The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - The Greatest Climber Alive: I Shouldn't Have Attempted That Climb!

Episode Date: February 19, 2026

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

We just got back from Davos in Switzerland, this snowy village where some of the world's leading experts, CEOs, founders, world leaders gather in this one space. And while I was there, my colleague Juan, was telling me about something he does, which many of my friends do. They list their properties when they go away on Airbnb. So many of us, when we go away, we leave our house as this dormant asset that's doing nothing for us other than racking up bills. And as some of you might know, Airbnb are one of our show partners. And I've stayed in their properties all over the world and continues to do so. but I've never actually hosted one of my properties on there.

But when I heard this, it got me thinking, what a smart move it is to make money from an asset that's currently probably costing you money. Every time you're away, your home sits empty. And what Juan told me is how easy it was to get set up. He makes his home available for specific dates so that his guests always depart the day before he gets home. So if you're trying to find an easy way to make some extra money on the side,

hosting on Airbnb might be exactly that, especially if you move around a lot. Your home might be worth more than you think. and you can find out how much your home is worth by going to Airbnb.ca slash host. It drives me crazy that nobody else thinks about risk in this way. People look at my life and they're like, well, you're crazy, you're such a risk taker. Well, at least I'm taking the risks that I'm choosing. Because think of all the people that go out partying every weekend and they get buzzed and they drive

home and even sedentary people who are like, well, I don't take risk. I stay home and I play video games. No, you're at a much higher risk of heart disease. Like, they're taking all kinds of risk that they're not actually choosing to take. And you're still going to freaking die either way. So you might as well take smart. calculated risks and do all the things that you want to do and at least die happy when you go. He's done it.

Alex Honnold has made history again. Scaling one of the world's tallest skyscrapers. But the conclusion that a lot of people have arrived at is that you don't experience fear because when they look at these two brain scans, you're a migdalas lighting up less when you're showing scary images. I actually hate all the brain stuff because people always put me in this box. They're like, well, you're different. And I'm like, well, not really.

Like, I'm a middle class suburban kid. Nobody in my family is athletic. I just, after 20 years of climbing five days a week and being really freaking scared. I respond differently than an average person. And there was tons of emotional turmoil throughout it. Periods where you're just like, I'm trying so hard and I'm just like not as good as I want to be. You know, I was like living in a car.

I had like a couple hundred bucks a month for 10 years. Like, that's challenging. But you just can't master a craft overnight. I guess that's what people don't see. And so how did you create the conditions to out persist other people? And then in all your career, when is the moment where you were most scared?

On an expedition to Antarctica, I kept hoping that it's going to get better and it just kept getting worse. Like I could die. Do you have a conversation with your partner before you go and do something? like this because she wrote a letter. Oh gosh. Obviously this is your worst nightmare, she said, but we all have to do scary things sometimes, Alex. Guys, I've got a favour to ask before this

episode begins. Sixty-nine percent of you that listen to the show frequently haven't yet hit the follow button. And that follow button is very smart because it means you won't miss the best episodes. The algorithm, if you follow a show, will deliver you the best episodes from that show very prominently in your feed. So when we have our best episodes on this show, the most shared episodes, the most rated episodes, I would love you to know. And the simple way for you to know that is to hit that follow button. Thank you so, so, so much. Alex, to understand you, I think, from everything I've learned about you, from the research I've done, from speaking to your wife, your agent, everybody I could speak to, I think to understand your context, we first need to

understand the circumstances in which you were raised and the childhood you had, because it seems to be, I mean, for all of us, there's like fingerprints left on us that define the anomaly that many of us become, including yourself. So what do I need to know? What does the viewer need to know about the early context? I mean, how deep do you want to go? I need to get a sofa. I need to reply. I just feel like, all right. But yeah, certainly there's an imprint for my parents, my upbringing. I mean, they had a very fraught relationship. They eventually got divorced, but they stayed together for the kids. And it was a whole, like, you know, say a tense home life because neither of them really liked each other. and then my mom is very driven, very, you know, high-performing. And then my dad was hard to say.

I mean, I think my dad was deeply depressed, basically, the whole time I knew him, because he was in this relationship. You know, it's hard to tell. He wasn't living his best life. And then, sadly, after they got divorced, he was much happier, but then he died. And so then never really got to see him blossom that much. And your mother's high-performing. And did she sort of implicitly demand that of you in any way?

Yeah, I mean, my mother speaks like seven-rate languages. She, like, plays every instrument. It's, like, kind of crazy. She's very artistically minded in that way, like, you know, the arts and the classical sense. But, yeah, she, I mean, she wanted us to do all those things, too. I'm a deep disappointment in that regard. There was a phrase that I saw when I was watching the documentary that your mother would continually say, which I think translates to something, like, not good enough.

Like, Presskin and Compa, like, almost doesn't count. It's funny because I feel like a lot of my adult life now, one of my sort of go-to saying is, you know, don't let perfect be the enemy of good. I'm really into, like, good enough. Like, it's better to, like, try. It's better to do something. You know, it's better to fail quickly and learn and keep moving forward than to not try something. Like, basically, I don't want to be crippled by perfectionism. Sort of like, my mom is very much perfectionist. You know, like, if you can't do it right, don't do it. I'm sort of like, I think it's better to try and learn and improve. But she's accomplished a lot of things with that approach.

Yeah, she has, for sure. What about emotions? This is something you've heard, heard you sort of talked about a lot is in that environment where your mother and father aren't getting along well, I think I heard you say that you hadn't seen your father really happy before he had passed away. Yeah. Was it an emotional household in terms of affection? No, it was a very unemotional household. That said, though, you know, it was a safe, relatively happy household. Like, it was fine, you know, and I was close to a lot of my extended family, and so I had a really good relation to my grandparents and so my aunts and uncles. And so, I mean, I basically would have characterized it as a totally happy family life until I became older.

started seeing other people's families more and was kind of like, oh, this seems even happier, you know what I mean? Where it's like basically really good until you see what else it can be. And then you're like, this seems even better. And your mom wasn't ever affectionate. You know, it always feels slightly conditional, you know, where it's like, you know, she cares if you be, you know, if you perform well, like if you do well, like if you're a good kid or whatever, you know what I mean.

Where did climbing come into your life? Because I've got some, I have found some photos of you climbing and you look here with your sister, I believe. here we go this one here yeah classic how are you there i don't know i mean i don't know like six or something or eight it's heard me to tell like medium-sized kids ages why climbing oh why not it's so freaking cool have you have you have you have you i've yeah i have to a gym yeah i have but and wasn't it the freaking cool thing it was fun yeah for sure i mean saying i've climbed when i'm sat with you is i feel like yeah but you have tried it yeah i have yeah as an adult if you can

imagine as a kid how fun that is and then if you just keep doing that nonstop and then you find that you have some aptitude for you enjoy it it's like you know you can imagine going down that path it's so cool but is there something about the challenge of climbing that you think just kind of like was a jigsaw piece for you for you your brain like problems so i think there's something elemental about climbing in the same way as like running or swimming it's like a basic movement thing that i think is quite enjoyable and i think that i also i think i have an innate love of like being on top of things like, you know, being at the top. Basically, I love big views. I like the expansive, you know, I like air. And so I like being up on stuff. So I don't know, I think it just hit a few sweet

spots like that where I was like, oh, climbing is just so cool. And I'm assuming you never thought this could be a career? No, no. And actually, even when I started rock climbing sort of full time, I still didn't think it could be a career because there just wasn't really professional climbing at that time. It was like much smaller. The industry is way smaller. Climbing was way more fringe and like less of a thing. But you weren't motivated by like money or anything. Because one does that. not pursue rock climbing to become rich. Not to become rich, no. Well, so I said, so my father died like the season before that. And because my parents had just gotten divorced, he basically

left his retirement to my sister and me. And she used it to finish college. I just put it into bonds and was living off like 300 bucks a month or whatever, which kind of like worked. You know, I was like living in a car. I stole my mom's minivan at the time. I had like a couple hundred bucks a month. And it was kind of enough to just like go to be a 19 year old just like camping, you know. Was it this minivan? No, that's my second one. That's the Ford O'Connor line. That's the first actual van that I bought.

I lived in that van for 10 years. For 10 years? Yeah. Yeah, so I bought this van. I mean, this is classic, but so I bought this van for 10 grand. And then originally, this is the last buildout, which is the classiest buildout. The original one, my uncle and I did for free with, like, scrap wood from his, you know, in his wood shop, basically. And so then I lived in that for 10 years.

And you're kind of like, yeah, when you live in it, I couldn't even stand in this van. You know, I was like, oh, my back. But, you know, when you're living in it. living in your car for 10 years, you save quite a lot of money. Between what ages did you live in your car for 10 years? I probably bought this van when I was 20, so 20 to 30 basically. Actually, I think that's right, because I think I met my wife when I was 30, and that same year I switched from this van to the bigger van.

If you've seen the film Free Solo, I bought the Pro Master's like Dodge. It was like, I could stand up in my van finally, and I was like, I'm moving up in the world, I can stand. It's pretty exciting. You can cut it in there really well. There is a little stave in this one. Yeah, so this, though, is. I did three different buildouts of this van over the 10 years because like the original one was super scrappy.

The second build was like a little nicer and then this was like a pretty nice build that I had for, I don't know, five or six years or something. When you live in your van for 10 years and you have a mother who is very performance focused. I've got her here, I believe you're coming with her. Yep, classic. Do you not face a lot of external pressure to like go get a real job? Honestly, less so than you would think. like to her credit my mom was always pretty supportive of the whole path I think you know it's kind of lucky that that I did a lot of this when I was like young enough

that it's all part of like you're gapier like you know it's like you're young and you're finding yourself and then and then I think there was enough sort of external validation that that my family could at least look at and be like well you seem to be good at this random thing even though we don't get it and don't really know what you're doing but at least other people think you're good at it so keep doing your thing and at this point was it was it rock climbing was it free soloing and Yeah, it's all a little bit of everything. Basically just being a...

I mean, you know, like being a professional climber, quote-unquote, some of it's free-soling, some of it's like speed climbing, some of it's just hard climbing, some of it's going on expeditions, doing new routes, like it's a little bit of everything. And for the average person that doesn't know what free soloing is, what's the definition of it? That's climbing without a rope. So climbing without protection,

which is definitely what I'm most well-known for now. But in the context of professional climbing, I've done tons of other things in climbing. Like most of the time you have a rope on, most of the time you're doing other sorts of, of things. But it's like the free-selling is what you might have been well-known for because that like breaks into the mainstream a lot more. I'm really intrigued generally by people like you who I take, I mean take the path less traveled in their career and then maybe nearer the

the end of the graph pick up traction. And I had this piece of paper in this pen because I'd love if you could, from the age of let's say 80, you're now 40 years old. Yeah, I turned 40 this year thing old. Could you draw a graph showing how your career looks in terms of success? You can measure that by money or attention or whatever. Let's see. So it was kind of like slow a little bit. And then like this-ish.

Yeah. And then kind of like, and then basically just like this. Where you basically like kind of flat but growing. And then you have free solo where it jumps a ton. It's like kind of crazy. And then it keeps kind of growing at a slightly faster rate than before. and then it basically jumps a ton because of the building thing again. I find this fascinating because most people in their lives

wouldn't be willing to endure this phase 18 to 29 where progress is learning. It's so great. Like I would do that again. I loved it so much. Like, I mean, I often think I'd be so happy to just start over from zero. Because, like, all the places that I go climbing now, I've been climbing there for 20 years and I've, like, done most of the things I can do. And, you know, I've sort of like tapped out a lot of stuff in the Western U.S.

And I'm like, man, I would love to just hit the re-zero button and start over. because you'd have so much stuff to do it. It's so amazing. I guess that's the different, the fault of my question is that I said the word endure, but you see it as... Yeah, you get to climb every single thing you see. It's amazing. Yeah, I mean, and that's the thing is like from age 18 to 30, I basically did try to climb every single thing I can see because I was just like, I'm learning, I'm growing, this is amazing, I climb everything.

And like now I'm actually much more strategic about it because doing tons of easy climbing like doesn't really help me at this point. I'm not going to make like big technique gain. It basically just makes me tired without the right kind of gains. It'd be like an elite runner just jogging for miles and miles every day. And you're kind of like, that's not going to make you, it's not going to improve your marathon time if you're already like an elite runner. It might be fun, but it's just not going to like move the needle for you.

Through this period of your life 18 to 30, you're optimizing for just having fun, doing things you enjoy. Well, I mean, no, I was always, I was always challenging myself. Like basically, I was optimizing for like what's the next thing I can do that pushes me a little bit. But you weren't optimizing for how to get rich or... Well, then I would have gotten a job. If I was optimizing for getting rich, I would have frigging for my college degree and gotten a job.

I say this in part because I interview so many people who pursued careers that are often considered not real jobs, like comedians or magicians. And I tend to find the same thing between the age of 18 and 30. They optimize for something that isn't necessarily being rich or famous. And then at some point, the graph looks like this. Well, it's because, I mean, I think, you know, I'm sure you know this, but I mean the world really, it's like a winner take all economy type deal.

It's like basically, if you're the dude that does the thing, all of a sudden your earnings go insane. But until you become the dude that does the thing, you know, if you're like the best magician or the best comedian or the best whatever, then all of a sudden you make an insane amount of money.

But when you're just like one of many struggling comedians, you're struggling. And so I think for me as a climber, you're sort of like, oh, I'm just a dude living in my van climbing. But then at a certain point I'm like, the dude that, you know, I'm like, oh, you're that guy that climbs without the rope.

And you're like, oh, yeah, cool. And then all of a sudden, your earnings are like, shoo. Was this a difficult period of your life, this 18 to 30? No, it was like the best. Well, obviously it was like, you know, I was like trying to juggle really, like I wanted to get a girlfriend.

You're a young 20s man living alone in a car, like wanting to be better at something than you are and not quite knowing the way and not knowing what you're doing with your life. So obviously there was tons of emotional turmoil throughout it, but no, I mean, retrospectively, it's like amazing. And your dad passes away, which is in part, I guess,

some of the catalyst. Yeah, honestly, my dad passing way should be the beginning of that graph. It should be, this should basically start at 19. Because 18, I went to university. And so then starting at 19, I guess, I went on the road. Your dad passing,

what impact did I have on you outside of it somewhat liberating you to make decisions that outside of his expectations? Well, I mean, obviously it was, you know, it's sad. It's hard, like, and especially now I'm sort of like, oh, it's too bad that I don't have a relation to my dad and he doesn't, you know, that my kids don't have a grandfather and all that kind of, you know, I was like, yeah, it's,

it's tough. I think that the most immediate impact that I had maybe was just reminding me of my own mortality. You know, I mean, he died unexpectedly at 55, just fell over in the airport and just fell over dead, like heart attack. And so, you know, I mean, I think that that reminder of my own mortality has had a big impact on my career, my life, you know, my climbing world, whatever. One might not expect you to go, quote unquote, do risky things. because of... Well, no, because the thing is, I think one of the reasons that people don't do risky things is because they have this, you know, mistaken idea that they can live forever, basically.

And basically because people don't want to think about their own mortality. And so they're like, oh, I don't want to take any risks. I could die. And you're like, you know, you're going to die either way. And either way, when you die, you're going to be bummed that you didn't live longer because, you know, it's like, like, the life is expecting in the U.S. is 78. And you're like, great. Say you make it for men, whatever. Like, say you make it that far. You're still going to be like, man, I wish. I wish I had 22 more years to watch my grandkids graduate college or whatever. You know, it's like it's still going to feel like too little. And so I'm kind of like, you're better off dying at 55 of an accident, but having done many things that you're proud of and, you know, like led a life that you're proud of, then dying at 78 and still wishing you had more, but having done none of the things that you wanted to do. It's interesting.

It does appear that people live as if we think we're going to live forever. Yeah, it's totally insane. I mean, everyone's like, oh, I don't take any risk. And you're like, yeah, well, you can take no risk in your life and you're still going freaking die. So you might as well take smart calculated risks and do all the things that you want to do and at least die happy when you go. What does this mean to you to like live intentionally? Well that's exactly it. Like choosing the the risk that you're willing to take, making choices, like using your time the way you want to use it. I was looking at, I think it was your personality,

a personality test you did. Like did I do a personality test? Um, I'm like, how much material do you have? I'm like, like, things do you have? I've unlimited things. I know. I'm so impressed. On this personality test, it says you're higher on thrill-seeking and sensation-seeking, but then also significantly higher than the average male on urgency, which I think kind of overlays with what you were just saying there of making the decision to do something. Yeah, basically because your time is short and you're going to die, so get on with it. It says you hear you're higher on conscientiousness. Very polite, you know.

Thrill-seeking, sensation-seeking, you're low on boredom. I think low on boredom is that, you know, you don't get bored. Perseverance, you're very high on perseverance. Yeah, I think that's the same as low on boredom. And low on neuroticism. That's for sure. And so what's the definition of the word neuroticism? Is it like...

Well, I think it's like the... Well, I'm sure there's a clinical definition, but I think of it as sort of general anxiety type stuff. Like, you know, people spinning in their heads about things they don't matter. And has that always been the case when you look back through your life and the feedback you've had as a kid and a teenager? Kind of, yeah, I think so. I think I've never been too concerned about...

I don't spin. I mean, obviously, you know, occasionally I stress about things, but just not the way I think a lot of people do. I'm trying to figure out if that's a learned behavior or maybe a little bit learned and a little bit from your upbringing genetics, whatever it might be. Because can one learn that? Can one learn to be less neurotic? Well, presumably. I mean, like meditation, things like that. I think people can sort of find a way to let go of certain things. Isn't this quite interesting when people ask you questions inevitably about fear and how you take on such, you know, to muggles like me, terrifying. challenges. There's an element of all of this which is you do have a nature and a nurture, which somewhat is impossible for someone like me to replicate, because your brain and my brain

are completely different. Your parents, your early context, when your brain was being wired and malignated, are completely different to mine. So, you know, I always find this is the trouble of giving people advice is we're dealing with different natures. Different natures. But I do feel like in my case, the biggest difference in nature. is the fact that I've just always loved climbing, you know, because basically I think that nurture is the majority of this. Like if you spend 30 years training the thing, you're going to get better at the thing. And so I think that the biggest difference between me and somebody who's not into rock climbing is that I freaking love rock climbing. I could go out. I could do it 10 days a week if

if I could, you know what I mean? But sadly, I get too tired. My body breaks down. And so, you know, I basically have like a limitless capacity to do the thing. I just love doing the thing. and I think that that is probably the biggest difference in nature, you know, because everything else you can kind of overcome, you know, like if you loved rock climbing as much as I love rock climbing, no matter what your genetic disposition towards like neuroticism

and all that stuff, you would just kind of work through all that stuff and you'd find your own path to getting good at climbing, basically. If your kids came to you, you have two girls, right? Yeah. If they came to you and said, Dad, like, give me advice from what I should aim at in life. Would you tell you?

I wouldn't get my advice. I'd be like, you'd do you. You find the thing you love to do. hard, you know, basically like, learn some skills, get good at something. Like, what do you like to do? I mean, that's kind of the thing for me, especially with climbing, is like, if someone had told me, like, you're going to train climbing for the rest of your life, I'd be like, oh, that sounds like kind of a grind, you know, because, I mean, it is, it is hard work. You're like hiking uphill, the heavy backpack and it's cold and it's windy. It's like, it's basically physically

uncomfortable. I mean, being a professional rock climber means that you're physically uncomfortable all the time, but like, like often, you know, like, it's, you know, it's hard. Yeah. But if you're doing it because you freaking love doing it, it doesn't feel very hard. And so, I mean, I think the key for a kid is find the thing that doesn't feel like hard work. And when you started, were you scared of big, tall, rock faces and stuff like that? I mean, yeah, I had like a healthy intimidation of things. I mean, like my first season in 170, the first time seeing El Cap as a climber, I was 19, and it looks impossible. It looks completely insane. I was like, that's so big. But then, you know, within a couple seasons,

you know, I climbed some bigger walls, learned how to climb. And then a friend and I had the sort of season goal, like we were going to climb Newsevety all season with the aspiration at the end to climb L-CAP in a day. So basically there was this long progression on L-CAP specifically where it's like you go from just trying to get up it to trying to get up it faster to trying to get up it with just your hands and feet, still using protection. But basically there's like all these steps you can take. And so over a bunch of seasons, you know, I climbed Al-Cap like 60 times, different

routes, all these different things. And then eventually you're sort of like, oh, maybe I can start thinking about freesoling it, which is where the film Free Solo comes in. And then eventually you do this thing. But then people are like, well, aren't you scared? And you're kind of like, well, I've spent, 10 years, like, building up on this thing. I guess that's what people don't see.

Yeah. So they just... I mean, like, the documentary Free Solar, I think, does a pretty good job but showing the direct preparation, like, the training involved in doing that specific climb. But it just doesn't show the, like, eight years before that, I guess. Because the documentary was filmed over two years. And I guess I've been going since 2006. So it was nine years before that that I've been going to Yosemite.

And I've been spending maybe three months a year climbing walls. I guess that's the illusion of, like, all people that do great things and become like athletes or sprinters or whatever Ronaldo or Messi is you don't get to see the... Yeah, the whole life that they put into doing the thing. Yeah. So it looks like a magic trick when we see the outcome. We show up on Netflix to watch you climb Taipei.

Like, whoa. He's hanging with it from his leg. Yeah, I mean, people watch some of those programs and they're like, he just walked up and did it. And you're like, well, yeah, after 30 years of practice, like, I just walked up and did it. But no, it's not like just walking up and doing it. Hmm. I mean, like, I've literally been climbing five days a week for 30 years. Like, that's so much climbing.

Like, I freaking love climbing and I climb a lot. On this idea of like exposure therapy, as it relates to like fear and anxiety and confronting one's things that terrify them, was that in the early days where you, I'm trying to understand, were you like scared at some point? Oh, all the time. That's actually something that I think, you know, I've obviously done so many interviews around fear and like managing fear and all that. And I've talked about fear a lot of different ways over the years. And I think as I've found older, I've sort of come to realize that actually you're just scared all the time as a climber. Like low level fear, low level. But you're, but climbing is fundamentally scary.

Like, it's always kind of scary because there's always consequences. Like, even if you're climbing with a rope, you're still always visualizing, like, what happens if the rope breaks? Like, what if, you know, like, is this safe? Like, you know, is the gear good? Like, is this actually safe? And so you're always a little bit scared. And so after years and years of always being scared, you get, pretty good at managing that kind of stuff.

Because there's a lot of sort of misconception swirling around this brain scan. Yeah, no, I hate all that stuff. That's just all from the film Free Solo. It was like too short of a scene in the film. They needed a little more. They need to let it breathe. You know, explain things a little better, I think. So they scanned a control subject.

Another person scans you, looked at the amygdala in your brain. And the conclusion that a lot of people have arrived at is that you don't experience fear. Because when they look at these two brain scans, your amygdala is lighting up less when you're showing scary images, basically, right? but like shown just this image like what does that even mean like my brain's purple and his brain is orange you're like what does that mean like I don't know but no I mean the the thing is though and this is what I wish was explaining the film better is that this is we're being shown black and white photos inside an fMRI so you're inside a sealed metal tube you're totally safe you're physically

safe and comfortable and you're being shown black and white photos and so to me obviously that's not going to light up the fear response to my brain because you're looking at pictures you're like who cares I'm totally safe but in a control subject you know, apparently your brain sort of response to images one way or another. But I'm kind of like, I've been climbing for 20 years, so I've been scared quite a lot. And you're kind of like, well, black and white photos start to lose their edge if you've been scared all the time for 20 years. So it's like, obviously that's not going to trigger much. Yeah, and I imagine everybody in their life can think of a scenario where they have mastery that would, like a stand-up comedian looking out at a stage, probably wouldn't be as scared as me.

Yeah. Because that would terrify me. So, again, this is not necessarily some sort of neurological. I mean, I think the real takeaway is that I have an amygdala, and it works. You know what I mean? Because I think if the results had shown that I was missing my amygdala, then I would have all kinds of, I would have died already at youth because I wouldn't be able to function as a human, basically. But, you know, it's shown something like that where there are like structural differences

or like some real change. But this is basically just showing that after 20 years of conditioning, I respond differently than an average person. And you're like, yeah, no kidding. Like, if you put a monk into an fMRI, their brain responds totally differently than an average person as well. which I actually think is a really inspiring conclusion, because it means that we can all grasp our fears better.

And even, you know, people won't know this about me, but 10 years ago, I sat down on camera with my friend Ash in his apartment to record a two-minute video. And as I sat there, I was so scared, I couldn't get the words out. So you actually, in this two-minute video that comes out, you see it go from night and day in the background, just because we did that many cuts over seven hours, try and get me to say two minutes on camera.

And obviously, after 10 years of being on camera, I can now speak without shitting myself. and I imagine my brain state looks significantly different because of my exposure therapy. Totally. Yeah, you should do the fMRI. Yeah, you should have done 10 years ago because then you'd have your control and then you do it now and it'd be totally different. But also the psychologists I've sat with all confirmed this. They talk about exposure therapy.

Yeah. And I went through exactly the same thing with public speaking. Like I was always so afraid of public speaking. I was also very shy and just not like it was terrifying. And now because of the Free Solo Film Tour and, you know, all the public things, things I've done since then. I'm like basically fine. You know, it's like you still got a little nervous, but it's like basically easy now. You're kind of like, well, that's a total change. It's like obviously there's a tremendous capacity for humans to learn. People talk to you about fear

all the time because, I mean, your work. Because climate's really freaking scary. It makes sense. It's totally understandable. Yeah. Yeah. And they also realize, I think, at some deep level, that the thing holding them back from who they think they want to be or who they aspire to be is fear often. It's judgment of someone else. It's taking a risk. Totally. So you've become, for many people, they're like, tell me, tell me how to overcome. Yeah. Well, I think that everyone's like, what's your hack to overcome fear?

And you're like, there's no hack. You just get really freaking scared over and over for so long. And eventually it's not that scary anymore. But I will say that that's like a very enduring way to overcome your fear. It's like if you're willing to go through that process, then you are actually unafraid. You know, because like you can do like hacks. I mean, you can, you can like crank up loud rock music and just go for it. You know, like, and there are plenty of examples of that in what I'd call gravity-assisted sports.

Like, say, if you're going to jump a cliff on skis, like, you can get to the edge, you'd be like, this is really scary, and then be like, three, two, one, do it! And just, like, go. In climbing, you can't really do that as much because it's so slow. Like, when you climb, you make one move, and then you make another move, and then you're like, do I still want to be here? Like, it basically fear creeps in a lot more. But sort of in gravity-assisted sports, you can have more of that moment where you just, like,

overcome your fear and then it happens, you know, like, making a big drop in a kayak or, like, skis or things like that. Whereas like once you commit, it's happening one way or another. Anyway, there's a lot to get into it. No, but I mean, I want to get into it. I watched a video of you climbing Halfdome, I think it was. Yeah. And it looks like you got scared halfway up or...

Yeah. Yeah, well, so that video is actually filmed later. So the voiceover in that video is me talking about the experience of me free-selling when I was totally alone. And I did get really scared on Half-Dome, and I had this whole somewhat traumatic climate experience and you're the top of the wall. But then when we went back to film it, I had a different traumatic experience while we were filming, less traumatic.

but like very scary for a moment and they got that on camera so they basically in the film they just cut the two together because it shows me like being really scared. What's half dome to start with and then what was the Trantic experience?

Yeah so half dome for anyone who hasn't seen is this just totally amazing wall in Yosemite. It's a 2,000 foot granite face. Actually it's the North Face logo. That's a fricking, that's half dome. Yeah so it's like an iconic wall

on Yosemite. It looks like half of a dome but actually it's more like a hockey puck just shoved in. It's actually a full dome depending how you look at it, but the northwest face is vertical for 2,000 feet. It's incredible. And so I free-soled, that was one of the first major free solos I did in 2008.

And one of the things that sort of made me a professional climber in a way. But when I did the climb, I did the bare minimum preparation. I basically, like, didn't know. It was the biggest thing I ever freesoloed. I didn't quite know how to, like, go by getting ready for it. Anyway, I climbed it and basically hadn't practiced enough. It was really frigging scared, got off route, got confused, skipped some stuff. And then at the very top had this whole moment of extreme panic.

Basically, like, got up into some stuff and all sort of, like, crumbled mentally and, like, sort of barely managed to finish the upper slab. Like, the hardest part of the climb was, like, right near the top. I was trying to walk across this ledge. Basically, I've walked across that ledge face in and face out. And normally people hand traverse it or they crawl across it. They're, like, different ways to go across the ledge. And I've done it every which way.

And then we were up there filming, and I was like, oh, I'm going to walk it face out. But it turns out when you walk in face out, it's really freaking scary. And so I made it kind of halfway and was like, oh my gosh, and then bailed. And when you say you were having like a crisis in your mind, what is that? Is that just, oh my God, what I'm like, how does that sound when you? Well, I mean, so in this case, so walking across this ledge, it's like it starts maybe as a foot wide, so your foot is fully on the ledge and you're shuffling across it. But then at a certain point, yeah, I mean, that's that's- I put it on the screen for anyone watching.

Yeah, that's the ledge. But basically at the narrowest part, your feet are sticking out over the lip of it. it and the wall bulges ever so slightly so it forces your back out a little and so you're basically like rocking on your heels with uh i don't know like a 1700 foot drop or something there 1800 foot drop like straight down below you and so you know it's like pretty it's pretty a deads anyway and so i thought i was going to walk across it like that and i made it to the bulging part and was suddenly like oh my god this isn't like this isn't for me and then managed to like shuffle back and and change my strategy is it like panic in your head it's not panic

but you're like, oh, oh, I made the wrong choice. Like, this is bad. This is bad. You know, I mean, it's not like full like five alarm bell like panic, panic. But yeah, you're like, oh, I'm so screwed. And you have fallen a long, long way before. I was hearing about a time when you were young and you fell off a mountain and called your mother, managed to call your mother in there.

Yeah, that was like sliding down an icy cooler type thing. It's a little different than like free falling off of a cliff that's like sliding down a mountain. But yeah, I got totally messed up. And, yeah. Yeah, and I've like broken my arm. several times as a kid falling off things. And then with a rope as a climber, you take big falls, like, routinely, you know,

when you have protection. That's, like, part of the sport, basically. I mean, it's certainly easy to visualize falling 70 hundred. You know, when you're, like, standing on a little ledge and you're bulging and you're looking down, you know, it's easy to be like, oh, my God. You know, it's like, if you just bend forward a little bit, you're just going to take a swan dive, like 7000 v to the ground.

The stats in this sport are, I mean, of fatalities. How do they compare to other sports? safer than you would think. Everyone thinks it seems crazy, but it's not that crazy. I don't know actual statistics, but I suspect that it's actually pretty comparable to skiing or something,

you know, because like recreational skiers die all the time, like falling in tree wells or like going off cliffs backs and or things like that. Climbing is actually surprisingly safe, which is one of the things I love about climbing. I mean, climbing is very, it's very sort of binary where it's like either you're totally safe or you're going to die.

And the odds of you dying are very, very, very small. But because they're there, they always keep you on. You know what I mean? Like, it basically keeps you alert, but you're never really going to get hurt. Is that including free-solving? Yeah, I mean, for the most part. I mean, a couple people have died free-souling. I mean, people occasionally die free-souling for sure.

But actually, most of the sort of cutting-edge free-solists have not died to Soling. They've died in other things. I think it was in the documentary on Netflix, Free Solo, where one of your colleagues... Yeah, Tommy is like, most Free Solos are dead now, which is kind of true, but it's slightly misstated. I mean, you know, he's just like speaking off the cuff, and it's not, like, strictly true. Like, a couple of the best Free Solos have died free soloing, though they died on very easy terrain. But then the majority of other great Free Solos have died in sort of climbing adjacent accidents, like Wing-Suit bass jumping and, like, one got sweat.

up to sea by a rogue wave, like, while he was out climbing a sea cliff, but he was, like, standing on shore and got swept out to sea. You know, things like that where you're just kind of like, you know, obviously they're taking risks in their lives and they wind up dead, but it's not the way that people think. You know, you see a photo like that and you're like, free soloing, you're going to die for sure. And you're kind of like, well, people don't actually really die that way. I mean, they have. I mean, not to say that it doesn't happen, but way less frequently than people would suspect. If I was to try and like, you know, professionally torture you. And again, I'm not talking in extremes here. But what life would I prescribe you to live?

Oh, being like a finance bro or something. Having to like just work spreadsheets my whole life. Is that what you mean? Like what is my like worst? I don't know, something like that. Or honestly being like a choreographer for dance or something. Like I just said I couldn't do like or being like an opera singer. Like I would just kill myself. I just couldn't do that. Why would being a finance bro be like the worst thing for Alex? Just the idea of sitting a computer in a cubicle, just like typing. I mean, I'm kind of contrarian. I don't like rules. I don't want to like jump through hoops. I don't want to do arbitrary things. Like I don't want some manager to come and tell me like, oh, you got to file that report again. You like missed a line. I'd be like, you go after so.

You know, I was just like walk out of the building. Like, it's just, I just like, I don't know if I can take that. Be like, no. But that's like how most of the world live. We kind of, we all live in like, you know, I just don't know if it's for me. I don't know. I mean, doesn't that just seem. I mean, I had this moment. I've been in New York a couple days and I took the subway down to see some, see some friends. And I was, like, coming out of the tunnel and it's, like, packed with people. And I was just, like, looking at the ground. And I was, like, just, you know, following someone else's footsteps up this, like, beat down path of stairs.

And I was like, I couldn't live like this. Like, not day in and day out every day. Like, this is just, like, feeling like you're just doing the exact same thing as everyone else around you. I'm like, oh, it seems so, so boring. It's funny because so many of us look at your life and go, wow, that's not very normal. But actually, maybe at a foundational level, you're living a much more. normal life than when you're out in nature, you're moving your body. Yeah.

Yeah, in that way, for sure. I'm like going on cool adventures and going out and I don't know. I think that's also part of what the sort of attraction and allure with your life, especially when you watch Free Solo, is you do seem to be a free man in a way where most of us aren't free as such. Yeah, I mean, I think we're all sort of aspiring to that to some extent. I mean, most people see that though, is like they get their vacation for the year. they're planning to retire at some point and then they're going to have their freedom.

You're kind of like, well, I don't know, I mean, maybe you've got to try to live that way as much as possible. If your young girls came up to you, June and Alice, and said, Dad, what is a meaningful life? Like, what are the principles of living a fulfilling meaningful life? Would you give them advice there? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it'd be a long, rambling, multi-day conversation with them about, but, I mean, following your own goals is, is, I think, you know, certainly one of the cores of having a meaningful life. like having things that you find valuable i mean really like living in line with your values finding things that are important to you and pursuing them with as much as you can give them

you when you look at your early you see 20s to 30s it kind of looks like you're living like a buddhist a little bit i mean uh yeah i went on a trip once where they called me the monk just because i was living such a sort of a cedic lifestyle i was like reading i've never i don't drink and i don't like party and i didn't just for personal preference whatever so i'm just like living in living in my little van and reading books and climbing all the time. Those are the things that I'm into doing. You know, it's like, it's, yeah, it's just doing what you want to do.

Have you ever been depressed or? Yeah, probably not like deep clinical depression, but there's certainly periods from time to time where you're just like, what am I doing or why or what are my goals? Like, you know, what's, and I think to me the most depressing thing is that, you know, I've put like my whole life into climbing, like trying to be the best you can be all the time. And sometimes you put tons effort in and you just don't. see results, like, for whatever reason you just suck. You're like, I'm trying so hard and I'm just, like, not as good as I want to be. And, like, that's challenging, you know, but that's, I mean,

everybody faces that to some extent where you're like, I'm working hard at a thing, but I'm just not achieving the results that I want. And between the, between that, the sort of that period of no man's like 20 and 30, where your career hasn't taken off yet, the documentary's not out, you've not climbed Taipei. How much money are you earning from climbing? I mean, the first, my first couple years my sponsorship through the North Face was like I think my first year was like 10K year I was like this is amazing because I was living in my car and you know making 10 grand when you live by yourself in a van it's like more than you need basically it obviously went up but beyond that at some point but it was you know like in the 10

to 100 range for the first for the whole yeah for years then at some point it increases yeah and then it increases I mean then free solo is obviously like a big thing and that sort of opened up all these opportunities. Because then I started doing corporate speaking and stuff like that. And I mean, as I'm sure you know, that's just like a whole different world. And so then you go from just like making some money from sponsors to like making money from other corporations. And they're like, okay, now you're making some money.

One of the things when I was hearing you talk about some of your incredible climbing stories is I was trying to understand what role visualization or your preparation plays and how that's like transferable to me and my life. We talked a little bit about just how much preparation you did for something like L-Cap. But it sounds like you really break down the challenge into smaller bits and then really go through those individual steps. Whereas a lot of people would just look at L-CAP and go, oh my God, they'll be terrified.

And that's impossible. Yeah, which is fair. I mean, I spent years looking at L-CAP and being like, that's too big, that's impossible. And then, you know, after years of that, I kept hoping that I would look at it and it would look easy somehow. And I'd be like, cool, now I'm going to do it. And it just never looked easy. And so then finally I was like, okay, I'm going to have to like put some real work into it.

And then I started slowly breaking it down. And then once you like break it into pieces and start working on the pieces, then you're kind of like, okay, it starts to feel more reasonable. Break it into pieces and start working on the pieces. What does that mean in terms of climbing? So if we, I mean, I've got this model here of type 1. So, you know, this is also a metaphor for any challenge I have in my life. But this is actually perfect because it's right here. Yeah.

So I scouted this in September of this year. I did the climb in January. or whatever. In September, we went, and, well, we had to, like, one, make sure it was possible before you sort of, like, commit to it doing a whole TV program. You're kind of like, let's make sure we can do this. And then they also had to get all this sort of marketing material. You, like, get the photos or the building, like, all the stuff that becomes the trailer and whatever. And so we went in September to sort of, like, do the prep. And so we, I basically checked out all the different. And so anywhere where you see it looking a little bit different, you know,

it's like this whole bottom part is, like, a low angle slab. It's, like, punctuated with these two little rubies. these little, like, coin things or whatever, the clouds or whatever there. And then there are the dragons on the corners. These are all overhanging, like, each of these eight blocks is like a big overhanging thing. It feels a little bit different. Then you get up here, there's like these balconies. These are actually overhanging. Like, basically each little segment of this is quite different.

You know, obviously on this model, like looks the same. But each transition between the different pieces is like a thing. So I checked out all of them with ropes. And, yeah, you just go piece by piece all the way up the whole thing. And you hadn't ever climbed it before. We saw it on Netflix live. Well, I hadn't free solid, no, but I had climbed it. I climbed all the pieces with a rope for sure.

I'd like checked out the different things. Okay, so you look at these as individual challenges. Yeah, it's like you go, even like just getting off the ground, the first move is a slightly different move than any of the other moves. You have to like jump up to a thing and like press it out. Then climbing over these little clouds is a different thing. Each dragon is a different thing. Yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, there's a surprising amount of complexity to it.

And so our first on the scout, you know, I had a note on my phone. just like writing down all the different, basically I'm trying to learn it the way you study anything where I'm just like making notes and sort of like from floor 54 to 72, it feels like this, I climb the southeast corner, the left are at, you know, just, and then, yeah, just writing it all down. And I mean, there's this famous photo of you hanging with your leg. Yeah, that's this. These are the rings up here. So you're hanging, you're hanging from here with your leg. Yeah.

Now, I, this is really a question of endurance. Like, how do you plan to have the energy? Like, how do you know if you're going to have enough energy when you're up here? when you're just planning it. I mean, this is what makes it exciting, because you can't be sure. But, you know, I've done a lot of climbing in my life, and I've done a lot of climbs that were like 24 hours. I mean, I had this experience in Patagonia once.

It was a 54-hour push with, like, the last 20 hours we hiked without food because we got caught in a storm as a whole crazy story. But basically, you know, I've had a lot of experience in my life where I've done hard exercise for more than 24 hours. And so this, you know, I expected to take me somewhere in the hour and a half, two-hour range. And we're kind of like, yeah, I mean, I'll be tired after two hours. of exercise, but I'm not going to be exhausted. You know what I mean? Like, I know that I have a much

deeper reserve than then. So much of the conversation around, um, after you had done this, or some of the conversation was around whether this was a harder challenge than Al Capitan. No. No, it's obviously much easier. I mean, I'm doing a live television, you know, it's like, obviously it's easier. But what makes it cool is that it's different, it's fun, it's challenging. Like, for me, it's really like in my sweet spot where it is challenging enough, like, it's not easy. You know what I mean? Like saying easier than L-CAP, it doesn't. You know, L-CAP was like a 10-year life project that I did an absolute secrecy.

I did on my terms on the correct day. After years of effort, I had failed attempts. You know what I mean? Like L-CAP was like an all-consuming life project for years. Kind of like, obviously you can't do that for live TV. It's like you just can't put, anyway. But this was very much in my sweet spot where you're like, oh, it's hard enough that it's hard. Like, it's cool.

You know, like, it's fun. It's interesting. climb is engaging. It's, you know, gave me something to train for for months. It's like it's super fun. But it's not, you know, it's not like the absolute limit of what I can do because you just can't do that on live TV. I mean, if nothing else, so I was climbing the southeastern red because it gets good morning light and it looks beautiful and it's like great for filming. But if I was trying to do the absolute most cutting edge climb I could do, I'd be climbing the northwest of red because it'd be full shade because it'd be good, better conditions, you know, be colder. Like you just don't want to be in the sun. It makes your skin, you know, it makes you hot and stuff. And so, you know, just things like that. You're like, well, if you're doing it for TV,

and you're trying to broadcast it, then you want it to look good. But, like, if you're trying to do it for hard climbing in good conditions, you do it in full shade. And Netflix had a 10-second delay just in case you fell? I mean, I'm sure part of it is in case you fall. But part of it's like, what if somebody unplugs one of the things? Or, you know what I mean? Like, it's so complicated. There's so much stuff going on.

It's insane. Was there a hardest part of this, a part where you were at all nervous? The thing I was most nervous about when I started were the bamboo boxes, like, doing these eight or reigning segments because they're just so relentlessly the same. move and it's just it's pretty physical you like you get tired for sure i mean the actual physical hardest moves um like actually randomly one of these corners up here would have been quite a hard move but there was this freaking security camera bolted out of the wall and so you use the security camera as this handle it was really freaking cool and it was like bolted on with these giant bolts so it like looked super safe and you know it was like very robust and secure but it would have been kind of like

this extreme jump which i wasn't you know it's probably possible but would have been like a major thing, but instead you just reef off the security camera. I was like, it's so cool. It was, uh, you said there are a few things like that, like individual moves that are kind of mussely, but overall it's the, the stamina, like the challenge of doing this over and over for hundreds of feet that was the hardest thing. Do you have a conversation with your girls and wife before you go and do something like this about just in case you don't come back?

Not with the kids because they're too young and like they wouldn't, they don't understand anyway. And not with her because she came with me to Taipei or she was there. for like the whole end of it. I went a little bit earlier so I could adapt to the times and more and like feel better. But um, but basically she was with me. So, you know, like we went to bed together that night and I woke up that morning and had breakfast together. So it didn't feel like a big goodbye. You know, it was kind of actually she was with me at the base. Like we did the start together. And then I literally was like, okay, bye and walked over and did the thing and saw her get to the top. So we were only apart for like an hour and a half of the whole. You know, I was like,

and I saw her through the window a couple times. And so it felt like she was just there having the whole experience with me. Did you look at other buildings in the world like like the some yeah i've scouted the birch twice over the years um back when this project this project almost happened in 2013 or something and so i'd scouted some buildings then the birch was just a little too extreme it's just too hard but someday maybe who knows because it's what like there's not enough it's too slippery um yeah super slippery also it's just the way the holds are like i mean the beauty of type o 101 is it the holds like they're good things to hold they're close together and you're like er and you can hold them and you feel secure the burge i can barely span

tip to tip to reach between the holds. And so then your face is like right against the glass. You're like holding on like this. And it's pretty hard. And you have to do the same thing 112 times in a row. It's like pretty hard to do it once. Then you have to do 100 times. You're like it's kind of hard. The other thing that I saw online after you'd climbed it about one or two days after everyone started talking about how much you were paid to do it. I think because you did an interview. There were some quotes that were kind of taken out of context because yeah, a New York Times reporter asked me how much I was getting paid. And I was kind of like, I don't want to talk about it because it's kind of embarrassing because all my friends,

it's like an embarrassingly high amount for my community. Like in the climbing world, if you're getting paid to rock climb, you're like, great success. You're getting paid to climb. That's insane. You know, and so I thought it was like sort of an embarrassingly large amount. I'm like, oh, this is kind of weird. But then he sort of poked around and he started comparing it to like boxing matches and stuff where people get paid like $20 million to like fight someone boxing.

And I was like, well, no, compared to that, it's embarrassingly small amount. You know, it's like, or if you compare it to like major league baseball. contracts and things. And it's like, yeah, it's an embarrassingly small amount. But I was never complaining. Like, I thought it was great. I mean, I would do it for free. I mean, I've paid money to go up to the observation deck. The observation deck is way up here at the top. And the view is insane. And the city's incredible. And, you know, it's like 20 bucks or whatever to take the world's fastest elevator to to the top of the building. And, you know, I've done that in the Burge as well where you like pay the money and you go to the very top of the building. And the view is insane. It's like I do that like

anywhere anywhere I travel. Like the Sear, the Willis Tower or whatever, the Sears Tower in Chicago. go like, I've paid the money to go to the observation deck and see the view, and it's so cool. And I'm kind of like, if someone's willing to pay me to climb up to the observation deck, that's freaking cool. Yeah. I think it's because people, again, they believe that this is you're risking your entire life. Yeah, and so, yeah. They don't think of boxes as risking their entire life in the same way. Except they kind of are.

Unless they are. Yeah, but they don't see it as that. I know. Of course they don't see it as that. And that's totally understandable, I get that. But I see it as like anybody going into the boxing ring, particularly if they're very mismatched, You would think that there is some real chance of grievous injury or like death. You know, it's like it's insane.

And so I think that people over it. The thing is I think people that don't know anything about anything, like don't know anything about climbing, look at me climbing a building. They're like, it's 50-50 if he lives or dies. Like, no idea. And you're like, no. If you put this in the context of all the things that I've climbed in my life, I felt very confident that I wouldn't fall out the building.

You know, I was like, you know, obviously it's never 100% because like whatever it's life. but, you know, it feels like 100%. You're like, oh, there's no chance I'm falling off this building. The rumor's where you got 500K to climb it from Netflix. Throughout my whole, like, you know, quote-unquote career as a climber, I basically have never worried about money, and I've always just tried to do the thing and let it all play out at the end. And so I've done a ton of work for free over the years.

Like, actually, we were talking about that half-dome film earlier, whereas, like, I'm shuffling along. It's like, I did that film for free. I did tons of films like that for free just because you're kind of like, oh, it's part of being a professional climber, and I get to go climbing, and I'm up with my friends filming on a thing. you're just like you're working for free it's fine but by doing all that stuff for free like i never i never stress the day rate never you know i was like i don't need to get paid to go have fun with my

friends on wall like it's fine but as a result of that film you know a year or two later they want to doing a photo shoot up there for the cover national geographic and so you just wind up in other things and then and then that got seen and i wound up being profiled by 60 minutes was actually one of the first sort of career inflection points it was like the 60 minutes profile in 2011 or something. But basically I've done a ton of work for free over my life as all part of like it's all part of the game and I just love playing the game. And so you just like let it play out. And it's funny because with this building, a lot of people thought that I was sort of underpaid by it. But afterward, you know, some people have approached me about some bonuses and some other work stuff and like basically

a lot has already sort of happened and it's only been a couple weeks since the building. And I'm kind of like, you know, you don't need to get paid for the thing itself because it always works basically. I'm kind of like, I don't know. I'm like, don't get hung up on how much you get paid. Just do the thing. Make sure it's freaking rad. And it all sorts itself up. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, that's also been like, that's completely true for my life as well. Even this podcast, like when we started the podcast in my kitchen, I mean, this is a replica of my kitchen. And Jack was here. There was no payment when we started it. Yeah, exactly. You're just doing a thing.

You make it as good as you can. And eventually it all sort of works. And you're like, cool. Because that pattern you've just described as played out for 15 years in my life, I now, and again, my CFO, my commercial director might not love me saying this. But they know this about me. And we even talked about it recently with a particular project. It's like, don't let the inability to see where the money's going to come from in the near term stop you pursuing something that you think is going to create value. Because history shows that actually value, like giving value out into the world, precedes the, the the economics. Totally. And so if it happened 15 years of my life, I remember when I started the social media business and people, a guy sat me down in Google in London and explained to me why I would never make money from that business. He, like, he did the math for me. And the math was solid. He was like, if you do want to do, you don't make any money. And I was like, you're like,

yeah, but I don't think that's true. You know, you're like, and you have no evidence. But yeah, but you just know it's going to work. Yeah. The Uber CEO sat here with me yesterday in that CEO. And he was telling me, he was like, the thing is, there's this thing called Jevin's paradox where when something, yeah, when something was more efficient or whatever, people think of things in linear progression, but actually there's exponential progression. So when we launched Uber, more people started taking taxi. So all of the models about how big this market were all wrong. And I find the same in that, and I found the same in podcasting when we started about five years ago was, yeah, like, you set me down and go, well, Steve CPMs, you're going to have to be getting a million downloads to make, like,

to earn a living. Like, but, you know, like, wait and see. Yeah. Like, we'll just do the thing and let it happen. I mean, you're a prime example of that. Yeah. It's always better to focus your energy on being the best of the thing that you're trying to do than figuring out how to monetize it or, you know, make money off it. It's like, I don't know.

I mean, my whole life as a climber, I've always tried to focus on, like, how do you send, which in climbing terms means, like, do the hard thing. Like, you always focus on sending, and then everything else follows. Whoa. What's that on your face? This is my button-charged face mask. I've been wearing this for some time now. They're a sponsor of the podcast. I put this on for 15, 20 minutes a day.

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in a frequent basis. How come? Just because, okay, so there's many things. One of them is the whole idea of like sunk cost bias, where you become successful at a thing and now you have something to lose. So people go into a state of loss ofversion where they start to protect what they have.

Totally. And this narrows your life in a way where you stop taking challenges, stop taking risk, stop doing new things. And the other thing generally about, knowing you're going to die and really like reminding yourself of that, is it liberates you from getting caught up and worrying about things that in the grand scheme of like cosmic reality,

are like totally inconsequential. Yeah. I was hearing someone say the other day, like, do you know the name of your great-grandfather? Do you know his first name? Not really. And do you know the life they lived and what they were worried about and how they were embarrassed and their shame?

Yeah, exactly. No, you don't know any of that. And the point is like, if you don't even know your own families, bullshit. Like nobody else cares, yeah. But even like extremely famous people, a couple of weeks after they trend on Twitter and then a week later, everyone just like gets on with their life again. Well, I'm already experiencing that with this stuff. You know, like the building was like insane for a moment.

But now it's the Olympics and there's a lot going on in the news cycle and it's like the world's moved on. And I'm like, great. I'll go back to just like being at home with my family and climbing as much as I can. Being at home with your family. You said earlier that when you were in that van for 10 years, you wanted a girlfriend. Now, I'm not being funny, but people that fit your profile and to some degree people that fit my profile, struggle in intimate relationships for a variety of reasons. And I think I actually saw this in the documentary when I watched Free Solo.

I saw you had a partner at the time. There was an accident on the cliffside where you fell and she was supposed to be protecting you. And generally I just saw someone who probably is more on the less affectionate, more commitment avoidance side of life. Is that accurate? I don't know about commitment avoidance. Because actually I have had long-term girlfriends and things. But yeah, definitely I'm like less expressive. I'm less emotionally intelligent than my wife.

Has she ever given you feedback that she wishes you were more emotionally available? I mean, I get that. I mean, yeah, yeah, in different words perhaps, but yeah, basically. Sarni is her name. She wrote a letter. Oh, gosh. That's funny because the first two words are, oh gosh, an intimate letter out loud.

Oh, gosh, she does know me. Obviously, this is your worst nightmare, she said. that she knows me so well but we all have to do scary things sometimes Alex my coach she said I remember when you read a book once about a woman who said she was less affected by emotions than most people for her entire life people tried to convince her

that she was wrong that she was suppressing her feelings but at the end of the day she just wasn't as you were reading you turned to me and said something similar something like everyone wants to believe that I'm burying all these things, these feelings deep inside, but I'm just not. And I laughed and I joked. Don't worry, I know you're dead inside. If I remember correctly, you gave me a hug. But I've thought about this conversation a lot, because as the person married to you, I spend a lot of time trying to understand you. And while there obviously are emotions that drive you, I was mostly joking about the

dead inside part. I do think you are far less affected by some feelings like anxiety. fear, shame, guilt or self-doubt than many of us. But the longer I know you, the more I see an ocean of something else hiding beneath the surface. Filling the space that would normally be taken up by all these feelings is the ability to truly see things. You move through the world like a hawk, while the rest of us are lost in thought. As a climber, you can see the way up a rock face, the climability of a building, or the late history of a mountain range. As a farther, you notice the quiet, intrinsic desires of your daughters, or the chores that need doing around the house. And as a friend, you see the raw potential in every person that you meet.

Sometimes this is the hardest thing about you. Nothing goes unnoticed. Neither the strengths nor the weaknesses, the moments of dedication or the moments of laziness. You are practical and blunt in your assessment of your choices and our lives. But that's also because you see us. And paying attention is love. Your ability to see the world so clearly allows you to also appreciate it more clearly, and that is a special form of your love. Perhaps there's a well of emotion in there after all.

But for the purposes of this letter, Alex, I want to give you your gift back to you and tell you what I see, particularly in the last four years since we had kids. Because I think the way you move through the world with us is a unique love story. I see you rushing down the trail from the climbing area so you can get back in time for dinner with me and the girls. I see you flying the red eye so you can be home a day sooner. I see you cramming in your gym session, even when you have a huge goal on the horizon, so that I have time for my workout too. I see you pushing your body to the absolute limit during the day, but still managing to stay awake long enough to chat to me at night.

I see you taking on an extra day of travel, just to convince someone with money to donate your foundation and help save the planet. I see you adjusting your whole training schedule for work opportunities in order to provide a wonderful life for me and the girls. I see the insane juggling act you do every day to not only be a great athlete, but a great dad and husband. I know it's not easy, but I see it and I appreciate it. We love you as you are, Alex. Not overly emotional, but present, committed. And all, Always seeing what others miss. Yours, sounding.

She is very astute. I was like, that's like, that's why I married her, you know. I don't know. She's very astute. Yeah. I learned a lot about you from reading this. Hmm. What do you think?

You know, we all show our love in different ways. And sometimes I think the conventional way that the world tries to measure love. love is through the verbal expression of it and romantic gestures and those kinds of things. But there's another type of person who often struggles, I think, in life's expectations of what love looks like, who show it through acts of service. That was literally one of our last big arguments about something like in the other night, not like a total blowout, but basically she was sort of like, I just need more, you know, of the verbal kind. And I was kind of like, I'm literally doing all the things.

And I always sort of say, you know, action, speak loud in the words. I'm kind of like, if you're doing all the things, you're doing the correct things, you don't need to talk about them because you're doing the things. You know, and that was basically back and forth. I mean, you know, I took her point that, like, occasionally you have to say the right thing, too. Well, I have the same argument on repeat with my fiancé. She needs the words, too. Yeah.

She has, like, a different language. She's speaking Spanish. I'm speaking French. Yeah. And also, by the way, I have to say, at some deep level, again, because of my early context where like you, I wished my parents would break up. I wish they would just get a divorce because the model of love I saw was not a happy one. I think at some deep level I have a commitment problem or an intimacy problem where even growing up, calling someone my best friend somewhat

made me cringe. Like saying affectionate words to someone at some deep level made me feel deeply uncomfortable. And so you can imagine me to being dating. And then I think like oftentimes we go for the opposite in the person we end up marrying or. Yeah, certainly for me. Yeah. Yeah, well, certainly for me as well. Yeah, my wife is like way more emotionally intelligent than anyone in my entire extended family. Yeah, same. This is how you build a rich life is that you basically like, I mean, it's like hiring. You find members of the team who have all the strengths that you need.

Yeah. It's like the things that you can't do and it's like filling your blind spots basically. Have you got better at saying the words? No. Any progress? Yeah, progress probably. But very slow. But in a way that's great, you know, because we're going to be married the rest of our lives.

And so that could be another 50, 60 years together. and so you need to see incremental progress. There's nothing better in life than making progress. And I've started at such a low point, and I'm making progress so slowly that I basically have a good project for the rest of my life. We kind of touch on it before, but one of the things that's been in front of mind for me at the moment

is actually something I saw in your personality test, which was you were high in perseverance. And we talked earlier on about mastery and how it's important to persist to get good at something. But this has just been front of mind for me, I think, for a long time, because even as a podcast, I realize that a lot of the game, I'm like five years in now. And when I look at someone like Joe Rogan, he's been going for like, I don't know, 15, 17 years. Or more, yeah. Or more.

And I go, like, so much of the game in becoming great as something. Yeah, it's grinding. It's just going for an unusual amount of time. Well, it's like compounding interest. I'm like, look at Warren Buffett. Have you ever seen stuff with Warren Buffett where it's like, you know, it took him, whatever, 40 years to make his first. a couple million or whatever, took him another like 10 or 15 years to make his first billion, and then it took him like whatever. In the last eight years, he's made like $100 billion

because this whole wealth is like, ooh. You're kind of like, basically if you put enough time into something and you let it compound, it like slowly gets bigger and bigger. It's exactly that. So I've been thinking about all those numbers are incorrect, but the shape of the graph is correct. We'll put it on the screen so everyone can see it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody correct my numbers. But I mean, the principle is correct. It's the same as this graph here that you drew of your career. It's the same as the podcast growth where three years no one was listening and then we have this one. Yeah. And I think as a principle, that's why you focus on doing something about you, because with the podcast, like if you feel like you're doing something useful and that you think

it's cool and you think there's something there, you just keep doing it and eventually people got on board. Okay, so on that train of thought, I thought a lot about how do I create the conditions to out persist other people in the areas that I love? And one such thing, for example, with a podcast is like never have a conversation that I'm not looking forward to because that's unsustainable over the long term. Totally. Because then it feels like hard work as opposed to something that we're like, this is amazing. Yeah.

So when I'll look at my cat, they'll say, oh, this person wants to come and they've got 160 gazillion followers. But you're like, I don't care about that person. Yeah, because if I use that as a decision frame, I'll quit. Yeah. Do you think about that, like the conditions to out persist in your domain? I mean, kind of, yeah. I mean, I haven't had to think about it too much because I freaking love climbing in all its

forms. And so basically climbing, it comes easily. But like in terms of the work stuff I do, I forget, I think I was talking to before we started recording, but I host this podcast called Planet Visionaries. It's like a Rolex perpetual planet. Like I interview these scientists and conservationists and whatever. And for whatever reason, every time I do those podcasts, I come out of and feeling all energized and like, I should train more. I should study. I should learn something. Basically because the people that I'm interviewing are all so uniquely good at what they do. And they're all trying to save the world in different ways. It's like, you know, marine biologists, like exploring the deep sea floor and things like that.

that yesterday I interviewed these two women about the fact that we've only explored 0.001% of the deep sea, which represents two-thirds of the planet. So basically two-thirds of the planet, we know, like, literally nothing about. And there's, like, this rich underwater world of, like, cool stuff going on in the ocean floor that we've never seen and nothing about. It's insane. And I was like, that's so cool. And I got all fired up about it. And so I come out of work thing, you know, quote-unquote work things like that. And I'm, like, energized and excited to learn and grow and, you know, push myself. And I'm kind of like, That's the type of work that I want to do as much as possible.

And then there are other kinds of things where, you know, I'll do like corporate speaking or something where you show up at a conference and you just like get ground down. You know, when you leave and you go back to your hotel and all you can do is just like lie there on the bed for an hour being like, oh, what am I doing with my life? You know, you feel like kind of wrecked. So it's like if you can focus on the work where you come out of feeling inspired

and like excited to try hard versus the work that makes you want to like mindlessly scroll on something for hours. You know what I mean? Because sometimes you're just like, oh, I'm just so over. it. Yeah, someone said that to me. I mean, in my career, they said, like, whenever you find domains that make you feel expansive. Like, you should double down on those domains because that's the path to master it.

You're going to be able to continue. Yeah, because you can just keep pushing super hard on that. Yeah, thankfully for climbing, that's always just been added. Like, I just frigging love climbing. It's so great. You should do it more. I know. You make us all want to climb more, Alex.

That's one of the, I think, the great consequences of watching you do something like Taipei. I mean, there was loads of kids in the streets of Taipei, I think. that we're all trying to climb buildings. There was those funny videos. Obviously, they were only getting like a meter up. Oh, yeah. Before they fell. I was like, hopefully it's not too much copycatting.

But, yeah, we got some crazy numbers from Netflix that I think half of people, or more than half of people who have a Netflix subscription in Taiwan watch the building climb on. It's like in Taiwan, it was like insane. Like literally everybody watch. It's such a singular striking building in Taipei. It's like a total national icon, you know? It's like, it's insane. Have you already started thinking about what you're going to do next?

People are always like, you know, what's your next big thing? And I'm kind of like, you know, if you just focus on doing lots of little things all the time, occasionally the big things just happen. And you can't totally know ahead of time. Explain that to me. Well, so at least, so I mean, I have climbing goals going back 20 years. I have all these notes on my phone. I always have like to do lists.

I've, especially when I lived in the band and I was traveling, you're like seasonally moving between climbing destinations nonstop. So I'd layer out all these different types of goals. Like I want to do these types of things. Certain goals. lead to other goals because they're the same type of fitness, let's say. So like doing really big things help you do even bigger things later, but doing like really hard and intense things help you do other hard and intense things later. You know, so in some ways in the way you stack your goals,

you can kind of build up to big things or like build up to really hard things or whatever. And so I've always had running to do lists of like, I'm going to try to do all these climbs this year. And realistically, I normally do like half of them or some of them I never even get to because it's like the weather's not good and I wind up going to a different area or like don't go to that climbing destination at all. And so I never even tried the project. But I've always had tons of goals like that. And looking back at years and years of that type of those types of lists, I just see that

it's slightly hard to predict when you're going to achieve the things that are like cutting edge or groundbreaking or whatever. You just have to keep doing the things nonstop. And every once in a while, some of them rise to the top. I mean, this kind of goes back to the same like value creating things. Like you don't know which things are going to be rad. You just do all the things and some of them wind up being rad. And the decision framework there is to just do things you love and that challenge you.

Yeah, things that push you and like things that are new for you that are hard for you that are challenging in the right ways. You know, but you just can't, you don't always know ahead of time which of those things are going to stand out or not. But you just do them anyway because you're learning from them. You're excited about them. They're hard. And then, you know, some are cool. Some aren't. Some you never even try.

I'm like, that's fine. You just keep doing things. The CEO of Uber, Dario, was sat there yesterday. And one of the contrarian pieces of life advice he gave, which is kind of overlaid with what you just said, is he said people need to stop making, young people in particular, need to stop making life plans. Because it narrows them to the serendipity and opportunity and things that might happen if they're broad and open minded. Well, or my wife and I sometimes joke, it's that we both have very strong opinions loosely held. Where it's like, oh, I'm totally sure of a thing right up until I get some data that shows that that's wrong.

And then you're like, oh, never mind, throw that away. And that's kind of how a lot of my to-do list have always been, or like my goals, where I'm like, oh, I have all these goals. But if I take a slight fork in my year where it's like turns out, you know, for whatever reason, like something else lines up and it makes sense to do all these other things. And I'm just like, right turn and just change. Mm-hmm. You know. And it overlaps with what you said earlier about, like, not worrying so much about, like, how much it's going to pay me today or what the big thing is or it's kind of like just keep doing cool things. It'll all work out.

I would love if we could, you know, scan your brain and look at all the parts. especially in the context. I learned about this particular region of the brain called the anterior mid-singulate cortex, which I heard Andrew Huberman talking about. And it's a part of the brain they discovered quite recently that lights up when you do things that you don't want to do. So not things that you enjoy doing that are somewhat difficult,

like running a marathon, but things that you actively avoid and resist, but do anyway, pain, fear, effort, discipline. This is the circuit that decides whether you quit or you push through, and it grows the more you do things you don't want to do. So it's like they now consider it to be the muscle of willpower in the brain. train. When they look at athletes, they have bigger ones. When they look at people who are

struggling or less, are more sedentary or struggling with their weight, they often have smaller ones. Anyone that avoids discomfort has a smaller one. So, um, in your, in the context of the way you've lived your life, you've continued to do things that are hard. I mean, you can love climbing, but you don't necessarily love. Yeah, but just doing like one more set every time is like, that's, that's always a challenge. Yeah. I always like, my whole body hurts, but I'll just do a little more, you know. Yeah. And I think, the thing, the thing is, like, the thing I guess here is about neuroplasticity, which is going to be a ton of people listening right now that are so far away from their Taipei, from their Taipei 101. They're so far away from that.

They're in a job they just don't like. They're maybe the finance brother. You talked about a second ago. And their life is absent of adventure. And they probably look at you and go, well, you know, he just has something I don't have. I know, but I just don't, you know. I mean, I've structured my life in a different way and I've made many different choices and all that. But that's the thing is I don't really think I have anything different. I mean, I actually hate all the like brain stuff because people always like use that to put me in this box. Like, well, you're different. And I'm like, well, not really. Like I'm a middle class suburban kid.

Both my parents, like nobody in my family is athletic. Like nobody is good at sports at all. You know, it's like, like basically if you were to like look at the, you know, like if I was a video game character and you were to look at all my little bars, you'd be like, that guy's not going to be an athlete. Like he's not good at this. I was like, my parents are professors, and we've freaking read books. Like, I'm not, there's no aptitude for anything, really. And I was, like, bad at sports as a kid. I'm not good with balls.

Like, you know, there's no reason. But, I mean, really, I just have loved climbing enough that I've been willing to put in a tremendous amount of time and effort and eventually get good at it. And I'm kind of like, they hear people say, like, oh, your brain's different. You're kind of like, well, everybody's brain is a little bit different in some ways. It doesn't mean that you can't devote yourself to something that you care about. But with this in mind and with all the neuroscientists that have interviewed, your brain is different in part because you've taken, you've done different things. And neuroplasticity says you can

change your brain right the way up throughout your entire life. One of my friends, Tom Bill You is a good example of that. He's a big podcaster. You might know Tom Bill Yu. I don't think so. But he, you know, he was, I can't remember the rough age, but I'm going to say he was 30 years old. He was so, in his words, lazy that he would lay in bed all day. When his girlfriend came home, he said he would jump up out of bed just so she didn't believe that he was in bed all day and he didn't want to be embarrassed. And when he asked his, at the time, girlfriend, if he could ask her dad if he could marry her,

dad said no. He described it to him, like, lazy him down and out. Over the next 10 years, he makes decisions to take on more difficult challenges, builds a billion-dollar company and sells it. If you meet this guy today, you'd think, like athlete, genius, super smart, motivated. You'd beg him for advice on discipline and motivation.

Like, he's that kind of guy. Yeah, so what you do? He read a book about neuroplasticity. And he realized that he was. wasn't stuck. He learned about neuroplasticity, which means that at any age in your life, the decisions you make change your brain. And that's why I love this discovery of this anterior mid-singulate cortex, because it means that, like, maybe in part the reason why I'm not taking on my Taipei one-on-one is because I haven't taken on my Taipei one-on-one.

Yeah, well, you haven't taken on your Taipei 1, you know, your Taipei 12 or whatever, you know, like just the little pieces at the bottom. Because that's the thing is like, and actually, this is why when you ask about like any big goals, I'm like, sometimes I think the big goals are slightly limiting because like if you're your friend who's laying in bed, type 1-1-1-1 is not the appropriate goal. You know what I mean?

Like you need to type A for like you need to just get out and like do a little thing. You need to achieve some success. You need to see that you can do something and you need to take on appropriately sized challenges because I think having a great white whale, you know, is great sometimes, but that's not always what you need, you know?

And partially like for me right now, you know, we're raising two little, kids and we're just like in the midst of it you know it's like bed time right now it's hanging it's just like it's a lot and I'm like I don't need like an l-cap-sized goal right now because you know we're just trying to make it through a certain phase of life really not to say that I'll never have other big goals but you're kind of like you you want your goals to be appropriate to the the time and and space that you have available I had a psychologist say to me about this idea of just setting yourself a Taipei one like a small goal. The reason why people don't do it is because they see it as almost so embarrassingly small

that they don't think it matters. Yeah, but I mean, but that's why you focus on doesn't matter to you. Like, is it something that you haven't done? Like, is it good for your growth? Is it challenging for you? Like, it's good enough. But that same psychologist told me that when they were dealing with a patient who was so demotivated and that they couldn't get out of their bedroom, which was stacked to the ceiling with plates and cutlery, that day one was bringing the Hoover into the room. That was day one. Day two was plugging it in. That was day two. And by day 30, they're outside. This is someone who is scared of going outside.

They're outside walking around. The room is clean. But he said to me that people don't take that first step because it's so embarrassingly small that it's almost shameful to say, like, today we're just going to bring the hoover in. Yeah. But that's the thing that's it's always better to take a step than to not take a step. You know, that's, yeah.

I mean, that's how I've always felt with all these things. You're like, well, you might as well go out and do the thing. Like, do something. Remember the being I was like, you don't let perfect be the enemy of good. like you do the good thing, you know, because it's like, it's, like, don't let perfectionism cripple you. You know, it's like, that's why I think, you know, Type A 101, if that's kind of like your perfect goal, it's like, don't let that hold you back from going out and climbing Taipei 4 or Taipei 8 or, you know, like some of the surrounding little buildings, because it's like,

all you practice on what you can. It goes back to this point of perseverance. I read a quick many years ago that said, greatness doesn't exist. Greatness is just good repeated. I mean, this is what I'm saying about having lots of little goals is that I would actually say that if you repeat good enough, every once in a while some of those are great, actually, but you just don't totally know. I notice that a lot like in my climbing life, like in the long arc of climbing. There are tons of things I did in Yosemite where like in a season I'd have like five or six goals in Yosemite and I'd do all the things. And one of them for whatever reason would wind

up being like, that's rad and it would, you know, like makes climbing news and things like that. And the other ones, you know, maybe less so. But you don't totally know ahead of time which ones are cool or not and which ones are going to stand the test of time. Like, at one point in the not too distant past, I held a speed record on every major formation in Yosemite. Now a few of them have been broken over time. But those are the kinds of things where you never really know like how long those types of records will last because sometimes you do them and then your friend comes and breaks at the next season and you're like, cool, when you go back and forth and it's all part of a fun

game. And then some of them you set a speed record in it lasts for like 15 years. You're sort of like, oh, I didn't realize that this was going to be like such a milestone, you know? It reminds me of the Steve Jobs quote about how you can only really connect the dots looking backwards. Totally. Totally. Steve Jobs' quote from his commencement speech was, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. Clarity isn't a prerequisite for action. It's the reward you get after you move.

And that's the things, I think, because I do so many interviews with like, you know, when was the moment you decided to be a professional climber? And I'm like, there's no moment. Like, I just did the thing for years and years. And now looking backward, it looks like this amazing arc. You know, but at the moment, you're always, you know, I spent years being like, should I go back to college? Like, do I need a degree? Like, and then I spent a few years wondering if I should go back and get like an executive

MBA or something or something because I was like, I don't want to go back to undergrad. I've been living in my band for 10 years. But you're kind of like, still, I need that validation. I need, you know, I want to jump through the hoops. And then really, it's only now that I'm kind of like, I don't think I need that. In part, I think the reason why we, so many of us get forced into procrastination when we're trying to connect the dots looking forward is because we face these questions from society, which is like, what's your plan, what's your plan?

career. What are you aiming at? And we don't have answers. So we fill in the gaps. We have to say something to mom and dad. You have to say, like, what's the plan for the future? You can't say nothing. No, no plan. Well, you just say, I'm living. I'm just letting it play out. We'll just see what happens. It's going to be a grand adventure. And I mean, I kind of hope my kids feel confident with that. You know, just kind of like, well, I'm doing the best I can. I'm practicing the things that I care about. And we'll see how it plays out. We'll see how it plays out. Because like, either way, it's going to play out with me and them and everybody else dying. You're like, you know how it's to play out at the end end. And so you're kind of like the whole space up to there is like,

oh, you try to fill it with as many things that you're proud of as you can. It's a remarkably simple way to live in a world that's increasingly complex, Alex. Hmm, well, I mean, it doesn't need to be that complex. But this is why I think spending some time in nature, like helps remind you of some of those sorts of things. This company that I've just invested in is growing like crazy. I want to be the one to tell you about it because I think it's going to create such a huge productivity advantage for you. Whisperflow is an app that you can get on your computer. and on your phone, on all your devices, and it allows you to speak to your technology. So instead of me writing out an email, I click one button on my phone and I can just speak

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a sponsor of this show. And Whisperflow is frankly becoming the worst kept secret in business, productivity and entrepreneurship. Check it out now at Whisperflow, spoke W-I-S-P-R-F-L-O-W.A-I-I-S-E-E-I-S-E-E-L-E-E-L-E-E. It will be a game-changer for you. If you knew that you only had one week left to live, and this was the week, and you could only do one last climb. Go back and re-catcher the record, go do Al-CAP again, I don't know, a different building.

You have one week. And assume you're sufficiently prepared for whatever the climb would be. What would you do? So I'm allowed to do like cutting-edge futuristic things? Yeah. Oh, well, then I'm like, I don't know. I mean, the Burrish, like, it'd be insane.

But no, like, the free triple in Yosemite is like the three biggest walls in Yosemite. Free triple. So it's L-Cap, half-dome, and Mount Watkins. Mount Watkins is kind of like a half-dome-sized wall that's further up valley. So it was the three big walls in Yosemite. So Tommy Caldwell and I have free-clim the triple. The two of us did it together with ropes, but we, like, climbed the whole thing.

And then I've soloed the triple, so I've done all three with ropes by myself. It was like 18 or 19 hours or something of climbing. But it's never been free-soled. I've free-soled haftum individually, and I've free-soled L-CAP individually. No one's ever free-souled Watkins. But the idea. of doing all three in a day would be like, I think, totally like next generation achievement. There's certain things like that where I'm sort of like, if I was starting over, if I was like an 18 year old who was like trying to make it as a professional climber nowadays and had a higher level of skill than I do now, you know, basically was like trying to do this again.

There are things like that that would be sort of like the obvious next generation challenge. Free solo all three in the same day. Yeah. Yeah, it'd probably take, well, it'd take a bit under 24 hours probably. What is your training regimen These days? It's going to rock climbing a lot Today I did a little workout

In the hotel gym this morning Your hands are quite different They're quite big hands Well that's I mean I think like a stone mason Just like grinding away their whole life I see you have I don't know if people can see that on camera

But it does look like you have very Wide fingers Yeah my fingers Have taken a lot of abuse in their time Because I see you like putting them in In between walls and stuff yeah crack climbing it's like you basically put your fingers into a crack and you torque them so like the side to side pulling uh does sort of make your connective tissue bigger and does that hurt Yeah, it hurts.

I was wondering when you're going up, when you're doing it well with good technique, it's not that painful. It depends on the type of rock, but some rock is kind of sharp and kind of painful. But yeah, this goes back to strengthening your, what's the part called in your brain? Interior mid-singular cortex.

Yeah, exactly, that guy. I mean, that's the thing is that even when done well, climbing like, it hurts your fingers and toes. You know, crack climbing when you're, like, jamming your toes into a crack and you're torquing them side to side and you're, like, wedging your fingers in. I mean, when you're doing it well, it has a pleasant feel of safety to it

because you can really like lock into cracks and it feels comfortable and you feel like you're swimming. You're like, this is beautiful. But when you really come down to the sensations, you're still crushing your bones into a crack like it still hurts. When I look at this kind of photo, where you're, it looks like you're hanging by one and a half hands. Yeah. And you're going to fall to your death if your grip isn't sufficient. It makes me think you must have the world's greatest grip strength. I definitely don't.

But I mean, where you have your grip then, you can find out. What's below you there? In this photo? Well, actually, so there is like a sloping cliff thing below me. So I'm actually only like 30 feet off the ground. Or 40 feet. But if you fell, you'd bounce off and you'd go, you know, basically to where it looks like down on the valley floor down there. Terrifying photo. It's funny. Actually, have you seen Free Solo? Yeah, yeah. Do you remember the camera guy that like can't look? The guy that's like shooting the long shot on the ground, Mikey. He's a really good friend of mine. I've done tons of things with him. He was, he shot the Taipei climb as well. Mikey was the photo assistant for this photo. He was like holding the photos. And he did the whole. shoot just like looking into the wall like he just never looked at any of the things happening like Jimmy chin was taking the photo and Mikey was like did all the the rigging and the lights and everything and Mikey did the whole shoot just like looking into his arm like looking at the other way he was like I'm not part of this I'd like to see his brain scar he was stressed but he I mean he's an elite climber himself and he's amazing but like basically watching free so long is stressful and nobody wants to do it

if they don't have to well when is that in all your career when is the moment where you were most scared where you thought maybe you had pushed it too far? Oh, it's actually, I've had several moments, but actually mostly with ropes on. That's the thing is that because when you're freestoling, you generally keep it within a healthy margin or you practice ahead of time. You know, basically because you're going to die,

you make sure that you can do it. But when you have a rope on, you're way more willing to push into the unknown because you're kind of like, surely I'll get some protection eventually. I'll just keep looking. I'll keep looking. And so, like, I've had,

I was on an expedition to Antarctica actually in 2017 and did a bunch of climbing that was very extreme. but like with a rope. But it's, you know, as Antarctica, it's really freaking cold. Conditions are challenging. The rock is crumbling. Everything is scary.

And you just keep hoping that it's going to get better and it just keeps getting worse instead. Eventually you're sort of like, because the thing is having a rope on doesn't mean anything unless you get good protection, which means you have to be able to put gear into the rock. And if you can't find places to put gear into the rock, then you can go, you know, the rope's 200 feet long.

If you go 200 feet without getting good gear, then you're looking at taking a 400 foot fall before the rope catches you, which is almost certainly fatal. You know, I mean, if you fall that far, even though the rope will catch your corpse, you know, but you're so just going to hit the wall after 400 feet, like you're screwed. So anyway, my scariest experiences have all been in situations like that, for the most part.

This is why I'm saying climbing, you get scared a lot. And I was like, that expedition, we were climbing basically day on day off. Each day we would go climb one of these crazy spires, and we'd have these experiences where I'd be like so scared. And then the next day we were just sit in the tent because it's Antarctica. It's like really cold. You're in the cook tent. And I would basically just spoon Nutella all day, totally.

shell shocked, like totally, like just completely traumatized. And then, and then you'd be like rest enough and you'd go out the next day and do it again. And we just did like day on, day off of like full trauma, fear for the whole trip. And then we climbed everything in the range. It was amazing. It was an incredible trip. So you do get scared. Yeah, I was so scared the whole time. Are there any techniques that are proven to be effective for you to deal with that feel? Like people talk about breath work and... Yeah, it takes some deep breaths, try to compose yourself. I mean, I try to stay rational, you know, like, am I in danger? Because sometimes, like, in this case in Antarctica, I am actually in danger. Like, if I fall, I could die. But oftentimes

you get those feelings of fear and you're not actually in danger. It's your mind running away from you. And so sometimes you can sort of rationally rein in a little bit where you're like, no, I am safe. The protection will hold me. The rope is, you know, my gear is good. And then you just take a deep breath and you just carry on. And do you visualize falling ever? Oh yeah. I mean, of course. Yeah, I mean, you have to understand what the consequences would be. Because, I mean, that type of visualization is also how you can know when you're safe. Because Like, if you have a rope in gear and you're trying to visualize, like, if I fall, am I going to hit the ground? Or is the gear going to catch me before I hit the ground?

I mean, there are often situations like that where you're like, if I fall, am I going to hit that ledge and break both my legs? Or am I going to clear the ledge and fall into free space, in which case is totally safe? And so it helps to be able to have a clear-eyed visualization of, you know, because most people visualize the worst case. Like, if I fall, I'm going to die. And you're like, well, oftentimes if you, I'm talking about with a rope, if you fall, you're going to be fine. But it's important to know the difference. So you don't avoid the comfort. confrontation with the negative outcomes?

No, because you're trying to avoid the negative out. You have to think about it because how else do you mitigate that kind of stuff. But you can't let that stop you taking actions when the risk profile is okay. Yeah, exactly. I mean, this is like a whole rant about risk taking and everything. But like, I mean, that's the thing is you want to be taking the risks that you want to take. And it drives me crazy that nobody else thinks about risk in this way. Because think of all the people that like go out partying every weekend and they get like kind of buzzed

and they drive home and whatever. And it's like they're taking all kinds of risk that they're not actually choosing to take. You know what I mean? Like they're just choosing to go out and party and have a good time. But then they're like driving a little buzzed and they're like, no, it's fine.

But you're like, no, obviously you're taking risk. Or like you're putting yourself into situations where you're like in a vulnerable situation because you're incapacitated because you're drunk or whatever. And so, you know, you're putting yourself at a higher risk for crime, things like that. And so you're taking risks. You just haven't chosen to take those risks.

I'm kind of like the thing with climbing is that I'm choosing to take the risks and I'm pretty clear-eyed about the risk that I'm taking. Like, I mean, I'm not going to say it's perfect, but for the most part, I think I have a pretty good idea of which aspects are dangerous, like when the consequences are high, what will happen if I do fall?

You know, it's like you try to think it all out as much as you can. I'm kind of like, how many people in normal life actually think through all the risks that they're taking? And even totally sedentary people who are like, well, I don't take risk. I stay at home and I play video games. You're like, no, you're at a much higher risk of heart disease. Like, you're going to die from other things.

You know, it's like, and you're still going to freaking die either way. that's okay I'm done ranting I'm sorry no no but it's really important because I think we are all taking risks but some of us aren't intentional about the risks we're taking essentially that's exactly it like even if you take no risk you're going to die you're taking a different set of risks and so people look at my life and they're like well you're crazy you're such a risk take and I'm kind of like well at least I'm taking the risks that I'm choosing and I'm choosing them very intentionally and I'm pretty careful about them and I mitigate them as much as I can I'm kind of like well can you say the same for the risk that you're taking or you know I'm sort of like the average person I think doesn't think about risk as much as they should. And is there anything that you would give them as a framework to help them be more intentional

about those risks? Is it just... Well, it's like, you're going to freaking die either way. So choose the things that you care about and then do them well. And do them well. Prepare. Yeah. Execute.

Like, have a plan. You know, but don't just like take risk willy-nilly. Like, don't just get drunk and go out and do a thing. You know, because like, that's stupid. Like, that's not the risk you should be taking. You know, like, don't put all your money on black and just like hope. You know what I mean? Like, basically don't just.

like roll the dice, like, don't let fate just like roll the dice with your life. Like, make choices. And free soloing is, you know, there's a bigger existential risk with no margin for error. But it's very intentional. Very intentional. Drinking as a risk is like a volume knob. The more you do it, the more the risk increases. And the other one is kind of like an on-off switch, which you can do it today. Yeah. So grip strength. I wouldn't be even a little bit surprised if you can pull that more than I can actually. But I mean, we'll both try. Okay, this is a grip strength meter. Okay, so let's see. We're at zero. K milligrams will be extra small. I mean, the thing with these, like, okay, actually, let me just preface this with like, I've had tons of people be like, well, surely you're

going to break the machine. I'm like, no, because for climbing, you just have the strength that you need to do the things that you're trying to do. And how much do you weigh? Right now, like 165. Which is actually basically the heaviest over been. Maybe 163, if I'm lucky right now. So 165 pounds in KG is equivocal to 75 kilograms roughly. Yeah. Okay, go ahead. 49 or 50. 49.

I don't try that much more. It's just like, yeah, 49. You know, but those are just kind of like, it's just a different thing. You know what I mean? Like, that's not climbing. 49 KG in pounds is 108. Interesting. Yeah, let's see yours.

But yeah, like I'm saying. Are you stronger with different arms? It's about the same with both hands. it should be. 62? Yes, see, there you go. I can't lift my body weight. I can't lift my body weight.

Yeah, I mean, I might be able to muster a little more in it, but... 63 on that one. Let me try again. But, like, I don't think... Do you work out? Like, you do weights and stuff? I lift dumbbells, but I'm not doing anything grippy. I curl and stuff, but I don't do anything grippy.

I'm at 50 and a half. How many pull-ups can you do? Don't know, but I can... Yesterday I did a couple one-arms, like... Like, yeah. We're on pull-ups. Yeah, which is very hard. Yeah, I don't think I can do one-arms.

Yeah, well, that's the thing. That's why grip-strength stuff, you're kind of like, nah. Or actually, so, like, have you done weighted pull-ups in a gym? Weighted pull-ups? No, I just do, I'll just do my own body weight. And I, you know, I weigh a lot. So I'm, like, deceptively heavy. Really?

Yeah. Very dense. Can't float in water. No, like, big bones. You just sink straight in the bottom. How much kilograms do you think of, I wait? I mean, in pounds you'd know. But this is.

Well, now I'm guessing. know, like, now that you're saying that you're big, I'm like, I don't know, maybe 185 or something. I'm 211. Yeah, with actually, so that's another thing with grip strength. It's like, it makes sense that your grip strength is proportionate. I mean, you're like 25% bigger than me. Yeah, yeah. You're like, you know, basically.

Yeah. So it's like you would expect it to be at least 25% stronger right there just because, like, if you can do body weight pull-ups, you're going to be much stronger. Yeah. But we have, we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're leaving it for. And the question left for you is, oh, what do you want to achieve in your life outside of your mainline job that you haven't yet achieved? No, no, I mean, that seems, there are basically two other avenues that I care about in my life. You know, my family, I want to be a good dad. I want to make sure my kids grow up to be healthy, well-adjusted people that, you know, like live their best lives.

And then I have a foundation that supports community solar projects around the world. And I'd love to see that thrive. I mean, basically, I mean, you know, we give as much as we can to solar projects around the world, and I'd love to see that do more. On that point of your foundation, what is the sort of the thesis there? You want to, for solar projects. Yeah, yeah, solar. It's basically energy access around the world.

Okay. Yeah, I think now we've given an over 13 million to something like over 100 partners around the world, basically like small-scale community solar projects. So people getting access to energy for the first time, basically using solar for anything ranging from light to, you know, say, food refrigeration to pumping water, I mean, whatever people need energy for, which is basically everything. More than 13 million across 130 projects and 30 countries impacting 650,000 people and creating 1,200 plus jobs, protected 15 million acres of biodiverse forest as well.

Yeah, some of those things are sort of like the secondary and tertiary benefits, whereas when you empower certain kinds of communities, then they're better able to take care of their lands and things like that. Some of that has to do with indigenous sovereignty and things like in the Ecuadorian Amazon and places where it's like when the local people have power, suddenly they can protect their land from illegal logging, illegal mining, things like that. And so then you wind up having this knockoff like environmental benefit that's like also great in addition to the human aspect where you're like, well, these people are living better lives and it helps save the planet. And you're giving away roughly a third of your wealth to cover

the majority of the foundations overheads. Yeah, I've been given roughly a third of my of what I make every year since 2012. And that's basically just sort of coincidentally tracked with the overhead for the foundation. So it just means that anything that people contribute to go straight to projects because I basically cover all the staffing and everything. How does one contribute to that? Honolfoundation.org is the easiest way. You can support directly.

I mean, you can see all the projects that we're working with. And donors can go there if they want to contribute to this. They can go to the website. Okay, but I'll link the website below. And if anyone is interested in continuing to support the great work you're doing there, I'd highly recommend they go and, make a donation. It's a, it's also just a way, I think, to give back to you as a person for the inspiration you've given so many of us. I appreciate that. You know. Yeah. I mean, to me,

the foundation has always been my attempt at doing something useful. It's like, I love rock climbing. I think it's so fun. But in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter in the world. And I feel like the work that we're doing through the Honnold Foundation, at least material improves the well-being of other humans, you know, like it actually has a real impact, both for the environment and for people. Well, I don't know, Alex. I think watching you climb Taipei and watching the millions of people all around the world, Klein Taipei, was an expansive moment for all of us because it all, it holds a mirror up to us in a really inspiring way and goes, what obstacles can you overcome in your life? And the many, many millions of people now have that

visual. And sometimes it is an absurd visual that does that and it's most memorable. Like, it etched into their brains. And that means that they in their own life are looking for their own Taipei 1s or Taipei 7s or Taipei 101's. And if you play that forward as like a ripple in the ocean of how people are going to strive and maybe live more intentionally, maybe it does really, really matter. Maybe the whole conversation, which was my entire Twitter feed for days and days and days of people saying, this is a miraculous human achievement, it's like, that's the first half of a sentence. The other half of that sentence, which we never really hear is like, so now what can I do? And that is a profound thing. Well, that's definitely the best,

frame. Like, that's the framing that I hope for. And that's, you know, but I think that's, like, the best case scenario for my climbing. And, like, I hope that that's how people take it. But I will say that the work through the Honorable Nation at least has a direct material impact immediately. You're kind of like, oh, you don't have to hope for ripples or anything. You're like, well, this person can now read after dark for the first time ever. And you're like, that is game changing. If anything, you know, I've been talking a lot about, like, action speaking louder than words. And I'm like, yeah, I hope to, you know, it's great if the climbing I do inspires people, like, that's all good. But at some point, you just do a direct thing that actually,

helps people's lives too. And you're doing both. Yeah, yeah, aspiring to. Doing my best. The tangible and the tangible. Exactly. Alex, thank you so much. Thank you. Amazing conversation. Thank you. I got back from Davos in Switzerland,

the snowy village where some of the world's leading experts, CEOs, founders, world leaders gather in this one space. And while I was there, my colleague Juan was telling me about something he does, which many of my friends do. They list their properties when they go away on Airbnb. So many of us when we go away, we leave our house as this dormant asset that's doing nothing for us other than racking up bills. And as some of you might know, Airbnb are one of our show partners. And I've stayed in their properties all over the world and continued to do so,

but I've never actually hosted one of my properties on there. But when I heard this, it got me thinking, what a smart move it is to make money from an asset that's currently probably costing you money. Every time you're away, your home sits empty. And what Juan told me is how easy it was to get set up. He makes his home available for specific dates so that his guests always depart the day before he gets home. So if you're trying to find an easy way to make some extra money on the side, hosting on Airbnb might be exactly that, especially if you move around a lot. Your home might be worth more than you think. And you can find out how much your home is worth by going to Airbnb.ca.ca slash host.