WHOOP Podcast - Free Solo climber Alex Honnold on eliminating fear and accomplishing greatness

Episode Date: March 24, 2021

Alex Honnold is one of the greatest rock climbers on the planet and is most famous for his daring ascent of Yosemite’s 3,000-foot El Capitan without a rope. The climb was chronicled in the Oscar award-winning National Geographic documentary Free Solo. Few athletes in the world have reached the level of mastery in their field the way Alex has. He details how visualization has prepared him for some of his most dangerous and awe-inspiring accomplishments. Alex shares how he has trained himself to control and almost eliminate fear while he makes life or death solo climbs. He discusses his beginnings in rock climbing (3:40), risk vs. consequence (9:25), judging success based on the journey, not the outcome (11:46), playing to your strengths (18:10), training for El Capitan (24:50), Free Solo (28:00), visualization (32:41), overcoming fear (37:24), REM Sleep (43:16), what’s next (55:44), staying safe while free soloing (1:02:18), his public perception as a risk taker (1:04:33), and avoiding risks in everyday life (1:05:44).Support the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

Hello, folks, welcome back to the Whoop Podcast. I'm your host, Will Ahmed, founder and CEO of Whoop, or we are on a mission to unlock human performance. We've got a hell of a guest this week. He is indeed a human performer, Alex Honnold. We're going to get to Alex in half a second, one of the best rock climbers in the world. But first, a reminder that you can get 15% off a Whoop membership. If you use the code Will Ahmed, that's W I-I-L-L-A-H-M-E-D,

with membership includes hardware and software and analytics. It's designed to continuously monitor and help you understand your body with really an eye towards improving performance and improving your health. All right, Alex Honnold, this man is fascinating. I've got to tell you. So Alex, one of the greatest rock climbers on the planet. You may recognize the name from, of course, Free Solo, the Oscar Award-winning National Geographic documentary.

If you haven't seen that, that's a must watch, in which Alex climbs 3,000-foot L-Cap without a rope. Completely scales L-Cap without a rope. I mean, it's such a death-defying accomplishment. It's really hard to comprehend. But I think that's what's so interesting about this conversation, what's so interesting about Alex. A few athletes in the world really have reached

the level of mastery in their field the way Alex has. And he openly talks on the podcast about the fact that he doesn't consider himself one of the most talented rock climbers. But what he's really learned and what I took from the podcast is how to overcome fear. The common perception of Alex, if you do a lot of research on him like I did, is that he's sort of a genetic freak of sorts, that he's just genetically disposed to not feeling fear the way you and I feel fear. But when we got into it, it turns out Alex was afraid of public speaking.

He's had other fears in his life that you or I may find less intimidating. And yet in this particular area of his life, rock climbing, he has achieved mastery. And he's in particular learned how to control fear under the circumstances of rock climbing. And I think the takeaway for me and for anyone listening, is if he can reach that level of mastery and rock climbing, what can we do in our lives to overcome fear in all other walks of life? There's a great theme that we hit on, which is the difference between high risk and high consequence. We discuss why playing to your strengths is the key to accomplishing great things. A big theme for Alex was playing to his strengths

and focusing less on his weaknesses. Visualization, we go deep on visualization. He focuses not just on the positive, but the negative, which I found pretty fascinating. I mean, he has deeply visualized what it would feel like to fall from L. Cap. I mean, that's a pretty fascinating visualization strategy to go that deep on death, which I think is in part what's given him this mastery. And lastly, why Alex doesn't like the public perception that he's a risk taker. And from my point of view, Alex is not a risk taker, which is an insane thing to say about someone. who has climbed 3,000 feet without a rope. So without further ado, here's Alex.

It's an amazing podcast, and I really enjoyed it. Alex, welcome to the Woof podcast. Oh, thanks for having me. My pleasure. So when did you first start rock climbing? Oh, I started climbing when I was 10, though I sort of climbed on things my whole life, but I was introduced to a climbing gym for the first time when I was 10

and then I have been climbing ever since. And what was the moment when you, you first did a solo climb. You've now done over a thousand, right? Well, it depends how you count. I've done probably maybe 40 things that are sort of cutting edge that I'm proud of, you know, things that maybe hadn't been done before. But if you count just the number of things that I've sold it, it's well into the thousands. I mean, it'd be hard to count. Yeah, what was the moment for you, though, where you were like, okay, I'm going to do this without ropes. And if I fall, the consequences are going to be a lot higher. Yeah, it wasn't exactly a moment. It was a,

you know, it's sort of a spectrum. Because even when I was a teenager climbing in the gym, I was working at the climbing gym as well. And so after hours, I would occasionally solo some of the roots. And so, you know, the gym was only 35 feet tall or something. And, you know, it's a padded floor. And so it's not exactly the high stakes free soloing that you think of, but it's still sort of dabbling and in soloing. And then eventually, you know, I started selling outdoors a little bit. So basically as a teenager and then sort of 19, 20 year old, I started selling a little bit, you know, from time to time. And for you, it was mostly an independent pursuit, right? Like you weren't, you weren't hanging out with a bunch of people going rock,

you know, going climbing. You were, you were doing a lot of this yourself. Yeah, yeah, that's fair. And part of that's just because I was in suburban Sacramento, there just wasn't a huge climbing community. And especially back then, which sort of mid-90s, climbing as a whole was just a much smaller pursuit in the U.S. So, you know, much smaller community, fewer people to, to gather with, you know yeah so it was relatively solitary at the time and you drop out of college or as as you put it on one one interview i heard you know you took a leave of absence and then you took a leave of absence and you never kind of stopped taking a leave of absence yeah i've taken a very long leave of absence from uh uc bergley and it and it was just because you were so in love with rock climbing i mean you

were you were a young person you said this is really all i want to be doing right now yeah that was definitely part of it and part of it was just that i didn't have a particular passion for what I was studying at university, and I felt like it was kind of a waste to spend my parents' money, basically, on something that I didn't, that I didn't love, love doing. And so, you know, at the time, I thought I was just taking a year off to go climb, and, you know, now it's been 15 years or whatever. Yeah, right. You know, I might finish my education at some point, though. It's a beautiful story. You sort of innocently drop out of college. You, you ultimately end up living out of your van, right? And you're mostly traveling to the best sites and climbing.

I mean, is that a fair way to characterize your early 20s? Yeah, I mean, that's not a bad way to characterize my current life, too, you know, basically traveling to climb in the best places that I can. So you free solo half dome in 2008, and I've listened to you talk about this. You reflect on it. I mean, you were the first person to do it. If I understand correctly, but you reflect on it as being a failure. Talk a little bit about that and kind of what you learned about your psyche during it. Yeah, though I didn't necessarily learn that about my psyche as I did it. You know, it's something that you sort of realize, you know, years later over time. Yeah, but so I hadn't experienced freestowing haftome. I mean, it's almost

there's a lot to get into, but basically I didn't really prepare for the free soul of hafdom at all because it was the biggest and most difficult thing I'd done up to that point. And I basically didn't know how to prepare for it. It was like too big a scope, too big a scale. And so I sort of intentionally went up there with minimal preparation thinking that I was preserving the adventure of it. You know, I was like, oh, it'll just be more of an experience this way. But as it turned out, it was kind of too much of an experience that way.

And it turned out being really scary. And I made a few decisions as I freestled the route. I sort of improvised a few things. And it turned out to be a little more harrowing than I expected. And so when I finished the climb, I definitely felt like I'd sort of gotten away with something, which wasn't exactly the experience that I was hoping for in a free solo. You know, obviously you go up there hoping to feel confident and smooth and like feel great on the rock. You know, sometimes it doesn't work out that way.

And in the case of half dome, I was like, oh, I definitely didn't feel great. You know, I felt like I felt very afraid in some key places and basically sort of like barely got away with it. There were a couple key moments on that climb where you did not feel comfortable and you weren't entirely sure what the right next move was, which will get to your, you know, your L-Cap experience is really in stark contrast to that where you had memorized every single thing about that climb. I can't quite imagine what it's like being in that situation where you realize that you've committed to this thing and there's no going back and you're also not entirely comfortable with the situation.

Well, I'm sure you kind of can't imagine that because, I mean, with starting a business, I'm sure you get into plenty of committing situations where you're suddenly like, oh, what have I done? Like, is this going to work? Was this the correct decision? You know, I mean, the stakes are a little lower maybe, but it's like the same, the same feelings, I'm sure, where you're like, oh, God, what have I done? Yeah.

Well, you described the difference between risk and consequence, which seems like it applies here as you're comparing it to my life of building a business. What does that mean to you risk and consequence? What's the difference? Yeah. So risk I define is the likelihood of something actually, you know, something going wrong and then consequence being the severity if something does go wrong. So for example, with free soloing, it's really hard for an observer to tell what the risk is because it's hard for someone, you know, say watching a video of me climbing to know how likely I am to fall off. But it's very obvious what the consequences are because pretty much anywhere, if I fall off, I'm going to die. And so I think a lot of people conflate that because they look

at a video of me free soloing and they think, oh, that's super risky. And you're kind of like, well, you can't judge from the video how likely I am to fail. You just know that if I do fail, I'm going to die for sure. And so, I mean, in some ways, the appeal of free soling to me is to be in a high consequence situation, but to make it feel super low risk, you know, to feel totally safe doing something that has very high consequences. I love that. I mean, you're, it's why I believe yourself critical of your experience with hafdom because you realized during it that it was, it was both risky and of, and high consequence, right? Yeah, which is definitely the worst case scenario, you know, well, I mean, not worst case because I would say half dome was was sort of moderate

risk, you know, I was taking some chances, but it wasn't like crazy. I wasn't jumping to holds and, you know, I wasn't about to die, but I felt like I was putting things on the line. And that's a completely subjective sort of internal experience that you can't really judge by viewing or even hearing about. You know, I mean, that's something that really only I can judge, like how close to the edge I am. And on something like half to him, I was like, well, I was definitely closer than I wanted to be.

And that's close enough for me. Well, there is an analogy to that in other walks of life where someone listening to or like in the analogy of building a business like a leader may say something with a lot of conviction in the moment but in the back of his mind he's thinking like okay this could go either way but we need to pick a path and and I imagine that if I were even a more sophisticated climber which I'm not at all but like I were watching you in that moment on half dome I don't know that I would even be able to tell that it was more risky otherwise right no probably not risk is almost your the risk was your internal perception of the of the moment is what made it risky right

yeah yeah exactly i mean it's only really on the inside where you know whether or not you think your foot might slip or you know if the foot holds too bad anybody watching just sees it as like this is all crazy rock climbing it all looks totally insane yeah well what i what i find really fascinating about your perception of mastery is it's not it's not solely based on the outcome like you climbed the thing you got to the top of the mountain it's also based on the entire process of getting there and that process includes the way that you felt internally includes the way your mind was perceiving the entire experience and that's that's pretty cool man that's really cool yeah i've never totally thought of it that way but i mean that is it and the thing

about that is that you know just achieving your goal like doing the thing that you're trying to do you're always left with the feeling afterward of like what's the next bigger thing like what's the other thing that you're working on you know there's always some other difficult challenge to do so like just doing the thing in a lot of ways isn't really enough it's like how you feel doing the thing and how you feel building up to the thing you know it's like basically the way you lead your life on the way to doing the thing that kind of matters yeah so if you think about your experience with with hafdom and you then say to yourself okay well here's L cap and this would be like the greatest free solo ever and no one's done it describe that that dream because it was like a decade long dream from 2000 as I understand it 2008 to 2017 when you actually did the climb yeah you know just working through it in your mind yeah no I think it was 2009 when I sort of decided that I was so I free solid haftoam in 2008 and I remember a specific moment on a climb and expedition in 2009 where I was kind of by myself thinking about, you know, goals for the season.

I was like, all right, Soling El Cap is like the next obvious thing. And, you know, and so basically from 2009 onward, it was on the list each year is like, oh, this is something I should do. But the reality was that each year when I drove in Yosemite, I just look at the wall and be completely overwhelmed, you know, like there's no way that I can do that this year. And so by 2014-15, you know, I'd now been sort of sitting on with this huge goal on the back burner for many years, without really getting that much closer to doing it. And sort of in 2015, I realized that it was never just going to happen by itself.

You know, I was never just going to walk into Yosemite and think, oh, it looks easy this year. You know, like, this year it'll be chill. I was like, it's just never going to be chill. It's like, if I want to do this, I'm going to have to put specific effort into this goal and actually work toward it. And I think sort of the magnitude of the goal had always sort of prevented me from from explicitly working on it because it just seemed too daunting, like too big, too crazy, like too impossible. But then I was like, you know, I don't know, you just like, I hate having something undone on the back of my to-do list for, for, you know, half a decade. You're like, oh, man,

like each year I'm failing on this thing I want to do. And I'm not getting any closer to it. At some point, I should probably actually put the effort in and start working on it. Do you remember what that switch was where you went from just realizing that it was on your to-do list and it wasn't going away to you overcoming that that I don't want to call it a fear but like that sort of first step of starting it yeah there are a couple moments that I remember that are all like sort of you know inside basebally I don't know if you yeah let's do it let's do it um I mean so so one in particular was uh free I free climbed all cap meaning climbed it with a rope and a partner but uh but you know with hands and feet like so I freed all cap with a friend of mine

via this new route that he had just worked on. And I think this was in the summer of 2015, or maybe it was 2014. But I had a very specific moment where it was the first time I climbed El Cap and actually thought, you're like, you know, this is actually like kind of reasonable. The route that we climbed together

shared the first thousand feet of Freerrider, which is the route that I ultimately sold. Yeah. And so it was the first time that I climbed that first thousand feet of the wall with a rope and thought, you know, I could imagine doing this without a rope. and so that was like a real moment where I was like okay like this could be possible like I could

start working on this in a way and and that had to do with a lot of different factors part of that was because we did it in in June it was like warm and pleasant and it was like really nice conditions physically so like the climbing felt nice um you know because sometimes when you climb that stuff in like late fall or early winter it's like your fingers and toes are numb and it all feels a little more extreme. And so it's harder to visualize the whole wall as like a friendly, comfortable experience when you're physically on edge a little bit. So like that was one small experience where I basically, I climbed it with a friend and I was like, you know, this could be possible. But then I also had a couple conversations with people where like one of them, it's like,

so this is really like niche climbing. But the thing is I'd spent years thinking that if I was a stronger climber, like if I climbed harder grades, I would be able to look at L cap and it would just seem easier to me. And so I'd always sort of built up this grade of 14D, which is kind of like elite level, like very high performance rock climbing. I'd always kind of built that up as like, if you were a 14D climber, then L cap would be easy for you. And I kind of had this realization and after years of trying, I still wasn't a 514, I still wasn't a 14D climber. It's still basically just too hard. It's like, that's like cutting edge. For the non-climers, like, how many people in the world are even a 14D like that that's like a very unique level right yeah yeah it is nowadays

uh it's starting to be more you know like there might be a hundred people in the world that have climbed that grade or something at this point but to put it in context though you know like 10 or 15 years ago there were like one or two people in the world that had had climbed at that grade it's basically getting into like super elite very high on climbing and and and also just to be clear like I'm not like the physically best climber in the world, never have been. I'm not like physically gifted in that way. I love that about your story because it shows that you've become like world class at the whole mental side of this, which I'm so fascinated by.

But you're touching on an interesting theme, which I feel like is you had built up this boundary of 14D that you just all of a sudden realized, well, actually maybe I don't need to be a 14D to still do this, right? Well, yeah. So I think the real lesson from this was that I realized that if, you know, like in general, to improve it climbing, it's all about focusing on your weaknesses. And this is kind of true in life. Like if you want to get better at things, focus on the things that you're bad at. But then I kind of had this realization where it occurred to me that if you want to do your absolute best at something, focus on your strengths, you know? Like 100%. Yeah. Like if you want to improve, focus on your weakness. But if you want to do something incredible, focus on what you're best at. And I was like, the thing that I'm best at is climbing. 512, which is like a relatively more moderate grade all day long without getting tired. And I'm kind of like, and that's what you need to be able to free sell L cap. And at a certain point, I was like, I should just quit stressing trying to be a climber that I'm not and focus on the type of climber that I am and just push that all the way to the limit.

You know, and so basically, you know, I accepted that L cap was never going to look easy and I was never going to be this incredibly strong climber. but the type of climber that I was is capable of free selling a cap. It's like I may as well just focus on my strengths, double down on what I'm good at, and just do this thing that I'm passionate about and quit worrying about trying to become something that I'm not. It's so fascinating. And your point about focusing on your strengths is one of the, I think it's one of the more interesting business lessons too that I've come across. There's this perception in growing a business or even managing a team that like you want to constantly be giving people feedback on their weakness.

and you need to improve your weaknesses. And it's actually, I think, really overrated advice. You really want to focus on people's strengths and amplify the hell out of them and then fill in the gaps on people's weaknesses with other team members. And that, at least to me, building that's been incredibly valuable, both for me personally, but also I think for the broader organization.

I love the way you put that of focusing on your strengths. And obviously, your strengths are quite significant. well but but actually though my strengths are really really niche in a way like in the broader field of climbing the things that i'm good at climbing are just really narrow in a way but by really focusing on them and and sort of exploiting those strengths to the max you know i've been able to do some things that i'm that i'm pretty proud of but you know i really had to to like double down on this like narrow slice of climbing so i'm like you know what i'm just i'm just not gifted in in certain aspects of climbing. And, you know, and I beat my head against those, like my entire life,

you know, like that's what I focus on. That's what I train for. And that's what helps me improve as a climber. But they are natural gifts, you know, and you're kind of like, oh, sometimes you just have to play to your strengths, though. One of the things that I find so fascinating about your, um, your free solo of El Cap is that there wasn't really a playbook for it. You know, you didn't really have a coach for, this is how we're going to do this. And you, in a lot of ways, became your own coach. And it's why you must live such an intentional life. You know, if, I mean, the dude who broke the four-minute mile for the first time, like,

he had a running coach. He had a whole team probably that was figuring out how he's going to break a four-minute mile, whereas you were really figuring this out for yourself. I mean, I'm sure you had a support network, but you had to figure out what were the, what about your strengths did you need to amplify? What did you need to visualize to get? Really. And yeah, and that's a really interesting point because, you know, I did have a support network.

Like, I have a lot of expertise in climbing around me because most of my friends are professional climbers and everybody's, you know, well-versed in training and all that. But in a way, that was all actually sort of discouraging me from the type of training that I felt like I needed for L-CAP because most other climbers are training to climb harder grades like I was just describing trying to climb 515 or like hard numbers. And that kind of thing just won't help you climb L-CAP. So, like, in a way, I was training for like the ultra-marathon. of climbing. And most people are training for, you know, like mile runs or like 100 meter sprints. You know what I mean? It's like totally different sports, like physiological different events. Totally. Totally. And so all my friends are training for one thing. I'm training for a totally separate thing. And they're all telling me that I'm doing it wrong and that I'm sucking.

I'm kind of like, yeah, but I think I'm training for a different thing. You know, it's like, I don't know. It was interesting because I remember the sort of four months leading up to the actual successful freestyle level cap, like the leading up to that spring. in Yosemite. And I remember a couple of my friends telling me that I was doing it wrong, basically, that I was doing too much volume, that I was too weak and that, you know, I was like wearing myself out unnecessarily and I was like training in the wrong way. But I was like, I'm pretty sure that I'm doing what I need to free solo Al Cap. You know, but it's like nobody's ever worked on that. So like you said, there's not much of a playbook for it. You know, there's no easy way to,

to learn. And where did that confidence come from? Like what, what made you, what made you sure that you were training the right way. Was it the way you were feeling when you were when you were going up, uh, L cap? Was it just your sort of general gut? Yeah, I mean, part of it is, well, and to be clear, I wasn't totally confident, you know, in classic form. You're like, I think I'm doing it right. I hope I'm doing it right. But like, we'll see. You know, like, who knows? Yeah, wow. Um, but no, part of it is because I've been a pretty serious journaler my entire life for, uh, climbing journals, like keeping track of roots that I'm climbing and then also I always have two different journals going basically like a training and life journal that's kind of like diet how I feel like random stuff like that and then

not like how I feel you know emotional but just like notes of you know I ate this much felt good slept this much I mean basically all the stuff that you that I can keep in a whoop now honestly which is kind of classic that's cool but um and actually the whole concept of strain and all that I mean that's basically what my my training journal has always been and then my and then my climbing journal is just a very sort of clinical description of what roots I climb, how long they take, you know, times on approaches, times on a sense, things like that, just like the nitty gritty of what I've climbed. But so I have all my data in climbing going back to 2006, basically. And so I do have a decent sense of when I've had very good seasons in Yosemite, what type of climbing I've been doing

ahead of time, how I've prepared in different ways, you know, how I've responded to dietary changes and training changes, and a sense of what kind of volume. of training I can handle. Like before free-selling Al Cap, I was doing like 40 hours exercise a week, which is like at the very highest end of what I can handle. And really what any athlete handles, I think, is kind of too much in some ways. Yeah, that's that's on par with, I mean, triathletes, right? Yeah. 40 hours a week. That's like, that's really significant. It's like almost too much for sure. The thing is, most people when they train to climb Al-Qaeda, cap, you know, El Cap is 3,000 feet tall. So they're training for a 3,000 foot climb,

which might be comparable to training for a marathon, let's say. But I knew that in order to free solo El Cap, I wasn't just going to climb at once. I was going to climb El Cap sort of day in and day out all season long as I rehearsed movements and as I memorized, you know, sequences and practiced and all that. And so I wasn't training to do a marathon. I was training to do a marathon four times a week for the entire season. You know what I mean? And so it's like a completely different volume of climbing training. And that's why my friends were all making fun of me for doing too much volume. And I'm kind of like, well, how else do you prepare for, you know, running four marathons a week, if not by doing a tremendous amount of volume? Because what you were essentially

doing was memorizing the exact route that you were going to take when you free solo did, right? You wanted to know that you knew every move and you were going to visualize everything about this experience before it even happened. Yeah, basically. I mean, and the first part of the season was actually finding all the moves because I wound up doing some little variations to avoid certain sections. And then, and then once I sort of found a good path and felt confident with it, then to actually memorize it and execute it well, I mean, it's just a lot. I mean, it was the full opposite end of the spectrum from the half-dome experience. You know, I just felt like L-Cap was hard enough that I should have everything perfect so there'd

be less uncertainty involved. In a way, it was almost like you were too good of a climber relative to the free solo of halftome, you know, because you let yourself be comfortable going into it almost with a little bit of like a lack of preparation, right? Whereas L-Cap you viewed as such an intimidating, you know, foe, if you will, that you knew you had to be absolutely dialed. Yeah, part of it is that, I mean, the reality is that I probably could have free-solid El-cap the year before. Like, in the film, there's a failed attempt where I go part way up and decide to stop. You know, if someone had a gun to my head and I'd been forced to continue, I almost certainly would have successfully freestold at all cap that day. But I would have been totally

gripped and, you know, it wouldn't have been a good experience for me. It wouldn't have, again, it wouldn't have made you feel like mastery. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I would have been like, oh, my God, I barely got away with something. And that would just suck, you know, because free selling all cap is probably the thing that I'll be most proud of in climbing my whole life, I assume, just because it's like such a monumental cliff for climbers. And, you know, I wanted to have a good experience. Like, I don't want to think about all cap and be slightly embarrassed and be like, I hope nobody saw that because it was like sort of a botch, you know? Like, it's nice to be able to think about it and be proud of the whole

experience, you know. So about two years out from doing it, you committed to it. You started to tell close friends, hey, I'm going to do this. That's around when the documentary, you know, was conceived right with jimmy and chai um and their first reactions were probably to be a little nervous about it i would imagine and also be a little nervous potentially filming it yeah yeah i mean i've heard both of them speak about this a bit throughout the free solo film tour and all that but yeah it's it's funny because i think when i told the the two film directors you know jimmy chan and chai basarelli chai is a non-climmer and so she heard it was like oh that's great i mean that'll be great for the film you know it's a beautiful objective like that's perfect jimmy heard it and she's and she's the

non-climer of the two right exactly exactly okay so i think that's important context yeah and so jimmy who's a you know veteran big wall climber heard me say that and felt sick to his stomach and was like oh no like that's going to be right right because he knew what to do yeah and he knew that he would be the one hanging on the side of the cliff filming it and he was like oh my god i feel sick even thinking about it like that's that sounds like a bit much you know and so yeah it was kind of funny because yeah the non-climber you know chai is like oh that sounds great let's film it you know and jimmy's like oh no like let's not and it was it was interesting listening to them talk a little about making the movie because they said that they had to lay out these ground rules for how to do it

so that they felt like it was still going to be true to your experience and one of the ground rules was so they could never ask you if you were going to do it and so i'm curious How like what was the feedback loop in your mind of what what is going to be the right day to do this? Because it wasn't like you picked a day on the calendar. You were assessing almost in real time what the day is going to be, right? Yeah. I mean, they had to deal with a tremendous amount of uncertainty because you know, they're making a film without knowing if I'm ever even going to be able to do the objective of the film. So right there's like who knows if this will ever happen. Yeah. And then there's always the chance that I try and fail, which is like worst case scenario, then you have this total. disaster film and that would be very unfortunate and dark film yeah yeah that'd be a dark film and like what do you even do with all the footage then it's like do you just i don't know you just pretend it never happened you know you just erase all the footage you're like film what film you know you're like oh no but but obviously you know it was produced by national geographic so like it's being funded by the nag geo documentary branch it's like you know there is money being spent on it and like

they're obligated to produce some kind of film and you're sort of like oh geez But I think they actually did a really good job of sheltering me from that pressure. They just let me do my thing. You know, obviously, it's always a bit of a junk show when you're filming because, you know, there are people physically standing by you with cameras and holding a boom mic and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, it does change the experience a little bit to have people filming. But they definitely did a really good job of minimizing that impact as much as possible.

So I felt like I was still having the climbing experience that that I wanted. And ultimately on the day of when I free-sill-it-all-cap, it was exactly. the experience that I wanted. It was, it was kind of amazing. Now, describe the day that you thought you were going to do it, but decided not to. What, what happened in the process where you were like, not today? There were a handful of things. Actually, something I mentioned, Mindigo was that in the late fall, sort of early winter in Yosemite, it's just much colder. And the, you know, the daylight hours are different. Days are shorter. So on my failed attempt, I was starting in the dark. It was quite cold on the ground, which means your fingers and toes are numb. So when you're sort of interfacing

with the rock, like how you touch and feel the rock, you have much less sensitivity. So it makes it all a little bit more scary because you're not sure that you're, you know, attached to the rock well. And then I'd sprained my ankle kind of severely before that. And so my foot was still swollen. My shoe felt too tight. I couldn't feel one foot. And then basically I just got to a specific move where you have to trust your life to a single foothold with no handholds to sort of back you up. And I couldn't feel the toes. And I was like, I just instantly was like, I'm not into this. Like, I don't want to do this.

And so I kind of gave up. So right there, I started grabbing bolts, like the hardware that's like attached to the mountain and sort of started cheating there. And so, which makes it feel a lot less serious because you're suddenly like, you know, grabbing onto stuff that you wouldn't normally be able to use. But it wasn't like a thought out decision. You know, I just got to a certain point was like, I'm not doing this. And then started cheating and basically quit, you know.

The bigger version is that I just hadn't really prepared for it enough yet. You know, because I'd injured my ankle, I just, like, hadn't spent enough days. I didn't know the moves well enough. Like, when I came back the next season and the spring and worked on it a lot more, I focused on that section, like, a lot. And by the end, I'd done it in my tennis shoes, like, with a rope on. And, you know, I'd done it a bunch of different ways that gave me tremendous amount of confidence that I knew that I could trust my feet going across that section of slab.

And so, you know, when I ultimately did free sole. but I just knew that it would be fine. The preparation level from a visualization standpoint, I mean, talk about that. I was surprised just the degree to which you imagine also the negative. You know, a lot of people, when they think about a visualization exercise, they're just visualizing the success. They're visualizing it going perfectly. And you actually really, it seems like, take on all the negative,

all the possibilities of how it can go wrong. Yeah, I mean, I think that's the whole. whole point of visualization. I mean, to me, the point of visualization is to prepare you for any eventualities, like any possibility that could happen while climbing. I mean, basically the point is to not be caught by surprise by anything. And so, you know, you don't want to get into a position climbing and suddenly have the thought for the first time, like, what if I fall? You know what I mean? Like, obviously you want to have thought that through in its entirety. You want to already know that, you know, if your foot slips here, you're going to cartwheel down the wall. You're going to

bounce down the wall, you're going to basically explode on impact on the ground. I mean, it's all terrible things to think about and it's scary to think about. But it's important to think about those things ahead of time so that you don't suddenly come up with them for the first time while you're in that position. You know, and I mean, I think that if you focus only on positive visualization, that's actually kind of dangerous because in a way that's like luring you into something that could be beyond you. Like if anything, especially with free-

That's an interesting way of putting it. Like, yeah, you probably should, especially in what you're doing, you should not just have a positive visualization because that might encourage you to do something that is beyond your means and leads to a disaster. I mean, even in business, don't you think? I mean, if you only focus on the best possible outcome, you're like, yeah, that's great. And that can inspire you to take on big challenges, but it doesn't prepare you for anything else. You know, like what happens when life gets in the way?

That's like the, well, I guess if I were to really dissect my own visualization, I do see things going wrong, but I always, a picture overcoming them. So I was just thinking about it. I mean, it's very interesting to sort of think about it through that lens. I think that you're probably more certain in what you do than what I do, you know, in a way. Like, listening to you describe just how knowing, you know, how much you knew exactly what to do at every stage is really inspiring. Well, part of that's because climbing has fundamentally fewer variables. You know, there is an objective nature to rock. Yeah. That's what I mean. And so I wonder if that's an

interesting difference between climbing and business. Like you only ever really know like 70% or 80%, you know, that it's the right thing. And so part of it is is really believing that it's the right thing while knowing what could happen with the 20 or 30, but like committing that this is what it looks like when it works out. And in a way, you know, it's interesting. I think in business, it's not like poker where you're dealt cards and you're stuck with those cards. I think a level of commitment to something can actually change your cards if you follow what I'm saying. You know what I mean? Like you can bluff, but actually in turn it gives you better cards. There's a slight difference if you know what I mean. Does that make sense? Yeah, the fundamentally business relies on so many more

subjective measures because it's human-based. You know, you just never totally know what other people are going to do, how they feel about things. Like, I mean, the beauty of climbing is that it's totally objective. Like, the rock doesn't change. The, you know, the root up the rock never changes. Like, it's just so few variables to, to have to factor in. I don't know. I mean, I just think the business world is so much more of a junk show. You know, you're like, well, who knows what other people are going to do and how they feel about it. And like, if that's going to impact their decisions and how that changes my decision, you know, with climbing, you're just like the rock is always the same. So in theory, you can work on it as much as you need until it feels possible.

Which is what you did with with L cap and you visualized every scenario. I mean, it sounds like you even visualized your shoe tearing or it raining or all that stuff. Totally. Totally. I mean, just because that way, if any of it happens, you're never caught by surprise. You're like, oh yeah, I've done this already, even though you haven't technically done it, but you've played it through in your mind, so nothing is a surprise. You're like, I'm ready for everything. It's amazing. The movie is amazing. Free Solo. Congratulations on that accomplishment. And of course, the movie as well. And I love listening to you talk about it because it's, you know, my general sense is that the outside world looks at you as someone who's almost got a little bit of a genetic disposition to being able to overcome fear. Like I was reading about, you know, this sort of analysis of your amygdala, right, which is with the area of your brain that,

you know, obviously is fight or flight and this idea that maybe yours is just sort of naturally a little bit suppressed. But in listening to you, I feel like you're, you're so disciplined and so intentional that you've just trained, you've trained yourself to control it under a certain circumstance, right? Which is a life or death scenario of climbing. But it's like, let me ask you this way. Are there other things in your life that might surprise people that, you know, make you fearful, like that you realize that you have some level of fear towards. Like public speaking at some point in your life, was that something that you feared doing? Yeah, I mean, as a young person, I was horrified of public speaking. Like, the idea of speaking in front of class and school was

completely out of the question. And actually, giving a TED talk remains one of the scariest things I've probably ever done in my life. Like, I was so gripped on stage that I completely skipped one of my closing paragraphs. Like, if you watch my TED talk online, it's fully missing a paragraph that I intended to deliver, but totally lost because my brain turned a mush. Okay, well, this is a perfect transition, because I watched your TED Talk last night to prepare for this. And I was like, I think he's nervous. Like, I actually think nervous. And it's a beautiful thing, though, man, because it shows that with like an insane level of commitment and discipline and visualization and practice, like you've been able to overcome this insane thing

and overcome like the mindset towards it and it's not just that you're like you know some genetic unique thing like you do you do feel fears in other aspects of your life but you've been so intentional which i think is so beautiful yeah no that's totally it it's like with uh with climbing i've been doing it full time and trying my hardest and pushing and you know broadening my comfort zone like working on every aspect of my climbing for 25 years and then you know and i've learned a lot of things about, you know, managing my fear and, you know, controlling emotion and whatever. But then when I try to apply that to something like a TED talk, you know, giving a TED talk, like, I'm not good at memorizing lines. I'm not that great at public speaking. You know,

I've had a little bit of practice now, but, but not that much, you know, a few years worth, let's say. And you're sort of like, yeah, I have some experience, but not that much. And like, this is hard for me. You know, I'm sort of like, oh, I don't have 25 years of experience and practice in this. And so when I go up on stage and try to deliver this memorized talk in front of, you know, thousands of the most respected people, you know, like people, I don't know, everyone there's so classy. I'm like, oh, geez, you know, like, I don't want to embarrass myself in front of all these people. And I was like, oh, this is, this is pretty intense. It's pretty hardcore for me. I mean, there's such a beauty in that that you're giving a TED talk about

climbing a 3,000 foot mountain that no one's ever climbed before and hell you did it without any ropes or anything. And that experience was almost less nerve racket. to you, then the actual experience of just talking about it in front of people later. Yeah, but it's all what you're good at, you know? Of course, but that's what I take away from this, is like, if you can just build this level of discipline and intentionality in your life around certain aspects, the mastery that you can have of them is quite high and independent from other aspects of your life too, right? No, totally, totally.

And that's the article you were talking about with my amygdala and things like that, you know, depending on how, well, I'm not sure if you were referring to the article or the scene in the film, but basically there was this whole, there was a magazine article written about, you know, my amygdala and fear and climbing and all that. And I thought the real takeaway from, from that experience with the fMRI and the personality test and all that was more that with enough conditioning, you can kind of desensitize yourself to any amount of stimulus. You know, because like I remember being scared of so long when I was young. You know, the first things that I sold were like really intense for me and pretty full on. And and now those are roots that I

would happily do in my tennis shoes just as like, oh, this is so fun. This is so relaxed. I'm having a great time on the cliff. And, you know, clearly 15 years of continuous effort and sort of progress has changed the way those experiences, you know, register in my brain. Now looking back at it, you know, now taking FMRI, you're like, oh, you know, he doesn't activate, doesn't show fear in these certain ways. And you're like, well, yeah, with 15 years of conditioning, obviously it doesn't doesn't stimulate you in the same way anymore. Yeah, well, I think there's a really interesting lesson to that. And it's also, this is interesting to talk now about the fact that you're on whoop,

because I'm fascinated by what your data might look like. You know, there's a study recently that just came out. I think it was like end of 2020 that showed that a lack of REM sleep, you know, which is like, you know, when your mind is repairing cognitively, it's obviously a stage of sleep whoop measures. Like a lack of REM sleep was proven to be. link to a heightened amygdala response. So, you know, if you don't get enough REM sleep, you know, you're someone who could be more panicky or you have a more active fight or flight

response. And in reading that study and then also thinking about this interview, I was like, I bet this dude gets a lot of REM sleep. Like, you strike me as someone who's probably a great sleeper. I am a great sleeper. But what is the ratio between REM and sort of deep sleep and light sleep supposed to be because I've actually sort of already noticed like I seem to get a lot of REM sleep actually but so I'm curious what it's supposed to be okay that's that doesn't surprise me at all because again you have this control over your amygdala at least under an activity that you do in a large percentage of your life you have this control of your amygdala that's unusually great and and I bet it's because you get an insane amount of REM sleep do you know how much REM sleep

you night oh I don't know like the last time I looked like three and a half hours or something What's like, uh, that's an, that's an enormous amount of REM sleep. Oh, is it? Like, like outlier level of REM sleep. Oh, what's the, uh, what are the numbers supposed to be like deep sleep versus REM versus light sleep? Yeah. So for people listening who are like, what are we talking about, um, you know, your stages consist of awake, light, REM and slow wave, right? And REM is when your mind's repairing cognitively. Slow wave is when you produce about 95% of your human growth hormone. Both are wildly important for athletes. In your case, you might, REM might be even more important because it sounds like it doesn't take the strength necessarily to get you up to climb. It's often your mindset.

Generally speaking, if you can have over 25% of the time you spend in bed be a combination of REM and slow wave sleep, you're doing well. My sense is that you're probably doing 50, 60, 70, maybe even 80% of the time you spend in bed is in REM and slow wave, which is an outlier. level of sleep precision. I'll give you another example. We just published this paper on Justin Thomas. Justin's like one of the best golfers in the world. And he just won the players championship this past weekend.

And he shared his slow wave sleep over the coast of the tournament. And sure enough, he was averaging like three, three and a half hours of, excuse me, of REM sleep who's averaging three, three and a half hours of REM sleep every night of the tournament. So you talk about a guy who was probably prepared to deal with that anxiety. of having the lead at the very end of the round and trying to close out the tournament and he responded really well

in those high stress moments so it's just fascinating man that that's so cool that you get through to effort that is I think that's so interesting because that doesn't think is people like watch a YouTube video of me climbing and they're like oh you must be physically gifted

but maybe my gift is that I get great REM sleep but whoever would have thought of that like that's so weird yeah well I mean that that's a lot of where the inspiration for the company came from was like I was someone used to overtrain and so I figured like why am I not getting fitter as an athlete if I keep putting in the work every day if I keep like giving it my all every day I was like oh because I don't sleep like I'm not recovering my body's not like repairing and as a young college kid that

wasn't obvious to me until I did this enormous amount of physiology research and realized that maybe the secret to being a high performance athlete is actually the other 20 hours of the day. Like, how are you treating your body when you're not training? Like, what are all those variables? And that's a lot of where this idea of balancing strain and recovery came from, which you might have noticed in the Woop Interface. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting because I think that a big part of my success as a professional athlete is partially by luck, the fact that I don't, I don't like coffee, I don't like alcohol. Actually, I don't like bubbles. Basically, I don't like carbonation. So I don't like drink soda. I don't drink alcohol. So you consume zero,

you drink zero calories pretty much. Yeah, I only drink water, basically. And then, you know, occasionally sports drink for very specific things or, you know, like a smoothie or something, whatever. But yeah, basically, I only drink water. And that's my choice, like by personal preference. But like some of those basic things, like always getting good night's sleep and only drinking water, obviously go a long way towards helping your recovery and helping you perform better as an athlete. But for me, that's kind of always just been the default. You know, it's like, just the way I live. Like, that's just, that's normal. And you're like, it's funny how those kind of like soft skill things factor into athletic performance in a way that folks wouldn't necessarily

think about. Now, do you have any other, I mean, obviously you have a very intentional lifestyle. Leading up to El Cap, I heard that you sort of changed your sleep schedule a little bit so that you would always be waking up at exactly the same time. Is that right? Not exactly exactly the same time, but because I knew that I'd be starting to climb, basically I'd have to get up at like 4 or 4.30 in the morning in order to be climbing by 5 or something. So I'd kind of gotten into a routine of going to bed very early and still getting a full, you know, eight hours of sleep

and then getting up at 4. So it's nothing crazy because I'm sure anybody that like works nights or like works weird hours does kind of the same thing. But it is counterintuitive in the springtime to go to bed at like 7.30. You know, it's still fully light outside and you're like, well, I'm going to bed. You're like. Well, this is where I go back to this idea that you've figure like you're you're you're a master class in coaching as much as you are a master class as

the athlete because you you've figured these things out without anyone really telling you them or even without having worn whoop like one thing you'll notice pretty quickly from wearing whoop is that if you go to bed and wake up at pretty consistent times you get this enhanced sleep quality and enhanced recovery in a pretty natural way like your body wants to fall into a routine. And you wouldn't believe how many world-class professional athletes we've worked with that they wouldn't, it doesn't really occur to them that, oh, well, I've got this game at this time, so I should as a result change my schedule a week earlier or even two days earlier. You know, like it's it's so obvious listening to you how intentional you are and how thoughtful

you are, but you'd be surprised, like just don't take it for granted is what I'm saying. You've developed routines and skills that I think are more unique than you realize. That's interesting. I mean, so, and part of the reason I realized that stuff or sort of learned it is because as a climber, you frequently do, you know, what's called alpine starts, like getting up at, say, like, 1 a.m. to go climb a mountain, like before the snow is melted or things like like, you're always beholden to weather conditions and sort of climate conditions for what you're climbing.

So it's totally normal, and I've done a lot of climbing where you start at, say, 7 p.m. and you go through the night. And so I've done tons of 24-hour push in Patagonia. With, you know, basically no sleep. We did 20-hour death march back to town with no food at the end of a 54-hour. It was a total disaster. But so, you know, you sort of realize that you can just push right through the night if you have to. And, you know, you can just wake up at three and perform at your best if you have to. But the thing is, if you want to, like, feel really good while you do it, then that has to be normal to you. And so, you know, like, I've had enough experience like that where I just skip a night's sleep because I'm like climbing straight through the night, then I'm like, yeah, it's possible. But if you want to feel really good while you do it, then that has to be like your norm. That has to be your routine. And so that was kind of the premise going into freestalling all caps. So I was like, if I want to wake up at four and feel like a champion when I go climbing at 430 in the morning, then I have to be doing that day and day out and like, you know, it has to feel normal to me. And so that's, that's what I did.

yeah it's it's awesome and then from a recovery standpoint are you someone who is using any products are you someone who stretches obsessively are you someone who you know just likes to eat right after you work out like what are what are some of your habits there um so i mean i've always stretched a bit you know not seriously before l cap i was stretching a lot more because uh one of the most difficult moves on the climb requires a really dynamic stretch. And so, you know, because the stretching suddenly felt much more high consequence, I was like, oh, I should be stretching more. But in general, though, I'm rarely limited by flexibility, so I don't stretch that much. You know, I'm kind of like, oh, it's enough to get by. It's fine. Take an athletic greens in the

morning, kind of into it. I think it's wholesome. I mean, in general, I'm all about sort of like wholesome, you know, attempts at health things. Like, I make smoothies for myself, which is like fruits and, you know, protein from time to time. I've been vegetarian for a long time and try to eat well. I don't know, like, yeah, just a wholesome diet as much as possible. But I have a bit of a sweet tooth, so it's hard to, it's hard to be perfect, you know. How long have you been vegetarian for? I think since 2012.

So like, I don't know, coming up on 9, 10 years, something like that. Okay, so it was a long time before you did L-CAP because I was going to say that would be an interesting transition to make kind of like in the process of gearing up for like that. No, the pre-L-CAP I went basically vegan because I'm like last. lactose intolerant for sure. Like if I drink a bunch of milk, I'll for sure have GI issues like right after. So, which is totally normal. But, um, but I'm not so bad that, that it prevents me from eating cheese or dairy, you know, from time to time. But like pre-L-CAP, I went basically vegan, except I was still eating eggs. Because I was like, oh, obviously dairy is not good for me. There's no point in having it. Even if I don't experience GI symptoms, I just shouldn't be eating it.

And it's bad for the environment, whatever. Yeah. But, um, yeah, so basically the whole run-up to L-cap, I was like eating a vegan diet. I was exercising 40 hours a week. I was stretching compulsively. I was going to bed. I erased all my social media. I quit responding to email. So I basically had like nothing going on internet wise, distraction wise.

I mean, it was, you know, it was an incredibly wholesome lifestyle for, you know, the four months. I also wound up weighing the least that I've ever weighed. I mean, I'm always within a very narrow band. But when I freeze a little cap, I was like at the bottom of my band. Intentionally because you're like, I want to be as light as possible for this? No, I think it just happened because when you exercise 40 hours a week and eat a vegan diet, you eventually lose some weight, you know? I was just like a couple pounds leaner than normal, you know, it wasn't anything crazy. You strike me as someone who, when he says, like, you've gained weight, you've gained like two and a half pounds.

Yeah, yeah. No, that is. That's exactly it. Yeah, you're, you've had the same weight for a long time and it's been pretty narrow. Yeah. I mean, I'm within the same like six pound range my entire life, basically. Yeah. But, um, but it's funny. because when you train for climbing, like when you hangboard with weights, the unit of progress is normally two and a half pounds. So you can like train for weeks and sort of suddenly, you know, your fingers are two and a half pounds stronger.

I mean, that's why like strength to weight ratio is such a thing in climbing. Yeah. Because, you know, you're like, oh, either I can train for months and gain a little bit of strength or I can lose two and a half pounds. And you're kind of like either way it gets you to the same place. And weight training is that something you've introduced or you think the best way to train is to do the activity of climbing? I've never specifically weight trained, like lifted weights.

The closest I've come to that is sort of hangboarding with weight, which is like when you hang from your fingertips with a little bit of weight. So that is the same principle as weight training, but it looks very different than like going to the gym and like curling or something. You know, because you're like dangling from a climbing training apparatus. But no, I'm all about body weight exercise and doing the sport itself, you know,

climbing a lot. Well, it's amazing, man. And I have to just compliment you on everything you've accomplished at a young age. Now, Jared Leto tells me I have to ask you, what's next? What's the next adventure? I mean, I don't know. I wonder, did Jared actually ask you to say that? Yeah. I'm like, I wonder if he was thinking of something specific or, uh, or, well, I, I said

him a list of, I was like, hey, what should I ask, uh, Alex? I got him on the podcast tomorrow. And he sent me a number of things that we talked to me. He said you're a great karaoke. Oh, my God. Dude, he's, he's really good at karaoke. Well, I, he's, he's, he's really good at karaoke. Well, he's, I mean, like, a professional position, so we'll give him credit for that. Well, I know, but, like, someone can be a professional music, like, when we're all doing karaoke, he's, like, laying on his little thing. He's not really participating because he's like, oh, I don't want to play. I don't want to play.

I think this is dumb. But then when he started to play, you're like, dude, he's really good. Yeah, that's cool. It's like one of those things where it's nice to see that someone who's supposed to be good at something is actually really, really good at it, you know? Yeah, that's a good point. Like, yeah. So, but I mean, what's next?

Because what's interesting to me about your L cap accomplishment is you didn't have, like, there's an entrepreneur's curse that I've seen from other entrepreneurs, for example, where they'll, like, build this thing to be worth whatever, $10 billion, so make a fortune. And then they'll kind of arrive at this moment and be like, oh, man, what am I going to do next? Like, what's next? Like, I got to do something next, you know? And it's almost like a letdown of the accomplishment. And I get the sense that that's not what's happened for you.

you've, like, really been grateful for it. It's a, like, you've got a feeling of mastery that you've, you've grown from it. And in some ways, you don't feel an urge to immediately climb the next L-CAP. Yes, interesting you ask, and if you'd ask me a year ago, the answer would probably be different. But, so just to put it in perspective here, so I free-sillette L-Cap in 2017, there was a year of post-production on the film. So the next year, I basically climbed like normal. I went on climbing expeditions to, like, Alaska and Antarctica, climbed a bunch of cool

and the Roots did a bunch of big climbing challenges, did the speed record on El Cap in two hours, and it was pretty proud of it. And then the film came out. So maybe that's a big deal in itself. I mean, maybe I'm not giving enough credit for that. No, no, no. That's not what I mean.

Well, it's just an interesting arc because it's like, so I did this big thing that I'm proud of. I had a year of just like normal climbing. Then the film came out, and I did a whole year film tour of like press and going to the Oscars and like, you know, meeting Prince William at the Bafters and stuff like that. You know, it's whole crazy,

a whole crazy life experience. We're a transition for you. Yeah. And at all of those events, you know, everyone's asking what's next, what's next? And you're kind of like, oh, it's weird because, you know, personally, it feels like I did this a year ago and I already did all this other cool climbing that I'm proud of since then. But people are sort of expecting this like free solo to this like crazy project that you're working on that'll be better in some way.

And you're like, there just isn't really one. And then also doing the film tour like kind of burns you out, just like traveling nonstop for a year to all these crazy events. And so now it's been a year. since the movie tour. I mean, basically COVID is like an obvious reset where you just focus on climbing close to home and, you know, training and like sort of keeping it more chill. And, and now I'm very much feeling a bit of a personal hunger again where I have a handful of soloing projects. I'm working on some things that I'm excited about. I'm like working on, you know,

like a VR soloing thing just because I think it's cool. It's like not even, you know, it's not like it's going to the Oscars or something, but it's just going to like look amazing and highlight some stuff that I'm proud to climb and like it's fun, you know. And so I think I've kind of come full circle where I'm like back to the same process that eventually led me to El Cap where I'm just like, well, I have a bunch of different things going on that I'm excited about, that I'm working hard for, that I'm training for. I'm kind of like, you know, we'll see which of them turn out to be really impressive or not, but it's kind of like doesn't really matter because I just want to keep like grinding away

at things that I'm proud of. And so, you know, we'll see basically. And the celebrity that's come with your success is that, is that something you enjoy or Is it something you kind of feel uncomfortable with? Is it maybe it's a great opportunity to use your platform for good? I mean, how do you think about it? Yeah, it's just, it is what it is. I mean, I've translated a lot of that through my foundation, through the Honol Foundation, Supporting Solar Projects.

And, you know, it's kind of one of those things where it's like, if you wind up being, it's like if you get thrust into this position, you may as well harness it in a way that's useful for the world. You know, it may as well do something useful with it. And obviously, you know, I'm really grateful to be able to make a living through climbing. I'm like, I get to go climbing every day. It's like I get to do the thing that I love to do. You know, that said, I'm still chatting from a closet underneath my staircase.

You know what I mean? It's not like my world has changed that much. Like, I'm sitting in a closet, like chatting about rock climbing. You know, it's not like some crazy lifestyle change. Yeah, although, I mean, I have to imagine going from being a famous or like very talented rock climber to being known as the guy who freesolod El Cap and an Oscar winning. movie like there's a little bit of a before and after to that right yeah yeah there is for sure you must have felt your life change in that kind of you know 2016 to 2019 period yeah for sure for sure but at least

it's changed for something that i'm proud of that i'm grateful for you know what i mean like it's all rock and roll man yeah everything and honestly you know i chose that like i chose to make a movie about about free selling out cap and you know i didn't expect it to go to the i didn't even really expected to go to theaters, you know, because you think it's going to be a climbing film. And, like, I've made a lot of climbing films over the years, but, you know, only one of them is gone to the Oscars. And so, you know, you just don't really know. A lot of people go to the Oscars. They don't come home with a trophy. I know. It's crazy. I get the sense that you would have done this if no one in the world ever found out. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Actually, so, I mean,

fun fact, you know, I mentioned that I was just on an expedition in the jungle. It was for a TV show, like a National Geographic episode of this thing. While I was there, I sold the wall that we climbed, and it's the first time that a wall of that type has ever been solid. And I kind of did it because I was like, I'm in this place and I have an opportunity to do something sort of historic. You know, like no thing like this has ever been solid. Like, I'm obligated to do it while I'm here.

But it didn't really fit with the whole TV thing, though. So nobody filmed it. It doesn't go into the show at all. There's like literally no mention of it. But at least I'm like, you know, nobody saw it. Like nobody, there was literally no documentation of any kind. Sounds like this is the first anyone's heard of it. It may be.

And actually, I'm like, I hope that's not a problem, but I'm sure it's fine. But no, no, I'm sure it's fine. But it is one of the things that I was like, I did it for me. I did it because it's important for, I hate to say, climbing history. But, you know, it is cool to just do something new in climbing to feel like you've at least broadened the sport in a way that matters, you know? And I'm kind of like, if I have the opportunity, I'm obligated to do something that I'm capable of like that.

Oh, you're the best spokesperson there can be. Now, it sounds like you've got a new podcast that's geared towards that as well. Talk a little bit about that. So climbing gold is coming out this week and you can find it anywhere you get your podcast, Spotify, wherever else. It was supposed to be a lead up to the Olympics, but then the Olympics got pushed because of COVID. But basically we looked at, we have been looking at where climbing has come from and where it's going. Because climbing is just at such an interesting time right now. I mean, all of our chat about Free Solo sort of demonstrates that, you know, it's like it's climbing is just so much more in the public consciousness and so much more popular than it was.

you know, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. And so climbing is having a real moment. And my, my co-host, Fitzger Hall and I felt like it's important to share a little bit, to share some of the timeless stories of where climbing has come from and to use those to highlight where it's going and like what's happening with the sport right now. So anyway, it's been kind of a passion project through COVID. It's really sort of an opportunity to interview all my heroes, you know, because it's fun to chat with folks who you've looked up to your entire life. now you're you're recently married not that long ago right yeah September congratulations and how has that changed it all the way you think about that risk uh consequence equation uh not yet but I wouldn't

I mean we plan on having a family someday and I wouldn't be surprised if uh you know if I have kids I think about risk a little bit differently and I feel more beholden to my family maybe but so far uh but but really The reality is that I'm always trying to be careful. You know, like, I don't want to die either. So whether I'm doing it for loved ones or doing it for myself, like, I'm always being as careful as I can. I imagine you are. It's just an interesting, because some of your decision making obviously comes from what

other people think. And if your wife is nervous about something, that may actually affect your performance in doing it, right? Totally. Totally. But like, some of that, though, is what is considered socially acceptable risk. Because, like, if you marry a race car driver, you're like, oh, you know, he's a race car driver. That's kind of fringe. It's a little bit weird, but it's

kind of normal in a way. You know, whereas like marrying a rock climber, marrying a free solist, whatever that means. You're like, that seems crazy. Like, that's really dangerous. But you're like, I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers are actually less dangerous than race car driving or whatever else. You know, like being a fighter pilot or something. You know, certainly being a test pilot, I mean, geez. You know, I mean, there are plenty of very dangerous professions out there that are considered slightly more acceptable, slightly more mainstream. Or like being a commercial fisherman is supposed to be one of the more dangerous professions by the numbers. I don't know. I love the amount of logic, though, that you've applied to all of this.

Testification. Well, I don't know. I think it's, I think that you, I think that people perceive you as sort of like, I don't want to say like risk seeker, but like I get the sense that you're more, you're much more calculated and intentional than the sort of quick mainstream point of you might be. Yeah, no, that's totally fair. But that's because most people get an opinion from like a single YouTube video where they're like, that guy's insane. And you're kind of like, come on, I've been working at this for 25 years. And I devote, you know, almost everything I do to this one activity. It's not like I'm just walking up and climbing the rock. You know, it's like, come on. I feel like sometimes people undervalue expertise. You know, it's like literally all

of my friends and everything I talk about is focused on this one activity. It's like, come on. I got to be pretty good at it by now, you know? Totally. And I'm, I'm on your team on this one. And obviously, I'm a believer based on everything that we've talked about and everything you've done. Although, you know, I mean, it's interesting, right? Like in 2014 or 15, even like, I think like sponsors were pulling back on free soloing because like certain, you know, unfortunately there had been some accidents and and so. Actually, they weren't soloing accidents. So it's mostly base jumping accidents, things like that.

Okay. And actually with those. So, I mean, you're mentioning Cliff Barr pulled support for a bunch of its athletes who it felt were engaging in too high risk of activities. And then, sort of sadly, two years later, like Dean Potter, one of those athletes died in a base jumping accident. Okay. Here you go.

And so. But base jumping and what you do is very different, right? Yeah, super different. Yeah. And it's funny because people sort of conflate them as like, oh, it's all dangerous, extreme sports. But what I like to say is that with free soloing, it's all going to be okay unless the worst case scenario happens. Like basically, unless something terrible happens, you're going to be fine.

Like, if you just don't move and you just freeze and you hold onto the rock, like you're still alive right up until something terrible happens with a sport like base jumping like you're going to die unless everything works perfectly you know because you jump off a cliff so it's like you're about to die unless it all works out and the parachute deploys so it's like basically you're flipping the odds the opposite way you know you're going from like everything will be okay unless the bad case scenario happens to to to the opposite of that which is like you're for sure going to die unless the best case scenario happens and i'm kind of like that's a terrible way to to like that's a terrible sport, and that's why I don't base jump. You don't strike me as someone who's taking a lot of

risk on in other aspects of your life. Is that fair? Yeah, I hate rolling the dice. I've never gambled. I think the lottery is totally stupid. Like, things like that, you know, I don't want to take chances for no reason, basically. I think I think it's silly. I think that, I think that defends our point of view here, Alex, in a positive way, because again, if the stereotype were risk seeker. You know, you'd be someone who likes to gamble. You'd be like doing other kind of crazier sports and things. Like you found a lane that you have mastered. And that's like in your complete control in a way. Try to. Anyway, yeah, fun, fun fact, a while back, I went go-karting with some friends. And I kind of, I wanted to think of myself as kind of badass, you know, like race car

driver. I was actually just not good at all because I was driving pretty slowly because I was like, boy, this feels really fast. And I don't want to like flip my go-car. to hurt myself and I was all like and then turned out I just like was not that great of a driver for for go-karting and I was sort of like oh it turns out that like free-soling big walls doesn't really make you any better at like other extreme sports you know yeah amazing so so where can can people find you if they want to learn more about you I mean obviously there's the podcast coming out that's going to be wherever you can find podcasts yeah yeah so it'll be on Spotify, anywhere you can find podcasts, find climbing gold. You can listen to me chatting with all

kinds of climbing heroes. I mean, you can find me online wherever. If you're really curious about things that I care about, go to HanaFoundation.org because the work that I'm doing through my foundation, I think, is more interesting than my climbing in some ways, or certainly more useful in the world. So make a plug for that. And if someone wants to donate, you know, what's it going towards? Yeah. So the Hono Foundation support solar energy for a more equitable world. So basically solar projects around the world that improve standard of living for folks. And it's kind of an outgrowth of the climbing that I've done and the expeditions that I've been on around the world.

And basically just a feeling that, you know, I was making more than I needed and ought to be doing something useful. And that all just wound up supporting energy access projects. But yeah, the Honnold Foundation has been doing great things the last couple of years and I'm pretty psyched on it. So if anybody's interested, you know, HonnoldFoundation.org. Awesome, man. Well, I'm stoked to have you on Woop.

I think it's very cool that you get so much REM sleep. been very on brand for you, and I'm excited to kind of learn more about your whoop experience as you wear it for longer. But, oh, are you wearing it on your wrist, or do you wear it on your upper arm? On my wrist, though, I haven't tried the upper arm, and I'm open to whichever, but so far the wrist seems fine, even for climbing. And you think it'll be fine for climbing too? So far it has been, but it's like getting a little scratched on the sides and stuff from going into cracks, obviously, but it actually hasn't impaired the climbing yet. So until it does, I think I'm just going to leave it on the wrist. And you can also, you can

also wear like a sweatband or something if that doesn't bother you like things like that'll protect it too oh no i i i like the low profile i don't mind it i mean it doesn't it doesn't get damage getting scratched like that isn't i assume it's just the clasp that's getting scratched up yeah you can you can go pretty hard at it i mean the the same products being worn by players in the NFL and navy seals and stuff so it's it's it's been pretty pretty battle tested yeah no i'm i'm pleasantly surprised by it so far i mean it's like just in terms of being able to wear it during activity, I think it's much better not expected. I got to let it do the full 30-day calibration and then see what I get from it.

And I'm really curious at what point or if it will start changing the way I train or changing the way I think about training. Because like I said, I've been doing my own recording for a very long time. So I have a pretty good sense of what I think I should be doing. But I'm curious, because at some point I'm sure I'll be learning from it in a way that I wouldn't otherwise. And I don't know. I'm excited to see what happens.

Awesome. Well, as you have questions about it, feel free to ping me anytime and, you know, look forward to meeting you in a post-COVID world. Dude, a real pleasure chatting. And yeah, thanks so much for having me. Thank you to Alex for coming on the podcast. Thank you to Jared Lato and others who submitted questions. A reminder, you can check out his podcast, Climbing Gold, which is a detailed look at the history of route climbing. We're honored to be the title sponsor of that podcast. So check it out wherever you listen to podcasts.

Also a reminder, you can get 15% off of WOOP membership with the code Will Ahmed. That's W-I-L-L-A-H-M-E-D. And then check us out on social at WOOP at Will Ahmed. And that's it, folks. Stay in the green. We'll be back next week. We're going to be. Thank you.