The Greatest Climber Alive: I Shouldn't Have Attempted That Climb!

0:00 It drives me crazy that nobody else thinks about risk in this way. People look at my life and they're like, Well, you're crazy, you're such a risk taker. Well, at least I'm taking the risks that I'm choosing. Because think of all the people that like go out partying every weekend and they get buzzed and they drive home and even sedentary people who are like, Well I don't take risk, I stay home and I play video games. No, you're at a much higher risk of heart disease. Like they're taking all kinds of risk that they're not actually choosing to take, and you're still gonna freaking die either way. So you might as well take smart calculated risks and do all the things that you wanna do, and at least die happy when you go. He's done it! Miss Honnold has made history again, scaling one of the world's tallest skyscrapers. But the conclusion that a lot of people have arrived at is that you don't experience fear because when they look at these two brain scans, your amygdala's lighting up less when you were shown scary images. I I actually hate all the brain stuff because people always put me in this box of like, well, you're different. And I'm like, well, not really, like I'm a middle class suburban kid. Nobody in My family is athletic. It just after twenty years of climbing five days a week and being really freaking scared, I respond differently than an average person. And there's tons of emotional turmoil throughout it. Periods where you're just like, I'm trying so hard and I'm just like not as good as I wanna be. You know, I was like living in a car, I had like a couple hundred bucks a month for ten years. Like that's challenging. But you just can't master a craft overnight.

1:08 I guess that's what people don't see. And so how do you create the conditions to out persist other people? And then in all your career, when is the moment where you were most scared? On an expedition to Antarctica. I kept hoping that it's gonna get better and it just kept getting worse. Like I could die. Do you have a conversation with your partner before you go and do something like this? Because she wrote a letter. Oh gosh. Obviously this is your worst nightmare, she said. But we all have to do scary things sometimes, Alex. Guys, I've got a favor to ask before this episode begins. Sixty-nine percent of you that listen to the show frequently haven't yet hit the follow button. And that follow button is very smart because it means you won't miss the best episodes. The algorithm, if you follow a show, will deliver you the best episodes from that show very prominently in your feed. So when we have our best episodes on this show. The most shared episodes, the most rated episodes. I would love you to know. And the simple way for you to know that is to hit that follow button. Thank you so, so, so much. Uh

2:06 Alex. From everything. thing I've learnt about you from the research I've done from Speaking to your wife.

2:14 Your agent. Everybody I can speak to. I think to understand your context. We first need to understand the circumstances in which you were raised and the childhood you had, because it seems to be I mean, for all of us, there's like fingerprints left o left on us that

2:28 to find the anomaly. Um That many of us become, including yourself. So what do I need to know? What does the viewer need to know about that early context? I mean, how deep do we want to go? I th I need to get a sofa I need to require. Uh

2:42 But yeah, certainly there's a there's an imprint for my parents, my upbringing. I mean They had a a very fraught relationship. They eventually got divorced, but they stayed together for the kids and it was a whole like, you know, say a tense home life because neither of them really liked each other. And then my mom is very driven, very You know. high performing. And then my dad was hard to say. I mean, I think my dad was deeply depressed basically the whole time I knew him because he was in this relationship, you know, it's hard to tell. He wasn't living his best life.

3:07 And then sadly after they got divorced, he was He was much happier, but then he died. And so then never really got to see Uh. Never really got to see him blossom that much. And your mother's high performing, and d did she sort of implicitly demand that of you in any way?

3:21 Yeah, I mean my mother speaks like seven or eight languages. She like plays every instrument. It's like kinda crazy. She's very artistically minded. Yeah, in that way, like You know, the arts in a classical sense. But um yeah, she I mean she wanted us to do all those things too. I'm I'm a deep disappointment in that regard. There was a phrase that I saw when I was watching the documentary that your your mother would continually say, which I think translates to something like not good enough. Uh like prescribing a compar like uh almost uh like almost doesn't count. It's funny because I feel like uh

3:50 A lot of my adult life now, one of my sort of go to things is you know, don't let perfect be the enemy of good. I'm really into like good enough. Like it's better to like try, it's better to do something. Uh you know, it's better to fail quickly and learn and keep moving forward than to not try something. Like basically I don't want to be crippled by perfectionism. Sort of like my mom is very much perfectionist. You know, like if you can't do it right, don't do it. I'm sort of like, uh, I think it's better to try and learn and improve. But she's accomplished a lot of things with that approach. Yeah, she has, for sure. What about emotions? This is something you I've heard heard you sort of talked about a lot is

4:22 In that environment where your mother and father on getting along well. I think I I heard you say that you've you hadn't seen your father really happy before he'd passed away. Yeah. Was it an emotional household in terms of affection? No, it was a very unemotional household. That said, though, you know, it was a safe, relatively happy household. Like it was it was fine, you know, and and I was close to a lot of my extended family, and so I had a really good relation with my grandparents and some of my aunts and uncles. And so I mean

4:46 I basically would have characterized it as a totally happy family life. until I became older and started seeing other people's families more and it was kinda like, Oh, this seems even happier. You know what I mean? Where it's like basically really good. Until you see what uh what else it can be and then you're like, This seems even better. Yeah. And your mum wasn't ever affectionate.

5:03 You know it always feels slightly conditional, you know, where it's like Uh You know, she cares. If you be you know, if you perform well, like if you do well, like if you're a good kid or wh whatever, you know what I mean? Well where where did climbing come into your life?'Ca I've got some I have found some photos of you climbing and you look your like with your sister, I believe. Here we go. This one here.

5:22 Yeah, a classic. How do you then? I don't know, I mean I don't know, like six or something or eight. It uh it's hurt me to tell. Like medium sized kids' ages. Why c why climbing?

5:32 Oh why not? So freaking cool. Have you have you rocklined? I've yeah, Jim. Yeah, I've I have but And wasn't it the friggin' cool thing? It was fun, yeah, for sure. I mean saying I've climbed when I'm sat with you is

5:44 I feel like it's tried it. Yeah, have you, yeah. As an adult. If you can imagine as a kid how fun that is, and then if you just keep doing that nonstop And then you find that you're You know, have some aptitude for it, you enjoy it. It's like you know You can imagine going down that path.

5:58 It's so cool. But is there something about the challenge of climbing that you think just kind of like was a jigsaw piece for your for you? Your brain like problem solving. There's something elemental about climbing in the same way as like running or swimming. It's like a basic movement thing that I think is quite enjoyable. And I think that I also

6:14 I I think I have an innate love of like being on top of things. Like you know, being at the top. Basically I love big views. I like the expansive you know, I like air. Is that like being up on stuff. So I don't know, I think it just hit a few sweet spots like that where I was like, Oh, climbing is just so cool. You I'm assuming you never thought this could be a career.

6:31 No, no. And actually even when I started rock climbing sort of full time I still didn't think it could be a career because there just wasn't really professional climbing at that time. It was like much smaller, the industry was way smaller, climbing was way more fringe and like less of a thing. But you weren't motivated by like money or anything. 'Cause y one does not pursue rock climbing to become

6:49 No, richy. Not to become rich, no. Well so I said the so my father died like the season before that. And because my parents had just gotten divorced, he basically left his retirement to my sister and me. And she used it to finish college. I just put it into bonds and was living off like three hundred bucks a month or whatever. Which kinda like worked, you know, I was like living in a car. I stole my mom's minivan at the time. I had like a couple hundred bucks a month and it was kind of enough to just like go To be a nineteen year old just like camping, you know?

7:15 Was it this mini van? No, that's my second one. That's the Ford Ocon line. That's the first uh actual van that I bought. I lived in that van for ten years. For ten years. Yeah. Yeah, so I bought this van. I mean this is this is classic, but so I bought this band for ten grand.

7:29 And And then originally this is the last build out, which is the classiest build out. The original one my uncle and I did for free with like scrap wood from his You know, in his wood shop, basically. And uh And so then I lived in that for ten years, and you're kinda like, Yeah, when you live in it I couldn't even stand in this van, you know, I was like on my back. But

7:46 You know, when you're living in your car for ten years you you save quite a lot of money. Between what ages did you live in your car for ten years? I probably bought this van when I was twenty, so twenty to thirty, basically. Hm. Yeah, actually actually I think that's right because um,

8:00 'Cause I think I met my wife when I was thirty and that same year I switched from this van to the bigger van. If you've seen the film Free Swallow, that's um I bought the the Pro Master that's like Dodge. It was like I could stand up in my van finally and I was like, I'm moving up in the world, I can stand. It's pretty good. Oh, there's there was a little stave in this one, but Yeah, so this though is the I did three different build outs of this van over the ten years. 'Cause like the original one is super scrappy. The second build was like a little nicer, and then this was like a pretty nice build that I had for I don't know, five or six years or something.

8:29 When you live in your van for ten years and you have a mother who is Very performance focused. I've got um I believe you come in with classic. Do you not face a lot of external pressure to like go get a real job? Honestly less so than you would think. Um

8:45 Like to her credit, my mom is always pretty supportive of the whole path. I th you know, I was kinda lucky that that I did a lot of this when I was like young enough that it's all part of like your gap year. Like you know, it's like you're young and you're finding yourself and then And then I think there was enough sort of External validation that that my family could at least look at it and be like, Well, you seem to be good at this random thing, even though we don't get it and don't really know what you're doing, but at least other people think you're good at it, so keep doing your thing.

9:10 And at this point was it was it rock climbing, was it free soloing and Yeah, it's all a little bit of everything. Being a I mean, you know, like being a professional climber, quote unquote. Some of it's free soon, some of it's like speed climbing, some of it's just hard climbing, some of it's going on expeditions doing new routes, like it's a little bit of everything.

9:25 And for the average person that doesn't know what free soloing is. What's the like definition of it? That's climbing without a rope. So climbing without protection. Which is definitely what I'm Most well known for now. But in the context of professional climbing, I've done tons of other things in climbing. Like most of the time you have a rope on, most of the time you're doing other sorts of things.

9:44 But it's like the free sowing is what you wind up being. well known for'cause that like breaks into the mainstream a lot more. I'm really intrigued generally by people like you who I take I I mean take the path less travelled in their career and then Maybe nearer the

9:58 The end of The graph. Pick up traction. And I have this piece of paper in this pen because I'd love if you could from the age of let's say eighty how you're you're now forty years old. Yeah, I turned forty this year.

10:11 And all Could you draw? A graph showing how your career looks in terms of success. You can measure that by money or attention or whatever.

10:20 Let's see, so It was kind of like Slow a little bit. And then like this ish. Yeah. And then kind of like nah, and then basically just like in like this. Where you basically like kinda flat but growing, and then you have free solo where it jumps a ton. It's like kinda crazy. And then

10:37 And then it keeps kinda growing at a slightly faster rate than before, and then it basically jumps a ton because of the building thing again. I I find this fascinating because I Most people in their lives wouldn't be willing to endure this. Phase eighteen to twenty nine. Well, but it's not endure. It's so great. Like I would do that again. I loved it so much. Like I mean, I often think I'd be so happy to just start over from zero.

10:58 I've been climbing there for twenty years and I've like done most of the things I can do and you know, I've sort of like tapped out a lot of stuff in the Western US. And I'm like, Man, I would love to just hit the re zero button and start over'cause you'd have so much stuff to do, it's so amazing. I guess that's the that's the different th the the fault to my question is that I said the word endure. But you see it as Yeah, you get to climb every single thing you see. It's amazing.

11:22 Yeah, I mean and that's the thing is like from age eighteen to to thirty I basically did try to climb every single thing I could see because I was just like, I'm learning, I'm growing, this is amazing. I climb everything. And like now I'm actually much more strategic about it because Doing tons of easy climbing, like doesn't really help me at this point. I'm not gonna make like big technique gains. It basically just makes me tired without without the right kind of gains.

11:43 It'd be like somebody it'd be like an elite runner. just jogging for miles and miles every day and you're kinda like, that's not gonna make you that's not gonna improve your marathon time if you're already like an elite runner. It's it might be fun, but it's just not gonna like move the needle for you. Through this period of your life eighteen to thirty, you're you're optimising for just having fun. Doing things you enjoy.

12:03 No, I was always I was always challenging myself. Like basically I was optimizing for like what's the next thing I can do that pushes me a little bit. But you weren't optimizing for how to get rich or well, then I would have gotten a job. If I was optimizing for getting rich, I would have freaking finished my college degree and gotten a job. I say this in part'cause I interview so many people who pursued careers that are Often considered not real jobs like comedians or magicians.

12:26 And I tend to find the same thing between the age of eighteen and thirty. They optimise for something that isn't necessarily being rich or famous. And then at some point the graph looks like this. Well, it's because I mean I think Yeah, I'm sure you know this, but I mean the The world. Really.

12:41 It's like a winner take all economy type deal. It's like basically If you're the dude that does the thing, all of a sudden your earnings go insane. But until you become the dude that does the thing. You know, if you're like the best magician or the best comedian or the best whatever, then all of a sudden you make an insane amount of money. But when you're just like one of many struggling comedians, you're You know, you're struggling.

12:59 And so I think for me as a climber, you're sort of like, Oh, I'm just a dude living in my van climbing. Then at a certain point I'm like the dude that you know, I'm like, Oh, you're that guy that climbs without the rope and you're like, Oh yeah, cool. And then all of a sudden your earnings are like Was this um was this a difficult period of your life? This eighteen to thirteen. Well obviously it was like fr you know, I was like

13:17 Trying to Juggle related like I wanted to get a girlfriend, you're a young twenties man living alone in a car, like wanting to be better at something than you are, but not not quite knowing the way, not knowing what you're doing with your life. So no, so obviously there's tons of emotional turmoil throughout it, but no, I mean retrospectively it's like amazing. And your your dad passes away, which is in part, I guess, uh some of the catalyst for you. Yeah, honestly, my dad passing away should be the beginning of that graph. It should be this should basically start in nineteen. 'Cause uh eighteen I went to university.

13:45 And so then uh Starting at nineteen, I guess. I uh Well the road. You're done passing.

13:52 W what impact did that have on you outside of it somewhat liberating you to to make Decisions that Well, I mean obviously it was you know, it's sad, it's hard, like and especially now I'm sort of like oh it's too bad that I don't have a relationship with my dad and he doesn't you know, that my kids don't have a grandfather and all that kind of Yeah, I was like, Yes.

14:09 It's tough. I think that the most immediate impact that had maybe was just reminding me. Of my own mortality. You know, I mean he he died unexpectedly at fifty five, just fell over in the airport and just fell over dead. Yeah. Like heart attack.

14:22 And so You know, I mean I think that that reminder of my own mortality has had a big impact on my career, my life, you know, my climbing world, whatever.

14:34 Do risky things because of the Well no, because the thing is, I think one of the reasons that people don't do risky things is because they have this Uh you know mistaken idea that They can live forever, basically.

14:47 Because and basically because people don't want to think about their own mortality and so they're like, Oh, I don't wanna take any risks, I could die And you're like, You know that you're gonna die either way. And either way, when you die, you're gonna be bummed that you didn't live longer because You know, it's like like the life expectant in the US is seventy eight and you're like, Great, s say you make it uh for men, whatever. Like say you make it. that far. You're still gonna be like, Man, I wish I had twenty two more years to like watch my grandkids graduate college or whatever.

15:10 You know it's like it's still gonna feel like too little. And so I'm kinda like, you're better off Dying at fifty five of an accident. But having done many things that you're proud of and you know, like led a life that you're that you're proud of. Than dying at seventy eight and still wishing you had more, but having done none of the things that you wanted to do.

15:26 It is interesting. It does appear that people live as if we think we're gonna live forever. Yeah, it's totally insane. I mean everyone's like, Oh, I don't take any risk and you're like, Yeah, well you can take no risk in your life and you're still gonna freaking die. So you might as well take smart calculated risks. And do all the things that you want to do. And at least die happy when you go.

15:42 What does this mean to you to like live intentionally? Well that's exactly it. Like choosing the the risk that you're willing to take, making choices, like using your time the way you want to use it. I was looking at I think it was your your personality a personality test you did. Why did I do a personality test? Um I'm like how much material do you have? I'm like, Jesus Christ. Like how many like things do you have?

16:02 I've unlimited things. I know, I'm I'm so impressed. On this uh personality test it says you're you know, higher on thrill seeking and sensation seeking, but then also significantly higher than the average male on urgency, which I think kinda overlays with what you were just saying there, of like making the decision to do something. Yeah, basically because your time is short and you're gonna die. So get on with it. It says you hear your higher unconscientiousness. Very polite, you know.

16:28 You're low on boredom. I think low and boredom is that you know, you don't get bored. Perseverance, you're very high on perseverance. Yeah, I think that's the same as low on boredom. And low on neuroticism. That's for sure. And so what's your what is the what's the definition of the word neuroticism? Is it like the

16:44 Well I'm sure there's a clinical definition, but I think of it as sort of general anxiety type stuff, like You know, people spinning in their heads about things that don't matter. And has that always been the case when you look back through your life and the feedback you've had as a kid and a teenager? Kind of, yeah, yeah, I think so.

16:58 I think I've never been. Two Concerned about it. I d I don't spin. I mean obviously, you know, occasionally I stress about things, but

17:06 But just not the way, I think. A lot of people do. I'm trying to figure out if that's a learned behavior or maybe a little bit learnt and a little bit um From your upbringing, genetics, whatever it might be. 'Cause can can one learn that? Can one learn to be less neurotic and presumably. I mean like meditation, things like that, I think people can sort of

17:22 Find a way to let go of certain things. Isn't this quite a Quite interesting, when people ask you questions uh inevitably about fear And how you take on such you know, to muggles like me terrify challenges. There's an element of all of this which is

17:36 You do have a nature. And a nurture. Which Some what is impossible for someone like me to replicate. Because your brain and my brain are diff completely different. Your parents, your early contacts when your brain was being wired.

17:47 And malienated are completely different to mine. So, yeah. You know, I always find this as the like the trouble of giving people advice is Um we're dealing with different Different natures. But I I do feel like in my case. The biggest difference in nature.

18:04 is the fact that I've just always loved climbing. You know, because I basically I think that nurture is is the majority of this. Like if you spend thirty years training a thing, you're gonna get better at the thing. Mm-hmm. And so I think that the biggest difference between me and and somebody who's not into rock climbing is that I freaking love rock climb. I could go out I could do it ten days a week if if I could. You know what I mean? But sadly I get too tired. My body breaks down. And so You know, I can I basically have like a limitless capacity to to do the thing. I just love doing the thing.

18:29 And I think that that is probably the biggest difference in nature. You know, because everything else you can kind of overcome, you know, like If you loved rock climbing as much as I love rock climbing, no matter what your your genetic disposition towards like neuroticism and all that stuff, you would just kind of work through all that stuff. And you'd find your own path to to getting

18:46 Good at climbing, basically. If your kids came to you, you have two girls, right? Yeah. If they came to you and said, Dad, like Give me advice on what I should aim at in life. What you I wouldn't I wouldn't give him advice. I'd be like you do you. You find the thing you love to do, go hard, you know, basically like

18:59 Learn some skills, get good at something, like what do you like to do? I mean, that's kind of the thing for me, especially with climbing, is like if someone had told me like you're gonna train climbing for the rest of your life. I'd be like, Oh, that sounds like kind of a grind, you know,'cause I mean it is it is hard work. You're like hiking uphill with a heavy backpack and it's cold and it's windy. It's like it's basically physically uncomfortable. I mean, being a professional rock climber means that you're physically uncomfortable. All the time, but like like often, you know, like it's you know, it's hard. Yeah.

19:25 But if you're doing it because you frickin' love doing it. It doesn't feel very hard. So I mean I think the key For kid is find the thing that doesn't feel like hard work. And when you started, were you scared? Of

19:36 Big, tall rock faces and stuff like that. I mean, yeah, I had like a healthy intimidation of th I mean, like my first season in Usemiti, the first time seeing El Cap as a climber, uh I was nineteen. And it looks impossible. It looks completely insane. It's like that's so big. But then. You know, within a couple seasons uh you know, I climb some bigger walls, learned how to climb and then m a friend and I had the sort of

19:56 season goal like we were gonna climb U seventy all season with the aspiration at the end to climb our Captain Day. So basically there's this long progression on LCAP, specifically, where it's like you go from just trying to get up it to trying to get up it faster to trying to get up it with just your hands and feet, still using protection. But basically there's like all these steps you can take. And so Over.

20:14 a bunch of seasons, you know, I climbed O'Cap like sixty times, different routes, all these different things. And then eventually you're sort of like, Oh, maybe I can start thinking about free selling it, which is where the film free seller comes in. And then eventually you do this thing. Then people like, Well, aren't you scared? And you're kinda like, Wow, I've spent ten years like Building up on this thing.

20:31 I guess that's what people don't see. Yeah. So they just I mean, like the documentary Free Soul, I think does a pretty good job of showing the the direct preparation, like the training involved in doing that specific climb. But it just doesn't show the Uh, like eight years before that, I guess.'Cause the documentary was filmed over two years, and I guess

20:48 I've been going since two thousand six. So it was nine years before that that I've been going to Yosemite and I've been spending maybe three months a year. Climbing walls. Hm. I guess that's the illusion of like all people that do great things and then become like athletes or sprinters or whatever. Ronaldo or Messi is you you don't get to see the Yeah, the whole life that they put into doing the thing.

21:06 Yeah. Yeah. So it looks it like looks like a magic trick when we see the outcome. Like we showing up show up on Netflix to watch you climb tight paper like Wow. Yeah. Yeah, I mean people watch some of those programs and they're like he just walked up and did it. And you're like, Well yeah, after thirty years of practice, like I just walked up and did it. But no, it's not like just walking up and doing it. Mm.

21:27 I mean, like uh I've literally been climbing five days a week for thirty years. Like that's so much climbing. Like I freaking love climbing and I I climb a lot. On this um on this idea of like exposure therapy as it relates to like fear and anxiety and Confronting one's uh things that terrify them.

21:43 Was that in the early days where you I'm trying to understand were you like scared at some point? Oh all the time. That's actually something that I think Uh You know, I've obviously done so many interviews around fear and like managing fear and all that. And I've talked about fear a lot of different ways over over the years, and I think as I've grown older, I've sort of come to realize that

22:00 But actually You're just scared all the time as a climber. Like low level fear, low le like that you're But climbing is fundamentally scary. Like it's always kinda scary because there are always consequences. Like even if you're climbing with a rope, you're still always visualizing like what happens if the rope breaks? Like what if you know, like is this safe? Like you know, is the gear good? Like is this actually safe? And so

22:19 You're always a little bit scared. And so After years and years of always being scared, you get pretty good at managing that kind of stuff. Because there's a lot of sort of misconceptions swirling around this brain scan you get. Yeah, no, I hate all that stuff. That's just all from the film Free Cell. It was like too short of a scene in the film. They needed a little more. They needed to let it breathe, you know, explain things a little better, I think. So they scanned a control subject, uh another person scans you, looked at the amygdala in your brain, and the the conclusion that a lot of people have arrived at is that you don't experience fear.

22:47 Because when they look at these two brain scans, your amygdala's lighting up less when you're shown Scary images, basically, right? But like shown just this image, like what does that even mean? Like my brain's purple and his brain is orange. Like what does that mean? Like I don't know. But no, I mean the the thing is though. And this is what I wish was explained in the film better. Is that this is

23:07 We're being shown black and white photon FMRI. So you're inside a sealed metal tube, you're totally safe, you're physic and comfortable, and you're being shown black and white photos. And so to me. Obviously that's not gonna light up the fear response in my brain,'cause you're looking at pictures, you're like, Who cares? I'm totally safe. But In a control subject, uh, you know, apparently your brain sort of responds to images one way or another.

23:27 But I'm kinda like I've been climbing for twenty years, so I've been like scared quite a lot. And you're kinda like, Well, black and white photos start to lose lose their edge if you've been scared all the time for twenty years. So it's like obviously that's not gonna trigger much. Yeah, and I imagine everybody in their life can think of it as a scenario where they have mastery that would sc like a stand up comedian looking out at a stage. Probably wouldn't be As scar is me.

23:47 Yeah. 'Cause that would that would terrify me. Um so I again this is not necessarily some sort of neurological No, I mean I think the real takeaway is that I have an amygdala and it works. Mm-hmm.

23:58 You know what I mean? Like Because I think if If the results had shown that I was missing my th then I would have all kinds of I would have died already at youth'cause I wouldn't be able to function as a as a human, basically. But you know, had it shown something like that where there are like structural differences or like some real change. But this is basically just showing that after twenty years of conditioning,

24:15 I respond differently than an average person. And you're like, Yeah, no kidding. Like if you put a monk into an FMRI, their brain responds totally differently than an average person as well. Which I actually think is a really inspiring conclusion because it means that we can all grasp our fears better. And even, you know People won't know this about me, but Ten years ago, I sat down on camera f with my friend Ash in his apartment to record a two minute video. And as I sat there, I couldn't I was so scared I couldn't get the words out. So you actually in this two minute video that comes out, you see it go from night and day in the background just because we did that many cuts over seven hours try and get me to say two minutes on camera. And obviously after ten years of being on camera, I can now speak without shitting myself.

24:51 And I imagine my brain state looks significantly different because of our exposure therapy. Totally. Yeah, you should do the F M R I. Yeah, you should have done Ten years ago, because then you'd have your control and then you do it now, and it'd be totally different. But also the psychologists I've sat with all confirm this. They talk about exposure therapy. And and I went through exactly the same thing with public speaking. Like I was always so afraid of public speaking. I was also very shy and like s just not like It was

25:16 Terrifying. And now because of the free soul film tour and you know All the public things I've done since then. I'm like basically fine, you know, so you still get a little nervous, but it's like basically easy now. You're kind of like, Well, that's a total change. It's like obviously there's a tremendous capacity for humans to learn. People talk to you about fear all the time because

25:36 I mean your work 'Cause climate's really freaking scary. It makes sense. It's totally understandable. Yeah. Yeah. And they also realise, I think, at some deep level that the thing holding them back from who they think they want to be or who they aspire to be is fear often. It's judgment of someone else, it's taking a risk. Totally. So you've become for many people the like Tell me, tell me how to

25:55 Overcome. Yeah. Everyone's like, What's your hack to overcome fear? And you're like, There's no hack, you just get really frickin' scared over and over for so long, and eventually it's not that scary anymore. But I will say that that's like a very enduring way to overcome your fear. It's like if you're willing to go through that process. Then you are actually unafraid.

26:14 You know, because like you can do like hacks. I mean you can you can like crank up loud rock music and just go for it, you know, like and there are plenty of examples of that in in what I'd call gravity assisted sports. Like say if you're gonna jump a cliff on skis. Like you can get to the edge and be like, This is really scary and then be like, Three, two, one, do it And just like go. In climbing you can't really do that as much because It's so slow. Like when you climb you make one move and then you make another move. And then you're like, Do I still want to be here? Like it basically fear creeps in a lot more.

26:40 But sort of in gravity assisted sports, you can have more of that moment where you just like overcome your fear and then it happens. You know, like making a big drop in a kayak or like skis or things like that, where it's like once you commit, it's happening one way or another. Anyway, there's a lot to get into with like No, but I I mean I wanna get into it. I I watched a video of you climbing half dome. I think it was. Yeah. And y it looks like you got scared halfway up or Yeah.

27:02 Yeah, well so that video is actually filmed later, so the voiceover in that video is me talking about the experience of me free so long when I was totally alone, and I did get really scared on half time when I had this whole sort somewhat traumatic climate experience near the top of the wall. But then when we went back to film it, I had a different traumatic experience while we were filming. Less traumatic, but uh but like very scary for a moment. And they got that on camera, so they basically in the film they just cut the two together as like a'cause it shows me like being really scared. What's half Dome to start with, and then what was the traffic experience? Yeah, so half Dome, for anyone who hasn't seen, is uh Is this just totally amazing wall in Yosemite. It's a two thousand foot grene face. Actually, um it's the North Face logo. It's a it's freaking it's that's happening. Yeah, so it's like an iconic wall in Usemity.

27:43 Um It looks like half of a dome, but actually it's more like a hockey puck just shoved in. It's actually a full dome, depending on how you look at it, but the northwest face is vertical for two thousand feet is incredible. And so I free so that was one of the first like major free solo that I did in two thousand eight. Um and one of the things that sort of

27:58 Made me a professional climber in a way. But when I did the climbing. I did. The bare minimum preparation. I basically like didn't know. It was It was the biggest thing I'd ever free soloed. I didn't quite know how to like go about getting ready for it. Anyway, I I climbed it and basically hadn't practiced enough, was really friggin' scared, got off route, got confused, skipped some stuff, and then at the very top had this whole moment of

28:20 extreme panic, you know, but basically like got up into some stuff and all sort of like crumbled mentally and like sort of barely managed to finish this upper slab. Like the hardest part of the climb is like right near the top. I was trying to walk across this ledge. Basically, I've walked across that ledge face in and face out. And you normally people hand traverse it or they crawl across it. There are like different ways to go across the ledge, and I've done it every which way. And then we were up there filming and I was like, Oh, I'm gonna walk it face out.

28:43 But it turns out when you walk a face out, it's really freaking scary. And so I made it kinda halfway and was like, Oh my gosh, and then bailed. And when you say you are having like a like a crisis in your your mind. What does what is that? Is that just oh my God, what am I like, how does that sound? When you mean so in this case, so walking across this ledge.

29:01 It's like it starts Maybe as a foot wide, so your foot is fully on the ledge and you're shuffling across it, but then At a certain point. Yeah, I mean that's that's the video put on the screen for anyone watching. Yeah, that's that's the ledge. But basically at the narrowest part, your feet are sticking out over the lip of it. And the wall bulges ever so slightly, so it forces your back out a little. And so you're basically like rocking on your heels with uh I don't know, like a seventeen hundred foot drop or something, or eighteen hundred foot drop like straight down below you.

29:27 And so Yeah, it's like pretty it's pretty intense. Anyway, and so I th thought I was gonna walk across it like that and I made it to the bulging part and was suddenly like, Oh my god, this isn't like this isn't for me and then managed to like shuffle back and and change my strategy. Is it like panic in your head?

29:46 Oh, oh I made the wrong choice. Like this is bad. This is bad. You know. I mean it's not like full like five alarm. They'll like panic, panic. But yeah, you're like, Oh I'm so screwed. And you have fallen a long long way before. I was hearing it by the time when you were young and you fell off a a mountain and called your mother, managed to call your mother in the mountain. Yeah, th that was like sliding down an icy coolar type thing. It's a little different than like free falling off of a cliff that's like sliding down a mountain. But yeah, I got totally messed up and and uh

30:13 Yeah. Yeah, and I've like broken my arm several times as a kid falling off things and And then with a rope as a climber, you take big falls like routinely, you know, when you have protection. That's like part of the sport, basically. Mm. I mean, it's certainly easy to visualize falling seven hundred. You know, when you're like standing on a little ledge and you're bulging and you're looking down, you're

30:32 You know, it's easy to be like, Oh my God. You know, it's like if you just bend forward a little bit, you're just gonna take a swan dive, like, seventy hundred feet to the ground. The stats in this sport are I mean of of fatalities. Uh how do they compare to other sports? Uh safer than you would think. That's things. Everyone thinks it seems crazy. But uh

30:49 It's not that crazy. I don't know actual statistics, but I suspect that it's actually pretty comparable to to skiing or something, you know, because like recreational skiers die all the time, like falling into tree wells or like going off cliffs by accident or things like that. Climbing Is actually surprisingly safe.

31:06 Which is one of the things I love about climbing. I mean climbing is very It's very uh Sort of binary where it's like Either you're totally safe. Or you're gonna die.

31:16 And the odds of you dying are very, very, very small. But because They're they're there. They always keep you on. You know what I mean? Like it basically keeps you alert. But you're never really gonna get hurt.

31:29 Is that Including free selling? Yeah, I mean for the most part. I mean a couple people have died free selling. I mean people occasionally die free selling for sure. But actually most of the

31:40 the sort of cutting edge free solists have not died solely. They've like died in other things. I think it was then in the um the documentary on Netflix, um Free Solo, where one of your colleagues Yeah, Tommy Tommy is like most free solos are dead now. Um which It's kind of true. But it's slightly mis misstated. I mean, you know, he's just like speaking off the cuff and it's not like strictly true.

32:00 Like a couple of the best free solos have died free soling, though they died on very easy train. But then the majority of other great free soulists have died in sort of Climbing adjacent. accidents like wing suit bass jumping and uh like one got swept to sea by a rogue wave. Like while he was out climbing a sea cliff, but he was like standing on shore and got swept out to sea. You know, things like that where you're just kinda like

32:21 You know, obviously they're taking risks in their lives and they wind up dead. But it's not the way that people think. You know, you see a photo like that and you're like, Free souling, you're gonna die for sure and you're kinda like, Well, people don't actually really die that way. I mean th they have. I mean not to say that it doesn't happen. But way less frequently than people would suspect. If I was to try and like

32:39 You know. Professionally torture you. Again, I'm not talking in extremes here. What life would I prescribe you to live.

32:46 Oh being like a finance bro or something. I'm gonna like just work spreadshe while you mean like what what is my like worst I don't know, something like that. Or honestly being like a choreographer for dance or something. Like I just I couldn't do like or or being like an opera singer. Like I would just kill myself. I just couldn't do that. Why why would being a finance bro be like the worst thing for

33:07 Alex. Just the idea of sitting a computer in a cubicle. Just like Typing. I mean I'm kinda contrarian. I don't like rules. I don't want to like jump through hoops. I don't want to do arbitrary things. Like I don't want some manager to come and tell me, like, Oh, you gotta file that report again. You like missed a line. I'd be like, You go after so you know, I'd just like walk out of the building. Like it's just I just like don't know if I could take that. Be like, No.

33:28 But that's like how most of the world live. We kinda we all live in like, you know, I just don't know if it's for me. I don't know. I mean doesn't that just seem to be I mean, I had this moment I've been in New York a couple of days and I I took the subway down to see some see some friends and I was like coming out of the tunnel and it's like packed with people and I was just like looking at the ground and I was like just

33:47 you know, following someone else's footsteps up this like beat down path of stairs. I was like I couldn't live like this, like not day in and day out every day. Like this is just Like feeling like you're just doing the exact same thing as everyone else around you. I'm like, Oh, it seems so So boring.

34:02 It's funny'cause so so many of us look at your life and go, Wow. That's not very normal. But actually, maybe at a foundational level you're living a much more normal life than When you're out in nature, you're moving your body. Yeah. Yeah, in that re in th in that way for sure.

34:18 I'm like going on cool adventures and going out and I don't know. I think that's also part of why the the al sort of attraction allure with your life, especially when you watch free solo is You do seem to be a free

34:28 Mom. In a way where most of us aren't free, essentially. Yeah, I mean well I think we're all sort of aspiring to that to some extent. I mean most people see that though as like they get their vacation for the year, they they're planning to retire at some point and then they're gonna have their freedom. You're kind of like, Well, I don't know, I mean maybe you gotta try to live that way as much as possible. If if your if your young girls came up to you, June and Alice, and said, Dad, what's what is a meaningful life? Like what are the principles of living a a fulfilling meaningful life? Would you give them advice there?

34:55 Yeah. Yeah, I mean. It'd be a long, rambling, multi day conversation with them about y but I mean following your own goals is Is I think You know, certainly one of the the cores of having a meaningful life. Like

35:08 Having things that you find valuable. I mean really like living in line with your values, finding things that are important to you and pursuing them with as much as you can give them. You when you look at your early you see twenties to thirties, it kinda looks like you're living like a Buddhist a little bit. I mean, uh yeah, I went on a a trip once where they called me the monk. So Just because I was living such a sort of acetic lifestyle. I was like

35:29 I I've never I don't drink and I don't like party and I d just For personal preference, whatever. That's all. I'm just like living in my little van and reading books and climbing all the time.

35:41 And those are the things that I'm into doing, you know, it's like it's Yeah, it's just Doing what you want to do. Have you ever been depressed or? Yeah. Probably not like deep clinical depression, but there's certainly

35:53 Periods from time to time where you're just like What am I doing, or why or what are my goals? Like you know, what's And I think to me the most surprising thing is that you know, I've put like my whole life into climate, like trying to be the best you can be all the time. And sometimes you put tons of effort in and you just don't see results. Like for whatever reason you just suck. You're like, I'm trying so hard and I'm just like not

36:10 As good as I wanna be. Like that's challenging. Yeah, but I mean everybody faces that to some extent where you're like, I'm working hard at a thing but I'm just not Achieving the results that I want.

36:21 And between the between the Sort of that period of no man's twenty and thirty where your career hasn't taken off yet. The d documentary's not out, you've not climbed type A. How much money are you earning from Climbing.

36:35 I mean the first my first couple of years my sponsorship through the North Face was like Uh I think my first year was like ten K a year. I was like, this is amazing. So I was living in my car. And Um You know, making ten grand when you live by yourself in a van is like

36:47 More than you need, basically. Um, it obviously went up but beyond that at at some point. But it was you know, like in the ten to a hundred range for the first For the whole

36:58 Yeah, for years. Then at some point it increases. Yeah, and then it increases. I mean then free solo is obviously like a big thing. And that sort of opened up all these opportunities. Uh, because then I started doing corporate speaking and stuff like that. And the I mean, as I'm sure you know, that's just like a whole different world. And so then you go from just like making some money from sponsors to like making money from from other corporations though and they're like, Okay, now you're making some money.

37:21 One of the things when I was I was hearing you talk about some of your Incredible climbing stories is Um I was trying to understand What role visualization or Or your preparation.

37:31 plays and how that's like transferable to m to me and my life. We talked a little bit about just how much preparation you did for something like L Cap. But you you it sounds like you really break down the challenge into smaller bits. And then really go through those those individual steps. Whereas a lot of people will just look at L Cap and go, Oh my God, they'll be terrified. That's impossible. Yeah, which is fair. I mean I spent years looking at Alcat and being like that's too big, that's impossible.

37:54 And then you know, after years of that, I kept hoping that I would look at it and it would like look easy somehow and I'd be like, cool, or now I'm gonna do it. And it just never looked easy. And so Then finally I was like, Okay, I'm gonna have to like put some real work into it and then I started slowly breaking it down and and and then once you like break it into pieces and start working on pieces, then you're kinda like, Okay, it starts to feel more reasonable. Break it into pieces and start working on the pieces. What does that mean in terms of climbing? So if we I've mean I've got this this uh

38:21 model here of Have everyone again. You know, and this is also a metaphor for any any challenge I have in my mind. But this is actually perfect because it's right here. Yeah. So I scouted this in September of this year. I did the clim in January or whatever. In September we went and um Well, we had to like one make sure it was possible before you sort of like commit to a doing a whole T V program. You're kinda like, Let's make sure we can do this. And then they also had to get all the sort of marketing material. You like get the photos of the building, like all the stuff that becomes the trailer and whatever. And so we went in September to sort of like do the prep.

38:50 And so We I basically checked out all the different pieces. And so Anywhere where you see it looking a little bit different, you know, it's like this whole bottom part is like a low angle slab. It's like punctuated with these two little ruis these little like coin things or whatever, the clouds or whatever they are. No, and then there are the dragons on the corners. These are all overhanging. Like each of these eight blocks is like a big overhanging thing. It feels a little bit different.

39:11 Then you get up here. There's like these balconies. These are actually overhanging Like basically each little segment of this is quite different. And you know, obviously on this model like looks looks the same, but Um each transition between the different pieces is like a thing, so I checked out all of them with ropes. And and yeah, you just go piece by piece all the way up the whole thing. And you haven't ever climbed it before we saw it on

39:30 Netflix Live. Well I hadn't free soldier no, but I had climbed I'd climbed all the pieces with a rope for sure. I'd like checked out the different things. Okay, so you so you you look at these as individual challenges every step. Yeah, it's like you go well, even like just getting off the ground the first move is a slightly different move than any of the other moves. You have to like jump up to a thing and like press it out. Um then climbing over these little clouds is a different thing. Each dragon is a different thing. Yeah, I mean it's just You know, there's a surprising amount of complexity to it.

39:58 And so our first on the scout, you know, I had a note on my phone and I'm just like writing down all the different Basically, I'm trying to learn it the way you study anything, where I'm just like making notes and sort of like from floor fifty four to seventy two, it feels like this. I climb the southeast corner, the left or at, you know, just and then yeah, just writing it all down. And I mean there's this famous photo of you hanging with your leg. Yeah, that's this these are the rings up here. So you're hanging you're hanging here from here with your leg. Yeah. Now I Uh this is really a question of endurance. Like how do you plan to have the energy

40:29 Like how do you know if you're gonna have enough energy when you're up up here, when you're just planning it? I mean well that's this is what makes it exciting'cause you can't be sure. But you know, I've done a lot of climbing in my life and I've done a lot of climbs that were like twenty four hours. I mean I've I had this experience in Patagonia once it was a fifty four hour push with like the last twenty hours we hiked without food. Um, because we got caught in a storm. It's a whole crazy story. But basically, you know, I've had a lot of experiences in my life where I've done hard exercise for more than twenty four hours.

40:54 And so This You know, I expect it to take me somewhere in the hour and a half, two hour range. I'm kinda like, Yeah, I mean I'll be tired after two hours of exercise. But I'm not gonna be exhausted. You know what I mean? Like I know that I have a much deeper reserve than that. So much of the conversation around um after you'd done this, or some of the conversation was around whether this was a harder challenge than

41:14 El Capitan. No. No, it's obviously much easier. I mean, I'm doing it on live television, you know, it's like obviously it's easier. But What makes it cool is that it's

41:23 different, it's fun, it's challenging. Like for me it's really like in my sweet spot. Where it is challenging enough. Like it's it's not easy, you know what I mean? Like saying easier than all cap. It doesn't. You know, L Cap was like a ten year life project that I did in absolute secrecy. I did on my terms. on the correct day after years of effort, I had failed attempts. I had you know I mean like L Cap was like an all consuming life project for years.

41:48 Kinda like obviously you can't do that for live T V. It's like you just can't put Anyway. Mm. But this was very much in my sweet spot where you're like, Oh, it's hard enough That is But it's hard. Like it's cool. You know, like it's fun. It's interesting. The climate's engaging. It's uh you know, gave me something to train for for months. It's like it's super fun.

42:05 But it's not. you know, it's not like the absolute limit of what I can do. Cause you just can't do that on live TV. I mean, if nothing else, so I was climbing the South East Aret. Because it gets good morning light and it looks beautiful and it's like great for filming. But if I was trying to do the absolute most cutting edge climb I could do, I'd be climbing the northwest a red because it'd be full shade, because it'd be good better conditions, you know, it'd be colder. Like you just don't want to be in the sun, it makes your skin, you know, it makes you hot and stuff. And so

42:28 You know, just things like that. You're like, Well if you're doing it for T V And you're trying to broadcast it, then you want it to look good. But like if you're trying to do it for hard climbing in good conditions, You do in four shade. And Netflix had a a ten second delay just in case you fell.

42:41 I mean I'm sure part of it's in case you fall, but part of it's like What if somebody unplugs one of the things, or you know what I mean, like It's so complicated. There's so much stuff going on. It's insane. Was there a hardest part of this, a part y where you were a little nervous? The thing I was most nervous about when I started was were the bamboo boxes, like doing these eight overhanging segments'cause they're just so relentlessly the same.

43:01 move and it's just it's pretty physical. You like you get tired for sure. I mean the actual physical hardest moves. Um like actually randomly one of these corners up here would have been quite a hard move, but there was this freaking security camera bolted onto the wall. And so you use the security camera as this handle, it was really freaking cool. And it was like bolted on with these giant bolts, so it like looked super safe and you know, it was like very robust and secure. But it would have been kind of like this extreme jump, which I wasn't you know, it's probably possible, but would have been like a major thing.

43:29 But instead you just reef off the security camera and I was like, That's so cool. It was uh there are a few things like that, like individual moves that are kind of muscly. But overall it's the the stamina, like the challenge of doing this over and over for Hundreds of feet that Was the hardest thing. Do you have a conversation with you with your girls and wife before you go and do something like this about

43:48 Just in case you don't come back. Not with the kids'cause they're too young and it like they wouldn't they don't understand it anyway. Um Not with her because she came with me to Taipei, or she was there for like the whole end of it. I went a little bit earlier so I could adapt to the times then more and like feel better. But um But basically she was with me, so you know, like we went to bed together that night and like woke up that morning and had breakfast together, so it didn't feel like a big goodbye, you know, it's kinda

44:10 Actually she was with me at the base, like and we did the start together and then I literally was like, Okay, bye and walked over and did the thing and saw her going to the top. So we were only apart for like an hour and a half of the whole you know, it's like and I saw her through the window a couple of times. And so it felt like she was just there having the whole experience with me. Did you look at other buildings in the world like like the Burge? So yeah, I've scattered the Burge twice over the years. Um Back when this proje this project almost happened in twenty thirteen or something, and so I'd scout it some buildings then. The burge was just a little too extreme.

44:37 It's just too hard. But Some day, maybe, who knows? Because like there's not enough Is too slippery? Yeah, super slippery.

44:46 Also, it's just the way the holds are. Like I mean, the beauty of Type One One is that the holds, like they're good things to hold, they're close together, and you're just like Ur, and you can hold them and you feel secure. The Burge I can barely span tip to tip till I reach between the holds. Oh and so then your face is like right against the glass, you're like holding on like this, and it's pretty hard. And you have to do the same thing a hundred and twelve times in a row. It's like pretty hard to do it once then you have to do it a hundred times. You're like it's

45:10 The other thing that I saw um online after you'd climb it about one or two days after everyone talk start talking about how much you were paid to do it. I think because you didn't individually. Yeah, a New York Times reporter asked me how much I was getting paid and I was kinda like Oh, I don't wanna talk about it'cause it's kind of embarrassing'cause All my friends, it's like an embarrassingly high amount for my community. Like in the climbing world, if you're getting paid to rock climb, you're like, Great success, you're getting paid to climb, that's insane. You know, and so

45:36 I thought it was like sort of an embarrassingly large amount. I'm like, Oh, this is kinda weird. But then he sort of poked around and he started comparing it to like boxing matches and stuff where people get paid like twenty million dollars to like fight someone boxing. And I was like, Well no, compared to that, it's an embarrassingly small amount, you know, it's like or if you compare it to like major league baseball contracts and things, then it's like, Yeah, it's an embarrassingly small amount. But I was never complaining. Like I thought it was great. I I mean I would do it for free.

46:03 I mean I've paid money to go up to the observation deck. The observation deck is way up here at the top and the view is insane and the city's incredible. And you know, it's like twenty bucks or whatever to take the world's fastest elevator to the top of the building. And you know, I've done that in the Burge as well, where you like pay the money and you go to the very top of the building and the view is insane. It's like I do that like anywhere I travel. Like the Sear the Willis Tower or whatever, the Sears Tower in Chicago, like I've paid the money to go to the observation deck and see the view and it's so cool. And I'm kinda like, if someone's willing to pay me to climb up to the observation deck, that's freaking cool. Yeah. I think it's because people again, they're sh they're say that they believe that this is you're risking your entire life. Yeah, and and so

46:38 Yeah. They don't think of boxes as risking their entire life in the same way. They kind of are. Yeah. But they don't see it as that. I know, of course they don't see it as that. And that's totally understandable. I get that. But I see it as like Anybody going into the boxing ring, uh particularly if they're Very mismatched, you know. You would think that they're

46:55 is some real chance of grievous injury or like death. You know, it's like it's insane. And so I think that people over the the thing is I think people that don't know anything about anything, like don't know anything about climbing, look at me climbing a building, they're like, It's fifty fifty if he lives or dies, like no idea. And you're like, No. If you put this in the context of all the things that I've gotten in my life I felt very confident that I wouldn't fall off the building. You know, I was like You know.

47:18 Obviously it's never a hundred percent because like whatever it's life. But you know, it feels like a hundred percent. You're like, Oh, there's no chance I'm falling off this building. The rumors were that you got five hundred K to climate from Netflix. Throughout my whole like you know, quote unquote career as a climber, I basically have never worried about money and I've always just tried to do the thing and let it all play out at the end. And so I've done a ton of work for free over the years, like

47:39 Like actually we were talking about that half done film earlier, where it's like I'm shuffling along. It's like I did that film for free. I did tons of films like that for free. Uh, just because you're kinda like, Oh, it's part of being a professional climber and I get to go climbing and I'm up with my friends filming on a thing, you're just like, You're working for free, it's fine. But by doing all that stuff for free. Like I never s I never stressed the day rate, never you know, I was like I don't need to get paid to go have fun with my friends on wall. Like it's fine. But as a result of that film.

48:04 you know, a year or two later they wanna do an a photo shoot out there for the cover National Geographic. And so you just wind up in other things. And then and then that got seen and that wound up uh being profiled by sixty minutes, which actually was one of the first sort of career inflection points. It was like the sixty minutes profile and twenty eleven or something. But basically I've done a ton of work for free over my life.

48:23 As all part of like it's all part of the game and I just love playing the game. And so You just like let it play out. And it's funny'cause with this building, a lot of people thought that I was sort of underpaid by it. But afterwards. Uh, you know, some people have approached me about some bonuses and some other work stuff and like basically a lot has already sort of happened and it's only been a couple of weeks since the building.

48:42 I'm kinda like, you know, you don't need to get paid for the thing itself. Because It always Works, basically. I'm kind of like

48:50 I don't know. I'm like, don't get hung up on how much you get paid. Just do the thing. Make sure it's freaking rad. And it all sorts itself out. Yeah. Yeah, that I mean that's also been like

49:03 Um The That's Completely true for my life as well. Even this podcast. Like when we start the podcast in my kitchen, I mean, this is a replica of my kitchen. And Jack was here. There was no pa there was no payment when we started it. Yeah, we're just doing a thing. You make it as good as you can and eventually it all sort of works and you're like, Cool.

49:17 I've I because that that that pattern you've just described has played out for fifteen years of my life. I now And again, my my CFO, my commercial director might not love me saying this, but they know this about me. Is and we even talked about it recently with a particular project. It's like, don't let the inability to see where the money's gonna come from in the near term stop you pursuing something that you think is gonna create value because History shows

49:41 That actually value They giving value out into the world. Pre seeds? The mu the e the economics. Totally. And so uh if it happened fifteen years of my life where I I remember when I started the social media business and people someone a guy sat me down in Google in London.

49:56 And explain to me why I would never make money. From that business. He like he did the math for me and the math was solid. He was like if you do once, you won't make any money. And I was like You're like, Yeah, but I don't think that's true. You know, you're like and you have no evidence, but Yeah, but you just know it's gonna work.

50:11 Yeah. The U the CEO sat here with me yesterday in that scene. And he was telling me he was like the thing is there's this thing called Jevin's paradox where when something Yeah, when the thing becomes more efficient or whatever. People think of things in linear progression, but actually there's exponential progression. So when we launched Uber more people started taking taxis. So all of the models about how big this market were were all wrong. And I find the same in in that and I find the same in podcasting when we started about five years ago. Well, yeah, like you set me down and go, Well, Steve CPMs, you're gonna have to be getting a million downloads to make

50:41 Like to earn a living. You're like wait and see. Yeah. Like and let it let it happen. I mean a prime example of that. Yeah. It's always better to focus your energy on being the best at the thing that you're trying to do. than figuring out how to monetize it or m you know, make money off of it. It's like I don't know. I mean

51:00 My whole like life as a climber, I've always tried to focus on like how do you send, which in climbing terms means like do the hard thing. Like You always focus on sending. And then everything else follows. Oh.

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52:59 dot com slash diary and when you spend two hundred and fifty dollars on your first LinkedIn ads campaign, you'll get An extra. two hundred and fifty dollar credit from me for the next one. That's LinkedIn com slash diary. Terms and conditions apply. It's funny you you're talking about mortality earlier on in um I think in the last couple of years, my mortality, like realizing that I'm gonna die someday has been such a a wonderful thing to

53:24 to really remind myself of on like a frequent basis. What uh how come? Just because Okay, so there's many things. One of them is um The whole idea of like sunk cost.

53:36 Bias. Wh where you become successful at a thing and you and now you have something to lose. So people go into a state of loss aversion where they start to protect what they have. Totally and this narrows your life in a way where you stop taking challenges, stop taking risks, stop doing new things. And the other thing generally about knowing you're gonna die and really like reminding yourself of that. is it liberates you from getting caught up and worrying about things that in the grand Yeah.

54:01 I was I was hearing someone say the other day, like do you know the the name of your Great grandfather. Do you know Joe's first name? Not really. And do you know the li the life they lived and what they were worried about and how they're embarrassed and their shame. Yeah, exactly. No, you don't know any of that. And the point is, like if you don't even know your own families. Like nobody else cares, yeah. But even like extremely famous people, a couple of weeks after they trend on Twitter and then A week later everyone just like gets on with their life again.

54:26 Well I'm already experiencing that with the with this stuff. You know, like the building was like insane for a moment. But now it's the Olympics and there's a lot going on in the news cycle and it's like the world moved on. I'm like great, I'll go back to just like being a home with my family and climbing as much as I can. Being at home with your family. You said earlier that when you're in that van for ten years you wanted a girlfriend. Now I'm not being funny.

54:45 But People that fit your profile. And Uh to some degree people that fit my profile. Struggle.

54:51 in intimate relationships for a variety of reasons. And I think I actually saw this in the documentary when I watched Free Solo. I saw you had a partner at the time. There was an accident on the cliffside. Where you fell and she was supposed to be protecting you. Mm-hmm. And generally I just saw someone who probably is more on the um less affectionate, more commitment avoidant side of life.

55:10 Is that accurate? I don't know, but Commitment avoidance.'Cause actually I have had long term girlfriends and things, but but yeah, definitely I'm like less expressive. Uh I'm less emotionally intelligent than my wife. Has she ever given you feedback that she wishes you were more Emotionally.

55:25 Uh Available? I mean I get that. I mean yeah, yeah. In In different words, perhaps, but yeah, basically.

55:33 Sonny. Yeah, Sonny. Mm-hmm. She wrote a letter. Oh gosh. Oh gosh, an intimate letter out loud. Oh gosh. She d she does know me. Obviously this is your worst nightmare, she said.

55:49 That's she knows me so well. But we all have to do scary things sometimes, Alex. My coach. She said, I remember when you read a book once about a woman who said she was less affected by emotions than most people. For her entire life people tried to convince her But she was wrong.

56:08 But she was suppressing her feelings. But at the end of the day. She just Wasn't. As you were reading.

56:14 You turned to me and said something similar. Something like that. Everyone wants to believe that I'm burying all these things. These feelings deep inside. But I'm just not.

56:24 And I laughed and I joked. Don't worry. I know you're dead inside. If I remember correctly. You gave me a hug.

56:32 But I've thought about this conversation a lot. Because as the person Married to you. I spend a lot of time trying to understand you. And while there obviously are emotions that drive you

56:42 I was mostly joking about the dead inside part. I do think you are far less affected by some feelings like anxiety, fear, shame, guilt, or self-doubt than many of us. But the longer I know you The more I see an ocean of something else. hiding beneath the surface.

56:58 Filling the space that would normally be taken up by all these feelings is the ability to truly see things. You move through the world like a hawk. while the rest of us are lost in thought. As a climber. You can see the way up a rock face.

57:11 The climbability of a building. Or the laid history of a mountain range. As a father You notice the quiet, intrinsic desires of your daughters. or the chores that need doing around the house. And as a friend, you see the raw potential in every person that you meet.

57:26 Sometimes This is the hardest thing about you. Nothing goes. Unnoticed. Neither the strengths nor the weaknesses, the moments of dedication nor the moments of laziness. You are practical and blunt in your assessment of your choices and our lives.

57:41 That's also because you see us. And paying attention is Love. Your ability to see the world so clearly allows you to also appreciate it more clearly. And that is a special form of your love.

57:54 Perhaps. There's a well of emotion in there. After all. Uh. But for the purposes of this letter, Alex, I want to give you

58:02 your gift back to you. Until you What what I see, particularly in the last four years since we had kids. Because I think the way you move through the world with us is a unique Love story.

58:14 I see you rushing down the trail. From the climbing area. So you can get back. In time. For dinner with me and the girls.

58:22 I see you flying the red eye. So you can be home a day sooner. I see you cramming in your gym session. Even when you have a huge goal on the horizon. So that I have time for my work out too.

58:33 I see you pushing your body to the absolute limit during the day. But still managing to stay awake long enough to chat to me at night. I see you taking on an extra day of travel, just to convince someone with money to donate to your foundation and help save the planet. I see you adjusting your whole training schedule for work opportunities in order to provide a wonderful life for me and the girls. I see the insane juggling act you do every day.

58:58 to not only be a great athlete, but a great dad and husband. I know it's not easy. But I see it. And I appreciate it. We love you as you are.

59:08 Alex. Not overly emotional. But present. Committed. And always seeing

59:14 What others miss. Use Sally. She is very astute. I was like this.

59:25 It's like That's why I married her, you know? Um She is very astute. Yeah.

59:35 I learned a lot about you from reading this. Mm. What do you think? You know, we all show our love in different ways. And sometimes I think the conventional way that l the world tries to measure

59:46 Love is through. Like verbal expression of it and romantic gestures and those kinds of things, but there's a another type of person who often struggles, I think, in in w life's expectations of what love looks like, who show it through Acts of service. That was that was literally one of our last big arguments about something like in that the other night and not like a total blowout, but basically she was

1:00:08 sort of like, I just need more, you know, of the verbal kind. And I was kind of like, I'm literally doing all the things and I always sort of say, you know, action speak louder than words. I'm kinda like if you're doing all the things, you're doing the correct things You don't need to talk about'em'cause you're doing the things. You know, and that was basically uh Back and forth. I mean th you know, I took her point that like occasionally you have to say the right thing too. Well, I have the same

1:00:31 The same argument on repeat with my fiance. Mm. She needs the words too. Yeah. She has like a different language. She's speaking f Spanish, I'm speaking French. Yeah. And th also, by the way, I have to say At some deep level, again, because of my early contacts where like you, I wished my parents m would break up.

1:00:46 I wish they would just get a divorce because the model of love I saw was not a happy one. I think at some deep level I have a commitment problem or an intimacy problem where Even growing up, s calling someone my best friend somewhat made me cringe. Hm. Like saying saying affectionate words to someone at some deep level made me feel deeply uncomfortable. Mm. And so you can imagine me being dating and then I've I I think like oftentimes we go for the opposite.

1:01:09 In the person we end up marry like marrying or For me, yeah. Yeah, for certainly. Yeah, my wife is like way more emotionally intelligent than anyone in my entire extended family. Yeah, same. This is how you build a rich life is that you basically like I mean, it's like hiring. You find members of the team who have all the strengths that you need. Yeah. It's like the things that you can't do and It's like filling your blind spots, basically.

1:01:30 Have you got better at saying the words? No. Any progress? Oh yeah, progress, probably. But

1:01:36 Very slow. But in a way that's great, you know, because we're gonna be married the rest of our lives. And so that could be another fifty, sixty years together. And so you need to see incremental progress. And I've started at such a low point and I'm making progress so slowly that I basically have a good project for the rest of my life. I um we kinda touched on it before, but one of the things that's been a front of mind for me at the moment is um actually something I saw in your personality test, which was You are high in perseverance.

1:02:03 And uh we talked earlier on about like mastery and how it's important to Um Assistant. To get good at something. But this has just been front of mind for me. I think for a long time because even I I like as a podcaster, I realise that a lot of the game I'm like five years in now.

1:02:18 And um When I look at someone like Joe Rogan He's been going for like I don't know, fifteen, seventeen years. More, yeah. Or more. And I go like So much of the game in becoming great at something is grinding. It's just going to keep doing it.

1:02:39 Whatever, forty years to make his first couple of million or whatever. Took him another like ten or fifteen years to make his first billion, and then it took him like whatever, in the last eight years he's made like a hundred billion dollars or you know,'cause his whole wealth is like woo. You're kind of like basically if you put enough time into something and you let it compound, it like slowly gets bigger and bigger. It's exactly that. So I've been thinking about it. All those numbers are incorrect, but the the shape of the graph is correct. We'll put it on the screen so everyone can see it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody correct my numbers. But the principle is correct. It's the same it's the same as this graph here that you drew of your career. Um, it's the same as the podcast growth by three years, no one was listening, and then we have this womp.

1:03:13 Yeah. Um I I think as a principle That's why you focus on doing something of value. Because with the podcast, like if you feel like you're doing something useful and that you think is cool. And you think there's something there. You just keep doing it and eventually people got on board. Okay, so On that Train of thought.

1:03:29 I've thought a lot about how do I create the conditions to out persist other people in the areas that I love. And one such thing, for example, with a podcast is like never have a conversation that I'm not looking forward to. Because that's unsustainable over the long term. Totally. Because then it feels like hard work as opposed to something that we're like, this is amazing. Yeah. So when I look at my cat, they'll say, Oh, this uh person wants to come and they've got a hundred and sixty gazillion followers. But you're like, I don't care about that person. Yeah, because if I if I use that as a decision framework for the next ten years, I'll quit. Yeah.

1:03:58 Mm. Do you think about that, like the conditions to out persist in your domain? I mean, kind of, yeah. I mean I haven't had to think about it too much because I freaking love climbing in all its forms. And so basically climbing it comes easily. But like in terms of the work stuff I do, um I forget I I think I was talking to you before we started recording, but um but I host this podcast called Planet Visionaries. Uh it's like a Rolex perpetual planet. Like I interview these scientists and conservationists and whatever. And for whatever reason, every time I do those podcasts, I come out of it feeling all energized and like, I should train more, I should study, I should learn something. Basically because the people that I'm interviewing.

1:04:29 Or also. uniquely good at what they do and they're all trying to save the world in different ways. It's like, you know, marine biologists like exploring the deep sea floor and things like that. Yesterday I interviewed these t two uh women about the fact that we've only explored point zero zero one percent of the deep sea, th which represents two thirds of the planet. So basically two thirds of the planet we l know like literally nothing about. And there's like this rich under Water world of like

1:04:52 Cool stuff going on in the ocean floor that we've never seen and knew nothing about. It's insane. And I was like, that's so cool. And I got all fired up about it. And so I come out of work thing, you know, quote unquote work things like that. And I'm like energized and excited to learn and grow and you know, push myself. And I'm kinda like, that's the type of work that I wanna do as much as possible. And then there are other kinds of things where, you know, I'll do like corporate speaking or something where you show up at a conference and you just like

1:05:14 get ground down. You know, and you when you leave and you go back to your hotel and all you can do is just like lie there on the bed for an hour being like, Oh, what am I doing with my life? You know, you feel like kinda wrecked. So it's like if you can focus on the work where you come out of it feeling inspired and like excited to try hard. Versus the work that makes you. wanna like mindlessly scroll on something for hours. You know what I mean?'Cause sometimes you're just like, Oh, I'm just so over it. Yeah, someone said that to me in my career they said like

1:05:39 Whenever you find domains that make you feel expansive. Like. You should double down on those domains'cause you're that's the path to mastery. You're gonna be able to Continue. Yeah.'Cause you can just keep pushing super hard in that. And for thankfully for climbing that's always just been that like I just friggin' love climbing. It's so great. You should do it more.

1:05:56 I know. You you make us all want to climb more, Alex. Yeah. That's one of the I think the great um consequences of watching you do something like Taipei. I mean, there was loads of kids in the streets of Taipei, I think. That we're all trying to climb buildings. Oh yeah. Hopefully it's not too much copycating, but Yeah, we got some crazy numbers from Netflix that uh I think half of people or more than half of people who have a Netflix subscription in in Taiwan watch the building climb on uh it's like in in Taiwan, it was like insane.

1:06:28 Like literally everybody watch. It's it's such a it's such a singular striking building in in Taipei. It's like a total national icon, you know, it's like a It's it's insane. Have you already started thinking about what you're gonna do next? You know, what's your next big thing? And I'm kinda like, you know, if you just focus on doing lots of little things all the time

1:06:46 Occasionally the big things just happen. And you can't totally know ahead of time. You know what I mean? Well, so at least so I I mean I have climbing goals. Gone back twenty years. I have all these notes on my phone. I always have like to-do lists of especially when I lived in the van and I was traveling, you're like seasonally moving between climbing destinations nonstop. So I'd lay I'd layer out all these different types of goals. Like I wanna do these types of things.

1:07:05 Certain goals lead to other goals because they're the same type of fitness, let's say. So like doing really big things help you do even bigger things later. But doing like really hard and intense things help you do other hard and intense things later. You know, so in some ways in the way you stack your goals, you can kinda build up to big things or like build up to really hard things or whatever. And so

1:07:24 I've always had running to do lists of like, I'm gonna try to do all these clams this year. And realistically I normally do like half of them. Or or some of them I never even get to because it's like the weather's not good and I wind up going to a different area or like don't go to that that climate destination at all. And so I never even try the project. But I've always had tons of goals like that. And looking back at years and years of that type of Those types of lists.

1:07:47 I just see that It's slightly hard to predict when you're gonna achieve the things that are like cutting edge or groundbreaking or whatever. You just have to keep doing the things nonstop. And every once in a while some of them rise to the top. I mean this kinda goes back to the same like value creating things like You don't know which things are gonna be red. You just do all the things and some of them wind up being red.

1:08:05 And the decision framework there is to just do things you love. And that challenge you Yeah, things that push you into l like things that are new for you that are hard for you that are challenging in the right ways. You know, but you just can't. You don't always know ahead of time which of those things.

1:08:20 Are gonna stand out or not. But you just do'em anyway because they're you're learning from them, you're excited about'em, they're hard. And then you know, some are cool, some aren't. Some you never even try. I'm like that's fine, you just keep doing things. The C of Uber Daria was was sat there yesterday, and one of the um contrarian pieces of life advice he gave, which is kind of overlaid with what you just said, is he said people need to stop making

1:08:41 Young people in particular need to stop making Life life plans. Mm. Because it narrows them to the serendipity and opportunity and things that might happen if they're broader and open minded. Well, or um Uh My wife and I sometimes joke it's w that we both have very strong opinions loosely held.

1:08:56 Where it's like, oh, I'm totally sure of a thing right up until I get some data that shows that that's wrong and then you're like, Oh, never mind, throw that away. And that's kinda how a lot of my to do lists have always been, or like my goals, where I'm like, Oh, I have all these goals. But if I take a slight fork in my year where it's like turns out uh you know, for whatever reason Like something else lines up and it makes sense to do all these other things, and I'm just like, ooh, right turn and just change. Mm-hmm. You know. And it overlaps with what you said earlier about like not worrying so much about like how much it's gonna pay me today or what the big thing is or

1:09:23 It's kinda like just just keep doing cool things. It'll it'll Work out. I would love if we could, you know, scan your brain and look at all the parts. It's especially in the context I learned of about this particular region of the brain called the anterior mid singular cortex. Yeah. Which I heard Andrew Huberman talking about. And it's a part of the brain they discovered quite recently. That lights up when you do things that you don't want to do. So not things that you enjoy doing that are somewhat like difficult like running a marathon, but things that you actively avoid and resist, but do anyway.

1:09:52 Pain, fear, effort, discipline. This is the circuit that decides whether you quit or you push through. And it grows the more you do things you don't want to do. So it's like they now consider it to be the muscle of willpower in the brain. When they look at athletes, they have bigger ones. When they look at people who are struggling or less are more sedentary or struggling with their weight. They often have smaller ones. Uh anyone that avoids discomfort has a smaller one. So um In your in the context of the way you've lived your life, you've continued to do things that are hard, that

1:10:19 I mean, you can love climbing, but you don't necessarily love Yeah, but just doing like one more set every time is like that's that's always a challenge. Yeah, always like my whole body hurts, but I'll just do a little more. Yeah, and I think the the thing, I guess, here is like about neuroplasticity, which is gonna be a ton of people listening right now. That are so far away from their Taipei. From their type A one on one. They're so far away from that. They're in a job they just don't like, that may be the finance brother, you know

1:10:45 And their their life is absent of event adventure. And they probably look at you and go, Well, you know, he just has something I don't have. I know, but I just don't, you know. I mean I've structured my life in a different way and I've made many different choices and and all that. But that's the thing, I don't really think I have anything different. I I actually hate all the like brain stuff because people always like Use that to

1:11:05 Two. put me in this box of like, Well you're different. And I'm like, Well, not really. Like I'm a middle class suburban kid. Both my parents, like nobody in my family is athletic. Like nobody is good at sports at all. You know, it's like like basically if you were to like look at the You know, like if I was a video game character and you were to look at all my little bars, you'd be like, That guy's not gonna be an athlete. Like he's not good at this. You know, I was like my parents are professors and we frickin' read books. Like I'm not

1:11:29 There's no aptitude for Anything, really. And I was like bad at sports as a kid. I'm not good with balls. Like you know, there's no reason, but I mean, really I just have loved climbing enough that I've been willing to put in. A tremendous amount of time and effort. And eventually get good at it. And I'm kind of like

1:11:44 To hear people say like Oh, your brain's different, you're kinda like, Well, everybody's brain is a little bit different in some ways It doesn't mean that you can't devote yourself to something that you care about. But with this in mind and with all the neuroscientists that I've interviewed In part because you've taken you've

1:11:59 done different things. And neuroplasticity says you can change your brain right the way up throughout your your entire life. One of my friends, um, Tom Bilew is a good example of that. He's a big podcaster. You might know Tom Bilew, if you do so. Um but he you know, he was I can't remember the rough age, but I'm gonna say he was thirty years old. He was so, in his words, lazy That he would

1:12:17 When his girlfriend came home, he said he would jump up out of bed just so she didn't believe that he was in bed all day. And he didn't want to be embarrassed. And when he asked his at the time girlfriend if if he could um Asked her dad if he could marry her.

1:12:31 Dad said no. He was he described it was like lazy and down and out. Over the next ten years, he makes decisions. to take on more difficult challenges. Builds a billion dollar company, sells it. If you meet this guy today, you'd think like athlete, genius, super smart, motivated, you'd beg him for advice on discipline and motivation. Like He's that kind of guy.

1:12:49 What yeah, so what'd you do? He read a book about neuroplasticity. And he realised that he wasn't stuck. He he learned about neuroplasticity, which means that at any age in your life, the decisions you make change your brain. And that's why I love this discovery of this anterior midsingular cortex. Because it means that like maybe In part the reason why I'm not

1:13:07 Taking on my Taipei one on one. Is because I haven't taken on my Taipei one on one. Yeah, you have well, you haven't taken on Uh your type A one.

1:13:22 And and actually this is why when you ask about like any big goals, I'm like I I sometimes I think the big goals are slightly limiting because like if you're your friend who's laying in bed Type one one is not the appropriate goal. You know what I mean? Like You need you need a type A four. Like you need to just get out and like do a little thing. You need to achieve some success. You need to just see that you can do something. And you need to take on appropriately sized challenges.

1:13:43 Because I think having a great white whale You know Is It's great sometimes. But that's not always what you need, you know? And and partially like for me right now

1:13:52 you know, we're raising two little kids and we're just like in the midst of it. You know, it's like bedtime right now, it's hanging it's just like it's a lot. And I'm like, I don't need like an L cap size goal right now because You know, we're just trying to make it through a certain phase of life. Really.

1:14:05 Not to say that I'll never have other big goals, but you're kinda like Three. You want your goals to be appropriate to the the time and and space that you have available. I had a psychologist say to me uh about this idea of just setting yourself a type A one, like a small go, that the the reason why people don't do it is because they see it as

1:14:23 Almost so embarrassingly small that they don't think it matters. Yeah. But I mean but that's why you focus on doesn't matter to you. Like is it something that you haven't done? Like is it good for your growth? Is it challenging for you? Like It's good enough.

1:14:35 But that same psychologist told me that when they were dealing with a patient who was so demotivated um that they couldn't Get out of their bedroom which was stacked to the ceiling with plates and cutlery. That day one. was bringing the Hoover into the room. That was day one. Day two was plugging it in. That was day two.

1:14:49 And by Day thirty. They're outside. This is someone who is scared of going outside. They're outside walking around the room is clean. But he he said to me that people don't take that first step because it's so embarrassingly small that it's almost shameful to say, like today we're just gonna bring the hoover in. Yeah.

1:15:03 But that's the thing is it's always better to take a step than to not take a step. Yeah. You know, that's Yeah. I mean that's how I've always felt with with all these things. You're like, Well you might as well go out and do the thing, like do something. Mm-hmm.

1:15:15 Yeah, remember the being I was like, You don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Like you do the good thing. You know'cause it like it's Like don't let perfectionism cripple you. Yeah, it's like that's why I think

1:15:26 You know, type by one on one if that's kind of like your perfect goal. Like Don't let that hold you back from going out and climbing type A four or type A eight or you know, like some of the surrounding little buildings'cause it's like oh you practice on what you can. Goes back to this point of perseverance. I read a quote many years ago that said, um, greatness doesn't exist, greatness is just good repeated. I mean this is what I'm saying about having lots of little goals, is that I would actually say that

1:15:46 If you repeat good enough. Every once in a while some of those are great actually, but you just don't totally know. Yeah. I noticed that a lot like in my climbing life, like in the long arc of climbing. There are tons of things that didn't Yosemite. Where like in a season I'd have like five or six calls in Yosemite, I'd do all the things.

1:16:02 And one of them for whatever reason would wind up being like that's rad and it would you know, like Makes Climbing news and things like that. And the other ones, you know, maybe less so. But you don't totally know ahead of time which ones are cool or not, and which ones are gonna stand the test of time, like

1:16:15 At one point in the not too distant past, I held a speed record on every major formation in U seven. Now a few of them have been broken over time and But those are the kinds of things where you never really know like how long those types of records will last'cause sometimes you do them and then your friend comes and breaks it the next season and you're like cool and you go back and forth and it's all part of a fun game. And then some of them you set a speed record and it lasts for like fifteen years. You're sort of like, Oh, well, I didn't realise that this was gonna be like such a milestone, you know? It reminds me of um

1:16:40 The Steve Jobs quote about how you can only really connect the dots looking backwards in. Totally. Steve Jobs' quote from his commencement speech was, You can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow. Connect in your future. Clarity isn't a prerequisite for action.

1:16:59 It's the reward you get after you move. And that's that's the thing is I think'cause I do so many interviews with like, you know, when was the moment you decided to be a professional climber? And I'm like There's no moment, like I just did the thing for years and years, and now looking backward it looks like this amazing arc. You know, but at the moment you're always fr you know, I spent years being like, Should I go back to college? Like, do I need a degree? Like and then I spent a few years wondering if I should go back and get like an executive MBA or something or something,'cause I was like, I don't want to go back to undergrad. I've been living in my van for ten years and but you're kinda like still I need that validation. I need uh you know, I wanna jump through the hoops and then really it's only now that I'm kinda like, I don't think I need that. In part I think the reason why we um we so many of us get

1:17:35 forced into procrastination when we're trying to connect the dots looking forward is because we face these questions from society, which is like, What's your plan? What's your career? What are you aiming at? And we don't have answers. So we fill in the gaps. You have to say something to Mum and Dad. If you say. Yeah. What's the plan for the future? You can't say nothing. No plan. Well you just say, I'm living. I'm just letting it play out. We'll just see what see what happens. It's gonna be a grand adventure.

1:17:56 I don't know I mean I kinda hope my my kids feel Confident with that. You know, just kinda like, Well, I'm doing the best I can, I'm practicing the things that I care about and we'll see how it plays out. We'll see how it plays out. 'Cause like either way it's gonna play out with with me and them and everybody else dying. You're like you know how it's gonna play out at the end end.

1:18:12 And so you're kinda like the whole space up to there is like, Oh, you try to fill it with as many things that you're proud of as you can. It's a s remarkably simple way to live in a world that's uh increasingly complex, Alex. Hm. Well. I mean it doesn't need to be. That complex.

1:18:28 This is why I think spending some time in nature like helps remind you of some of those sorts of things. This company that I've just invested in is growing like crazy. I wanna be the one to tell you about it because I think it's gonna create such a huge productivity advantage for you. Whisperflow is an app that you can get on your computer and on your phone on all your devices, and it allows you to speak to your technology. So instead of me writing out an email, I click one button on my phone And I can just speak the email into existence and it uses AI to clean up what I was saying. And then when I'm done, I just hit this one button here and the whole email is written for me. And it's saving me so much time in a day because Whisper learns how I write. So on WhatsApp it knows how I am, a little bit more casual. On email a little bit more professional. And also there's this really interesting thing they've just done. I can create little phrases to automatically do the work for me. I can just say Jack's LinkedIn and it copies Jack's LinkedIn profile for me because it knows who Jack is in my life. This is saving me a huge amount of time. This company is growing Like absolute crazy. And this is why I invested in the business and why they're now a sponsor of this show. And Whisperflow is frankly becoming the worst kept secret in business, productivity, and entrepreneurship. Check it out now at Whisperflow, spell W I S P R F L O W

1:19:35 Dot AI slash Steven. It will be a game changer for you. If you knew that you only had one week left to live. And this was the week. And you could only do one last climb. You go back and recapture the record, go do L Cap again, I don't know, a different building. You have one week. And assume you're sufficiently prepared for whatever the climate would be. What would

1:19:55 Wait, so I'm allowed to do like cutting edge futuristic things? Yeah. Oh w what then I'm like, I don't know, I mean the bird sh'd be insane. But um but no uh Like the the free triple in Usemite is like the three biggest walls in Yosemite. Uh Triple.

1:20:10 The so it's L Cap, half Dome and Mount Watkins. Mount Watkins is kind of like a half dome sized wall that's further up Valley. So there's the three big walls in Usemiti. So Tommy Caldwell and I have free climb the triple. The two of us did it together with ropes, but we like climbed the whole thing. And then I've soloed the triple, so I've done all three with ropes by myself. It was like eighteen or nineteen hours or something of climbing. Um, but it's never been free solo.

1:20:34 Uh I free solid Halftum individually and I've free sold El Cap individually, and no one's ever free sold at Watkins. But the idea of doing all three in a day would be like I think Totally like next generation achievement. There's certain things like that where I'm sort of like if I was starting over, if I was like an eighteen year old who was like trying to make it as a professional climber nowadays and and had a higher level of skill than I do now. And you know, basically it was like trying to do this again. There are things like that that would be sort of like the obvious next generation challenge.

1:20:58 Free solo all three in the same day. Yeah. Yeah, I'd probably take uh Well it take a bit under twenty four hours, probably. What is your training? Richmond.

1:21:09 To these days. Today I did a little workout in the hotel gym this morning. Your hands are quite different. I was they they're quite big hands. Well that's I mean, you know, think of like a stone mason just like grinding away their whole life. I see. You you you have I don't know if the people can see that on camera, but you it does look like you have very um

1:21:27 Wide fingers. Yeah, my fingers uh have taken a lot of abuse in their time. 'Cause I see you like putting them in in between war and stuff. Yeah, crack climbing. It's like you basically put your fingers into a crack and then you torque them. So like the side to side pulling.

1:21:40 Uh does sort of make your connective tissue bigger. And does that hurt? Yeah, I heard I was wondering when you're going up hill. Depends on the type of rock, but some rock is kinda sharp and kinda painful. Um but yeah, this is w this goes back to strengthening your what what's the part called in your brain? Anterior mid singular cortex. Yeah, exactly. That guy. I mean, that's the thing is that even when done well, climbing like it hurts your fingers and toes. You know, crack climbing where you're like jamming your toes into a crack and you're twerking'em side to side and you're like wedging your fingers in. I mean,

1:22:09 When you're doing it well, it has a pleasant d feel of safety to it,'cause you can really like lock into cracks and it feels comfortable and you feel like you're swimming and you're like, This is beautiful. But when you really come down to the sensations, you're still crushing your bones into a crack like a star hers. When I look at this kind of photo. Mm. Why you

1:22:25 It looks like you're hanging by One and a half hands. Yeah. Your grip isn't

1:22:34 Sufficient. It makes me think you must have the world's greatest grip strength. Oh, I definitely don't. But I mean well you have your your grip then, you can find out. What's below you there?

1:22:43 In this photo. Well actually so there is like a sloping cliff thing below me. Uh, so I'm actually only like thirty feet off the ground. But if or forty feet, but if you fell, you'd bounce off and you'd go, you know, basically to where it looks like down on the valley floor down there. Terrifying phase. It's funny, actually have you you've you seen Free Solo? Yeah. Do you remember the the camera guy that like can't look? Uh the the guy that's like shooting the long shot on the ground, Mikey.

1:23:04 He's a really good friend of mine. I've done tons of things with him. He was he shot the Taipei clown as well. No, Mikey was the photo assistant for this photo. He was like holding the photos and he did the whole shoot. Just like looking into the wall. Like he just never looked at any of the things happening. Like Jimmy Chen was taking the photo and Mikey was like, did all the The rigging and the lights and everything, and Mikey did the whole shoot just like

1:23:25 Looking into his arm. Like looking the other way. He was like I am not part of this. I'd like to see his brain screen. He was dressed. But yeah, I mean he's an elite climber himself and he's he's amazing. But like basically watching free solar is stressful and nobody wants to do it. If they don't have to. W when is the in all your career, when is the moment where you were most scared, where you thought maybe you had uh pushed it too far? Oh, it's actually uh I've had several moments, but actually mostly with ropes on.

1:23:48 That's the thing is that because when you're free souling, you generally keep it within a healthy margin or you practice ahead of time. Basically because you're gonna die, you make sure that you can do it. But when you have a rope on, you're way more willing to push into the unknown. 'Cause you're kinda like, surely I'll get some protection eventually. I'll just ha keep looking, I'll keep looking and so Like I've had I was on an expedition to Antarctica actually, um, in twenty seventeen. And did a bunch of climbing that was

1:24:11 very extreme, but like with a rope. But it was you know, it's Antarctica, it's really freaking cold, conditions are challenging, the rock is crumbling, everything is scary. And you just keep hoping that it's gonna get better and it just keeps getting worse instead and eventually you're sort of like 'Cause the thing is having a rope on Doesn't mean anything unless you get good protection, which means you have to be able to put gear into the rock. And if you can't find places to put gear into the rock, then you can go, you know, the rope's two hundred feet long. If you go two hundred feet without getting good gear, then you're looking at taking a four hundred foot fall before the rope catches you.

1:24:38 Uh which is almost certainly fatal. You know, I mean if you fall that far, even though the rope will catch your corpse, you know, but you're still just gonna hit the wall after four hundred feet, like you're screwed. So anyway, my scariest experiences have all been situations like that. For the most part. Mm-hmm. This is why I'm saying climbing, you get scared a lot.

1:24:57 I was like that expedition uh we were climbing basically day on day off. Each day we would go climb one of these crazy spires and we'd have these experiences where I'd be like so scared. And then the next day we would just sit in the tent because it's Antarctica. It's like really cold. In the cook tent, I would basically just spoon Nutella all day, totally shell shocked. Like totally like just completely traumatized. And then the n and then you'd be like rest enough and you'd go out the next day and do it again. And we just did like day on, day off of like full trauma, fear for the whole trip. And then We climbed everything in the range. It was amazing. It was an incredible trip. So you do get scared. Yeah, I was so scared the whole time. People talk about breath work and

1:25:34 Yeah, take some deep breaths, try to compose yourself. I mean I t try to Stay rational, you know, like, am I in danger? Cause sometimes like in this case in Antarctica, I am actually in danger. Like if I fall I could die. Um but oftentimes you feel you get those feelings of fear and you're not actually in danger. You just it's your mind running away from you. And so sometimes you can sort of rationally rein it in a little bit where you're like No, I am safe. The protection will hold me. The rope is you know, my gear is good. And then you just take a deep breath and you just carry on.

1:26:00 And do you visualize falling ever? Oh yeah, I mean of course. Yeah, I mean you have to understand what the consequences would be. Because I mean, that type of visualization is also how you can know when you're safe. He's like have you ever opened gear?

1:26:12 And you're trying to Visualize like if I fall, am I gonna hit the ground or is the gear gonna catch me before I hit the ground? I mean, there are often situations like that where you're like If I fall, am I gonna hit that ledge and break both my legs, or am I gonna clear the ledge and fall into free space, in which case it's totally safe. And so It helps to be able to have a clear eyed visualization of you know,'cause most people visualize the worst case. Like if I fall, I'm gonna die. And you're like, Well, oftentimes if you the I'm talking about with a rope, if you fall, you're gonna be fine.

1:26:37 But it's important to know the difference. Mm. So you don't avoid The negative outcomes. No, because you're trying to avoid the negative out like you have to think about it because how else do you mitigate that kind of stuff?

1:26:50 But you can't let that stop you taking a actions when the risk profile is okay. Yeah, exactly. I mean this is like a whole rant about risk taking and everything. But like I mean That's the thing is you wanna be taking the risks that you wanna take.

1:27:02 And it drives me crazy that nobody else thinks about risk in this way. Because think of all the people that like go out partying every weekend and they get like kind of buzzed and they drive home and whatever. And it's like they're taking all kinds of risk. that they're not actually choosing to take. You know what I mean? Like they're just choosing to go out and party and have a good time. But then they're like driving a little buzzed and they're like, No, it's fine, but you're like, No, obviously you're taking a risk.

1:27:23 Or like you're putting yourself into situations where you're like in a vulnerable situation because you're incapacitated, because you're drunk or whatever. So, you know, you're putting yourself at a higher risk for crime, things like that. And so you're Taking risks, you just haven't chosen to take those risks. I'm kind of like the thing with climbing is that I'm choosing to take the risks and I'm pretty clear eyed about the risk that I'm taking. Like

1:27:43 I mean I'm not gonna say it's perfect, but for the most part, I think I have a pretty good idea of which aspects are dangerous, like when the consequences are high. What will happen if I do fall. You know, it's like you try to think it all out as much as you can. I'm kinda like, how many people in normal life actually think through all the risk that they're taking? And even totally sedentary people who are like, Well, I don't take risk. I stay home and I play video games. You're like, No, you're at a much higher risk of heart disease. Like you're gonna die from other things.

1:28:05 You know it's like and you're still gonna freaking die either way. That's Okay, I'm done ranting, I'm sorry. No, but it's it's really important'cause you I think we are all taking risks, but some of us aren't intentional about the risks we're taking, essentially. That's exactly it. Like even if you take no risk, you're gonna die. You're taking a different set of risks. And so people look at my life and they're like, Well, you're crazy. You're such a risk taker. And I'm kind of like, Well, at least I'm taking the risks that I'm choosing and I'm choosing them very intentionally and I'm pretty careful about them and I mitigate them as much as I can. I'm kind of like, Well can you say the same for the risk that you're taking or

1:28:35 You know, I'm sort of like the average person I think doesn't think about risk as much as they should. And is there anything that you would give them as a framework to help them be more intentional about those risks is the It's like you're gonna freaking die either way. So choose the things that you care about and then do them well. And do them well. Prepare.

1:28:53 Yeah, execute. Like Have a plan. You know, but don't just like take risk willy nilly. Like don't just get drunk and go out and do a thing. You know,'cause like that's stupid. Like that's not the risk you should be taking. You know, like don't put all your money on black and just like hope. You know what I mean? Like basically don't just like roll the dice, like

1:29:08 Don't let fate just like roll the roll the dice with your life. Like make choices. And free soloing. is you know, there's a bigger existential risk with no margin for error. But um But it's very intentional.

1:29:20 Very intentional. Drink. As a as a risk is like a volume knob. The more you do it, the more the risk increases. And the other one is kinda like an on off switch, which you can Exactly.

1:29:31 Mm. Yeah. So grip strength. I wouldn't be even a little bit surprised if you can pull that more than I can, actually. But look, I mean we'll both try. This is a grip strength meter. Um kilograms would be extra small then. Uh I mean the thing with these like okay, actually let me just preface this with like I I've had tons of people be like, Well, surely you're gonna break the machine. I'm like, No, because for climbing you you just have the strength that you need to do the things that you're trying to do. And how much do you weigh?

1:29:55 Um right now like one sixty five. one sixty five. Which is actually basically the heaviest I've ever been. Maybe six. Maybe one sixty three if I'm lucky right now. So one sixty five pounds in KG is equivocal to Seventy five kilograms roughly. Okay. Go ahead.

1:30:13 Forty nine or fifty. Forty five point nine. I didn't try this more. Just like Yeah, forty nine.

1:30:20 You know, but those are just kinda like it's just uh it's just a different thing, you know what I mean? Like that's not climbing. Forty nine KG in pounds is Engine A, interesting. Yeah, that's that's the year zone. But yeah, like I'm saying.

1:30:34 Uh it's about the same with both hands. It should be. Mm-hmm. Sixty two? Yeah. See, there you go. Yeah, but I can't lift my body weight. Like I might be able to like. Y yeah, I mean I might be able to muster a little more in it, but

1:30:49 Sixty three on that one. But like I don't I don't think uh do you work out like you do weights and stuff? I lift them dumb bowels, but I'm not doing anything grippy. I curl and stuff, but I don't do anything gripping. I know I'm at fifty and a half. How many pull ups can you do? Mm, don't know, but I can yesterday I did uh I did a couple of one arms like uh like I yeah, I basically Yeah, which is very hard.

1:31:12 Yeah, I don't think I can do one arms. Yeah, well that's the thing. That's why grip string stuff, you're kinda like nah. We're actually so um like have you done weighted pull ups in a gym? Weighted. I'll just do my own body weight.

1:31:24 I don't know You know, I weigh a lot, so I'm like deceptively heavy. Really? Dense. Very dense. It just sink straight in the bottom. How how much kilograms do you think uh weight? I mean in pounds you'd know it, but this is Well now, I'm guessing I don't know, like now that you're saying that you're big I'm like I don't know, maybe one eighty five or something? I'm two eleven. Yeah, well that's she so that's another thing with grip strength. It's like it makes sense that your grip strength is

1:31:48 proportionately. I mean You're like twenty five percent bigger than me. Yeah. Yeah, like you know, basically. Yeah. So it's like you would expect it to be at least twenty five percent stronger right there just because like if you can do body weight pull ups you're gonna be much stronger. Yeah. But

1:32:02 We have um we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're leaving it for. Mm. And the question if for you Yeah. What do you want to achieve in your life outside of your

1:32:15 Mainline job. That you haven't yet achieved. No, I mean that seems th there are basically two other avenues that I care about in my life. Uh, you know, my family, I wanna be a good dad, I wanna make sure my kids grow up to be healthy well adjusted people that you know like live their best lives. And then I have a foundation that supports community solar projects around the world and

1:32:35 I'd love to see that thrive, I mean basically. I mean, you know, we give as much as we can to to solar projects around the world and I'd love to see that do more. On that point of your foundation, what is what is the sort of the thesis there you want to for solar projects? Yeah. Yeah, solar. It's basically energy access around the world. Okay. Yeah, I think now we've given And over thirteen million to

1:32:54 Something like over a hundred partners around the world, basically like small scale community solar projects. So people getting access to energy for the first time. Um, busy using solar for Anything range from light to You know, say food refrigeration to Pumping water, I mean whatever whatever people need energy for, which is basically everything.

1:33:13 thirteen m more than thirteen million across a hundred and thirty projects in thirty countries impacting six hundred and fifty thousand people and creating one thousand two hundred plus jobs. protected fifteen million acres of biodiverse. Forest as well. Yeah, some of those things are sort of like the secondary and tertiary benefits where it's like

1:33:31 when you empower kinds of communities, then they're better able to take care of their lands and things like that. Some of that has to do with indigenous sovereignty and things like in the Ecuadorian Amazon and and places where Thank you. when the local people have power suddenly they can protect their land from illegal logging. Um illegal mining, things like that. And so then you wind up having this knock off like environmental benefit that's like also great in addition to the human uh aspect where you're like, Well, these people are living better lives and to help save the planet.

1:33:56 And you're giving away roughly a third of your wealth. to cover the majority of the foundation's overheads. So yeah, I've I've been given roughly a third of my of what I make every year uh since two thousand twelve. And Uh that's basically just sort of coincidentally tracked with uh the overhead for the foundation. So it just means that anything that people contribute goes straight to projects because I basically cover all the staffing and everything. How does how does one contribute to that?

1:34:19 Uh HuntleFoundation.org is the easiest way. You can support directly. I mean you can see all the projects that we're working with. And donors can go there if they want to contribute to this, they can go to the website and I'll link the website below. And if anyone is interested in continuing to support the great work you're doing there. um I highly recommend they go and make a donation. It's a it's also just a way I think to give back to you as a person for the inspiration. You've given so many of us. Yeah. I appreciate that. You know.

1:34:43 Yeah. I mean, to me the foundation has always been my attempt at doing something useful. It's like I love rock climbing. I think it's so fun. But in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter in the world. And I feel like the work that we're doing through the Hum Foundation, at least material improves the well being of of other humans. You know, like it actually has a real impact both for the environment and for people.

1:35:01 Well, uh I don't know, I I think Watching Ucline Taipei. And watching the millions of people all around the world climb Taipei. was an expansive moment for all of us because it all it it holds a mirror up to us in a really inspiring way and goes. What obstacles can you overcome in your life? And

1:35:18 Mm-hmm. Um The mi many, many millions of people now have that Visual. And sometimes it is an absurd visual that does that and is most memorable.

1:35:28 Etched into their brains. And that means that they in their own life are looking for their own type A ones or type A sevens or type A one oh ones. And if you play that forward as like a ripple in the ocean of how people are gonna strive and maybe live more intentionally Maybe. Maybe it does really, really matter.

1:35:43 Maybe the whole conversation which was my like my entire Twitter feed. for days and days and days of people saying this is a miraculous human achievement. It there's like that's the first half of a sentence. The other half of that sentence which we never really hear is like So now what can I do? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

1:35:58 And that is a profound thing. Best. Frame like that's the framing that I hope for and that's you know But I think

1:36:06 That's like the best case scenario for my climbing and like I I hope that that's how people take it. But I will say that the work through the nation at least has a direct material impact immediately. You're kinda like, Oh, you don't have to hope for ripples or anything. You're like, Well, this person can now read after dark for the first time ever and you're like, That is game changing. If anything, you know, I've been talking a lot about like action speaking louder than words, and I'm like, Yeah, I hope to, you know. It's like it's great if the climbing I do inspires people, like that's all good. But at some point you just do a direct thing that actually Helps people's lives too. And you're doing both.

1:36:34 Yeah, yeah, aspiring to. Do my best. Alex, thank you so much. Thank you.

1:36:42 Thank you.

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