A (2:36)

I mean, how deep do we want to go? I need to get a sofa. I need to recline. I just feel like, all right. But, yeah, certainly there's an imprint from my parents, my upbringing. I mean, they had a very fraught relationship. They eventually got divorced, but they stayed together for the kids. And it was a whole, like, you know, say, a tense home life because neither of them really liked each other. And then my mom is very driven, very, you know, high performing. And my dad was hard to say. I mean, I think my dad was deeply depressed basically the whole time I knew him. Cause he was in this relationship, you know, it's hard to tell. He wasn't living his best life. And then sadly, after they got divorced, he was much happier. But then he died. And so then never really got to see. Never really got to see him blossom that much.

B (3:16)

And your mother's high performing, and did she sort of implicitly demand that of you in any way?

A (3:20)

Yeah, I mean, my mother speaks like seven or eight languages. She, like, plays every instrument. It's, like, kind of crazy. Yeah, she's very artistically minded in that way, like the arts in a classical sense. But, yeah, she wanted us to do all those things too. I'm a deep disappointment in that regard.

B (3:37)

There was a phrase that I saw when I was watching the documentary that your mother would continually say, which I think translates to something like, not good.

A (3:43)

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

B (4:14)

But she's accomplished a lot of things with that approach.

A (4:17)

Yeah, she has for sure.

B (4:18)

What about emotions? This is something I've heard you sort of talked about a lot is in that environment where your mother and father aren't getting along well. I think I heard you say that you hadn't seen your father really happy before he'd passed away. Yeah. Was it an emotional household in terms of affection?

A (4:34)

No, it was a very unemotional household. That said though, you know, it was a safe, relatively happy household. Like it was fine, you know, and I was close to a lot of my extended family and so I had a really good relationship with my grandparents and some of my aunts and uncles. And so, I mean, 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 was kind of like, oh, this seems even happier, you know what I mean? Where it's like basically really good until you see what else it can be. And then you're like, this seems even better.

B (5:00)

And your mum wasn't ever affectionate, you.

A (5:03)

Know, it always feels slightly conditional, you know, where it's like, you know, she cares if you be, you know, if you perform well, like if you do well, like if you're a good kid or whatever, you know what I mean?

B (5:14)

Where did climbing come into your life? Because I've got some. I have found some photos of you climbing and you look like with your sister, I believe. Here we go. This one here?

A (5:22)

Yeah, classic.

B (5:23)

How old are you there?

A (5:24)

I don't know. I mean, I don't know, like six or something or eight. It's hard for me to tell. Like medium sized kids, ages.

B (5:30)

Why climbing?

A (5:31)

Oh, why not? It's so freaking cool. Have you rock climbed?

B (5:34)

I've, yeah, I have.

A (5:35)

You gone to a gym?

B (5:36)

Yeah, I have, but.

A (5:37)

And wasn't it the freaking coolest thing?

B (5:39)

It was fun. Yeah, for sure. I mean, saying I've climbed when I'm sat with you is I feel like.

A (5:44)

Yeah, but you have tried It, Yeah, I have. Yeah, yeah. As an adult, if you can imagine as a kid how fun that is. And then if you just keep doing that non stop and then you find that, you know, have some aptitude for it, you enjoy it. It's like you can imagine going down that path. It's so cool.

B (5:59)

But is there something about the challenge of climbing that you think just kind of like was a jigsaw piece for you, your brain, like problem solving?

A (6:05)

Well, I think there's something elemental about climbing in the same way as like running or swimming. It's like a basic movement thing that I think is quite enjoyable. And I think that I also, I think I have an innate love of like being on top of things. Like, you know, being at the top, basically. I love big views. I like the expansive, you know, I like air and so I like being up on stuff. So I don't know, I think it just hit a few sweet spots like that where I was like, oh, climbing is just so cool.

B (6:29)

I'm assuming you never thought this could be a career.

A (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.

B (6:44)

But you weren't motivated by like money or anything. Because one does not pursue rock climbing to become rich.

A (6:49)

Not to become rich. No. Well, so I said. So my father died like the season before that and because my parents had just gotten divorced, he basically left his retirement to my sister and me and she used it to finish college. I just put it into bonds and was living off like 300 bucks a month or whatever, which kind of like worked, you know, I was like living in a car. I stole my mom's minivan. At the time I had like a couple hundred bucks a month and it was kind of enough to just like go to be a 19 year old. Just like camping, you know.

B (7:15)

Was it this minivan?

A (7:17)

No, that's my second one. That's the Fort Econoline. That's the first actual van that I bought. I lived in that van for 10 years.

B (7:22)

For 10 years?

A (7:23)

Yeah, yeah. So I bought this van. I mean this is classic, but so I bought this van for ten grand. 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 so Then I lived in that for 10 years and you're kind of like, yeah, when you live in it. I couldn't even stand in this van, you know, I was like, oh, my back. But, you know, when you're living in your car for 10 years, you save quite a lot of money.

B (7:50)

Between what ages did you live in your car for 10 years?

A (7:53)

I probably bought this van when I was 20, so. 20 to 30, basically.

B (7:56)

Hmm.

A (7:58)

Yeah. Actually, I think that's right because I think I met my wife when I was 30 and that same year I switched from this van to the bigger van. If you've seen the film Free Solo, that's. I bought the. The Promaster, this, like, Dodge. It was like I could stand up in my van finally. And I was like, I'm moving up in the world. I can stand. It's pretty exciting.

B (8:14)

You can have really. Well, there is a little stave in this one.

A (8:16)

Yeah. So this, though, is the. I did three different build outs of this van over the 10 years because, like, the original one was super scrappy. The second build was, like, a little nicer. And then this was, like a pretty nice build that I had for, I don't know, five or six years or something.

B (8:28)

When you live in your van for 10 years and you have a mother who is very performance focused, I've got here, I believe, you climbing with her.

A (8:37)

Yep. Classic.

B (8:38)

Do you not face a lot of external pressure to, like, go get a real job?

A (8:42)

Honestly, less so than you would think. Like, to her credit, my mom was always pretty supportive of the whole path. I think, you know, I was kind of lucky 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.

B (9:09)

And at this point, was it rock climbing, was it free soloing? And.

A (9:13)

Yeah, it's all a little bit of everything, basically. Just being a. I mean, you know, like being a professional climber, quote unquote. Some of it's free soloing, 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.

B (9:25)

And for the average person that doesn't know what free soloing is, what's the definition of it?

A (9:29)

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, most of the time you have a rope on. Most of the time you're doing other sorts of things. But it's like the free soling is what you wind up being well known for because that breaks into the mainstream a lot more.

B (9:49)

I'm really intrigued generally by people like you who, I mean, take the path less traveled in their career and then maybe nearer the end of the graph, pick up traction. And I had this piece of paper in this pen because I'd love if you could, from the age of, let's say, 80. You're now 40 years old.

A (10:09)

Yeah, I turned 40 this year.

B (10:10)

Getting old, could you draw a graph showing how your career looks in terms of success? You can measure that by money or attention or whatever.

A (10:20)

Let's see. So it was kind of like nothing.

B (10:24)

Nothing.

A (10:24)

Slow a little bit. And then like this. Ish.

B (10:27)

Yeah.

A (10:27)

And then kind of like, meh. And then basically just like this, where you basically, like, kind of flat but growing. And then you have free solo where it jumps a ton. It's like, kind of crazy. And then it keeps kind of growing at a slightly faster rate than before. And then it basically jumps a ton because of the building thing.

B (10:42)

Again, I find this fascinating because most people in their lives wouldn't be willing to endure this phase 18 to 29, where. Well.

A (10:51)

But it's not enduring. It's so great. Like, I would do that again. I loved it so much. Like, I mean, I often think I'd be so happy to just start over from zero. Because, like, all the places that I go climbing now, I've been climbing there for 20 years, and I've, like, done most of the things I can do. And, you know, I've sort of, like, tapped out a lot of stuff in the Western U.S. and I'm like, man, I would love to just hit the re0 button and start over. Cause you'd have so much stuff to do. It's so amazing.

B (11:12)

I guess that's the. That's the different. The fault of my question is that I said the word endure, but you see it as.

A (11:18)

Yeah, you get to climb every single thing you see. It's amazing. Yeah. I mean, and that's the thing is like from age 18 to, to 30, 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. 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 might be fun, but it's just not gonna like move the needle for you.

B (11:57)

Through this period of your life. 18 to 30, you're optimizing for just having fun doing things you enjoy.

A (12:01)

Well, I mean, no, 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.

B (12:09)

But you weren't optimizing for how to get rich or.

A (12:12)

Well then I would have gotten a job. If I was optimizing for getting rich, I would have friggin finished my college degree and gotten a job.

B (12:18)

I say this in part because I interview so many people who pursued careers that are often considered not real jobs, like comedians or magicians. And I tend to find the same thing between the age of 18 and 30. They optimize for something that isn't necessarily being rich or famous. And then at some point the graph looks like this.

A (12:35)

Well, it's because I mean, I think, and I'm sure you know this, but I mean the, the world really, it's like a winner take all, economy type deal. It's like basically if you're the dude that does the thing, all of a sudden your earnings go insane. But until you become the dude that does the thing, you know, if you're like the best magician or the best comedian or the best whatever, then all of a sudden you make an insane amount of money. But when you're just like one of many struggling comedians, you're, you know, you're struggling. And so I think for me as a climber, you're sort of like, oh, I'm just a dude living in my van, climbing. But then at a certain point I'm like the dude that, you know, I'm like, oh, you're that guy that climbs without the rope and you're like, oh, yeah, cool. And then all of a sudden, your earnings are like.

B (13:11)

Was this a difficult period of your life, this 18 to 13?

A (13:14)

No, it was, like, the best. Well, obviously, it was like Fri. You know, I was, like, trying to juggle, like, I wanted to get a girlfriend. You're a young 20s man living alone in a car, like, wanting to be better at something than you are and not quite knowing the way. Not knowing what you're doing with your life. So obviously there was tons of emotional turmoil throughout it. But, no, I mean, retrospectively, it's like, amazing.

B (13:34)

And your dad passes away, which is in part, I guess, some of the catalyst future.

A (13:38)

Yeah, honestly, my dad passing away should be the beginning of that graph. This should basically start at 19, because 18, I went to university. And so then starting at 19, I guess I went on the road.

B (13:50)

Your dad passing, what impact did that have on you outside of it somewhat liberating you to make decisions that outside of his expectations?

A (13:59)

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, you know, it's like, yes, it's tough. I think that the most immediate impact that it had maybe was just reminding me of my own mortality, you know, I mean, he died unexpectedly at 55, just fell over in the airport and just fell over dead, like, heart attack. And so, you know, I mean, I think that that reminder of my own mortality has had a big impact on my career, my life, you know, my climbing world, whatever.

B (14:31)

One might not expect you to go, quote, unquote, do risky things because of.

A (14:36)

Well, no, because the thing is, I think one of the reasons that people don't do risky things is because they have this, you know, mistaken idea that they can live forever, basically. Basically because people don't want to think about their own mortality. And so they're like, oh, I don't want to take any risks. I could die.

B (14:51)

And.

A (14:51)

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 the life expectancy in the US is 78. And you're like, great. Say you make it for men, whatever. Like, say you make it that far, you're still gonna be like, man, I Wish I had 22 more years to, like, watch my grandkids graduate college or whatever. 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 55 in an accident, but having done many things that you're proud of and, you know, like, led a life that you're proud of than dying at 78 and still wishing you had more, but having done none of the things that you wanted to do.

B (15:26)

It is interesting. It does appear that people live as if we think we're gonna live forever.

A (15:29)

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.

B (15:41)

When you go, what does this mean to you, to, like, live intentionally?

A (15:45)

Well, that's exactly it. Like, choosing the risk that you're willing to take, making choices, like using your time the way you want to use it.

B (15:51)

I was looking at. I think it was your personality. A personality test.

A (15:54)

You did, Mike, Did I do a personality test? How much material do you have? I'm like, jesus Christ, how many things do you have?

B (16:02)

I have unlimited things.

A (16:03)

I know. I'm so impressed.

B (16:05)

On this personality test, it says you're higher on thrill seeking and sensation seeking, but then also significantly higher than the average male on urgency, which I think kind of overlays with what you were just saying there of making the decision to do something.

A (16:17)

Yeah. Basically because your time is short and you're gonna die, so get on with it.

B (16:21)

It says here you're higher on conscientiousness, very polite, you know, thrill seeking, sensation seeking. You're low on boredom.

A (16:30)

I think low on boredom means that, you know, you don't get bored.

B (16:32)

Perseverance. You're very high on perseverance.

A (16:34)

Yeah, I think that's the same as.

B (16:35)

Low on boredom and low on neuroticism, that's for sure. And so what's the definition of the word neuroticism? Is it like.

A (16:43)

Well, I think it's like the. Well, I'm sure there's a clinical definition, but I think of it as sort of general anxiety type stuff, like, you know, people spinning in their heads about things that don't matter.

B (16:51)

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?

A (16:56)

Kind of. Yeah, I think so. I think I've never been too concerned about. I don't spin. I mean, obviously, you know, occasionally I stress about things, but just not the way I think a lot of people do.

B (17:09)

I'm trying to figure out if that's a learned behavior or maybe a little bit learned and a little bit from your upbringing, genetics, whatever it might be. Cause can one learn that? Can one learn to be less neurotic?

A (17:18)

Well, presumably. I mean, like meditation, things like that. I think people can sort of find a way to let go of certain things.

B (17:24)

Isn't this quite interesting? When people ask you questions, inevitably about fear and how you take on such, you know, to Muggles like me, terrifying challenges. There's an element of all of this which is you do have a nature and a nurture which somewhat is impossible for someone like me to replicate. Because your brain and my brain are completely different. Your parents, your early contacts, when your brain was being wired and malinated are completely different to mine. So, you know, I always find this as, like, the trouble of giving people advice is we're dealing with different natures. Different natures.

A (17:59)

But I do feel like, in my case, the biggest difference in nature is the fact that I've just always loved climbing, you know, because basically, I think that nurture is the majority of this. Like, if you spend 30 years training a thing, you're gonna get better at the thing. And so I think that the biggest difference between me and somebody who's not into rock climbing is I freaking love rock climbing. I could go out. I could do it 10 days a week if I could. You know what I mean? But sadly, I get too tired and my body breaks down. And so, you know, I basically have, like, a limitless capacity to do the thing. I just love doing the thing. And I think that that is probably the biggest difference in nature, you know, because everything else you can kind of overcome, you know, like, if you loved rock climbing as much as I love rock climbing, no matter what your genetic disposition towards, like, neuroticism and all that stuff, you would just kind of work through all that stuff and you'd find your own path to getting good at climbing, basically.

B (18:47)

If your kids came to you, you have two girls, right?

A (18:49)

Yeah.

B (18:49)

If they came to you and said, dad, like, give me advice on what I should aim at in life, would you?

A (18:54)

No, 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, learn some skills, get good at Something like, what do you like to do? I mean, that's kind of the thing for me, especially with climbing is, like, if someone had told me, like, you're going to train climbing for the rest of your life, I'd be like, oh, that sounds like kind of a grind, you know, because, I mean, it is. It is hard work. You're, like, hiking uphill 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. Like, often, you know, like, it's. You know, it's hard.

B (19:24)

Yeah.

A (19:24)

But if you're doing it because you freaking love doing it, it doesn't feel very hard. And so, I mean, I think the key for a kid is find the thing that doesn't feel like hard work.

B (19:33)

And when you started, were you scared of big, tall rock faces and stuff like that?

A (19:39)

I mean, yeah, I had, like, a healthy intimidation of things. I mean, like, my first season in Yosemite, the first time seeing El Cap as a climber, I was 19, and it looks impossible. It looks completely insane. I was like, that's so big. But then, you know, within a couple seasons, you know, I climbed some bigger walls, learned how to climb. And then a friend and I had the sort of season goal, like we were gonna climb in Yosemite all season with the aspiration at the end to climb El Cap in a day. So basically, there was this long progression on El Cap, specifically, where it's like you go from just trying to get up it to trying to get up a faster, to trying to get up it with just your hands and feet still using protection. But basically, there's like, all these steps you can take. And so over a bunch of seasons, you know, I climbed el cap, like, 60 times, different routes, all these different things. And then eventually you're sort of like, oh, maybe I can start thinking about free soloing it, which is where the film Free Solo comes in. And then eventually you do this thing, then people are like, well, aren't you scared? And you're kind of like, Whoa, I've spent 10 years, like, building up on this thing.

B (20:30)

I guess that's what people don't see.

A (20:32)

Yeah.

B (20:33)

So they just.

A (20:34)

I mean, like, the documentary Free Solo, 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, like, eight years before that, I guess, because the documentary was filmed over two years and I guess I've been going since 2006. So it was nine years before that that I've been going to Yosemite, and I've been spending maybe three months a year climbing walls.

B (20:56)

I guess that's the illusion of, like, all people that do great things and become, like, athletes or sprinters or whatever Ronaldo or Messi is. You don't get to see the.

A (21:04)

Yeah. The whole life that they put into doing the thing.

B (21:06)

Yeah.

A (21:07)

Yeah.

B (21:07)

So it looks. It looks like a magic trick when we see the outcome. Like, we show up on Netflix to watch you climb Taipei. Like, whoa, he's hanging with it from his leg.

A (21:15)

Yeah. I mean, people watch some of those programs and they're like, he just walked up and did it. And you're like, well, yeah, after 30 years of practice, like, I just walked up and did it. But no, it's not like, just walking up and doing it.

B (21:25)

Hmm.

A (21:26)

One of the initiatives, like, I've literally been climbing five days a week for 30 years. Like, that's so much climbing. Like, I freaking love climbing. And I climb a lot.

B (21:37)

On this idea of, like, exposure therapy as it relates to, like, fear and anxiety and confronting one's things that terrify them. Was there in the early days where you. I'm trying to understand, were you, like, scared at some point?

A (21:46)

Oh, all the time. That's actually something that I think. You know, I've obviously done so many interviews around fear and, like, managing fear and all that. And I've talked about fear a lot of different ways over. Over the years. And I think, as I've found older, I've sort of come to realize that that actually you're just scared all the time as a climber. Like, low level fear. Low. Like, but you're. But climbing is fundamentally scary. Like, it's always kind of 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 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.

B (22:26)

There'S a lot of sort of misconceptions swirling around this brain scan you get.

A (22:29)

Yeah, I know. I hate all that stuff. That's just all from the film Free Solo. It was, like, too short of a scene in the film. They needed a little more. They needed to let it breathe, you know, explain Things a little better, I think.

B (22:38)

So they scanned a control subject, another person scanned, you looked at the amygdala in your brain and that the conclusion that a lot of people have arrived at is that you don't experience fear. Because when they look at these two brain scans, your amygdala is lighting up less when you're shown scary images basically. Right.

A (22:53)

But like shown just this image, like what does that even mean? Like my brain's purple and his brain is orange. You're like, what does that mean? Like, I don't know. But no, I mean the thing is though, and this is what I wish was explained in the film better is that this is. We're being shown black and white photos inside an fmri. So you're inside a sealed metal tube. You're totally safe. You're physically safe and comfortable and you're being shown black and white photos. And so to me, obviously that's not going to light up the fear response in my brain because you're looking at pictures, you're like, who cares? I'm totally safe. But in a control subject, you know, apparently your brain sort of responds to images one way or another. But I'm kind of like, I've been climbing for 20 years, so I've been like scared quite a lot. And you're kind of like, well, black and white photos start to lose, lose their edge if you've been scared all the time for 20 years. So it's like obviously that's not going to trigger much.

B (23:37)

Yeah. And I imagine everybody in their life can think of it as a scenario where they have mastery that would like a stand up comedian looking out at a stage probably wouldn't be as scared as me.

A (23:47)

Yeah.

B (23:48)

Cause that would terrify me. So again, this is not necessarily some sort of neurological.

A (23:53)

No, I mean, I think the real takeaway is that I have an amygdala and it works. You know what I mean? Cause I think if the results had shown that I was missing my amygdala, then I would have all kinds of. I would have died already at youth. Cause I wouldn't be able to function 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 20 years of conditioning I respond differently than an average person. And you're like, yeah, no kidding. Like if you put a monk into an fmri, their brain responds totally differently than an average person as well.

B (24:22)

Which I actually think is a really inspiring conclusion because it means that we can all grasp our fears better. And even, you know, people won't know this about me, but 10 years ago, I sat down on camera with my friend Ash in his apartment to record a two minute video. And as I sat there, I 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 to try and get me to say two minutes on camera. And obviously, after 10 years of being on camera, I can now speak without shitting myself. And I imagine my brain state looks significantly different because of exposure therapy.

A (24:55)

Totally, totally. Yeah, you should do the FMRI. Yeah, you should have done 10 years ago because then you'd have your control and then you do it now and it'd be totally different.

B (25:03)

But also the psychologists I've sat with all confirmed this. They talk about exposure therapy. Yeah.

A (25:07)

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, just not like it was terrifying. And now because of the free solo film tour and you know, all the public things I've done since then, I'm like, basically fine. You know, it's like you still got a little nervous, but it's like basically easy now. And you're kind of like, well, that's a total change. It's like, obviously there's a tremendous capacity for humans to learn.

B (25:33)

People talk to you about fear all the time because I mean, your work.

A (25:37)

Cause climate's really frigging scary.

B (25:38)

It makes sense.

A (25:39)

It's totally understandable.

B (25:40)

Yeah, yeah. And they also realize, I think at some deep level that the thing holding them back from who they think they want to be or who they aspire to be is fear. Often it's judgment of someone else. It's taking a risk.

A (25:50)

Totally.

B (25:51)

So you've become, for many people, the like, tell me, tell me how to overcome.

A (25:56)

Yeah, well, I think that everyone's like, what's your hack to overcome fear? And you're like, there's no hack. You just get really freaking scared over and over for so long and eventually it's not that scary anymore. But I will say that that's like a very enduring way to overcome your fear is like, if you're willing to go through that process, then you are actually unafraid, you know, because like, you can do like hacks. I mean, you can, you can like crank up loud rock music and just go for it, you know, like, and there are plenty of examples of that in. In what I'd call gravity assisted sports. Like, say if you're going to jump a cliff on skis, like, you can get to the edge, be like, this is really scary, and then be like, three, two, one, do it, and just like, go. In climbing, you can't really do that as much because it's so slow. Like, when you climb, you make one move and then you make another move, and then you're like, do I still want to be here? Like, it basically fear creeps in a lot more, but sort of in gravity assisted sports, you can have more of that moment where you just, like, overcome your fear and then it happens, you know, like making a big drop in a kayak or like skis or things like that, where it's like, once you commit, it's happening one way or another anyway. There's a lot to get into with, like.

B (26:53)

No, but I mean, I want to get into it. I watched a video of you climbing Half Dome, I think it was.

A (26:58)

Yeah.

B (26:59)

And it looks like you got scared halfway up or.

A (27:01)

Yeah, yeah. Well, so that video is actually filmed later. So the voiceover in that video is me talking about the experience of me free soloing when I was totally alone. And I did get really scared on Half Dome. And I had this whole somewhat traumatic climbing 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. 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. Cause it shows me, like, being really scared.

B (27:26)

What's Half Dome to start with? And then what was the tragic experience?

A (27:29)

Yeah. So Half Dome, for anyone who hasn't seen, is this just totally amazing wall in Yosemite. It's a 2,000 foot granite face. Actually. It's the North Face logo. It's freaking. That's Half Dome.

B (27:40)

Oh, okay.

A (27:40)

Yeah. So it's like an iconic wall in Yosemite. It looks like half of a dome, but actually it's more like a hockey puck just shoved in. It's actually a full dome, depending how you look at it. But the northwest face is vertical for 2,000ft. It's incredible. And so I free sold. That was one of the first, like, major free solos I did in 2008. And one of the things that sort of made me a professional climber in a way, but when I did the climb, I did the bare minimum preparation I basically like didn't know it was, 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 freaking scared, got off route, got confused, skipped some stuff and then at the very top had this whole moment of extreme panic, you know, 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 was like right near the top, I was trying to walk across this ledge. Basically I've walked across that ledge face in and face out and 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. But it turns out when you walk it face out, it's really freaking scary. And so I made it kind of halfway and was like, oh my gosh, and then bailed.

B (28:49)

And when you say you are having like a crisis in your mind, what is that? Is that just. Oh my God, what am I? Like, how does that sound when you.

A (28:58)

Well, I mean, so in this case, so walking across this ledge, it's like it starts maybe as a foot wide, so your foot is fully on the ledge and you're shuffling across it. But then at a certain point, yeah, I mean that's, that's put on the.

B (29:09)

Screen for anyone watching.

A (29:10)

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 I don't know like a 1700 foot drop or something or 1800 foot drop like straight down below you. And so, you know, it's like pretty, it's pretty intense anyway, and so I thought I was going to walk across it like that and I made it to the bulging part and was suddenly like, oh my God, this isn't like, this isn't for me. And then managed to like shuffle back and change my strategy.

B (29:42)

Is it like panic in your head?

A (29:45)

It's not panic, but you're like, oh, oh, I made the wrong choice. Like this is bad, this is bad, you know, I mean it's not like full like five alarm bell, like panic, panic. But yeah, you're like oh, I'm so screwed.

B (29:57)

And you have fallen a long, long way before. I was hearing about a time when you were young and you fell off a mountain and called your mother. Managed to call your mother.

A (30:04)

Yeah, that was like sliding down an icy cooler type thing. It's a little different than, like, free falling off of a cl. Like sliding down a mountain. But, yeah, I got totally messed up and. And, 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. I mean, it's certainly easy to visualize falling 17. You know, when you're, like, standing on a little ledge and you're just bulging and you're looking down, you're. 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, 70, 100ft to the ground.

B (30:39)

The stats in this sport are. I mean, of fatalities. How do they compare to other sports?

A (30:44)

Safer than you would think. That's the thing is everyone thinks it seems crazy, but it's not that crazy. I don't know actual statistics, but I suspect that it's actually pretty comparable to skiing or something, you know, because, like, recreational skiers die all the time. Like falling in tree wells or like, going off cliffs by accident or things like that. Climbing is actually surprisingly safe, which is one of the things I love about climbing. I mean, climbing is very. It's very sort of binary, where it's like, either you're totally safe or you're gonna die. And the odds of you dying are very, very, very small. But because they're there, they always keep you on, you know what I mean? Like, it basically keeps you alert, but you're never really gonna get hurt.

B (31:29)

Is that including free soloing?

A (31:32)

Yeah, I mean, for the most part. I mean, a couple people have died free soloing. I mean, people occasionally die free soloing, for sure. But actually, most of the sort of cutting edge free soloists have not died soloing. They've, like, died in other things.

B (31:44)

I think it was in the documentary on Netflix, Free Solo, where one of your colleagues.

A (31:49)

Yeah, Tommy. Is like, most free solos are dead now, which is kind of true, but it's slightly misstated. I mean, you know, he's just, like, speaking off the cuff, and it's not, like, strictly true. Like, a couple of the best free solos have died Free soloing, though they died on very easy terrain. But then the majority of other great free solas have died in sort of climbing adjacent accidents like wingsuit BASE jumping. And, 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 just kind of like, you know, obviously they're taking risks in their lives and they wind up dead, but it's not the way that people think. You know, you see a photo like that and you're like, free soul lying. You're going to die for sure. And you're kind of like, well, people don't actually really die that way. I mean, they have. I mean, not to say that it doesn't happen, but way less frequently than people would suspect if I was to.

B (32:38)

Try and like, you know, professionally torture you. And again, I'm not talking in extremes here, but what life would I prescribe you to live?

A (32:46)

Oh, being like a finance bro or something. Having to, like, just work spreadsheets my whole life. Is that. You mean, like, what is my, like, worst. I don't know, something like that. Or honestly, being like a choreographer for dance or something? Like, I just. I couldn't do, like. Or being like an opera singer. Like, I would just kill myself. I just couldn't do that.

B (33:04)

Why would being a finance bro be, like, the worst thing for Alex?

A (33:08)

Just the idea of sitting at a computer in a cubicle, just, like, typing. I mean, I'm kind of contrarian. I don't like rules. I don't want to, like, jump through hoops. I don't want to do arbitrary things. Like, I don't want some manager to come and tell me, like, oh, you got to file that report again. You, like, missed a line. I'd be like, you go after. So, you know, I just, like, walk out of the building. Like, it's just. I just, like, don't know if I could take that.

B (33:27)

Be like, no, but that's like how most of the world live. We kind of. We all live in, like, you know.

A (33:31)

I just don't know if it's for me. I don't know. I mean, doesn't that just seem. I mean, I had this moment. I've been in New York a couple of days, and I took the subway down to see some. See some friends, and I was like, coming out of the tunnel and it's like, packed with people, and I was just, like, looking at the ground, and I was like, just, you Know, following someone else's footsteps up this like beat down path of stairs. And I was like, I couldn't live like this. Like not day in and day out, every day. Like this is just like feeling like you're just doing the exact same thing as everyone else around you. I'm like, oh, it seems so, so boring.

B (34:02)

It's funny because so many of us look at your life and go, wow, that's not very normal. But actually maybe at a foundational level you're living a much more normal life than. I mean you're out in nature, you're moving your body.

A (34:14)

Yeah, yeah, in that way for sure. I'm like going on cool adventures and going out and I don't know, I.

B (34:21)

Think that's also part of why the sort of attraction allure with your life, especially when you watch Free Solo is you do seem to be a free man in a way where most of us aren't free as such.

A (34:32)

Yeah, 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, planning to retire at some point and then they're gonna have their freedom and you're kind of like, well I don't know, I mean, maybe you gotta try to live that way as much as possible.

B (34:46)

If your young girls came up to you, June and Alice and said, dad, what is a meaningful life? Like what are the principles of living a fulfilling meaningful life? Would you give them advice there?

A (34:55)

Yeah, yeah. I mean it'd be a long rambling multi day conversation with them about. But I mean following your own goals is I think certainly one of the cores of having a meaningful life. Like having things that you find valuable. I mean really like living in line with your values, finding things that are important to you and pursuing them with as much as you can give them.

B (35:16)

When you look at your early 20s to 30s, it kind of looks like you're living like a Buddhist a little bit.

A (35:21)

I mean, yeah, I went on a trip once where they called me the Monk. So just because I was living such a sort of a seated lifestyle, I was like reading. I've never, I don't drink and I don't like party and I don't. Just for personal preference, whatever. And so I'm just like living in my little van and reading books and climbing all the time. Like 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.

B (35:46)

Have you ever been Depressed or.

A (35:48)

Yeah, probably not like, deep clinical depression, but there's certainly periods from time to time where you're just like, what am I doing? Or why? Or what are my goals? Like, you know, what's. And I think to me, the most surprising thing is that, you know, I've put, like, my whole life into climbing, like, trying to be the best you can be all the time. And sometimes you put tons 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 as good as I want to be. And, like, that's challenging, you know, but that's. I mean, everybody faces that to some extent, where you're like, I'm working hard at a thing, but I'm just not achieving the results that I want.

B (36:21)

And between the. Between that sort of. That period of no man's 20 and 30 where your career hasn't taken off yet, the documentary's not out. You've not climbed Taipei. How much money are you earning from climbing?

A (36:35)

I mean, the first. My first couple years, my sponsorship through the North Face was like. I think my first year was, like 10k a year. I was like, this is amazing. So I was living in my car, and, you know, making 10 grand when you live by yourself in a van is, like, more than you need, basically. It obviously went up beyond that at some point, but it was in the 10 to 100 range for the first. For the whole. Yeah, for years.

B (36:59)

Then at some point, it increases.

A (37:01)

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

B (37:21)

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

A (37:50)

Yeah. Which is fair. I Mean, I spent years looking at El cap and being like, that's too big. That's impossible. And then, you know, after years of that, I kept hoping that I would look at it and it would, like, look easy somehow. And I'd be like, cool, 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 the pieces, then you're kind of like, okay, it starts to feel more reasonable.

B (38:14)

Break it into pieces and start working on the pieces. What does that mean in terms of climbing? So if we. I mean, I've got this model here of typo 101. So, you know, and this is also a metaphor for any challenge I have in my life.

A (38:27)

But this is actually perfect. Cause it's right here.

B (38:28)

Yeah.

A (38:29)

So I scouted this in September of this year. I did the climb in January or whatever. In September. We went and. Well, we had to, like, one, make sure it was possible before you sort of, like, commit to it. Doing a whole TV program, you're kind of like, let's make sure we can do this. And then they also had to get all this sort of marketing material. You, like, get the first photos with the building, like, all the stuff that becomes the trailer and whatever. And so we went in September to sort of, like, do the prep. And so we. I basically checked out all the different 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 Ruiz, these little, like, coin things or whatever the clouds or whatever they are. Then there are the dragons on the corners. These are all overhanging. Like, each of these eight blocks is like a big overhanging thing. It feels a little bit different. Then you get up here, there's like, these balconies. These are actually overhanging. Like, basically each little segment of this is quite different. You know, obviously on this model, it, like, looks the same, but each transition between the different pieces is like a thing. So I checked out all of them with ropes, and yeah, you just go piece by piece all the way up the whole thing.

B (39:28)

And you hadn't ever climbed it before? We saw it on Netflix Live.

A (39:31)

Well, I hadn't free solo it, no, but I had climbed it. I climbed all the pieces with a rope, for sure. I'd like, checked out the different things. Okay.

B (39:38)

So you look at these as individual challenges every step.

A (39:42)

Yeah, it's like you go even like just getting off the ground. The first move is a slightly different move than any of the other moves. You have to like jump up to a thing and press it out. Then climbing over these little clouds is a different thing. Each dragon is a different thing. Yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, there's a surprising amount of complexity to it. And so our first on the Scout, you know, I had a note on my phone 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 54 to 72, it feels like this. I climb the southeast corner, the left Rhett, you know, just. And then. Yeah, just writing it all down.

B (40:14)

And I mean, there's this famous photo of you hanging with your leg.

A (40:17)

Yeah, that's this. These are the rings up here.

B (40:19)

So you're hanging. You're hanging from here with your leg. Now I. This is really a question of endurance. Like, how would you plan to have the energy? Like, how do you know if you're gonna have enough energy when you're up here, when you're just planning it?

A (40:33)

I mean. Well, 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 24 hours. I mean, I had this experience in Patagonia once. It was a 54 hour push with like the last 20 hours we hiked without food. Cause 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 24 hours. And so this, you know, I expect it to take me somewhere in the hour and a half, two hour range. I'm kind of like, yeah, I mean, I'll be tired after two hours of exercise, but I'm not going to be exhausted. You know what I mean? Like, I know that I have a much deeper reserve than that.

B (41:07)

So much of the conversation around after you'd done this, or some of the conversation was around whether this was a harder challenge than El Capitan.

A (41:15)

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 Different. It's fun, it's challenging. Like for me, it's really like in my sweet spot where it is challenging enough. Like it's not easy. You know what I mean? Like saying easier than El Cap. It doesn't, you know, El Cap was like a 10 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, you know, I mean, like LCAP was like an all consuming life project for years. Kind of like, obviously you can't do that for live tv. It's like you just can't put anyway. But this was very much in my sweet spot where you're like, oh, it's hard enough that it's, that it's hard. Like it's cool, you know, like it's fun, it's interesting. The climb is engaging. It's, you know, gave me something to train for for months. It's like, it's super fun, but it's not, you know, it's not like the absolute limit of what I can do because you just can't do that on live tv. I mean, if nothing else. So I was climbing the southeast direct 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 direct 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, you know, just things like that, you're like, well, if you're doing it for TV and you're trying to broadcast it, then you want it to look good. But like, if you're trying to do it for hard climbing in good conditions, you do it in full shade.

B (42:38)

And Netflix had a 10 second delay just in case you fell.

A (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.

B (42:49)

Was there a hardest part of this? A part where you were at all nervous?

A (42:53)

The thing I was most nervous about when I started were the bamboo boxes, like doing these eight overhanging segments. Cause they're just so relentlessly the same move. And it's just, it's pretty physical. Like you get tired, for sure. I mean, the actual physical, hardest moves, 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 these giant bolts. So it looked super safe, and it was very robust and secure. But it would have been kind of like this extreme jump, which I wasn't. It's probably possible, but would have been like, a major thing. But instead you just reef off the security camera. And I was like, that's so cool. So 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.

B (43:43)

Do you have a conversation with your girls and your wife before you go and do something like this about just in case you don't come back? I know.

A (43:50)

Not with the kids because they're too young and, like, they wouldn't. They don't understand anyway. And not with her because she came with me to Taipei or she was there for, like, the whole end of it. I went a little bit early so I could adapt to the time zone more and, like, feel better. But basically, she was with me. So, you know, like, we went to bed together that night and, like, woke up that morning, had breakfast together. So it didn't feel like a big goodbye, you know, it was kind of. Actually, she was with me at the base. 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, I was like. And I saw her through the window a couple times, and so it felt like she was just there having the whole experience with me.

B (44:24)

Did you look at other buildings in the world, like the Burj some?

A (44:27)

Yeah, I've scouted the Burj twice over the years. Back when this project. This project almost happened in 2013 or something. And so I'd scouted some buildings, then the Burj was just a little too extreme. It's just too hard. But someday, maybe, who knows?

B (44:42)

Because it's. What? Like, there's not enough. It's too slippery?

A (44:45)

Yeah, it's super slippery. Also, it's just the way the holds are, like. I mean, the Beauty of Typo 101 is that the holds, like, they're good things to hold that are close together, and you're just like. And you can hold them, and you feel secure. The burj I can barely span tip to tip to, like, reach between the holds. And so then your face is, like, right against the glass. You're, like, holding on like this. And it's pretty hard. And you have to do the same thing 112 times in a row. It's, like, pretty hard to do it once. Then you have to do it 100 times. You're like, it's kind of hard.

B (45:10)

The other thing that I saw online, after you'd climbed it, about one or two days after, everyone started talking about how much you were paid to do it, I think because you did an interview with the.

A (45:18)

It's funny, there were some quotes that were kind of taken out of context because, yeah, a New York Times reporter asked me how much I was getting paid, and I was kind of like, oh, I don't want to talk about it. Because it's kind of embarrassing, because all my friends, it's like, an embarrassingly high amount for my community. Like, in the climbing world, if you're getting paid to rock climb, you're like, great success. You're getting paid to climb. That's insane. You know, and so I thought it was, like, sort of an embarrassingly large amount where I'm like, oh, this is kind of weird. But then he sort of poked around and he started comparing it to, like, boxing matches and stuff, where people get paid, like, $20 million to, like, fight someone boxing. And I was like, well, no, compared to that, it's an embarrassingly small amount. You know, it's like. Or if you compare it to, like, major league baseball contracts and things, and it's like, yeah, it's an embarrassingly small amount, But I was never complaining. Like, I thought it was great. I mean, I would do it for free. I mean, I've paid money to go up to the observation deck. The observation deck is way up here at the top, and the view is insane, and the city's incredible, and, you know, it's like 20 bucks or whatever to take the world's fastest elevator to the top of the building. And, you know, I've done that in the burj 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 that I travel, like 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 kind of like, if someone's willing to pay me to climb up to the observation deck, that's freaking cool.

B (46:30)

Yeah. I think it's because people, again, they believe that this is. You're risking your entire life.

A (46:36)

Yeah.

B (46:37)

And so they don't think of boxes as risking their entire life in the same way.

A (46:40)

Except they kind of are.

B (46:41)

They are. Yeah. But they don't see it as that.

A (46:44)

I know. Of course they don't see it as that, and that's totally understandable. I get that. But I see it as, like, anybody going into the boxing ring, particularly if they're very mismatched, you know, like, you would think that there is some real chance of grievous injury or, like, death. You know, it's like. It's insane. And so I think that people over. The thing is, I think people that don't know anything about anything, like, don't know anything about climbing. Look at me climbing a building. They're like, it's 50, 50 if he lives or dies. Like, no idea. And you're like, no. If you put this in the context of all the things that I've climbed in my life, I felt very confident that I wouldn't fall off the building. You know, I was like, you know, obviously, it's never 100% because, like, whatever, it's life, but, you know, it feels like 100%. You're like, oh, there's no chance I'm falling off this building.

B (47:25)

The rumors were that you got 500k to climb it from Netflix.

A (47:29)

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. Like, actually, we were talking about the Half Dome 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. Just because you're kind of like, oh, it's part of being a professional climber, and I get to go climbing and I'm up with my friends filming on a thing. You're just like, you're working for free. It's fine. But by doing all that stuff for free, like, I never stressed the day rate. I was like, I don't need to get paid to go have fun with my friends on wall. It's fine. But as a result of that Film. A year or two later, they wound up doing a photo shoot out there for the COVID of National Geographic. And so you just wind up in other things. And then that got seen, and I wound up being profiled by 60 Minutes, which actually was one of the first sort of career inflection points. It was like the 60 Minutes profile in 2011 or something. But basically, I've done a ton of work for free over my life as all part of, like, it's all part of the game, and I just love playing the game. And so you just, like, let it play out. And it's funny because with this building, a lot of people thought that I was sort of underpaid by it. But afterward, you know, some people have approached me about some bonuses and some other work stuff. And, like, basically a lot has already sort of happened, and it's only been a couple weeks since the building, and I'm kind of like, you know, you don't need to get paid for the thing itself because it always works. Basically. I'm kind of like. I don't know. I'm like, don't get hung up on how much you get paid. Just do the thing, make sure it's fricking rad, and it all sorts itself out.

B (48:59)

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's also been like. That's completely true for my life as well. Even this podcast, like, when we started the podcast in my kitchen. I mean, this is a replica of my kitchen, and Jack was here. There was no payment when we started it.

A (49:13)

Yeah, exactly. You're just doing a thing. You make it as good as you can, and eventually it all sort of works. And you're like, cool.

B (49:18)

Because that pattern you've just described has played out for 15 years of my life. I now and again, 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 is like, don't let the inability to see where the money's going to come from in the near term. Stop you pursuing something that you think is going to create value. Because history shows that actually value, like giving value out into the world precedes the economics totally. And so if it happened 15 years of my life where I remember when I started the social media business and people. A guy sat me down in Google in London and explained to me why I would never make money from that business. He, like, he did the math for me, and the math was solid. He was like, if you do want, you won't make any money. And I was like, you're like, yeah.

A (50:07)

But I don't think that's true. You know, you're like.

B (50:09)

And you have no evidence.

A (50:10)

Yeah, but you just know it's gonna work.

B (50:12)

The Uber 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 Jevons paradox where when something.

A (50:19)

Efficiency.

B (50:19)

Yeah, when more efficient, 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 that and I found the same in podcasting when we started about five years ago was, yeah, like, you set me down and go, well, Steve, CPMs, you're gonna have to be getting a million downloads to make, like, to earn a living. Like, but you're like, wait and see.

A (50:45)

Yeah, like, we're comics. Catch up and let it happen.

B (50:48)

I mean, you're a prime example of that.

A (50:49)

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, you know, make money off it. It's like, I don't know, I mean, 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.

B (51:15)

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A (53:26)

What? How come?

B (53:28)

Just because. Okay, so there's many things. One of them is the whole idea of, like, sunk cost bias, where you become successful at a thing and 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 reminding yourself of that is it liberates you from getting caught up in worrying about things that, in the grand scheme of cosmic reality, are totally inconsequential.

A (54:00)

Yeah.

B (54:01)

I was hearing someone say the other day, do you know the name of your great grandfather? Do you know his first name?

A (54:08)

Not really.

B (54:08)

And do you know the life they lived and what they were worried about and how they were embarrassed and their shame?

A (54:13)

Yeah, exactly. No, you don't know any of that.

B (54:14)

And the point is, if you don't even know your own families.

A (54:17)

Yeah, yeah, bullshit. Like Nobody else cares. Yeah.

B (54:20)

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.

A (54:26)

Totally. Well, I'm already experiencing that with this stuff. You know, like, the building was like insane for a moment, but now it's the Olympics and there's a lot going on in the news cycle and it's like the world's moved on and I'm like, great. I'll go back to just like being at home with my family and climbing as much as I can.

B (54:39)

Being at home with your family? You said earlier that when you were in that van for 10 years you wanted a girlfriend. Now, I'm not being funny, but people that fit your profile, and to some degree, people that fit my profile struggle in intimate relationships for a variety of reasons. And I think I actually saw this in the documentary when I watched Free Solo. I saw you had a partner at the time. There was an accident on the cliffside where you fell, and she was supposed to be protecting you. And generally I just saw someone who probably is more on the less affectionate, more commitment avoidant side of life. Is that accurate?

A (55:11)

I don't know about commitment avoidance because actually I have had long term girlfriends and things, but yeah, definitely. I'm less expressive, I'm less emotionally intelligent than my wife.

B (55:20)

Has she ever given you feedback that she wishes you were more emotionally available? I mean, I get that.

A (55:27)

I mean, yeah, yeah, in different words, perhaps, but yeah, basically.

B (55:33)

Sani. Yeah, Sannee is her name. She wrote a letter. Oh, gosh, that's funny, because the first two words are, oh, gosh, an intimate letter out loud.

A (55:43)

Oh, gosh, she does know me.

B (55:46)

Obviously, this is your worst nightmare.

A (55:48)

She said, she knows me so well.

B (55:51)

But we all have to do scary things sometimes.

A (55:53)

Alex, my coach.

B (55:58)

She said, I remember when you read a book once about a woman who said she was less affected by emotions than most people. For her entire life, people tried to convince her that she was wrong, that she was suppressing her feelings, but at the end of the day, she just wasn't. As you were reading, you turned to me and said something similar. Something like, everyone wants to believe that I'm burying all these things, these feelings deep inside, but I'm just not. And I laughed and I joked, don't worry, I know you're dead inside. If I remember correctly, you gave me a hug. But I've thought about this conversation a lot because as the person married to you, I spend a lot of time trying to understand you. And While there obviously are emotions that drive you, I was mostly joking about the dead inside part. I do think you are far less affected by some feelings like anxiety, fear, shame, guilt or self doubt than many of us. But the longer I know you, the more I see an ocean of something else hiding beneath the surface. Filling the space that would normally be taken up by all these feelings is the ability to truly see things. You move through the world like a hawk while the rest of us are lost in thought. As a climber, you can see the way up a rock face, the climbability of a building, or the layered 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. Sometimes this is the hardest thing about you. Nothing goes unnoticed. Neither the strengths nor the weaknesses, the moments of dedication or the moments of laziness. You are practical and blunt in your assessment of your choices and our lives, but that's also because you see us and paying attention is love. Your ability to see the world so clearly allows you to also appreciate it more clearly, and that is a special form of your love. Perhaps there's a well of emotion in there after all. But for the purposes of this letter, Alex, I want to give you your gift back to you and tell you what I see, particularly in the last four years since we had kids, because I think the way you move through the world with us is a unique love story. I see you rushing down the trail from the climbing area so you can get back in time for dinner with me and the girls. I see you flying the red eye so you can be home a day sooner. I see you cramming in your gym session even when you have a huge goal on the horizon so that I have time for my workout too. I see you pushing your body to the absolute limit during the day but still managing to stay awake long enough to chat to me at night. I see you taking on an extra day of travel just to convince someone with money to donate 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 to not only be a great athlete, but a great dad and husband. I know it's not easy, but I see it and I appreciate it. We love you as you are, Alex. Not overly emotional, but present, committed and always seeing what others miss. Yours sounding.

A (59:21)

She is Very astute. I was like, that's. I was like, that's why I married her, you know? I don't know.

B (59:30)

She is very astute.

A (59:33)

Yeah.

B (59:35)

I learned a lot about you from reading this.

A (59:38)

What do you think?

B (59:39)

You know, we all show our love in different ways. And sometimes I think the conventional way that the world tries to measure love is through the, like, verbal expression of it and romantic gestures and those kinds of things. But there's another type of person who often struggles, I think, in life's expectations of what love looks like, who show it through acts of service.

A (60:01)

That was literally one of our last big arguments about something. Like in bed the other night. Not like a total blowout, but basically she was sort of like, I just need more, you know, of the verbal kind. And I was kind of like, I'm literally doing all the things. And I always sort of say, you know, actions speak louder than words. I'm kind of like, if you're doing all the things, you're doing the correct things, you don't need to talk about them because you're doing the things, you know? And that was basically a back and forth. I mean, you know, I took her point that, like, occasionally you have to say the right thing, too.

B (60:29)

Well, I have the same argument on repeat with my fiance.

A (60:34)

She needs the words, too. Yeah.

B (60:35)

She has, like, a different language. She's speaking Spanish, I'm speaking French.

A (60:38)

Yeah.

B (60:39)

And also, by the way, I have to say, at some deep level, again, because of my early context where, like, you, I wished my parents would break up. I wish they would just get a divorce because the model of love I saw was not a happy one. I think at some deep level, I have a commitment problem or an intimacy problem where even growing up, calling someone my best friend somewhat made me cringe. Like, saying affectionate words to someone at some deep level made me feel deeply uncomfortable. And so you can imagine me being dating. And then I think, like, oftentimes we go for the opposite in the person we end up marrying. Like, marrying or.

A (61:11)

Yeah, certainly for me. Yeah. Yeah.

B (61:13)

Well, certainly.

A (61:13)

Yeah. My wife is, like, way more emotionally intelligent than anyone in my entire extended family.

B (61:18)

Yeah.

A (61:18)

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. It's like the things that you can't do, and it's like filling your blind spots, basically.

B (61:30)

Have you got better at saying the words?

A (61:31)

No.

B (61:32)

Any progress?

A (61:33)

Yeah, progress, probably, but very slow, but in a way that's great, you know, because we're going to be married the rest of our lives, and so that could be another 50, 60 years together. And so you need to see incremental progress, because really there's nothing better in life than making progress. And I've started at such a low point, and I'm making progress so slowly that I basically have a good project for the rest of my life.

B (61:53)

Oh, we kind of touched on it before. But one of the things that's been front of mind for me at the moment is actually something I saw in your personality test, which was you are high in perseverance. And we talked earlier on about, like, mastery and how it's important to persist to get good at something. But this has just been front of mind for me, I think, for a long time. Because even, like, as a podcast, I realized that a lot of the game, I'm like five years in now, and when I look at someone like Joe Rogan, he's been going for like, I don't know, 15, 17 years or more. Yeah, or more. And I go like so much of the game in becoming great at something.

A (62:30)

Yeah. It's just grinding.

B (62:31)

It's just going, keep doing it. Unusual amount.

A (62:34)

Well, it's like compounding interest. I'm like, look at Warren Buffett. Have you ever seen stuff with Warren Buffett where it's like, you know, it took him whatever, 40 years to make his first couple million or whatever. Took him another like 10 or 15 years to make his first billion. And then it took him like, whatever, in the last eight years, he's made like $100 billion, 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.

B (62:55)

It's exactly that. And so I've been thinking about that also.

A (62:57)

All those numbers are incorrect, but the shape of the graph is correct.

B (63:00)

We'll put it on the screen so everyone can see it.

A (63:01)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody correct my numbers. But principle is correct.

B (63:05)

It's the same. It's the same as this graph here that you drew of your career. It's the same as the podcast growth, where three years, no one was listening. And then we have this.

A (63:13)

Yeah.

B (63:14)

And I think as a principle, that's.

A (63:15)

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 get on board.

B (63:26)

Okay. So on that train of thought, 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.

A (63:43)

Totally. Because then it feels like hard work as opposed to something that we're like, this is amazing.

B (63:47)

Yeah. So when I look at my cat, they'll say, oh, this person wants to come. And they've got 160, gazillion followers.

A (63:52)

But you're like, I don't care about that person.

B (63:54)

Yeah. Because if I. If I use that as a decision framework for the next 10 years, I'll quit.

A (63:58)

Yeah.

B (63:59)

Do you think about that, like, the conditions to out persist in your domain?

A (64:02)

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 comes easily. But, like, in terms of the work stuff I do, I forget. I think I was talking to you before we started recording. But. But I host this podcast called Planet Visionaries. It's like a Rolex perpetual planet. Like, I inter 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 are all so uniquely good at what they do, and they're all trying to save the world in different ways. It's like, you know, marine biologists, like, exploring the deep sea floor and things like that. Yesterday I interviewed these two women about the fact that we've only explored 0.001% of the deep sea, which represents two thirds of the planet. So basically, 2/3 of the planet we know, like, literally nothing about. And there's like this rich underwater world of, like, cool stuff going on in the ocean floor that we've never seen and know nothing about, and 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, you know, push myself. And I'm kind of like, that's the type of work that I want to do as much as possible. And then there are other kinds of things where, you know, I'll do, like corporate Speaking or something where you show up at a conference and you just like get ground down. You know, when you leave and you go back to your hotel and all you can do is just like lie there on the bed for an hour being like, oh, what am I doing with my life? You know, you feel like kind of wrecked. So it's like if you can focus on the work where you come out of it feeling inspired and like excited to try hard, versus the work that makes you want to like mindlessly scroll on something for hours. You know what I mean? Because sometimes you're just like, oh, I'm just so over it.

B (65:37)

Yeah, someone said that to me early in my career. They said like whenever you find domains that make you feel expansive, like totally, you should double down on those domains. Cause that's the path to mastery. You're gonna be able to continue.

A (65:48)

Yeah. Cause you can just keep pushing super hard than that. And yeah, thankfully for climbing, that's always just been that, like, I just freaking love climbing. It's so great. You should do it more.

B (65:56)

I know you make us all want to climb more, Alex. That's one of the, I think the great consequences of watching you do something like Taipei. I mean, there was loads of kids in the streets of Taipei, I think that were all trying to climb buildings. There was loads of funny videos. Obviously they were only getting like a meter up before they fell.

A (66:12)

But I was like, hopefully they don't. Yeah, hope not too much copycatting. But yeah, we got some crazy numbers from Netflix that I think half of people, or more than half of people who have a Netflix subscription in Taiwan, watch the building climb on. It's like in Taiwan, it was like insane. Like literally everybody watch. It's such a singular, striking building in Taipei. It's like a total national icon, you know, it's like a. It's insane.

B (66:38)

Have you already started thinking about what you're going to do next?

A (66:40)

People are always like, you know, what's your next big thing? And I'm kind of like, you know, if you just focus on doing lots of little things all the time, occasionally the big things just happen and you can't totally know ahead of time. You know what I mean?

B (66:50)

Explain that to me.

A (66:51)

Well, so at least so I mean, I have climbing goals going back 20 years. I have all these notes on my phone. I always have like to do lists. I've. Especially when I lived in the van and I was traveling. You're like seasonally moving between climbing destinations non stop. So I'd lay I'd Layer out all these different types of goals, like I want to do these types of things. Certain goals lead to other goals because their same type of fitness, let's say. So like, doing really big things help you do even bigger things later, but doing like really hard and intense things help you do other hard and intense things later, you know, so in some ways, in the way you stack your goals, you can kind of build up to big things or like, build up to really hard things or whatever. And so I've always had running to do lists of like, I'm going to try to do all these climbs this year, and realistically, I normally do like half of them or some of them I never even get to because it's like the weather's not good and I wind up going to a different area or like, don't go to that, that climbing destination at all. And so I never even tried the project. But I've always had tons of goals like that. And looking back at years and years of that type of those types of lists, I just see that it's slightly hard to predict when you're going to achieve the things that are like, cutting edge or groundbreaking or whatever. You just have to keep doing the things nonstop. And every once in a while, some of them rise to the top. I mean, this kind of goes back to the same, like, value creating things. Like you don't know which things are going to be rad. You just do all the things and some of them wind up being rad.

B (68:05)

And the decision framework there is to just do things you love and that challenge you.

A (68:10)

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

B (68:32)

The CEO of Uber Daria was sat there yesterday and one of the contrarian pieces of life advice he gave, which is kind of overlaid with what you just said, is he said people need to stop making. Young people in particular need to stop making life plans because it narrows them to the serendipity and opportunity and things that might happen if they're broader, open minded.

A (68:50)

Well, or. My wife and I sometimes joke that we both have very strong opinions Loosely held, where it's like, oh, I'm totally sure of a thing right up until I get some data that shows that that's wrong. And then you're like, oh, nevermind, throw that away. And that's kind of 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, 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, you know?

B (69:17)

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 it's kind of like just.

A (69:24)

Just keep doing cool things. It'll. It'll all work out.

B (69:28)

I would love if we could scan your brain and look at all the parts, especially in the context I learned about this particular region of the brain called the anterior mid singular cortex, which I heard Andrew Huberman talking about. And it's a part of the brain they discovered quite recently that lights up when you do things that you don't want to do. So not things that you enjoy doing that are somewhat difficult, like running a marathon, but things that you actively avoid and resist but do anyway. Pain, fear, effort, discipline. This is the circuit that decides whether you quit or you push through and it grows the more you do things you don't want to do. So it's like they now consider it to be the muscle of willpower in the brain. Look at athletes, they have bigger ones. When they look at people who are struggling or less are more sedentary or struggling with their weight, they often have smaller ones. Anyone that avoids discomfort has a smaller one.

A (70:13)

So.

B (70:15)

In the context of the way you've lived your life, you've continued to do things that are hard. I mean, you can love climbing, but you don't necessarily love.

A (70:22)

Yeah, but just doing like one more set every time is like, that's always a challenge. You're always like, my whole body hurts, but I'll just do a little more, you know?

B (70:29)

Yeah. And I think 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 type A, from their type A101. They're so far away from that they're in a job they just don't like. They're maybe the Finance, bro, that, you know, you talked about a second ago. And their life is absent of adventure and they probably look at you and go, well, you know, he just has something I don't have.

A (70:51)

I know, but I just don't, you know, I mean, I've structured my life in a different way and I've made many different choices and all that. But that's the thing is I don't really think I have anything different. I mean, I, I actually hate all the like, brain stuff because people always like, use that to, to 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 of my parents, like, nobody in my family is athletic. Like, nobody is good at sports at all. You know, it's like, like, basically if you were to like, look at the, you know, like if I was a video game character and you were to look at all my little bars, you'd be like, that guy's not going to be an athlete. Like, he's not good at this. You know, it's like, my parents are professors and we freaking read books. Like, I'm not. There's no aptitude for anything really. And I was like, bad at sports as a kid. I'm not good with balls. Like, you know, there's no reason. But I mean, really, I just have loved climbing enough that I've been willing to put in a tremendous amount of time and effort and eventually get good at it. And I'm kind of like to hear people say, like, oh, your brain's different. You're kind of like, well, everybody's brain is a little bit different in some ways. It doesn't mean that you can't devote yourself to something that you care about.

B (71:52)

But with this in mind and with all the neuroscientists that I've interviewed, your brain is different in part because you've done different things. And neuroplasticity says you can change your brain right the way up throughout your entire life. One of my friends, Tom Bilyeu, is a good example of that. He's a big podcaster. You might know Tom Bilyeu. I don't know if you do so, but he, you know, he was, I can't remember the rough age, but I'm gonna say he was 30 years old. He was so, in his words, lazy that he would lay in bed all day. When his girlfriend came home, he said he would jump up out of bed just so she didn't believe that he was in bed. All day. And he didn't want to be embarrassed. And when he asked his at the time girlfriend if he could asked her dad if he could marry her, dad said no. He described it. He was like lazy and down and out. Over the next 10 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. Yeah.

A (72:50)

So what did he do?

B (72:50)

He wrote a book about neuroplasticity. And he realized that he wasn't stuck. He learned about neuroplasticity, which means that at any age in your life, the decisions you make change your brain. And that's why I love this discovery of this anterior mid singular cortex. Cause it means that like, maybe in part the reason why I'm not taking on my type A one on one is because I haven't taken on my Taipei 101.

A (73:12)

Yeah, well, you haven't taken on your Taipei one, your type A 12 or whatever, you know, like just the little pieces at the bottom. Because that's the thing is like. And actually this is why when you ask about like any big goals, I'm like, sometimes I think the big goals are slightly limiting. Because like, if you're your friend who's laying in bed, type 101 is not the appropriate goal. You know what I mean? Like, you need. You need a type A4. Like, you need to just get out and like do a little thing. You need to achieve some success. You need to see that you can do something and you need to take on appropriately sized challenges. Because I think having a great white whale, you know, is. Is great sometimes, but that's not always what you need, you know. And partially like for me right now, you know, we're raising two little kids and we're just like in the midst of it, you know, it's like bedtime right now is hanging. It's just like, it's a lot. And I'm like, I don't need like an el cap size goal right now. Because, you know, we're just trying to make it through a certain phase of life really. Not to say that I'll never have other big goals, but you're kind of like, you want your goals to be appropriate to the time and space that you have available.

B (74:14)

I had a psychologist say to me about this idea of just setting yourself a type A1, like a small goal. The reason why people don't do it is because they see it as almost so embarrassingly small that they don't think it matters.

A (74:26)

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.

B (74:35)

But that same psychologist told me that when they were dealing with a patient who was so demotivated that they couldn't get out of their bedroom, which was stacked to the ceiling with plates and cutlery, that day one was bringing the Hoover into the room. That was day one. Day two was plugging it in. That was day two. And by day 30, they're outside. This is someone who is scared of going outside. They're outside, walking around. The room is clean. But he said to me that people don't take that first step because it's so embarrassingly small that it's almost shameful to say, like, today we're just gonna bring the Hoover in.

A (75:02)

Yeah, but that's the thing, is it's always better to take a step than to not take a step, you know, and that's. Yeah, I mean, that's how I've always felt with all these things. You're like, well, you might as well go out and do the thing. Like, do something. I remember at the beginning, I was like, you don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Like, you do the good thing, you know, because it, like, it's like, don't let perfectionism cripple you. You know, it's like. That's why I think, you know, type A101, if that's kind of like your perfect goal, it's like, don't let that hold you back from going out and climbing Taipei 4 or Taipei 8 or, you know, like, some of the surrounding little buildings, because it's like, oh, you practice on what you can.

B (75:36)

Goes back to this point of perseverance. I read a quote many years ago that said greatness doesn't exist. Greatness is just good repeated.

A (75:42)

I mean, this is what I'm saying about having lots of little goals is that I would actually say that if you repeat good enough every once in a while, some of those are great, actually, but you just don't totally know. You know, I noticed that a lot, like, in my climbing life, like, in the long arc of climbing, there are tons of things I did in Yosemite where, like, in a season, I'd have, like, five or six goals in Yosemite, and I do all the things. And one of them, for whatever reason, would wind up being like, that's rad. And it would, you know, like, makes climbing news and things like that. And the other ones, you know, maybe less so, but you don't totally know ahead of time which ones are cool or not and which ones are going to stand the test of time. Like, at one point in the not too distant past, I held a speed record on every major formation in Yosemite. Now, a few of them have been broken over time, but those are the kinds of things where you never really know, like, how long those types of records will last, because sometimes you do them and then your friend comes and breaks 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, 15 years, and you're sort of like, oh, I didn't realize that this was gonna be, like, such a milestone.

B (76:38)

You know, it reminds me of the Steve Jobs quote about how you can only really connect the dots looking backwards. In a totally, totally Steve Jobs quote from his commencement speech was, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. Clarity isn't a prerequisite for action. It's the reward you get after you move.

A (77:02)

And that's. That's the thing is, I think, because I do so many interviews with, like, you know, when was the moment you decided to be a professional climber? And I'm like, there's no moment. Like, I just did the thing for years and years. And now looking backward, it looks like this amazing arc, you know, but at the moment, you're always, you know, I spent years being like, should I go back to college? Like, do I need a degree? Like, and then I spent a few years wondering if I should go back and get like, an executive MBA or something. Or something. Because I was like, I don't want to go back to undergrad. I've been living in my van for 10 years. And. But you're kind of like, still, I need that validation. I need, you know, I want to jump through the hoops. And then. And really, it's only now that I'm kinda like, I don't think I need that.

B (77:32)

In part, I think the reason why so many of us get forced into procrastination when we're trying to connect the dots looking forward is because we face these questions from Society, which is like, what's your plan? What's your career? What are you aiming at? And we don't have answers, so we fill in the gaps. We have to say something to Mum and Dad. We have to say, like, what's the plan for the future? You can't say nothing. No. No plan.

A (77:50)

Well, or you just say, I'm living. I'm just letting it play out. We'll just see what happens. It's gonna be a grand adventure. I don't know. I mean, I kind of hope my kids feel confident with that, you know, just kind of like, well, I'm doing the best I can. I'm practicing the things that I care about, and we'll see how it plays out.

B (78:05)

We'll see how it plays out.

A (78:06)

Because, like, either way, it's gonna play out with me and them and everybody else dying. You're like, you know how it's gonna play out at the end. End. 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.

B (78:18)

It's a remarkably simple way to live in a world that's increasingly complex, Alex.

A (78:22)

Hmm. Well, I mean, it doesn't need to be that complex, but this is why I think spending some time in nature, like, helps remind you of some of those sorts of things.

B (78:32)

This company that I've just invested in is growing like crazy. I want to be the one to tell you about it, because I think it's going to create such a huge productivity advantage for you. Whisper Flow 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, like absolute crazy. And this is why I invested in the business and why they're now a sponsor of this show. And Whisper Flow is frankly becoming the worst kept secret in business productivity and entrepreneurship. Check it out now at Whisper Flow, spelled W I S P R F L O W dot AI. Stephen, 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 El Cap again. I don't know, a different building. You have one week and assume you're sufficiently prepared for whatever the climb would be. What would you say?

A (79:55)

So I'm allowed to do like cutting edge futuristic things?

B (79:58)

Yeah.

A (79:59)

Oh, well then I'm like, I don't know, I mean the burrish, like it'd be insane. But. But no, like the, the free triple in Yosemite is like the three biggest walls in Yosemite. Free triple, the. So it's El Cap, Half Dome and Mount Watkins. Mount Watkins is kind of like a half dome sized wall that's further up valley, but so it was the three biggest walls in Yosemite. So Tommy Caldwell and I have free climbed the triple. The two of us did it together with ropes, but we like climbed the whole thing. And then I've soloed the triple. So I've done all three with ropes by myself. It was like 18 or 19 hours or something of climbing, but it's never been free soloed. I free solid halfdom individually and I free soloed El Cap individually. No one's ever free solid walk ins but the idea of doing all three in a day would be like, I think totally like next generation achievement. There's certain things like that where I'm sort of like if I was starting over, if I was like an 18 year old who was like trying to make it as a professional climber nowadays and had a higher level of skill than I do now and you know, basically was like trying to do this again. There are things like that that would be sort of like the obvious next generation challenge.

B (80:58)

Free solo all three in the same day.

A (81:00)

Yeah, yeah. It'd probably take. Well, it'd take a bit under 24 hours probably.

B (81:07)

What is your training regimen these days? Is it.

A (81:10)

It's got rock climbing a lot today. I did a little workout in the hotel gym this morning.

B (81:13)

Your hands are quite different. They're quite big hands.

A (81:16)

Well, that's, I mean, you know, think of like a stonemason just like grinding.

B (81:19)

Away their Whole life I see you have. I don't know if people can see that on camera, but it does look like you have very wide fingers.

A (81:28)

Yeah, my fingers have taken a lot of abuse in their time.

B (81:31)

Cause I see you like putting them in between walls and stuff.

A (81:35)

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 does sort of make your connective tissue bigger.

B (81:43)

And does that hurt?

A (81:44)

Yeah, it hurts.

B (81:45)

I was wondering when you're going uphill.

A (81:47)

When you're doing it well, with good technique, it's not that painful. It depends on the type of rock. But some rock is kind of sharp and kind of painful. But yeah, this is. This goes back to strengthening your. What's the part called in your brain?

B (81:56)

Anterior mid singular cortex.

A (81:58)

Yeah, exactly, that guy. I mean that's the thing is that even when done well climbing like it hurts your fingers and toes. You know, crack climbing, when you're like jamming your toes into a crack and you're torquing them side to side and you're like wedging your fingers in. I mean, when you're doing it well, it has a pleasant feel of safety to it. Cause you can really like lock into cracks and it feels comfortable and you feel like you're swimming. You're like, this is beautiful. But when you really come down to the sensations, you're still crushing your bones into a crack. Like it still hurts.

B (82:22)

When I look at this kind of photo where you're. It looks like you're hanging by one and a half hands.

A (82:30)

Yeah.

B (82:30)

And you're gonna fall to your death if you. If your grip isn't sufficient. It makes me think you must have the world's greatest grip strength.

A (82:37)

I definitely don't, but I mean, well, you have your grip thing. You can find out what's below you.

B (82:42)

There in this photo.

A (82:43)

Well, actually, so there is like a sloping cliff thing below me. So I'm actually only like 30ft off the ground or 40ft. But if you fell, you'd bounce off and you'd go, you know, basically to where it looks like down in the valley floor down there.

B (82:55)

Terrifying photo.

A (82:56)

It's funny actually. Have you seen Free Solo?

B (82:58)

Yeah.

A (82:59)

Do you remember the camera guy that like can't look? The guy that's like shooting the long shot on the ground? Mikey, He's a really good friend of mine. I've done tons of things with him. He was. He shot the Taipei climb as well. Mikey was the photo assistant for this photo. He was like holding the photos. And he did the whole shoot just like looking into the wall. Like, he just never looked at any of the things happening. Like, Jimmy Chin was taking the photo and Mikey was like, did all the rigging and the lights and everything. And Mikey did the whole shoot just like looking into his arm, like looking the other way. He was like, I am not part of this.

B (83:28)

I'd like to see his brain scan.

A (83:30)

He was stressed, but I mean, he's an elite climber himself and he's amazing. But like, basically watching free soloing is stressful and nobody wants to do it if they don't have to.

B (83:39)

When is that? In all your career, when is the moment where you were most scared, where you thought maybe you had pushed it too far?

A (83:44)

Oh, it's actually, I've had several moments, but actually mostly with ropes on. That's the thing is that because when you're free soloing, you generally keep it within a healthy margin or you practice ahead of time, you know, basically because you're gonna die, you make sure that you, you can do it. But when you have a rope on, you're way more willing to push into the unknown because you're kind of like, surely I'll get some protection eventually. I'll just keep looking. I'll keep looking. And so, like, I've had. I was on an expedition in Antarctica actually in 2017 and did a bunch of climbing that was 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 going to get better and it just keeps getting worse instead. And eventually you're sort of like. Because the thing is, having a rope on doesn't mean anything unless you get good protection, which means you have to be able to put gear into the rock. And if you can't find places to put gear into the rock, then you can go, you know, the rope is 200ft long. If you go 200ft without getting good gear, then you're looking at taking a 400 foot fall before the rope catches you, which is almost certainly fatal. You know, I mean, if you fall that far, even though the rope will catch your corpse, you know, but you're still just gonna hit the wall after 400ft, like, you're screwed. So anyway, my scariest experiences have all been situations like that for the most part. This is why I'm saying climbing, you get scared a lot and argue. I was like that expedition we were Climbing basically day on, day off. Each day we would go climb one of these crazy spires and we'd have these experiences where I'd be like so scared. And then the next day we would just sit in the tent because it's Antarctica, it's like really cold. You're in the cook tent. And I would basically just spoon Nutella all day, totally shell shocked, like totally, like just completely traumatized. And then, and then you'd be like, right? 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.

B (85:26)

So you do get scared.

A (85:27)

Yeah, I was so scared the whole time.

B (85:29)

Are there any techniques that have proven to be effective for you to deal with that? Feel like people talk about breath work and.

A (85:34)

Yeah. Take some deep breaths, try to compose yourself. I mean, I 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. But oftentimes you feel you get those feelings of fear and you're not actually in danger, you're 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.

B (86:00)

And do you visualize falling ever?

A (86:01)

Oh, yeah, I mean, of course, yeah. I mean you have to understand what the consequences would be because I mean, that type of visualization is also how you can know when you're safe. Because like if you ever open gear and you're trying to visualize, like if I fall, am I going to hit the ground or is the gear going to catch me before I hit the ground? I mean there are often situations like that where you're like, if I fall, am I going to hit that ledge and break both my legs? Or am I going to clear the ledge and fall into free space, in which case it's totally safe. And so it helps to be able to have a clear eyed visualization of, you know, because most people visualize the worst case, like if I fall, I'm going to die. And you're like, well, oftentimes if you. I'm talking about with a rope, if you fall, you're going to be fine. But it's important to know the difference.

B (86:39)

So you don't avoid the confrontation with the negative outcomes.

A (86:44)

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?

B (86:50)

But you can't let that stop you taking actions when the risk profile is okay.

A (86:54)

Yeah, exactly. I mean, this is like a whole rant about risk taking and everything. But, like, I mean, that's the thing is you want to be taking the risks that you want to take. And it drives me crazy that nobody else thinks about risk in this way. Because think of all the people that, like, go out partying every weekend and they get, like, kind of buzzed and they drive home and whatever, and it's like they're taking all kinds of risk that they're not actually choosing to take. You know, 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, or like, you're putting yourself into situations where you're like, in a vulnerable situation because you're incapacitated, because you're drunk or whatever. And so, you know, you're putting yourself at higher risk for crime, things like that. And so you're taking risks. You just haven't chosen to take those risks. I'm kind of like, the thing with climbing is that I'm choosing to take the risks and I'm pretty clear eyed about the risk that I'm taking. Like, I mean, I'm not 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 kind of like, how many people in normal life actually think through all the risks that they're taking? And even totally sedentary people who are like, well, I don't take risk. I stay 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. You know, it's like. And you're still gonna freaking die either way. That's okay, I'm done ranting. I'm sorry.

B (88:09)

No, no. But it's really important because I think we are all taking risks, but some of us aren't intentional about the risks we're taking.

A (88:16)

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 and that I'm choosing. And I'm choosing them very intentionally and I'm pretty careful about them and I mitigate them as much as I can. I'm kind of like, well, can you say the same for the risk that you're taking? Or, you know, I'm sort of like the average person, I think, doesn't think about risk as much as they should.

B (88:39)

And is there anything that you would give them as a framework to help them be more intentional about those risks? Is there, Is it just.

A (88:44)

Well, it's like you're going to freaking die either way. So choose the things that you care about and then do them well.

B (88:50)

And do them well. Prepare.

A (88:53)

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, because like, that's stupid. Like, that's not the risk you should be taking. You know, like, don't put all your money on black and just like, hope, you know what I mean? Like, basically don't just like roll the dice. Like, don't let fate just like roll the, roll the dice with your life. Like, make choices.

B (89:12)

And free soloing is, you know, there's a bigger existential risk with no margin for error. But.

A (89:19)

But it's very intentional.

B (89:20)

Very intentional. Drinking as a risk is like a volume knob. The more you do it, the more the risk increases. And the other one is kind of like an on, off switch, which you can do it today and then. Yeah. So grip strength.

A (89:33)

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.

B (89:38)

Okay, this is a grip strength meter.

A (89:40)

Okay, so let's see, we're at 0kg. Would be extra small then. I mean, the thing with these, like. Okay, actually, let me just preface this with like, I've had tons of people be like, well, surely you're gonna break the machine. I'm like, no, because for climbing, you just have the strength that you need to do the things that you're trying to do. And how much do you weigh right now? Like165.165, which is actually basically the heaviest I've ever been. Maybe, maybe 163 if I'm lucky right now.

B (90:02)

So 165 pounds in kg is equivocal to 75 kilograms, roughly.

A (90:08)

Yeah.

B (90:09)

Okay, go ahead.

A (90:12)

49 or 50. 49.9. And Charles born just like. Yeah, 49, you know, but those are just kind of like. It's just a different thing, you know what I mean? Like, that's not climbing.

B (90:26)

49 kilograms in pounds is 108. Interesting.

A (90:30)

Yeah. Let's see yours.

B (90:32)

But yeah, like I said, I'm stronger with different arms.

A (90:34)

It's about the same with both hands. It should be.

B (90:40)

62.

A (90:41)

Yeah, see, there you go.

B (90:42)

You're twice as strong as me. I can't lift my body weight.

A (90:44)

I might be able to like. Yeah, I mean, I might be able to muster a little more in it.

B (90:48)

But 63 on that one.

A (90:51)

Let me try again. But like, I don't think. Do you work out like you do weights and stuff?

B (90:56)

I lift dumbbells, but I'm not doing anything grippy. I curl and stuff, but I don't do anything grippy.

A (91:01)

Now I'm at 50 and a half.

B (91:02)

How many pull ups can you do?

A (91:04)

Don't know, but I can. Yesterday I did a couple one arms. Like. Yeah, I basically.

B (91:09)

Arm pull ups.

A (91:10)

Yeah. Yeah. Which is very hard.

B (91:12)

Yeah. I don't think I can do one arms.

A (91:14)

Yeah, well, that's the thing. That's why grip strength stuff, you're kind of like, nah. Or actually. So, like, have you done weighted pull ups in a gym?

B (91:20)

Weighted pull ups? No, I just do. I'll just do my own body weight. And you know, I weigh a lot, so I'm like deceptively heavy.

A (91:28)

Really, like very dense.

B (91:29)

Very dense. Cast flow and water. No, like big bones, you just sink.

A (91:33)

Straight to the bottom.

B (91:34)

How much kilograms do you think? Oh, wait, I mean, in pounds you'd know, but this is.

A (91:37)

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 185 or something. Whatever.

B (91:42)

I'm 211.

A (91:44)

Yeah, with actually. So that's another thing with grip strength is like, it makes sense that your grip strength is proportionately. I mean, you're like 25% bigger than me. Yeah, yeah, like, you know, basically. So it's like you would expect it to be at least 25% stronger right there. Just because, like, if you can do body weight pull ups, you're gonna be much stronger.

B (92:00)

Yeah. But we have, we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're leaving it for.

A (92:07)

Hmm.

B (92:08)

And the question left for you is, oh, what do you want to achieve in your life outside of your mainline job that you haven't yet achieved?

A (92:19)

I don't know. I mean, that seems. There are basically two other avenues that I care about in my life, you know, my family. I want to be a good dad. I want to make sure my kids grow to be healthy, well adjusted people that, you know, like live their best lives. And then I have a foundation that supports community solar projects around the world and I'd love to see that thrive. I mean, basically, I mean, you know, we give as much as we can to solar projects around the world and I'd love to see that do more.

B (92:43)

On that point of your foundation. What is the sort of the thesis there you want to. For solar projects?

A (92:48)

Yeah, yeah, solar, it's basically energy access around the world.

B (92:50)

Okay.

A (92:51)

Yeah. I think now we've given, I don't know, over 13 million to something like over 100 partners around the world. Basically like small scale community solar projects. So people getting access to energy for the first time, basically using solar for anything ranging from light to say, food refrigeration to pumping water. I mean, whatever people need energy for, which is basically everything.

B (93:13)

More than 13 million across 130 projects in 30 countries, impacting 650,000 people and creating 1,200 plus jobs. Protected 15 million acres of biodiverse forest as well.

A (93:27)

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

B (93:56)

And you're giving away roughly a third of your wealth to cover the majority of the foundation's overheads.

A (94:02)

Yeah, I've been given roughly a third of my, of what I make every year since 2012. And that's basically just sort of coincidentally tracked with the overhead for the foundation. So it just means that anything that people contribute goes straight to projects Because I basically cover all the staffing and everything.

B (94:18)

How does one contribute to that?

A (94:19)

Hondelfoundation.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.

B (94:25)

If they want to contribute to this, they can go to the website.

A (94:28)

Yep.

B (94:28)

Okay, I'll link the website below. And if anyone is interested in continuing to support the great work you're doing there, I'd highly recommend they go and make a donation. It's also just a way, I think, to give back to you as a person for the inspiration you've given so many of us. I appreciate that, you know.

A (94:43)

Yeah. I mean, to me, the foundation has always been my attempt at doing something useful because, 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 Honda foundation, at least material improves the well being of other humans. You know, like, it actually has a real impact both for the environment and for people.

B (95:01)

Well, I don't know. I think watching you climb Taipei and watching the millions of people all around the world climb Taipei was an expansive moment for all of us because it holds a mirror up to us in a really inspiring way and goes, what obstacles can you overcome in your life? And the many, many millions of people now have that visual, and sometimes it is an absurd visual that does that and is most memorable, like etched into their brains. And that means that they, in their own life are looking for their own type A1s or type A7s or type A101s. 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. Maybe the whole conversation, which was like my entire Twitter feedback for days and days and days of people saying, this is a miraculous human achievement. 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? And that is a profound thing.

A (95:59)

Well, that's definitely the best frame. Like, that's the framing that I hope for. And that's, you know, but I think that's like the best case scenario for my climbing. And like, I hope that that's how people take it. But I will say that the work through the Honda foundation at least has a direct material impact immediately. And you're kind of like, oh, you don't have to hope for ripples or anything. You're like, well, this person. 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.

B (96:33)

And you're doing both.

A (96:34)

Yeah. Yeah. Aspiring to do my best.

B (96:36)

The tangible and the intangible. Alex, thank you so much.

A (96:41)

Thank you. Amazing conversation.

B (96:43)

Thank you.

A (96:43)

It.