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It drives me crazy that nobody else thinks about risk in this way. People look at my life and they're like, "Well,
00:00:04
you're crazy. You're such a risk taker." Well, at least I'm taking the risks that
00:00:08
I'm choosing because think of all the people that like go out partying every
00:00:11
weekend and they get buzzed and they drive home. And even sedendary people who are like, "Well, I don't take risk.
00:00:15
I stay home and I play video games." No, you're at a much higher risk of heart
00:00:18
disease. Like, they're taking all kinds of risk that they're not actually
00:00:21
choosing to take and you're still going to freaking die either way. So, you might as well take smart, calculated
00:00:25
risks and do all the things that you want to do and at least die happy when you go. He's done it. Alice Honold has
00:00:31
made history again, scaling one of the world's tallest skyscrapers. >> But the conclusion that a lot of people
00:00:36
have arrived at is that you don't experience fear because when they look at these two brain scans, your amydala
00:00:40
is lighting up less when you're shown scary images. I I actually hate all the
00:00:44
brain stuff because people always put me in this box. They're like, "Well, you're
00:00:46
different." And I'm like, "Well, not really. Like, I'm a middle class
00:00:49
suburban kid. Nobody in my family is athletic. I just after 20 years of climbing 5 days a week and being really
00:00:53
freaking scared, I respond differently than an average person." And there was
00:00:56
tons of emotional turmoil throughout it. Periods where you're just like I'm
00:00:59
trying so hard and I'm just like not as good as I want to be. You know, I was
00:01:02
like living in a car. I had like a couple hundred bucks a month for 10 years. Like that's challenging. But you
00:01:06
just can't master a craft overnight. I guess that's what people don't see. And
00:01:10
so how do you create the conditions to out persist other people? And then in all your career, when is the moment
00:01:15
where you were most scared? >> On an expedition to Antarctica. I kept hoping that it's going to get better and
00:01:19
it just kept getting worse. Like I could die. >> Do you have a conversation with your
00:01:22
partner before you go and do something like this? because she wrote a letter. >> Oh gosh.
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>> Obviously, this is your worst nightmare, she said. But we all have to do scary
00:01:30
things sometimes, Alex. >> Guys, I've got a quick favor to ask you. We're approaching a significant
00:01:38
subscriber milestone on this show, and roughly 69% of you that listen and love this show haven't yet subscribed for
00:01:44
whatever reason. If there was ever a time for you to do us a favor, if we've
00:01:48
ever done anything for you, given you value in any way, it is simply hitting that subscribe button. and it means so
00:01:54
much to myself but also to my team because when we hit these milestones we go away as a team and celebrate and it's
00:01:58
the thing the simple free easy thing you can do to help make this show a little bit better every single week. So that's
00:02:04
a favor I would ask you and um if you do hit the subscribe button I won't let you
00:02:08
down and we'll continue to find small ways to make this whole production better. Thank you so much for being part
00:02:13
of this journey. Means the world. And uh yeah, let's do this. Alex to understand you. I think from
00:02:24
everything I've learned about you, from the research I've done, from speaking to
00:02:28
your wife, your agent, everybody I could speak to, I think to understand your context, we first need to understand the
00:02:36
circumstances in which you were raised and the childhood you had because it seems to be I mean for all of us there's
00:02:40
like fingerprints left on us that define the anomaly um that many of us become including yourself. So what do I need to
00:02:48
know? What does the viewer need to know about the early context? >> I mean, how deep do you want to go? I
00:02:52
need get a sofa. I need to reply. Like, all right. Uh, but yeah, certainly there's a there's an imprint from my
00:02:59
parents, my upbringing. I mean, they had a a very fraught relationship. They eventually got divorced, but they stayed
00:03:03
together for the kids and it was a whole like, you know, say a tense home life because neither of them really liked
00:03:08
each other. And then my mom is very driven, very, you know, high performing. And then my
00:03:14
dad was hard to say. I mean, I think my dad was deeply depressed basically the whole time I knew him cuz he was in this
00:03:19
relation. You know, it's hard to tell. He wasn't living his best life. And then
00:03:22
sadly after they got divorced, he was he was much happier, but then he died. And
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so then never really got to see uh never really got to see him blossom that much.
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>> And your mother's high performing. And did did she sort of implicitly demand
00:03:34
that of you in any way? >> Yeah, I mean my mother speaks like seven or eight languages. She like plays every
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instrument. It's like kind of crazy. She's very artistically minded in that
00:03:42
way, like you know, the arts and classical sense. But um yeah, she I mean she wanted us to do all those things
00:03:47
too. I'm a deep disappointment in that regard. >> There was a phrase that I saw when I was
00:03:53
watching the documentary that your your mother would continually say which I think translates to something like not
00:03:57
good enough like pressing a ka like almost like almost doesn't count. It's
00:04:03
funny because I feel like uh a lot of my adult life now one of my sort of go-to sayings is you know don't let perfect be
00:04:09
the enemy of good. I'm really into like good enough. Like it's better to like
00:04:12
try. It's better to do something, you know, it's better to fail quickly and
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learn and keep moving forward than to not try something. Like basically, I don't want to be crippled by
00:04:20
perfectionism. Sort of like my mom is very much a perfectionist, you know, like if you can't do it right, don't do
00:04:25
it. I'm sort of like I think it's better to try and learn and improve, >> but she's accomplished a lot of things
00:04:30
with that approach. >> Yeah, she Yeah, she has for sure. >> What about emotions? This is something
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you I've had heard you sort of talked about a lot is in that environment where
00:04:38
your mother and father aren't getting along well. I think I I heard you say that your you hadn't seen your father
00:04:43
really happy before he'd passed away. >> Yeah. >> Was it an emotional household in terms
00:04:48
of affection? >> No, it was a very unemotional household. That said though, you know, it was a
00:04:52
safe, relatively happy household. Like it was it was fine, you know, and and I was close to a lot of my extended
00:04:56
family. And so I had a really good relation with my grandparents and some my aunts and uncles. And so I mean I
00:05:01
basically would have characterized it as a totally happy family life until I became older and started seeing other
00:05:06
people's families more and was kind of like, "Oh, this seems even happier." You
00:05:08
know what I mean? It's like basically really good until you see what what else
00:05:12
it can be and then you're like this seems even better. >> And your mom wasn't ever affectionate.
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>> You know, it always feels slightly conditional, you know, where it's like
00:05:21
uh you know, she cares if you be you know, if you perform well, like if you do well, like if you're a good kid or
00:05:27
whatever, you know what I mean? >> Where where did climbing come into your
00:05:30
life? Cuz I've got some I have found some photos of you climbing and you look
00:05:33
your like with your sister, I believe. Here we go. This one here. >> Yeah. Classic. How old have you been?
00:05:38
>> I don't know. I mean, I don't know, like six or something or eight. It's hard for
00:05:42
me to tell like medium-sized kids ages. Why? Why climbing? >> Oh, why not? It's so freaking cool. Have
00:05:48
you Have you rock climbed? >> I've Yeah, I have. >> You gone to a gym?
00:05:51
>> Yeah, I've I have. But >> And wasn't it the freaking coolest
00:05:53
thing? >> It was fun. Yeah, for sure. I mean, saying I've climbed when I'm sat with
00:05:58
you is I feel like >> Yeah. But you have tried it. >> Yeah, I have. Yeah.
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>> As an adult, if you can imagine as a kid how fun that is. And then if you just
00:06:04
keep doing that non-stop and then you find that you're, you know, have some aptitude for it, you enjoy it. It's
00:06:09
like, you know, you can imagine going down that path. It's so cool. >> But is there something about the
00:06:14
challenge of climbing that you think just kind of like was a jigsaw piece for your for you your brain? Like problem
00:06:19
solving? >> Well, I think there's something elemental about climbing in the same way
00:06:21
as like running or swimming. It's like a basic movement thing that I think is
00:06:24
quite enjoyable. And I think that I also I I think I have an innate love of like
00:06:31
being on top of things like, you know, being at the top. Basically, I love big views. I like the expansive, you know, I
00:06:36
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
00:06:42
was like, "Oh, climbing is just so cool." And >> you I'm assuming you never thought this
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could be a career. >> No. No. And actually, even when I started rock climbing sort of full-time,
00:06:49
I still didn't think it could be a career because there just wasn't really
00:06:52
professional climbing at that time. It was like much smaller. The industry is way smaller. Climbing was way more
00:06:56
fringe and like less of a thing. But you weren't motivated by like money or anything cuz one does not pursue rock
00:07:02
climbing to become No. Rich. >> Not to become rich. No. Well, so I said though, so my father died like the
00:07:08
season before that. And because my parents had just gotten divorced, he basically left his retirement to my
00:07:13
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
00:07:18
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
00:07:23
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
00:07:28
camping, you know. >> Was it this minivan? >> No, that's my second one. That's the
00:07:33
Ford Econoline. That's the first actual van that I bought. I lived in that van
00:07:36
for 10 years. >> For 10 years? >> Yeah. Yeah. So, I bought this van. I
00:07:40
mean, this is this is classic. But so, I bought this van for 10 grand. And and then originally, this is the last
00:07:46
buildout, which is the classiest buildout. The original one my uncle and I did for free with like scrap wood from
00:07:50
his, you know, in his wood shop. basically. And uh and so then I lived in that for 10 years and you're kind of
00:07:56
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
00:08:01
know, when you're living in your car for 10 years, you save quite a lot of money.
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>> Between what ages did you live in your car for 10 years? >> I probably bought this van when I was
00:08:09
20. So 20 to 30 basically. >> H does the >> Yeah, actually I think that's right
00:08:13
because um because I think I met my wife when I was 30 and that same year I switched from this van to the bigger
00:08:19
van. And if you've seen the film Free Solo, that's um I bought the the ProMaster, this like Dodge. It was like
00:08:24
I could stand up in my van finally and I was like, I'm moving up in the world. I
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can stand >> in there really well. Oh, there's there is a little stove in this one, but
00:08:31
>> yeah. So, this though is the I did three different buildouts of this van over the
00:08:34
10 years cuz like the original one was super scrappy. The second build was like a little nicer and then this was like a
00:08:40
pretty nice build that I had for I don't know, five or six years or something.
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When you live in your van for 10 years and you have a mother who is very performance focused, I've got um her
00:08:50
here. I believe you coming with her. Classic. >> Do you not face a lot of external
00:08:54
pressure to like go get a real job? Honestly, less so than you would think. Um like to her credit, my mom was always
00:09:02
pretty supportive of the whole path. I think, you know, I was kind of lucky that that I did a lot of this when I was
00:09:06
like young enough that it's all part of like you're gappier like, you know, it's
00:09:09
like you're young and you're finding yourself and then and then I think there
00:09:12
was enough sort of external validation that that my family could at least look at and be like, well, you seem to be
00:09:18
good at this random thing even though we don't get it and don't really know what
00:09:20
you're doing, but at least other people think you're good at it. So, keep doing
00:09:23
your thing. >> And at this point, was it was it rock climbing? Was it free soloing? And
00:09:28
>> yeah, it's all a little bit of everything, but basically just being a I
00:09:31
mean, you know, like being a professional climber, quote unquote. Some of it's free soloing, some it's
00:09:35
like speed climbing, some of it's just hard climbing, some of it's going on
00:09:37
expeditions, doing new roots, like it's a little bit of everything. >> And for the average person that doesn't
00:09:41
know what free soloing is, what's the like definition of it? >> That's climbing without a robe. So
00:09:46
climbing without protection, which is definitely what I'm most well known for
00:09:49
now, but in the context of professional climbing, I've done tons of other things
00:09:54
in climbing. Like most of the time you have a rope on, most of the time you're
00:09:57
doing other sorts of things. But it's like the free souling is what you might
00:10:00
have been well known for because that like breaks into the mainstream a lot more.
00:10:03
>> I'm really intrigued generally by people like you who like take I mean take the
00:10:08
path less traveled in their career and then maybe nearer the the end of the graph pick up traction. And I have this
00:10:17
piece of paper in this pen because I'd love if you could from the age of let's
00:10:21
say 80 you're now 40 years old. >> Yeah I turned 40 this year old. Could
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you draw a graph showing how your career looks in terms of success? You can measure that by money or attention or
00:10:34
whatever. Let's see. So, >> it was kind of like >> nothing. >> Slow a little bit and then like thisish.
00:10:41
>> Yeah. >> And then kind of like and then basically just like in like this where you
00:10:46
basically like kind of flat but growing and then you have free solo where it jumps a ton. It's like kind of crazy.
00:10:51
And then and then it keeps kind of growing at a slightly faster rate than before and then it basically jumps a ton
00:10:55
because of the building thing again. >> I I find this fascinating because most
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people in their lives wouldn't be willing to endure this phase 18 to 29 where
00:11:05
>> it's not enduring. It's so great. Like I would do that again. I loved it so much.
00:11:09
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
00:11:14
climbing now I've been climbing there for 20 years and I've like done most of
00:11:17
the things I can do and you know I've sort of like tapped out a lot of stuff
00:11:19
in the western US and I'm like man I would love to just hit the rezero button
00:11:23
and start over because you'd have so much stuff to do and it's so amazing.
00:11:26
>> I guess that's the that's the different the fault of my question is that I said
00:11:30
the word endure but you see it as >> Yeah. You get to climb every single thing you see. It's amazing.
00:11:36
>> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and that's the thing is like from age 18 to to 30, I
00:11:40
basically did try to climb every single thing I could see because I was just like, I'm learning. I'm growing. This is
00:11:44
amazing. I climb everything. And like now I'm actually much more strategic about it because doing tons of easy
00:11:50
climbing like doesn't really help me at this point. I'm not going to make like
00:11:53
big technique gains. It basically just makes me tired without without the right kind of gains. It'd be like somebody
00:11:58
it'd be like an elite runner just jogging for miles and miles every day. And you're kind of like that's not going
00:12:03
to make you it's not going to improve your marathon time if you're already
00:12:06
like an elite runner. It's it might be fun, but it's just not going to like
00:12:10
move the needle for you. Through this period of your life, 18 to 30, you're optimizing for just having fun, doing
00:12:15
things you enjoy. >> Well, I mean, no, I was always I was always challenging myself. Like
00:12:19
basically, I was optimizing for like what's the next thing I can do that pushes me a little bit.
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>> But you weren't optimizing for how to get rich or >> Well, then I would have gotten a job. If
00:12:28
I was optimizing for getting rich, I would have freaking finished my college degree and gotten a job.
00:12:32
>> I say this in part because I interview so many people who pursued careers that
00:12:36
are often considered not real jobs, like comedians or magicians. >> And I tend to find the same thing
00:12:42
between the age of 18 and 30, they optimize for something that isn't necessarily being rich or famous. And
00:12:48
then at some point the graph looks like this. Well, it's because I mean I think
00:12:51
I'm sure you know this, but I mean the the world really it's like a winner take
00:12:56
all economy type deal. It's like basically if you're the dude that does the thing, all of a sudden your earnings
00:13:01
go insane. >> But until you become the dude that does the thing, you know, if you're like the
00:13:05
best magician or the best comedian or the best whatever, then all of a sudden you make an insane amount of money. But
00:13:10
when you're just like one of many struggling comedians, you're, you know,
00:13:13
you're struggling. And so I think for me as a climber, you're sort of like, oh,
00:13:16
I'm just a dude living in my van climbing. But then a certain point, I'm
00:13:18
like the dude that, you know, I'm like, oh, you're that guy that climbs without
00:13:21
the rope. And you're like, oh yeah, cool. And then all of a sudden your earnings are like
00:13:25
>> Was this um was this a difficult period of your life this 18 to 30? >> No, it was like the best. Well,
00:13:30
obviously it was like f, you know, I was like trying to juggle rel like I wanted
00:13:34
to get a girlfriend. You're a young 20s man living alone in a car like wanting
00:13:37
to be better at something than you are and not not quite knowing the way, not knowing what you're doing with your
00:13:41
life. So no, so obviously there was tons of emotional turmoil throughout it, but
00:13:45
no, I mean retrospectively it's like amazing. And your your dad passes away which is in part I guess some of the
00:13:52
catalyst for >> Yeah. Honestly my dad passing away should be the beginning of that graph.
00:13:55
It should be this should basically start at 19 cuz uh 18 I went to university and
00:14:00
so then uh starting at 19 I guess I uh went on the road. >> Your dad passing
00:14:07
what impact did that have on you outside of it somewhat liberating you to to make
00:14:11
decisions that outside of his expectations? >> Well I mean obviously it was you know
00:14:14
it's sad. It's hard like and especially now I'm sort of like oh it's too bad
00:14:17
that that I don't have a relationship with my dad and he doesn't you know that
00:14:21
my kids don't have a grandfather and all that kind of you know it's like yeah
00:14:23
it's it's tough. I think that the most immediate impact that had maybe was just
00:14:28
reminding me of my own mortality, you know, I mean, he he died unexpectedly at 55, just fell over in the airport and
00:14:33
just fell over dead. Um, like heart attack. And so, you know, I mean, I think that that reminder of my own
00:14:40
mortality has had a big impact on my career, my life, you know, my climbing world, whatever. one might not expect
00:14:47
you to go quote unquote do risky things because of >> well no because the thing is I think one
00:14:53
of the reasons that people don't do risky things is because they have this uh you know mistaken idea that they can
00:14:59
live forever basically and basically because people don't want to think about
00:15:03
their own mortality and so they're like oh I don't want to take any risks I
00:15:05
could die and you're like you know that you're going to die either way and
00:15:08
either way when you die you're going to be bummed that you didn't live longer
00:15:11
because you know it's like like the life expect 78 and you're like Say you make
00:15:16
it to for men, whatever. Like, say you make it that far, you're still going to
00:15:20
be like, man, I wish I had 22 more years to like watch my grandkids graduate college or whatever, you know, it's like
00:15:25
it's still going to feel like too little. >> And so, I'm kind of like, you're better
00:15:28
off dying at 55 in an accident, but having done many things that you're proud of and, you know, like led a life
00:15:34
that you're that you're proud of than dying at 78 and still wishing you had
00:15:38
more, but having done none of the things you wanted to do. It >> is interesting. It does appear that
00:15:42
people live as if we think we're going to live forever. Yeah, it's totally
00:15:45
insane. I mean, everyone's like, "Oh, I don't take any risk." And you're like,
00:15:47
"Yeah, well, you can take no risk in your life and you're still going to
00:15:49
freaking die." So, you might as well take smart, calculated risks and do all
00:15:53
the things that you want to do and at least die happy when you go. >> What does this mean to you to like live
00:15:58
intentionally? >> Well, that's exactly it. Like choosing the the risk that you're willing to
00:16:02
take, making choices, like using your time the way you want to use it. >> I was looking at I think it was your
00:16:07
your personality a personality test you did. You said you >> like did I do a personality test? Um
00:16:12
like how much material do you have? I'm like Jesus Christ. Like how many like
00:16:16
things do you have? >> I have unlimited things. >> I know. I'm so impressed
00:16:20
>> on this uh personality test. It says you're you know higher on thrillseeking
00:16:23
and sensation seeking but then also significantly higher than the average male on urgency which I think kind of
00:16:28
overlays with what you were just saying there of like making the decision to do something.
00:16:32
>> Yeah. Basically because your time is short and you're going to die so get on
00:16:35
with it. >> It says here you're higher on conscientiousness. >> Very polite. You know,
00:16:40
>> thrill seeking, sensation seeking, you're low on boredom. >> I think low on boredom means that, you
00:16:46
know, you don't get bored. >> Perseverance. You're very high on perseverance.
00:16:49
>> Yeah, I think that's the same as low on boredom. >> And low on neuroticism.
00:16:53
>> That's for sure. >> And so, what's your what is what's the
00:16:55
definition of the word neuroticism? Is it like >> Well, I think it's like the Well, I'm
00:16:59
sure there's a clinical definition, but I think of it as sort of general anxiety
00:17:02
type stuff, like, you know, people spinning in their heads about things that don't matter. And has that always
00:17:07
been the case when you look back through your life and the feedback you've had as
00:17:09
a kid and a teenager? Kind of. Yeah. I think so. I think I've never been too
00:17:15
concerned about I I don't spin. I mean, obviously, you know, occasionally I stress about things, but but just not
00:17:21
the way I think a lot of people do. >> I'm trying to figure out if that's a
00:17:25
learned behavior or maybe a little bit learned and a little bit um from your upbringing, genetics, whatever it might
00:17:30
be. Because can can one learn that? Can one learn to be less neurotic and >> Well, presumably I mean like meditation,
00:17:35
things like that. I think people can sort of find a way to let go of certain things.
00:17:39
>> Isn't this quite quite interesting when people ask you questions inevitably
00:17:43
about fear and how you take on such you know to muggles like me terrifying challenges. There's an element of all of
00:17:49
this which is you do have a nature and and a nurture which somewhat is impossible for someone like me to
00:17:55
replicate >> because your brain and my brain are completely different. Your parents your
00:17:59
early contacts when your brain was being wired and malated are completely different to mine. So, you know, I
00:18:05
always find this is the like the trouble of giving people advice is um we're dealing with different
00:18:12
different natures, >> different natures. >> But I I do feel like in my case, the
00:18:16
biggest difference in nature is the fact that I've just always loved climbing,
00:18:20
you know, because I basically I think that nurture is is the majority of this. Like if you spend 30 years training a
00:18:24
thing, you're going to get better at the thing. >> And so I think that the biggest
00:18:28
difference between me and and somebody who's not into rock climb is I freaking
00:18:31
love rock climbing. I could go I could do it 10 days a week if if I could, you know what I mean? But sadly, I get too
00:18:36
tired and my body breaks down. And so, you know, I could I basically have like a limitless capacity to to do the thing.
00:18:41
I just love doing the thing. And I think that that is probably the biggest difference in nature, you know, because
00:18:48
everything else you can kind of overcome, you know, like if you loved rock climbing as much as I love rock
00:18:52
climbing, no matter what your your genetic disposition towards like neuroticism and all that stuff, you
00:18:56
would just kind of work through all that stuff and you'd find your own path to to
00:19:00
getting good at climbing basically. >> If your kids came to you, you have two
00:19:03
girls, right? >> Yeah. >> If they came to you and said, "Dad, like
00:19:05
give me advice on what I should aim at in life." >> Would you tell I wouldn't I wouldn't
00:19:09
give them advice. I'd be like, "You do you find the thing you love to do, go
00:19:12
hard, you know, basically like learn some skills, get good at something, like what do you like to do?" I mean, that's
00:19:17
kind of the thing for me, especially with climbing is like if someone had told me like, "You're going to train
00:19:21
climbing for the rest of your life." I'd be like, "Oh, that sounds like kind of a
00:19:24
grind, you know, cuz I mean, it is it is hard work. You're like hiking uphill
00:19:28
with a heavy backpack and it's cold and it's windy. It's like it's basically
00:19:30
physically uncomfortable." I mean, being a professional rock climber means that
00:19:33
you're physically uncomfortable all the time, but like like often, you know, like it's you know, it's hard.
00:19:39
>> Yeah. But if you're doing it because you freaking love doing it, it doesn't feel
00:19:42
very hard. And so, I mean, I think the key for a kid is find the thing that doesn't feel like hard work.
00:19:47
>> And when you started, were you scared of of big tall rock faces and stuff like
00:19:52
that? >> I mean, yeah, I had like a healthy intimidation of I mean, like my first
00:19:56
season, the first time seeing Elcap as a climber, uh, I was 19 and it looks impossible. It looks completely insane.
00:20:02
I was like, that's so big. But then, you know, within a couple seasons, uh, you
00:20:07
know, I climbed some bigger walls, learned how to climb, and then a friend and I had the sort of season goal, like
00:20:12
we were going to climb all season with the aspiration at the end to climb Elcap in a day. So, basically, there was this
00:20:16
long progression on LCAP specifically where it's like you go from just trying
00:20:19
to get up it to trying to get up it faster to trying to get up it with just your hands and feet, still using
00:20:23
protection. But basically, there's like all these steps you can take. And so,
00:20:28
over a bunch of seasons, you know, I climbed a cap like 60 times, different routes, all these different things. And
00:20:32
then eventually you're sort of like, "Oh, maybe I can start thinking about
00:20:35
freoling it." Which is where the film Free Solo comes in. And then eventually
00:20:38
you do this thing. But then people like, "Well, aren't you scared?" And you're
00:20:41
kind of like, "Wow, I've spent 10 years like building up on this thing."
00:20:45
>> I guess that's what people don't see. >> Yeah. So they just
00:20:49
>> I mean like the documentary Free Soul I think does a pretty good job of showing
00:20:51
the the direct preparation like the training involved in doing that specific climb, but it just doesn't show the
00:20:58
uh like eight years before that I guess cuz the documentary was filmed over two years and I guess I've been going since
00:21:03
2006. So it's nine years before that that I've been going to use and I've
00:21:07
been spending maybe three months a year climbing walls. I guess that's the illusion of like all
00:21:12
people that do great things and then become like athletes or sprinters or whatever Ronaldo or Messi is you you
00:21:17
don't get to see the >> Yeah. the whole life that they put into doing the thing.
00:21:21
>> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So it looks it looks like a magic trick when we see the outcome. Like we show
00:21:25
show up on Netflix to watch you climb Taipei like whoa >> hanging with it from his leg.
00:21:29
>> Yeah. I mean people watch some of those programs and they're like he just walked
00:21:32
up and did it. And you're like well yeah after 30 years of practice like I just
00:21:36
walked up and did it. But no it's not like just walking up and doing it. Hm.
00:21:42
>> I mean, like, yeah, I've literally been climbing 5 days a week for 30 years.
00:21:45
Like, that's so much climbing. Like, I freaking love climbing and I climb a lot.
00:21:51
>> On this on this idea of like exposure therapy as it relates to like fear and
00:21:54
anxiety and confronting one's uh things that terrify them. Was there in the early days were you I'm trying to
00:21:59
understand. Were you like scared at some point? >> Oh, all the time. That's actually
00:22:02
something that I think uh you know I've obviously done so many interviews around
00:22:06
fear and like managing fear and all that and I've talked about fear a lot of
00:22:10
different ways over over the years and I think as I've gotten older I've sort of
00:22:14
come to realize that that actually you're just scared all the time as a climber like low-level fear low like but
00:22:19
you're but climbing is fundamentally scary like it's always kind of scary
00:22:22
because there always consequences like even if you're climbing with a rope you're still always visualizing like
00:22:26
what happens if the rope breaks like what if you know like is this safe like you know is the gear good like is is
00:22:32
actually safe. And so you're always a little bit scared. And so after years and years of always being scared, you
00:22:38
get pretty good at managing that kind of stuff >> because there's a lot of sort of
00:22:41
misconceptions swirling around this brain scan you. >> Yeah. I know. I hate all that stuff.
00:22:44
That's just all from the film Free Solo. >> It was like too short of a scene in the
00:22:48
film. They needed a little more. They need to let it breathe, you know, explain things a little better, I think.
00:22:52
>> So they scanned a control subject. another person scanned you, looked at
00:22:56
the amydala in your brain, and that the conclusion that a lot of people have arrived at is that you don't experience
00:23:01
fear because when they look at these two brain scans, your amydala is lighting up
00:23:05
less when you're shown scary images basically, right? But like shown just this image, like what does that even
00:23:10
mean? Like my brain's purple and his brain is orange. You're like, like what
00:23:13
does that mean? Like I don't know. But no, I mean the the thing is though, and
00:23:17
this is what I wish was explained in the film better, is that this is we're being
00:23:22
shown black and white photos inside an fMRI. So, you're inside a sealed metal
00:23:25
tube. You're totally safe. You're physically safe and comfortable. And you're being shown black and white
00:23:29
photos. And so, to me, obviously, that's not going to light up the fear response
00:23:32
in my brain because you're looking at pictures. You're like, who cares? I'm
00:23:34
totally safe. But in a control subject, uh, you know, apparently your brain sort
00:23:39
of responds to images one way or another. But I'm kind of like, I've been
00:23:42
climbing for 20 years, so I've been like scared quite a lot. And you're kind of
00:23:45
like, well, black and white photos start to lose lose their edge if you've been
00:23:48
scared all the time for 20 years. So, it's like obviously that's not going to
00:23:51
trigger much. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I imagine everybody in their life can think of a scenario where
00:23:54
they have mastery that would sc like a stand-up comedian looking out at a stage probably wouldn't be as scared as me.
00:24:01
>> Yeah. >> Because that would that would terrify me. Um so again, this is not necessarily
00:24:06
some sort of neurological >> No, I mean I think the real takeaway is that I have an amydala and it works.
00:24:12
>> Mhm. >> You know what I mean? like cuz I think if if the results had shown that I was
00:24:16
missing my amydala then I would have all kinds of I would have died already at youth cuz I wouldn't be able to function
00:24:21
as a as a human basically but you know had it shown something like that where there are like structural differences or
00:24:25
like some real change but this is basically just showing that after 20 years of conditioning I respond
00:24:30
differently than an average person and you're like yeah no kidding like if you
00:24:33
put a monk into an fMRI their brain responds totally differently than average person as well
00:24:37
>> which I actually think is a really inspiring conclusion because it means
00:24:40
that we can all >> grasp our fears better. And even, you know, people won't know this about me,
00:24:46
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
00:24:52
there, I couldn't I was so scared I couldn't get the words out. So, you actually in this 2-minute video that
00:24:56
comes out, you see it go from night and day in the background just because we did that many cuts over 7 hours to try
00:25:00
and get me to say 2 minutes on camera. And obviously, after 10 years of being on camera, I can now speak without
00:25:04
[ __ ] myself. And I imagine my brain state looks significantly different because of our exposure therapy.
00:25:09
>> Totally. Yeah. Hey, you should do the fMRI. You should Yeah. You should have
00:25:13
done 10 years ago cuz then you'd have your control and then you do it now and
00:25:16
it'd be totally different. >> But also, the psychologists I've sat
00:25:19
with all confirm this. They talk about exposure therapy. >> Yeah. And and I went through exactly the
00:25:23
same thing with public speaking. Like I was always so afraid of public speaking.
00:25:26
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
00:25:34
all the public things I've done since then, I'm like basically fine. And you
00:25:38
know, it's like you still got a little nervous, but it's like basically easy
00:25:41
now. You're kind of like, well, that's a total change. It's like obviously
00:25:44
there's a tremendous capacity for humans to learn. >> People talk to you about fear all the
00:25:49
time because I mean your work cuz climate is really freaking scary. It makes sense. It's totally
00:25:54
understandable. Yeah. >> Yeah. And they also realize, I think, at some deep level that the thing holding
00:25:59
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.
00:26:04
It's taking a risk. >> Totally. So, you've become for many people the like, tell me, tell me how to
00:26:10
overcome. >> Yeah. Well, I think that everyone's like, "What's your hack to overcome
00:26:14
fear?" And you're like, "There's no hack. You just get really freaking
00:26:17
scared over and over for so long and eventually it's not that scary anymore."
00:26:21
But I will say that that's like a very enduring way to overcome your fear is
00:26:25
like if you're willing to go through that process, then you are actually unafraid, you know, because like you can
00:26:30
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
00:26:35
plenty of examples of that in in what I'd call gravity assisted sports. Like,
00:26:38
say if you're going to jump a cliff on skis, like you can get to the edge, be
00:26:41
like, "This is really scary." And then be like 3 2 1 do it and just like go. In
00:26:45
climbing, you can't really do that as much because it's so slow. Like when you
00:26:49
climb, you make one move and then you make another move and then you're like,
00:26:52
"Do I still want to be here?" Like it basically fear creeps in a lot more. But
00:26:55
sort of in gravity assisted sports, you can have more of that moment where you just like overcome your fear and then it
00:26:59
happens, you know, like making a big drop in a kayak or like skis or things like that where it's like once you
00:27:04
commit, it's happening one way or another. >> Anyway, there's a lot to get into with
00:27:07
like >> No, but I mean I want to get into it. I watched a video of you climbing Half
00:27:12
Dome, I think it was, and it looks like you got scared halfway up or >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, so that video is
00:27:18
actually filmed later. So the voice over in that video is me talking about the experience of me freestyling when I was
00:27:23
totally alone. And I did get really scared on halfdome and I had this whole somewhat traumatic climate experience
00:27:27
near the top of the wall. But then when we went back to film it, I had a different traumatic experience while we
00:27:32
were filming. Less traumatic but uh but like very scary for a moment and they got that on camera. So they basically in
00:27:37
the film they just cut the two together as like a because it shows me like being
00:27:40
really scared. >> What's Half Dome to start with and then what was the traumatic experience?
00:27:44
>> Yeah. So Halfdme for anyone who hasn't seen is uh is this just totally amazing
00:27:48
wall in Euseite. It's a 2,000 foot granite face. Actually it's the North
00:27:52
Face logo. It's a It's freaking It's That's That's half dome.
00:27:55
>> Okay. >> Yeah. So, it's like an iconic wall in Euseity. >> Um it looks like half of a dome, but
00:27:59
actually it's more like a hockey puck just shoved in. It's actually a full
00:28:02
dome depending how you look at it. But the Northwest Faces vertical for 2,000 ft is incredible. And so I freelled.
00:28:08
That was one of the first like major free soulas I did in 2008. Um and one of the things that sort of made me a
00:28:13
professional climber in a way. But when I did the climb, I did the bare minimum preparation. I basically like didn't
00:28:20
know. It was it was the biggest thing I'd ever freed. I didn't quite know how
00:28:23
to like go about getting ready for it. Anyway, I I climbed it and basically hadn't practiced enough. Was really
00:28:27
freaking scared. Got off route, got confused, skipped some stuff, and then at the very top had this whole moment of
00:28:34
extreme panic, you know? Basically, I got up into some stuff and all sort of like crumbled mentally and like sort of
00:28:39
barely managed to finish this upper slab. Like the hardest part of the climb was like right near the top. I was
00:28:44
trying to walk across this ledge. Basically, I've walked across that ledge face in and face out. you normally
00:28:49
people hand traverse it or they crawl across it. There are like different ways to go across the ledge and I've done it
00:28:53
every which way and then we were up there filming and I was like I'm going to walk it face out but it turns out
00:28:58
when you walk it face out it's really freaking scary. And so I made it kind of
00:29:01
halfway and was like oh my gosh and then bailed. >> And when you say you having like a like
00:29:07
a crisis in your your mind, what does what is that? Is that just oh my god what am I like how does that sound when
00:29:12
you >> Well, I mean so in this case so walking across this ledge it's like it starts
00:29:17
maybe as a foot wide. So your foot is fully on the ledge and you're shuffling
00:29:20
across it. But then at a certain point, yeah, I mean that's that's >> the video I'll put on the screen for
00:29:24
anyone watching. >> Yeah, that's that's the ledge. But basically at the narrowest part, your
00:29:28
feet are sticking out over the lip of it and the wall bulges ever so slightly. So
00:29:32
it for forces your back out a little and so you're basically like rocking on your
00:29:36
heels with I don't know like a 1700T drop or something, 18800t drop like straight down below you and so you know
00:29:43
it's like pretty it's pretty intense. Anyway, and so I thought I was going to
00:29:48
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
00:29:52
isn't for me." And then managed to like shuffle back and and change my strategy.
00:29:57
>> Is it like panic in your head? >> It's not panic, but you're like, "Oh,
00:30:01
oh, I made the wrong choice. Like, this is bad. This is bad." You know? I mean,
00:30:05
it's not like full like five alarm bell like panic panic, but yeah, you're like,
00:30:10
"Oh, I'm so screwed." >> And you have fallen a long long way
00:30:14
before. I I was hearing about a time when you were younger you fell off a a mountain and called your mother, managed
00:30:18
to call your mother in >> Yeah, though that was like sliding down an icy cooler type thing. It's a little
00:30:22
different than like free falling off of a cliff. That's like sliding down a mountain. But yeah, I got totally messed
00:30:26
up and and uh Yeah. Yeah. And I've like broken my arm several times as a kid
00:30:31
falling off things and and then with a rope as a climber, you take big falls like routinely, you know, when you have
00:30:36
protection. That's like part of the sport basically. M I mean it's certainly easy to
00:30:42
visualize falling 700. You know when you're like standing on a little ledge and you're just bulging and you're
00:30:45
looking down you're, you know, it's easy to be like, "Oh my god." You know, it's
00:30:49
like if you just bend forward a little bit, you're just going to take a swan
00:30:51
dive like 700 feet to the ground. >> The stats in this sport are I mean of of
00:30:56
fatalities. How do they compare to other sports? >> Uh safer than you would think. That's
00:31:01
the thing is everyone thinks it seems crazy, but uh it's not that crazy. I don't know actual statistics, but I
00:31:08
suspect that it's actually pretty comparable to to skiing or something, you know, because like recreational
00:31:13
skiers die all the time, like falling into tree wells or like going off cliffs by accident or things like that.
00:31:18
Climbing is actually surprisingly safe, which is one of the things I love about climbing. I mean, climbing is very it's
00:31:25
very uh sort of binary where it's like either you're totally safe or you're
00:31:29
going to die. And the odds of you dying are very very very small. But because they're they're there, they always keep
00:31:37
you on. You know what I mean? Like it basically keeps you alert, but you're never really gonna get hurt.
00:31:43
>> Is that including free soloing? >> Yeah. I mean, for the most part, I mean,
00:31:48
a couple people have died free soling. I mean, people occasionally die free soloing for sure, but actually most of
00:31:53
the the sort of cutting edge free soloists have not died soling. They've like died in other things. I think it
00:31:59
was in in the um the documentary on Netflix um Free Solo where one of your colleagues
00:32:04
>> Yeah. Tommy Tommy is like most free solos are dead now. Um which is kind of
00:32:09
true but it's slightly mis misstated. I mean you know he's just like speaking
00:32:13
off the cuff and it's not like strictly true. Like a couple of the best free
00:32:16
solos have died free soling though they died on very easy terrain. But then the majority of other great free solas have
00:32:21
died in sort of climbing adjacent accidents like wings suit base jumping and uh like one got swept to sea by a
00:32:28
rogue wave like while he was out climbing a sea cliff but he was like standing on shore and got swept out to
00:32:32
sea. You know things like that where you're just kind of like you know obviously they're taking risks in their
00:32:37
lives and they wind up dead but it's not the way that people think. You know, you
00:32:41
see a photo like that and you're like, "Free soul, you're going to die for
00:32:43
sure." And you're kind of like, "Well, people don't actually really die that
00:32:46
way." I mean, they have. I mean, not to say that it doesn't happen, but way less
00:32:51
frequently than people would suspect. >> If I was to try and like, you know,
00:32:54
professionally torture you, and again, I'm not talking in extremes here, but
00:32:57
what life would I prescribe you to live? >> Oh, being like a finance bro or
00:33:02
something. Having to like just work spreadsheets my whole life. Is that what you mean? Like what what is my like
00:33:06
worst >> I don't know, something like that. or honestly being like a choreographer for
00:33:12
dance or something like I just I couldn't do like or or being like an opera singer like I would just kill
00:33:17
myself. I just couldn't do that. >> Why Why would being a finance bro be
00:33:20
like the worst thing for Alex? >> Just the idea of sitting at a computer in a cubicle just like typing. I mean
00:33:27
I'm kind of contrarian. I don't like rules. I don't want to like jump through
00:33:30
hoops. I don't want to do arbitrary things. Like I don't want some manager
00:33:33
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 f,"
00:33:38
you I just like walk out of the building like it's just I just like don't know if
00:33:41
I could take that be like no. But that's like how most of the world live. We kind
00:33:45
of we all live in like you know >> I just don't know if it's for me.
00:33:49
I don't know. I mean doesn't that just seem I mean I had this moment I've been
00:33:52
in New York a couple days and I I took the subway down to see some see some friends and I was like coming out of the
00:33:57
tunnel and it's like packed with people and I was just like looking at the ground and I was like just you know
00:34:01
following someone else's footsteps up this like beat down path of stairs and I
00:34:05
was like I couldn't live like this. like not day in and day out every day like
00:34:09
this is just like feeling like you're just doing the exact same thing as everyone else around you. I'm like oh it
00:34:13
seems so so boring. It's funny cuz so so many of us look at your life and go wow that's not very
00:34:20
normal but actually maybe at a foundational level you're living a much more normal life than I mean you're out
00:34:26
in nature you're moving your body. >> Yeah. Yeah. In that in that way for sure
00:34:32
I'm like going on cool adventures and going out and I don't know. I think
00:34:36
that's also part of why the the sort of attraction and allur with your life especially when you watch free solo is
00:34:41
you do seem to be a free man in a way where most of us aren't free as such. >> Yeah. I mean well I think we're all sort
00:34:48
of aspiring to that to some extent. I mean most people see that though as like they get their vacation for the year.
00:34:52
They they're planning to retire at some point and then they're going to have
00:34:55
their freedom and you're kind of like I don't know. I mean maybe you got to try
00:34:58
to live that way as much as possible. >> If if your if your young girls came up
00:35:01
to you June and Alice and said, "Dad, what's what is a meaningful life? like
00:35:05
what are the principles of living a fulfilling meaningful life? Would you give them advice there?
00:35:09
>> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it'd be a long rambling multi-day conversation with
00:35:14
them about But I mean, following your own goals is is I think, you know, certainly one of the the cores of having
00:35:20
a meaningful life, like having things that you find valuable. I mean, really like living in line with your values,
00:35:26
finding things that are important to you and pursuing them with as much as you can give them. you when you look at your
00:35:31
early so 20s to 30s it kind of looks like you're living like a Buddhist a little bit.
00:35:35
>> I mean yeah I went on a a trip once where they called me the monk just because I was living such a sort of
00:35:41
a seated lifestyle. I was like reading I've never I don't drink and I don't
00:35:45
like party and I didn't just for personal preference whatever. So I'm just like living in my little van and
00:35:52
reading books and climbing all the time like those are the things that I'm into
00:35:56
doing you know. It's like it's yeah it's just doing what you want to do.
00:36:00
Have you ever been depressed or? >> Yeah, probably not like deep clinical depression, but there's certainly
00:36:07
periods from time to time where you're just like, what am I doing or why or what are my goals? Like, you know,
00:36:11
what's And I think to me the most depressing thing is that, you know, I've
00:36:15
put like my whole life into climbing, like trying to be the best you can be all the time. And sometimes you put tons
00:36:20
of effort in and you just don't see results. Like for whatever reason, you just suck. You're like, I'm trying so
00:36:23
hard and I'm just like not as good as I want to be. And like that's challenging,
00:36:27
you know? But that's I mean everybody faces that to some extent where you're like I'm working
00:36:32
hard at a thing but I'm just not achieving the results that I want. >> And between the between that the sort of
00:36:38
that period of no man's 20 and 30 where your career hasn't taken off yet the
00:36:42
documentary is not out. You've not climbed Taipei. How much money are you earning from climbing?
00:36:49
>> I mean the first my first couple years my sponsorship through the Northace was
00:36:52
like uh I think my first year was like 10k a year. I was like this is amazing. cuz I was living in my car and uh you
00:36:59
know making 10 grand when you live by yourself in a van is like more than you need basically. Um it obviously went up
00:37:05
but beyond that at some point but it was you know like in the 10 to 100 range for
00:37:10
the first for the whole yeah for years. >> Then at some point it increases.
00:37:15
>> Yeah. And then it increases. I mean then free solo is obviously like a big thing
00:37:18
and that sort of opened up all these opportunities. Uh because then I started doing corporate speaking and stuff like
00:37:23
that. And I mean, as I'm sure you know, that's just like a whole different
00:37:26
world. And so then you go from just like making some money from sponsors to like
00:37:31
making money from from other corporations stuff. And then you're like, okay, now you're making some
00:37:35
money. >> One of the things when I was I was hearing you talk about some of your
00:37:38
incredible climbing stories is um I was trying to understand what role visualization or or your preparation
00:37:45
plays and how that's like transferable to to me and my life. We talked a little
00:37:49
bit about just how much preparation you did for something like LCAP, >> but you you it sounds like you really
00:37:54
break down the challenge into smaller bits and then really go through those individual steps, whereas a lot of
00:38:00
people would just look at LCAP and go, "Oh my god, they'll be terrified."
00:38:03
>> And then say impossible. >> Yeah. Which is fair. I mean, I spent years looking at LCAP and being like,
00:38:07
"That's too big. That's impossible." And then, you know, after years of that, I
00:38:11
kept hoping that I would look at it and it would like look easy somehow and I'd
00:38:14
be like, "Cool, now I'm going to do it." And it just never looked easy. And so
00:38:18
then finally I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna have to like put some real work
00:38:20
into it." And then I started slowly breaking it down and and and then once you like break it into pieces and start
00:38:25
working on the pieces, then you're kind of like, "Okay, it starts to feel more
00:38:28
reasonable." >> Break it into pieces and start working on the pieces. What does that mean in
00:38:32
terms of climbing? So if we I mean I've got this this uh model here of >> type. So you know, and this is also a
00:38:40
metaphor for any challenge I have in my life. >> But this is actually perfect because
00:38:42
it's right here. >> Yeah. >> So I scouted this in September of this
00:38:45
year. I did the climb in January. or whatever. In September, we went and um well, we had to like one make sure it
00:38:50
was possible before you sort of like commit to it doing a whole TV program. We were kind of like, let's make sure we
00:38:55
can do this. And then they also had to get all this sort of marketing material. You like get the photos with the
00:38:59
building, like all the stuff that becomes the trailer and whatever. And so we went in September to sort of like do
00:39:03
the prep. And so we I basically checked out all the different pieces. And so anywhere where you see it looking a
00:39:10
little bit different, you know, it's like this whole bottom part is like a low angle slab. It's like punctuated
00:39:15
with these two little rubies, these little like coin things or whatever the clouds or whatever they are. And then
00:39:19
there the dragons on the corners. These are all overhanging. Like each of these eight blocks is like a big overhanging
00:39:24
thing. It feels a little bit different. Then you get up here, there's like these
00:39:27
balconies. These are actually overhanging. Like basically each little segment of this is quite different. And
00:39:32
you know, obviously on this model like looks looks the same, but um each transition between the different pieces
00:39:37
is like a thing. So I checked out all of them with ropes and and yeah, you just go piece by piece all the way up the
00:39:42
whole thing. And you hadn't ever climbed it before we saw it on Netflix live.
00:39:45
>> Well, I hadn't freed it. No, but I had climbed it. I climbed all the pieces
00:39:49
with a rope for sure. I'd like checked out the different things. >> Okay. So, so you you look at these as
00:39:54
individual challenges every step. >> Yeah. It's like you go Well, even like
00:39:58
just getting off the ground, the first move is a slightly different move than any of the other moves. You have to like
00:40:03
jump up to a thing and like press it out. Um then climbing over these little clouds is a different thing. Each dragon
00:40:07
is a different thing. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's just, you know, there's a surprising amount of complexity to it.
00:40:12
And so our first on the scout, you know, I had a note on my phone and I'm just
00:40:16
like writing down all the different basically I'm trying to learn it the way
00:40:18
you study anything where I'm just like making notes and sort of like from floor
00:40:22
54 to 72 it feels like this. I climb the southeast corner the left ar you know just and then yeah just writing it all
00:40:28
down >> and I mean there's this famous photo of you hanging with your leg.
00:40:31
>> Yeah, that's this these are the rings up here. >> So you're hanging you're hanging here
00:40:35
from here with your leg. Yeah. Now, I this is really a question of endurance. Like, how do you plan to have the
00:40:41
energy? Like, how do you know if you're going to have enough energy when you're up here
00:40:45
when you're just planning it? Well, >> I mean, what this this is what makes it
00:40:49
exciting because you can't be sure. But, you know, I've done a lot of climbing in
00:40:52
my life, and I've done a lot of climbs that were like 24 hours. I mean, I had
00:40:55
this experience in Patagonia once. It was a 54-hour push. Like, the last 20 hours we hiked without food um cuz we
00:41:02
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
00:41:06
where I've done hard exercise for more than 24 hours. And so this, you know, I
00:41:11
expect it to take me somewhere in the hour and a half, two hour range. And I'm
00:41:13
kind of like, yeah, I mean, I'll be tired after 2 hours of exercise, but I'm
00:41:16
not going to be exhausted. You know what I mean? Like, I know that I have a much
00:41:20
deeper reserve than that. >> So much of the conversation around um after you' done this, or some of the
00:41:25
conversation was around whether this was a harder challenge than Al Capitan. >> No, no, it's obviously much easier. I
00:41:32
mean, I'm doing on live television, you know, it's like obviously it's easier,
00:41:35
but what makes it cool is that it's different. It's fun. It's challenging.
00:41:40
Like for me, it's really like in my sweet spot where it is challenging enough like it's it's not easy. You know
00:41:45
what I mean? Like saying easier than LCAP, it doesn't, you know, LCAP was like a 10-year life project that I did
00:41:51
in absolute secrecy. I did it on my terms on the correct day after years of effort. I had failed attempts. I you
00:41:58
know what I like LCAP was like an allconsuming life project for years kind of like obviously you can't do that for
00:42:04
live TV. It's like you just can't put anyway >> but this was very much in my sweet spot
00:42:09
where you're like oh it's hard enough that it's that it's hard like it's cool
00:42:13
you know like it's fun it's interesting the climbing is engaging it's you know
00:42:16
gave me something to train for for months it's like it's super fun but it's
00:42:20
not you know it's not like the absolute limit of what I can do because you just
00:42:23
can't do that on live TV. I mean, if nothing else, so I was climbing the southeast because it gets good morning
00:42:28
light and it looks beautiful and it's like great for filming. But if I was trying to do the absolute most cutting
00:42:32
edge climb I could do, I'd be climbing the northwest arette because it'd be
00:42:35
full shade because it'd be good better conditions, you know, be colder. Like
00:42:38
you just don't want to be in the sun. It makes your skin, you know, makes you hot
00:42:40
and stuff. >> Mhm. >> And so, you know, just things like that. You're like, well, if you're doing it
00:42:44
for TV and you're trying to broadcast it, then you want it to look good. But
00:42:48
like, if you're trying to do it for hard climbing and good conditions, you do in
00:42:52
full shade. And Netflix had a 10-second delay just in case you fell. >> I mean, I'm sure part of it is in case
00:42:57
you fall, but part of it's like, what if somebody unplugs one of the things or,
00:43:00
you know what I mean? Like, it's so complicated. There's so much stuff going
00:43:03
on, it's insane. >> Was there a hardest part of this a part where you were at all nervous?
00:43:08
>> The thing I was most nervous about when I started was were the bamboo boxes,
00:43:11
like doing these eight overhanging segments cuz they're just so relentlessly the same move and it's just
00:43:16
it's pretty physical like you get tired for sure. I mean, the actual physical
00:43:20
hardest moves, um, like actually randomly one of these corners up here would have been quite a hard move, but
00:43:25
there was this freaking security camera bolted onto the wall. And so, you use the security camera as this handle. It
00:43:30
was really freaking cool. And it was like bolted on with these giant bolts, so it like looked super safe and, you
00:43:34
know, it was like very robust and secure, but it would have been kind of like this extreme jump, which I wasn't,
00:43:39
you know, it's probably possible, but would have been like a major thing, but
00:43:43
instead you just reef off the security camera. And I was like, that's so cool.
00:43:46
It was uh so there are a few things like that like individual moves that are kind
00:43:50
of muscly but overall it's the the stamina like the challenge of doing this over and over for hundreds of feet that
00:43:56
was the hardest thing. >> Do you have a conversation with your with your girls and wife before you go
00:44:01
and do something like this about just in case you don't come back? I know the
00:44:05
>> not with the kids cuz they're too young and like they wouldn't they don't
00:44:07
understand it anyway. Um and not with her because she came with me to Taipei or she was there for like the whole end
00:44:13
of I went a little bit earlier so I could adapt to the time zone more and like feel better. But um but basically
00:44:18
she was with me so you know like we went to bed together that night and like woke
00:44:21
up that morning and had breakfast together. So it didn't feel like a big goodbye. You know it was kind of
00:44:25
actually she was with me at the base like we did the start together and then I literally was like okay bye and walked
00:44:29
over and did the thing and saw her again going to the top. So we were only apart
00:44:32
for like an hour and a half of the whole you know like and I saw her through the
00:44:35
window a couple times and so it felt like she was just there having the whole experience with me.
00:44:39
>> Did you look at other buildings in the world like like the Burge? So, yeah,
00:44:42
I've scouted the Burge twice over the years. Um, back when this project, this
00:44:46
project almost happened in 2013 or something and so I'd scouted some buildings then. The Burge was just a
00:44:51
little too extreme. It's just too hard. But someday maybe, who knows? >> Cuz it's what? Like there's not enough.
00:44:58
It's too slippery. >> Um, yeah, super slippery. Also, it's just the way the holds are. Like I mean,
00:45:03
the beauty of Typo 101 is that the holds like they're good things to hold that
00:45:06
are close together and you're just like and you can hold them and you feel secure. the Burge. I can barely span tip
00:45:11
to tip to like reach between the holds. >> And so then your face is like right
00:45:15
against the glass. You're like holding on like this. And it's pretty hard. And
00:45:19
you have to do the same thing 112 times in a row. It's like pretty hard to do it
00:45:22
once then you have to do 100 times. You're like it's kind of hard. >> The other thing that I saw um online
00:45:27
after you'd climbed it about one or two days after everyone talk started talking
00:45:30
about how much you were paid to do it. >> I think cuz you did an interview.
00:45:32
>> It's funny. There were some quotes that were kind of taken out of context
00:45:35
because yeah, a New York Times reporter asked me how much I was getting paid and
00:45:38
I was kind of like I don't want to talk about it cuz it's kind of embarrassing
00:45:40
cuz all my friends it's like an embarrassingly high amount for my community. Like in the climbing world if
00:45:46
you're getting paid to rock climb you're like great success, you're getting paid
00:45:48
to climb. That's insane, you know? And so I thought it was like sort of an embarrassingly large amount. I'm like
00:45:54
this is kind of weird. But then he sort of poked around and he started comparing
00:45:57
it to like boxing matches and stuff where people get paid like $20 million to like fight someone boxing. And I was
00:46:03
like, "Well, no, compared to that, it's an embarrassingly small amount." You
00:46:05
know, it's like or if you compare it to like major league baseball contracts and
00:46:09
things and it's like, "Yeah, it's an embarrassingly small amount, but I was
00:46:12
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
00:46:19
to the observation deck. The observation deck is way up here at the top and the view is insane and the city's
00:46:22
incredible." And, you know, it's like 20 bucks or whatever to take the world's
00:46:26
fastest elevator to the top of the building. And you know, I've done that in the Burge as well where you like pay
00:46:30
the money and you go to the very top of the building and the view is insane. It's like I do that like anywhere I
00:46:33
travel like the Se the Willis Tower, whatever the Sears Tower in Chicago. Like I've paid the money to go to the
00:46:39
observation deck and see the view and it's so cool. And I'm kind of like if
00:46:41
someone's willing to pay me to climb up to the observation deck, that's freaking
00:46:44
cool. >> Yeah. I think it's because people again they're they're saying that they believe
00:46:48
that this is you're risking your entire life. Yeah. And and so yeah, they don't
00:46:53
think of boxes as risking their entire life in the same way. >> They kind of are.
00:46:56
>> Unless they are. Yeah. But they don't see it as that. >> I know. Of course they don't see it as
00:46:59
that. And that's totally understandable. I get that. But I see it as like anybody
00:47:03
going into the boxing ring, particularly if they're very mismatched, you know,
00:47:08
like you would think that there is some real chance of grievous injury or like death,
00:47:13
>> you know? It's like it's insane. >> And so I think that people over the
00:47:17
thing is I think people that don't know anything about anything like don't know
00:47:20
anything about climbing look at me climbing a building. They're like it's
00:47:22
50/50 if he lives or dies. Like no idea. And you're like no. If you put this in
00:47:26
the context of all the things that I've gone in my life, I felt very confident
00:47:29
that I wouldn't fall off the building. You know, I was like, you know, obviously it's never 100% because like
00:47:35
whatever it's life, but you know, it feels like 100%. You're like, oh, there's no chance I'm falling off this
00:47:40
building. >> The rumors were that you got 500k to climb it from Netflix. >> Throughout my whole like, you know,
00:47:45
quote unquote career as a climber, I basically have never worried about money and I've always just tried to do the
00:47:49
thing and let it all play out at the end. And so I've done a ton of work for
00:47:53
free over the years. Oh, like actually we were talking about that Halfdme film earlier where it's like I'm shuffling
00:47:57
along. It's like I did that film for free. I did tons of films like that for
00:48:00
free. Uh just because you're kind of like, "Oh, it's part of being a
00:48:02
professional climber and I get to go climbing and I'm up with my friends filming on a thing." You're just like,
00:48:06
"You're working for free. It's fine." But by doing all that stuff for free,
00:48:10
like I never I never stress the day rate. Never, you know, I was like, I don't need to get paid to go have fun
00:48:14
with my friends on a wall. Like it's fine. But as a result of that film, you
00:48:18
know, a year or two later, they wind up doing a photo shoot out there for the cover of National Geographic. And so you
00:48:23
just wind up in other things and then and then that got seen and I wound up being profiled by 60 Minutes, which
00:48:29
actually was one of the first sort of career inflection points. It was like the 60 Minutes profile in 2011 or
00:48:34
something. But basically, I've done a ton of work for free over my life as all
00:48:38
part of like it's all part of the game and I just love playing the game. And so
00:48:42
you just like let it play out. And it's funny because with this building, a lot
00:48:45
of people thought that I was sort of underpaid by it, but afterward, you know, some people have approached me
00:48:51
about some bonuses and some other work stuff and like basically a lot has already sort of happened and it's only
00:48:55
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
00:48:59
itself cuz it always works basically. I'm kind of like I don't know. I'm like,
00:49:06
don't get hung up on how much you get paid. Just do the thing. Make sure it's
00:49:10
freaking rad and it all sorts itself out. Yeah. Yeah. That I mean that's also been
00:49:16
like um the that's completely true for my life as well. Even this podcast like
00:49:21
when we started the podcast in my kitchen I mean this is a replica of my kitchen and Jack was here. There was no
00:49:26
pay there was no payment when we started it. >> You're just doing a thing. You make it
00:49:29
as good as you can and eventually it all sort of works and you're like cool.
00:49:32
>> I've I because that that pattern you've just described has played out for 15
00:49:35
years of my life. I now and again my my CFO and my commercial director might not
00:49:39
love me saying this but they know this about me is and we even talked about it recently with a particular project is
00:49:45
like don't let the inability to see where the money is going to come from in
00:49:49
the near term stop you pursuing something that you think is going to create value because history shows that
00:49:56
actually value like giving value out into the world precedes the the e the economics totally. And so
00:50:05
if it happened 15 years of my life where I remember when I started the social media business and people some a guy sat
00:50:09
me down in Google in London and explained to me why I would never make money from that business. He like he did
00:50:15
the math for me and the math was solid. >> He was like if you do once a day you
00:50:19
won't make any money. And I was like >> you're like yeah but I don't think
00:50:22
that's true. You know you're like >> and you have no evidence but >> yeah but you just know it's going to
00:50:26
work. >> Yeah. The Uber CEO sat here with me yesterday in that scene and he was
00:50:29
telling me he was like the thing is there's this thing called Jevans paradox
00:50:32
where when yeah when become more efficient whatever people think of things in linear progression but
00:50:38
actually there's exponential progression. So when we launched Uber more people started taking taxis. So all
00:50:44
of the models about how big this market were were all wrong. And I find the same
00:50:47
in that and I found the same in about 5 years ago was yeah like you set me down and go well Steve CPMs you're going to
00:50:53
have to be getting a million downloads to make like to earn a living like but >> like wait and see.
00:51:00
>> Yeah thing and let it let it happen. >> I mean you're a prime example of that.
00:51:04
>> Yeah. It's always better to focus your energy on being the best at the thing
00:51:07
that you're trying to do than figuring out how to monetize it or you know make
00:51:11
money off of it. It's like I don't know. I mean, my whole like life as a climber,
00:51:16
I've always tried to focus on like how do you send, which in climbing terms means like do the hard thing. Like you
00:51:21
always focus on sending and then everything else follows. >> Whoa. What's that on your face?
00:51:31
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00:52:43
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00:53:27
Terms and conditions apply. It's funny you you talking about mortality earlier on and um I think in
00:53:33
the last couple of years my mortality like realizing that I'm going to die someday has been such a a wonderful
00:53:37
thing to to really remind myself of and like a frequent basis. >> What uh how come?
00:53:42
>> Just because Okay, so there's many things. One of them is um the whole idea of like sunk cost bias
00:53:52
where you become successful at a thing and you and now you have something to lose. So people go into a state of loss
00:53:57
aversion where they start to protect what they have. Totally. >> And this narrows your life in a way
00:54:01
where you stop taking challenges, stop taking risks, stop doing new things. >> And the other thing generally about
00:54:05
knowing you're going to die and really like reminding yourself of that is it
00:54:08
liberates you from getting caught up and worrying about things that in the grand
00:54:12
scheme of like cosmic reality are like totally inconsequential. >> Yeah. >> I was I was hearing someone say the
00:54:17
other day like do you know the the name of your great-grandfather? >> Do you know do you know his first name?
00:54:22
>> Not really. And do you know the life they lived and what they were worried
00:54:25
about and how they were embarrassed and their shame. >> Yeah. Exactly. No, you don't know any of
00:54:29
that. >> And the point is like if you don't even know your own family's
00:54:32
>> Yeah. Yeah. >> [ __ ] >> Like nobody else cares. Yeah. >> But even like extremely famous people a
00:54:36
couple of weeks after they trend on Twitter and then a week later everyone just like gets on with their life again.
00:54:40
>> Totally. Well, I'm already experiencing that with with this stuff, you know,
00:54:43
like the building was like insane for a moment, but now it's the Olympics and
00:54:46
there's a lot going on in the news cycle and it's like the world's moved on. I'm
00:54:49
like great. I'll go back to just like being at home with my family and climbing as much as I can.
00:54:53
>> Being at home with your family, you said earlier that when you're in that van for
00:54:56
10 years, you wanted a girlfriend. >> Yeah. >> Now, I'm not being funny, but people
00:55:00
that fit your profile and uh to some degree, people that fit my profile struggle in intimate relationships for a
00:55:07
variety of reasons. And I think I actually saw this in the documentary when I watched Free Solo. I saw you had
00:55:11
a partner at the time. There was an accident on the cliff side where you fell and she was supposed to be
00:55:16
protecting you. >> Mhm. And generally I just saw someone who probably is more on the um less
00:55:21
affectionate, more commitment avoidant side of life. Is that accurate? >> I don't know about commitment avoidant
00:55:28
because actually I have had long-term girlfriends and things but but yeah, definitely I'm like less expressive. I'm
00:55:32
less emotionally intelligent than my wife. >> Has she ever given you feedback that she
00:55:36
wishes you were more emotionally uh available? I mean, I get that. >> I mean, yeah. Yeah. in in different
00:55:45
words perhaps, but yeah, basically >> Sonnie. >> Yeah, Sonnie >> is her name.
00:55:51
>> She wrote a letter. >> Oh gosh, >> that's funny because the first two words
00:55:54
are, "Oh gosh, an intimate letter out loud." >> Oh gosh, she she does know me.
00:56:01
>> Obviously, this is your worst nightmare, she said. >> That's She knows me so well.
00:56:06
>> But we all have to do scary things sometimes, Alex. >> Ah, my coach.
00:56:12
She said, "I remember when you read a book once about a woman who said she was
00:56:16
less affected by emotions than most people. For her entire life, people tried to convince her that she was
00:56:22
wrong, that she was suppressing her feelings, but at the end of the day, she just wasn't." As you were reading, you
00:56:29
turned to me and said something similar, something like, "Everyone wants to
00:56:33
believe that I'm burying all these things, these feelings deep inside, but I'm just not." And I laughed and I
00:56:39
joked, "Don't worry. I know you're dead inside. If I remember correctly, you
00:56:45
gave me a hug. But I've thought about this conversation a lot because as the
00:56:49
person married to you, I spend a lot of time trying to understand you. And while
00:56:54
there obviously are emotions that drive you, I was mostly joking about the dead inside part. I do think you are far less
00:57:01
affected by some feelings like anxiety, fear, shame, guilt, or self-doubt than many of us. But the longer I know you,
00:57:08
the more I see an ocean of something else hiding beneath the surface. Filling the space that would normally be taken
00:57:14
up by all these feelings is the ability to truly see things. You move through the world like a hawk while the rest of
00:57:21
us are lost in thought. As a climber, you can see the way up a rock face, the climbability of a building, or the
00:57:27
layered history of a mountain range. As a father, you notice the quiet intrinsic
00:57:32
desires of your daughters or the chores that need doing around the house. And as
00:57:37
a friend, you see the raw potential in every person that you meet. Sometimes this is the hardest thing about you.
00:57:43
Nothing goes unnoticed. Neither the strengths nor the weaknesses, the moments of dedication or the moments of
00:57:50
laziness. You are practical and blunt in your assessment of your choices and our
00:57:54
lives. But that's also because you see us. And paying attention is love. Your
00:58:01
ability to see the world so clearly allows you to also appreciate it more clearly. And that is a special form of
00:58:07
your love. Perhaps there's a well of emotion in there after all. But but for
00:58:14
the purposes of this letter, Alex, I want to give you your gift back to you and tell you what what I see
00:58:21
particularly in the last four years since we had kids because I think the way you move through the world with us
00:58:26
is a unique love story. I see you rushing down the trail from the climbing area so you can get back in time for
00:58:35
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
00:58:41
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
00:58:49
your body to the absolute limit during the day but still managing to stay awake long enough to chat to me at night. I
00:58:55
see you taking on an extra day of travel just to convince someone with money to donate to your foundation and help save
00:59:01
the planet. I see you adjusting your whole training schedule for work opportunities in order to provide a
00:59:07
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
00:59:14
a great dad and husband. I know it's not easy, but I see it and I appreciate it.
00:59:20
We love you as you are, Alex. Not overly emotional, but present, committed, and always seeing what others miss.
00:59:31
Yours, Sani, she is very astute. I was like that's I was like that's why I married her you
00:59:42
know she is very astute. Yeah. I learned a lot about you from reading this. >> H what do you think?
00:59:54
>> You know we all show our love in different ways and sometimes I think the
00:59:58
conventional way that the world tries to measure love is through the like verbal
01:00:02
expression of it and romantic gestures and those kinds of things. But there's
01:00:07
another type of person who often struggles, I think, in in what life's expectations of what love looks like,
01:00:12
who show it through acts of service. That was that was literally one of our last big arguments about something like
01:00:18
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
01:00:25
verbal kind. And I was kind of like, I'm literally doing all the things. And I
01:00:28
always sort of say, you know, actions speak louder than words. I'm kind of like, if you're doing all the things,
01:00:32
you're doing the correct things. you don't need to talk about them because
01:00:35
you're doing the things, you know, and that was basically a a back and forth. I
01:00:40
mean, you know, I took her point that like occasionally you have to say the right thing, too.
01:00:43
>> Well, I have the same the same argument on repeat with my fiance. >> H she needs the words, too.
01:00:49
>> Yeah. She has like a different language. She's speaking Spanish. I'm speaking
01:00:52
French. >> Yeah. >> And also, by the way, I have to say at some deep level, again, because of my
01:00:57
early context where like you, I wished my parents would break up. I wish they would just get a divorce because the
01:01:03
model of love I saw was not a happy one. I think at some deep level I have a commitment problem or an intimacy
01:01:07
problem where >> even growing up say calling someone my best friend somewhat made me cringe.
01:01:13
>> Like saying saying affectionate words to someone at some deep level made me feel
01:01:16
deeply uncomfortable >> and so you can imagine me being ding and then I think like often times we go for
01:01:22
the opposite in the person we end up mar like marrying or >> Yeah. Certainly for me. Yeah.
01:01:27
>> Yeah. Well certainly. >> Yeah. My wife is like way more emotionally intelligent than anyone in
01:01:31
my entire extended family. >> Yeah, same. >> This is how you build a rich life is
01:01:35
that you basically like I mean it's like hiring. You find members of the team who
01:01:38
have all the strengths that you need and it's like the things that you can't do
01:01:41
and >> it's like filling your blind spots basically. >> Have you got better at saying the words?
01:01:46
>> No. >> Any progress? >> Uh yeah, progress probably. But very
01:01:51
slow. But in a way that's great, you know, because we're going to be married
01:01:53
the rest of our lives and so that could be another 50 60 years together. And so you need to see incremental progress,
01:01:58
you know, because really there's nothing better in life than making progress. And
01:02:02
I've started at such a low point and I'm making progress so slowly that I
01:02:05
basically have a good project for the rest of my life. Oh, um, we kind of touched on it before, but one of the
01:02:10
things that's been in front of mind for me at the moment is, um, actually something I saw in your personality
01:02:14
test, which was you were high in perseverance. And, uh, we talked earlier on about like
01:02:19
mastery and how it's important to, um, persist to get good at something. But
01:02:26
this has just been front of mind for me I think for a long time because even like as a podcaster I realize that a lot
01:02:30
of the game I'm like five years in now and um when I look at someone like Joe
01:02:36
Rogan he's been going for like I don't know 15 17 years >> or more
01:02:41
>> and I go like so much of the game in becoming great at something grinding
01:02:46
it's just going unusual amount of >> it's like compounding interest. I'm like
01:02:50
look at Warren Buffett. Have you ever seen stuff with Warren Buffett where it's like, you know, it took him
01:02:54
whatever 40 years to make his first couple million or whatever, took him another like 10 or 15 years to make his
01:02:58
first billion and then it took him like whatever in the last eight years he's
01:03:02
made like hundred billion dollars, you know, cuz his whole wealth is like woo. >> You're kind of like basically if you put
01:03:06
enough time into something and you let it compound, it like slowly gets bigger and bigger.
01:03:10
>> It's exactly that. And so I've been thinking about like >> So all those numbers are incorrect, but
01:03:13
the the shape of the graph is correct. >> We'll put it on the screen so everyone
01:03:16
can see. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody correct my numbers. The principle is correct.
01:03:20
>> It's the same. It's the same as this graph here that you drew of your career.
01:03:24
>> Um it's the same as the podcast growth where three years no one was listening
01:03:27
and then we have this >> Yeah. >> Um and I I think as a principle >> that's why you focus on doing something
01:03:31
of value because with the podcast like if you feel like you're doing something
01:03:34
useful and that you think is cool and you think there's something there you just keep doing it and eventually people
01:03:38
get on board. >> Okay. So on that train of thought, I've thought a lot about how do I create the conditions
01:03:46
to outpersist other people in the areas that I love. And one such thing, for example, with a podcast is like never
01:03:53
have a conversation that I'm not looking forward to >> because that's unsustainable over the
01:03:57
long term. >> Totally. Cuz then it feels like hard work as opposed to something like this
01:04:01
is amazing. >> Yeah. So when I look at my they'll say, oh this person wants to come and they've
01:04:05
got 160 gazillion followers. >> But you're like I don't care about that
01:04:08
person. >> Yeah. Because if I if I use that as a decision framework for the next 10
01:04:11
years, I'll quit. >> Yeah. >> Do you think about that like the conditions to out persist in your
01:04:16
domain? >> I mean, kind of. Yeah. I mean, I haven't had to think about it too much because I
01:04:20
freaking love climbing in all its forms. And so, basically, climbing comes easily, but like in terms of the work
01:04:25
stuff I do, um I forget I think I was talking to you before we started recording, but um but I host this
01:04:29
podcast called Planet Visionaries. Uh it's like a Rolex Perpetual Planet. Like
01:04:33
I interview scientists and conservationists and whatever. And for whatever reason, every time I do those
01:04:37
podcasts, I come out of it feeling all energized and like, I should train more. I should study. I should learn
01:04:41
something. Basically, because the people that I'm interviewing are all so uniquely good at what they do, and
01:04:46
they're all trying to save the world in different ways. It's like, you know,
01:04:48
marine biologists like exploring the deep sea floor and things like that. Yesterday, I interviewed these two uh
01:04:54
women about the fact that we've only explored .001% of the deep sea, which represents twothirds of the planet. So,
01:05:00
basically, twothirds of the planet we know like literally nothing about. And there's like this rich underwater
01:05:06
world of like cool stuff going on in the ocean floor that we've never seen and
01:05:09
know nothing about and it's insane. I was like that's so cool. And I got all
01:05:12
fired up about it. And so I come out of work thing, you know, quote unquote work
01:05:16
things like that and I'm like energized and excited to learn and grow, you know,
01:05:19
push myself and I'm kind of like that's the type of work that I want to do as
01:05:23
much as possible. And then there are other kinds of things where you know I'll do like corporate speaking or
01:05:26
something where you show up at a conference and you just like get ground down you know when you leave and you go
01:05:31
back to your hotel and all you can do is just like lie there on the bed for an hour being like h what am I doing with
01:05:36
my life you know you feel like kind of wrecked. >> So it's like if you can focus on the
01:05:40
work where you come out of it feeling inspired and like excited to try hard versus the work that makes you want to
01:05:46
like mindlessly scroll on something for hours. You know what I mean? Cuz sometimes you're just like oh I'm just
01:05:50
so over it. >> Yeah. Someone said that to me in my career. I said like whenever you find
01:05:55
domains that make you feel expansive like >> totally >> you should double down on those domains
01:06:00
cuz you're that's the path to mastery. You're going to be able to continue.
01:06:03
>> Yeah. Because you can just keep pushing super hard in that >> thankfully for climbing that's always
01:06:07
just been that like I just freaking love climbing. It's so great. You should do
01:06:10
it more. >> I know you you make us all want to climb more, Alex. >> That's one of the I think the great um
01:06:16
consequences of watching you do something like Taipei. I mean, there was loads of kids in the streets of Taipei,
01:06:21
I think, that were all trying to climb buildings. There was loads of like funny videos. Then, obviously, they were only
01:06:24
getting like a meter up before they fell. >> I was like, hopefully they don't Yeah,
01:06:28
hopefully it's not too much copycatting, but yeah, we got some crazy numbers from
01:06:32
Netflix that I think half of people or more than half of people who have a Netflix subscription in in Taiwan
01:06:38
watched the building climb on uh it's like in in Taiwan, it was like insane.
01:06:42
Like, literally everybody watch. It's it's such a it's such a singular
01:06:46
striking building in in Taipei. It's like a total national icon, you know? It's like a it's it's insane.
01:06:52
>> Have you already started thinking about what you're going to do next?
01:06:55
>> People are always like, you know, what's your next big thing? And I'm kind of
01:06:57
like, you know, if you just focus on doing lots of little things all the time, occasionally the big things just
01:07:02
happen and you can't totally know ahead of time. You know what I mean? >> That's me.
01:07:05
>> Well, so at least, so I mean, I have climbing goals going back 20 years. I
01:07:09
have all these notes on my phone. I always have like to-do lists. of especially when I lived in the van and I
01:07:13
was traveling, you're like seasonally moving between climbing destinations non-stop. So I'd lay I'd layer out all
01:07:17
these different types of goals. Like I want to do these types of things. Certain goals lead to other goals
01:07:21
because they're same type of fitness, let's say. So like doing really big
01:07:24
things help you do even bigger things later, but doing like really hard and intense things help you do other hard
01:07:29
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
01:07:34
things or like build up to really hard things or whatever. And so I've always
01:07:39
had running to-do lists of like I'm going to try to do all these climbs this
01:07:42
year. And realistically, I normally do like half of them or or some of them I never even get to because it's like the
01:07:48
weather's not good. I wind up going to a different area or I like don't go to
01:07:51
that that climbing destination at all. And so I never even try the project. But I've always had tons of goals like that.
01:07:57
And looking back at years and years of that type of those types of lists, I just see that it's slightly hard to
01:08:03
predict when you're going to achieve the things that are like cutting edge or
01:08:06
groundbreaking or whatever. You just have to keep doing the things non-stop and every once in a while some of them
01:08:12
rise to the top. I mean, this kind of goes back to the same like value creating things like you don't know
01:08:15
which things are going to be rad. You just do all the things and some of them wind up being rad.
01:08:20
>> And the decision framework there is to just do things you love and that
01:08:24
challenge you. >> Yeah. things that push you in a like things that are new for you that are
01:08:28
hard for you that are challenging in the right ways, you know, but you just can't
01:08:32
you don't always know ahead of time which of those things are going to stand
01:08:35
out or not, but you just do them anyway because you're learning from them, you're excited about them, they're hard
01:08:41
and then, you know, some are cool, some aren't. Some you never even try and like
01:08:45
that's fine. You just keep doing things. the CEO of Uber, Dario, was was sat
01:08:48
there yesterday and one of the um contrarian pieces of life advice he gave, which is kind of overlaid with
01:08:52
what you just said, is he said people need to stop making young people in particular need to stop making life life
01:08:58
plans >> because it narrows them to the serendipity and opportunity and things
01:09:02
that might happen if they're broad and openminded. >> Well, or um uh my wife and I sometimes
01:09:08
joke it's that we both have very strong opinions loosely held where it's like,
01:09:11
"Oh, I'm totally sure of a thing right up until I get some data that shows that
01:09:14
that's wrong." And then you're like, "Oh, never mind. throw that away. And
01:09:16
that's kind of how a lot of my to-do lists have always been or like my goals
01:09:19
where I'm like, "Oh, I have all these goals." But if I take a slight fork in
01:09:23
my year where it's like turns out, uh, you know, for whatever reason, like something else lines up and it makes
01:09:28
sense to do all these other things and I'm just like right turn and just change.
01:09:31
>> Mhm. >> You know, >> and it overlaps with what you said earlier about like not worrying so much
01:09:34
about like how much it's going to pay me today or what the big thing is or >> it's kind of like just just keep doing
01:09:40
cool things. It'll it'll all work out. I would love if we could, you know, scan
01:09:44
your brain and look at all the parts. It's especially in the context I learned
01:09:47
of about this particular region of the brain called the anterior mid-sulate cortex.
01:09:51
>> Okay. >> Which I heard Andrew Hman been talking about. And it's a part of the brain they
01:09:54
discovered quite recently that lights up when you do things that you don't want
01:09:58
to do. >> So not things that you enjoy doing that are somewhat like difficult like running
01:10:02
a marathon, but things that you actively avoid and resist but do anyway. Pain, fear, effort, discipline. This is the
01:10:08
circuit that decides whether you quit or you push through. And it grows the more
01:10:12
you do things you don't want to do. So it's like they now consider it to be the
01:10:14
muscle of willpower in the brain. When they look at athletes, they have bigger ones. When they look at people who are
01:10:20
>> struggling or less are more sedentary or struggling with their weight, they often
01:10:23
have smaller ones. Anyone that avoids discomfort has a smaller one. >> So um
01:10:30
in your in the context of the way you've lived your life, you've continued to do
01:10:32
things that are hard. I mean, you can love climbing, but you don't necessarily
01:10:36
love >> Yeah. But just doing like one more set every time is like that's that's always
01:10:40
a challenge. You're always like my whole body hurts but I'll just do a little
01:10:43
more, you know? >> Yeah. And I think the thing I guess here is like about neuroplasticity which
01:10:47
there's going to be a ton of people listening right now that are so far away
01:10:51
from their type A >> from their type A 101. They're so far away from that. They're in a job they
01:10:55
just don't like. They're maybe the finance bra that you know you talked about a second ago and their life is
01:11:00
absent of ad adventure and they probably look at you and go well you know he just
01:11:04
has something I don't have. I know, but I just don't, you know, I mean, I've
01:11:08
structured my life in a different way and I've made many different choices and
01:11:11
and all that, but that's the thing is I don't really think I have anything
01:11:14
different. I mean, I I actually hate all the like brain stuff because people always like use that to to put me in
01:11:20
this box of like, well, you're different. And I'm like, well, not really. Like, I'm a middle class
01:11:24
suburban kid. Both my parents like nobody in my family is athletic. Like, nobody is good at sports at all. You
01:11:30
know, it's like like basically if you were to like look at the, you know, like
01:11:35
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
01:11:39
be an athlete. Like he's not good at this." You know, it's like my parents
01:11:41
professors and we freaking read books. Like I'm not there's no aptitude for
01:11:46
anything really. >> And I was like bad at sports as a kid. I'm not good with balls. Like, you know,
01:11:50
there's no reason. But I mean, really, I just have loved climbing enough that
01:11:53
I've been willing to put in a tremendous amount of time and effort and eventually
01:11:57
get good at it. And I'm kind of like to hear people say like, "Oh, your brain's
01:12:00
different." You're kind of like, "Well, everybody's brain is a little bit
01:12:02
different in some ways." It doesn't mean that you can't devote yourself to
01:12:05
something that you care about. But with this in mind, and with all the neuroscientists that I've interviewed,
01:12:10
your brain is different in part because you've taken you've done different
01:12:14
things. And neuroplasticity says you can change your brain right the way up throughout your your entire life. One of
01:12:19
my friends, um, Tom Bilu is a good example of that. He's a big podcaster. You might know Tom Bilu. Um, but he, you
01:12:25
know, he was, I can't remember the rough age, but I'm going to say he was 30
01:12:28
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
01:12:35
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
01:12:39
embarrassed. And when he asked his at the time girlfriend if if he could um asked her dad if he could marry her, dad
01:12:45
said no. He was he just he was like lazy down and out. Over the next 10 years, he
01:12:50
makes decisions to take on more difficult challenges, builds a billion dollar company, sells it. If you meet
01:12:56
this guy today, you'd think like athlete, genius, super smart, motivated. You'd beg him for advice on discipline
01:13:01
and motivation. Like he's that kind of guy. >> What? Yeah. So, what did he do?
01:13:05
>> He read a book about neuroplasticity and he realized that he wasn't stuck.
01:13:09
>> He he learned about neuroplasticity, which means that at any age in your
01:13:12
life, the decisions you make change your brain. And that's why I love this discovery of this anterior mid-syncular
01:13:17
cortex because it means that like maybe in part the reason why I'm not taking on
01:13:22
my type A 101 is because I haven't taken on my type A 101. >> Yeah. You have well you haven't taken on
01:13:29
uh your type A1. You know your type A your type A 12 or whatever. you know, like just the little pieces at the
01:13:35
bottom. Cuz that's the thing is like and and actually this is why when you ask
01:13:38
about like any big goals, I'm like I I sometimes I think the big goals are slightly limiting because like if you're
01:13:43
your friend who's laying in bed, typo 101 is not the appropriate goal. You know what I mean? Like you need you need
01:13:49
to type a four. Like you need to just get out and like do a little thing. You need to achieve some success. you need
01:13:54
to see that you can do something and you need to take on appropriately sized challenges because I think having a
01:13:58
great white whale, you know, is is great sometimes, but that's not always what
01:14:03
you need, you know, >> and and partially like for me right now, you know, we're raising two little kids
01:14:07
and we're just like in the midst of it, you know, it's like bedtime right now is
01:14:10
hanging. It's just like it's a lot. And I'm like, I don't need like an LC
01:14:13
capsized goal right now because, you know, we're just trying to make it through a certain phase of life really.
01:14:19
Not to say that I'll never have other big goals, but you're kind of like you
01:14:23
you want your goals to be appropriate to the the time and and and space that you
01:14:27
have available. >> I had a psychologist say to me about this idea of just setting yourself a
01:14:32
type A1, like a small goal. The reason why people don't do it is because they
01:14:36
see it as almost so embarrassingly small that they don't think it matters. >> Yeah. But I mean, but that's why you
01:14:42
focus on it doesn't matter to you. Like is it something that you haven't done?
01:14:45
Like is it good for your growth? Is it challenging for you? like it's good enough.
01:14:50
>> But that same psychologist told me that when they were dealing with a patient
01:14:52
who was so demotivated um that they couldn't get out of their bedroom which was stacked to the ceiling with plates
01:14:57
and cutlery that day one was bringing the Hoover into the room. That was day one. Day two was plugging it in. That
01:15:03
was day two. And by day 30 they're outside. This is someone who was scared of going outside. They're outside
01:15:08
walking around. The room is clean. But he he said to me that people don't take
01:15:12
that first step because it's so embarrassingly small that it's almost shameful to say like today we're just
01:15:16
going to bring the Hoover in. Yeah, but that's the thing is it's always better
01:15:19
to take a step than to not take a step, >> you know? That's Yeah. I mean, that's
01:15:23
how I've always felt with with all these things. You're like, well, you might as
01:15:26
well go out and do the thing. Like, do something. You remember at the beginning I was
01:15:30
like, you don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Like, you do the good thing,
01:15:34
you know, cuz it like it's like don't let perfectionism [ __ ] you, you know?
01:15:39
It's like that's why I think you know Taipe A 101 if that's kind of like your
01:15:42
perfect goal. It's like don't let that hold you back from going out and climbing Taipe A 4 or Type A or you know
01:15:47
like some of the surrounding little buildings because it's like you practice
01:15:50
on what you can. Goes back to this point of perseverance. I read a quote many years ago that said um greatness doesn't
01:15:54
exist. Greatness is just good repeated. >> I mean this is what I'm saying about
01:15:58
having lots of little goals is that I would actually say that if you repeat good enough every once in a while some
01:16:03
of those are great actually but you just don't totally know. You know, I noticed
01:16:06
that a lot like in my climbing life, like in the long arc of climbing, there are tons of things I did in use where
01:16:12
like in a season I'd have like five or six goals in use and I'd do all the
01:16:16
things and one of them for whatever reason would wind up being like that's rad and it would, you know, like makes
01:16:21
climbing news and things like that. And the other ones, you know, maybe less so,
01:16:25
but you don't totally know ahead of time which ones are cool or not and which
01:16:27
ones are going to stand the test of time. At one point in the not too distant past, I held a speed record on every
01:16:33
major formation in use. Now a few of them have been broken over time and but those are the kinds of things where you
01:16:38
never really know like how long those types of records will last cuz sometimes you do them and then your friend comes
01:16:42
and breaks it the next season and you're like cool and you go back and forth and
01:16:45
it's all part of a fun game and then some of them you set a speed record and
01:16:47
it lasts for like 15 years and you're sort of like oh I didn't realize that
01:16:51
this was going to be like such a milestone. You know, >> it reminds me of um the Steve Jobs quote
01:16:56
about how you can only really connect the dots looking backwards in a >> Totally. Totally.
01:17:00
>> Steve Jobs quote from his commencement speech was, "You can't connect the dots
01:17:03
looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards." So, you have to
01:17:06
trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. Clarity isn't a prerequisite for action. It's the reward
01:17:14
you get after you move. And that's that's the thing I think cuz I do so many interviews like, you know, when was
01:17:19
the moment you decided to be a professional climber? And I'm like, there's no moment. Like, I just did the
01:17:23
thing for years and years. And now looking backward, it looks like this amazing arc, you know, but at the moment
01:17:28
you're always, you know, I spent years being like, should I go back to college?
01:17:30
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
01:17:34
MBA or something or something because I was like, I don't want to go back to
01:17:37
undergrad. I've been living in my van for 10 years. And but you're kind of
01:17:40
like still, I need that validation. I need, you know, I want to jump through the hoops. And then really, it's only
01:17:45
now that I'm kind of like, I don't think I need that. In part, I think the reason
01:17:48
why we um we so many of us get forced into procrastination when we're trying
01:17:51
to connect the dots looking forward is because we face these questions from society which is like what's your plan?
01:17:55
What's your career? What are you aiming at? And we don't have answers. So, we
01:17:58
fill in the gaps. We have to say something to mom and dad. You have to say like what's the plan for the future?
01:18:03
You can't say nothing. No plan. >> Well, or you just say, "I'm living. I'm
01:18:05
just letting it play out. We'll just see see what happens. It's going to be a
01:18:08
grand adventure." I don't know. I mean, I kind of hope my my kids feel confident
01:18:13
with that, you know, just kind of like, "Well, I'm doing the best I can. and I'm
01:18:16
practicing the things that I care about and we'll see how it plays out. >> We'll see how it plays out cuz like
01:18:21
either way it's going to play out with with me and them and everybody else dying. You're like, you know how it's
01:18:25
going to play out at the end end. And so you're kind of like the whole space up
01:18:29
to there is like, oh, you just try to fill it with as many things that you're
01:18:31
proud of as you can. >> It's a remarkably simple way to live in a world that's increasingly complex,
01:18:36
Alex. Hm. Well, I mean, it doesn't need to be that complex, but this is why I think spending some
01:18:44
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01:18:48
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01:18:52
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01:18:57
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01:19:01
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01:19:08
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01:19:13
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01:19:19
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01:19:23
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01:19:28
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01:19:32
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01:19:50
Steven. It will be a game changer for you. If you knew that you only had one week left to live and this was the week
01:19:57
and you could only do one last climb, you go back and recapture the record, go do our cap again, I don't know, a
01:20:02
different building, you have one week and assume you're sufficiently prepared
01:20:07
for whatever the climb would be. What would what would >> So I'm allowed to do like cutting edge
01:20:11
futuristic things. >> Yeah. >> Oh, well then I'm like I don't know. I
01:20:15
mean the Burrish like it'd be insane. But um but no uh like the the free triple in Euseite is like the three
01:20:21
biggest walls in Euseite. Uh >> free triple >> the so it's LCAP, Halfdme, and Mount
01:20:27
Watkins. Mount Watkins is kind of like a halfdome sized wall that's further up
01:20:31
valley. So it was the three biggest walls in Euseite. So Tommy Caldwell and I have free climbed the triple. The two
01:20:36
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
01:20:41
three with ropes by myself. It was like 18 or 19 hours or something of climbing.
01:20:45
Um, but it's never been free sololed. Uh, I've freestolled Haft individually
01:20:50
and I've free sololed Alcap individually. No one's ever free soloed Watkins. But the idea of doing all three
01:20:55
in a day would be like I think totally like next generation achievement. There are certain things like that where I'm
01:21:00
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
01:21:03
climber nowadays and had a higher level of skill than I do now and, you know, basically was like trying to do this
01:21:09
again. There things like that that would be sort of like the obvious next generation challenge. free solo, all
01:21:14
three in the same day. >> Yeah. Yeah, I'd probably take uh well, it take a bit under 24 hours probably.
01:21:21
>> What is your training regimen to these days? Is it go rock climbing a lot
01:21:26
today? I did a little workout in the hotel gym this morning. >> Your hands are quite different. I was
01:21:29
They're quite big hands. >> Well, that's I mean, you know, I think
01:21:32
like a stonemason just like grinding away their whole life. I see you. You have I don't know if people can see that
01:21:37
on camera, but you it does look like you have very um wide fingers. >> Yeah, my fingers uh have taken a lot of
01:21:45
abuse in their time >> cuz I see you like putting them in in between walls.
01:21:50
>> Yeah, crack climbing. It's like you basically put your fingers into a crack
01:21:52
and then you torque them. And so like the side to side pulling uh does sort of make your connective tissue bigger.
01:21:57
>> And does that hurt? >> Yeah, it hurts. >> It I was wondering when you're going
01:22:01
uphel when you're doing it well with good technique, it it's not that painful. Well, it depends on the type of
01:22:04
rock, but some rock is kind of sharp and kind of painful. Um, but yeah, this is this goes back to strengthening your
01:22:10
what's the part called in your brain? >> Anterior midsular cortex. >> Yeah, exactly. That guy. I mean, that's
01:22:14
the thing is that even when done well, climbing like it hurts your fingers and toes, you know, crack climbing when
01:22:18
you're like jamming your toes into a crack and you're torquing them side to
01:22:21
side and you're like wedging your fingers in. I mean, when you're doing it
01:22:24
well, it has a pleasant feel of safety to it cuz you can really like lock into cracks and it feels comfortable and you
01:22:30
feel like you're swimming and you're like, "This is beautiful." But when you
01:22:32
really come down to the sensations, you're still crushing your bones into a crack like a Star Wars.
01:22:37
>> When I look at this kind of photo >> where you're It looks like you're
01:22:41
hanging by one and a half hands. >> Yeah. >> And you're going to fall to your death
01:22:46
if you if your grip isn't >> sufficient. It makes me think you must have the world's greatest grip strength.
01:22:52
>> Uh I definitely don't. >> I mean, well, you have your your grip
01:22:55
then. You can find out >> what's below you there in this photo. Well, actually, so there is like a
01:22:59
sloping cliff thing below me. Uh, so I'm actually only like 30 ft off the ground,
01:23:03
but if or 40 ft, but if you fell, you'd bounce off and you'd go, you know,
01:23:07
basically to where it looks like down in the valley floor down there. >> Terrifying photo.
01:23:11
>> It's funny, actually. Have you you you've seen Free Solo? >> Yeah. Yeah.
01:23:13
>> Do you remember the the camera guy that like can't look? Uh, the guy that's like
01:23:17
shooting the long shot on the ground, Mikey. He's a really good friend of mine. I've done tons of things with him.
01:23:20
He was he shot the Taipei clown as well. Um, Mikey was the photo assistant for this photo. He was like holding the
01:23:26
photos and he did the whole shoot just like >> looking into the wall. Like he just
01:23:31
never looked at any of the things happening. Like Jimmy Chin was taking the photo and Mikey was like did all the
01:23:36
the rigging and the lights and everything and Mikey did the whole shoot just like looking into his armpit like
01:23:41
looking the other way. He was like I am not part of this. >> I would like to see his brain scan.
01:23:45
>> He was stressed but he I mean he's an elite climber himself and he's he's
01:23:48
amazing but like basically watching free souling is stressful and nobody wants to
01:23:51
do it if they don't have to. When is in all your career, when is the moment where you were most scared? Where you
01:23:56
thought maybe you had pushed it too far? >> Oh, it's actually uh I've had several
01:24:01
moments, but it's actually mostly with ropes on. That's the thing is that
01:24:03
because when you're freestyling, you generally keep it within a healthy margin or you practice ahead of time,
01:24:08
you know, basically because you're going to die. You make sure that you can do
01:24:10
it. But when you have a rope on, you're way more willing to push into the unknown because you're kind of like,
01:24:15
surely I'll get some protection eventually. I'll just keep looking. I'll
01:24:17
keep looking. And so like I've had I was on an expedition to Antarctica actually
01:24:21
um 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
01:24:29
it's really freaking cold conditions are challenging the rock is crumbling everything is scary and you just keep
01:24:33
hoping that it's going to get better and it just keeps getting worse instead and
01:24:36
eventually you're sort of like because the thing is having a rope on doesn't
01:24:39
mean anything unless you get good protection which means you have to be able to put gear into the rock and if
01:24:43
you can't find places to put gear into the rock then you can go you know the
01:24:46
rope is 200 feet If you go 200 feet without getting good gear, then you're looking at taking a 400t fall before the
01:24:51
rope catches you. Uh, which is almost certainly fatal, you know. I mean, if you fall that far, even though the rope
01:24:57
will catch your corpse, you know, but you're still just going to hit the wall
01:25:00
after 400 ft, like you're screwed. So, anyway, my scariest experiences have all
01:25:03
been situations like that for the most part. This is why I'm saying climbing,
01:25:08
you get scared a lot. And our like that expedition we were climbing basically day on, day off. Each
01:25:15
day we would go climb one of these crazy spires and we'd have these experiences
01:25:18
where I'd be like so scared and then the next day we would just sit in the tent
01:25:21
because it's Antarctica. It's like really cold. You're in the cook tent and
01:25:24
I would basically just spoon Nutella all day totally shell shocked like totally like just completely traumatized and
01:25:29
then the and then you'd be like rested enough and you go out the next day and
01:25:32
do it again and we just did like day on day off of like full trauma fear for the
01:25:37
whole trip and then we climbed everything in the range. It was amazing. It was an incredible trip.
01:25:41
>> So you do get scared? >> Yeah, I was so scared the whole time. Are there any techniques that are proven
01:25:45
to be effective for you to deal with that fear? Like people talk about breath work and
01:25:49
>> yeah, take some deep breaths, try to compose yourself. I mean, I try to stay
01:25:53
rational, you know, like, am I in danger? Cuz sometimes, like in this case in Antarctica, I am actually in danger.
01:25:58
Like, if I fall, I could die. Um, but often times you feel you get those feelings of fear and you're not actually
01:26:03
in danger. You just it's your mind running away from you. And so sometimes you can sort of rationally re in a
01:26:07
little bit where you're like, "No, I am safe. The protection will hold me. The
01:26:10
rope is, you know, my gear is good." And then you just take a deep breath and you
01:26:14
just carry on. >> And do you visualize falling ever? >> Oh yeah. I mean of course. Yeah. I mean
01:26:18
you have to understand what the consequences will be because I mean that type of visualization is also how you
01:26:24
can know when you're safe because like if you ever open gear and you're trying
01:26:27
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
01:26:32
mean there often situations like that where you're like if I fall am I going
01:26:34
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
01:26:39
totally safe. And so it helps to be able to have a cleareyed visualization of, you know, because most people visualize
01:26:45
the worst case, like if I fall, I'm going to die. And you're like, well,
01:26:47
often times if you I'm talking about with the rope, if you fall, you're going
01:26:51
to be fine. But it's important to know the difference. >> So you don't avoid the confrontation
01:26:56
with the negative outcomes. >> No, because you're trying to avoid the negative out like you have to think
01:27:01
about it because how else do you mitigate that kind of stuff, >> but you can't let that stop you taking
01:27:06
actions when the risk profile is okay. >> Yeah. Exactly. I mean, this is like a
01:27:10
whole rant about risk-taking and everything, but like I mean, that's the thing is you want to be taking the risks
01:27:16
that you want to take. And it drives me crazy that nobody else thinks about risk
01:27:19
in this way because think of all the people that like go out partying every weekend and they get like kind of buzzed
01:27:24
and they drive home and whatever. And it's like they're taking all kinds of
01:27:27
risk that they're not actually choosing to take. You know what I mean? Like they're just choosing to go out and
01:27:31
party and have a good time, but then they're like driving a little buzzed and
01:27:34
they're like, "No, it's fine." But you're like, "No, obviously you're
01:27:36
taking a risk." or like you're putting yourself into situations where you're
01:27:40
like in a vulnerable situation because you're incapacitated because you're
01:27:43
drunk or whatever. And so, you know, you're putting yourself at higher risk for crime, things like that. And so,
01:27:48
you're taking risks, you just haven't chosen to take those risks. I'm kind of
01:27:51
like, the thing with climbing is that I'm choosing to take the risks. And I'm
01:27:54
pretty cleareyed about the risk that I'm taking. Like, I mean, I'm not going to
01:27:58
say it's perfect, but for the most part, I think I have a pretty good idea of
01:28:01
which aspects are dangerous, like when the consequences are high, what will happen if I do fall. You know, it's like
01:28:06
you try to think it all out as much as you can. And I'm kind of like, how many
01:28:09
people in normal life actually think through all the risks that they're taking? And even totally sedentary
01:28:13
people who are like, "Well, I don't take risk. I stay home and I play video
01:28:15
games." You're like, "No, you're at a much higher risk of heart disease. Like,
01:28:18
you're going to die from other things." You know, it's like, and you're still
01:28:20
going to freaking die either way. That's okay. I'm done ranting. I'm sorry.
01:28:24
>> No, no, but it's really important because you I think we are all taking
01:28:27
risks, but some of us aren't intentional about the risks we're taking essentially.
01:28:31
>> Well, that's exactly it. Like, even if you take no risk, you're going to die.
01:28:34
you're taking a different set of risks. And so people look at my life and they're like, "Well, you're crazy.
01:28:39
You're such a risk taker." And I'm kind of like, "Well, at least I'm taking the
01:28:41
risks that I'm choosing and I'm choosing them very intentionally and I'm pretty
01:28:44
careful about them and I mitigate them as much as I can." I'm kind of like,
01:28:47
"Well, can you say the same for the risk that you're taking or, you know, I'm
01:28:50
sort of like the average person, I think, doesn't think about risk as much as they should."
01:28:54
>> And is there anything that you would give them as a framework to help them be
01:28:56
more intentional about those risks? Is there is it just >> Well, it's like you're going to freaking
01:29:00
die either way, so choose the things that you care about and then do them well. and do them well. Prepare.
01:29:07
>> Yeah. Execute. Like have a plan, you know, but don't just like take risk
01:29:11
willy-nilly. Like don't just get drunk and go out and do a thing, you know, cuz
01:29:15
like that's stupid. Like that's not the risk you should be taking, you know?
01:29:18
Like don't put all your money on black and just like hope, you know what I mean? Like basically don't just like
01:29:22
roll the dice. Like don't let fate just like roll the roll the dice with your
01:29:25
life. Like make choices. >> And free soloing is, you know, there's a bigger existential risk with no margin
01:29:31
for error. But um >> but it's very intentional. >> Very intentional. Drinking as as a risk
01:29:38
is like a volume knob. The more you do it, the more the risk increases. >> And the other one is kind of like an
01:29:42
on-off switch, which you can you do it today. And >> yeah. So grip strength.
01:29:48
>> I wouldn't be even a little bit surprised if you can pull that more than
01:29:51
I can actually, but I mean we'll both try. >> Okay. This is a grip strength meter.
01:29:55
>> Um okay, so let's see. We're at zero. Um kilograms would be extra small then. Uh,
01:29:59
I mean, the thing with these like, okay, actually, let me just preface this with
01:30:01
like I've had tons of people be like, "Well, surely you're going to break the
01:30:04
machine." I'm like, "No, because for climbing, you you just have the strength
01:30:06
that you need to do the things that you're trying to do." >> And how much do you weigh?
01:30:09
>> Um, right now like 165. >> 165, >> which is actually basically the heaviest
01:30:13
I've ever been. Maybe 163 if I'm lucky right now. >> So, 165 lbs in kg is equivocal to 75 kg
01:30:22
roughly. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Go ahead. 49 or 50 49.9 more. It's just like
01:30:34
Yeah, 49. You know, >> those are just kind of like it's just a it's just a different thing. You know
01:30:38
what I mean? Like that's not climbing. >> 49 kg in pounds is 108. Interesting.
01:30:45
>> Yeah, let's see yours though. But yeah, like I said, >> different arms.
01:30:48
>> Uh it's about the same with both hands. It should be >> 62. >> Yeah. See, there you go.
01:30:57
>> I can't lift my body weight. Like >> I might be able to like Yeah, I mean I
01:31:01
might be able to muster a little more in it, but >> 63 on that one. >> Let me try again.
01:31:07
>> But like I don't I don't think uh Do you work out? Like you do weights and stuff?
01:31:10
I >> I lift dumbbells, but I'm not doing anything grippy. I curl and stuff, but I
01:31:15
don't do anything grippy. >> I know. I'm at 50 and a half. >> How many pull-ups can you do?
01:31:19
>> Don't know. But I can. Yesterday I did uh I did a couple one- arms like uh like
01:31:23
Yeah, I basically pull-ups. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Which is very hard. >> Yeah. I don't think I can do one arms.
01:31:29
>> Yeah. Well, that's the thing. That's why grip strength stuff you're kind of like
01:31:31
nah. Or actually, so um like have you done weighted pull-ups in a gym? >> Weighted pull-ups? No, I just do I'll
01:31:37
just do my own body weight and I you know I weigh a lot. So I'm like deceptively heavy.
01:31:42
>> Really? Like >> very dense? >> Very dense. Cloat in water. No, like big
01:31:46
bones. >> You just sink straight in the bottom. How how much kilograms do you think I
01:31:50
weigh? I mean, in pounds, you'd know it. But this is >> Well, now I'm now I'm guessing. I don't
01:31:53
know. Like, now that you're saying that you're big, I'm like I don't know, maybe
01:31:56
185 or something. What? >> I'm 211. >> Yeah. With actually So, that's another
01:32:00
thing with grip strength is like it makes sense that your grip strength is proportionally. I mean, you're like 25%
01:32:05
bigger than me. >> Yeah. >> Like, you know, basically. >> Yeah.
01:32:08
>> So, it's like you would expect it to at least 25% stronger right there just
01:32:12
because like if you can do body weightight pull-ups, you're going to be much stronger.
01:32:15
>> Yeah. Right. >> We have um we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest
01:32:19
leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're leaving it for.
01:32:23
>> And the question left for you is oh what do you want to achieve in your life
01:32:28
outside of your mainline job that you haven't yet achieved? I don't know. I mean that seems there
01:32:35
basically two other avenues that I care about in my life. Uh you know my family.
01:32:39
I want to be a good dad. I want to make sure my kids grow up to be healthy, welladjusted people that, you know, like
01:32:44
live their best lives. And then I have a foundation that supports community solar
01:32:48
projects around the world. And I'd love to see that thrive. I mean, basically, I
01:32:52
mean, you know, we give as much as we can to to solar projects around the world. And I'd love to see that do more.
01:32:58
>> On that point of your foundation, what is what is the sort of the thesis there?
01:33:01
You want to for solar projects? >> Yeah. Yeah. Solar it's basically energy
01:33:04
access around the world. >> Okay. >> Yeah. I think now we've given I don't
01:33:07
know over 13 million to something like over 100 partners around the world. Basically like small scale community
01:33:12
solar projects. So people getting access to energy for the first time. Um basically using solar for anything
01:33:17
ranging from light to you know say food refrigeration to pumping water. I mean whatever whatever people need energy for
01:33:25
which is basically everything. 13 more than 13 million across 130 projects in 30 countries impacting
01:33:32
650,000 people and creating 1,200 plus jobs protected 15 million acres of biodiverse forest as well. Yeah, some of
01:33:42
those things are sort of like the the secondary and tertiary benefits where it's like when you empower certain kinds
01:33:47
of communities then they're better able to take care of their lands and things
01:33:50
like that. Some of that has to do with indigenous sovereignty and things like in the Ecuadorian Amazon and and places
01:33:54
where it's like when the local people have power suddenly they can protect their land from illegal logging, illegal
01:34:00
mining, things like that. And so then you wind up having this knockoff like environmental benefit that's like also
01:34:05
great in addition to the human aspect where you're like, well, these people are living better lives and it helps
01:34:10
save the planet. >> And you're giving away roughly a third of your wealth to cover the majority of
01:34:14
the foundation's overheads. So yeah, I've been given roughly a third of my of
01:34:19
what I make every year uh since 2012. And uh that's basically just sort of coincidentally tracked with the overhead
01:34:26
for the foundation. So it just means that anything that people contribute goes straight to projects because I
01:34:30
basically cover all the staffing and everything. And >> how does how does one contribute to
01:34:33
that? >> Uh honoundation.org is the easiest way you can support directly. I mean you can
01:34:37
see all the projects that we're working with >> and donors can go there if they want to
01:34:40
contribute to this. So they can go to the website. Okay. Well, I'll link the
01:34:43
website below and if anyone is interested in continuing to support the great work you're doing there. Um I'd
01:34:48
highly recommend they go and make a donation. It's a it's also just a way I
01:34:51
think to give back to you as a person for the inspiration you've given so many
01:34:55
of us. >> I appreciate that, >> you know. >> Yeah. I mean to me the foundation has
01:34:59
always been my attempt at doing something useful cuz like I love rock climbing. I think it's so fun. But in
01:35:04
the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter in the world. And I feel
01:35:08
like the work that we're doing through the Han Foundation, at least material
01:35:10
improves the well-being of of other humans, you know, like it actually has a real impact both for the environment and
01:35:15
for people. Well, I don't know, Alex. I I think watching you climb Taipei and
01:35:20
watching the millions of people all around the world climb Taipei was an expansive moment for all of us because
01:35:26
it all it holds a mirror up to us in a really inspiring way and goes, "What
01:35:30
obstacles can you overcome in your life?" And >> um the many many millions of people now
01:35:36
have that visual and sometimes it is an absurd visual that does that and it's
01:35:40
most memorable like it etched into their brains and that means that they in their
01:35:45
own life are looking for their own type A1 ones or type A7s or type A 101's and
01:35:49
if you play that forward as like a ripple in the ocean of how people are going to strive and maybe live more
01:35:53
intentionally maybe maybe it does really really matter. maybe the whole conversation which was like my entire
01:35:59
Twitter feed for days and days and days of people saying this is a miraculous human achievement
01:36:06
it there's like that's the first half of a sentence the other half of that
01:36:08
sentence which we never really hear is like so now what can I do mhm and that is a profound thing well that's
01:36:14
definitely the best frame like that's the framing that I hope for and that's
01:36:18
you know but I think that's like the best case scenario for my climbing and like I I hope that that's how people
01:36:24
take it but I will say that the work through the hauntation at least has a direct material impact immediately and
01:36:29
you're kind of like oh you don't have to hope for ripples or anything. You're
01:36:31
like well this person can now read after dark for the first time ever and you're
01:36:34
like that is gamechanging. If anything you know I've been talking a lot about
01:36:37
like action speaking louder than words and I'm like yeah I hope to you know like it's great if the climbing I do
01:36:42
inspires people like that's all good but at some point you just do a direct thing
01:36:45
that actually helps people's lives too. >> And you're doing both. >> Yeah. Yeah. Aspiring too. Doing my best.
01:36:51
>> The tangible and the intangible. >> Alex, thank you so much. Thank you.
01:36:56
Amazing conversation. >> Thank you. >> YouTube have this new crazy algorithm
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