going on.
It's insane.
Was there a hardest part of this, a part where you were a little nervous?
The thing I was most nervous about when I started were the bamboo boxes.
Like doing these eight overhanging segments because they're just so relentlessly the same move.
And it's just, it's pretty physical.
Like you get tired for sure.
I mean the actual physical hardest moves, like actually randomly one of these corners up here would have been quite a hard move.
But there was this freaking security camera bolted onto the wall.
And so you use the security camera as this handle.
It was really freaking cool.
And it was like bolted on with these giant bolts.
So it like looks super safe.
And, you know, it was like very robust and secure.
But it would have been kind of like this extreme jump which I wasn't.
You know, it's probably possible, but would have been like a major thing.
But instead, you just reef off the security camera.
And I was like, that's so cool.
So there are a few things like that, like individual moves that are kind of muscly.
But overall it's the stamina, like the challenge of doing this over and over for hundreds of feet.
That was the hardest thing.
Do you have a conversation with your girls and your wife before you go and do something like this about just in case you don't come back?
Not with the kids because they're too young and they don't understand it anyway.
Um, and not with her, because she came with me to Taipei or she was there for like the whole end of it.
I went a little bit earlier so I could adapt to the times and more and like feel better.
But, um, but basically she was with me.
So you know like we went to bed together that night and I woke up that morning, had breakfast together.
So it didn't feel like a big goodbye.
You know, it was kind of, actually she was with me at the base.
So we did the start together and then I literally was like, okay, bye.
And walked over and did the thing and started getting to the top.
So we were only apart for like an hour and a half.
And I saw her through the window a couple times.
And so it felt like she was just there having the whole experience with me.
Did you look at other buildings in the world, like the Burj?
Some, yeah.
I've scouted the Burj twice over the years.
Back when this project almost happened in 2013 or something.
And so I'd scouted some buildings then.
The Burj was just a little too extreme.
It was just too hard.
But someday, maybe.
Who knows?
Because there's not enough.
It's too slippery?
Yeah, super slippery.
Also, it's just the way the holds are.
I mean, the beauty of Type 0101 is that the holds, they're good things to hold.
They're close together, and you're just like, and you can hold them, and you feel secure.
The Burge, I can barely span tip to tip to reach between the holds.
And so then your face is right against the glass.
You're holding on like this, and it's pretty hard.
And you have to do the same thing 112 times in a row.
It's like pretty hard to do it once.
Then you have to do a hundred times.
You're like it's kind of hard.
The other thing that i saw um online after you'd climbed it about one or two days after everyone talked started talking about how much you were paid to do it.
I think because you didn't interview.
There were some quotes that were kind of taken out of context because yeah, a new york times reporter asked me how much i was getting paid and i was kind of like i don't want to talk about it because it's kind of embarrassing.
Because all my friends, it's like an embarrassingly high amount for my community.
Like in the climbing world, if you're getting paid to rock climb, you're like great success, you're getting paid to climb.
That's insane, you know.
And so i thought it was like sort of an embarrassingly large amount.
I'm like oh, this is kind of weird.
But then he sort of poked around and he started comparing it to like boxing matches and stuff, where people get paid like 20 million dollars to like fight someone boxing and i was like well no, compared to that, it's an embarrassingly small amount, you know it's like.
Or if you compare it to like major league baseball contracts and things, and it's like yeah, it's an embarrassingly small amount, But I was never complaining.
Like I thought it was great.
I mean, I would do it for free.
I mean, I've paid money to go up to the observation deck.
The observation deck is way up here at the top and the view is insane and the city is incredible.
And you know it's like 20 bucks or whatever to take the world's fastest elevator to the top of the building.
And you know I've done that in the Burj as well where you like, pay the money and you go to the very top of the building and the view is insane.
It's like I do that like anywhere I travel.
Like the Willis Tower or whatever, the Sears Tower in Chicago.
Like I've paid the money to go to the observation deck and see the view and it's so cool.
And I'm kind of like, if someone's willing to pay me to climb up to the observation deck, that's freaking cool.
Yeah.
I think it's because people, again, they believe that this is you're risking your entire life.
Yeah.
And so they don't think of boxes as risking their entire life in the same way.
Except they kind of are.
They are.
Yeah.
But they don't see it as that.
I know, of course they don't see it as that.
And that's totally understandable.
I get that.
But I see it as, like anybody going into the boxing ring, particularly if they're very mismatched, you know, like you would think that there is some real chance of grievous, injury or like death.
You know, it's like it's insane.
And so I think that people over – the thing is, I think, people that don't know anything about anything like don't know anything about climbing.
Look at me climbing a building.
They're like, it's 50-50 if he lives or dies.
Like, no idea.
And you're like, no.
If you put this in the context of all the things that I've climbed in my life, I felt very confident that I wouldn't fall off the building.
You know, I was like – you know, obviously it's never 100% because, like –
Whatever, it's life.
But, you know, it feels like 100%.
You're like, oh, there's no chance I'm falling off this building.
The rumors were that you got 500K to climb it from Netflix.
Throughout my whole like you know quote-unquote career as a climber, I basically have never worried about money.
And I've always just tried to do the thing and let it all play out at the end.
And so I've done a ton of work for free over the years.
Like actually we were talking about that Half Dome film earlier where it's like I'm shuffling along.
It's like I did that film for free.
I did tons of films like that for free, just because you're kind of like oh, it's part of being a professional climber and I get to go climbing and I'm up with my friends filming on a thing.
You're just like, you're working for free, it's fine.
But by doing all that stuff for free, like I never stressed the day rate never, you know I was like I don't need to get paid to go have fun with my friends on a wall.
Like, it's fine.
But as a result of that film, You know, a year or two later they want to do a photo shoot up there for the cover of National Geographic.
And so you just wind up in other things.
And then and then that got seen and I wound up being profiled by 60 Minutes, which actually is one of the first sort of career inflection points.
It was like the 60 Minutes profile in 2011 or something.
But basically I've done a ton of work for free over my life as all part of like it's all part of the game.
I just love playing the game.
And so you just like let it play out.
And it's funny because with this building, a lot of people thought that I was sort of underpaid by it.
But afterward.
You know, some people have approached me about some bonuses and some other work stuff.
And like basically a lot has already sort of happened.
And it's only been a couple weeks since the building.
And I'm kind of like you know, you don't need to get paid for the thing itself because it always works.
Basically,
I'm kind of like, I don't know.
I'm like, don't get hung up on how much you get paid.
Just do the thing, make sure it's freaking rad, and it all sorts itself out.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, that's also been, like, that's completely true for my life as well.
Even this podcast, like when we started the podcast in my kitchen.
I mean, this is a replica of my kitchen.
Yeah.
And Jack was here.
There was no payment when we started it.
Yeah, exactly.
You're just doing a thing.
You make it as good as you can.
And eventually it all sort of works.
And you're like, cool.
Because that pattern you've just described has played out for 15 years of my life.
I now... And again, my CFO, my commercial director might not love me saying this.
But they know this about me.
And we even talked about it recently with a particular project.
It's like, don't let...
The inability to see where the money is going to come from in the near term stop you pursuing something that you think is going to create value.
Because history shows that actually value, like giving value out into the world, precedes the economics.
Totally.
And so it happened 15 years of my life.
I remember when I started the social media business, a guy sat me down in Google in London and explained to me why I would never make money from that business.
He did the math for me, and the math was solid.
He was like, if you do once, you won't make any money.
And I was like...
You're like, yeah, but I don't think that's true.
And you have no evidence.
Yeah, but you just know it's going to work.
The Uber CEO sat here with me yesterday in that seat and he was telling me he was like the thing is, there's this thing called Jevons Paradox, where when something becomes more efficient or whatever people think of things in linear progression, but actually there's exponential progression.
So when we launched Uber, more people started taking taxis.
So all of the models about how big this market was were all wrong.
And I find the same in that.
And I find the same in podcasting.
When we started about five years ago was yeah, like you set me down and go.
Well, Steve CPMs, you're going to have to be getting a million downloads to make like to earn a living.
Like, but...
You're like, wait and see.
Yeah.
And let it, let it happen.
I mean, you're a prime example of that.
Yeah.
It's always better to focus your energy on being the best at the thing that you're trying to do than figuring out how to monetize it or, you know, make money off of it.
It's like, I don't know.
I mean my whole like life as a climber.
I've always tried to focus on like how do you send?
Which in climbing terms means like do the hard thing.
Like you always focus on sending and then everything else follows.
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It's funny you're talking about mortality earlier on.
I think in the last couple of years my mortality like realizing that I'm going to die someday has been such a wonderful thing to really remind myself of on a frequent basis.
How come?
Just because... Okay, so there's many things.
One of them is the whole idea of like sunk cost bias, where you become successful at a thing and now you have something to lose.
So people go into a state of loss aversion where they start to protect what they have.
And this narrows your life in a way where you stop taking challenges, stop taking risks, stop doing new things.
And the other thing generally about knowing you're going to die and really like reminding yourself of that is it liberates you from getting caught up and worrying about things that, in the grand scheme of like cosmic reality, are like totally inconsequential.
Yeah.
I was hearing someone say the other day, like, do you know the name of your great-grandfather?
Do you know his first name?
Not really.
And do you know the life they lived and what they were worried about and how they were embarrassed and their shame?
Yeah, exactly.
No, you don't know any of that.
And the point is like if you don't even know your own family's bullshit— Like nobody else cares, yeah.
But even, like, extremely famous people, a couple of weeks after, they trend on Twitter, and then—
A week later, everyone just like gets on with their life again.
Well, I'm already experiencing that with this stuff.
You know, like the building was like insane for a moment.
But now it's the Olympics and there's a lot going on in the news cycle.
And it's like the world's moved on.
And I'm like great, I'll go back to just like being at home with my family and climbing as much as I can.
Being at home with your family.
You said earlier that when you were in that van for 10 years, you wanted a girlfriend.
Now I'm not being funny, but people that fit your profile and, to some degree, people that fit my profile, struggle in intimate relationships for a variety of reasons.
And I think I actually saw this in the documentary when I watched Free Solo.
I saw you had a partner at the time.
There was an accident on the cliffside where you fell and she was supposed to be protecting you.
And generally.
I just saw someone who probably is more on the less affectionate, more commitment avoidance side of life.
Is that accurate?
Yeah.
I don't know about commitment avoidance, because actually I have had long-term girlfriends and things.
But yeah, definitely I'm less expressive.
I'm less emotionally intelligent than my wife.
Has she ever given you feedback that she wishes you were more emotionally available?
I mean, I get that.
I mean, yeah, yeah.
In different words, perhaps, but yeah, basically.
Sarnie.
Yeah, Sarnie.
Is her name.
She wrote a letter.
Oh, gosh.
That's funny because the first two words are, oh, gosh, an intimate letter out loud.
Oh, gosh.
She does know me.
Obviously, this is your worst nightmare, she said.
She knows me so well.
But we all have to do scary things sometimes, Alex.
My coach.
She said, As you were reading, you turned to me and said something similar.
Something like, And I laughed and I joked, Don't worry, I know you're dead inside.
If I remember correctly, you gave me a hug.
But I've thought about this conversation a lot because, as the person married to you, I spend a lot of time trying to understand you.
And while there obviously are emotions that drive you I was mostly joking about the dead inside part I do think you are far less affected by some feelings like anxiety fear shame, guilt or self-doubt than many of us.
But the longer I know you, the more I see an ocean of something else hiding beneath the surface.
Filling the space that would normally be taken up by all these feelings is the ability to truly see things.
You move through the world like a hawk, while the rest of us are lost in thought.
As a climber, you can see the way up a rock face, the climability of a building or the late history of a mountain range.
As a father, you notice the quiet intrinsic desires of your daughters or the chores that need doing around the house.
And as a friend, you see the raw potential in every person that you meet.
Sometimes this is the hardest thing about you.
Nothing goes unnoticed.
Neither the strengths nor the weaknesses, the moments of dedication or the moments of laziness.
You are practical and blunt in your assessment of your choices and our lives.
But that's also because you see us.
And paying attention is love.
Your ability to see the world so clearly allows you to also appreciate it more clearly.
And that is a special form of your love.
Perhaps there's a well of emotion in there after all.
But for the purposes of this letter Alex, I want to give you your gift back to you and tell you what I see, particularly in the last four years since we had kids, because I think the way you move through the world with us is a unique love story.
I see you rushing down the trail from the climbing area so you can get back in time for dinner with me and the girls.
I see you flying the red eye so you can be home a day sooner.
I see you cramming in your gym session, even when you have a huge goal on the horizon, so that I have time for my workout too.
I see you pushing your body to the absolute limit during the day, but still managing to stay awake long enough to chat to me at night.
I see you taking on an extra day of travel just to convince someone with money to donate to your foundation and help save the planet.
I see you adjusting your whole training schedule for work opportunities in order to provide a wonderful life for me and the girls.
I see the insane juggling act you do every day to not only be a great athlete but a great dad and husband.
I know it's not easy, but I see it and I appreciate it.
We love you as you are.
Alex, not overly emotional, but present, committed, and always seeing what others miss.
Yours, Sani.
She's very astute.
I was like, that's why I married her, you know?
I don't know.
She's very astute.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I learned a lot about you from reading this.
What do you think?
You know, we all show our love in different ways.
And sometimes I think the conventional way that the world tries to measure love is through the verbal expression of it and romantic gestures and those kinds of things.
But there's another type of person who often struggles, I think, in life's expectations of what love looks like, who show it through acts of service.
That was.
That was literally one of our last big arguments about something like in bed the other night, not like a total blowout, but basically she was sort of like i just need more, you know, of the verbal kind, and i was kind of like i'm literally doing all the things and i always sort of say you know action, speak loud in the words.
I'm kind of like if you're doing all the things, you're doing the correct things.
You don't need to talk about them because you're doing the things You know.
And that was basically a back and forth.
I mean, you know, I took her point that like occasionally you have to say the right thing too.
Well, I have the same.
The same argument on repeat with my fiance.
She needs the words too.
Yeah.
She has like a different language.
She's speaking Spanish.
I'm speaking French.
Yeah.
And also, by the way, I have to say, at some deep level again, because of my early contacts, were like you I wished my parents would break up.
I wish they would just get a divorce because the model of love I saw was not a happy one.
I think at some deep level I have a commitment problem or an intimacy problem, where I'm Even growing up calling someone my best friend somewhat made me cringe.
Like saying affectionate words to someone at some deep level made me feel deeply uncomfortable.
And so you can imagine me being dinged.
And then I think, like oftentimes we go for the opposite.
The person we end up married, like marrying or yeah, certainly for me.
Yeah yeah, my wife is like way more emotionally intelligent than anyone in my entire extended family.
Yeah same, this is how you build a rich life.
Is that you basically like?
I mean, it's like hiring, you find members of the team who have all the strengths that you need.
Yeah, it's like the things that you can't do, and it's like filling your blind spots.
Basically, have you got better at saying the words no, any progress?
Uh yeah, progress probably, But very slow.
But in a way, that's great, you know, because we're going to be married the rest of our lives.
And so that could be another 50, 60 years together.
And so you need to see incremental progress.
Because really, there's nothing better in life than making progress.
And I've started at such a low point and I'm making progress so slowly that I basically have a good project for the rest of my life.
We kind of touched on it before, but one of the things that's been front of mind for me at the moment is actually something I saw in your personality test, which was you were high in perseverance, right.
And we talked earlier on about like mastery and how it's important to persist to get good at something.
But this has just been front of mind for me, I think for a long time, because even like as a podcaster, I realized that a lot of the game I'm like five years in now.
And when I look at someone like Joe Rogan, he's been going for, like I don't know 15, 17 years or more.
Yeah.
And I get, like, so much of the game in becoming great at something.
It's grinding.
It's just going for an unusual amount of time.
Well, it's like compounding interest.
I'm like, look at Warren Buffett.
Have you ever seen stuff with Warren Buffett where it's like you know it took him whatever 40 years to make his first couple million, or whatever.
It took him another, like, 10 or 15 years to make his first billion.
And then it took him, like, whatever, in the last eight years he's made, like, $100 billion.
You know, because his whole wealth is like, whoo.
You're kind of like basically, if you put enough time into something and you let it compound, it slowly gets bigger and bigger.
It's exactly that.
So I've been thinking about— Also, all those numbers are incorrect, but the shape of the graph is correct.
We'll put it on the screen so everyone can see it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Somebody correct my numbers.
The principle is correct.
It's the same as this graph here that you drew of your career.
It's the same as the podcast growth where three years no one was listening, and then we have this whoop.
But that's why you focus on doing something of value.
Because with a podcast, if you feel like you're doing something useful and that you think it's cool and you think there's something there, you just keep doing it and eventually people get on board.
Okay, so on that train of thought, I've thought a lot about how do I create the conditions to out-persist other people in the areas that I love.
And one such thing, for example with a podcast, is like never have a conversation that I'm not looking forward to because that's unsustainable over the long term.
Because then it feels like hard work as opposed to something that we're like, this is amazing.
Yeah.
So when I look at my cat, they'll say oh, this person wants to come, and they've got 160 gazillion followers.
But you're like I don't care about that person.
Yeah, because if i, if i use that as a decision frame my next 10 years, i'll quit.
Yeah, do you think about that?
Like the conditions to out persist in your domain?
I mean kind of yeah, i mean i haven't had to think about it too much because i freaking love climbing in all its forms and so basically climbing it comes easily.
But like in terms of the work stuff i do um, i forget i think i was talking to you before we started recording but um, but i host this podcast called planet visionaries.
Uh, it's like a rolex perpetual planet.
Like i interview scientists and conservationists and whatever And for whatever reason.
Every time I do those podcasts I come out of it feeling all energized and like I should train more.
I should study.
I should learn something.
Basically because the people that I'm interviewing are all so uniquely good at what they do.
And they're all trying to save the world in different ways.
It's like marine biologists exploring the deep sea floor and things like that.
Yesterday, I interviewed these two women about the fact that we've only explored 0001 of the deep sea, which represents two thirds of the planet.
So basically two thirds of the planet, we know like literally nothing about.
And there's like this rich underwater world of like cool stuff going on in the ocean floor that we've never seen and nothing about.
And it's insane.
And I was like, that's so cool.
And I got all fired up about it.
And so I come out of work thing, you know, quote unquote work things like that.
And I'm like energized and excited to learn and grow, you know, push myself.
And I'm kind of like, that's the type of work that I want to do as much as possible.
And then there are other kinds of things where you know I'll do like corporate speaking or something, where you show up at a conference and you just like get ground down, you know when you leave and you go back to your hotel and all you can do is just like lie there on the bed for an hour being like oh, what am I doing with my life?
You know, you feel like kind of wrecked.
So it's like, if you can focus on the work, where you come out of it feeling inspired and like excited to try hard, versus the work that makes you want to like mindlessly scroll on something for hours.
You know what I mean.
Because sometimes you're just like, oh, I'm just so over it.
Yeah, someone said that to me in my career.
They said like whenever you find domains that make you feel expansive, like you should double down on those domains because that's the path to mastery.
You're going to be able to continue.
Yeah, because you can just keep pushing super hard in that.
Thankfully for climbing, that's always just been added.
Like I just freaking love climbing.
It's so great.
You should do it more.
I know.
You make us all want to climb more, Alex.
Yeah.
That's one of, I think, the great consequences of watching you do something like Taipei.
I mean, there was loads of kids in the streets of Taipei, I think that were all trying to climb buildings.
There was loads of, like, funny videos.
Obviously, they were only getting, like, a meter up before they fell.
I was like, hopefully it's not too much copycatting.
Yeah, we got some crazy numbers from Netflix that I think half of people, or more than half of people who have a Netflix subscription in Taiwan watch the building climb.
It's like in Taiwan, it was like insane.
Like literally everybody watched.
It's such a singular striking building in Taipei.
It's like a total national icon.
It's insane.
Have you already started thinking about what you're going to do next?
People are always like, you know, what's your next big thing?
And I'm kind of like you know, if you just focus on doing lots of little things all the time, occasionally the big things just happen and you can't totally know ahead of time.
Explain that to me.
Well, so at least, so I mean, I have climbing goals going back 20 years.
I have all these notes on my phone.
I always have like to-do lists.
I've, especially when I lived in the van and I was traveling, you're like seasonally moving between climbing destinations nonstop.
So I'd lay, I'd layer out all these different types of goals.
Like I want to do these types of things.
Certain goals lead to other goals because they're the same type of fitness, let's say.
So doing really big things help you do even bigger things later.
But doing really hard and intense things help you do other hard and intense things later.
So in some ways, in the way you stack your goals, you can kind of build up to big things or build up to really hard things or whatever.
And so I've always had running to-do lists of like I'm going to try to do all these climbs this year.
And realistically I normally do like half of them or some of them I never even get to because it's like the weather's not good.
I wind up going to a different area.
I don't go to that climbing destination at all.
And so I never even tried the project.
But I've always had tons of goals like that.
And looking back at years and years of that type of those types of lists, I just see that it's slightly hard to predict when you're going to achieve the things that are like cutting edge or groundbreaking or whatever.
You just have to keep doing the things nonstop.
And every once in a while, some of them rise to the top.
I mean, this kind of goes back to the same like value creating things, like you don't know which things are going to be rad.
You just do all the things and some of them wind up being rad.
And the decision framework there is to just do things you love and that challenge you.
Things that are new for you, that are hard for you, that are challenging in the right ways.
You don't always know ahead of time which of those things are going to stand out or not.
But you just do them anyway because you're learning from them.
You're excited about them.
They're hard.
And then, you know, some are cool, some aren't.
Some you never even try.
I'm like, that's fine.
You just keep doing things.
The CEO of Uber Dario, was sat there yesterday and one of the contrarian pieces of life advice he gave, which is kind of overlaid with what you just said, is he said people need to stop making – young people in particular need to stop making life plans because it narrows them to the serendipity and opportunity and things that might happen if they're broad and open-minded.
Well, or –
My wife and I sometimes joke that we both have very strong opinions, loosely held where it's like oh, I'm totally sure of a thing, right up until I get some data that shows that that's wrong.
And then you're like, oh, never mind.
Throw that away.
And that's kind of how a lot of my to do lists have always been, or like my goals, where I'm like oh, I have all these goals.
But if I take a slight fork in my year where it's like turns out, you know, for whatever reason, like something else lines up and it makes sense to do all these other things,
And I'm just like, oh, right turn and just change.
Mm hmm.
And it overlaps with what you said earlier about not worrying so much about how much it's going to pay me today or what the big thing is.
It's kind of like just keep doing cool things and it'll all work out.
I would love if we could scan your brain and look at all the parts, especially in the context.
I learned about this particular region of the brain called the anterior mid-singulate cortex, which I heard Andrew Huberman talking about.
And it's a part of the brain they discovered quite recently that lights up when you do things that you don't want to do.
So not things that you enjoy doing, that are somewhat difficult, like running a marathon, but things that you actively avoid and resist, but do anyway.
Pain, fear, effort, discipline.
This is the circuit that decides whether you quit or you push through.
And it grows the more you do things you don't want to do.
So it's like they now consider it to be the muscle of willpower in the brain.
When they look at athletes, they have bigger ones.
When they look at people who are struggling or less, are more sedentary or struggling with their weight, they often have smaller ones.
Anyone that avoids discomfort has a smaller one.
So um, in your, in the context of the way you've lived your life, you've continued to do things that are hard.
I mean, you can love climbing, but you don't necessarily love yeah, but just doing like one more set every time is like that's.
That's always a challenge.
Yeah, you're always like my whole body hurts, but i'll just do a little more, you know Yeah, and I think the thing I guess here is like about neuroplasticity, which is going to be a ton of people listening right now that are so far away from their type A, from their type A 101.
They're so far away from that.
They're in a job they just don't like.
They're maybe the finance bro that, you know, you talked about a second ago.
And their life is absent of adventure.
And they probably look at you and go, well, you know, he just has something I don't have.
I know, but I just don't.
I mean, I've structured my life in a different way and I've made many different choices and all that.
But that's the thing is I don't really think I have anything different.
I mean, I actually hate all the brain stuff because people are always like, use that to to put me in this box of like well, you're different.
And I'm like, well, not really.
Like I'm a middle-class suburban kid.
Both my parents, like nobody in my family is athletic.
Like nobody is good at sports at all.
You know it's like like basically, if you were to like, look at the, you know, like if I was a video game character and you were to look at all my little bars, you'd be like that guy's not going to be an athlete.
Like, he's not good at this.
You know, it's like my parents are professors and we fricking read books.
Like I'm not There's no aptitude for anything, really.
And I was like bad at sports as a kid.
I'm not good with balls.
Like, you know, there's no reason.
But I mean really, I just have loved climbing enough that I've been willing to put in a tremendous amount of time and effort and eventually get good at it.
And I'm kind of like to hear people say like, oh, your brain's different.
You're kind of like, well, everybody's brain is a little bit different in some ways.
It doesn't mean that you can't devote yourself to something that you care about.
But, with this in mind, and with all the neuroscientists that I've interviewed, your brain is different, in part because you've done different things.
And neuroplasticity says you can change your brain right the way up throughout your entire life.
One of my friends, Tom Bilyeu, is a good example of that.
He's a big podcaster.
You might know Tom Bilyeu.
I don't think so.
But he was, I can't remember the rough age, but I'm going to say he was 30 years old.
He was so, in his words, lazy that he would lay in bed all day.
When his girlfriend came home he said he would jump up out of bed just so she didn't believe that he was in bed all day and he didn't want to be embarrassed.
And when he asked his at the time girlfriend if he could ask her dad if he could marry, her dad said no.
He described it as lazy and down and out.
Over the next 10 years.
He makes decisions to take on more difficult challenges, builds a billion dollar company, sells it.
If you meet this guy today, you'd think like athlete, genius, super smart, motivated.
You'd beg him for advice on discipline and motivation.
Like he's that kind of guy.
But yeah, so what'd he do?
He read a book about neuroplasticity and he realized that he wasn't stuck.
He learned about neuroplasticity, which means that at any age in your life, the decisions you make change your brain.
And that's why I love this discovery of this anterior mid-singular cortex, because it means that maybe in part, the reason why I'm not taking on my Type A 101 is because I haven't taken on my Taipei 101.
Yeah well, you haven't taken on your Taipei 1, your Taipei 12 or whatever, just the little pieces at the bottom.
Because that's the thing.
And actually this is why, when you ask about any big goals, sometimes I think the big goals are slightly limiting, because if you're your friend who's laying in bed, Type of one to one is not the appropriate goal.
You know what I mean?
Like you need, you need to type a four, like you need to just get out and like do a little thing.
You need to achieve some success.
You need to see that you can do something and you need to take on appropriately sized challenges, because I think having a great white whale you know is is great sometimes, but that's not always what you need, you know.
And and partially like for me right now.
You know we're raising two little kids and we're just like in the midst of it.
You know it's like bedtime right now is hanging.
It's just like, it's a lot.
And I'm like I don't need an L-cap size goal right now because we're just trying to make it through a certain phase of life really.
Not to say that I'll never have other big goals, but you want your goals to be appropriate to the time and space that you have available.
I had a psychologist say to me about this idea of just setting yourself a type A1 like a small goal.
The reason why people don't do it is because they see it as almost so embarrassingly small that they don't think it matters.
Yeah.
But I mean, that's why you focus on it doesn't matter to you.
Like, is it something that you haven't done?
Like, is it good for your growth?
Is it challenging for you?
Like, it's good enough.
But that same psychologist told me that when they were dealing with a patient who was so demotivated and that they couldn't get out of their bedroom, which was stacked to the ceiling with plates and cutlery, that day one was bringing the Hoover into the room.
That was day one.
Day two was plugging it in.
That was day two.
And by day 30, they're outside.
This is someone who was scared of going outside.
They're outside walking around.
The room is clean.
But he said to me that people don't take that first step because it's so embarrassingly small that it's almost shameful to say like today, we're just going to bring the Hoover in.
Yeah.
But that's the thing.
It's always better to take a step than to not take a step.
You know, that's, yeah.
I mean, that's how I've always felt with all these things.
You're like, well, you might as well go out and do the thing.
Like, do something.
Yeah.
You remember at the beginning I was like, you don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
Like, you do the good thing, you know, because it's like don't let perfectionism cripple you.
You know, it's like that's why I think you know Taipei 101, if that's kind of like your perfect goal.
It's like don't let that hold you back from going out and climbing Taipei 4 or Taipei 8 or, you know, like some of the surrounding little buildings, because it's like practice on what you can.
It goes back to this point of perseverance.
I read a quote many years ago that said greatness doesn't exist.
Greatness is just good repeated.
I mean, this is what I'm saying about having lots of little goals, is that?
I would actually say that if you repeat good enough every once in a while, some of those are great actually, but you just don't totally know.
You know I noticed that a lot like in my climbing life, like in the long arc of climbing.
There are tons of things I did in Yosemite where, like in a season, I'd have like five or six goals in Yosemite.
I do all the things.
And one of them, for whatever reason, would wind up being like, that's rad.
And it would, you know, like makes climbing news and things like that.
And the other ones, you know, maybe less so.
But you don't totally know ahead of time which ones are cool or not and which ones are going to stand the test of time.
Right.
At one point in the not-too-distant past, I held a speed record on every major formation in Yosemite.
Now a few of them have been broken over time.
But those are the kinds of things where you never really know how long those types of records will last, because sometimes you do them and then your friend comes and breaks it the next season and you're like cool and you go back and forth and it's all part of a fun game.
And then some of them, you've set a speed record, and it lasts for like 15 years.
You're sort of like, oh, I didn't realize that this was going to be such a milestone, you know?
It reminds me of the Steve Jobs quote about how you can only really connect the dots looking backwards.
Totally.
Totally.
Steve Jobs' quote from his commencement speech was, you can't connect the dots looking forward.
You can only connect them looking backwards.
So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.
Clarity isn't a prerequisite for action.
It's the reward you get after you move.
And that's the thing is, I think, because I do so many interviews with, like you know, when was the moment you decided to be a professional climber?
And I'm like, there's no moment.
Like I just did the thing for years and years.
And now looking backward, it looks like this amazing arc.
But at the moment, I spent years being like, should I go back to college?
Do I need a degree?
And then I spent a few years wondering if I should go back and get an executive MBA or something.
Because I was like, I don't want to go back to undergrad.
I've been living in my van for 10 years.
But you're kind of like, still, I need that validation.
I want to jump through the hoops.
And then really, it's only now that I'm kind of like, I don't think I need that.
In part.
I think the reason why so many of us get forced into procrastination when we're trying to connect the dots, looking forward, is because we face these questions from society, which is like what's your plan?
What's your career?
What are you aiming at?
And we don't have answers, so we fill in the gaps.
We have to say something to mum and dad.
We have to say, like, what's the plan for the future?
You can't say nothing.
No, no plan.
Or you just say, I'm living.
I'm just letting it play out.
We'll just see what happens.
It's going to be a grand adventure.
And I mean I kind of hope my kids feel confident with that.
You know just kind of like well, i'm doing the best i can, i'm practicing the things that i care about and we'll see how it plays out.
We'll see how it plays out because like, either way it's going to play out with with me and them and everybody else dying.
You're like you know how it's going to play out at the end end, and so you're kind of like the whole space up to there is like oh, you try to fill it with as many things that you're proud of as you can.
It's a remarkably simple way to live in a world that's increasingly complex, alex.
Well, i mean, it doesn't need to be that complex, But this is why I think spending some time in nature helps remind you of some of those sorts of things.
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If you knew that you only had one week left to live and this was the week and you could only do one last climb, go back and recapture the record.
Go do El Cap again I don't know a different building.
You have one week, and assume you're sufficiently prepared for whatever the climb would be what would you do?
So I'm allowed to do cutting-edge futuristic things?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, well, then I'm like, I don't know.
I mean, the Burrish, like, it'd be insane.
But no, like the free triple in Yosemite is like the three biggest walls in Yosemite.
Free triple.
So it's El Cap, Half Dome, and Mount Watkins.
Mount Watkins is kind of like a Half Dome-sized wall that's further up valley.
So it's the three biggest walls in Yosemite.
So Tommy Caldwell and I have free climbed the triple.
The two of us did it together with ropes, but we, like, climbed the whole thing.
And then I've soloed the triple, so I've done all three with ropes by myself.
It was like 18 or 19 hours or something of climbing.
But it's never been free soloed.
I free soloed Half Dome individually, and I free soloed El Cap individually.
No one's ever free soloed Watkins.
But the idea of doing all three in a day would be, I think, totally next-generation achievement.
There are certain things like that where I'm sort of like if I was starting over, if I was an 18-year-old who was trying to make it as a professional climber nowadays and hadn't higher level of skill than i do now, you know, basically was like trying to do this again, they're things like that.
That would be sort of like the obvious next generation challenge free solo, all three in the same day.
Yeah yeah, it'd probably take.
Uh well, it'd take a bit under 24 hours probably.
What is your training regimen to these days is this go rock climbing a lot today.
I did a little workout in the hotel gym this morning.
Your hands are quite different.
I was they're quite big hands, Well that's.
I mean, I think like a stonemason, just like grinding away their whole life.
I see.
I don't know if people can see that on camera, but it does look like you have very wide fingers.
Yeah, my fingers have taken a lot of abuse in their time.
Because I see you like putting them in between walls and stuff.
Yeah, crack climbing.
It's like you basically put your fingers into a crack and then you torque them.
So like the side-to-side pulling does sort of make your connective tissue bigger.
And does that hurt?
Yeah, it hurts.
I was wondering when you're going uphill.
When you're doing it well with good technique, it's not that painful.
It depends on the type of rock.
But some rock is kind of sharp and kind of painful.
But, yeah, this goes back to strengthening your, what's the part called in your brain?
Anterior mid-singular cortex.
Yeah, exactly, that guy.
I mean that's the thing.
Is that, even when done well, climbing like it hurts your fingers and toes?
You know crack climbing, where you're like jamming your toes into a crack and you're torquing them side to side and you're like wedging your fingers in.
I mean when you're doing it.
Well, it has a pleasant feel of safety to it because you can really lock into cracks and it feels comfortable and you feel like you're swimming.
You're like, this is beautiful.
But when you really come down to the sensations, you're still crushing your bones into a crack like it still hurts.
When I look at this kind of photo, it looks like you're hanging by one and a half hands.
Yeah.
And you're going to fall to your death if your grip isn't sufficient.
It makes me think you must have the world's greatest grip strength.
I definitely don't.
You don't?
I mean, well, you have your grip thing.
You can find out.
What's below you there in this photo?
Well, actually, so there is like a sloping cliff thing below me.
So I'm actually only like 30 feet off the ground or 40 feet.
But if you fell you'd bounce off and you'd go, you know, basically to where it looks like down in the valley floor down there.
Terrifying photo.
Yeah.
It's funny, actually.
Have you seen Free Solo?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Do you remember the camera guy that can't look?
Yeah.
The guy that's shooting the long shot on the ground, Mikey.
He's a really good friend of mine.
I've done tons of things with him.
He shot the Taipei climb as well.
Mikey was the photo assistant for this photo.
He was holding the photos and he did the whole shoot just like looking into the wall, like he just never looked at any of the things happening.
Like jimmy chen was taking the photo and mikey was like did all the the rigging and the lights and everything?
And mikey did the whole shoot just like looking into his arm, like looking the other way.
He was like i am not part of this.
I would like to see his brain sky.
He was stressed, but he i mean, he's an elite climber himself and he's amazing but like basically watching free soloing is stressful and nobody wants to do it if they don't have to.
When is it in all your career when is the moment where you were most scared, where you thought maybe you had pushed it too far?
Oh, it's actually, I've had several moments, but actually mostly with ropes on.
That's the thing, is that because when you're freestyling, you generally keep it within a healthy margin or you practice ahead of time, you know basically, because you're going to die, you make sure that you can do it.
But when you have a rope on, you're way more willing to push into the unknown, because you're kind of like surely I'll get some protection eventually.
I'll just keep looking.
I'll keep looking.
And so, Like I've had – I was on an expedition to Antarctica actually in 2017 and did a bunch of climbing.
That was very extreme, but like with a rope.
But, you know, it's Antarctica.
It's really freaking cold.
Conditions are challenging.
The rock is crumbling.
Everything is scary.
And you just keep hoping that it's going to get better and it just keeps getting worse instead.
And eventually you're sort of like because the thing is having a rope on doesn't mean anything unless you get good protection, which means you have to be able to put gear into the rock.
And if you can't find places to put gear into the rock, then you can go.
You know, the rope is 200 feet long.
If you go 200 feet without getting good gear, then you're looking at taking a 400 foot fall before the rope catches you.
Uh, which is almost certainly fatal.
You know I mean, if you fall that far, even though the rope will catch your corpse, you know, but you're still just going to hit the wall after 400 feet like you're screwed.
So anyway, my scariest experiences have all been situations like that for the most part.
This is why I'm saying climbing, you get scared a lot.
I was like that expedition.
We were climbing basically day on, day off.
Each day we would go climb one of these crazy spires and we'd have these experiences where i'd be like so scared and then the next day we would just sit in the tent, because it's antarctica, it's like really cold.
You're in the cook tent, i would basically just spoon nutella all day, totally shell shocked, like totally, like just completely traumatized.
And then and then you'd be like rest enough and you'd go out the next day and do it again and we just did like day on, day off of like full trauma, fear for the whole trip, And then we climbed everything in the range.
It was amazing.
It was an incredible trip.
So you do get scared.
Yeah, I was so scared the whole time.
Are there any techniques that have proven to be effective for you to deal with that fear?
Like people talk about breath work.
Yeah, take some deep breaths.
Try to compose yourself.
I mean, I try to stay rational.
You know, like, am I in danger?
Because sometimes, like in this case in Antarctica, I am actually in danger.
Like if I fall, I could die.
But oftentimes you feel you get those feelings of fear and you're not actually in danger.
You just it's your mind running away from you.
And so sometimes you can sort of rationally rein in a little bit where you're like, no, I am safe.
The protection will hold me.
The rope is, you know, my gear is good.
And then you just take a deep breath and you just carry on.
And do you visualize falling ever?
Oh, yeah.
I mean, of course.
Yeah, I mean, you have to understand what the consequences would be.
Because, I mean, that type of visualization is also how you can know when you're safe.
Because like, if you have a rope and gear and you're trying to visualize like, if I fall, am I going to hit the ground or is the gear going to catch me before I hit the ground?
I mean, there are often situations like that where you're like, if I fall, am I going to hit that ledge and break both my legs, or am I going to clear the ledge and fall into free space, in which case it's totally safe?
And so...
It helps to be able to have a clear-eyed visualization of you know, because most people visualize the worst case.
Like, if I fall, I'm going to die.
And you're like well oftentimes, if you I'm talking about with a rope if you fall, you're going to be fine.
But it's important to know the difference.
So you don't avoid the confrontation with the negative outcomes?
No, because you're trying to avoid the negative outcomes.
Like, you have to think about it because how else do you mitigate that kind of stuff?
But you can't let that stop you taking actions when the risk profile is okay.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, this is like a whole rant about risk-taking and everything.
But like, I mean, that's the thing is you want to be taking the risks that you want to take.
And it drives me crazy that nobody else thinks about risk in this way.
Because think of all the people that like go out partying every weekend and they get like kind of buzzed and they drive home and whatever.
And it's like, They're taking all kinds of risk that they're not actually choosing to take.
You know, I mean, like they're just choosing to go out and party and have a good time.
But then they're like driving a little buzzed and they're like, no, it's fine.
But you're like no, obviously you're taking a risk.
Or like you're putting yourself into situations where you're like in a vulnerable situation because you're incapacitated, because you're drunk or whatever.
And so, you know, you're putting yourself at high risk for crime, things like that.
And so you're taking risks.
You just haven't chosen to take those risks.
I'm kind of like.
The thing with climbing is that I'm choosing to take the risks and I'm pretty clear-eyed about the risks that I'm taking.
Like I mean, I'm not going to say it's perfect, but for the most part I think I have a pretty good idea of which aspects are dangerous, like when the consequences are high.
What will happen if I do fall?
You know, it's like you try to think it all out as much as you can.
I'm kind of like how many people in normal life actually think through all the risks that they're taking.
And even totally sedentary people who are like, well, I don't take risks.
I stay at home and I play video games.
You're like, no, you're at a much higher risk of heart disease.
Like you're going to die from other things.
And you're still going to freaking die either way.
That's – okay, I'm done ranting.
I'm sorry.
No, no, but it's really important because I think we are all taking risks.
But some of us aren't intentional about the risks we're taking essentially.
That's exactly it.
Like even if you take no risks, you're going to die.
You're taking a different set of risks.
And so people look at my life and they're like, well, you're crazy.
You're such a risk taker.
And I'm kind of like well, at least I'm taking the risks that I'm choosing and I'm choosing them very intentionally and I'm pretty careful about them and I mitigate them as much as I can.
I'm kind of like, well, can you say the same for the risk that you're taking?
I'm sort of like the average person, I think, doesn't think about risk as much as they should.
And is there anything that you would give them as a framework to help them be more intentional about those risks?
Well, it's like you're going to freaking die either way.
So choose the things that you care about and then do them well.
And do them well.
Prepare.
Yeah, execute.
Like, have a plan.
You know, but don't just like take risk willy-nilly.
Like, don't just get drunk and go out and do a thing.
You know, because like that's stupid.
Like, that's not the risk you should be taking.
You know, like don't put all your money on black and just like hope.
You know what I mean?
Like, basically don't just like roll the dice.
Like, don't let fate just like roll the dice with your life.
Like, make choices.
And free soloing is, you know, there's a bigger existential risk with no margin for error.
But it's very intentional.
Very intentional.
Drinking as a risk is like a volume knob.
The more you do it, the more the risk increases.
And the other one is kind of like an on-off switch, which you can do it today.
Yeah.
So grip strength.
I wouldn't be even a little bit surprised if you can pull that more than I can, actually.
But, look, I mean, we'll both try.
Okay, this is a grip strength meter.
Okay, so let's see.
We're at zero.
Kilograms would be extra small.
I mean the thing with these like okay actually, let me just preface this with like I've had tons of people be like well, surely you're going to break the machine.
I'm like no, because for climbing you just have the strength that you need to do the things that you're trying to do.
And how much do you weigh um?
Right now like 165.
165, which is actually basically the heaviest i've ever been, maybe 163 if i'm lucky right now.
So 165 pounds in kg is equivocal to 75 kilograms roughly.
Yeah okay, go ahead.
49 or 50 499, it's just like Yeah, 49.
But those are just kind of like, it's just a different thing.
You know what I mean?
Like, that's not climbing.
49 kg and pounds is 108.
Interesting.
Yeah, let's see yours.
Are you stronger with different arms?
It's about the same with both hands.
It should be.
62?
Yeah, see, there you go.
You're twice as strong as me.
I can't lift my body weight.
I might be able to, like...
Yeah, I mean, I might be able to muster a little more in it, but... 63 on that one.
Let me try again.
But, like, I don't think... Do you work out?
Like, do you do weights and stuff?
I lift dumbbells, but I'm not doing anything grippy.
I curl and stuff, but I don't do anything grippy.
I know, I'm at 50 and a half.
How many pull-ups can you do?
Don't know, but I can... Yesterday, I did a couple one-arms, like, yeah.
One-arm pull-ups?
Yeah, which is very hard.
Yeah, I don't think I can do one-arms, though.
Yeah, well, that's the thing.
That's why grip strength stuff, you're kind of like, nah.
Or actually so.
Have you done weighted pull-ups in a gym?
Weighted pull-ups?
No, i just do.
I'll just do my own body weight and i, you know i weigh a lot.
So i'm like deceptively heavy, really like yeah dense, very dense, can't float in water no, like big bones, you just sink straight to the bottom.
How much kilograms do you think i weigh?
I mean in pounds, you'd know.
But this is now i'm guessing, i don't know, like now that you're saying that you're big, i'm like i don't know, maybe 185 or something.
Whatever, i'm 211.
Yeah, so that's another thing with grip strength.
It makes sense that your grip strength is proportionate.
I mean, you're like 25% bigger than me.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, basically.
So it's like you would expect it to be at least 25 stronger right there, just because if you can do bodyweight pull-ups, you're going to be much stronger.
Yeah.
We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're leaving it for.
And the question left for you is…
What do you want to achieve in your life outside of your mainline job that you haven't yet achieved?
I mean, that seems there are basically two other avenues that I care about in my life.
You know, my family, I want to be a good dad.
I want to make sure my kids grow up to be healthy, well-adjusted people that you know like, live their best lives.
And then I have a foundation that supports community solar projects around the world.
And I'd love to see that thrive.
I mean, basically, I mean, you know, we give as much as we can to solar projects around the world.
And I'd love to see that do more.
On that point of your foundation, what is the thesis there for solar projects?
Yeah, solar.
It's basically energy access around the world.
Yeah, I think now we've given over 13 million to something like over 100 partners around the world, basically like small-scale community solar projects.
So people getting access to energy for the first time.
Basically using solar for anything ranging from light to, say, food refrigeration to electricity.
Pumping water, I mean, whatever people need energy for, which is basically everything.
More than 13 million across 130 projects in 30 countries, impacting 650000 people and creating 1200 plus jobs, protected 15 million acres of biodiverse forest, as well.
Yeah, some of those things are sort of like the secondary and tertiary benefits whereas like, when you empower certain kinds of communities, then they're better able to take care of their lands, and things like that.
Some of that has to do with indigenous sovereignty and things like in the Ecuadorian Amazon and places where it's like when the local people have power, suddenly they can protect their land from illegal logging, illegal mining, things like that.
And so then you wind up having this knockoff like environmental benefit.
That's like also great, in addition to the human aspect, where you're like well, these people are living better lives and to help save the planet.
And you're giving away roughly a third of your wealth to cover the majority of the foundation's overheads.
Yeah, I've been given roughly a third of what I make every year since 2012.
And that's basically just sort of coincidentally tracked with the overhead for the foundation.
So it just means that anything that people contribute goes straight to projects, because I basically cover all the staffing and everything.
How does one contribute to that?
Hanelfoundation.org is the easiest way.
You can support directly.
I mean, you can see all the projects that we're working with.
And donors can go there if they want to contribute to this.
They can go to the website.
Okay, well, I'll link the website below.
And if anyone is interested in continuing to support the great work you're doing there...
I'd highly recommend they go and make a donation.
It's a.
It's also just a way, I think, to give back to you as a person for the inspiration you've given so many of us.
I appreciate that.
You know?
Yeah.
I mean, to me, the foundation has always been my attempt at doing something useful.
It's like, I love rock climbing.
I think it's so fun, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter in the world.
And I feel like the work that we're doing through the Honda foundation, at least material, improves the wellbeing of other humans.
You know, like it actually has a real impact, both for the environment and for people.
Well, I don't know, Alex.
I think watching you climb Taipei and watching the millions of people all around the world climb Taipei was an expansive moment for all of us, because it holds a mirror up to us in a really inspiring way and goes what obstacles can you overcome in your life?
And the many, many millions of people now have that visual and sometimes it is an absurd visual that does that and is most memorable etched into their brains.
And that means that they, in their own life, are looking for their own type A1s or type A7s or type A101s.
And if you play that forward as like a ripple in the ocean of how people are going to strive and maybe live more intentionally, maybe it does really really matter.
Maybe the whole conversation, which was like my entire Twitter feed for days and days and days of people saying this is a miraculous human achievement.
There's like, that's the first half of a sentence.
The other half of that sentence, which we never really hear is like, So now what can I do?
And that is a profound thing.
Well, that's definitely the best frame.
Like that's the framing that I hope for.
And that's, you know, but I think that's like the best case scenario for my climbing.
And like, I hope that that's how people take it.
But I will say that the work through the combination at least has a direct material impact immediately.
You're kind of like, oh, you don't have to hope for ripples or anything.
You're like, well, this person can now read after dark for the first time ever.
And you're like, that is game changing.
If anything, you know, I've been talking a lot about like action speaking louder than words.
And I'm like yeah, I hope to you know it's like it's great if the climbing I do inspires people like that's all good.
But at some point you just do a direct thing that actually helps people's lives too.
And you're doing both.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Aspiring to do my best.
The tangible and the tangible.
Alex, thank you so much.
Thank you.
Amazing conversation.
Thank you.
