Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - How Not to Die | How Alex Honnold Trains His Mind to Stay Calm 3,000 Feet Above Ground

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

How do you stay calm and focused when you’re 3,000 feet off the ground — with no ropes, no safety lines, and no room for error?Legendary climber and free soloist Alex Honnold returns to The Finding Mastery Podcast for a raw, insightful conversation about mindset, being great with fear, and what it means to live at the edge of human performance.Alex is best known for his historic, ropeless ascent of El Capitan — captured in the Oscar-winning film Free Solo (which you should watch if you haven’t seen it yet). But in this episode, we go far beyond climbing.We explore:How Alex manages fear, consequence, and risk with rare mental clarityWhat it takes to perform under pressure — and when to walk awayHow fatherhood and loss reshaped his relationship with ambition and dangerThe underrated power of optimism and framing hard moments as growthThis isn’t just a conversation about climbing. It’s about the psychology behind pushing your limits, the skill of regulating your mind under stress, and how to chase a bold, purposeful life — even when the summit feels out of reach.Whether you’re an athlete, entrepreneur, or anyone seeking mastery under pressure, Alex’s honesty, humor, and hard-earned wisdom deliver lessons for all of us.___________________________Momentous is running their Anniversary Sale today (6/25) through Friday 6/27. This is one of their biggest sales of the year so you don't want to miss this! Get 40% OFF new subscriptions when you use the code FORLIFE now through 11:59PM on 6/27. Our favorite is the foundational Momentous Three: creatine, protein, and omega-3:Go to: Momentous Three Discount! ___________________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and wellbeing: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine: https://findingmastery.lpages.co/morningmindset!Follow on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and XSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Finding Mastery is brought to you by Remarkable. In a world that's full of distractions, focused thinking is becoming a rare skill and a massive competitive advantage. That's why I've been using the Remarkable Paper Pro, a digital notebook designed to help you think clearly and work deliberately. It's not another device filled with notifications or apps.

It's intentionally built for deep work. So there's no social media, no email, no noise. The writing experience, it feels just like pen on paper. I love it. And it has the intelligence of digital tools like converting your handwriting to text, organizing your notes, tagging files, and using productivity templates

to help you be more effective. It is sleek, minimal. It's incredibly lightweight. It feels really good. I take it with me anywhere from meetings to travel without missing a beat. What I love most is that it doesn't try to do everything. It just helps me do one very important thing really well,

stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing. If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter, I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper pro today. In my case with free-souling, the consequences are almost always death. Like for the most part, if you fall off, you're going to die. We understand the psychology of excellence and we understand what a great mindset means and how to be great with fear. And then there's Alex Honnold. Welcome back, or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast, where we dive into the minds of the world's greatest thinkers and doers. I am your host, Dr. Michael Gervais, by trade and training,

a high-performance psychologist. Now, the whole idea behind these conversations, it's pretty simple, to sit with the extraordinaries and learn about how they work from the inside out Today's guest is a legendary climber Alex Honnold best known for his free solo ascent of El Capitan Meaning climbing nearly three thousand feet of sheer rock face. No ropes No safety lines all of this was featured in the Oscar-winning documentary free solo You have to have a lot of not justief, but belief in the goodness of the world in order to put yourself out there and try something that hasn't been done

or try to push. In your 20s, you're constantly surprising yourself. You're like, oh, I did something I didn't think I could do. It was incredible. Now I'm rewriting what I think I'm capable of. It's freaking hard work, and especially as I get older,

it's probably harder and harder work. You surprise yourself with your own success less often. We explore the mindset behind the climber, how Alex organizes his inner life towards mastery. Most people that say they're afraid of heights are actually just afraid of like falling off an edge and dying. And you're like, well, that's totally well-founded. You should be afraid of falling to your death. I don't want to fall off something. It's just that I'm very confident that I'm not going to fall off most things. How he manages risk, consequence, and fear with a rare clarity.

I would prefer to use risk to describe the likelihood of something happening and the consequences being what will happen if that thing does happen. We also talk about fatherhood and how he's no longer just chasing the next step. I still love sending, but I know that sending the hardest things in the world will only last for, you know, at the most another decade. But what do I do with the other 40 or 50 years? I'm kind of like, you know, I want to build like a healthy, well-rounded future. I want to invite you to listen for his deeper framework and how he has this rare honesty to get right down into the truth.

Now I'm starting to think about it a little bit more because my three-year-old might remember me if I die at this point, maybe. So with that, let's jump right into this week's conversation with perhaps the most significant mind in all of sport, the one and only Alex Honnold. Alex, when it comes to the folks that I think are the most significant in the world of athletics, you sit tall on the mountaintop here. And so I'm, I, I love the way you've designed your life, what you've done and how you carry yourself. So I'm stoked to sit with you because I think, um, the way that you've done what you've done is really special and you have a lot to teach us. So thank you for coming in. I appreciate that. I don't know

if I have anything to teach, but, but let's, let's chat and find out i figured you'd say that that's all part of this i'm just living i'm struggling the same as everybody else just doing my best yeah yeah when you say struggle like do you mean that in like a like a suffering struggle or like no i mean no i mean like aspiring to do your best all the time you know but same you have two little kids. I'm like navigating parenthood. I'm constantly trying to decide if I'm doing the right thing. Should I be training more? Should I be training less? Should I be resting?

Should I be going harder? It's like what should I be spending my time on? It's all the same sort of things that everybody deals with. It's definitely the same stuff that I wrestle with. So how old are your kids? One and three. One and three. Let's start here for a minute. When my son was born, so he's now 16, when my son was born,

a friend of mine asked me this question. It'd be fun to ask you this same question. Mike, if you had the chance to go to Mars and you'd be the first one to go to Mars, the only hiccup is that you've got a 50% success rate. Would you go? And instantly, I'll tell you my answer, my reflective answer, but what is yours? Oh, I'd kind of have to think about it, but I definitely would at least consider it. Yeah, I think that you'd probably lean on the side of like, yeah, there's something here. There's something. It's hard to say, though.

I mean, I think I would wind up leaning against that because I don't have any particular set of skills that would suit exploring mars you know like like i should not be the person to go to mars even though it'd be amazing and like that's that's cool and doing a first is cool but but it just shouldn't be me because you're full of first like that's something that you've lived you know there's a there's a ethos in your world of climbing that like when you do a first ascent or whatever it might be that that's a thing yeah yeah it's great i mean it's nice to yeah maybe that's just sort of like explore his gene or something but just the idea of pushing boundaries a little bit like doing something new i mean it's exciting yeah and so then he sweetens so instantly i was like oh yeah i'm going and then i paused and i said whoa wait a minute it's like my son was like six months old. Like, oh, wait, hold on. I got a six month old.

I go, I don't know right now. And then, so then he sweetened it and he said, what if the whole thing was designed that you're the one that saves the planet and you either go or don't go? So he added like a social responsibility on it. And I was like, ah, yeah. Then you obviously go, right?

Then you obviously go, right? And then he says, okay, if I take that away, what's the hesitation? And so obviously you go right for the social responsibility. But if, if that's not on the table, let's go back to your response. Like, do you bring your children into that decision-making factor or is it, cause I was like planted in two worlds i was like i mean you having a six month old i honestly wouldn't because you're six months old wouldn't remember anyway it's like it doesn't matter to them yeah you know it's like now i'm starting to think about a little bit more because my three-year-old might remember me if i die at this point maybe but you know i mean and this sounds really callous but but it's sort of true that that if i die you know my wife will

probably find somebody else eventually or you know we we have a rich community either way. It's like my kids wouldn't be totally bereft of Like they might not have their dad dad But they would have plenty of people in their lives that look after them and love them and help take care of them and Like they're not gonna be left alone. You know, you're kind of like, don't know it's a cool feeling what i mean and that's because of your friends yeah friends and family and and my wife's like a young attractive woman you know like she should find somebody eventually you know i mean after hopefully a healthy period of mourning but like but i mean and she hates it when i talk about that kind of stuff because

she's like oh that's so so callous sounding but I'm kind of like people lose parents all the time it's not as if you're doing you know like uh my dad died when I was 19 and that's obviously a blow but it's not gonna lead to a terrible life necessarily you know it's like or it doesn't have to yeah so how did how did losing your father as a teenager impact you like looking back at it now i was actually just reading this interesting book uh i think it was malcolm gladwell book like maybe david glath i just read it on a flight but um but uh he had a whole side about prominent historical figures who lost parents at young ages and i have kind of thought that encountering like loss at a young age just encourages you to go a little harder in a way because you're just reminded that life is short.

Sort of like, oh, I have a finite amount of time. You got to use it. Yeah, that definitely would have shaped you for sure. And in my particular case, I think it also took off a little bit of the sort of parental pressure to like stay on a path. You know, not that my parents were explicitly pressuring me that hard, but they sort expected me to go to college expected me to wind up and you know would probably wind up an engineer or something but then my dad dying kind of left the door open a little bit to like do other things like maybe maybe not finish my degree anyway I dropped out of college so I think that allowed a little more flexibility anyway you know like let's say it's a heavyweight boxer or a football player.

You know, there's lots of scenarios I could pull in that oftentimes will say, well, once I get in the ring and I get my first hit or I get hit, then I settle down because I know it's not the big bad monster that I had imagined. Like it's it's another skilled person. They're dangerous, you know, but I'm okay. And I think when we face hardships, one of the benefits to come, like you can go through a hardship, like a loss of a parent, and we could have a thousand scenarios, where you could find the track of post-traumatic stress disorder, or you could find the track for post-traumatic growth. You could find either path. And what I hear you saying is like, yeah, I had a real shocker in my life and it like, it, it was materially important and it actually opened me up to go a little further. Yeah. And actually, I mean, both my grandfathers on both sides and my father all died within sort of three years, like in late teens. And so I think. Oh, so you had bang, bang, bang. Yeah. Yeah yeah and not like not crazy traumatic things you know the grandparents

were super old they died natural causes like it was all it's all fine but it definitely was a a stark reminder you know that life's finite and a particularly important time of life too you know i was i was uh 19 guess, when my dad died. So you're sort of like, oh, what am I doing in my life? You know, what am I doing in university? Yeah, you're out of high school. Yeah. I'd done my first year of university and was not thriving.

I was sort of like not, it wasn't, I wasn't, I wasn't well adapted to university lifestyle. It's like I was mostly just spending my time climbing and not that psyched. So you were already kind of, I was already searching. Yeah. And you were already really good at climbing. Like you were getting recognized at that point. No, it wasn't that good. I was, uh, I'd gotten second at nationals, but that's only because of the really good guys had stopped doing the youth competitions. They were all competing with adults. Um, actually just by sure. I was like, okay, I was not a child prodigy i was i was not good i was like brought that up yeah you were psyched i was really psyched you were stoked on it you loved it yeah yeah i loved it but i was

not uh by any means great and it's it's interesting just by sheer coincidence uh the region i grew up in northern california wound up sort of creating like four professional climbers of all the same age and they've all been better than me my whole life basically who four professional climbers of all the same age and they've all been better than me my whole life basically who are these climbers uh so Ethan Pringle who's still a professional climber um he's never as well known as as some other climbers but uh he beat me through all of childhood and everything until like maybe age 14 or 15 when he started competing as an adult instead and doing like international competitions and making money and so then then I was able to do a little better because he left the category but then also

you know kevin jorgensen who uh who freed the dawn wall with with tommy caldwell yeah he was also in my age group same region same everything but he also competed as an adult at an early age because he was so good um i mean chris sharma had come from the same region he's he was like the leading climber of the last generation basically um i didn't compete with him he's slightly different but uh but same area and so anyway i grew up thinking i wasn't that good because everybody else is way better and so i have a whole new appreciation for you because part of the formation years you were not the one i always thought you were the one no no i sucked i sucked i mean i didn't suck i was a good climber i was not a great climber but i was really into it and i love doing i did all the time and that's i think

that's an important distinction because i think it is you know people people look at some youtube clip and they're like oh that guy's like you know people if you're thinking on the nature versus nurture spectrum they're always sort of like oh that guy is just a freak you know there's something wrong with him he can like do these things and you're like no i spent like 30 years practicing this thing getting slowly getting better at this thing still not even that good at the thing it's like just working away working it's like what do you think i'm gonna go back to dad in a minute but what do you think that you are what are you good at yes so little so little come on being humble so you know you've earned

your nickname no big deal no i think I think the main thing actually is psych. The mental part of it? Well, no, psych meaning the motivation. The stoke. Yeah, the stoke for it. Yeah. Because I think particularly with free-souling, which is what I'm most well known for, like the climbing ropeless, I think that volume matters.

Like having done tons of reps, basically like doing a lot of climbing. And I've always been motivated enough to go climbing all the time like always have the adventure like do the thing hike out to the wall even in bad conditions and like try and so i think that has allowed me to get the the volume required to be a decent soloist i mean that's the same traits make you sort of a worse boulder in a way let's say because there are other aspects of climbing where it's better to not do that much volume. It's better to sort of focus high-intensity efforts. It'd be like the difference between ultra running

and sprinting, let's say. You can't do it. Yeah, you can't do both. Because physiologically, it's like different things. So I've always been really into sort of ultra climbing. You know, tons and tons of climbing, wide variety of conditions, wide variety of styles. And that makes you feel pretty comfortable

for the free-souling. It doesn't make you the strongest climber. It doesn't make you a great boulder, let's say. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms, one thing holds true. Meaningful relationships are at the center of sustained success. And building those relationships, it takes more than effort. It takes a real caring about your people. It takes the right tools, the right information at the right time.

And that's where LinkedIn Sales Navigator can come in. It's a tool designed specifically for thoughtful sales professionals, helping you find the right people that are ready to engage, track key account changes, and connect with key decision makers more effectively. It surfaces real-time signals, like when someone changes jobs or when an account becomes high priority, so that you can reach out at exactly the right moment

with context and thoroughness that builds trust. It also helps tap into your own network more strategically, showing you who you already know that can help you open doors or make a warm introduction. In other words, it's not about more outreach. It's about smarter, more human outreach. And that's something here at Finding Mastery that our team lives and breathes by. If you're ready to start building stronger relationships that actually convert, try LinkedIn Sales Navigator for free for 60 days at linkedin.com slash deal. That's linkedin.com slash deal for two full months for free. Terms and conditions apply. Finding Mastery is brought to you by David Protein.

I'm pretty intentional about what I eat, and the majority of my nutrition comes from whole foods. And when I'm traveling or in between meals, on a demanding day certainly, I need something quick that will support the way that I feel and think and perform. And that's why I've been leaning on David Protein bars. And so has the team here at Finding Mastery. In fact, our GM, Stuart, he loves them so much. I just want to kind of quickly put him on the spot. Stuart, I know you're listening. I think you might be the reason that we're running out of these bars so quickly. They're incredible, Mike. I love them. One a day, one a day. What do you mean one a day? There's way more than that happening here.

Don't tell. Okay. All right. Look, they're incredibly simple. They're effective. 28 grams of protein, just 150 calories and zero grams of sugar. It's rare to find something that fits so conveniently into a performance-based lifestyle and actually tastes good. Dr. Peter Attia, someone who's been on the show, it's a great episode by the way, is also their chief science officer. So I know they've done their due diligence in that category. My favorite flavor right now is the chocolate chip cookie dough. And a few of our teammates here at Finding Mastery have been loving the fudge brownie and peanut butter. I know Stuart, you're still listening here. So getting enough protein matters,

and that can't be understated, not just for strength, but for energy and focus, recovery for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value, and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. So because of that, you've had lots of reference points so that you can map against something when you're in a heavy situation like i've seen or felt or smelt something like this an answer is likely in this region yeah and

not panic in like weird situations you know when stuff starts to go a little sideways like literally last week i had a whole so long misadventure which kind of reminded me of my 20s i was like this this feels like something i would have done a decade ago it's like a total botch and how old are you now i'm 30 i turned 40 this summer yeah congrats yeah so what was that what was the debauchery here well i went out i went out to go scrambling in the afternoon and scrambling means like to go freezling so i was going to sell this like 2000 foot wall this like thing by my house average Average day for you? 2000 free soul? Yeah, it was. Yeah, yeah.

Kind of average, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was going to be sort of an active rest day. It was a rest day from like real hard climbing, but it was kind of going to be a casual outing. Anyway, but there were 15 on our way. Is this a consequential wall? I don't know if it ever been soloed before. So, I mean, but it's not like rad.

It's not cutting edge. Okay. Like I wouldn't have, nobody would know about it. It's not like reported or anything. Yeah. I don't know if it ever been sold before. So I mean, but it's not like rad. It's not cutting edge. OK, I wouldn't have nobody would know about it. It's not like reported or anything. Yeah. I'm just giving some context because it's like no big deal. I'm going to go do this thing. So free selling for you is not something that happens once a year. You gear up for it. Cameras on. I'm going to try this thing. No, I mean, the big ones are kind of like the things you do for film projects yes you do for TV or whatever and then occasionally the things you do for your personal projects we were like this is cutting edge this is rad but in order to do the things that are cutting edge you have to do tons of things that aren't cutting edge right you know

it's like you have to practice yeah so I'm so in this particular case I went out practicing and in I mean it was supposed to be like 50 mile 50-mile-an-hour gusts, but you never know with canyons depending on the direction of the wind. Anyway, I was like, oh, that's nice. And so when I was hiking into the canyon, it's really late season right now. A lot of these routes you normally do more in the winter when it's cooler, but right now it's, like, kind of hot. But because it was windy, I was like, oh, that's kind of nice. And it was like conditions were fine.

Anyway, it turns out as I got higher up the wall, it was like ripping wind, like psycho wind. And then the hardest part of the route was like 700 feet up. And basically it was on this like really smooth panel in the center of this wall. And it was like insane wind. And I like basically wasn't really able to climb because it was like too intense. Like you're being shaken basically. It's like hard to even hang on because you're being like pushed back and forth by 50 mile an hour gust. And just to paint the picture one more time, you have nothing to rely on. You've got your hands, your feet, your head,

and you're on the side of the 1,500 feet up at this point. No, 700 feet up. 700 feet. And if you make a mistake, a 700-foot fall is a real problem. So then the thing that made it all sort of traumatic was that in the middle of all this, it's so crazy. I mean, also, it's hard to describe how intense wind like that is, but so my backpack straps are slapping me in the face and like hitting everything.

I had no shirt on. And so like the straps are like slapping you and you're like, ah, everything hurts. And then my chalk bag kept flipping over and basically like dusting my whole body with chalk. So like you can't really see. And you're like, ah, it's like this is intense. Anyway, and then during all this, it's like 50 mile an hour updraft. Like basically my pants are like going, my shorts are blowing blowing like crazy and my phone fell out of my pocket and uh and i was the only car in this like remote sort of four-wheel parking lot thing and uh and i drove an electric car there and so my

phone is my key and i was kind of like oh you know now i'm screwed and so uh and so then i and i'm like near the end of the hardest part in the center of this wall. But then I face this dilemma if I topped out the mountain, like if I made it to the top of the 2000 foot wall, then to hike all the way back around to go look for my phone would I'd be sort of pushing it towards dark. I mean, it's kind of a big thing to some of the mountain and the descent and then go back to the base and look for your. So I went up down climbing straight back down, just like reversing. I was like time to just abandon ship. I was like, this is not my day. But it's kind of a bummer because I'd already done the whole hard part, basically. So I had to reverse the whole hard part.

And you went down. Did you go down because of the wind conditions or your phone? Both, basically. I was like, I kind of hit a point where I was like, I don't think I can go up. It's like too intense with the wind, too crazy. And I mean, when I felt my phone fall out of my pocket, I just stopped and watched it go all the way to the way to the ground so you know you want to keep eyes on to see where it lands so you can go find it yeah but you know yeah i mean it's just like normal yeah well i mean it's kind of normal for you i mean it was like anytime you're climbing even when you're coming with gear if you drop

something you like really make an effort to see where it goes so you can find it again okay because like otherwise again a canyon yeah it's like you know it's a whole mountainside and you're just like wandering around looking for a broken thing it's like not that easy to find when you drop stuff on a mountain okay so i want to i've got a sorry this is a whole weird story no i've got a really tight question i want to ask you but i'm gonna i'm gonna give you a preamble to get to it this wasn't long ago so you and i are not um at all comparable in uh any way when it comes to sport okay so it was i don't know how long ago but there was a big swell and it's in my my local break uh here in la and i you know i'm not out of shape but i'm not in kind of nowhere near top shape to to surf this but i'm like i got it so, grab my board and I'm on the

beach. I'm looking at him like, Oh, it's a little bigger than I thought. It always looks a little bigger from the bottom or something. Right. Oh, it's a little bigger. Okay, good. You know what? I know I'm reading the current. I know exactly. I'm going to hug the jetty. Okay, good. I'm good. You're like, I wrote a whole book about performance mindset. Here I go. Here we go. Right. And so, and there's a bunch of people on the beach are like yeah yeah come on michael and i'm like listening to that i'm looking at it and i know that i haven't surfed you know kind of this size in a minute and i'm hugging the the um so i get in i'm good my mindset is good and i'm hugging on the jetty to kind of take this rip out to stay out of the impact zone. And I don't know what happens.

I can't stay in the current. So now I'm kind of drifting to where the impact zone is. Okay. So I'm right now in a problem zone. And I could, I should have probably turned, I should have turned back around and gone in and tried again. But I was in this mindset, like this walk of shame was not something I'm going to do. This was a dangerous mindset. This

is not what I should have done. And so I did eventually get out outside. I was so exhausted. Triceps are like blown up, like not what you want to have happen. My whole back is lit up and I'm exhausted out back. I had no business being out there at this day. So, so long story to get to this very crisp moment is that I didn't listen to my better judgment. So can you explain how you work with your mind when you've got some social pressures and you've got some ego pressures happening for you as well well in this case in this particular story i mean there's basically no social pressure because i'm alone in the canyon it's just so it's just ego basically

just my personal yeah and and yeah i mean i was in very much a similar situation where it's like you know it was very windy at the bottom of the route and i probably could have bailed then but the thing is i don't want to bail for bad conditions until they're actually untenable, until you have to bail. And in this particular case, I'm sort of like, OK, well, I gave my absolute best shot and then I had to bail. You know, and so, yeah, the conservative thing would be to give up sooner. But you're kind of like, but then you would spend the rest of the day wondering like, well, maybe it wasn't that windy. I mean, as it turns out, it was like much windier as I got higher. I think just the nature of the canyon and the smooth, the sheerness of the wall in that area and stuff. But that's not something that you could totally predict from below.

I mean, you know, you're like, oh, it's a windy day and it's forecast to be windy. But if it's like a south wind in the canyon, basically it just depends on the geometry of the canyon and like the actual specific aspect of the face. And so I'm like, well, I tried my best best found out that i couldn't do it and and went home like so you don't run into a tension there or are you really good with answering the call of danger like the juice is not worth the squeeze um because for me it's a there's a thin line between pushing just past a comfort zone into like a danger zone where there is a consequence. But if you don't go to that place, you don't unlock the thing that you need to unlock to keep growing. Yeah, no, I totally agree with that. I mean, in this particular case, I feel like I pushed well out of my comfort zone and was like okay i pushed as far as i'm

willing to push and this is not working out and and now i'm bailing and how did you develop and then i down climb very carefully which you know it's down climbing is more dangerous than up climbing um it's just i mean it's kind of the same it's okay but it's but it's challenging the reason i ask is so there might be an added challenge like, oh, I'm going to do, oh, one hold. Okay, good. I got this. Like there's a target. There's a more confident posture I can imagine on a normal route up. Yeah. But then when you hit a zone where it's like this is too dangerous, it very easily could flood the whole circuit, which is like, oh, I got to go into protection mode.

This is beyond my limit. So now as I'm climbing down, I'm actually in a different body because of my mindset. That's interesting. I actually don't think I experienced that so much. I think it's more like I hit a point where I was like, my goal was to climb the wall. My new goal is to climb down the wall. And now I'm just going to confidently move down instead of up. You know, it's like the same kind of, it was just kind of like I had one goal going into the day. And now I've reached a certain point where I've completely reset my priorities for the day. It's like my new goal is to down climb, find my phone and make it out of here.

How do you do that? How do you maintain the clarity of goal even when you're in an edge pushing moment? Well, not to say there weren't some moments in the middle where I was like, this is heinous. What am I doing? What am i doing what am i doing this you know this is horrible you know especially with like the chalk blowing my face and the straps hitting me and i was like oh it's really hard to focus and you know but beneath all the external like the physical sensations and like the the challenge of it i mean there's still some you know you hope some kernel of calm on the inside it's like and now we'll just do the next correct thing,

which is in this case going down very carefully. Is that how you speak to yourself, like more technical? Or do you speak to yourself more motivational, more like coach to have your own back? Or is it truly like, okay, find the next hold, good. Okay, that's good. Next one, what am I going to do? I think maybe more technical like that.

I don't know. I don't even know if there is that much real self-talk. Should there be? I don't know. Keep going. I mean, in this particular case, it was very just like, I wanted to go up. I no longer want to go up.

Now I'm going down, and it was just mechanical. Like, okay, I use this hold. I mean, I basically was reversing all the moves that I had just done. I'd never climbed the route before, so as I'd been going up it, I was figuring it out. Sort of like, okay, use this hold. I mean, I basically was reversing all the moves that I had just done. I'd never climbed the route before, so as I'd been going up it, I was figuring it out. Sort of like, okay, here's a hold over here, there's a hold over there, here's how I stay in balance despite the really, really strong wind.

And so then on the way down, I was just like, okay, I'm now reversing these moves very mechanically, like put feet here, hands there, stay balanced. Yeah, so it's truly task-focused. Your attention is focused solely on the task yeah and that's particularly true uh on something that that i haven't climbed before in this case because i actually do have to think about the holds you know it was something because sometimes climbing can feel automatic if you know the sequences really well but in this case i had to

actively scan the wall and like look for the feet look for the hands and kind of where i bailed uh it was important to look around because there was stuff out to the right stuff out to the left you had to like look for the clues you know like little tiny traces of chalk from previous climbers things like that so let's let me see if i can combine two things like we're talking about when your dad passed away and there's it can close the aperture of potential or open it post-traumatic growth is kind of an opening of the aperture. It sounds like you had, I'm not saying that you didn't go through all the stresses of losing a loved one, but you found your way in an opening that with reversing your climb, it sounds like there's a string

between these two, which is like, no, I'm not going to allow this moment to flood my system, to put me into an over-traumatized state. Like I'm just just you're pretty mechanical at that point yeah yeah it's interesting i mean so i've talked quite a lot with some of my climbing friends about this like why some experiences why two climbers can have the same experience and one comes out of it totally traumatized and another comes out of it's like that's just normal day and and actually even while i was up on the wall i mean and and just to be clear this whole experience i'm talking about the other day with with soling in the wind and whatever. It's not as if there's like some unique experience for me, like this kind of things happen.

Like it used to happen a lot more when I was younger, just because I made worse decisions, probably. So I haven't had anything quite like that in a while. But variations on that theme happen not infrequently. You know, it's like where you get into something a little beyond what you expected and you have to sort of manage one way or another or retreat or whatever but yeah i don't know i mean while i was up in having that experience i mean it did occur to me i was like is this the kind of thing that like ends a soloing career not because you fall and die but because you're like traumatized from it you're like i never want to do this again but yeah it's like that's no i don't think so i think it's just you know it's think it's just a bad day in the wind.

I think that's what you do, though. I think that you've got this model that you use everything in your world, internally and externally, to build. So going down is like, you know what? I made a good choice. I'm a safe climber. And I even justified it to myself because the thing I was trying to do was supposed to be like 14 pitches, Yeah, I'm like, I actually did as much hard climbing as I was intending to do for the day.

So I was like, I'll call the day a success. And I found my phone at the bottom. And even though it was completely destroyed, it still functioned. The Bluetooth still functioned to unlock my car. And I was able to drive home. I was like, what a day. You know, I was like, I think I think that though I'm not trying to repeat things like that. You know, it was not trying to repeat any of this. Yeah. I was like, I think, I think that, though, I'm not trying to repeat things like that.

You know, it was, it was, it was, you're not trying to repeat any of this. Yeah. I was like, this is, this is a mistake, but I think that what you just described is maybe one of your crown jewels, the growth mindset around it with just the way that you frame situations, you have your back, you build, you use your external world and your internal world, no matter what the circumstances are and you are you're using it to take a step forward whatever that is like yeah that was a success well i did this many and this many and you know what and i i reached a limit good job

like it's hard to get to the limit go me go it's like i made a lot of bad decisions today but go me but never sounds like that in your head does it no no it's not you're like what an idiot well i spent the whole evening at the freaking apple store and then like add like changing my you did like new phone new switching my number because the thing was shattered like it was all kind of a debacle and i basically wasted my whole evening like dealing with with my stupid decision i was like this was a bad choice and i like wasted a lot of time and so similar to like you find yourselves You find yourself in a heavy situation Again, I'm gonna say this one more time

I think the crown jewel is you don't say to yourself like you said maybe what an idiot but it doesn't it's not like it Gets in it's not like it Corrupts your self-esteem your self-worth your self-confidence. It doesn't corrupt you Yeah, that's probably I've never really thought about it that way but yeah it's probably kind of true how did you i think that i'm very optimistic person basically like believe in human goodness and the general like positive trend of the universe and maybe because i grew up seeing star trek you know my mom was really into star trek i grew up like you know it's very utopian it's very like positive future focused and i don't know i think you'll maybe appreciate this is that um i haven't met a world's best now including you in this conversation that isn't fundamentally optimistic well yeah you have to

have a lot of not just self-belief but belief in the the goodness of the world in order to put yourself out there and try something that hasn't been done or like try to push you know it's like you have to believe it's possible if you're going to push like that period yeah yeah i mean i'm sure that's true for entrepreneurs and everything as well it's like you know if you're trying to like create the next big company or do something you have to believe that it can succeed finding mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday,

what you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentus. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not your average supplement company. And I was immediately drawn to their mission, helping people achieve performance for life. And to do that, they developed what they call the Momentus Standard. Every product is formulated with top experts and every batch is third-party tested,

NSF certified for sport or informed sport. So you know exactly what you're getting. Personally, I'm anchored by what they call the Momentus 3. Protein, creatine, and omega-3. And together, these foundational nutrients support muscle recovery, brain function, and long-term energy. They're part of my daily routine. And if you're ready to fuel your brain and body with the best, Momentus has a great new offer just for our community right here. Use the code FindingMastery for 35% off your first subscription order at LiveMomentous.com.

Again, that's L-I-V-E Momentous, M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S, LiveMomentous.com and use the code Finding Mastery for 35% off your first subscription order. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Felix Grey. I spend a lot of time thinking about how we can create the conditions for high performance. How do we protect our ability to focus, to recover, to be present? And one of the biggest challenges we face today is our sheer amount of screen time. It messes with our sleep, our clarity, even our mood.

And that's why I've been using Felix Grey glasses. What I appreciate most about Felix Grey is that they're just not another wellness product. They're rooted in real science. Developed alongside leading researchers and ophthalmologists, they've demonstrated these types of glasses boost melatonin, help you asleep faster and hit deeper stages of rest when i'm on the road and bouncing around between time zones slipping on my felix grays in the evening it's a simple way to cue my body just to wind down and when i'm locked into deep work they also help me stay focused for longer without digital fatigue creeping in plus they look great clear, no funky color distortion.

Just good design, great science. And if you're ready to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code FINDINGMASTERY20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. Do you have clarity of a compelling future that

you're working toward? I don't know. That's a good one. I mean, instead of sitting in chairs, we should be lying on a sofa. I'm like, I need to recline. Be like, okay, you need a little pendulum. It's like straight therapy. Poorly lit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Turn down the lights in here. Yeah, right. I don't know.

I mean, are you asking like what is my vision right now? Because I mean, I think in this exact moment, I'm sort of struggling with that exact question. It's like, oh, what should I be working on? Like what's the best use? I mean, I think that's as, as a self-coached athlete. I mean, the thing with rock climbing is that there's no like team, there's no team, there's nobody around you telling you what you should be doing. It's like, you know, my whole quote unquote career as a climber, I've just come

up with goals that inspire me and then push myself to do them. And so I think that the biggest challenge, you know, from time to time and of course I've faced this in the past sometimes but it's basically sort of apathy you know every once in a while you're just kind of like well do I need to do that like I mean because it's freaking hard work and especially as I get older it's like probably harder and harder work you know you have you surprise yourself with your own success less often is what I'm finding I think and maybe not because I'm aging but also just with kids now and like family stuff and I work more and do a lot of stuff.

But I think one of the most joyous moments in climbing is when you do something you didn't think you could do. And this isn't necessarily with free-souling, this is like when you're climbing with a rope and you're like, oh, I'm trying something that's in my limit, it's really hard. But then every once in a while, you just have moments of sort of transcendence

where you're like, oh, I did something, like I was sure I was gonna fail, but I did it. And I was like, oh my God, I totally exceeded my own expectations. It was amazing, I'm so psyched. And like, obviously I I did something. Like, I was sure I was going to fail, but I did it. And I was like, oh, my God, I totally exceeded my own expectations. It was amazing. I'm so psyched. And, like, obviously I still experience that from time to time, but definitely less often. You know, I feel like in your 20s, you're, like, constantly surprising yourself.

You're like, oh, I did something I didn't think I could do. It was incredible. Like, now I'm rewriting what I think I'm capable of. You know, and now I'm sort of like, you know, every once in a while I have glimmers where I'm like oh i feel way better than i expected okay so our last conversation was a handful of years ago you were kind of flying high post um your big your most famous climb you know where it was 3 000 so that was the that was before the film came out but after the actual climb i forget when

exactly we spoke. It was at USC. It was at USC. It was awesome. It feels like a long time ago to me. Yeah. It's like so much has happened since then. I'm pretty sure the film came out after that.

It was pre-COVID. Well, yeah. I mean, yeah, pre-COVID. But for me, that was like pre-marriage, pre-kids, pre-crazy film. Yeah, right. Pre-my adult life, basically. Yeah, it was a whole different world. There's something that you said about risk-taking.

So this is kind of pre-kids, pre-marriage, that I'd love to play it back and then have a reframing or an agreement. I'm super curious what I said about that. What you said, okay. Because in a way, it's a totally different person. That's like 10 years ago. Emma, can you play that clip that we were talking about earlier of how he was talking about risk? So spending some time in the adventure world

and the action, you know, high stakes environments, there's a phrase that happens when I'll talk about some projects that I've been part of and people will respond. They'll lean back and they'll say, why would they do that? Speaking of you or somebody, like, why? I don't understand it. And then there's this unique phrase that pops out right behind it, which is, well, they can't have kids.

And then something like, and they can't really love their mom. So I don't get the sense of that for you, but how would you respond to that? I don't know. I mean, I don't have kids or family or anything like that, so I can't speak to that. But I mean, I think that I'm making very clear, intentional choices, and I would think that I'll continue to make well-informed decisions, you know, regardless of my family situation. I don't know. I mean, a lot of my friends, other professional climbers that I've done a lot of the big enchainments and things with do have kids, do have, you know, young kids.

And it's not as if anything has changed for them. I mean, we still, I mean, the goal is always to survive. It's like, I mean, we want to live. So it's not like, you know, it's not like that's going to change. That's funny. At the end, I'm referencing Tommy Caldwell. You were. And I still actually paraphrase something that he always says.

I mean, he sort of jokes that he didn't want to die in the mountains before he had kids, and he still doesn't want to die in the mountains. And that sums up my current attitude still. I'm like, well, I didn't want to die in a terrible accident before I had my kids. And now that I have kids, I'm still not trying to die in a terrible accident. And you're also pointing to your decision-making. You're like, my decision-making is pretty sound. So, well, at least you like to think so. It's like this whole little anecdote we were telling earlier. It's like, but still, still trying my best. So has being a parent changed the way that you approach risk? I mean, I don't think that much.

I mean, I recently did a difficult soloing project for a film thing that will hopefully be out in a year and a half. But it was the first sort of cutting edge wall that I'd soloed in a while. I told my wife that I was like, you know, I think the thing that I'm doing is probably like top 10 free solos for me. And she was like, oh, because top 10 for me at this point it's like it's pretty hard and uh actually at the time I think she didn't think that much about it and then she was actually hanging out with Tommy Caldwell and then she mentioned like oh he said it was top 10 and Tommy was like uh isn't that kind of messed up like are you stressed and she was like anyway but so it was the first like hard thing I'd done in a while for sort of extreme free soloing if you want to call

that and you don't like to call it extreme well I'd done in a while for sort of extreme free soloing, if you want to call that. You don't like to call it extreme. Well, I mean, it didn't feel that extreme. Top ten. I spent two weeks. I prepped like four or five days and did it, and it was great and had a good time, filmed on it. It was like it didn't feel extreme, extreme. But it is challenging.

Like the grade is, I don't know. It suited me well. But my point being that before I did it, I was kind of like, is this going to feel different now that I have kids? Like, is this going to be scarier? Like, am I going to get up there and find that I don't have it anymore because I'm just like visualizing my three-year-old and you know, like our, our morning routine and everything. And the reality was that, that I had a great time. I loved it. I was up there. I was like, this is so great. Like, I love this kind of thing. I mean, because I did the prep, I felt confident, felt felt easy and basically felt great. So you didn't have the distraction that you thought like, you know, at the base or somewhere in a tricky moment where it's like, man, maybe I shouldn't be pushing because I need to be there for my kids.

No, I mean, you know, I was I was thinking about my I was facing my kids like every time I could through the trip. But for the actual climb was like I did all the prep work required. I felt good. I felt bad. I don't know. Yeah, it was amazing. You have a really rich insight about the difference between risk, danger, and consequence. Can you open those three up for us? Yeah. I mean, so I like to differentiate risk and consequence. I mean, danger is kind of just its own thing. But most people use risk to sort of mean like something seems dangerous, like, oh, that's really risky. And I don't know what the actual definitions of all these words are. Like I haven't used dictionary, but I would like to,

I would prefer to use risk to describe the likelihood of something happening and the consequences being what will happen if, if that thing does happen. And so in my case with free the consequences are almost always death. Like for the most part, if you fall off, you're going to die. So the consequences are incredibly high. But if you're watching a video or you're seeing a photo of somebody free-souling, you can't really evaluate the risk. Like you can't judge the likelihood of me falling off through an image because some of the terrain is really freaking easy. And oftentimes if you're seeing photos or video, you're probably seeing the parts that are easier because that's the part that we decided to film on you know for a lot of for a lot of this kind of content like sometimes i do the things by myself and then you go back and you film on

the parts that are scenic or the like look great and to the casual viewer you can't tell the difference between the easy stuff and the hard stuff anyway it all looks insane you're like that guy's hanging on the side of a cliff like that's's crazy. Yeah. But so, you know, basically I think it's hard for a viewer to, to evaluate risk. You know, it's hard to, to determine how likely somebody is to fall off or how likely something bad is to happen. Because for them, it's a perceived risk for you. Well, for them, actually not what they're seeing are the consequences. They're seeing that the consequences are death no matter what. So they're like, that seems insane. Oh, so the lens that they see through is the consequence. Yeah, exactly. I got you. But then, but then they sort of use the word risk, but basically because the consequences are super high, they sort of conflate that to me and like,

oh, it's, it's likely that you're going to die. And you're like, well, no, the likelihood of me falling off is practically zero. It's just that if I do, the consequences are severe. That's right. And so I think that there's a healthy attitude around evaluating risk like that. It's like just because the consequences of something are incredibly high, if the likelihood is incredibly low, you're kind of like, well, it could still be reasonable to do that thing. You know, I think it was – I attribute something to you, but I actually, as we're talking, I don't think you shared it with me. I think it was Luke Akins. So Luke jumped from 30 000 feet into without a parachute into a bunch of boxes oh the net thing yeah okay yeah heaven sent was the name of the

project yeah so imagine that 30 000 feet you look down your target is the size of a stamp and it gets bigger as you go it gets that's the type of optimism yeah yeah. That's the optimist. That's great. And so when he called me up and he's like, Mike, are you in on helping me with this project? Damn, dude, this is binary. Yeah, either you do it or you don't. Yeah, either you hit it or you don't.

But you're going to hit it. I mean, does anybody miss? So he was – well, so he did. Did he ever miss in practice? He did 86 halos high altitude openings which are dangerous in themselves you have to have special permission for ish you know for someone like him not that dangerous i mean he is exceptional um for me incredibly dangerous okay but so he was 86 for 87 where he actually didn't miss once yeah so once

so going into the how why'd he miss i was a win thing oh you know like so he's like doing his best to do his best he's tracking tracking and like it's counterintuitive you know when you're skiing but i guess that's the kind of thing where you you judge your conditions before you go and that's right and same to your point like and there's there's gusts that happen to similar to your climb and you have to suspect that of his 87 practice goes He probably did a lot of his practicing in marginal conditions to see what the limits of the conditions are all types of ranges Yeah, and so so that's kind of always that was hanging in his mind but 86 for 87 he's world-class Yeah, you're on the day of he's gonna do it. Let's go. That's Joe and

so on the day of he's gonna do it let's go that's joe and so on the day of he was actually behind the target and so meaning that he had to you know it's closing fast and he had to put his head down to increase his speed to be able to get to the target so he didn't land right in the center he landed just just in the net he survived um he was successful but just like those last minute calculations the last kind of 1500 feet were heavy and so but that's what he practiced right i mean that's like a normal that's like a normal day for him yeah the thrill was this is where i get confused the thrill at the end when he made it was like he was glowing there was a thing that was like the most alive i know luke is in those moments and i don't get that from you i don't get that when you when you got on

top of when you're on top of a wall i think that's because rock climbing is fundamentally less thrilling than falling out of space that's right you know climbing is a little slower a little more that's right different different d DNA It is still deeply satisfying though But I suspect that part of what part of the rush that he was experiencing was having completed something that he'd worked on for so long That's right. I've achieved this thing. That's right. And so with climbing I mean, I definitely get a thrill of achieving things that are hard, you know Like if you put tons and tons of effort into something and then you succeed like there's still definitely a thrill around that But it's just not the same as jumping out of space you know because that's like yeah it's totally different now do you so oftentimes like the most dangerous part of a thing is moments

before the final success is going to take place like the last three the last three steps to get to the top of the the mountain do you think that's actually a thing? I don't know if I believe that. I feel like that's sort of like a cliche, but I don't know. Or when people say like with climbing, the accidents always happen on the way down to mean like, oh, you have to stay alert the whole time. And you're like, well, no, accidents happen on the way down for different reasons.

With high altitude mountaineering because you're incredibly fatigued and weather and whatever. Or with rock climbing stuff because rappelling is fundamentally more dangerous in a way because you're hanging on the gear and whatever. But I think those types of accidents happen at those times. I'm like, is that true? I don't know. I think that you're probably pretty extraordinary at holding focus. And so you're not letting the eye. But don't you think anybody doing something cutting edge like that is focused all the way?

Yes, I do. You know, like how many Olympians like coast across the finish line? It's like, no, people go all the way to the end. Well, there's one. And there are notable exceptions. Those exceptions make the rules because you're like, oh, that person got beaten by a nose because they eased up at the very end. That's right. That's embarrassing.

You know, it's like deeply embarrassing. embarrassing yeah or like in the nfl when people like spike the ball on the one yard line magazine yeah you're like but like but those types of stories are funny because they're so rare because you're like what an idiot yeah right and spiking the ball in the one yard line is what's the consequence there yeah it's like not that big deal it's not physical like when your life depends about it i mean i bet his teammates made fun of him for like the rest of the rest of his career yeah you don't live that down yeah but it's like when your life depends on it you're paying attention so that is you you're hitting on a couple things that are really important one that statement when your life depends on it you do what what how did you just say attention you pay when your life depends on

it you pay attention when something really matters you go all in with your intention yeah with your attention with your intensity with your the focus to be able to execute we take life pretty casually that's because most of life is very casual yeah but the at the deepest level the consequence of you missing um on the surface level you missing a joke that you're you're or a smile from your your newborn or whatever like okay there'll be another one yeah totally at the deepest level you don't get that one back it's gone yeah you don't get that one back you'll get tons more maybe if we're alive yeah yeah right because with some luck yeah yeah with some luck because we don't know when this thing ends so like this i can get somber quickly on this because there's a unknowing about how the bet that we're going to have another one it's unknown but for the for the last 53 years of my

life it's worked out there is another one but there will be a time when it's not and i learned this from studying the samurais samurai warriors is like i want to there will be a time when it's not. And I learned this from studying the samurai warriors is like, I want to prepare to be great in my moment so I can be great at the moment, my last moment too. And so what you're pointing to is when something really matters, you're great with your attention and focus. I love that insight. I also love what you're saying is like for your climbs, there's a compelling future that you're working towards. Now there's a finite nature to it. And I think we

need to pull both of those forward to live a great life. What is the compelling future I'm going to live? Um, as a, as a parent, as a whatever, as a global citizen, what's the compelling or what's so important that I can give all of my attention to it. So, but that's, I think that's the crux. That's the really hard part is like, there's so few things in life that demand that level of attention or that you want to give that level of attention to. And particularly in the modern world where there's so many other things that are engineered to take your attention, you know, it's like, you know, I mean, it's a little cliche to complain about that kind of stuff, but it's like, there are just so many, I mean, mean just think like advertising like stuff constantly trying to grab you and like take your attention

It's like you really need something that matters a lot to you to keep you focused on a certain path Especially when you're down a scrolling doom and there's the dopamine the cheap dopamine hit you didn't earn it But you're getting that little kind of hit of like feel good. You're feeling alive like there's something happening and then you're like wait There's nothing happening. I'm just like my shoulders hurt from being hunched over my phone you're like what am i doing with my life that's like terrible so what do you do to manage social media and the kind of the cheap dopamine well i just i don't have any of the apps i uh i mean i still post i have the accounts and i post stuff but um but i send it to to a friend who does it for me basically I like send my captions send photos and that way I can batch stuff so if I'm on a flight I can just

like send a bunch of photos send a bunch of captions and then it just gets doled out over time is that because you you don't think that you can manage yourself with it or is it uninteresting to you because yeah it's no it's too interesting I mean that's the thing is that it is because it used to be that I mean so you know I mean all the apps used to be way more benign you know fewer advertisements like chronological scroll like all that kind of stuff where it's just like a little less addictive like designed to be less addictive and so then i was kind of like oh this is fun you know i see what my friends are up to but then then it was like too much time and so i would like erase the app sometimes but then you like reinstall the app because you feel like you have to post something but then when you're going

to post something you're like oh what's what's my friend doing like oh my friend has a new girlfriend what's her deal like oh wow and then you go down some rabbit hole and then you like reinstall the app because you feel like you have to post something but then when you're going to post something you're like oh what's what's my friend doing like oh my friend has a new girlfriend what's her deal like oh wow and then you go down some rabbit hole and then you're like what am i doing my life is a complete waste of my time it's totally stupid yeah anyway chunks of 28 minutes you know are we lose them yeah no i remember uh i'm just making that number up between yeah no uh freaking instagram uh uh released what was it reels or whatever like their version of tiktok yeah and i remember i was like sitting on the john was like what's this and then just started scrolling and like you know like 45 minutes later i get off the john i'm like oh my legs went numb i'm like what am i doing with my life and then immediately

uninstall the apps again it was like no i'm done with this like this is psycho like what you know that's a discipline there's a discipline in you that comes through. Well, but the thing for me, though, is that it only takes discipline once because otherwise, to uninstall the apps, and now, you know, because I've been having my friends sort of manage it for so long, at a certain point, she wound up changing

all the logins and everything. So all the two-factor authentication is all through her now. So I can't log in even if I wanted to. And that just happened because it was more practical because she had to, like, log in and out of stuff and whatever but so the discipline required was the one time when i erased the app and then the choice to have somebody else help me with it and then and that saves me from having to use self-discipline every freaking day that's

brilliant that's that that's a thing that i learned it's like a passing comment about when I go shopping for food, be disciplined in that moment. Totally. Because then your house is filled. No, that's exactly. Like my house, when I'm sort of quote unquote on the program, when I'm like tight about diet and like training hard or doing whatever, yeah, it's exactly that.

There's just no, there are no sweets in the house. Sort of like it's easy that way. Then when you go to your cupboard, you know, you don't have to make a choice between the sweets and the whatever. Yeah, exactly. It's easy that way. There's nothing to eat. Then when you go to your cupboard, you don't have to make a choice between the sweets and the whatever. Yeah, exactly. It's not a hard choice. You're like, I'm gonna eat anything I can find.

You're like, sadly, there's nothing to find. So that's what you eat. Or like, oh, I have sardines in the cupboard. I guess I'll eat those. So you are disciplined. Well, I mean, I wouldn't say I'm any more disciplined than anybody else. I think you employ strategies like that to limit the amount of self-discipline required.

So you're clever in the way that you design your life. Yeah, trick yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Life design type stuff. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down.

And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that. Their bedding, it's incredibly soft, like next level soft. And what surprised me the most is how much it actually helps regulate temperature. I tend to run warm at night and these sheets have helped me sleep cooler and more consistently, which has made a meaningful difference in how I show up the next day for myself, my family, and our team here at Finding Mastery. It's become part of my nightly routine.

Throw on their lounge pants or pajamas, crawl into bed under their sheets, and my nervous system starts to settle. They also offer a 100-night sleep trial and a 10-year warranty on all of their bedding, which tells me, tells you that they believe in the long-term value of what they're creating. If you're ready to upgrade your rest and turn your bed into a better recovery zone, use the code FINDINGMASTERY for 40% off at CozyEarth.com. That's a great discount for our community. Again, the code is FINDINGMASTERY for 40% off at CozyEarth.com. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Caldera Lab.

I believe that the way we do small things in life is how we do all things. And for me, that includes how I take care of my body. I've been using Caldera Lab for years now. And what keeps me coming back, it's really simple. Their products are simple and they reflect the kind of intentional living that I want to build into every part of my day. And they make my morning routine really easy. They've got some great new products I think you'll be interested in. A shampoo, conditioner, and a hair serum. With Caldera Lab, it's not about adding more. It's about choosing better. And when your day

demands clarity and energy and presence, the way you prepare for it matters. If you're looking for high quality personal care products that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. I love that you are living your life according to the way you wanted to do it, but I've made that up. There might be a hidden little secret that you're working from that you're like, yeah, look, I think this thing got away from me.

I was pure, I was a dirt bag. I say that affectionately for folks that don't know what that means. That I'm living in your car to climb, not into it for money. And then this thing happened. Now you're famous. You are asked to travel the world to share your insights and ideas. There's real pressures. You've got money and a

house and a family and, and, and has this thing gotten away from you in, in any structure or are you, are you managing it well? I mean, I'd like to think I'm managing it well, but no, that's always the question that I ask myself. It's like, oh, is this the path? You know, because if my only goal was to send the hard, you know, to do the hardest climbs, to do things that are cutting edge, then obviously I would cut away any kind of corporate speed, any kind of work events. Like, you know, I host two podcasts. I'm like, I'll cut all that kind of stuff, you know, like any kind of extra things that all get cut away. And I would just try to send.

On the other hand, the reality of climbing is that you can only climb like 30 or 40 hours. Even if you're adventuring all the time and having like crazy things, you can still only do it for 40 or 50 hours in a week. And that still leaves you plenty of time to do other hobbies and stuff like say host a podcast or like do some work event. And that's kind of the challenge for me is that there's always going to be some balance. And, you know, now I have a family and so that's like a whole other dimension as well. And so if I wanted to climb the absolute hardest things, then yeah, it'd be easier if I didn't have a family, if I didn't, if I didn't work at all. But I know that sending the hardest things in the world will only last for, you know, at the most another decade anyway. And then a lot of the stuff around working and having a family and all that is like me looking at the whole rest of my life. You know, I might be alive for 50 plus more years. I'm kind of like, well, maybe 10 of those could

be devoted to sending, but what do I do with the other 40 or 50 years? I'm kind of like, yeah, that's where, you know, I want to save retirement. I want to provide for my family. You know, I want to build like a healthy,-rounded future let's do a um a comparison let's go back again 10 years pre-family what was your purpose then and sending the gnar sending the gnar yeah the the sending just like reckless abandon in sending no but just like wanting to leave a mark and climb like wanting to achieve something in climbing like do things that have been done like do hard things like improve as a climber just go hard so was it notches on your belt that you had the most first no i mean not exactly first but but you know you could sum it up as that

basically not just like you know achieving things that matter whatever okay and it was it for the experience of and the knowing that you were able or was it for the recognition that like you know oh he's top of the totem i mean it's a little bit of i mean you know like it's a lie if you say that recognition doesn't matter because obviously being recognized by your peers and being sort of you know impressing your friends always matters but a lot of it is is feeling like you're improving i mean so much of climbing especially for me for so many years, going back to Yosemite every season, every spring and fall, each season you're trying to outdo what you've done the previous seasons.

Like you do a route, and then the next season you come back and you try to do that same route in a day. And then you come back and you try to do that same route in a few hours, or you try to free solo that route. Or basically there's this constant progression of ways to get better at rock climbing. And so you just want to keep feeling like you're improving. Is it fair to say that you made a fundamental commitment in your life to pursue that purpose? Kind of, but, but, but not explicitly, you know, it's like, not as if I would have said that I was on this path. And that's kind of the thing is that sometimes it's hard to

tell until a decade later when you're like, Oh wow, I was really like doing it for a long time. Yeah. Okay. So how has your purpose changed or not go back now take us into present moment? Well, I think present moment, like I still love sending, trying my best, but just the reality is that I spend a lot more of my time around family stuff, around work stuff, around everything else. This is, this is the thing work-life balance yeah and actually let me just say though that the thing that i struggle with is um and i think i think this is maybe in the film free solo but i think one of the things that my wife has sort of brought to my life a little bit is that she's always had this this idea of like well why not have it all or like why not do it all and and she brought that up at the i think it's in the film free solo but

toward the beginning of our relationship I was kind of like I should be single and angsty and like it'll help me send and she was like Why don't you just have a happy well adjusted relationship and still send, you know? She's like why don't you just have both like you don't need to be? Like depressed and angst full in order to perform I want to be happy and still perform and at the time that felt like a revelation revelation to me I was like huh like you mean I can be happy and still climb really hard and in a way I mean it's really played out

that way like we've had a we've had a great you know now it's been almost 10 year relationship it's like all happy and healthy and I've still arguably done all my hardest things you know in the last 10 years actually that's probably true wow so you are doing harder things now than you did before but yeah you know what's interesting actually so this is this is the whole thing so you know i do a lot of corporate speaking and the structure of my my talks always sort of lead up to freestyling all cap which now happened in 2017 so it's like a long time ago and so i spent a lot of time talking about you know the build up the training all the things I did before all cap and then my show always just you know my talk ends with me summoning all cap and so I know my my ancient history really well in a way because I talk about all these

stories all the time but I sort of discount all the things I've done in the last seven or eight years because it's it's post all caps it's like who cares and and the reality is that nobody nobody knows any of this stuff nobody cares like it's just anyway so while back a couple months ago my wife told me that uh i have all kinds of notes on my phone where i keep track of like training and climbing and just things and like plans for the year and aspirations and whatever you know i have tons of different notes she was like you should have a note of all the things that you're proud of since lcap you know like climbs that matter to you like basically like list out things that matter and so i started keeping track of like you know 2022 what are the things that i did in those years and when i started listing out achievement like climbing achievements that kind of would matter you know i was like none

of them got any of the recognition that free song all captive because they're not like that scale but a lot of them actually are really cutting edge and like cool and i'm proud of them but like nobody really knows about nobody cares and i'd sort of forgotten about a lot of it and listening it all out made me sort of recognize that they've had like some very productive years since then they just aren't they aren't l cap so you kind of forget about. This is like a little bit of a golden handcuff, is that it's a thing that you're most known for, and it's a moment in time. You loved it. You feel really good about Free Solo.

But there's something different about you than when we met in 2017 or 2018 or whenever that was. Well, hopefully I'm slightly more mature. I mean, I'm 10 years older. But there's something different behind your eyes. What is the difference that I'm picking up? Is it a deadness? What do you see?

I don't know. Is it a deep fatigue? Is it I have a one-year-old and a three-year-old? No, there's something. I don't want to put a word to it. I have two words that describe it. But how would you describe the thing that's behind your eyes? If you can, go back to the stage at USC and go back to this moment.

I mean, if I had to guess, USC eight years ago, whenever that was, I mean, I would have been a lot more shy in a way, like way less used to public speaking, way less comfortable with that kind of stage. I mean, also at the time, that would have felt like one of the classiest things I'd done. I'm like, this is great. It's USC, you know, the storied institution. It all would feel like way more intense. Whereas now I've just done so much more of that kind of stuff.

It's like, oh, it's, you know, it's all a little bit more casual and fun. So the words I have is, and these need some explaining, is that there's a more openness and there's a, it's like you're closer to the surface. So shy would be an interesting way to have the reverse of it. But you're closer. You're the the the porousness between more open. Yeah. Who you actually are and and how close that is to the surface feels way more available.

Yeah, I can see that. I mean, I think part of that part of that is just adulthood maturity and just being a little more like you just mature into yourself for some well ideally it's the aspiration of maturity yeah right but then i think part of that is also the sort of well-founded confidence that comes with achieving most of the things that you're trying to do in life you know it's like oh i've gotten to do the things that i'm most proud of and I mean the thing with like I spent so much time talking about the film Free Solo and Free Soloing All Cap and all that and I'm like at least it is the thing that I am incredibly proud of you know it's like if you're gonna spend a lot of time talking to groups about a thing at

least it's something that I am very happy like every time I see you don't cringe when you watch it no it's like oh I'm so proud yeah yeah it's amazing it's a master film is amazing it's beautiful the scenery is amazing like it just makes me happy on every level and I'm so proud. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. It's a film is amazing. It's beautiful. The scenery is amazing. Like it just makes me happy on every level. And I'm like, Oh, that's great. And so, you know, to spend your time talking about something that you're excited about, it's like, yeah, it's just, it's good. What is harder? What is scarier? What's more uncomfortable? You pick the adjective here. Um, vulnerability and intimacy versus, you know, pushing an edge where definitely the former it is. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So talk about how you manage or work through, maybe even bring up a moment if you can, where you were like, man, this is, this is really hard for me. I'm imagining it's no details needed but a conversation

with your wife or maybe like reading my vows or something like at our wedding uh we actually had two we got married during COVID so we did like a tiny family ceremony like during COVID and then did like a giant you know friend party at our house uh whenever COVID was like less restricted I don't know like the next year or something but um but yeah like public displays of affection like that i mean oh that that feels like much more challenging what's at risk and also in general i would say that it's much harder for me to receive praise than to receive criticism in a way which is which is interesting because i do so many public events where everyone's like you're so amazing you're so amazing but i find it like

very draining you know eventually i go back to a room where everyone's like, you're so amazing, you're so amazing, but I find it very draining. Eventually I go back to a room and I'm like, oh, I'm so worked. Why is that? I don't know. Huh. I mean. Yeah.

Well, actually, and to be fair, if I had all those people telling me that I was shit, that would probably be kind of draining too. But that would also be demoralizing. But I think in general, it's just easier to take criticism in a way. Well, I wonder if it's because – Or like criticism can fuel you more in a way. You're like, oh, F that guy.

Let me show him. I wonder if it's because the praise, it's pulling you forward. So now there's a spotlight on you when that happens, which would be uncomfortable for healthy people, but feel really good and i at the same time and i wonder if you're afraid of that drug and so is one of the reasons you constantly kind of manage it or push it away or deflect it because there is a drug in being recognized for being special and if it comes if the drug source is constantly external then we need them to do it and it's a very dangerous proposition if we can back ourselves do it. And it's a very dangerous proposition.

If we can back ourselves and believe in ourselves and have a relationship that is grounded in something within ourselves, it's always available. There's a mastery to that. There's a dependency on the former. Yeah. I've never really thought about in this terms. I mean, I don't think I've ever struggled with like that internal self-belief, you know, at least not in things that I feel good at. I believe you. Yeah. I mean, mean yeah like obviously i spent my whole life like doing like the things that i think i can do i really believe that i can do i mean there are plenty of things that i can't do yeah and are those things climbing and relationships well climate no relationships i'd say i'm terrible relations have muddled my way through and thankfully have have stumbled

upon a great wife and like managed to make it you know managed to hold on to that for a decade but um but no I'd say I'm terrible that kind of stuff but um maybe not terrible because actually you know we've yeah we've we've navigated I mean just navigating the whole free solo filming and then the tour and all that I mean it's like quite a relationship stress you did all that with with yeah well so yeah i met my my then girlfriend right when we started filming making that film and so it was two years of them making the film which was incredibly stressful for a new relationship because it's like they're literally documentary camera crews following you around while you're like trying to date

it's like that's sort of weird and intense and then there was the whole film tour coming out after that you know which culminates with us going to the Academy Awards and all that kind of stuff. And you're like, it's all a lot for a new relationship. It could have been a disaster in the making. Totally. Right. But in a way, it actually worked, you know. I don't want to say it brought us closer together, but it was like, because we probably would have been together either way.

But I think, you know, it was like a stressor that I think made the relationship better rather than worse. I mean, this is so trite to ask this, but I want to ask it with the preamble that I really have a high respect for fear and its role that it takes. And we all face it. You have it.

I have it i have it that you know like fear is part of um the broth of living well and if if that broth is too salty too much fear like call it clinical anxiety you know like that's a really good metaphor yeah it's part of the broth yeah good so what are the things that you are afraid of? Oh I mean all the all the same things everybody well, most people are falling though. Well, yeah, but I am too I mean, I don't want to fall off something. It's just I'm very confident that I'm not gonna fall off most things Yeah Actually, I mean and I say this to people at events all the time because I always have people come up me like oh But I'm so afraid of heights and I'm like almost nobody's actually afraid of heights

Everybody's afraid of falling off and dying You know most people that say they actually afraid of heights. Everybody's afraid of falling off and dying. You know, most people that say they're afraid of heights are actually just afraid of like falling off an edge and dying. And you're like, well, that's totally well-founded. You should be afraid of falling to your death. You know, I'm afraid of falling to my death. It's just that I'm pretty confident that I'm not going to fall off on easy terrain. It's a tricky one because I too, I have all of that biological stuff right when I even get to an edge of any cliff and I'm and I'm in control of my body. I'm standing at the edge of the cliff. There could be a fence there, but I'm a little closer to normal. And I look down and I still feel all of that DNA biological stuff saying, hey, this is dangerous. And I can feel, okay, I'm not going to jump just

randomly over the thing. But there isn't an impulse like, should I jump? You do wonder, yeah. There's a weird thing that happens. Okay. All that being said, the fear of death, what is your model of what happens after you physically die? I think you're just done. Yeah. I'm not religious or spiritual in any way. So I'm sort of like, oh, when you die, it's like, you know, it's like powering off a device. You're done. Yeah. It's an interesting philosophical position. It's like, were we told, okay, so I'm gonna get into a dangerous territory where there's gonna be plenty of people

in both of our communities that are like, man, you got some work to do here, Mike. But were we told from the institutions of religion that there's a better later, so be a good servant now to the powers that be, that screws with me. I have a low trust. I think like most folks right now on institutions, there's a like, what's really the game that's taking place? And are, okay, so were we told generations ago in my family that be a good servant? Because if you're not, you go to a bad place when you die. And if you are, the rewards later are going to be amazing. And you're saying, yeah, I'm not buying into that.

I think when we die, we die. That's it. Yeah. Yeah, basically. So does that increase your ability to live well? Well, that's the thing. I mean, circling back to, to parents dying at a young age and sort of like experiencing loss. I think that's a reminder that

when people are done, they're done and, you know, just like, Oh, I have a very short amount of time. So better be better live the best life I can. Yeah. And that for you involves that I'm looking to do, do the things I'm looking to do. Yours involves, um, uh, uh, a tethering that's different than most people between physical life and physical death. What do you mean? Like you mean the things that I'm trying to do are consequential, consequential more, more than, more than the things I'm doing on a regular basis. And do you think that i live a crazy life because people think you live a crazy life i sit i'm indoors i think your life seems relatively i mean it seems interesting but very normal very normal right which would be boring and i wouldn't say inspiring and i think you think that most people that that live indoors

are kind of crazy no i don't think so i mean the thing is like i could a different life. Like, you know, I would love to be doing what you're doing if I wasn't doing what I'm doing, you know, like I can, I can definitely see myself in tons of different worlds, you know, like I could, and I think maybe that's grown up with a rich imagination, like, which I think contributes to the life that I have lived is that, you know, I could imagine going on a totally different path, but you know path. But I sometimes get asked things like, oh, if you couldn't climb, what would you do? And I'm kind of like, anything. I don't know, I was studying to be an engineer.

Maybe I would have been an engineer. I could imagine any other life, and I could imagine feeling pretty fulfilled in most lives. So imagination, probably linking to compelling future clarity, probably linking to great, great motivation to actually apply yourself to do the things that you see in your movie. And when you see the movie, do you feel it? When you use your imagination, do you feel like you're actually in the movie or is it more? Yeah, I think so.

I think that visualizing the right things can trigger the accompanying emotional state that's right like if you really visualize like i mean if you vividly think about falling to your death and things like that then you're sort of like well it makes you feel a little you know maybe not quite like quite the same feeling but close enough when you do imagination of like a new thing that you're going to do or something that you want to be great at um is there if you were to make up a ratio between seeing the success of it and seeing the the mistakes and failures of it both are important i think what is the relation what is the percentage relationship

between the two that's interesting i have no idea how to put a number to it because it's probably not quite 50 50 but you know it's probably 70-30 positive to negative or something like that. I mean, because there's definitely a fair amount of negative. But overall, it skews positive, I think. And when the negative pops up, what do you do with it? You just, I mean, you just watch it the same as everything else. You're just kind of like, I mean. I rewind it.

I'll catch it as soon as I can. And then I'll rewind the tape and then like lay a new track over it. Or what I'll do is I'll rewind the tape and then like lay a new track over it or what I'll do is I'll just kind of pause and reset I want to lay another track over the mistake track or put myself in the compromise situation and figure it out from there those are the two things I see see I don't quite see that I mean I see the point of that because that's like to learn how to do something well or to feel confident doing it but I see all the different scenarios playing out like if Like if I'm visualizing a hard climb, let's say, and you sort of imagine falling off different places, you imagine like your foot slipping or you imagine like your hands

feeling all slick and like it being humid or whatever. Like no matter how many negative things I sort of visualize, I don't think that that changes the likelihood of anything happening one way or another, but it just allows you to sort of process all these different potential forks in the road. Cool, so you use it for like almost an emotional framework. Well, it's like scenario planning. Yeah, cool. Sort of like these are all the things that could potentially happen.

Me thinking about them doesn't make them any more likely to happen. It just means that I've at least considered the possibilities and then ideally mitigated against them. Yeah, I do not believe if you close your eyes and see a red bicycle, it's gonna show up in your you know like that's not how this works there is evidence but i do believe that if you close your eyes and you visualize the things that could happen you'll be less surprised if or when they do happen and that's that's the whole point to me brilliant and

that gives you an additional reference point it's like a free reference point yeah exactly it's like you get to practice without doing the thing. Without any consequence. Yeah. The only consequence is feeling the feelings that might accompany you. Which is what you're trying to do anyway, because the idea is that you don't want to feel those things too intensely on the day of, you know, like when you're actually doing the climb, you don't want to suddenly be like, oh my God, I can't believe I'm up here. This is so crazy. Right, right.

You're going to be like, oh no, this is exactly what I imagined it would feel like. This is normal. Finding Mastery is brought to you by iRestore. When it comes to my health, I try to approach things with a proactive mindset. It's not about avoiding poor health. This is about creating the conditions for growth. Now, hair health is one of those areas that often gets overlooked until your hair starts to change. That's when people pay attention. That's why I've been loving iRestore Elite. It's a hands-free red light therapy device that helps stimulate dormant hair follicles, helps to support regrowth. It's a clinical grade device.

It's simple to use. It fits right into the rhythm of my day, whether I'm meditating, reading, prepping for one of our clients here at Finding Mastery. It's really simple. Now, red light therapy has some pretty amazing research behind it when it comes to cellular energy, tissue repair, inflammation control, as well as healing. iRestore is using those same principles to help your hair thrive. I really like this product.

I used it last night. I use it on a regular basis. They also offer a 12-month money-back guarantee. So if you don't see results, they'll refund you. No questions. I love that. They have real confidence in their product. And because you're a member of the Finding Mastery community,

right now they're offering our listeners huge savings on the iRestore Elite. When you use the code FINDINGMASTERY at iRestore.com slash findingmastery. Again, that code is findingmastery at iRestore.com slash findingmastery for exclusive savings. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Lisa. Sleep is one of the foundational pillars of high performance. There's no arguing that. And when we have great sleep consistently and deeply, we give ourselves the best chance to operate at our best physically, cognitively, emotionally, sleep affects it all. That's why I care about the environment that I

sleep in so much. And of course, a great mattress, it matters. One of our teammates here at Finding Mastery has been sleeping on a Lisa mattress for over a year now, and it's made a noticeable difference. They specifically chose one from their chill collection because they sleep hot, something I know many of us can relate to, myself included. What are they reporting back? Fewer wake-ups, deeper rest,

and feeling more recovered when they jump into their work here at Finding Mastery. Lisa has several models to choose from. So whether you're a side sleeper, a stomach sleeper, or somewhere in between, there's a fit designed specifically for you. And what I appreciate most is their purpose. They've donated over 41,000 mattresses to people in need.

I love that. So right now you can get 25% off all mattresses at Lisa.com plus an extra $50 off when you use the code finding mastery at checkout. That's Lisa, L E E S a.com plus an extra $50 off when you use the code finding mastery at checkout. That's lisa, L E E S a.com. The promo code is finding mastery for 25% off and then plus an extra $50 on us because quality sleep is just too important to leave to chance before. Let's go back to free solo for a minute. How many times did you see the route in your mind? Oh, I mean, it's a huge route. So it's more like visualizing very specific sequences and certain boulders and everything.

And so would you play the whole thing in your mind? Or would you do segments? No, I don't think I've ever visualized the whole route. It's too much. It's like, it's too big. Yeah. I would just think about the different segments here and there. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, that makes sense to me. I mean, to actually, I mean, I can't. And even on the day of, like when I freestyled all cap, I couldn't have visualized every move from the bottom to the top, I don't think. Because there's a lot of easy filler climbing that I just knew that I would just climb. Yeah. That you just don't have to memorize because it's easy. If you had like one thought for our community to live a great life,

what would you leave us with? It beats me. I'm like, I'm here to learn, you know? So you tell me, I don't know. I always just say like, do the thing, you know, like whatever you're working on, like just do, do the thing. I think it's important to know what the thing is that you're working on. That's what, well, like I'm learning. Yeah. I'm learning that that's a little bit of you're in a transition phase right now well it's hard to say or i'm just in a grumpy week it's just i split easy i've got this banded on one finger i like split one of my fingertips which is like a pretty common thing in climbing but anyway i have a cut on my fingertip and so i'm trying to do this like hard climb and i can't really hold on that well because my one

finger split and it's just kind of frustrating i keep failing and you're just like oh i'm like what am i doing yeah it's amazing like one fingertip it's so embarrassing because like nfl players will like break their femur and like take a bunch of vicodin and go back in and play out the rest of the game and climbing is like you split your tip and it's like the tiniest tiniest cut on your fingertip but the thing is is you just can't pull as hard as you can on your fingertips if it's split. And so even though like in the grand scheme of human pain, it's like totally trivial. It's like nothing compared to like a boxer getting punched in the face over and over. But it does affect performance enough that you just can't push as hard as you need to. It's very frustrating.

It's so sad. You got a hangnail. Well, that's kind of it. Yeah. You're like, oh, my hangnail is bleeding. It's so embarrassing. I just can't send. Yeah. You're like, Oh, my hangnails bleeding. It's so embarrassing. I just can't send my garage. And you're like,

God, that's annoying. Okay. Let's go back here. I would love if there's something I can do for you to sort out, um, this transition phase about where you're going next. Is there anything there?

I can be a service like of what you're, what you're really working on right now. Well, I mean what do i do next you know it's like what's i don't know i mean how do you juggle like what you should be doing versus what you want to be doing versus what well let's open up and how do you know when you know i mean i think for me uh like climbing has has more longevity than most sports. And so like I'm turning 40 this year, kind of like realistically, actually, like one of my friends who's 65, I think, just climbed one of his hardest routes. And you're kind of like, oh, it's pretty good. It's a little different for me because I've been trying my very hardest since I was in my 20s, like since I was, well, since I was 10.

You know, basically I've been trying as hard as I can as a climber. So it's not as if I have quite as much room for improvement you know because I've been training like my whole life to this point but I think there's still definitely some room for improvement but like how hard do I want to go and I don't know I spent um I've been climbing at this wall that's like over an hour hike up to this cliff and so you have a lot of time to chit chat with your friends as you hike up to the wall and the other day I was hiking up with a friend of mine he's a professional climber one of the best sport climbers in the US Jonathan Seegers and He was he was kind of pushing he was like he was advocating that I try to do harder routes like harder grades

Because he's kind of like oh, you know You realistically probably have a five-year window at this point to like do the hardest things that you'll ever do And he was kind of like don't you want to feel like you've achieved the hardest thing you can in your life? And I was kind of like, yeah, I hear you. It would be nice to like have a bigger number on my resume or whatever. But it was like, if I never climbed again, starting tomorrow, it's not like I'd look back at my climbing quote unquote career and have any regrets that I should have done it differently. You know, I'd be like, Oh, I'm pretty proud of what I've done. I think I've done, done my best and it's great. Like that that's that's fine. And so I'm kind of like how much harder should I go and you know?

I don't know which things do which things do I want to do? Where do you feel? Most alive is it on the wall or is it with family? Is it like no, it's like yeah, it's like so long walls So it's so great. I love I love just rambling up and down things. Is it soloing or is it pushing the edge where there's the consequence, danger, risk, skill intersection is most precarious, most exciting? No, it doesn't have to be the most dangerous thing. It just has to be things that are – I mean I think one of the challenges for me right now is that – I was saying to a friend that I've sort of picked all my low hanging fruit, you know, like all the things that I think are cool. Like I've just done a lot, you know, like I've been going really hard for 30 years or I've been a professional climber for 17 years and I've been going like hard the whole time.

And so a lot of the obvious challenges and like things to do, I've kind of done a lot of it. And so now anything that's like new and exciting for me represents like a season long project or like some kind of like big thing. Like a couple years ago, I did. I live in Vegas, like Red Rock is like the famous climbing area outside of Las Vegas. It's like these beautiful mountains. Anyway, over the years, I've sold tons of different routes in Red Rock. And a couple years ago, I did this enchantment where I sold the entire mountain range in a single long push. It was like twenty five thousand feet of vertical, like up and down every peak. I tagged every named summit and did like 14 classic climbing routes, like up and down all these things.

Anyway, it was like a 36 hour nonstop climbing thing. And the whole time I was working on it, I was like, this is psycho. Like, why is this the thing that I have to do at this point? Because it used to be enough to just go in and climb a route and think like, what a cool day. I sold this route and now i was putting together this insane roller coaster ride up and down every mountain climbing all the routes and all the mountains in a single single go and i was kind of like is this what it takes now to to be excited about doing a new thing i was like god that's so tiring and now i look at the mountain range and i am very satisfied that i did this

cool traverse i mean i was proud of. But to do something better than that, I was sort of like, oh, that's too much. Is it too much effort or prep or is it too much time away from your deepest investment? Yeah, a little bit of both. That's the thing is that, yeah, I mean, most of my climbing goals right now are just so much more home focused

and like training in the garage and just, you know, because that way I can do breakfast with the kids, dinner with the kids. Like I'm always at home for, for at least the beginning and end of every day. Yeah. I wonder if this is more about like this quote unquote work-life balance, which I'm not sure I can't teach it. I don't understand it, but like, I wonder if it's more of that or if it's more like, okay, am I in this last call it five to 10 year window where I need to go big and have another thing? If it's that, I would want to know, like, am I answering that bell for others? Or is that my bell that I'm ringing?

No, that's a fair question because you're kind of like, yeah. Though I don't think anyone expects anything of me at this point. I think really, I think you've, you've got that kind of freedom. Yeah. And I mean, and I don't even necessarily expect that much of myself, but I just, I just look, I like doing it. You know, it's like, it's so fun to, you know, and it's interesting the last couple of years, like the, the biggest projects that I've done have been sort of media things like uh like tv projects or film things because they're so much easier to justify the

time away from from family because like we're getting paid and it's a professional thing and it's like a good work opportunity and whatever it's just easier to to do those as opposed to a personal project where i'm just choosing to spend a month or two away from the family because i want to achieve something for myself that just like doesn't feel like right and it's certainly not fair to my wife who's then left with this like giant burden of yeah dealing with the two screaming babies I don't know so it just means that a lot of my climbing has been sort of work focused like that and and I love doing that and I love those projects but it does it's just not quite as I don don't know. It's not the same. If you never got paid again, would you, would you look for challenging routes if you didn't get paid for this? Yeah. I would

still try to find all the things that, that I haven't done. Like, you know, you just want to find things that are new and first. If people no longer had interest in you speaking about your life or your accomplishments or whatever, I'd a lot more you would be okay with that Oh, yeah. Yeah, so there's no climb more. There's no drug for money. There's no drug for attention Well not to say that it's not nice to get paid for doing something you love to do and and I mean I like to joke My friends that corporate speaking is like the best gig in the world Which what is corporate speaking like just speaking to groups and stuff? I'm like, oh I get paid to tell stories about rock climbing like i could literally talk about rock

climbing all day anyway i love rock climbing it's like yeah it's the easiest work in the world and and i love if i'm going to do any kind of work i love doing that kind of work and what if that if that went away for whatever reasons how would you design your life i'd probably just come i mean i'm still sponsored by by climbing companies and and uh and, uh, I would just, I don't know, just try to send more. You try to send, or if it all just totally wound down, if I got canceled for some reason, that's right. Yeah. Then I, I think I would just hang with the fam and climb. I don't know. Yeah. Interesting. So then, so then, okay. So now you're making it a little bit more honest, right? I'd hang with the fam. So this is a little bit more about, balance between time with family, time on the mountain.

And that sounds like that's the main challenge. Look, one of my great fears is that when I'm done here, when I die, is that my wife and my son, if they were to say, you know, good man, really tried his best to make a difference. That's shit. You know, like kind of selfish in that like he went after it his way. And I wish he would have spent more time with us. It's a fear that runs underneath for me because they are my greatest supporters. They are my greatest challenger of me to be my best.

And I do have that like at what point do I stop saying yes to the corporate gig that requires me to go to, you know, wherever. Middle East or whatever. But I mean, but your son's 16, So you must have a pretty good sense of if you nailed that balance, right? I mean, he's basically an adult. Well, teenagers are tricky, you know, but my goal is one of my, like, I want to ask you what, what success means to you. But what my, one of my working definitions of success is, is a great adult relationship with my son. Like, I can't wait for that, but that means I need to have the right investments now too. And okay.

So, so let's do that. Like what is success when you're a parent or like in life, in life? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, do you know what failure is? Well, premature death probably. I mean, you know, or, or like poisoning all the relationships around you and like leaving the world the worst place.

It's interesting hearing what you just said there with an adult relationship with your kids because actually, so I live on a property with two houses and my in-laws, my wife's parents live next to us in a separate house, which is totally amazing. And so it's kind of like a little family compound. And then my mom lives down the road. And so basically there's a bunch of family like in the area and it's nice. But so it's been interesting seeing my in-laws and my wife as like adult, their adult relationship. Because, you know, my wife is turning 32 or something.

But we've had two kids over the last couple of years and my in-laws have been there to help with all the things. And it's just been interesting to see that that my wife is probably closer to her parents now than she was through her 20s because they're living together they're like you know they're helping with with grandparenting and like all the things and it made me realize that you know I think I'd sort of traditionally thought parenting is like from 0 to 18 and then your child is off in the world I'm kind of like I don't know I mean my my in-laws are like deeply involved and they're like with I'm kind of like, I don't know. I mean, my in-laws are like deeply involved. And they're like with my wife all the time. And I don't know.

It's broadened my vision of parenting. You know, it's more of like a lifelong pursuit, which is obvious, I know. But it's like interesting to see it. Yeah, there was a moment where I thought I could go anywhere in the world and post up and be excited about a new culture. You know, like I've got this romance about Portugal. I've got a romance about New Zealand. Like, and then, and then at some point I was like, wait, and then at some point I was like, wait, hold on.

Like, this is where I'm going to be in my family. And I'm there. That's where I'm going. I totally agree. I think for, for my later years of life and like wherever the family goes I have two daughters wherever they wind up settling and don't you hope that they stay in the same neighborhoods or same like So yeah, or at least the same region or yeah, right? Yeah If that if I had to I have one I'd have two houses on you know, like yeah

Yeah I mean I think that's that's totally the way and that's what my in-laws are doing they live next to us for most of the year and Then they live next to their other daughter for for the summers I mean it gets like really hot in Vegas and so they can be basically with their grandkids year-round Where does your press have I just had a nephew this morning? Oh, you did the yeah My my sister-in-law had a baby this morning. Congrats. Anyway, the in-laws are there my wife's going to a couple days It's like yeah, it's a yeah, it's the first the first male in the family in like a generation everyone's had girls oh you have two girls you said i have two girls and and uh and i have a

niece already and then now we have a nephew i'm like oh what a day where's pressure come from for you right now well i mean there isn't really any and that's sometimes what i think is would like in some ways i think it would help if there was somebody telling you like you need to do this because like i think i'm capable of doing a lot more if I tried, you know If I wanted to if I wanted to work that hard, but you're kind of like I don't know. Yeah, I think this is the challenge of having much Totally, you know, and it's funny because I mean you don't want to complain about being successful but you're sort of like

But but I think the joy is found in the challenge and the striving and the struggling And if you there's nothing to strive for or struggle for then you're kind of like, oh, where the joy is found in the challenge and the striving and the struggling and if you there's nothing to strive for or struggle for then you're kind of like oh where's where's the fun but i'm excited for you to teach let's let's let's revisit maybe in like a handful of months or six months or something to teach like what are you learning about because i think the the new kind of quote unquote pressure is from much a love of climbing time away from family and investment in family is kind of the, the, let's go back to the broth, the broth that you're trying to sort out the next phase. And again, it's like time with family time with climbing. It sounds so simple when you break it down like that, but that that's kind of the new, the transitional phase that you're in. It's not, am I gonna go climb the next highest notch

for my peers or for me to know that I did something special? Like, I don't think you need that. It doesn't sound like it. It'd be nice, it's good, it's exciting, but the real tension is between time on the mountain and time with family. And I might just be projecting on you

what's happening for me, but that's what it sounds this sounds like there's a similarity there yeah just it somehow feels easier to justify time away from family if it's for something cutting edge you know if it's some rad objective yeah because when you're just like oh I just want to go climbing I just want to go out with my friends and climb this route that I've climbed a million times before you're kind of like that's hard to justify so you're like or I could be at home to do school pickup. And also just so that my wife has enough time to like do her own projects,

she's like working on a book project and like doing her own stuff, you know? And so I think that when you focus on the cutting edge stuff or even like I was saying, like doing TV projects, like big projects, it's just so much easier to justify because you're like, well, you have to do that because it's like some big thing. That's right, yeah.

But yeah, I mean, I think you're kind of right though, the navigating all those like big project versus small project versus family time. And the interesting thing with family time, though, is I think that, you know, it's like you obviously don't want to spend, you don't want to be 100% focused on your kids all the time because that's not healthy for your kids either. It's not. And I've sort of found that if I have several hours a day of parenting,

I'm really into it. Let's say like two or two and a half hours of like full play devoted to my three-year-old. Like we're doing a thing. And I do that quite a lot. We spend a lot of time. We have a swing set and we like spend a ton of time on the swings, just like playing on the swings and hanging out. And like that works. Beyond that, though, I just can't do that many hours a day of just like playing with the child.

But I also, and I could be wrong about this, but I feel like she gets a lot out of that. You know, it's like you don't need to see someone all day every day to have a strong relationship with them. You can have like meaningful interactions when they matter. Quality of time is way more important than quantity. There's a balance between the two. Totally. I feel like I'm only good for a certain amount of quality a day there you go so i'm kind of like that and maybe that's a personal failing but i'm kind of like i can do a few hours of like quality a day yeah but beyond

that i'm like oh like i just don't like i just don't love kids the way some people love kids and i mean even my kids i'm like i love my kids but you know i can only play with my kids so much every day your commitment to be honest is cool. Yeah. Well, I suspect most people feel that way. Yeah Yeah, I think you're right And I mean and I've met plenty of other people like, you know I say my mother-in-law has like this remarkable ability to just like be with kids and be present and play like almost indefinitely But for me, it's like there's just always something in the back of my mind with like there there are other things I feel like I should be doing. Yeah, it's like it's just I something in the back of my mind with like there there are other things i feel like i should be doing yeah it's like it's just i mean i can do

a few hours and i'm like into it it's so fun it's like beautiful but then you're like okay i should be like training or you know if you could sit with a true master who would that be well i'd say i've met a lot more masters of craft yeah i've met a lot of people who are good at a thing. I would say I've met very far fewer masters of self. And I may be, I don't know, I'm interested in both. Because, I mean, I love masters of craft. Like, I love, like, literally any craft. Like, I love meeting people who are very, very good at a thing. Because I find that so interesting.

Like, how do you get so good at the thing? And I find that even if it's a thing that I don't care about. Like, have you seen the movie, what is it, dreams of sushi i mean yeah it's incredible it's just so good yeah yeah so like that movie it's there's a tortured nature to that like but like i don't care about sushi at all like i don't care about rice i don't care about fish i mean you know i'll eat it but how long did he have to make eggs for before he actually yeah exactly son yeah but so i think that's a perfect example that if someone has devoted enough to their craft then they are fundamentally interesting you're like that is cool okay so who would it be kobe if he was still alive i'm allowed to just choose somebody from the grave

yeah for sure yeah and where would you sit with him and if you only had one question this is like reductionist 101 but i would want to have lunch with Kobe, like eat a salad with him and just be like, what kept him motivated for so many seasons? I don't know. I find Kobe interesting because it feels like, and I don't know that much about basketball besides reading a few books and things, but it feels like he was maybe not as talented as a lot of other players,

but he just worked so hard and was so great and achieved so much. I'm sort of like, I find that more interesting, maybe because it strikes a nerve. I feel kind of the same way. It's like, what do you do when you don't have that much talent, but you love the game and you just try your hardest for a long time? In your mind, do you think Kobe was more internally driven or externally driven?

Oh, he seemed internally driven. I mean, certainly all accounts are like that he was like psycho about training like pushing himself trying to be the best to be able to do the thing not to get recognized or paid for the thing yeah yeah it's good to have both yeah there's no but that's the thing i mean even the most internally motivated person still appreciates external recognition you know because if you bust your ass at something all the time it's nice for somebody occasionally tell you that you're doing a good job. External recognition is still satisfying for anybody.

And you get told that you are special. Yeah, but I don't believe them. That's the key. It's got to be like water off a duck. You just let it all just roll right off. You don't feel special. Come on. No, I'm proud of the things that I've done.

I do think I'm good at a very particular thing um but i mean i'm not even like all my friends who are climbers are all better than me for the most part at specific aspects of climbing you know but the world doesn't know their name it's an interesting dilemma that you found yourself in well yeah well that's that's why it's easy to ignore the yeah the positive you know comments because you're kind of like well you know i mean i know all my friends like literally all the people that i carpooled with to the crag the other day are like basically better than me, you know, but they're not like globally known. You're kind of like, I mean, one of them is a freaking pharmacist in town, you know, like, I mean, yeah, most of my

peers that I'm climbing with in Vegas are like computer program or pharmacists, like a doctor, you know, they're all just like dudes with, with with with jobs and and I wouldn't say that they're better climbers than me all the way around but they are kind of better at specific things and they certainly have moments and so it's a weird thing like to look around your friends and be like I'm gonna make something up this is for maybe you but for other people and in our community like you know that they're better but you're the one that gets stopped in the airport and you've probably got more money in your bank account than they do and you know and they know that you're better that they're better than you it's an interesting no but they actually probably wouldn't say that they're better they

would say that like yes they can outperform me in a very specific way and you know i look at them and i only see the thing that they're better at they would look at me and be like well you can do all these other things in climbing like come on yeah right like yeah maybe like maybe wouldn't free solo yeah anything anything right yeah i see yeah but the thing is like i'm looking at um like board climbing is like when you train on like a training board um like all my friends are better than me yeah in an indoor facility it's like absolutely what i'm worst at in climbing like all my friends in a garage yeah in an indoor facility it's like absolutely what i'm worst at in climbing and all my friends are better than me at that kind of thing and so i look at that i'm like literally everyone's better than me and they would look at that and be

like well you're not the best on this particular training apparatus but you know but i mean i am a good rock climber you know like i i can't get up like mountains and things yeah is there one that's sitting out there that is scaring you that like if you'd like to go challenge yourself on it? Mountains? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There are a bunch of like big walls in the world and they're definitely on like a life list.

Yeah. I think that some of that as my kids get a little bit older, I'll be more willing to do some of the big expeditions again. Like leave for a month or two to like do things that are exciting. But it just feels like well we have a one-year-old it's like do i need to do that right now it's like maybe i'll wait till she's five i had a motorcycle for a long time and i kind of grew up on them and it got stolen locally here uh it was a harley and my wife was like all right we're done until he's 18 i was like what and she's like come come on, just, just, you know, donor cycles,

like just, just, and then she like looks at me and I've been married to my wife for like 30 plus years. We're best friends. And she looks at me, she goes, well, it's okay. If you want to get a bike, like, do you have a, do you have an, um, do you have any interest in the name of the man that's going to raise your son? I was oh my god come on you know that's harsh yes really come on come on yeah okay uh just to wrap this up i got a fun uh you're one of your dear friends jimmy chin um who i've he's been on the podcast and i've been able to surf some fun waves with him and i think he's an amazing human maybe one of the world's great climbers as well he carries gear and you know like maybe not world great climber world's great climbing cinematographer there you go yeah okay

good fair put him no no he's a great time but the reason he's such a great photographer is that he's fit enough to stay to to stay ahead or keep up with everybody yeah with it in in harsh mountain environments and like on cliffs with big gear yeah and he's and he fits in environments really well you know like socially as well so i asked him i said hey um you know alex is coming on the pod do you have a question for me he says that's a tough one i've been interviewing him for 15 years um has his idea or definition of success changed over the years what was it in his 20s and what is it now you know in my 20s or definition of success changed over the years? What was it in his 20s and what is it now? In my 20s, my definition of success was sending, like achieving hard things, like doing something cutting edge and climbing.

And I think now having done that a lot, like having achieved most of the things on my to-do list over the last 15 years, I think it's maybe rounded out a little bit i don't know i'm sort of like you know no matter how much of that you achieve like do you succeed in anything like you know have you actually gotten anywhere i don't know so now it's slightly my definition of success is rounded out to be a little more like rich full life you know like happy family like you just all the i don't know it's more like a i mean there's no finish line you know there's no like point where you like achieve success you just it's trying to lead a meaningful life the whole time like constantly which for me i think helps to keep setting goals for myself so you keep like it's the path that's so satisfying like feeling like you get up early and you train and you eat well and like you're you're living your best life and you're like the best version of yourself and i think that's what's so satisfying in life and i think that's so satisfying, like feeling like you get up early and you train and you eat well and like you're living your best life and you're like the best version of yourself. And I think that's what's

so satisfying in life. And I think that's easier when you have big goals for yourself or like things that you're trying to achieve, like goalposts. Maybe I should think of it as like gates on a slalom course. You know, it's like as you're winding through life, it's like, well, you need the gates to help you steer your way down the mountain. But or in my case, up the mountain. But, you know, I mean, I think that's kind of my definition now. Like I'm trying to stick to the path. If you were to finish this thought to live a meaningful life, how would you, how would you finish that? I have no idea. I don't know. To lead a meaningful life. I don't know. You just do your best. You stick to the path. I mean, I've always seen it as,

I always call it like like if i'm on the program like to me the program is like i'm training i'm eating well i'm like going to bed early i'm not like doing any self-sabotaging behavior i'm not like staying up way too late or like binging sweets or like doing things that you know are not really in your best interest but you just do them from time to time anyway because you're like eff it i just want to live a little but you kind of know it's stupid like so for me being on the program is kind of living my best life. It all comes down to, I'd say it comes down to having the right goals, having like the things that keep you motivated. Yeah. So it's, it's incumbent that you really

think deeply about where you're putting your effort. I think so. I mean, otherwise you eventually die anyway and you're like, what did I do with all my time? It's a great place to end. It's a great place to end. You know, I'm curious if there's been any unlocks or anything interesting that's happened below the surface for you during the conversation or not. It doesn't need to be. I mean, I think the framing around family and just, I mean, you know, the sad reality is i'm just easing into middle age you know and yeah you just wonder like is this what all middle-aged people grapple with or is this no you're different you're different in this like because not not not most people don't really

really really really really understand what it's like to design their life around what matters most. And so you've got two things that matter a lot to you now, and that's a new dilemma. And yeah, I'm, I'm rooting for you. If I could be of, of any assistance, um, you've taught me a lot from a distance and I know we, we don't really know each other, but you've taught me a lot. And so thank you for how you show up in the world and um what you what you represent in people that want to live a great life i appreciate i'm like i'm just doing my best just muddling through you know i just tried but it's that statement it's that humility and the honesty well i guess because we're all just muddling through yeah i i am a mess in progress as well. So I appreciate it. Totally. Yeah. I'm

rooting for you, man. I love how you've designed your life and thank you for sharing as much as you you're able to do with us today. No, I appreciate it. Oh, one more thing. Where do we find you and name your foundation is? HonoluluFoundation.org. You can find, yeah, I mean, I'm not trying to promote anything in particular. You can find me on social media, but the thing I care more about probably is the onl foundation.org uh where we support community solid projects around the world it's been my own sort of passion project for the last 13 years or something good all right man i appreciate you thank you alex yeah thank you okay i'm a who could possibly follow that i mean alex is so Well, it's actually all on you. Come on.

We're back on our next installment of Ask Me Anything. Okay, okay, good. It's our listeners' turn to ask the questions. And with the help of Yogi as the voice of the people, your turn to come up with the answers. You know what's really fun about this is that I get to do this with my friend, Yogi Ruff. This is another opportunity

where we turn the microphone around and instead of diving into mastery through the lens of our guests, we are going straight to you, our community, for a unique Ask Me Anything episode. You submitted so many good questions about life, performance, relationships,

navigating the complexities of the full human experience. I mean, our community is really strong. You guys brought it. We had to split this one into two parts. So Yogi and I were sitting down here for part two, where we sat down to answer those questions and perhaps to get us a little closer to our personal best. So I want to encourage you to tune in once more to hear your questions, my reflections, and an exploration of what matters most. Right here on Finding Mastery. All right.

Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple or Spotify. We are incredibly grateful for the support and feedback. If you're looking for even more insights, we have a newsletter we send out every Wednesday.

Punch over to findingmastery.com slash newsletter to sign up. This show wouldn't be possible without our sponsors and we take our recommendations seriously. And the team is very thoughtful about making sure we love and endorse every product you hear on the show. If you want to check out any of our sponsor offers you heard about in this episode,

you can find those deals at findingmastery.com slash sponsors. And remember, no one does it alone. The door here at Finding Mastery is always open to those looking to explore the edges and the reaches of their potential so that they can help others do the same. So join our community, share your favorite episode with a friend, and let us know how we can continue to show up for you. Lastly, as a quick reminder, information in this podcast and from any material on the Finding Mastery website

and social channels is for information purposes only. If you're looking for meaningful support, which we all need, one of the best things you can do is to talk to a licensed professional. So seek assistance from your healthcare providers.

Again, a sincere thank you for listening. Until next episode, be well, think well, keep exploring.