Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal - Alex Honnold: Fear, Finding Purpose, Climbing

Episode Date: January 30, 2024

In today's episode, Alex Honnold shares insights from his climbing adventures, delving into how facing fear and embracing risk shape his approach to life. Alex reflects on the interplay between physical challenges and emotional growth, offering a unique perspective on finding purpose and meaning through extreme sports.YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4oXvxqzSyA TIMESTAMPS:00:00 - Intro01:23 - What Is Fear?04:38 - Shifts In Consciousness06:28 - Mentality08:59 - Climbing With Cameras13:29 - Climbing As Art17:48 - Courage19:51 - The Sacred / Transcendent23:58 - Meaning26:03 - What Drives Alex?36:29 - Having Children42:20 - Arctic Ascent46:08 - Alex’s Foundation53:32 - Life Purpose56:34 - Advice01:01:47 - Breakthrough Moments01:06:42 - What’s Next?01:11:56 - OutroNOTE: The perspectives expressed by guests don't necessarily mirror my own. There's a versicolored arrangement of people on TOE, each harboring distinct viewpoints, as part of my endeavor to understand the perspectives that exist.THANK YOU: To Mike Duffey for your insight, help, and recommendations on this channel. Support TOE: - Patreon:  / curtjaimungal   (early access to ad-free audio episodes!) - Crypto: https://tinyurl.com/cryptoTOE - PayPal: https://tinyurl.com/paypalTOE - TOE Merch: https://tinyurl.com/TOEmerch Follow TOE: - Instagram:  / theoriesofeverythingpod   - TikTok:  / theoriesofeverything_   - Twitter:  / toewithcurt   - Discord Invite:  / discord   - iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast... - Pandora: https://pdora.co/33b9lfP - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b9... - Subreddit r/TheoriesOfEverything:  / theoriesofeverything   Join this channel to get access to perks:  / @theoriesofeverything   

If you do a 24-hour to 48-hour push in the mountains and you like watch the sun come up for the second morning in a row, you will have a transformative experience. Whether that's transcendence or spiritual anyway, as you start to get ground down physically, you get way more open emotionally and sort of psychologically to have crazy experiences. Alex Honnold, widely known from the Free Solo documentary, is now venturing on a new challenge in Arctic Ascent, a National Geographic series. This documentary chronicles his journey in Greenland, and today we explore the themes central to Honnold's career and life, fear, risk, and purpose. How does confronting fear

in extreme physical contexts translate to broader life lessons? What does it even mean to confront fear? Should we confront it, or should we listen to it? What does it even mean to confront fear? Should we confront it? Or should we listen to it? What does treating fear as a mentor mean? What is Alex's approach to risk, both in climbing and in personal philosophy? Furthermore, we talk about the search for meaning and purpose. I recommend you watch his new series, Arctic Ascent, on Disney+. It's also on Hulu and National Geographic. For those of you who don't know, my name is Kurt Jaimungal, and I use my background in mathematical physics to analyze theories of everything

from, again, a math and physics perspective, an analytical perspective, but as well as I'm interested in broader questions of what is consciousness, what lies at the fundament, and even what is free will, do we have it? Enjoy this podcast with Alex Honnold. Alex, some people think of fear as an obstacle to overcome, but can you talk about some times where fear has served as a guide or a protector to you? Yeah, I think fear is often an obstacle to overcome, but it's always a useful indicator. I mean, think of fear as a signpost. Like, you know, it's often warning you that you're in danger. I mean, I think of fear. I don't know. I mean, this could be a whole long

chat if we really go into it. But sometimes I equate fear to hunger, where it's, you know, hunger is your body giving you a physiological sign that at some point you should eat something. And I think fear is much the same way. It's like a physiological response. It's your body telling you that you're probably in danger. And sometimes you are, sometimes you aren't. And it's worth sort of rationally evaluating whether or not you are in fact in danger, like if your fear is well founded or not. And so sometimes it's worth ignoring that fear and just moving on because you are in fact safe. And so it's not worth, you know, heating that fear. But sometimes you are in danger and you probably should mitigate it. You know, it's like worth, you know, heating that fear. But, but sometimes you are in danger,

and you probably should mitigate it. You know, it's like you should, you should take steps to correct it. So I think that, you know, I think that sometimes people think of fear almost with a sense of shame, you know, it's like, Oh, I was afraid. And that's bad. I mean, there's nothing wrong with feeling fear. It's whether or not you let the fear control you. That's more of the problem. So how do you distinguish between an irrational fear and a legitimate one? Well, I think that's where you use reason, basically. You think about it. You're like, am I actually in danger?

I mean, so in climbing, you feel fear all the time because you're up high. And not just in freestyling. It sounds like you're in danger all the time, though. It sounds like those are all legitimate fears. No, because when I'm climbing 95% of the time, climbing, you know, 95% of the time I'm climbing with ropes and climbing partners and just kind of climbing normally. And almost all of the time you can fall. I mean, you're using safety equipment, you have a rope, it's totally safe, but it's still

pretty scary because you're still way up high off the ground. And there's still always that sense of uncertainty around, like, you know, you have the equipment on, but you're like, but if you fall, what will happen? Like, maybe you'll fall a little further than you want. Like, maybe you'll hit the wall. Maybe, you know, there's just a little bit of unknown around it. And so there's always a little bit of fear that creeps in, even though it is technically safe. So I think with climbing, you're constantly in this conversation with yourself as to whether or not your fear is founded. So do you have a relationship with fear other than you listen to it and then you assess? Is there something like you have an understanding with your fear? Like in some Jungian sense, you see it as another personality.

No, that's almost like two. I think it's just something that you're experiencing all the time and you learn how to, like you get to know it, but I think in the same way that hunger, like, because people experience hunger all the time and like throughout the day, you always experience small, small amounts of hunger and you almost always ignore it because you already have a plan and you already know that at some point you're going to eat again soon. So you're not really concerned about it. And I think that as a climber, your relationship with fear is, is relatively similar. You know, it's like you're not really concerned about it. And I think that as a climber, your relationship with fear is, is relatively similar. You know, it's like you're experiencing low grade fear

almost all the time. Most of the time you ignore it because it doesn't, you know, that it doesn't mean anything, but occasionally it does mean something and then you have to act on it. I see. Have you experienced shifts in your consciousness during a climb? I mean, yeah, well, it depends what you mean by shifts in your consciousness, I guess. I mean, I definitely have experienced not like I've never had like out of body experiences. And, you know, I have friends and things who have sort of described like seeing themselves climb and things like that. Oh, you have not have that. I've never experienced that. Though I do occasionally experience what I sort of call like a feeling of autopilot,

where you feel like your body is just executing without any sort of mental function on your own part. You know, we're like, you're no longer controlling your body, your body is just doing what it's supposed to do. And you're observing your body doing so? No, you're not really observing. You're like, it's almost like you're a, you're a passenger inside of a high performing machine. You know, it's like, I think in some ways, I think that's the best sensation while free-souling is when you, and this is super rare, but you can occasionally tap into that where you're almost like witnessing your body do, occasionally tap into that where you're almost like witnessing your body do you know do what it's supposed to do and that happens more on the climbs that you've practiced or even sometimes when you haven't uh more so on the climbs that you practiced because i think that for that to occur

it helps to be able to get out of your own head like not have to think about things non-stop and in climbs that you haven't practiced you're often often, you know, sort of second guessing. You're thinking about route finding. You're thinking about, like, because you've never been up there before, you're legitimately trying to figure out where you're supposed to go. And you're legitimately wondering if you're on the right path, if there's a better path further to the side or, you know, things like that. So, like, because you're still reasoning quite a bit, you're still thinking a lot, it's hard to totally lose yourself in the experience because, you know things like that so like because you're you're still reasoning quite a bit you're still thinking a lot it's hard to totally lose yourself in the experience because you know how do you mentally prepare for a climb it's each climb different well when you say well when you say a climb are you do you mean like big free solos yeah because but also for arctic ascent so for

people who haven't watched the intro there's a new documentary series with you, a three-part series produced by National Geographic called Arctic Ascent with Alex Honnold. When you're preparing for something like, let's say people know you from two major facets, Free Solo, so El Cap, but also Arctic Ascent. So why don't you contrast those two and what mentally preparing looks like?

Yeah, that's interesting. So, I mean, with Free solo, the mental preparation was extreme, you know, involved. Like, you know, it's years of practice and visualization and, you know, fantasizing about the route and just kind of generally, you know, I sort of lived it for years. And then in many ways, the climbs that I did in Arctic ascent are the, I was about to say the polar opposite. And then I was like, pun intended, because it's in the Arctic. But it's because those were first ascents, so nobody's ever done them before. Nobody's ever seen the walls before. Nobody's ever touched them before. So you can't really mentally prepare for them

in the same way. Really for a climb like that, the preparation is just being ready for the unknown, sort of embracing the unknown and then just entering the experience totally open. You know, just like whatever happens, happens, we'll adapt to it as it occurs and we'll just do our best, you know. But the other key distinction is that with Arctic Ascent, I was with partners, I was with a team, we're roped up, we're using safety equipment. But then it's interesting because it's like, we're using safety equipment, but that doesn't actually make it safe. Because, you know, the equipment, you still have to be able to find, you know, cracks and things to put the gear into. And so you're often still climbing quite a long ways without protection. And so you're often still climbing quite a long ways without protection. And, you know, like if you have a rope on and you go 100 feet without protection, that means you're looking at potentially taking a 200 foot fall. And a 200 foot fall on that type of terrain in the middle of nowhere in the Arctic could still potentially be fatal.

And so, you know, I mean, falling more than 20 feet could be could be a huge problem if you're out in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. So it's one of those things that, you know, even even though you're using safety equipment it doesn't exactly make it safe and so you're still constantly involved in the same dialogue around fear and you know all that to say using safety equipment can still be quite scary sometimes how do the camera people do this because often people associate or identify with the person on screen, and it's extremely difficult for them, obviously. But then I'm always wondering, yeah, the camera people are doing almost as much and then lugging gear and then having to concern themselves about shots and did I get the sound and so on. So what do you make of the, well, what about the camera people? Do they have extra assistance that we don't see are they helicoptered up there what's going on they typically do have more assistance in some ways so like with the film free solo i was doing most of my preparation work and the camera guys were doing all their prep work by hiking to the summit of el cap which is sort of like an extreme hiking route it takes a couple hours you know it's hard physical work but but it is safe and relatively fast and you can just get to the summit and then then from the summit, you can repel down ropes to get into position.

And so the camera guys, uh, you know, are all skilled climbers themselves though to do their job. They're not, they're not required to climb. They hike to the top, they repel down ropes. So they're hanging on ropes the whole time. And so it's still, you know, it's still the vertical environment. I mean, they still have to be comfortable hanging 2,500 feet off the ground and spinning around in space and like, you know, dangling there. But it's not the same as climbing up into that position. we were doing first ascent so nobody had ever been there before you know there's no easy way to get to the summit of the peaks which is why we're climbing them and so on arctic ascent the camera guys had to be more comfortable on skis because we were traversing glaciers uh you know but for the most part we would uh climb and then fix ropes behind us like leave ropes in place so the camera guys could ascend up and down those ropes to kind of get there okay and then they also just did a lot more with drones and with long shots and and overall

you know i mean if if you watch arctic scent the the cinematography is totally beautiful and it's you know it's incredible like it looks amazing but realistically they use easier shots than in free solo you know i mean there's way less like top-down photography there's like they just kind of get by with more long shots drone shots like other things because it's just so hard to shoot in that environment does the presence of the cameras impact the climb like let's say both in lcap and in arctic ascent sometimes like an arctic ascent it doesn't impact that much because realistically you're up there with your team either way you have climbing partners so the the camera guys are basically just another member of the climbing

team and you're all up there working together to try to get up the wall on free solo the camera guys could impact the experience for sure because when you're doing something that's hard and scary by yourself having somebody else next to you totally changes the experience or it can and so in the case of free solo the the whole camera team was very mindful of of trying not to affect my experience i mean they're trying to shoot a documentary about me attempting this difficult thing so they didn't want to impact it too much but you know it's hard not to impact it too much, but you know, it's hard not to impact it a little bit. Yeah. I mean, like, like one easy example of that is that like with, with free solo, typically if, if you're going free soloing, like if you're going to go climb something by yourself without a rope, you don't really tell

anybody about it ahead of time because you want the option to, to back down. Like if you wake up and you hike up to the wall and then you just don't really feel it, you want to feel comfortable just walking back down and like not climbing that day. You know, you don't want any pressure on yourself one way or another, because if it's not your day, you don't want to force it. Because I mean, the thing with free-sailing is you never want to force it if you don't feel it. But when you have a bunch of camera people around, they all have to get into position hours ahead of time because it takes, you know, it's a lot of work to hike to the summit, rappel in, get all the ropes ready, like do all that kind of prep work. So if I'm going to go free soloing at six in the morning, that means that

the camera crew is up at three in the morning. They're probably up at two in the morning to pack their bags and then three in the morning to hike. And then they're already in position on the wall. And so I know that if I walk up to the base at seven in the morning and I'm just like, you know, I don't feel it today. I think i'm just gonna call it All of my friends just busted their ass for six hours that morning right for nothing and and even though Like that shouldn't sounds like far more pressure Well, exactly. I mean it doesn't need to be more pressure like it's not it's not like they're trying to put pressure on you But you just know that you're wasting your friend's time if you don't perform. And so, uh, you know, it, it definitely is more pressure.

Do you find that climbing is an artistic expression? Yeah, that's, some climbers definitely do for me. I think it's, um, I think I've always skewed more towards the athletic side of the spectrum. Like if you think of like an athlete versus an artist, I think I personally have always cared more about the athletics than the artistic side. But even for me, I appreciate the artistry. I mean, it is beautiful and aesthetics certainly play a role. I mean, looking up at a beautiful cliff and like caring about it.

And, you know, I mean, that means more than just the pure athleticism of it. So for me as an outsider who I think I rock climbed once in my life in an extremely safe indoor situation. Which gym? It was in Toronto. So I'm from Toronto. And it was somewhere on Bloor Street. I don't know if you know Toronto. I've been to a couple of the gyms in Toronto. Yeah. Cool. Cool. I can't imagine how anyone would see it as artistic.

I can see it as athletic as well, but what the heck does it mean for, you've mentioned some of your climbing friends see it as somehow some expression. I agree that if, if you learn how to climb indoors and I learned how to climb indoors when I was a kid, I think it's definitely more athletic that way. You think of it more as a sport that you're training for. But if you grew up climbing in the mountains, then it's much more artistic, you know, aesthetic pursuit. think about, sorry, so there's different dances that you can do that are called contact dances where you're with another person and you're always supposed to keep at least one or two points of contact. And I can imagine that as artistic. And so when I heard that some people think of climbing as artistic, I imagine it was that, not just they see a vista. No, I think so. Yeah. The sort of balletic performance, like the, I mean, in the same way that I suspect if you asked a gymnast, they would probably see gymnastics as, as partially artistic expression and like the way they move their body and the beauty of the movement, but then also largely athletic, you know, and like how well they can mechanically move their body. And I think that climbing is very similar in that way. But there are definitely there, there have been many climbers

in there and there are climbers who are very motivated by the beauty of the act and the feeling of sort of flowing over stone. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm less on that spectrum. You know, I sort of prefer the like hard physical effort, like the training side of it. But I don't know. I mean, there have been a lot of very successful, you know, very high performing climbers that see it as a, as a beautiful interaction with nature, where it's like you're dancing together with nature. Yeah. You mentioned the word flow. There's a technical term called flow about being in the optimal zone between something that's difficult and something that's not and do you find yourself operating in that zone yeah i mean in a lot of ways no i mean a lot of climbing i think is really a search for flow you know it's like it's such an

elusive it's so rare that you really tap into sort of a peak, like optimal flow state. And I think a lot of climbing is basically searching for that feeling. Yeah. I want to ask you a question. I'm not sure if you're comfortable, so we'll. No, no, just go. Love it. Push me. Yeah. Okay. Let's see. Okay. Have you done any psychedelics or had any interesting trips? No, not, not really. I'm, I would say I'm like, so this summer, well, I'm like, is it legal to talk about illegal drug use? Yeah. Yeah. Um, you'd be surprised. Yeah. Okay. No. Um, like this summer on an expedition, uh, my partner and I attempted to take psychedelic mushrooms, but then it turns out that like we sat and watched this beautiful sunset and it was all really beautiful. And we were both like, I don't, I don't think it did anything. Like, I don't think like somebody had given us some mushrooms,

but then afterward my buddy was like, I think it was oregano. You know, it was like too old or too dry or like, there've been a few things like that where I've sort of like tried to do something, but never quite had, I've never had like a transformative psychedelic experience. Okay. Do you meditate? I have a little bit, but never to the point that I've experienced anything that I would consider profound. Do you think of yourself as a courageous person? I've never thought of myself that way, but I probably, I mean, what's the definition of courage? Like being able to do something you don't want to do, basically? Yeah, sure.

While pushing through fears, but there's also a relative component to it. Like, well, I can do this, but most people can't. Like I can get a spider from the wall while my wife screams at it. Am I more courageous or does it just impact me less? Yeah, I think it just impacts you less. I think, yeah, I wouldn't say I'm particularly courageous, but I would say I'm probably less impacted

by a lot of things like that. Uh-huh. What would be a way of human, so a way of humanizing Alex? Because many people, when I said, hey, I'm interviewing Alex, they're like, man, ask him, where does he get his boxers to hold his balls? Yeah. You'd be surprised how many comments were like that. That's funny. So to humanize you, what would be something that many people wouldn't think you'd be timid about, but you are? Like, are you afraid of mice? No, that's the thing is that most of those

kinds of physical fears, I think I've mostly let go. I mean, I used to be more afraid of snakes and spiders and things like that. But I think with time, I just kind of learned that it doesn't matter that much, you know? Yeah, you yeah you said you let go what do you mean so it used to impact you like the the sort of the phobia level fear where you're like oh my god it's a spider it's like now i'm a little more rational about it where i'm kind of like oh well if it's a really fast moving exotic spider that i've never seen then i'll give it a wide berth because i'm like who knows what that could do to me but if it's a slow moving cat you know like um we get tarantulas near where we live.

Uh, I live in Las Vegas in the desert. And, uh, so you see tarantulas pretty frequently. And in the morning when it's cold, the tarantulas are really, really slow, like really chill. And, you know, you can like pet them basically. And I mean, they're not venomous anyway. Like they don't, they're not like dangerous spiders, even though they're so big and intimidating. And so I think now I'm just a little bit better at differentiating the things that I should be afraid of from the things that, that I shouldn't be. What does the word sacred mean to you or transcendent mean to you? Oh man. Yeah. I don't even know like, uh, beyond, you know, beyond the ordinary, just something, something, you know, almost magical.

Do you have a relationship with the sacred or the transcendent? I would say no. I mean, I'm, I'm, I've always been totally unreligious. So I think that, you know, when you say the sacred, I think that often brings up sort of religiosity, like the, the feeling of whatever. And, and I've always been sort of anti-dogma, anti-religion. And it's just, you know, on the other hand, you know, you can have transcendent experiences climbing for sure. They typically revolve around the beauty of nature and also just being in a environment for a long time. You know, like if you do a 24 hour to 48 hour push in the mountains, like if you're out like doing something hard in the mountains for 36 hours straight and you like watch the sun come up

for the second morning in a row, you will have a transformative experience, you know, like whether that's transcendence or, you know, if that's spiritual anyway, like maybe not, but like, as you start to get ground down physically, you get way more open, uh, you know, emotionally and sort of, uh, psychologically to have crazy experiences. And so then you're like more open, you know, emotionally and sort of psychologically to have crazy experiences. And then you're like, oh, that's so incredible. I'm one with nature. It's, you know, but I'm like, is that, is that transcendental or something? Like, I don't know. So there's this guy named Wim Hof. I don't know if you know him. Iceman. Right, right. When someone does one aspect of their life in an extreme way, it tends to generalize and they do a couple other activities that are extreme.

So with Wim Hof, he would do these cold plunges, I believe, at first. Then it was fasting, extreme fasting, and so on. So are there other aspects of your life that you feel like are something that you do to the extreme? Do you do prolonged fasts? No, no, I don't. Do you do prolonged fasts? No, no, I don't. The thing with prolonged fasting,

I mean, I think in general, if you're trying to perform at a high level athletically, fasting is, I don't want to say that it's not the right course because I'm sure there's somebody out there who performs really well and they fast a lot. But I'm like, I bet if you pulled olympians none of them are fasting seriously because of its impact on muscles uh yeah we're just fueling workouts you know it's like it's hard to i think it's hard to wake up and try your hardest if you

never eat you know it's like that's just it just kind of makes sense but randomly the other day my uh my sister was like oh did i tell you that uh the the you know my brother-in-law this guy james that uh that he fasted and i was like oh cool like what does that mean and she's like oh he went eight days without eating and i was like what the fuck it's his first time ever doing anything like that and he just it's his first time fasting yeah he went like seven and a half days and then kind of i think went to eight like just to have a nice round number like i think it's seven days he started having an electrolyte drink because he didn't feel amazing and then eight he like so that doesn't count yeah yeah yeah but so yeah eight days ago but i was like that's crazy because i've done things you

know i've gone like i don't know like 24 hours without food before but never really like because i'm trying to fast but more because we're in the mountains and there's no food and you're sort of like just just surviving. But I was like, oh my God, and he just lived his normal life. You know, he was bicycle commuting to work. He was doing his normal thing. He was like going to the farmer's market on the weekend with his wife. You know, it's like the whole normal life.

So what precipitated James to do this? He has a coworker who fasts regularly for like mental clarity and general, uh, general health or whatever. And he was like, Oh, I should try that. And so he just did. I just, I couldn't believe that he did his first time trying fasting. He went for a week. Yeah. That's astounding. This mental resilience seems to run in your family, even if it's an in-law. Well, honestly, that's the thing is I was like, you know, when you're talking about like courage and things like that, I was like, could I just not eat for a week? I mean, I'd like to think that I could maybe not eat for a week if I had a reason to, if I had to,

but I'm like, man, it's hard to imagine like what I ever want to, like, that seems crazy to me. So what gives your life, what gives it meaning? Oh, I mean, that's, I don't know. What gives yours meaning? what gives it meaning oh i mean that's i don't know what gives yours meaning my wife gives my life a tremendous amount of meaning in my work yeah i'm like i really like my wife i don't know if it gives like meaning though it's like i think she's amazing like your wife no i mean i love my wife my wife is amazing and my family's amazing but I just don't know if it gives I mean if you really get into meaning I'm like I think that's a real struggle like is is

is there meaning I mean other than what you assign to it like what you choose for yourself what you what you decide to do with your time yeah do you think you can assign your own meaning or is it something that you recognize? Yeah. Like it's an instinct in you? Yeah, I think so. I don't know if I really subscribe to any other form of meaning. So I think that at some point it's all a little arbitrary and you're just deciding for yourself what you think is important.

Someone wanted to know, what is your concept of failure and how is it tied to you staying motivated? I don't know. I mean, I think climbers have a different relationship with failure than a lot of other sports people. Because with climbing, it's not really zero-sum. There's never like a winner and loser. It's like basically you're just working at doing something difficult for a prolonged period of time. And for most of that time, you're going to be failing because it's too hard for you. But the idea is that eventually you'll learn how eventually you'll gain the capabilities, you know, whatever you'll train physically or mentally, or eventually you'll get there and then eventually you will succeed. So as a climber, you don't

really fail until you give up on something. You know, it's like, like you're expected to, to fail over and over and over until you eventually succeed. And so you just don't really see it as failing. You just see it as, as part of the natural process of, of eventually working through this thing that you're trying to do. If that, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. So you've never had a problem with motivation. What is it that drives you? I'm sure this is a question many people say like why is it worth it to take these risks what drives alex i mean it's an interesting it's an interesting time to be having this whole conversation because for the last like three weeks maybe i've been really unmotivated

and though actually it's hard to say if i'm unmotivated or if it's just that i've been kind of sucking and and that often affects motivation because like you know you can spend your whole year just like grinding and like putting in the time putting in the effort like doing workouts like getting up eating well like doing all the things you know like living well and then if you just don't see results from it and you or you see like negative progress from it then it's really hard to stay motivated for all that kind of stuff because you're're like, why am I eating? Well, why am I sleeping? Why am I doing all these things? If it doesn't even matter. And I'm just like sucking anyway. You're sucking at what? Sorry. Oh, like life, you know, climbing, just like not quite having the energy, like not being able to, not being able to do the things that you think you should

be able to do. I see. It's like, or like if, uh, like in my case for the last two months, I was kind of working on, on a hard climb near my home if, uh, like in my case for the last two months, I was kind of working on, on a hard climb near my home and, uh, and I was making good progress on it. And then for like a month, I basically just have made like negative progress and like felt worse, felt more tired, like just not able to do what I had been doing the month before. And so, but with no obvious reason as to why really you'd like, you know, it feels like you're still doing all the right things, but it's just, you're still doing all the right things, but it's just, you're just not seeing the results that you think you should. And so then that's

always a little demoralizing and you're like, oh man. But, but I think that, you know, when you talk about motivation though, you know, in a lot of ways, it's all about the, the big picture, the long-term motivation. Cause even right now, even like in the last couple of weeks that I've been kind of in a slump, I'm still training, I'm still doing, you know, I'm still roughly eating well and like still basically living well because I know that at some point I'll come back out of my little slump and, and I'll still have the foundation there to, to climb hard again, try and train hard again, whatever else, you know? So I think motivation is like trying to stay on a path, even when, even when it feels a little rocky, you know, like a little bumpy pun intended. Yeah. So can you not view the slump, the current sucking phase

as another stumbling in the same way that when climbing you view stumbling as, well, that's just necessary. No one's expected to skateboard and do great tricks right off the bat. So why should I expect climbing to be any different? Why should I expect life to be any different? Yeah, no, you're right. I mean, I probably should think of it that way. It's just, I think it's harder when, because when, when you feel like you're sucking at life, it's like weeks and weeks of, you know, with it, with climbing, I think the timeframe matters because like with the climb, you know, you try a climb and, you know, it's like 10 or 15 minutes of like trying really hard and you don't succeed and you're like, that's fine. I'll try again later today. I'll try again later today.

But when it's like weeks of that or months of that, you're like, okay, it's starting to be a little bit of a grind. Like I just want some kind of, some kind of change. This sounds foreign to you. Has there ever been a period of your life of depression or of lulls like this? Is this new? No, no, it's not totally new. I mean, there are periods. I don't know if I'd ever say I've been clinically depressed. I would say my whole emotional band is pretty narrow. Like, you know, if people operate from a one to 10, I could sort of operate between a four and six. I think, you know, like I'm never that down. I'm never that up. I'm like, or maybe I operate between like a five and seven, you know, because I'm generally like pretty, pretty content and rarely that down. But, um, but it's just never

like wild swings one way or another. But, um, but no, I definitely go through periods of, of though. I sort of suspect that my down periods, uh, coincide with just being worn down, uh, physically, you know, just like basically over, overdoing it for months at a time and then just being totally fricking worked. Yeah. Going back to the topic of drive, are there additional motivators at play? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, just, I mean, wanting to feel like a good climber, basically like wanting to feel like I'm good at what I do or that, uh, I mean, one of the, actually, I mean, one of the things is like the, the sensation of improving, you know, feeling like, like I'm doing

better than I have in the past, which I think is a, is a tough thing to motivate you though, because obviously as I age, that'll just get harder and harder because eventually there will become a point where it's like impossible to outdo previous performances because you just don't have the same physical body that you did, you know, 20 or 30 years ago or something. And so, you know, I mean, it's funny because that's always been pretty motivating, the feeling of progress, the feeling of improvement, but I kind of know that at some point that's going to disappear and you know, I definitely need something else to motivate me. I mean, and, and, and that's, that's, I mean, this is all kind of deep. I mean, I'm also just motivated by the sheer fun of,

you know, I love climbing and I love the sensation of, I love going out and just enjoying climbing. I mean, what you're talking about, like what drives you is like the deeper, I mean, there's also just the sheer pleasure of it. Like I do, I just love going climbing. So for me, I'm similar in that what drives me is I want to be extremely good, but I'm also egotistical in that I want to be the best. So not only do I have to be better than I was previously, but I have to be better than someone else that I would consider to be in my category or find a way to mentally tell myself that I'm in some different

category that is blue ocean in the marketing sense. And so for you, I heard you mentioned that you would like to improve on a say monthly basis, but is there also an aspect of you that is comparing yourself to what's external like someone else i mean um yeah yeah obviously a little bit but i think actually in some ways i'm lucky that climbing is a really broad sport and so they're basically you wind up a specialist be like people who just boulder people who just sport climb people who just alpine climb or like ice climb you know basically there's these different categories of like different types of climbing you can do. And I've always been a little bit of a generalist where I do a lot of different things at a, at a relatively high level, but I'm

not the best at any of those things except maybe for free soloing. But even that I'm not, you know, depending on how you categorize it, I wouldn't be the best. I've just done some things that other people haven't done. And so I think it actually, in some ways, keeps a healthier frame on climbing for me, because I just know that I won't be the best in any of these disciplines. You know, like on a given on like a daily basis, I climb with other people who are better than me at at the things that they do. I see. And so it like I just, you know, it's easy to not be too competitive in that way when you just know that there's just no, you know, like I just can't be the best at those things. And I've never even been remotely close to the best of those things. You know, like when I was a kid, I did youth competitions and, you know, all the kind of like like little league style competitions. And, and, you know, obviously I was good, but I was never the best, you know, it wasn't like winning nationals. And then, uh, just by sheer coincidence, there were a couple other climbers who wound up

being sort of elite, you know, professional climbers, but they grew up in the same region as me at the same time. And so, uh, when I was going to youth comps, I was always getting second or third to a couple of these other guys that also wound up being great climbers. But, you know, by the time they were 15, they'd moved on to doing the adult competitions because they could win money that way. And I was still doing the youth comps and I was like, and I'm still not winning, you know, and the good guys have already moved on to like the big leagues. And, you know, and so I think I've known from the beginning that that I'm not

and never will be the best physically. But that doesn't mean that I can't have great adventures and have a good time climbing and push myself and improve. And, uh, you know, it's like, I still love climbing, but I just know that, that I'm not physically gifted in any way. How are you measuring this progress? Well, just doing things that I haven't been able to do before. I mean, climbing is broken into grades and things. So there are, uh, easy objective ways to measure your progress, uh, in terms of difficulty, but you can also measure your time on routes sometimes like speed records, things like that. And then, I mean, also a very unquantifiable way though, is just to, to sort of evaluate your sensations when you climb. Cause like occasionally

you do things that you didn't think you could do. And I think that's honestly one of the best experiences in climbing is when you're sure that you can't do something, but you try and then you do it and you're like, Oh my God, you know, like, because a lot of the time you're, you're really, really fatigued. And like the next hold looks really far away. And you're like, Oh, I could throw for that hold, but there's no way that I'm going to be able to grab it. It's like, I'm for sure going to fall off, but you know, you throw for it anyway, just like hoping. And then miraculously your hands just hold on and you're like, Oh my God, I held it. Like, I can't believe that. It's like anytime, anytime you outperform your own expectations is always a real pleasure. Sounds like a metaphor for life. So many people had questions about

your dreams. I don't know if you've mentioned this before, but there were several questions like what does Alex dream about and does he have recurring dreams? You mean actual dreams like during sleep? Yeah, yeah. I basically never remember dreams. Like I couldn't tell you. I mean, maybe like once or twice a year, I'll actually remember dreams. And even then, normally by within an hour or two of waking up, I don't remember them. So dreams mean basically nothing to me. Like actual, you know, like I have aspirations and things,

but actual like literal dreams like mean nothing to me. And it's not like a point of contention in my relationship, but my wife has very vivid dreams and is always telling me I had the craziest dream and then goes into this long story and I just do not care at all. Cause I'm like, you know, that's not real, right? Like who cares?

Like I've never had a vivid dream. I don't remember them. I just, it means nothing to me. And what is she asking you to do, to interpret them? Or she's just relaying it? No, she just relays it. Or, you know, she wakes up and she's like upset with you because you're like, you did the craziest thing in my dream last night.

You're like, what are you smoking? Like, that's not even real. Like, I did, you know, like, what? Yeah, there's a comedian who had this whole joke about how his wife would get upset with him I think it was Ray Romano you know everybody loves Raymond yeah I know the name yeah yeah I wish I could remember the joke his wife would beat him up because he's like she's like yeah you slept with someone in my dream he's like I didn't she's like but you would

you would if this was real that's exactly that's exactly my wife will have the same kinds of things and you're like you know that that I have no control over that and it means nothing to me and it didn't actually happen. You're like, this is crazy. How has having a child influenced not only your dreams, like your aspirations, but well, what your goals are and what you're allowing yourself to do, what your limits are?

Yeah, I think that the big change in having a child, and I mean, it's hard to know because I'm only two years into parenting. Actually, we're about to have a second child in a couple of weeks. Congratulations. Yeah, thanks. So, so I suspect that if you asked me the same question in another couple of years, it might be a different answer or maybe not. Maybe I've already gotten to the point, but basically it's hard to know because it's kind of just beginning in the, in the process here. But what I'm seeing so far is that the real change is in the the kinds of goals that I set for myself as a climber, because I'm choosing projects that are closer to home, I'm choosing things that don't keep me away as much, you know, because I want to be at home more, and like want to be there with the family. I want to be at home more and like want to be there with the family. And so it's not so much that, that I feel any obligation, like, I don't know, like a lot of people ask me questions like, Oh, has your perspective on risk changed now that you're a father sort of implying that,

you know, now that you have something to live for, are you less willing to take risk? And, and, you know, I'm like, I don't know if that's true or not, but I think the difference is that I'm just setting different goals. Like, I'm just not setting big free soloing. Like, I'm not, it's just different lifestyle. You know, I'm like, oh, I'm trying to climb close to home. And that lends itself more towards physical training and like training in the gym, things like that. Like a little more routine, a little more structure, which is fine. that like a little more routine a little more structure which which is fine yeah it sounds to me like free soloing would be the most risky and then even when watching the free solo movie you practice that route over and over and over to minimize the risk so it's not as if at least my interpretation isn't my interpretation of you isn't a risk taker yeah it's a risk manager totally but actually but so my point here though is is that now as a father it's not so much that i'm not willing to take the risk but when you when you talk about free-souling el cap let's say like in the film in order to do that i spent uh you know two months in yosemite in the spring two months in the fall and uh plus a trip to morocco

you know i basically spent like six months just all in working on that specific i mean i'd spent years training for it ahead of time and everything, but just in the, in the year leading up to the actual climb, you know, I spent say six months, like specifically training, uh, you know, on the roots. And I was, I adjusted my whole lifestyle, uh, in terms of training and diet and everything. I was going to bed at like eight and getting up at four, uh, because I'd need to be up before sunrise to climb some of the stuff while it was still cool, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, my point was

that it was all encompassing and took over my whole life and which, which was great. I mean, that's what it took to get, get that done. But now as a father, I'm sort of choosing not to embrace any goals like that because I'm kind of like, I don't really want something to take over my whole life like that. Like I want to, like I've been choosing climbing goals where I can train four hours in a day and go work on it for a while, but it doesn't have to be all encompassing and take over my whole life. You know, I still have time to be at home. I'm still like right now, the climbing projects that I'm working on, I'm able to get my daughter

out of bed every morning, have breakfast with her, go climb for the day, come home, still do afternoon, evening, you know, still do dinner with the family, put her to bed. I'm kind of like, to me, that's an ideal type of climbing goal for this point in my life where I'm like, I can still do something that's hard for me, that's challenging, that's interesting, but I can still do breakfast and dinner with my daughter every night. So you don't have these obsessions, nor do you want them? Yeah, right now I don't have anything that I'm obsessed over in the same way. And yeah, exactly. And I'm not really seeking out anything like that because, you know, I'm like, I just don't need that right now. And has your wife impacted what some people may say as a more balanced perspective? Balance is this word that, well, you're a climber, so there's many puns in this. But anyhow, has your wife contributed to the balance in your life in the same way that your daughter has? Or is there a different

degree and quality to having a child than to having a wife? I think there is a different degree and quality because I mean, I think my wife definitely has impacted the balance of my life in much the same way, sort of, you know, encouraging me to have more balance. But I think that with my wife or certainly when we were dating, when it's just, you know, a relationship, you kind of see it as like, I didn't necessarily want that balance. And so you're kind of like, Oh, you know, being in a relationship is, is, is pushing me down a path that I'm not sure I want for myself. But I think now as a father, I'm like, no, I definitely want this path for myself. Like,

I think it's better for my daughter. I think it's, it's nice. You know, I don't know. I'm into it. Or maybe it's just that now I'm several years further into the marriage and but I, I mean, I do frequently grapple, like, is this the essence of middle age when you just don't care about your goals enough to push everything else aside? I'm like, or is this just being a good dad, you know, and like actually being there for your family? Like, it's hard to know. I mean, I think ideally I'd aspire to still do very difficult things like sort of cutting edge things and climbing and still be there for my family. sort of cutting edge things and climbing and still be there for my family. But, you know,

actually, I mean, you know, we were talking about Arctic Ascent, the expedition we just did, I just did to Greenland the summer before last, you know, in some ways that to me is a perfect example of still getting to do some cutting edge climbing that matters, you know, sort of some meaningful climbing while having a family, you know, and I mean, I had to leave the family behind for six weeks, uh, which is hard for everybody, but I think it's, it's worth it for the right kind of objective. And then I can sort of balance that out by being very much present at home for the many months around that expedition. For people who watched free solo and loved it and they just heard about arctic ascent either from the news or from here or from you what can they expect in this documentary series that's different than free solo well i think i mean honestly almost everything about it is different

because it's the the landscape is totally surreal and and almost fantastic i mean greenland like remote part of eastern greenland is is incredibly beautiful but also it's a totally different dynamic with uh with the team and all of us climbing together and you know heidi heidi sylvester this climate scientist this glaciologist who was with us we were doing uh various research projects along the way and so you know there's, there's like, yeah, I mean, free solo really focuses on this singular athletic feat, like this, this thing that I really want to do. And it's kind of like a quixotic, you know, it's like me on a quest. And I think that, that with Arctic Ascent, it's a little bit more grounded, you know, it's just,

it all makes a little more sense in a way you're kind of like, okay, it's a little bit more grounded. You know, it's just, it all makes a little more sense in a way you're kind of like, okay, it's a team going to climb roots in a beautiful place where they can also do make, you know, meaningful contributions to climate science, sort of like, oh, it all kind of like makes more sense in a way where you're kind of like, okay, like these remote unclimbed walls, assemble the right team, do something useful while you're there. It's all totally beautiful. You're like that, that totally makes sense for television in a lot of ways free solo like doesn't really make sense you're like what a psycho like why does that guy want to do that thing yeah as i was watching arctic ascent it was clear there was a passion

of yours of saving the environment or of something environmental can you please speak to that yeah i think there's a passion towards trying to do something useful. You know, it's like wanting to do something proactive for the environment. I mean, I started a foundation, you know, more than a decade ago now that's that supports community solar projects around the world. And so I've been doing that for a long time in an effort to both help the environment and to help, you know, human populations. Uh, and so, I mean, I think in general, it's like, you know, I mean, you were asking questions around purpose and like, what's the point, all those kinds of things.

And I think that the idea of just doing anything useful, making some kind of positive contribution to the world, I would say that I'm totally open to whatever is the, you know, my highest calling, like whatever is the best use, you know, like, like I say, I'm open to anything that really is helpful. You know, it's like basically trying to find purpose where you can. And so I think that through, through the Honnold Foundation, I'm sort of like, oh, this is a good way to do good work in the world, you know, that helps the environment helps people on like this, this makes sense. And I think with Arctic Ascent is much the same. I'm sort of like, oh, this is a good opportunity

to contribute to science in an interesting way. And, and to highlight it on television. I mean, when you think of like, how much terrible stuff is on television, you're kind of like, why not have more programs like this, where you're kind of like why not have more programs like this we're kind of like oh it's legitimate exploration in a beautiful place and a place that is both incredibly fragile and incredibly important to the i mean you know when you think there are hundreds of millions of people that live on the coast in the world yes you know if the greenland ice sheet melts uh it's predicted to to raise sea levels something like 20 feet and so that literally affects hundreds of millions of people and yet none of those people ever think about the greenland ice sheet you know and so it's one of those things where if you can

at least help educate in some small way through a program like this it feels like a very useful you know like it feels like the like a good use of my time and please talk more about your foundation what is it where can people find out about it why did you start it you mentioned purpose yeah so the the honolulu nation i mean for anyone who's interested you can uh find out more about it at honolulu foundation.org um the website you can see all the the the grantee partners that we support and the work that we've been doing for the last decade. But basically we support community solar projects around the world. And I mean, I, I started the foundation, I mean, largely because of everything we're talking about here. I mean,

questions of purpose, like what's the point, you know, I was, I was looking for, I had a year where I was kind of looking at ways to minimize my own environmental footprint to basically do less harm in the world. Cause I was reading a ton of environmental nonfiction and it was basically just kind of stressed about human impact on the environment and, and, and climate in general. And I was sort of like, Oh, what are the things that I should be doing personally to, to leave a better impact on the world? And, and, and there were a bunch of other things that kind of went into this. I mean, like one of which was the fact that, uh, at the time my sister was

working as a public school teacher and basically making almost nothing. And I was just sort of starting as a professional climber, but, um, but I had a few opportunities where I, I, uh, participated in a TV commercial where I literally did nothing. It was completely stupid and it used like one shot of my face and it wasn't even like me as a, as a climbing celebrity endorsing a product. It was literally just my face. Like as a model, it was just like, Oh, there's some guy climbing on a rock. You know, it's just like a fit outdoor model. And just that, that glimpse of my face, they, they use the ad all over the world way more than was expected.

So I wound up making an insane amount of money in residuals because like every time it's all screen actor guild rates, you know, it's like every time somebody airs the commercial, you make like a nickel or whatever. It's like some tiny amount, but they just used it a bunch. And so basically this TV commercial that I'd spent, you know, two days shooting with my good friends in the desert, basically it was like, it's all climbing filmmaker people. I thought it was super fun. There was like a helicopter, you know, it all felt like Mission Impossible. I was like, this is crazy. This is super fun. It's like engaging, interesting work. It's cool. And I got paid an insane amount. And so at the time, my sister is a public school teacher. And I made more in two days of fun than she would make

in like two years of educating kids. And I was like, this is insane, you know, and I was like, there's no justice in this. Like, you know, society, I was like, in some ways, an example that society is totally mismanaging its, its, its resources, goals. And like, when you think that sports and entertainment are so wildly overpaid compared to what we pay, you know, like educators and, and, you know, people that actually help society in different ways. And so in some ways, starting the Honnold Foundation felt like an effort to address that kind of structural inequality or sort of like that mismanagement of, of, of our collective values and goals. I don't, you know, I was just like, this is not the way the world should be. But the thing is, I like doing that work, you know, like it's fun, it's interesting.

And I felt like I had this opportunity. Like, I don't want to say no to TV commercials and things like that because it is fun to do, but you get paid so much from it. And, you know, I was living in a van, I'm climbing full time. I'm just living my life. I'm like, I don't need that. But it's, it seems like a shame to turn it away. And so it makes more sense to just say yes, and then put it into things that matter. And so that's where the Honol Foundation came in where I was like, well, this is a great way to funnel this type of money to things that actually matter. Right. As you wind down, well, I don't want to say that, but as you enter a different stage in life, let's say, do you think

that the foundation is what will have the majority of your attention or you're not sure yet what the future? Yeah, I wonder. So I started the foundation over a decade ago when I was very much focused purely on rock climbing as hard as possible. But even then I sort of suspected that as I got older, the foundation would mean more to me and climbing would probably mean less to me because I knew that eventually I would just be too old to to push my absolute hardest as a climber or I mean I also just kind of wondered like would I even care enough to to go hard all the time forever you know it's like i mean at some point you run out of roots like you run out of things that you care about doing uh you know like with freesolding specifically i've done

basically everything that i've ever wanted to do and so you know i could try to dream up other goals and dream up other things but you know I've done most of the classics in the Western U S like, you know, like if you're a, like, if you're a climber and somebody asks you to make a list of all the best, best multi-pitch, like best, you know, thousand foot type of roots in the, in the Western, Western North America, like I've probably free sold like almost all the roots on the list. And so, you know, and I could think up some others, maybe there's some things here or there, but I've done the great ones, you know, like I've kind of plucked the low hanging fruit, the stuff that I really cared about. And so at a certain point, I'm like, do I have to just keep

keep picking more fruit? Like, or do I just call it good let somebody else like think up the next next round of things to do so let's say you finished all the fruit the majority of the fruit do you then care that you finish the fruit or are you just like you know what I finished the fruit great cool yeah well that's the thing is I think I'm kind of like yeah that's great that's cool like I can focus on my family I can focus on is, I think I'm kind of like, yeah, that's great. That's cool. Like, I can focus on my family, I can focus on the foundation. I mean, I'm still trying to climb my best, and I'm still interested in climbing goals. So I mean, it's not to say that I've retired from climbing, by any means. But I think, you know, people often ask, like, Oh, what's the next big project? Like, what's the next big soloing thing? And kind of like, nothing obvious springs to mind, you know, like, like, I've kind of done most of the things that that I care about sort of like, you know, maybe I'll get really inspired by something, but like actually this summer we're thinking about going to Europe to climb in the Dolomites as a family trip. But, um, the Dolomites, uh, is a really historic, it's like Northern Italy. Uh, it's really historic for free soloing. Like people have been, been soloing there since like the 1920s and thirties. And so for me, it might be a fun opportunity to sort of rekindle a little bit of the, the fun of, of soloing on, on stuff

that's like classic and historic and, and somewhere that I haven't really climbed before. Cause I've, I've, I've done very little there. And so, you know, maybe having like green pastures, you know, we'll sort of rekindle the rekindle the fire a little bit, but you know, but I need something like that to get me fired up. Rekindle which fire? Well, like wanting to free solo hard things or, or like, you know, pushing myself in that way. Like, like basically you need the right goals to push yourself. And if you've already achieved a lot of your goals, you're kind of like, Oh, like why, why keep pushing on the same, the same direction that's interesting you need the right goals well don't you think yeah yeah how do you find the right goals well that's

the freaking challenge isn't it that's the i mean you know trying to find something that inspires you that like makes you want to get out of bed early and like train and do all the things you're kind of like yeah i mean finding the right goal is like the the the crux i mean all these questions about purpose and motivation and things like that i mean i think the right goal is is a big part of that do you feel like you were blessed well maybe not that word but in the colloquial sense you feel like you were blessed because you found something that makes you excited to get up yeah no i totally know what you mean yeah i found my calling or whatever cliche you want to use yeah totally no i think and actually now as a parent i really think

that that's kind of the goal of parenting is to help your child find something that they're passionate enough about that that they want to get out of bed every day you know it's like i think that that my goal as a parent is to help my daughter find whatever it is that she gets lit up about, you know, find the things that make her super excited, you know, whether that's, you know, music or art or sports or whatever writing like, but like, I feel like everybody out there has something that they really love to do, or they care about doing or the or that they could be uniquely good at or like, or uniquely passionate about or whatever else. And I think that finding that is in many ways the goal of life.

If you weren't able to climb for whatever reason, what do you think you would be doing? And not the foundation, but because that's the obvious answer. What would you be doing? Yeah, it's hard to say. I don't know. Maybe just thinking, you know, like reading and writing and, you know say i don't know maybe just thinking you know like like reading and writing and you know um i don't know i mean i studied engineering for a year before i dropped out to climb full-time and so i could imagine just you know trying to build things or i don't know i

mean i can sort of imagine almost any other path in life if you know if it had played out that way but but this this is the path I took yeah speaking of paths of all the paths that you've taken what are you most proud of in your life oh I think I think at this point in my life I think I'm most proud of of sort of my my body of work as a climber if you can call that like the things that i've done as a climber i mean i suspect that that when i die at some point i'll probably be more proud of my family or the work that my foundation has done or you know things like that but um but at this point my family's so young and and uh and i'm still pretty proud of the things that i've climbed yeah and you also mentioned that you want to climb in Italy with your family, but your daughter is two

Okay, so next year she'll be three when you say with my family. No, no I mean the whole family goes on a trip So like, you know my daughter and we'd be going hiking and stuff but um but on a trip like that i'd probably be able to dip out in the mornings and go soloing for a few hours and Like go scramble some peaks and do some historic like do some fun climbing and your wife climbs with you a bit Yeah, my wife climbs as well um, like a trip like that When I say a family trip though, I mean that we would be predominantly focused on, you know, doing tourism in Italy and going for family hikes and like

hanging out at the park and like doing whatever. And then in, in the extra time I would go and climb things that I'm excited about. Right. Right. No, I don't mean that I'm taking the babies climbing up things though i will say my daughter is really into scrambling on things and it does make you wonder about nature versus nurture kind of stuff where it's like yeah you know but we'll just see as she gets older do you have any advice for your former self let's say when you were 15 or someone who's 15 now and they would like to follow a similar journey in climbing? I understand that those questions may be different, so feel free to make an ad mixture

or a confection of them both. I don't know. I mean, my advice to my former self would be a little bit more specific, I think. Sure, let's start with that. I mean, I sort of wish that I had maybe trained in a slightly more systematic way a little bit sooner and maybe been a little bit more disciplined about some things just a little more strategic but that's the thing is I think that that for me advice would be more specific to like oh I should have started doing finger strength stuff like a little earlier in my life and I wish I'd like trained cardio and like I kind of wish I'd done other high school sports like I was already climbing full-time but I was kind of like too shy to do stuff but I kind of wish I'd like trained cardio and like, I kind of wish I'd done other high school sports. Like I was already climbing full time. Um, but I was kind of like too shy to do stuff, but I kind of

wish I'd like run cross country or done some other things like that to like have a little bit broader of an athletic base, you know, or like done track and, you know, maybe swam. I don't know. Um, just to like be exposed more to those sorts of things when I was younger. Um, that said, I mean, obviously I have loved climbing my whole life, so I'm not like stressed about it, but I do feel like I maybe could have done a little more athletically, but I think my advice to like the average person who just is starting to climb and is psyched on climbing, my advice would be just to, just to go and climb, you know, just to, if you like doing it, just go and do it, like go into the gym, uh, enjoy yourself. I mean, my,

my general advice to, to beginner climbers is to Like go into the gym, enjoy yourself. I mean, my general advice to beginner climbers is to focus on your footwork, like focus on technique and like learn how to move well rather than trying to get big muscles, basically. Like don't worry about the strength side of it. Worry about the quality of your movement. I heard you mentioned that one of the reasons you started free soloing when you were younger is because you had social anxiety and didn't want to ask other people to come with you. Is that the case or am I misremembering? Yeah, that's, that's, uh, yeah, yeah, that's fair enough. I mean, I don't know about social anxiety, but like, but yeah, I was kind of a loner,

kind of a loser, kind of a, you know, I just, I just didn't have, um, and part of that's growing up in suburban California. Like I was growing up in a non-climbing family with non like i wasn't really tied into the climbing community per se and so and i didn't really know how to like make new friends and so rather than talk to strangers and try to find people to climb with it was sort of easier just to just to go do my own thing which in retrospect i'm like what a psycho it's like i probably should have just talked to people. And why do you say that you wish you had done more sports? If you had done other sports, I imagine you would have liked soccer or football or basketball. And I imagine that would have taken away from the climbing and you wouldn't be as great a climber.

Do you see this as that or no? You think that it would have accelerated your climbing skill? I think that I probably could have been a better climber with a broader athletic base. I mean, the thing is, I've just always loved climbing more than any other sports. So it's not as if I was really at risk of like going down a different path, I don't think. Because also, I don't have any talent for ball sports. And I'm not like, you know, I'm not particularly coordinated. I'm just kind of whatever.

But I do think that there's something to be said for, I don't know. So like, even now, like I do a little bit of weight training stuff, but like, I don't really know how to lift weights and I don't really know good form for that kind of stuff. Uh, whereas I think a lot of high school athletes learn all the foundational principles of the weight room. Like, you know, if you're a high school wrestler, like you kind of learn the basics of using a weight room when you're 15, you know, and I think that I maybe could have been served by by learning sort of the basics of like weight training and, you know, cardio training, like running things like that. I don't know, but it's very, it's very niche. You know, like, I'm not saying that

everybody should do this. But yeah, I'm curious how it would have contributed to your climbing ability. So the cardio, again, I'm not terribly familiar with the climbing world other than watching you. So to me, it doesn't look like a strenuous cardiovascular activity. point, if once you have, uh, sort of the, the minimum threshold of climbing skill, speed records become more about the quality of your engine, like how, how fast you can go uphill. And that is basically cardiovascular fitness. And so, you know, the, the better your engine, the faster you can go. And so, you know, I've, I've done a lot of speed records, but most of the things that I've done, I could imagine doing them a lot better if I had a better engine, which I just don't really have. And, and, and that's, you know, it's tough because it's always trade-offs because if you want to develop a better engine, like if you want to do a lot of cardiovascular training,

you're basically going to wear yourself out for hard climbing. Uh, you know, like you're too tired. Like if you're training for a marathon, let's say, uh, it's hard to also climb at a high level at the same time because you're just tired. And so, uh, you know, it's always trade-offs as to like how, how big of an engine do you want to develop versus, uh, you know, how skilled you want to be as a climber. But that's why I think that, that there's room for developing a broad athletic base when you're young. Yeah, you mentioned thinking because you used to be an engineer at least for about a year or so. And maybe you would do some reading and writing. When you're climbing, have you ever had an aha moment because your mind is thinking?

No, no. It's like you want to think that you're having these amazing you know transcendental experiences in in nature and i just i just never am and i think that's funny because there's so many writers who you know i mean even like the writings of john muir or something um i don't know if you know any of those but like but i've been to many of the same places you know i mean he was instrumental in the founding of Yosemite as a national park back in the day. And like his writings about his experiences in nature contributed to, you know, the founding of national parks. And he writes about all these sort of,

you know, yeah, big thoughts that he has while in nature. And I'm kind of like, I've literally been in the same places having the same experiences in nature, and I'm just not having the same big thoughts. You know, I'm just kind of like, wow, I'm wet. I'm cold. I'm tired. Like I should probably try to get home. And it's just, it's just a totally different thing. But then it's like, probably because he's raised by a minister or whatever. And like, he read the Bible 10 billion times and he's, he's sort of cued for that, that transcendental experience. Like he's ready for something big to happen. Do you think you were cued for the opposite? Like you were cued to not have experiences like that

rather than just not being cued? You were cued in the opposite direction? Yeah, maybe. I mean, I'm sort of like a natural skeptic, a natural cynic, like anti-authority, like anti-dogma. You know, yeah, exactly. I'm cued the opposite direction. Or like even in the most

epic display of nature's beauty and power i'm still just kind of like ah but it's just nature you know i don't know yeah yeah but you still enjoy it no i do still enjoy it yeah that's it's i'm not that much of a skeptic or cynic or whatever no no you're just you're being facetious yeah i mean i i do i do love and and I will say I've been, as you say, blessed to go to a lot of the most beautiful places on earth. You know, it's like to see natural beauty in ways that I think most humans don't get to see. It's like, it is incredible.

You mentioned that you do it for the fun of it. Like that's partly, or in large part, what motivates you. But I didn't hear the word thrill. And much of the time people will say, yeah, I do it for the thrill of it. Well, is, is that actually true of, well, is that true of anybody that does something routinely for, you know, I've been climbing for 28 years now. Is it still thrilling? You know, when people do something for the thrill, it's generally something they do sort of infrequently or, you know, like as, as like basically nothing is thrilling if you do it five days a week for 28 years.

I still love climbing and I can still get thrills through climbing. I mean, there are occasional things where you're like, wow, this is an incredible wall or a place I've never been or a thing I've never done. But after five days a week for 28 years, you're like, there's not that much thrill. I mean, it's still deeply fun and very satisfying, but it's not thrilling. Yeah. Great point. Great point. Like I suspect, uh, I suspect you'd say the same about a marriage or something, you know, where you can have like an incredible relationship, but after 28 years, you're probably not thrilled by it every day. You're just kind of like, Oh, this is deeply satisfying and,

and, and incredible in its own way, but it's not thrilling. What I was going to ask is if it was thrilling, at what point would it be? I imagine it would be when you finish, but you have a much more explicated notion of what it is to climb. And so maybe it would be at certain points. Maybe there's a halfway point. Maybe it's when you accomplish a certain thumb movement. Again, I apologize that I don't know the correct terminology here because we're not going to talk about the thrilling aspect. What about the fun? When does the fun come in? Is it at every point in the journey? Is it at more points than others? Like what makes the fun occur? I think for me, the fun is the movement. It's like the feeling. I think in

the same way that if you throw a kid into a pool, they have a good time just paddling around and, and moving in the water. I think that moving on rock is the same kind of, of fun. And actually I kind of think that climbing is the same sort of elemental movement pattern as, as running or swimming. You know, it's basically the same ideas. Like you're moving through terrain except one's vertical, one's horizontal, whatever. But, but i think that the the the fun of climbing is just the the movement itself like you're and i mean you see that when

you see kids at jungle gyms and stuff i'm going to the playground now with my daughter and you watch all the other kids playing around and you're like there is something you know thrilling there is something fun about clambering over things and like overcoming obstacles and and that seems pretty innate because virtually any little kid you see enjoys like getting up on top of something and like, you know, I think it's, I think it's a pleasing sensation because you're using your body in a way that it's intended to be used, you know, in the same way that like walking and jogging is fundamentally pleasing. So what's coming up that you're excited about? Forget about big projects. I know everyone asks you about big projects. Other than the Italy trip,

what are you excited about? No, the biggest project is that daughter number two arrives in a couple weeks. So that's, you know, that'll be a thing. And then basically... Congrats. I didn't know it was that soon. Yeah, yeah. It's three or four weeks. And then basically... Congrats. I didn't know it was that soon. Yeah. Yeah. It's three or four weeks. Like, oh, geez. We'll see. The timing of the Greenland to bring this back to the Arctic Ascent, you found out around then? No, no. Arctic Ascent was when our daughter was six months old. So then baby number two is like six months after that. Basically, baby number two is due on baby number one's second

birthday, which is just a coincidence. But we'll have to see how it plays out but either way our two daughters will have like almost the same birthday with two years apart but um but no so things that i'm excited about for this year i mean basically it's it's like a parenting year you know it's like i've been at home for months because my wife is really pregnant and just being supportive uh and you know and then baby number two comes then we have a couple different family climbing trips planned but again they're more around going somewhere cool with the family and being there and climbing a bit but they aren't like big goal focused trips you know where i'm like trying to achieve something. I mean, they're just going to climb some more for fun with the fam.

And then other than that, that's basically the year. There are a few things I want to do in Yosemite this year. And I think that, um, that those trips I'll probably try to do without the family, uh, so that I'm able to a couple of grams of mushrooms. Yeah, maybe, maybe that might be, A couple of grams of mushrooms. Yeah, maybe, maybe that might be. Actually, I read, um, I did a big, I did a big, uh, expedition this summer where I bike toured from Colorado to Alaska with a partner and did a whole crazy thing, which will also be a show for national geographic next year sometime. But, um, on that trip, uh, I listened to the Michael Pollan book, how to change your mind

while, while I was biking. I listened to the Michael Pollan book, how to change your mind while, while I was biking. And, uh, and that's what inspired us to, to get some mushrooms off of some random dude along the way. But then it turns out they didn't do anything sadly, but we were sort of like primed. We were like ready to have a transformative psychedelic experience, but, but it just didn't happen. But, um, but so on that, on that bike tour though, I finished reading the book and then I downloaded a meditation app. Cause I was like, oh, well, while you're biking, there's not a whole lot you can do. Except so I was doing meditation stuff like while I was biking. Cause you just have so much time on the bike every day.

I was kind of like, well, I may as well sort of explore the mind a little bit while, while pedaling. And now, yeah, I don't know if I really learned anything, but what were the results of the meditation app? What app was it? I was using the waking up app, you know, that the Sam Harris, um, I've used that a little bit in the past because I kind of liked the combination of, of like lectures and podcast type material in it with the actual, you know, guided meditations. And so, um, so I mostly wound up listening to the different lectures and, and, and sort of podcast

you can find the meditations to be helpful. Uh, well I did a little bit, but I just found that on the bicycle, it's hard to really meditate when you're bicycling, you know, because it's like focus, like one, your eyes are open the whole time and you're like a constant, you know, we were getting passed by logging trucks nonstop. We were in like Northern British Columbia. And so there's like big trucks going past you all the time. And it's like, yeah, obviously you can still meditate through that.

But for a beginner like me, it's all a little more challenging. You know, it's like, it's hard to like really tap into some kind of altered consciousness when you think you're about to get hit by a truck. Right. Yeah. So, so I was doing the meditations, but I felt like I was kind of doing them poorly, you know, and also like trying to focus on your breathing, focus on your breath. But then all of a sudden you start going uphill and you're like, you're like, yeah, I'm freaking hard for a while. So the only thing that gave you the idea to use the meditation app while biking was that you had time to kill. It wasn't like, this is the ideal circumstance for me. I mean, a little bit. Yeah. It's like, well, cause I just finished this, how to change your mind. It's all about like alter station of

consciousness, but there aren't really any great ways to alter your consciousness. I mean, a little bit. Yeah. It's like, well, cause I just finished this, how to change your mind. It's all about like alter station of consciousness, but there aren't really any great ways to alter your consciousness. I mean, you can do breath work and things like that, but while you're bicycling, there's not a whole lot you can do other than, than sort of a mental journey. I mean, I suppose I could have been doing hallucinogens on the bike, but one, we didn't have any. And two, I'm just not while trucks are passing. Yeah, exactly. It's all just like, nah, it's not really the right way. I could have been like micro dosing or doing whatever, but I'm like, I just I just don't know if I care quite that much. Meditation seemed like a perfect way to to dabble and sort of experience.

It seemed like a good way to explore while while still biking eight hours a day. You know, Alex, I know that you do 15 minute interviews and I appreciate you spending over an hour with me so thank you so much man it's been a blast no no no my pleasure it's I'd say it's a very different kind of conversation now I'm gonna sit for for a while being like what is the point and what is my purpose I'm like I don't freaking know I'm just trying my best you know all right man well I'm glad let me know if you've got any answers yeah if i get any if i get any big answers i'll reach out so we can chat again i'm like i've got something profound for you this time like we'll see all right man no yeah pleasure chatting and good luck

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