Welcome to the school of greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome back, everyone. At school of greatness we have the inspiring Alex Honnold in the house. Good to see you, sir. Welcome to the show. I have to read this really quick so people can understand how inspiring of an athlete and human being you are. More people will walk on the moon than will do what Alex Honnold has done for me. Just reading that in your bio, I was like, this is unbelievable because not many people in the world can do or ever will do what you've done. And I'm curious if you could explain to people that don't know anything about you what it is you actually do that you think makes you so great.

Well, so, I mean, I'm a professional rock climber and I've rock climbed my whole life. I mean, the thing that I'm most well known for is free souling, which is climbing without a rope. And I think the quote that you just read is specifically referring to free soling el cap, which is a wall in national park which. Which to date I'm the only person to have done.

No one's ever done it again.

No. Still no.

And what is it you actually did? I mean, I watched the documentary. It was incredible before.

Yes, the documentary free solar kind of covers it, but I freeze solar capitan, which is a 3000 foot granite wall. So, yeah, climbing this big wall without a rope. Without a rope, yeah, which was very challenging. It's funny now it's been a little while and I'm like, oh yeah, it's just climbing.

I did this thing.

Yeah, did this thing climbing. But no, it was something that I was working on for many, many years and sort of dreaming about for many years before then.

And how long did the actual climb take?

The actual climb took I think 356 or almost 4 hours. 4 hours. Which for context though, the average party climbing all cab. So typically you climb that 3000 foot wall with ropes and equipment and people normally camp on the wall and they normally spend three to five days on the wall.

Really?

Yeah.

So they say three to five days. You did it in under 4 hours.

Yeah, but though it's kind of like the difference between ultra running and backpacking where it's like once you decide not to take all the camping stuff then it becomes ultra running and you'd wind up going a lot faster.

Right.

So some of it is just a product of the style. Like, by choosing to go without ropes, you just wind up going a lot faster. You have to. But it's obviously a lot more extreme to go without ropes.

So has anyone attempted. But they've come down or how.

No, I don't even think anybody's playing in that space right now, really. Nobody's really doing anything quite like that.

Why is that? And why is no one else trying to do that? And why were you so curious to do something like that with no rope?

Okay, so there just aren't that many people free soling right now. And part of that might be broader trends in the climbing world, like climbing win at the Olympics in 2020 in Tokyo. And so right now, I think the sort of cutting edge of rock climbing is more on the competition front and the Olympics and World cups and things like that. And so I think that a lot of the talent in climbing right now is sort of focused on competitions. Whereas when I was growing up, I think some of the sort of cultural, the coolness in climbing was more around speed climbing and big wall climbing and free soloing and things like that. Like, more of the adventure side of climbing. If you think of climbing as a spectrum between sort of athleticism and adventure, I grew up and the pendulum was shifted slightly more on the adventure side. Right now, I think it's slightly more shifted on the athleticism side, which I think is maybe part of the reason that fewer people are doing big wall solos and got you. People are going to the Olympics, but whatever. I mean, that's just the way a sport grows up.

I think the main thing is just that nobody is really doing that much.

Free solely right now in general. Not even just, like, smaller walls or smaller mountains.

Well, there must be people doing some stuff that I don't know that much about, but there's just nobody. Okay, so when you ask, has anyone free solo at all? Cap kind of like, man, for me to free solo. Cap took this very long journey, and I did maybe 30 or 40 other big walls around the world that sort of led up to it. LCAP is a very particular kind of challenge. And so to tackle that kind of thing, you start by climbing smaller walls or slightly more difficult walls, or walls that are maybe smaller but harder in some way, or smaller and easier in other ways. And basically, you mix and match all these pieces until eventually you feel comfortable doing something that big.

And that takes years.

Yeah, that took, like, years and years, but at this point, nobody's even done any of those other pieces, like, of the 30 ish things that I did to lead up to LCAP, nobody's actually repeated any of them. So when you're like, oh, has anyone done LCAP? I'm like, well, no. Nobody's even started down the path. Like, nobody's even aiming in that direction.

So people are still climbing LCAP with ropes, though?

Yeah, people climb all cap, all the time.

All the time with ropes, yeah. But no one's tried it or completed it without ropes.

No. Free soling is a completely different thing.

Wow, man.

I mean, climbing it with a rope obviously requires degree of skill and you have to be a skilled climber, but it's by no means elite. Like, any average person who's read enough books and, yeah, you could. Honestly, really? You could climb all cap with a rope?

Come on.

No, I mean, it would be the biggest adventure of your life. You spend five days on the wall, you'd come out totally haggard, but you could do it. Really? Yeah.

It seems like it's a straight up wall, though. I mean, with, like, very little. I'm so big, though. I'm 230 pounds. How am I going to hold myself up?

So if the two of us went up all cap together and I was able to lead more of it, you'd be able to ascend ropes, you'd be able to camp on the ledge.

Really?

You could get up it? Yeah. You'd be worked. It would be hard for you.

It might take me two weeks, but.

You could do it.

Wow.

But the difference between that and free soling, the difference that and climbing without a rope is vast. That I would argue you'll never do it.

Yeah. I don't even know if I could climb, like, 30ft without a rope on anything, unless it was like I could walk it.

I mean, I think that anybody can learn how to climb to a high level if they're interested and passionate about, if they're curious. But then there's another step between that and then free soling walls.

Yeah.

Because that's like, sort of. You have to devote your life to. It's like a crap.

When did you first think, I want to do climbing in general? How old were you? Was there something you saw or someone that experienced it with you that you were like, oh, this is something I'm really interested in?

No, there wasn't like a specific moment. I just always liked climbing, and now I have a daughter who will be too soon, and she climbs on things all the time and it's really hard to tell how much that's nature of her nurture, because obviously she sees her mother and father climbing all the time and basically everybody around her climbs all the time. So part of that has probably just heard me influenced by the people she's around. But also she seems particularly into clambering on things. And it makes me think that that's probably just how I was as a child because I got into rock climbing because my parents took me to a climbing gym when I was ten, but it's because I've been climbing trees and buildings and things my whole life.

Before that. Before that you were climbing. So like, okay, let's put him.

Yeah, I was the kid that was always running across the top of the monkey bars because you're like, oh, look, I can balance like that. Kind of just testing yourself on cool things. And so my parents thought that the climbing gym would be a safer outlet, and so they took me in to learn.

Did you ever have any big falls as a kid when you were climbing trees or.

The monkey barked my arm twice as a little kid. Really? Before I learned how to rock climb, I fell off a play structure, two different play structure things, and broke my arm twice. And then I also broke my arm again at the climbing gym when I was a teenager.

Did that pain ever hold you back from thinking, maybe this isn't for me?

No. If anything, you just learned that a broken wrist is like no big deal. Like six weeks later, you're totally fine. There's no thing.

Was there ever a time and I.

Fell out of so many trees?

Really?

Yeah. When you're a kid learning how to climb stuff, you just fall down all the time.

But you never were afraid to fall?

Well, no, I think I was afraid to fall. I mean, I don't want to get hurt, but I really like climbing things. And you always think that you're going to make it. You never think you're going to ball up.

Was there ever a climb that you did that is supposed to be really easy? Like almost the most basic climb ever? Like someone like me could do it easily or someone, maybe someone with some beginner skills could do this easily, that you got into a very sticky situation where you thought, oh, I'm in a bad situation, and I could actually fall and potentially die.

I've been in a lot of sticky situations. I'm not sure if any of them were on things that should have, that were actually that easy. I mean, I guess the challenge, though, is that if you think something should be easy for you, and then it winds up being just a little bit harder than you think it should be. When your expectations mismatch reality, then that can be. I mean, the thing with free soulling is so much of it is psychological. So anytime your experience doesn't match, or like your expectations don't match the reality, then it's easy to get out of control mentally a little bit, because if you start to get scared, you start to second guess, you start to hesitate like all of those things when none of those things help your performance. So then it can start to be sort of a negative spiral where gets quite scary.

What do you think has helped you keep your mindset so clear under challenging situations? Is it the mental preparation? Is it the physical preparation? Is it just being present in the moment?

Well, part of it, I think there are a couple of things. One is experience, like being in situations like that, basically getting really scared and then managing to maintain some degree of self control when you're really scared is a bit of an acquired skill. You just have to get scared over and over. People ask all the time like, oh, you don't feel fear? I'm like, no, of course I feel fear. I've just gotten scared so much. You just get used to it when.

You feel fear, when you're like, oh, I'm in a very scary situation. What goes through your mind and how do you get out of it?

Well, I think a lot of the time I experience the same things everybody else does, which is like anger, tenseness, like, oh, I hate this, why am I here? Why is this happening to me? I don't know. If you're in some tricky situation climate, it starts to rain and all of a sudden you're like, now it's really bad and you're like, oh, I'm so screwed. You start like bargaining. I mean, what are all the stages of denial and grief? You go through the whole list of like, oh, why? And then at a certain point you're like, I'm on this cliff and it's raining. No amount of anything is going to change that. You just need to deal and then you either go up or you go down or you figure it out.

Were you pretty self taught on your mental conditioning, mental training and mindset around all these things? Or did you have mentors and teachers or friends kind of give you these psychological skills?

Well, I'd say I'm largely self taught, but it's not exactly self taught like thinking about it and figuring it out. It's more like having experiences and just seeing what works over time. But also I've always cast a wide net. I've read all the books about climbing, I've read all the books on mental coaching. But the thing is, when I was growing up as a climber, there were far fewer resources for that thing. Climbing was just a smaller sport. Now there's a lot more available. But at the time there were a handful of books. I obviously read them all and I read all the climbing magazines. And you'd read all the stories, you'd read people's memoirs. The things you can learn are from other people's experiences in the mountains and somebody else has some harrowing experience and you're like, oh, well, I don't want to do that. Or it's like, I see how he survived. I should try to do the same thing. If that ever happens to me, let's hope it never happens.

Who has been your biggest teacher around your mindset in this world?

I honestly don't even know. I mean, there are very few people who free solo and so you don't really talk to other people doing the exact same thing. So it's more like you apply lessons from the other edges of climbing because you can get really, really scared climbing with a rope. Like, most of my scariest experiences climbing have actually been with a rope on.

Really?

Because having a rope tied to your harness doesn't mean that you're actually connected to the wall safely. You still have to place gear into the rock and secure yourself with anchors and things.

Because if you don't have an anchor, you could fall down and swing and hit your head.

Yeah. Have you climbed before at all? In like a rock, you tie into the rope and then you start setting out up the wall and as you go up the wall, you have to place protection as you go. And so sometimes, say the rock quality is really bad and so you can't get good protection for 20ft, 30ft, 40ft. And so if you're 40ft above your last piece, that means you're looking at like an 80 foot plus fall because you'd fall the distance plus that much.

Past the rope afterwards.

Yeah, exactly. It's double the distance to your last piece.

You could die from that probably.

Yeah, exactly. So if you're taking an 80 foot fall, realistically, you could die.

And then how do you get down? What if you fall, break your arm or hit your head?

How do you get down? Well, that becomes the stuff of legends then. It's like some harrowing survival story and that's what you read in people's books and stuff, like one arm. There are all these legendary stories from climbing, like some people climbing on the south face of half dome, which is like a very big wall in Yosemite. But the guy fell, broke both his ankles, and then they had to extricate themselves from the wall, and then he crawled all the way back down the trail with two broken ankles. What? Yeah, which is like a seven mile crawl back down to the valley floor. And so, know, I grew up reading all these stories and reading about these kinds of things. So all that to say, many of the scariest experience are with a rope on, because having the rope doesn't make you inherently safe. You still need protection. But the thing is, when you do have a rope, you're much more willing to push into the unknown because you're like, surely I'll get to good protection eventually you have all this gear on you. You're like, eventually I'll get somewhere where I can use this.

I'm sure it'll get better. And it's easy to sucker yourself into positions of true fear because you're like, I'm a little scared now, but I'm sure it'll get better. And you keep going, and you're like, well, now I'm more scared, but it's got to get better. So you keep going, keep going. It's like a sunken cost fallacy, throwing.

Good money at what's the farthest you've gone without having to, I guess, plug.

In without an anchor. Yeah, well, so doing a first ascent in Africa, I went like the full length of the rope, like 70 meters, so 230ft without any gear. So we'd eyeballed this feature up, this big granite dome in Angola, and from the ground we thought that the dome was like maybe 500ft high, and we thought that the big crack that we were looking at would be like a hand crate, like something you put your hands into. It turns out that the mountain itself was more like 1000 or 1500ft high. And so the thing that looked like a crack was actually like a giant man sized chimney. So it was like bigger than this table. And so it meant that you have all this climbing gear that would normally fit into a space like the size of this cup, and then the crack is the, the size of the table and you're like, oh, no. And so I wound up going a full 230ft up, a thing like that with no protection. And then, by sheer miracle of nature, there was a giant rock wedged inside the chimney at a certain point. So I was able to sit down on that and sort of anchor myself to the rock and then bring my partner up and then do it again.

Holy cow, man. So how many feet was that?

Like 200 and 3230ft.

With no anchor?

Yeah. So in theory, if you fell, you would take a 400 and you're dead. Yeah.

Was there ever a point where you're like, oh, I'm going too far now, there's nowhere to anchor. If I slip, I'm out. Or do you not have those thoughts?

No, I mean, you have those thoughts. Like, you should definitely be aware that if you make a mistake, you're going to die. And that's the thing with climbing, is that you always have this ongoing dialog around risk because you should know when it's okay to fall and when it's not okay to fall.

But that point, it wasn't okay to fall.

Yeah, but that means that you should climb a lot more carefully and you should be very careful about what you grab and how you grab it. Because if you've just placed protection and you know you're totally safe, then you should take risk. You can just grab things. You can move a little faster. Like, you don't have to spend a lot of time thinking about everything you do because you're totally safe.

Yeah. The rock is good enough to anchor in different places. You know, you can anchor a few feet or something.

If you know you're safe, you should just move confidently and move with ease. But if you know you're going to die, you should probably move pretty freaking carefully.

Is it harder to go up or to go down? Something like that?

It depends. Actually. Chimneys, like a big wide thing like that is actually slightly easier to go down because it's gravity assisted. You just kind of like ease up the pressure and you just slide back down.

So this is kind of like a chimney where your feet are against the wall.

Back against the wall, yeah, exactly.

What if the chimney is too big and you're like.

Then it starts to get really scary.

And you're like inches holding on, like going up.

Yeah. No, I mean, if you have to go to, like, full body spend, then it's really.

Have you ever done that before?

Yeah, but not that very far from it. This is crazy.

So I feel like it'd be almost harder going down, like trying to see where the holds are and then you have to unhook essentially.

Right. It depends on what exactly you're doing. But oftentimes going down actually is easier in some ways because when you look down, you can see all the holds.

Okay.

Because sometimes when you're looking up a rock wall, it's really hard to see, what's an incut like, what's a positive edge and what isn't. It just all looks like blank rock. But when you're looking down it, often you can see all the little edges and things sometimes. But then on the other hand, when you're looking down, you're leading with your feet, which are further away, and it's kind of hard to see. Whereas when you're going up, you're looking at your next hand holds. It's all within this tight field of vision. Just depends.

It's fascinating, man.

Now you have to go to a climbing gym and practice.

Oh, my gosh, I'm so big, though. It's so hard.

I don't think it matters really. Well, okay, so for low angle climbing, like something 90 degrees or less, you're putting all your weight on your feet anyway.

Okay.

There's big, like, things, even if they're really small, holds. The idea is that you transfer as much weight as possible off your feet. It's like climbing a staircase. So, I mean, just because you're big, you can still climb stairs, I assume. Yeah.

Is it that easy, though, at like, a rock climbing gym?

Yeah. Somebody with good technique should be climbing. So I've heard it described as when you climb a staircase, you use the handrails, but you use them for balance, not to pull yourself up. Right. And climbing should be the same way, basically that the handholds are basically for balance and you still drive with your legs. I mean, that changes a little bit if the wall gets more than vertical hanging, because then obviously you're hanging from your arms, and then it is harder to be really big and heavy. But being big and strong helps, really.

I think the only chance that I would actually go to a rock climbing gym is if you were there to give me some advice and coach me up the wall, that I'd be like, okay, maybe I could do this.

I think it'd be easier for you than you think. You have an athletic background.

But I feel like my hands and my arms get so tired, like years ago.

That's probably because you're using them too much. Yeah. Stand on your feet and then use your hands for balance. Be able to relax your hands and just use them to.

And be close to the wall, right? Yeah, that's what I remember. It was just so hard. I was just trying to muscle myself up as opposed to using.

But that's a common thing. If you're already a big, strong man, you're like, oh, use my big muscles because I have them, but they're exhausted. Yeah, exactly. But they get tired so fast.

So it's all in the feet?

Yeah, it's all in the feet.

I read somewhere about you doing a brain scan and having the fear signal in your brain less than others. Is that true?

Sort of. Not exactly. So that's also a scene in the film free solo in the documentary. And that was taken from a science journalist. We did this profile thing where we used an fMRI and basically look at images while in the fMRI and.

Like a brain scan.

Yeah. And the takeaway was that, yes. While doing this battery of images, my brain didn't light up the way that others do, but the conclusion was more that I had probably desensitized myself to that level of stimulus over years of exposure. So not so much like my brain is missing a piece, which I think is the simplistic. Like, a lot of people are like, oh, there's something wrong with you. You're like, no, I think the real takeaway is that through chronic desensitization, I'm just no longer like, I need a different level of stimulus.

Got you.

Which to me makes total sense. Well, and also. And you see that, like in monks and things like that. I mean, people will change their brain in all kinds of ways if you do the same type of activity for long enough. But I wouldn't be surprised. It was a little bit of both nature and nurture, where I was probably a little less sensitive to that stuff to begin with, which is probably why I like free soling and doing some of these other things climbing wise. But then I've also spent 15 at that point, I'd spent 15 years doing it all the time and so naturally got more comfortable with it.

A lot of people that come to watch this show or listen, not everyone, but a lot of people struggle with the fear of failure, the fear of going after their goals, going after their dreams and failing and either being embarrassed by it or just feeling bad about it. And that fear that they're holding on to makes them unable to take action. How do you think people can overcome their fears better? Is it only through taking action over and over and kind of desensitizing yourself to the emotions and the feelings around failure?

Well, that is a good way to do it. But one way, I think, that you see in climbing a lot is just starting by deciding whether or not your fears are rational or well founded. In climbing, it's a little bit easier because your fear is often physical. It's based on some physical thing, like you're actually in real danger, as opposed to sort of psychological fear of failure and things like that. But I think it's easy to start with, is this a rational fear? Does this make sense? And in some ways that actually makes more sense for the psychological things, because if you're like, oh, I'm afraid because my friends will make fun of me, maybe you should really think about it. Like, will your friends make fun of you for taking your shot at your dream? Like, no. Your friends, if they're real friends, they're going to be pretty psyched for you and they'll be bummed that it didn't work out, but they'll be impressed that you tried. They'll respect the effort. I think that that's maybe the place to start is like, is this a well founded fear in climbing? A lot of the time when you evaluate your fears, they often are well founded.

Like, if you fail, you will die or whatever. If you slip, you'll die, at least. Yeah. And so in those cases, it makes sense by starting by addressing them how you can. Mitigating the danger, minimizing the risk, doing whatever you can to make it safer so that you won't be as afraid. Right. That's why I think talking about fear is complicated, because it's like, yeah, sometimes you should ignore it, you should push past it, you should suppress it, you should do whatever. But a lot of the time, you should probably address the root cause of the fear. Like, a lot of the time you're afraid because you're actually in danger or because something terrible, people being afraid of snakes and spiders. I mean, that's often well founded because there are many places in the world where you will die if you interact with the wrong little creature. Yeah, but depending on where you live, you should know because a lot of them aren't that dangerous. And in that case, it doesn't really make sense to be that afraid. Right.

What are you most afraid of these days?

I don't know. Death, I guess.

Are you afraid of death?

Yeah, I'd say I'm afraid of severe pain. I don't like feeling pain any more than anybody else, really.

Were you afraid of death before you started the family?

I never wanted to die. I mean, I love being alive. The thing with free souling is it's not like a death wish. In some ways, the real pleasure of free souling is taking something that seems like it should be really scary and then making it feel safe. Because on your best climbs, you feel good while you're doing it, but you're doing something that seems like it should be very scary, but that's what makes it magical is because it doesn't feel scary when you do it. Well.

Right. But before you started having a family, did you look at your profession differently than after having a family?

Not so far, but I mean, right now my daughter will be too soon, and I feel like we're just starting to have a nice relationship. Maybe in the last six months. I feel like we're actually communicating. We're having a good time.

Bonding.

Yeah. She's like my budy now. We do stuff and it's awesome. And so I wouldn't be surprised if, as that relationship grows, my perspective around risk and climbing and stuff changes a little bit. Really? But maybe not because I've been in serious relationships with romantic partners throughout all the hardest climbing I've done.

And didn't change the way you would address the things you wanted to tackle and take on.

No, not really, though. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if children like having dependence is a little bit different just because romantic partners in some ways seem a little bit more disposable not to be too children. Yeah. Because you have a real legacy. Raise your child with a romantic partner, you're kind of like. Well, I mean, there are a lot of people out there.

Exactly.

No matter how incredible your partner is, I don't feel as beholden to them. I do.

A child, of course. Did you have any fear around having your first child?

No, I've definitely always wanted a family. That's the thing is that even through all the extreme free soulling and whatever, I've always wanted to be an old person with grandkids at some point. Really? Yeah. I mean, there are seasons to life. I mean, you know, you can't just do the hardest, craziest thing forever. And why would you want to? You get so tired. It's funny, I've had this conversation, but I mean, this is the whole side. I'm at the point in life, I'm 38. A lot of my friends are a little bit older, but similar range of life. And so a lot of my friends are starting families right now. And there are a handful of professional climbers around my age who have partners who really want to start a family, but they're kind of like, not sure. They still have some things they want to do. And there's this tension between do we start having kids? And a conversation I've had with several of my friends who are professional climbers is that I've been a professional climber for 15 years, and it's been amazing and I love it. And I've been going so hard for 15 years, or actually a little more than that now, like 17 years or something.

But I'm 38, so realistically, I could keep going at roughly the same pace into my 50s, probably because climbing has more longevity than most sports because it's relatively low impact on your body and you don't really get injured, so you can go pretty hard for a long time. Wow. But so if I doubled what I've done, that'd give me 55 it, but then I'd still have 40 more years of life potentially before I die. And you're kind of like, there's no way I could do it two more times after that. Wow. It's like you'd be so tired. And just the idea of taking everything that I've done in the last 1517 years and then doing it all again, I'm like, I don't even know if I want to so much, really.

And probably the more times you do these things, yes, you get more skilled at it and better at it, but it's also more chances of an injury, more chances of something bad happening, too, right?

Yeah, I would think also just a little bit less passion for it, because if you just done it all. Yeah, I haven't done it all. And there are always, like, other things to do and other challenges, but I have done most of the things that I've dreamt of my whole life. Done a lot. I can dream up new things, but do they mean as much as the things that I dreamt about since I was a kid? It's like when you just keep adding more things onto your list because you're like, I don't want the list to end. Is that cool?

For a bigger mountain and a new place? It's going to be freezing. I'm going to be naked climbing.

Exactly. Yeah. I'm like, do I need that? I'm like, I don't know if I need that. Right. I mean, there are plenty of climbing challenges. I'm still understanding things that I'm working on and whatever, but I have done a lot of things that I want to do.

What about this profession is a dangerous profession? I mean, you've had a lot of people that have lost their lives over the years, right? A lot of people that you're close with or people that you climbed with or knew of. How dangerous is this sport, really?

Well, yeah, I've known a lot of people who've died climbing, but part of that is also because as a professional climber, you know, everybody. So any kind of accident, you at least tangentially know the people involved, probably. I mean, climbing is interesting because it's very high consequence. So if you have an accident, it can often be fatal, but you very rarely have accidents. And so I contrast climbing against a sport like mountain biking, let's say, where people break their clavicle like every other season. I kind of prefer a sport like climbing where you basically never get injured, but you're always facing a tiny, tiny risk that you could die. Wow. If you did something wrong or if a lapse of attention or whatever, there's always the chance you could die, and there's always the chance of minor injuries and things. But realistically, if you're just a casual climber that climbs in the gym and goes sport climbing outside on the weekends and stuff, you'll probably go your whole life without ever being injured or witnessing a serious accident. Whereas if you're a serious mountain biker, you're going to get hurt every year. Really?

Something's going to happen.

Yeah. I mean, gravity assisted sports, like if you're an elite skier, you're getting injured every season or like every couple of seasons, right.

You may not die.

Yeah, but that's the thing. That's what I was going to say is that as a mountain bike or skier, things like that, it's very rare that you die. You can, but it's not common. But you're always going to get injured. I kind of prefer the other risk profile where it's like you're never going to have little injuries, but there's always the risk you could die.

Wow.

I think it's a little more heightened.

Tell me. It's very heightened. Is there something about that that excites you, that I could go up this right now and not come back?

Well, it's not that excites me, but I think it demands a certain level of attention and focus. And I don't want to break my clavicle every year. I don't want to separate my AC joint, like break my shoulders. I have friends that have all been hurt, biking, doing different things, and you're kind of like, I don't want that. I love climbing and I don't want to take time off because I broke my arm doing something stupid like skiing and biking or whatever.

What is the thing you think about when you have a long climb and stakes are high? What is the thing that you're thinking about? Are you thinking about the end? Are you thinking about moment by moment? Are you thinking about the next few moments, are you distracted putting your mind in a different place? Where does your mind go?

Yeah, it depends. So say, on LCAP specifically, like free selling LCAP, the route on LCAP can be broken down roughly as a third easy, a third medium climbing, and a third hard, just sort of interspersed throughout the 3000ft. Like, some of it is easy, but then some of it's very hard. So on the easy terrain, my mind can just kind of wander and you can think about whatever you want. On the medium terrain, you kind of have to focus a little more. And then on the very hard terrain, you're basically just focused on the movement. And you're not even necessarily thinking about the movement, you're just doing the movement and your mind is just sort of empty. But I think the easiest way to understand that is if you compare it to running or something. Let's say I think most people have had experience running pretty hard. And if you're casually jogging, then you can look around and enjoy things. But if you're sprinting as hard as you can sprint, then you're really not thinking about anything. You're just trying to keep breathing and keep your feet under you, and that's it. You're just doing the thing.

You're second by second. You just focus on that second.

You're just hoping your lungs don't explode while you're going as hard as you can. I think it's a good analogy. Basically, depending on the level of intensity you have, more or less, you focus more or less. And I think people are like, oh, if you're distracted on the easy parts, is that dangerous? Yeah, you don't want to be completely complacent. You don't want to just slip and fall off because you're not paying any attention. Right. But it's the same way, like, when you're driving in casual conditions, your mind can be thinking about anything else and you can just trust your body to do the thing that you've been doing your whole life.

Yeah, sometimes you drive somewhere and you're like, how do they get here? You get to the end spot. You're like, I don't remember getting here totally. But your body and your mind knows where to go.

You're paying attention and you're doing something that you've practiced for possibly many hours a day for your entire life. Which is funny, nobody thinks of driving that way, but it is something that you basically practice. Maybe not in an intentional level and not like in a structured way, but you do have a lot of experience with it over your life, especially, like, living in LA hours a day that you're practicing this thing that you don't want to do. So I don't know. I mean, I think it makes sense that some of you've practiced that much. You can just execute on autopilot.

Yeah. But before you go up on something challenging, are you visualizing, know, on LCAP, obviously, you talked about the whole process of going up there, doing the moves. You had a journal. You're like, going over everything, but just on maybe a normal challenging adventure. How do you approach that?

It depends. Basically, it depends whether I've prepared for it or not, because there are some climbs that you intentionally don't practice and train for. But climbs all have ratings, like, difficulties assigned to them. And so there are certain things that are so far within your comfort zone that you just kind of know that you can go up there and deal with whatever you find. And so in that case, you don't necessarily visualize or practice or do anything ahead of time because you just know that it's within your comfort zone. But if something is a hard enough rating that it's like on the edge of your comfort zone or beyond it, then you kind of have to employ all the techniques I was using on cap, like actual repelling in and preparing and practicing and memorizing moves and then visualizing the moves and rehearsing and just all the. Yeah, it just depends on what level of challenge you're looking for.

From the moment you said, I'm going to climb AlCAp to the actual day you did it, how much time was that when you made the decision, this is going to happen? How much time was that?

Well, a decision, like, I'm going to do it or not.

The dream.

Want to do it?

Well, both. What was a dream? But then, like, okay, I feel ready now. I'm going to actually train for it.

Yeah. Okay. So in 2008, I soloed the northwest face of half dome, which is like a 2000 foot wall. And as soon as I did that, I was kind of like, oh, LCAP is the next obvious thing. So starting in 2009, I was like, LCAP this year. But then I drove into the valley, looked at LCAP and was like, there is no way. It's like totally out of the question. It's way too much, too scary, it's too crazy. And so then from 2009 for the next, I guess, six years or so, I kept thinking each year that this is the year, maybe this is really. Well, I kept kind of just hoping that I would drive into Yosemite, and I'd look at the wall, and it would look easy.

Never did.

No. And it's funny, because even now, having done it, I look at it, it still doesn't look easy.

How did I do that? That was crazy.

Totally. It looks insane no matter what. But. So I spent years kind of hoping that I would just somehow get a little better and it would just look easy. And so then by 2015, so that's now six years later of having this dream.

And you were climbing it also, right?

Yeah, I was climbing with ropes, with partners, and doing speed records and doing all kinds of things with ropes. Yeah.

So you were doing that.

But I was doing plenty of other walls without ropes and things. I was a professional climber, so I was trying really hard. I was doing all kinds of things, and I was just hoping that by doing all these things, eventually all cap would look easy.

You'd be like, yeah, I got this. No big deal.

Yeah. It's not like I just drove in and was like, I hope it changes. I was, like, grinding all year, going expeditions, like climbing hard routes, free, selling big walls, like, doing film, like, doing all this stuff.

For years.

Yeah, for years. Hoping that at some point, LCAP would look chill, and it just never did. So then by 2015, I finally sort of accepted that it was never going to be easy and that I should probably just start doing the prep work, specifically, like, basically start acting as if I was going to do it, even if I didn't really know if I could do it and just see what would happen. And then, by sheer coincidence, the film directing duo like Jimmy Chan and Chai Vessarelli, the people who co directed the film free solo, approached me that year by doing a feature documentary. And so as a professional climber, you're like, oh, cool, somebody wants to make movie about me climbing. Like, it makes sense that I've had this dream that I want to work on forever, and now some people show up wanting to basically help me work on a dream project. I'm like, this is perfect. So then we made the film free solo.

If they didn't approach you to do this film, do you think you would have done lCAp?

I think I still would have, but I think it actually would have been. Well, it would have been harder in some ways, but then also easier in other ways, because obviously, the stress, the pressure of a film project doesn't really help with something like that in some ways, but actually, it does help a lot with some of the nitty gritty, like the logistics, like carrying rope to the summit of the wall, repelling in, working on sections, pulling the rope back out afterwards, stashing stuff like moving equipment. It does help to have friends and partners involved who are working on the same project with.

You're not just alone out there.

Yeah, well, no, I just mean the actual weight of. So carrying 1200ft of rope to the summit of the wall. Each spool of rope is 50 to 75 pounds. Basically it represents days of effort just.

To get out there.

Yeah. Just not even climb wall. Get yourself. Yeah, exactly. It's just a lot of work and so having a team, you can spread out the work a little bit better. Wow. And it was helpful for me to have people that I could talk to about it because free soloing, you normally keep it pretty low key because nobody wants to hear about your soloing project. Really? No, because everyone's like, that's a bad idea. You shouldn't do that.

No one's encouraging you.

No one's encouraging you to climb thousands.

Of feet in the air without a rope.

Yeah, exactly. If you have a dream like that, that's kind of a fragile dream, like you don't totally believe you can do it and then all of your friends are constantly telling you you shouldn't do it, you're never going to try. So you want to keep it pretty close to the chest.

So you don't tell people your dreams.

No, not for free selling stuff.

You're just maybe like one person. Like, this is something I'm thinking about and they know they got it.

Not even really del cap. I mean, not really. Maybe some hypothetical conversations with friends over the years, but never like, really. Yeah, because it was too much. It's too crazy.

So you couldn't tell anyone. I guess your girlfriend at the time, she knew.

Yeah. Well, that was the thing with the film project, is that once we're doing the film project, then obviously all the people involved with the film know what's going on and then you bring in a few people because you're filming with them, like climbing partners. Basically, because we were doing the film project, it sort of opened the net wide enough that I was able to talk to a handful of people about it, get some advice, which turned out helping a bit.

But otherwise no one would have known. You would have just rehearsed and practiced for months.

Almost all of my other major free solos were done basically alone with no unknowing. Well, some. I mean, with varying degrees, because for certain routes, you need a partner to work on them with you. And that's the thing, like with El Cap, it's so big. I knew that I would need partners to help going up and down and repelling the wall. Like repelling the whole wall by yourself. You can do it, but it's a grind. And doing it over and over is a bit of a recipe for disaster. It helps to have somebody with you just to manage the ropes and have the gear and all this stuff. And so it just helps to have a film crew with it because you might have some really good friends who are willing to go up there with you a couple of days, but they're not going to go up there with you for months because nobody's that good a friend. Right. They're kind of like, okay, unless you're.

Paying me, I'll go up once or twice.

Exactly.

Yeah. Of life.

Yeah, exactly. And it's like hard work hiding to the top of the wall and repelling down a big wall over and over.

This is like an easy day. Sunrise of sundown type of thing. All day.

Well, it's actually more like way pre sunrise, like very early, and then trying to be down by before sunset before the sun hits certain parts of the wall, but so it's more like a four to two kind of 04:00 a.m. To 02:00 p.m. Operation on the wall. Every day.

Every day for months.

No, I mean like a couple of days a week. I mean, they're really big days. You have to rest.

Okay, so you had the dream, kind of hypothetical since 2008 or nine, but then you realized, oh, this is actually the most terrifying thing I've ever seen in my life, probably, what am I thinking? That's a crazy dream. But ever you come back, you train, you try other stuff, you come back hoping to look at the wall and thinking, I got this. For years. You didn't have it until the point where you said, maybe I've got this. And then the film crew said, not.

Even necessarily, maybe I've got this. More like, you know what? I'll never know if I've got this or not unless I try. Because I kept kind of hoping that it would look easy before I put in the work. And finally I realized I had to flip it and put in the work before it would look easy just to.

Act as if you were going to.

Exactly. Basically, I just realized that I'd have to put in all the work and then maybe it would happen, maybe it wouldn't. But I would just have to put in the work regardless to find out, because otherwise I was never going to know.

And so what did that work look like for you? Like, how much time, how many reps?

Yeah. So then the work wound up being, as it turns out, almost two years of effort on the wall. But part of that's because of one of the seasons I injured my hand. And, like, a climbing floor, just, like, random things happen. Life happens. And I climbed a bunch of other Ruiz while I was working on it. And life goes on. But basically, it was, like, another two years of working on the cellcap project.

With one goal, essentially, and mapping it out. How does that look like then? Do you kind of have your journal and map out? Here's the game plan for month one.

Partially, yeah, a little bit. And then, actually, more specifically, I had my game plan for the route itself. Like, here are the parts that have question marks. I'm not sure about this one move on this one section. And what about this section? And then there's, like, these loose rocks up here, and there's, like, this bush in the crack up there, and there's just random stuff. And so then, piece by piece, I worked my way through the checklist, so to speak, and tried to make myself feel comfortable in the different parts. And I found workarounds around a few sections that I never really felt that comfortable. And then eventually, just sort of.

How many times did you do the whole thing? Assisted with ropes before you went after it?

Not that many, but that's because climbing the whole route from bottom to top with a rope actually wasn't the most efficient way to work on it, because, like I was saying, maybe a third of the route is pretty easy. You don't need to do that. Yeah. And a third, that's kind of medium. I don't really need to do that either. So I kind of wanted to focus all my effort on the hardest sections just because it's a better use time.

So it's just section after section, just repeating it.

The other thing is that if you climb from bottom to top, then you need a partner with you who's able to climb a wall that quickly. And there aren't that many.

Just, like, five people, maybe.

Yeah, literally, they're in the world. In the world, yeah. And they're willing to do that with you maybe one or two times, but then they're pretty tired, and they're kind of over it. They're sort of like, why are we doing this over and over? Yeah. So for me, it made more sense to repel down the wall by myself or with a partner and work on the key sections, because then I could be a little more strategic about the.

So you started at the top and went down?

Yeah, I generally start at the top.

Interesting.

Yeah. So like a typical day might be starting like hiking to the summit very early in the morning. How long does that take to hike it? Like an hour or two. Like 2 hours.

Like an easy route on the back?

Yeah, you basically hike around the back. Okay, so I'd like bike across the valley, get to this spot in the forest, you hike around the back, it takes a couple of hours. Wow. But that's like when you have all your stuff already set up on the wall, like with loads moving really fast, and then you repelled on the wall. I'd typically repelled down to the hardest section, which is 2300ft off the ground. And then I would do that a bunch of times and then I would keep going from there down and then work on a couple of other sections on the way down and then try to be down by lunchtime or something.

When you're repelling down 3000ft and you see the ground 3000ft below you, do you ever get scared?

No. Well, but if you get scared just from seeing it, then how are you going to climb without a rope? You know what I mean?

That's crazy. But you're so high up, man.

I know, but that's fine. But you're secure. You're on a rope or in a harness.

You can just look down and hang there dangling and you feel fine if.

You know that you're safe. I mean, if I thought the anchor was going to rip, then I'd find it really scary. If I thought that the rope is about to snap, then I find it pretty scary. Right.

But if you're just hanging, dangling and you feel like everything's secure, I'm good. You can find, look back, dangle 3000ft in the air and not worry.

So when you ride in an airplane and you look out the window, is that scary? You're like, no. You feel totally confident in your safety and it's pretty chill.

But I'm seated inside of something.

Yeah, but it's the same thing. I'm in a harness. You're just sitting in your harness. But if it's something that you've spent five days a week doing for 20 plus years, it feels pretty chill. Have you ever done those observation decks and skyscrapers where it's like a glass floor and it's kind of scary? Yeah, it's like a little scary.

But you know you're safe still.

Yeah. You saw all those other people doing it. You're like, it's safe, it's fine. And then it's chilling. You just enjoy the view, you appreciate the place. You're like, it's cool. Yeah.

After a minute you're like, okay, I'm fine if it's just a little square.

And I know I can. That's the other thing. With all my talk of hiking to the top, repelling the wall, you're spending 8 hours a day on the wall. So, yeah, used to it, the first step over the edge can be kind of scary. And especially in the morning, there'll be like an updraft and it's cold wind and you're like literally looking over the edge of a 3000 foot cliff and your ropes are all tangled and it's like chilly. And you're just sort of like, oh, I'm a little on edge. But then once you start, you just can't be on edge all day. 8 hours in, you're like, I'm so tired. You're relaxed, it's fine.

Now, after you completed LCAP, your wife mentions in arctic ascent, which is the new show coming out, which trailer is unbelievable. We'll have it linked up here. She mentioned that you seemed lost. And as an athlete myself, pursuing goals in many different sports in high school and college, being a two sport all american professional athlete USA handball team, I remember accomplishing big athletic goals and almost feeling depressed within 30 to 60 minutes after the celebration.

30 minutes.

I remember maybe a couple of hours, but the dinner after the event was done later that night, I'd be like, hoping to feel something else. I never really felt what I thought I would. After ten years of pursuing a goal, I was always like, oh, I still don't love myself the way I think I should. I don't feel happy the way I'm supposed to feel, or I don't feel it didn't solve every problem in my life.

Yeah, no, I mean, I think maybe I'd sort of already learned that lesson a bunch of times before common lCAP because, yeah, you just learned that it's not solving any of your problems. But that said, I still love climbing things. So, like climbing l cap, I was still very satisfied and I'm still very satisfied with having climbed. But I think what my wife referred, like, I don't know if I was really lost, but I think that we started dating right as I started the process of free solo, just by sheer coincidence of when we met and whatever, but it was like basically right at the beginning of my journey to actually free solo cap the final two years of training and doing it. So she had only dated me through the most focused and intense period of my entire life.

Basically, the biggest goal, yeah, the biggest.

Goal of my whole life. Like, this is the pinnacle achievement of all of my climbing. Like, this is everything. And then I do it, and then, yeah, I'm sure from her perspective, I'm a little bit more relaxed, a little more like. And it is true that when you let a big goal like that go, either by having done it or by walking away from it, because it's not possible for you, for whatever reason, there is a little bit of a hole left behind where you're like, oh, what gets me out of bed now? Why get up early? Why train?

What's my purpose to my mission?

Or why do I care about my diet if not for some important thing? Should I just eat dessert all day, every day?

How long was that phase for you until you got clear on the next purpose?

It'd be hard to say because that season, so part of my process actually for free soloing LCAP was because freesoling is so psychological. So much of it's mental. I mean, physically, I knew I was capable, but it's like the mental side is challenging. And so even though I knew it would be the most important thing I'd ever do in climbing, I didn't want to put it on too high of a pedestal because I didn't want to build it up even higher in my mind than it already was. And so in a way to sort of offset that, in a way to keep it feeling more normal for myself, I tried to just keep my Yosemite season as, like, one of many things throughout the year. So the season that I freestyle at all, cap, I also had an expedition planned to Antarctica that winter. It was like my first trip to Antarctica, and it was a north face expedition with the whole team, and I was just going with people, and I didn't even necessarily want to go because I thought would be too cold, as it turns out.

It is too cold.

No, actually, it turns out it was one of the best expeditions of my life, and it was amazing. But at the time, I was like, that sounds crazy. I don't want to go. But that's a different story. But so, because I knew I'd be going to Antarctica, I also planned this expedition to Alaska with some other people. Again, it was like someone else's trip, but I was going to go with them because it's a good way to practice the skills for Antarctica. And I'd been there with them before, and we had some unfinished business. We're going to do this thing. But so basically, I had my Yosemite season where I was hoping to free solo cap, but I already had these other trips lined up and these other climbing goals and these partners and plans because I wanted Yosemite to feel like, oh, I'm using Yosemite to get fit for Alaska, and Alaska is getting me fit for Antarctica. And it's all just part of the normal cycle of being a professional climber, where you go from one thing to another. And yes, of course, my goal in Yosemite is way more important than any of those other things, but it makes it feel like it's more normal, and that keeps it from feeling too crazy for me, too intense, too stressful.

Yeah. And so when I did El Cap, like, a week later, I went to Alaska and went on this expedition. And as it turns out, it actually was kind of a perfect comedown because we had terrible weather. So I spent a much time in my tent. I read a bunch. And after years of training for El Cap and, like, several months of intense physical effort, you reflected more. Yeah, yeah. Than I was know, just because of the alaskan weather, I just got to spend a couple of weeks in my tent reading, being, you know. But. So your question, though, of, like, was there a big comedown? Kind of like, yeah, there was a little bit, but there was kind of this natural order of other trips and plans and. Mean, as a climber, you just always have something that you're interested in.

Sure.

But then it was complicated because then the next year, the film came out, and then the free solo film. I called it my deployment to Hollywood. Sort of like a military deployment. Yeah, because it was basically six months of nonstop travel and events, press interviews, nonstop everything. And I knew it was a once in a lifetime thing, so I totally embraced. I was like, I'm going all in. I'm doing everything they tell me to do. I'm here for the experience. Like, oh, there's Bradley Cooper again. I met him at the last six things, too. You're like, cool, because he was touring with a star is born or whatever, and you're just like, oh, Bradley, you're so handsome. Every time you bump into him, you're like, you're still so handsome. But I knew that it was like a once in a lifetime thing. So the events are fun, meet cool people. Yeah, but it's cool. It's like crazy stories, and, you know, it's the only time you'll do it. So you're just like, that's fine. But then again, then you have a crazy comedown afterward because you've just spent six months basically living this insane Hollywood lifestyle.

Yeah, well, it's like high, but also kind of low because you're basically just going from airport to venue to hotel to airport to venue to hotel for months, which for me, especially as a professional climber, is like a complete change from normal lifestyle.

You want to be outdoors?

Yeah, normally I, like, hike to the cliff. I spend the whole day working on some random thing with my partner, and then we hike back and it's all super. Then, you know, during the freeze all at film tour, you're having days where you wake up in New York City, you fly to sf, you drive for an hour, you do an event, you drive back to the airport, you fly again to LA, and then you do another event that night, and you're just like, I'm literally a piece of meat that's being shipped in a can around the country. You're like, this is crazy. But you're also like, what unusual life experience? I think I had two different days like that, that were double days where it's like you wake up in Chicago, you fly New York, you do an event, and then you fly to LA and you do another event that night, and you're like, how can you even do that many?

You did two premieres in one day.

Yeah. Notes necessarily, but like screenings or press things or. Yeah, but like stuff.

So that was six months.

Yeah, it was like six months.

Touring around, speaking, showing up, taking photos.

Maybe it was like five, but it was really long.

And you weren't able to really climb during then.

I mean, I was training in the gym a lot. Wow. Quite a bit lifting or you were more like climbing gym.

Any gym you could find in the country, you would just go.

Yeah, every climbing gym in the country. Basically you went to. Yeah.

Wow, man. So would you ever do that experience again where you're hanging out with.

I mean, for the right mean, it is like, it's a crazy experience. It's cool.

What was the crazy story that came out of that in those five?

In some ways, my wife and I now have a lot of the fun little couple stories, like one of the Oscars after party things. Mahershal Ali, whatever. You know, the guy, I think green book. I forget if he'd won something or not, but he was obviously nominated. He's a great actor and very handsome and all dapper in this amazing suit with this entourage. Anyway, he was like walking by and he just shook my hand or something because we had just. Anyway, my wife was, like, holding a bunch of. Or d'oeuvres because we're pillaging all the free snacks, and she literally just threw her snacks on the floor so she could be like, hello. And shake hands with them. And she was, like, so delighted to meet him. But it's just like the fun story of she just dumps all her food so she can be, you know, as her one chance to shake hands with Mercilla.

That's fun.

I don't know. Just things like, know random stories.

You saw Bradley Cooper, what, six times?

I mean, a bunch. Because everyone's on the same circuit. It's like the directors Guild award, the screen Actors award, whatever, is the BAFTAs. I presented an award at the audio guild, the Academy thing. It's all part of the campaign. I don't know. You just do what everybody tells you.

You just felt like a piece of meat, though. It's just being shipped around everywhere, basically.

But, I mean, it's fine. You're just doing what you're told. I mean, it's like having a job, sure. But you're like, what a weird job.

Did you get paid for that? No, but they pay for your flights and hotels.

Yeah, of course. It's all expenses covered. And then I make some percentage of what free solo made, and then free solo was shockingly successful.

So you get a cut of that.

Yeah. So it's disingenuous to say I'm not getting paid, because obviously it's all good for me.

You're helping promote something that could pay you.

Yeah, exactly.

Wow.

And then when you think how well the film wind up doing, and then I wind up getting corporate speaking offers and things like that, obviously, the film doing well has been very good for me and my family, and that's all great. But the actual day to day, you're not getting paid. And you're just like, this is a lot. Like. It's crazy.

You're not getting paid to climb a mountain either. Day to day, I guess.

Well, that's true. My friends and I often joke that if you broke out your pay as a climber by hours of hard labor, you're getting paid, like, petty. Yeah. $2 an hour to carry, like, a 50 pound backpack up a mountain. You're kind of like, this is pretty hard work for not that much money. Right. But it's because you love doing it, and it's so fun.

Of course. I'm curious. You mentioned this in free solo, but how many people that you've either climbed with or know as climbers have lost their life.

No, I don't know. I mean, it depends on how wide of a net you cast you between close friends versus casual acquaintances and things. But in the broader community, like dozens, probably, but close friends, a handful, really. Yeah.

Was there ever a time where there was like, did anyone ever lose their life on a climb that you were on ever? Or an expedition?

No, I don't think so. Nothing like too close. I mean, I've seen a couple terrible accidents. Like cliffs, really, where somebody. Yeah. Like you hear scream and you run around the corner and then it broke.

Their leg or something.

Well, a couple of things like that. No, I mean, people dying, though. Really?

Like you were there.

Yeah.

It wasn't in your group or was.

Just another group, different group. Like some random kids at this climbing? Yeah.

Oh, man. What's that?

Kid fell and some of the protection ripped out and he landed on the ground and his head collapsed, basically, and he died.

What's that like when you're on a climb and you see and you experience that.

It'S terrible, but you're always sort of rationally aware of the risks involved. And this might be one of the things that separates me from some of my friends or family, let's say, because I don't know if my wife feels the same way necessarily, but I feel like I'm rationally aware of all the risks involved. And so seeing them firsthand is sobering, for sure, and very sad. And seeing his friends was very. They were all very inexperienced, and so nobody had any idea how the accident happened or what had happened or why he's dying. It was all terrible. It's terrible for the partners, so that's hard to watch. But you are sort of like, this is what you've signed up to do. You're like, you know that this is a possibility. Seeing it doesn't make it any less of a possibility. It basically is always on you to mitigate risk as much as possible.

Right, man?

Yeah, it was pretty intense. Yeah.

Does something change in your brain or in your heart when you're. I guess seeing either a bad accident or seeing someone lose their life is something shift inside of you, or are you just saying it's more of like a blessing and a gratitude of like, okay, I have to really make sure I prepare. It's another reminder of how difficult and challenging this is.

I think you can go either way. I mean, I think you can either deal with those kinds of things by sort of shutting yourself off to it and inert yourself, numb yourself to it and be like, doesn't matter, that happens. Like, whatever, don't care. Or you can sort of let it in and be like, this is really, really sad and there are high consequences in this sport, but I love doing the sport anyway and it's still worth it to me, but I will do my best to avoid things like that happening. Right?

Yeah.

In some ways, I think that that second option is the slightly more responsible and sort of the more seasoned response, maybe. And I think that that's kind of where I probably am now. Whereas I think as a younger, as an early 20s man, it's easier to just either shut it out or just be like, well, they made a mistake and that won't happen to me. Which is like a little is not really the right call.

What's the biggest loss you've had? Whether it be like an emotional loss or a physical loss.

You mean like loss like blow in life or loss like somebody dying?

It could just be like a grieving of anything. It could be a physical grieving of someone or it could be an emotional grieving of something.

I don't know. I mean, there are the obvious things to come to mind, like my father died when I was 19 and grandparents have all died and family members have died, but those are kind of like normal grieving in a way, where in some ways that's the natural course of life. My father obviously died much younger than he should have, but it's still sort of natural in a way. You're like, at some point your parents are going to die before you, hopefully, and you kind of want them to because it's better for them to die before you than for you to die before them. Right now, as a parent, I'm like, well, I hope I die before my daughter or daughters soon. So, I mean, that to me is sort of like natural grieving in some ways. I think accidents and climate accidents are almost harder, even though they're in some ways more fair. It's like people are taking risks of their lives. Occasionally they die. You're like, well, they made choices. That's kind of the callous way to look at it. But it's still really sad and it's sad for their families. I don't know.

I've only had a couple truly close friend climbing partners who have died in accidents. Really, none of them were with me. But those are sad because you see the impact on the families and you're.

Close to their friends, their families, you.

Know their circles and you still think about them you're like, oh, it'd be nice to hang out with that person right now. But I don't know. I mean, that's kind of the thing with climbing, though is that it is harder than I assume that you haven't had. A lot of fellow handball athletes die, play handball.

Know that. I know, yeah. I mean, football is more intense and people get injured.

Yeah.

But still every season, rare but rare.

Like almost never die.

Yeah, it's rare.

No, with climbing, I mean, there is a lot more risk. But then that also gives you more from the sport in some ways. I think some of the life lessons you can take from climbing you can't necessarily get from handball, with all respect for handball, because obviously all the lessons around training and perseverance, those are all kind of the same. But some of the managing fear. Yeah. It's just different things.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah. You're not like managing mortal peril in the same way. It's different. And grieving friends and being actually afraid for your life, though. It's funny because being afraid of failure or being afraid of pressure of competition feels the same as being afraid for your life in a lot of ways. In some ways, depending on the person and depending on how neurotic they are and how stressed they are, it can be worse.

What about the biggest emotional loss you've had or thing you've had to grieve?

I don't know. I mean, obviously relationships like failed relationships and things, particularly when you're younger and it just all seems like it matters more. But in the grand scheme of the thing, none of those are that big a deal.

Do you feel like you have a bigger heart because of the things you've been able to overcome? Do you have like an expansion of giving and receiving love?

I think I started from a very stunted place, really. And with steady nurturing through my wife and now having a family and good community and good relationships. Now my stunted cold heart has grown to like a below average size.

Really?

Yeah, for sure.

Do you think it's hard for you to feel loved?

Yeah.

Why do you think that is?

Partially because I think there are billions of people on earth and it's all slightly arbitrary. It's like if I didn't exist, then the people around me would love other people and they would be fine. Life would go on. Wow. I mean, it's a slightly callous approach to it, but I also think a very true approach.

But when your wife is trying to show appreciation or love on you, are you able to receive that or do you feel like it's kind of distant.

We joke sometimes that she's just shoveling dirt into a bottomless hole for her whole life or shoveling love into a deep, dark hole. But the thing is, she's an incredibly caring person and she's accepted a challenge in life.

Oh, my good.

It might not be quite that bad. Yeah. Especially now with having kids and having more of.

You're growing a little bit.

That's the thing. I think the stunted darkness is growing a little bit.

Why do you think it's hard for you to receive love?

I don't know. I mean, does it matter to receive love?

Yeah, it feels great to receive love, doesn't it?

Why? Wouldn't know. The bottomless, dark hole. I don't know, I guess. But do you really believe it? Even if somebody, man, even if someone's very genuine and they're like, oh, but I really love you. But do you really? Because if. Or when I disappear, obviously.

Yeah.

Okay.

If someone disappear, I guess it doesn't matter. They can still love you if you're not around, if you died, your wife can still love you for the rest of her life. Your kids can still love you.

Yeah, but I actually kind of think that she wouldn't because I think she'll basically just forget because that's human.

And I don't think people forget if they have a great relationship with them, though.

No, but even still, you lose the details. I mean, that's physiology.

You have memories, you have photos, you have video.

I know, but actually, that's the interesting thing with memories. This is kind of a hole aside, but I've kind of noticed this, being a professional climber. So a lot of my life is on video and in photo and whatever, and there are a lot of climbs that I don't even really remember that well, now 15 years later or something, and so your memory starts to be supplanted by the video or by the photo or by whatever the external memory is. Like the thing that you're supposed to remember. And you're like, I don't actually remember the experience. I don't know what I was feeling. I mean, I know what the article said or what the book says or what the video shows or whatever, but I'm like, I don't remember.

You don't remember the feeling?

Yeah. I mean, it's been a long freaking time. All that say, though, I think that a lot of memories, what people think of as a memory is actually just the story that they've told themselves about it over and over. I agree to that. Or the story that they've told to others about it over and over.

Sure.

And so it's not like they actually remember it. They just keep reminding themselves of this terrible thing that happened to them or this thing that they lost or whatever. But if they stop reminding themselves, they'll just forget, for better or for worse. In a lot of cases, that's probably better if it's something you've lost.

So when do you feel the most loved? When you're doing what or experiencing what? When do you feel. I don't know if you've ever talked about love before.

Yeah. No. Okay. So, like, last night, I was at a good friend's birthday party. It was like kind of a nice little sort of family affair. Like maybe four couples, all hanging out, all like, very close friends, all part of the climbing community. And not that I felt loved, per se, but everybody was having a very nice time. And it's like everyone's genuinely laughing and having a great connection. And I was like, oh, this is nice. This is real community. This feels good.

So you felt.

You feel the community, the niceness in the air where you're like, oh, this is a true group.

This is a good moment. It's a good feeling.

Yeah, totally.

Did you feel loved as a kid? Did you feel like you had good community and connections and friends and family that you felt loved?

I objectively did have good community and good family and was raised in a comfortable, safe environment. Basically, it all should have been fine, but I don't know if I necessarily felt loved. Really.

Who influenced you more, mom or dad?

It's hard to say. It's hard to say because my dad died when I was 19, and so it's, like, hard to remember a lot of ways, I'd say, in terms of worldview and things. Now it seems clear that I'm more like my mother, maybe, but it's also because I don't know my father as well, because I've never got to know him as an adult. But in some of the very obvious ways, my father had a bigger influence because he was the one who actually took me to the climbing gym all the time and drove me to youth competitions. And he wasn't a climber, but he just was kind of like being a little league dad or something. He was just supportive.

So he was really supportive. He showed up to your. He took you to all the events.

Yeah, he was encouraged. You really love languages and things. He was really good with time. He was happy to give quality time, but not even necessarily quality, because quality time would be like, oh, you're really having a moment together. But I just mean, like the showing up and doing the thing for you, like maybe acts of service.

Service.

So he was like, good at that kind of thing, which I think as a kid, you kind of take for granted because, well, somebody has to take me to the gym. But now as an adult, I'm like, man, he took me to the gym a lot.

A lot of time.

Yeah, that's a lot of time at the climbing gym. And especially for. I mean, he was like a middle aged professor who was belaying me. He would climb a little bit, mostly just because I would need to rest every once in a while. So then he would, like, climb something because he's there.

So he dedicated a lot of time, actually.

Yeah. He would belay me on four or five routes and then he would do one and then I would do like four or five and he would do one.

It's pretty cool.

Yeah, exactly. And that's the kind of thing that now, as an adult, I can see that that's a big thing on his part.

Yeah, he had a lot of commitment. What was the biggest lesson that your dad taught you?

Well, I don't know. I mean, I think it's that. I think it's like the showing up is the most important thing in some ways.

Wow.

Which, I mean, if we're really going deep on relationship stuff, I mean, this is a common point of contention in my marriage, is that to me, actions are the most important thing. My wife wants more. Words of appreciation.

Words of affirmation.

Yeah. Words of affirmation. Yeah, whatever.

That physical touch.

Yeah. I think we both are fine with that. But I think she wants a little more telling, and I think that doing is more important.

The action.

I'm going to show up because I'm like, anybody can say the right things, but doing the right things, I think.

The same thing, man. Who's going to commit and take the actions.

Yeah. Well, that's the cynic in me because I'm like, anyone can say, like a good actor since we're in LA, it's like you see all the billboards. Any good actor could convince you that they just absolutely adore you, but it doesn't mean anything unless they actually show up and do the things. Yeah.

Do what they say they're going to do.

Yeah. Like for years, consistently. Yeah.

What do you wish you got to say to your dad that you never got to say?

Is there anything it's hard to say. I mean, if we're really getting into it. I mean, my parents got divorced the year before he died, basically, like, when I graduated high school, and they'd sort of been, like, staying together for the kids, which, in retrospect, was a terrible idea, and they should have gotten divorced when we were, like, seven. I know that. And so it's unfortunate because I felt like I never got to know him as his own thriving adult because he was in this relationship. Basically, their whole situation didn't seem that healthy. And so now I'm like, oh, they should have just gotten divorced when we were kids and both been happy and then both been, like, happy, independent adults. And we could have actually gotten to known them as real people instead of having this kind of dower non person.

Yeah.

Because in the year that after he got divorced, he was sort of starting to thrive in his own. He was kind of psyched on his own stuff and doing his thing, but then he died, and so it's hard to really know him. Right? Yeah. Because the things I hear from all my family members on his side of the family, things like before I was born. So you're like, oh, wow, it's really different than the person that I knew.

Is there anything you wish you could have said to him that you didn't get to?

No, man. Since last night, one of my wife's really good friends, we listened to this really long audio message from her that she had just had a family member die, but she left this long audio message that was basically this very heartwarming story about how she had just crafted this long message to the family member, telling him how much they meant to them and blah, blah. And then basically the person was, like, dying the next day.

Oh, man.

And his daughter had the opportunity to read this message to him before he died. And so this friend, I was like, man, this is a lot. It was like a straight up hallmark cards. Yeah, it was deep. I was like, wow. But I also like, wow, that's kind of incredible. Because she was so much more at peace with the death, knowing that anything she ever possibly could have wanted to say, she managed to say to the person before they died and they died knowing everything that everything that they meant to this person. I was like, oh, that was my takeaway, was like, man, if you have any friends, you should just say the thing before.

Maybe that's why your wife wants words of affirmations.

Yeah, exactly. But at least when she does, she'll know that I was always there for her.

I didn't tell you how I felt but I showed you.

Yeah, but that's exactly. I didn't tell you enough, but I did try to show you.

But you just said right there, you should say to the people you care.

About, I know, but it's harder to do.

Do you feel like that's one of your greatest mountains to climb right now is to actually step into that or is that just maybe?

I mean, that's probably a big part of being a good dad, but we're not quite there yet. Thankfully, at this point, they're not old.

Enough yet for the communicated that way.

Yeah. Right now, the big challenge this morning, the diaper I changed had poop going all the way up the back through multiple layers of clothing and destroyed everything. Not destroyed, but sprayed everywhere. Yeah, but then trying to take off the dirty shirts, you just get poop in the hair. You get pooping everywhere. I was like, wow, man, parenting is at a different phase right now. It's like poop everywhere.

I'm sure you'll look back at the Beverly, it'll be better than the moment. But we were talking about before we started rolling about your biggest challenge and you were kind of mentioning, like right now, and you were kind of mentioning what to do when you were underperforming. And you said you feel like you're failing a lot or not living up to an expectation.

Not necessarily failing, but yeah, just not performing at the level that you think you should.

So why do you think that's happening in your life right now?

It's hard to say.

And your failure is still like the greatest in the world at what you do.

The greatest in the world. But I'd say my sucking is still pretty good. But it's way worse than what I think it should be.

Why do you think that's happening?

I don't know. I mean, it's a long, sordid tale. I did an expedition this summer where a partner and I bicycled 2000 miles to Alaska and then climbed some mountains. But it was basically a two month trip. And over the course of the trip, I kind of got grounded. Dust. I was kind of worked.

You were worn out.

Yeah, I was like worn out and I just.

Thousand miles. It's a long time.

Yeah. But he was doing well. And for whatever reason, though, I just wasn't really recovering and was kind of like getting worse and worse. Typically with a lot of exercise, if you get enough rest, you respond to it and you get better and better. In this case, I was kind of just getting worse the whole time. And then I came back and was kind of sucking for a month or two. But that was kind of understandable because I was like, I'm digging back out of this hole. And the expedition was successful. We did the things we were trying to do and it was cool and it'll be a film for National Geographic as well. And so it's fine. I don't mind having a trip like that where you get grounded dust if you do the things that you set out to do and then I don't mind spending some time recovering. That's totally understandable. But I spent the time recovering and then since then I've just never quite. I keep having moments where I feel about as good as I think I should be and then it kind of disappears again and keep having really glimpses.

Of like physically or mentally?

Yeah, physically. But I feel like the mental side follows the physical as a professional athlete, especially because if you just can't do the thing that you want to do, even doing like a podcast like this, it's like basically it's the school of greatness. But what if you're not great, then what do you do? Should I just walk out right now? Yeah, because for the last couple of weeks I haven't been that great. Or like last couple of months I haven't been that great. So I'm like, should I just go?

Right? I've had those seasons where I'm just like tired or maybe I've just worked too hard and I feel like I'm not able to be as present or at the top of my game. But I was telling you before, yesterday was our eleven year anniversary of the show where every week for eleven years the show has come out. And I think also you have consistency and you've been doing this for 20 plus years. It's like you're not always going to win every game or be the best every time, at every climb or every interview. It's not always going to be my greatest performance. But I think the consistency over time is a level of greatness, even if you didn't want to do it that day, even if it was a subpar performance.

So that's the whole tough thing as a self coach climber. So I agree. Consistency and just showing up and that's normally my approach for training and things. Like even on the days where you kind of suck, you just grind out the. But if you're digging yourself into a hole, you have to know when to put down the shovel and get out of the hole. True or rest? Yeah, exactly. And that's the challenge when you're like, am I sucking because I need more rest or am I sucking because I need to train harder? And you just don't know which path you need to take. And they're totally divergent paths that lead to totally different things. And so I think that recently I've been sort of on the. I've been doing a little bit of both and maybe not quite nailing either. And I'm not sure which is the right.

She'll spend a couple of weeks training harder and you're like, that's not working. Let me take a week to recover more. That's not working.

Yeah.

What do I do?

A little bit of both. Yeah. Or like training more. But then the whole family got sick and the baby's sick and you're up in the middle of the night and then you're sort of like, well, that winds up being like a week or two of rest, as it turns out, rest but not heavy training load. And then you're sort of like, well, now I'm doing both of them poorly. I don't know which is better.

I'm not really recovering and I'm not really double training.

And then baby number two shows up kind of soon, and so then I'm just going to assume that that's not going to help.

You're not doing either again.

Yeah, exactly. But in a way, I mean, I'm not that stressed because I know long term, this time next year, I'll probably be climbing pretty well, or at least climbing the same. I'm not too stressed in the long term, but it's just slightly frustrating when you feel like you could be doing better and you're not sure why you're not there.

So in a year and a half, two years, you'll be 40, right?

Yeah. So I'm 38. So, yeah, in two years you'll have.

A two year old and a four year old, essentially, maybe another, I don't know. But you'll have at least two year old.

Four year old, yeah. Two daughters.

And you will have lived 40 years of your life and you will have accomplished so many incredible things that most climbers will never accomplish, ever. What do you feel like the next ten years will be if you could go into the future and think about the vision you might have, what do you see your life looking like?

This is an interesting question, and I've been thinking about this a little bit because I want to keep doing things that I'm proud of and climbing and partially because I want my daughters to know someone who's proud of the things that they're doing and not proud of the things that they did. You know what I mean? It's like kind of a subtle distinction.

Interesting.

But I don't want my daughters growing up with somebody who's like, oh, I used to do all these cool things as opposed to I want them growing up with somebody who's excited to do cool things in the future and is like working on projects, because I think that kind of motivation, that excitement to work on projects and get up early and train and have things that you're passionate about, I think that's important. And that's certainly something that I'd love to pass on to my kids in a healthy way. Not like a psycho pushing them way, sure, but in a way for them to see someone who's fired up and living their best life. I am very proud of all the things that I've done, but I think it's important to have just as many things that I want to do in the future because I think that's hopefully part of parenting within reason. I don't need something all encompassing like OCaP, let's say, because that would probably take me away from family too much. But I can have goals that I am passionate about, that I try very hard for, and that I can still be around my family enough.

Sure.

Do you have anything on your mind of what that will look like?

Not, I don't know, nothing big right now. I mean, this year I have a couple sort of climbing travel like destination goals where my family and I will go to a place and climb for a while. They aren't like objectives in terms of performance. It's more like to go to a place together and have a good time climbing.

Yeah.

Hopefully be able to do something cool while I'm in the places, but it's not the main goal, not performance thing. Yeah. So in some ways, I see this as sort of an in between year. And also in the big picture, if I'm kind of like, oh, the first five years of my children's life, I was a little underproductive as a climber. I'm like, that doesn't seem crazy. That's fine. And as long as I think that I can come out of that again at some point. Like, if you just told me you will underperform for five years while you raise your kids at the beginning, I'd be like, that's totally fine. It'd be like going to college or something where you're like, okay, well, I'm going through this phase of life because I know it'll set me up better for the future. Because I know I want a family long term.

Yeah, but.

But I just want to know that I'll be okay again eventually.

You could go back and do these.

Things like, I don't mind the grinding and training and all that stuff if I think that eventually it'll pay off or it'll work. But I think that the challenge is when you start second guessing. Is this the wrong path? Am I doing this all wrong? This is a waste of my time.

Tell me about Arctic ascent because the trailer of this thing just blew me away. Tell me what the expedition was and what we should look forward to as we watch this series.

Yes. Arctic send is a three part series on National Geographic. Comes out kind of soon. And it was an expedition to Greenland. A six week trip to Greenland to remote part of eastern Greenland. And it was sort of an interesting combination of climbing adventure. We went and we climbed these two cool walls, one of which was a 4000 foot sea cliff like sticking straight out of the ocean. It was kind of insane.

So you have to take a boat to get to a boat to the base.

You hop out of the boat and then you climb 4000ft straight out of the fjord. It's pretty cool.

That's crazy.

Yeah. I'd never done anything like that either.

How cold is it?

It's pretty freaking chilly. It was a north facing wall in Greenland so it wasn't warm.

Winds are just blowing up against you. The waves are crashing against the wall.

Well, the waves are crashing against the wall 4000ft below you.

That's crazy, man.

Yeah, it's really far. Yeah. So it's like bigger in El cap? Bigger than it was a big wall.

So no one had ever climbed it?

Not that wall, no. Which is.

Yeah, that was part of the excitement for you to go try something that no one had ever tried.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's probably one of the biggest unclimed rock walls in the world like that because there aren't that many 4000 foot vertical walls. But as you can imagine.

So I mean, how do you prepare mentally and emotionally for something that you've never done and no one else has ever done?

Well, I have done a lot of other first ascents and I have climbed a lot of other mountains and I've climbed things of similar size and scale in different places. It's true that it's the first ascendant who's ever climbed that rock. And as it turns out that rock posed some unique challenges that I'd never quite encountered before. I had like this crazy swirly rock that varied in quality and it actually turned out it was pretty hard. But you just draw on all your experiences having done other things that are somewhat similar. And in that case, you also have a team. And so you're also drawing on the experiences of the team. And the team members were also incredibly skilled professional climbers. And so between everybody, you assume that somebody has what it takes.

Wow.

Or at least the team has what it takes.

Do you think you could do it alone without, I mean, maybe having the support of people with ropes or whatever, but without other rock climber professionals kind of coaching and working with you, could you have done it alone?

Maybe, but it'd be harder and it'd be less fun and it wouldn't be the experience that you want necessarily. Right. It'd be a lot harder because sharing the psychological burden is a big part of it, really. Because when you're looking up at a 4000 foot wall and you're not sure if it goes, every move is uncertain. We're like, am I going the right way? And so it's nice to be able to share that uncertainty with other people. Let them think about it a little bit. Let them make some decisions, like trust them to take the lead for a while and just take the rope up higher and then you can take over again.

She'll pass the lead is what you're saying?

Yeah. You alternate leads and so it allows you to relax while the other person's leading. In this case, on that particular climb, I was mostly climbing with this woman, Hazel Finley, who's a british climber, who's a professional climber, very, very good at that kind of thing. And so whenever she's leading, it allows me to totally relax and sort of recover and eat and drink and chill, really. And she's incredibly stressed because she's leading and trying to figure out how to stay safe and where we should go and what direction. But while she's stressing, you can just sit down there being like, really?

You're hooked in, you're just kind of dangling.

Yeah, I'm hooked in and I'm feeding the rope out to her. I'm like, I'm belaying, I'm holding on the rope. So I'm like protecting her. But I'm also sort of eating, drinking and relaxing and then just like watching the icebergs go by in the fjord, it's like you're just chilling. Because the thing is, as soon as she finishes her section of the climb and secures the rope, then she brings you up and then it's your turn to lead again.

Oh, man.

And then when you're leading, it's suddenly stressful because you're like, should I go left? Should I go right? Left looks more dangerous, but right looks like it might get blank and then we'd have to backtrack. And you're constantly making all these route finding decisions of which way looks harder, which way looks easier, but you're always dealing with incomplete set of information because no one's been there, so nobody knows. So you look up and you're like, well, it looks easy, but what if it isn't? Then you're screwed.

Wow. How long did that whole climb take?

Well, that particular 4000 foot wall only took ten days or so of the trip, but that's partially because we were just sort of cramming it in at the end.

Climbing it took ten days?

No, we pushed the ropes higher up and it rained a lot and it was crazy. And then the final ascent took us two days, but it's because we'd already gone halfway up the wall. So you're sleeping on the wall? Yeah, sleeping on the wall.

So you're on the wall for ten days?

No, we were at a base camp, like nearby, and then we were on the wall for two.

Okay, got you.

Like, we'd been pushing higher and higher up the wall and then finally did the whole thing.

You'd push up, then come back down base camp, push a little higher.

And part of that's the nature of filming and everything to make a tv show is that you kind of have to do things like that to make sure that the camera people can be in position and things.

Wow.

But that trip, though, was a six week expedition. And we'd climbed this other wall where we also camped on the wall, and we ski traversed across this ice cap and we did a bunch of science. When you're talking about purpose and things like that, in some ways this expedition is exactly that evolution. Because we had this scientist, Heidi Sylvester, who's amazing. She's this really passionate glaciologist. She's french. And so she was there doing a bunch of science experiments for different universities around the world. Basically all sort of climate science, like glaciology related, because Greenland is one of the most important places in the world for climate change. And that's the kind of thing that makes a trip like that feel a little bit more worthwhile.

It's not just you going after some adventure, but it's you working on research that you care about.

Yeah. And working on something that actually matters for the world. It's like, I could make a show where it's like, oh, we're just climbing this extreme rock and you're like, that's cool, but realistically, I'd rather just do that by myself and not make a show about it. It's like if you're going to put something on television, it may as well be somewhat useful and it may as well highlight important parts of the world and bring knowledge around things that matter. And so the Greenland ice sheet is melting. The ice sheet is the big part in the middle. Like when you look at a map of Greenland, it's like the whole center of Greenland is ice. And if the Greenland ice sheet melts, raises sea levels by something like 20ft, which affects hundreds of million people around the world. It's like half the major cities in the world are on the coast. It's like New York and London and Tokyo. Like all these places go underwater. Buenos Aires, I don't know. But nobody thinks about Greenland. Nobody thinks about the Greenland ice sheet.

Not many people live there too.

Yeah, nobody lives there.

I mean, in Greenland, some people live on the.

Yeah, but even in like so few people live in know, I think that in some ways that makes a trip like that feel a lot more worthwhile.

Wow, that's cool. And that's part of your foundation too, right?

Well, the work my foundation is doing is unrelated to something like this expedition, but, yeah, I have a foundation that supports solar projects around the world and has been doing so for the last decade or so.

Wow, that's cool. What made you want to get into that same idea?

Just trying to do something useful. Just feeling like climbing is fun and I love doing it, but ultimately climbing is just for you or just for me.

It's like a selfish endeavor in some sense.

Yeah. People always say climbing is selfish. Like climbers like to say climbing is selfish, and I don't really love that because any human activity is Sort of selfish or most human activities are. But yeah, climbing is generally a self driven pursuit and it's nice to do something slightly more useful in the world. Yeah. With the foundation it kind of came about because, and I'm sure you can relate to being given all kinds of interesting opportunities that are fun and you don't want to turn them down, but also don't totally need them because your livelihood has already made. I was living in a van, I'm totally comfortable. I'm doing the things I want to do. I'm having a great time, I'm living my best life. And if somebody offers you, like, a tv commercial thing and you're like, I'd like to do it. It's fun. It's crazy money for doing almost no work, but you're kind of like, why do that if you don't need to? And the foundation was a nice way to say yes to the fun opportunities, but then use that for something useful in the world. That's cool.

How long were you living in the van?

For like, 15 years or something. 15 years later, I lived in this really small Ford O'Connelline for, like, a van you can't stand up in for nine years, I think. And then I lived in a dodge promaster for another five ish or six ish.

How much was those two cars?

How much did they cost? Yeah, the first one, I think, was ten grand.

Ten grand? You lived in that for nine years?

Yeah, I think so. Wow. That's crazy. And then the first one, I went through three different buildouts in it, and the first build out my uncle and I did with Brandon Woody had around a shop that was just left over. So, literally, the van costs ten grand. And then I lived in it for several years, and then I redid the interior a couple of times as I got a little more. Wow.

You got a couple of dollars here and there.

Exactly. Yeah. So I spent another, like, five grand redoing the interior. Yeah, it was big money. And then the second time I splurged, buying a new promaster, a van that I could stand in nice with, like.

A little faucet or like a bathroom.

Well, yeah. So the van was just new and nice, and that was like 30k or something. And then the build out was probably, I don't know, another ten or 20.

So how long did you live in that one?

Another five, six years. Wow. And then that one I would have kept living in, but I actually crashed it. Sadly, I rolled it, which is a total botch. And. But then, coincidentally, we found out that my wife is pregnant right after that. So we were kind of like, well, we need something different anyway because it doesn't have any seats.

So would you get a bus?

No, now we have a longer van.

A longer van?

Yeah, still, like a van that you can camp in with your. Yeah, yeah, we've camped with her several months.

Do you live in the van still or do you.

No, we live in a house, but now we go to Y 70 for a month or two every year with the family, with the babies.

Wow. So you've upgraded to a house?

Yeah, I live in a house. And also we've upgraded the van.

Yeah.

Now it has kids seats.

So 15 years, man, in a van. Almost.

Yeah.

By choice. Because you were like, I want to be able to travel, I want to be remote. I don't want to have a lot of possessions.

Yeah. Maybe it was like twelve or 13. Really? Like in the van. Because we bought the house. It's been a steady transition where we're in the house more. I mean, especially with kids. Now we're in the house more.

Wow.

Though I wouldn't be surprised if as the kids grow up a little bit, we can be in the van more again.

That's cool, man.

But having infants is like having the routine and nap time is just easier with a house. Yeah.

What's the greatest lesson you learned living in a van for twelve years?

That you just don't need that much stuff. I think that's the main thing is you just don't need stuff. You want to do whatever you want to do in your life, just focus on doing that thing and you don't need any of the extra stuff. I mean, I still have that problem with my wife all the time because she has decorations and things. I'm like, why does this exist? What is this? Like a throw pillow?

We don't need it.

It's called a throw pillow because you throw it in the Trash. Like, you don't use it for anything. Like decorative pillows drive me insane. Like, stuff that doesn't have any function, no value. Not even as value. But if you don't use it all the time. I just don't want to be a slave to my stuff. You don't want to be like, moving your stuff around. The thing about living in a van is that you have very few things and it's all the stuff that you need. It's only in the van because you use it all the time.

You spend your time on the things you want to do. Not, I guess, managing things and stuff.

Yeah. It's just like a simpler life style that's devoted entirely to the thing that you want to do. I mean, the thing with being in a van is that it is fundamentally uncomfortable. Like, you don't have a shower, you don't have a bathroom, you don't have whatever. And so it is harder living, and it's like colder, you're more exposed to the elements. It's like you're living in a box parked on the side of the road a lot of the time. So it's not that comfortable, but it means that you're totally focused on whatever you're in the van for. It's like either you're there to go hiking or to go backpacking. In my case, I'm always there to go climbing, but it's like you're there to climb. So you climb, like on rest days, you go scrambling because it's like there's not that much to do in your van.

Right.

You just wind up being totally focused on the thing that you're doing.

Wow, that's cool, man. It's a cool lifestyle.

It's a very intentional lifestyle. Very intentional. I think that that kind of intention can be brought to normal life.

Absolutely. Yeah. Well, we can watch the show. It's on Nat geo, launching February 4 on Disney plus.

Right.

Arctic ascent with Alex Honnold. And I'm excited for this, man. The trailer again looks incredible. So congrats on this. It's going to be a lot of fun. How else can we support you or follow you besides checking out the show and checking out your.

I mean, you can go to hondalfoundation.org, see the work that my foundation is doing with solar projects around the mean anybody can follow me on any social platform, just Alex Honnold, I've got a.

Couple final questions for you, but this has been inspiring, so I appreciate your time. Alex, this is a question I ask everyone at the end of my interviews called the three truths. It's a hypothetical question. Imagine you get to live as long as you want to live, but it's the last day. You've accomplished everything. You've experienced life. You've learned to share words of affirmation with your wife, eventually, 750. Everything you want to create. You've lived a great life from this moment until the end of time. But it's the last day for you. And for whatever reason, you have to take everything you've ever created with you. So this interview is gone. Books you write, the movies you've been in, anything, all the social media posts that you love putting out there, they're gone. However, you do get to leave behind three things, three lessons that you leave to the world. I like to call it three truths. What would those three truths be for.

You, do you think, man, this is.

All we would have to remember you by?

I think if I was at the end of my life and I was content, I would just go, I don't know if I'd have any truth, because I think if you wipe the rest of the slate clean, it's just like, I just don't think that to me, I think that the whole.

But if people had, they wanted to remember you by something and they could only remember three things that you learned and experienced, and you were able to share those things, what would those three things be, do you think?

Just go big with an exclamation point. I use that as I sign things that way when you have to sign things at events. But it's kind of also one of my favorite things now. Just go big. And it's like, go for it. You can sort of take whatever lesson you want from it, but it's like, do the thing, try. But I think that also. That just sums up so much of my scene. Just go big.

Go big. One truth.

Yeah, that's my one truth.

Go big. Okay.

I kind of think so because I just think to get into other truths requires too much nuance and subtlety and the richness of a life. And I just don't know if you can distill that down to it. Just be like, if everything else is being wiped, you just step away and you're just gone. That's fine, but this goes back to everyone's replaceable. If my whole life gets erased, there'll be somebody else leading an awesome life. All the things that I've learned from climbing, somebody else could learn from unicycling or whatever other activity. I think that human lives in many ways are sort of interchangeable. We can all learn how to lead good lives in different ways. Somebody can devote their entire life to their garden and still learn all the same things that I have in my life by experiencing hardship and trying hard and overcoming and persevering. Anybody can learn that. However, sort of like, I don't know.

What would be one extra thing you would leave behind for your daughters if you could share a truth with them.

Daddy loves you. I don't know. I mean, if you're going to leave your child one thing, that's probably the most important thing, you are loved, I guess.

That's beautiful, man. That's a good one. That's beautiful, man.

We'll see if I can manage that when the time comes.

Oh, man, that's beautiful. Before I ask the final question, Alex, I want to acknowledge you, man, for what a life you have lived and an intentional life on the things that you wanted to pursue and are still pursuing. But again, living a life in a van, essentially for 1213 years, very intentional to pursue something you care about the most. I just want to acknowledge you for going big. Like going for it and consistently going for it. But I also want to acknowledge you for allowing yourself to evolve at this new season of life, having kids, raising a family, being in a relationship, and allowing yourself to also evolve like you've been going big, but you're also evolving with it as well. And I think it's really inspiring that people can have both love in their lives, relationships, but also be pursuing their dreams at the highest level, even if no one else has done that. So it's really cool what you've done, and I just want to acknowledge you for that for this moment.

Of course, that's something, actually, that my wife has always pushed. This false contrast between doing rad things and being in a good relationship, which I think are often portrayed that way in media, is like, you can either be alone doing something rad or you can be in a happy relationship. My wife is always like, why don't you do the rad thing in a happy relationship? Basically, from the very beginning of our relationship, she's always kind of been steadfast. And they're like, why don't you just do something hard while being well adjusted in a good relationship? And it's funny because until we got together, I was always like, is that an option? I kind of thought you needed the angst and the turmoil and the suffering. Yeah, exactly. The dark work artist. And now being with her, I'm like, oh, yeah, okay, I guess you can actually just have a really nice life and still do hard things, but just do it with a big smile. I'm like, it is kind of a better way to go.

It's a way better way to go and support and friendship and collaboration and all that stuff. Final question, Alex. What's your definition of greatness?

I mean, I think I'd just go with this sort of standard definition of doing hard things, like achieving things that haven't done before. And I mean, I know that I should take a more inclusive, just like living a good life and all that, but I'm like, no. I think of greatness as doing something challenging that hasn't been done before.

I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me, as well as ad free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel on Apple Podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple Podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis House. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over@greatness.com. Newsletter and if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.