420: Pushing The Bubble Until Things That Are Totally Crazy Become Possible. With Alex Honnold

>Join Jocko Underground< https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe ALEX HONNOLD is a professional adventure rock climber whose audacious free-solo ascents of America’s biggest cliffs have made him one of the most recognized and followed climbers in the world. A gifted but hard-working athlete, Alex “No Big Deal” Honnold is known as much for his humble, self-effacing attitude as he is for the dizzyingly tall cliffs he has climbed without a rope to protect him if he falls. Honnold has been profiled by 60 Minutes and the New York Times, featured on the cover of National Geographic, appeared in international television commercials and starred in numerous adventure films including the Emmy-nominated “Alone on the Wall.” Honnold is sponsored by The North Face, Black Diamond, La Sportiva, Ando and Stride Health and is a board member of El Cap Climbing Gyms. He is the founder of the Honnold Foundation https://www.honnoldfoundation.org/, an environmental non-profit. And to this day, he maintains his simple “dirtbag-climber” existence, living out of his van and traveling the world in search of the next great vertical adventure. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 420 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening.

• 0:08Jocko Willink?

  I chalked both my hands and took a few breaths. I didn't think at all about my position or how I felt. I just carried forward on autopilot. Left hand crimped another side pull, left foot jammed into a lower crack, somewhat sideways. Right foot came up high by my waist and toed into a tiny scoop. The tension between my left hand and right foot created stability and I raised my right hand up to a very small but down pulling crimp. My left hand palmed down on the wall below me and I raised my left foot extra high onto a very sloping shelf. As soon as the foot was placed, I drove down with it and stood up. The thumber cling with my left thumb.

• 0:51Jocko Willink?

  The hold was an upside down ripple, maybe an inch long and a few millimeters wide. So small that it would never qualify as a hand hold, except for the fact that most of my weight was on my feet.

• 1:05Jocko Willink?

  I placed my hand perfectly, my thumb going into the more sloping part in order to leave the better inch of space for my index and middle fingers to curl over. My right foot sneaked in and matched next to my left and my left foot kicked out leftward to a slippery black knob. The whole route came down to the next four moves, the hardest of the whole sequence. My right hand came into my left and I removed my index and middle fingers, which had been stuck to the wall only by the tension between my right big toe and my left thumb. My right thumb took the fingers place on the good part of the ripple and my left hand

• 1:49Jocko Willink?

  shot out left to grab the sloping loaf.

• 1:54Jocko Willink?

  I squeezed it for all I was worth and moved my right hand back to the initial down pulling crimp. I was in an iron cross, fully spanned between the two holds. Right foot through to the sloping dish, hips open, left foot across to a tiny chip. Chalk my right hand, break it into the top of the loaf.

• 2:17Jocko Willink?

  Now, I was set up for the karate kick, though I spent no time thinking about it. My right foot came into the crucial small edge perfectly placed to provide counter pressure when I kicked my left foot across. I subtly switched the position of my left hand, making it feel slightly more secure as I squeezed my two hands together and crushed the loaf. As if on autopilot, my left foot shot out perfectly perpendicular to my body, full extension, three feet to the left. It hit the far wall of the corner exactly where it needed to be. What used to feel like a desperate falling kick now felt like an easy foot placement.

• 3:01Jocko Willink?

  My feet felt welded to the wall, months of stretching paid off as I brought my left hand to the crack next to my foot. My right hand switched to palming downward and I felt secure, balanced between my left foot and my right palm. I reached my left hand up to a big edge and I was done.

• 3:24Jocko Willink?

  I was through the boulder problem.

• 3:27Jocko Willink?

  I felt a flood of elation, or maybe just relief. I was suddenly aware of the world around me again, including the cameras fixed to the wall on either side of me.

• 3:38Jocko Willink?

  I said something like, "Oh yeah," into the camera in front of me. I started laughing. I romped up the final few easy moves to faint to the faint ledge above. I stood on the ledge for a minute, breathing hard, exultant. I knew that somewhere in the meadow, 2,300 feet below, Mikey was watching me through the long shot. I pumped my fists over my head, facing the meadow, wondering whether they saw me. For once, I was somewhat glad that I had an audience. I felt like a hero. I still had ten pitches up to 512B above me,

• 4:21Jocko Willink?

  but I felt like I'd cleared the final hurdle. Now, it was just cruising to the finish line.

• 4:33Jocko Willink?

  And that right there is an excerpt from a book called Alone on the Wall, written by Alex Honnold with David Roberts. Alex Honnold is a rock climber, and a legend in the climbing world, who's accomplished amazing feats of climbing, free solo climbing, which is climbing with no ropes and no protection of any kind. And a lot of this by himself, started with no fanfare in 2007. As a young climber, he free soloed, and again, that's no ropes, no protection. He free soloed Astroman and Rostrom in Yosemite, which are two legendary climbs.

• 5:17Jocko Willink?

  And then a year later, in 2008, he was the first person to free solo Moonlight Buttrus in Zion National Park. And he did that on April Fool's Day. And when word got out that he had done this, some people thought that it was a joke, that it was just an April Fool's joke, because who would climb that without a rope?

• 5:43Jocko Willink?

  Well, he would, and he did. And he didn't stop there. Also, in 2008, he free soloed the regular northwest face of Half Dome,

• 5:54Jocko Willink?

  which is 2,000 feet of rock, straight up out of Yosemite Valley.

• 6:01Jocko Willink?

  He was the first person to do that as well. And then he started getting a little bit more mainstream attention. He was featured in a movie called Alone on the Wall, which I saw when it came out, some little rock climbing festival here in San Diego. And it was, it, parts of it are hard to watch if you've been up at altitude before. But he continued to climb, continued to train, continued to learn. And continue to accomplish feats in rock climbing. Eventually, on June 3, 2017, he made the first free solo ascent of the Free Ride Route up Yosemite's

• 6:44Jocko Willink?

  El Cap, which is 3,000 feet, almost 3,000 feet of vertical granite, jolting straight up out of the valley. And that pursuit was captured in the Oscar award winning movie called Free Solo by Jimmy Chin. And a few days later, he and another renowned climber, Tommy Caldwell, Caldwell, broke the speed record up the nose of El Cap, completing in an hour, 1 hour 58 minutes and 7 seconds, the first people to do it under 2 hours. And he still hasn't stopped. He continues to push the envelope in rock and now alpine climbing. He has a podcast called

• 7:27Jocko Willink?

  Climbing Gold. He has a charity organization, a masterclass, the Honnold Foundation, which helps people around the world that need access to solar energy. And incredible things being done all the time by this individual. And it's an honor to have Alex here with us tonight to talk about his experiences and lessons learned. Alex, thanks for joining us, man. Awesome to meet you.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me. That's the biggest intro I've ever heard. I'm honored.

• 8:01Jocko Willink?

  I, when we started talking about having you on, and Echo was not too familiar with rock climbing. And I just broke out the section of you doing the Boulder Problem in, on YouTube. And he was like, oh, my God, what is going on? I said, yeah, this is, this is the next level of.

• 8:22Jocko Willink?

  It's the next level of human achievement and I've been whenever people ask me about this. I think that that run up free rider that you did, I, I can't think of a, of a bigger sort of physical human achievement for a human being to do. I don't know. I can't think of one. If I do, I'll, I'll let the world know, but that was just an incredible thing to see.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  I appreciate it.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  So I hadn't heard that excerpt. Well, I mean, obviously I wrote that excerpt at some point, but I hadn't, haven't thought about it since then hearing it. I was like, oh, I'm kind of gripped. It's so exciting. It's, it's all that. Like that's the exact crux beta. It's like, I remember every move is like, oh, it gives me little tingles.

• 9:11Jocko Willink?

  How mu- how many times did you do that move before you did it that time?

• 9:14Speaker 01

  So many. I mean, I practiced a lot.

• 9:15Jocko Willink?

  Like a hundred, like a thousand?

• 9:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably like a hundred or more. I mean, I think I had a day where I rappelled down from the summit and then did it 10 times in a row. Uh, and then keep rappelling, you know, a couple of days like that. But yeah, I've done a lot. And more importantly, I'd done every variation of it where I fail. You know, I tried every different permutation of like these feet, but those don't work. And then different feet and those don't work. And then different hands and you know, every version of it. So I failed on like every other version and then practiced the, the correct way a bunch of times as well.

• 9:45Jocko Willink?

  The one that finally worked.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, you could make other ways work, but you want to find the best way.

• 9:51Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you do. It's weird too, when you, cause I saw the movie in the theater and

• 9:58Jocko Willink?

  you still don't get the sense. I mean, it gives you a good sense and, but you just can't duplicate what 2,000 or 3,000 feet looks like in a theater. You can't, maybe, I don't know. I didn't see it in IMAX.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  I mean, yeah, it's not the same as being there, but it was very impressive. Yeah. I mean, seeing Yosemite in IMAX. I was like, this is awesome.

• 10:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I, I didn't see it in IMAX, but man, it, you, you can't just capture, like the ground is so far away. That it's like the first time I went parachuting, when the, when the ramp of the, of the aircraft goes down, the ground is so far away that it's not, it's almost. You don't get that sense of height almost because it's so far away. And I kinda got that feeling when I was watching Free Solo in the theater. I was like, man, I believe me like my, my palms are sweating like everybody else, but. I was sort of like, I, I've been, I've been there. I know what that thing looks like. I've walked around up there and I, you can't. Quite transmit it in any other media other than being there.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I agree. I think that even for a lot of people who come to Yosemite for the first time, it's hard to appreciate the sense of scale because they can stand in El Cap Meadow and look up at El Cap. But without really understanding the scale of it, they're just like, oh, that's a big piece of rock. And then they see it, you know, if you use binoculars or telescope, you can point out climbers up high and they're like, oh my God. That little tiny, tiny speck of color is a person up there. Like, that's crazy.

• 11:26Jocko Willink?

  It is crazy.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Cause when you're up on the top of El Cap, you know, the people are like little ants down below, like, I mean, like dots. It's like, oh, it's tons of little dots down there. It's really big.

• 11:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yosemite is just glorious. It's a glorious, glorious place. And what's crazy too is as crowded as, as it gets into like, I would always go camping with my family up there. And it'd be so crowded, right? But even when it's crowded, it's no, it's not that big of a deal. Like there's a big crowd there and then you take. Four minutes of walking out.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  A quarter mile off, off the road and all of a sudden you're like, we're alone in the wilderness. We could die out here.

• 12:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. It's, it's just an incredible place. Hopefully we don't hype too many people, any more people to go there.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  No, I, I think we should actually. I'm, I'm strongly into the crowds there because I, basically I think that nobody cares about nature or protecting nature unless they have positive nature experiences. And I think Yosemite is such a great accessible place for people to be awe inspired. You know, it's like, and the thing is even when it is crowded, you can walk for 10, 15, 20 minutes and you can see no one. Cause Yosemite is a huge park. And when we talk about it being crowded, we mean the main loop on the main road in the very center. But the whole rest of the park is totally empty. Like I've done some very long day hikes there, like. Every couple of years, I'll get a little bee in my bonnet to go out for an adventure and do like a 50 mile like solo day hike sort of thing. Like big circuits around the park and you can do some of those big loops and see like four people the whole day.

• 12:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  You're kind of like, everyone complains about crowding, you're like, if you get off the beaten path, it's very empty. It's like wilderness.

• 12:54Jocko Willink?

  As soon as my kids were old enough, we started going a little bit more outside and we, we have a hike that we do that we would not see anybody. Or maybe we'd see one other person. We'd go out, hike out for the day, spend the night up on the mountain. It's kind of the opposite side of Half Dome. So you're kind of looking at Half Dome. It's that area. But then we'd see no one out there and this is to be in the middle of the summertime. And so, yeah, it's big enough and challenging enough on some of those hikes, hikes out of there. You can be in switchbacks for, for two hours of switchbacks. Uh, but yeah, just amazing place. Incredible. Um, so look, your, your life has been very well documented in the movie. If you guys haven't seen this movie, just go see the movie. You're born and raised in Sacramento.

• 13:38Jocko Willink?

  You dropped out of college when you were not, you went to Berkeley for what, a year?

• 13:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. Engineering at Berkeley for, for long enough to know that I shouldn't go to college.

• 13:47Jocko Willink?

  That's funny. I was in the Navy and the Navy sent me to college. And when I got back to, you know, so I was in the SEAL teams and I go to college for three years. And when I got back, you know, guys would be like, oh, you know, what'd you, what'd they teach you there? And I was like, it taught me never, ever, ever, ever get out of the SEAL teams ever. Cause the SEAL teams is just such a fun job and then you see what the rest of the world is like and you're like, no, I don't want to do that. Take me back.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Where'd they send you to college?

• 14:12Jocko Willink?

  The University of San Diego.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Okay. So you were still at the same, same place.

• 14:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, we're still here in San Diego, but you know, sitting in a classroom is, was not conducive, especially going from a job where you're outside. I mean, I always joke like I, I ain't put on a shirt for work. You know what I mean? I was like a 35 year old man making $80,000 a year and I wouldn't wear a shirt like unless I really had to. Most of the time just walking around, you know, you're hanging out, prepping stuff and getting gear ready. It's just a great job. It's outside, you're doing fun stuff, shooting machine guns, jumping out of airplanes, blowing things up. Like what, what else would you want to do? Well, for me, what else would I want to do?

• 14:52Jocko Willink?

  So you dropped out of college and you just went full van life climber mode?

• 14:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, basically. I mean, that obviously glosses over the years of sort of existential like, you know, especially because when I started just climbing full time, being a professional climber was much less of a thing. The climbing industry is way smaller. There were way fewer gyms. There were fewer climbers. It was less obvious that you could ever make a living as a climber. So I sort of thought I was just gonna go climbing for a few years and see what happened. And I thought that maybe I'd become a mountain guide or get into, you know, get into the industry in some way or like do something outdoors. But then it sort of eventually translated into into being a professional climber. But part of that is because the industry grew up sort of with me.

• 15:31Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna say you, I'd say you got into the industry at this juncture.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, no, for sure, for sure. Now I'm firmly entrenched, you know, now I'm establishment. But, but when I dropped out of college, there just wasn't that much of an industry. I mean, there was, you know, there were the same outdoor manufacturers and things like that, but there's just way fewer people rock climbing. It was just less of a, less of a thing.

• 15:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Did you do contests? Cause remember that rock climbing contest thing that was going on for a bit?

• 16:01Speaker 01

  Which one?

• 16:02Jocko Willink?

  Just the, when it was televised on ESPN or something and it would be speed races. It was more like an extreme sport type thing?

• 16:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:11Jocko Willink?

  Did you do that?

• 16:12Speaker 01

  Um, not really. So I did youth competitions like, you know, same as like Little League or soccer stuff or whatever. Um, and I was, I was fine, you know, I did well in the regional stuff. I got second in nationals once, but that's only because the other really good kids had already aged out and gone on to adult competitions. And it was kind of one of those things where I was like, I was, I was good, but I was never the best and I wasn't, wasn't dominating by any means. But, um, you know, I was, I was fine. And then, yeah, no, basically it was never good enough to do the adult comps or go on to, because Europe has a really well established uh, world cup competition scene. And so there have always been a lot of comps in Europe, but less so in the US. And either way, I just never quite had the talent for it.

• 16:55Jocko Willink?

  And you talk about like in the book and basically you started free soloing when you were a kid, just like because you didn't really want to talk to the other kids or you're too shy to talk to the other kids and say, hey, can I link up with you guys?

• 17:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, especially once I started traveling a little bit, like living out of the van and going destinations. So like one of the places I started climbing was in Joshua Tree outside of LA. And at the time, like my then high school girlfriend was going to school in Southern California. So it was kind of like, oh, you go to Southern California, you go to Joshua Tree. Joshua Tree is also the sort of a birthplace of climbing in California. It's like, has a lot of climbing culture, a lot of climbing history there. And so, you know, it's nice to sort of test yourself against these historic routes from the 60s and 70s and 80s. And so, you know, I wanted to go to a destination like Joshua Tree, but then you get there and you don't know anybody. And, you know, this is kind of like pre-cell phones, pre-social, pre-like, there's no easy way to connect with strangers. Plus, I was super shy and kind of a loser and kind of a weird dude.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  So it's a lot easier just to cruise around and, you know, climb things by yourself than to like walk around the campground talking to strangers.

• 17:58Jocko Willink?

  You know, that's a weird thing. I have kids, I've written a bunch of kids books and I have a kids podcast and I'll like take questions from kids and one of the questions I'll get, you know, it's like, oh, I basically like, hey, I don't, kids don't like me and that kind of thing. And one of the things that I kind of say back to kids that are in that position is like, being alone is okay. Like, it's okay to be alone and you can, it doesn't mean that you're bad. It just means that you haven't found anyone that you're going to get along with yet.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm just still hung up on irony of you writing kids books when you're surrounded by knives on this table. I feel like we're in like a CIA offsite sort of thing, like this black box with knives everywhere. You're like, yeah, I write kids books for fun.

• 18:45Jocko Willink?

  Well, yeah, the, the, the whole knife thing is, is it just kind of got out of control. It started with one fake knife from Echo Charles and then I tried to one up him and then we just ended up with this. We, we actually did at one point, I brought a pistol and then Echo was like, well, I don't know. That might be a bit, bit much or whatever. So I guess we backed to, we called a truce, an arms truce. It's only bladed weapon, only edged weapons.

• 19:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. After the axe too, that was like, okay, we gotta hit the brakes.

• 19:14Jocko Willink?

  Oh, I brought an axe too.

• 19:15Speaker 02

  No, someone sent an axe, I think.

• 19:17Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 19:18Speaker 02

  Maybe you brought it.

• 19:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Cause once we posted like a picture of like a couple of knives on the table, then people were like, I want my knife on the table.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally, totally. Like books and knives. It's a really interesting contrast.

• 19:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I guess, I guess it is sort of representative of my life in a way.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:33Jocko Willink?

  Books and knives, that's kind of, it's like I went to college, when I, when I did go to college, when the Navy did send me to college, I was an English major.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:40Jocko Willink?

  And.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  Why? Why, why does the Navy want an English major blowing things up?

• 19:44Jocko Willink?

  Well, believe it or not, when you're in a leadership position in the military, you have to write a lot and you have to read a lot. So you get directives that come down and you have to be able to read those, almost like a lawyer reads a document.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  But they didn't let you take any creative writing classes. They're like, they don't want you making anything up.

• 20:02Speaker 01

  Just your nonstop reports, you're like adding little flourishes. Like it's a very dramatic experience we had.

• 20:10Jocko Willink?

  Um, I could turn my after actions report into a romance novel. Uh, you have to write all the time. You have to write awards. You have to write evaluations of your troops. And so I had been an officer and so I was like, oh, I need to be good at this. And so that I just majored in English. And of course everyone thinks how the, you know, what are you going to do? What are you going to do after?

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. What are you going to do with your English?

• 20:30Jocko Willink?

  What are you going to do with your English degree, you idiot? I was like, well, I don't know. I'm gonna.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  Write things.

• 20:33Jocko Willink?

  Eventually wrote a bunch of books, including kids books. Uh, so very strange. I know. It is a little strange. My mom was an English teacher too. So I don't know what that has to do with anything. My mom was an English teacher. My dad was a history teacher and.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  And you like books? That's not that big of a surprise.

• 20:48Jocko Willink?

  The weird thing is, bro, I. I did not read growing up, like I did not.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  But you knew how to read.

• 20:54Jocko Willink?

  I knew how to read, but I wasn't a reader. You know, kids now, I don't know how much of a reader you were growing up, but some kids.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  I was a reader.

• 20:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, some people just read, they read like crazy and I didn't. I was like outside throwing rocks at like puddles, you know, just banging sticks together like a, like a Cro-Magnon man. That was, that was kind of.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  So my wife and I have been talking about this kind of stuff a lot because we now have an almost two year old and we're about to have our second child. And so we're talking about parenting, you know, I feel like parenting is just starting now that our daughter is getting old enough that you can actually parent a tiny bit.

• 21:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  She's less of a blob and more of a real person that does stuff. But it's interesting the, you know, I mean, what you're describing, it's like how much is nature versus nurture? And I feel like there's some basics there where it's like, obviously you could read, you know, your parents, if you're being raised by professors, basically it's like you, you learn how to. And I think, I think about that with climbing with my daughter where even if she's not into climbing and she doesn't become a climber, that's fine. But she's for sure going to know the basics. She's going to know how to rappel. She's going to feel comfortable doing all the things and whether she chooses to or not, that's up to her, but.

• 21:53Jocko Willink?

  So I, I've been through this before. Um, I, I'm really into jujitsu. As you could see, walked around my gym like this. Jujitsu has been a huge part of my life. And when my kids were born and then being raised by me, I wanted them to be into jujitsu. I wanted them to love jujitsu as much as I did. I wanted them to get the gifts of jujitsu that I got. And probably the same way you feel like you want your daughter to be able to have the same thing that you got out of climbing, this amazing.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  Well, no, that's the thing is I don't know if I want her. It's not that I want her to have, I mean, it'd be great if she does, but I just feel like there's a minimum threshold of competence that has to come because that's part of being in the family. But whether she chooses to, to be into it or not, that's up to her. You know, if she's more into reading, that's fine. If she's into music, like great. I think the goal of parenting, I mean, I don't know yet. You've raised four kids, but you tell me, but, but you know, is to help your child find the thing that they love doing.

• 22:46Jocko Willink?

  That's.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  But then there's certain things that part of being in the family is that she's going to be comfortable hiking outside. She can be able to rappel off cliffs. Like that's just, I mean, you can't do family activities if you don't know how to rappel.

• 22:55Jocko Willink?

  Yep. It's, you're, you're walking a thin line, my friend. Cause you're like, oh, they could, no, I'll support whatever they want to do as long as they're rappelling off of cliffs.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  No, but you can you can be taking your kid to soccer every weekend, but then, you know, when you go on family outings, you're still doing family stuff.

• 23:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  In the same way, I suspect your family had a minimum requirement of like, you must be able to read and do well in school or do whatever. You know, it's like, you've got to be minimum competence. And then beyond that, you can do whatever you want.

• 23:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  Blow things up.

• 23:21Jocko Willink?

  It sounds like you've got it dialed because what I did was too much jujitsu.

• 23:26Speaker 01

  You pushed it a little too hard.

• 23:26Jocko Willink?

  Pushed it too hard on them. And they went through a phase. Thank God, they're all like full on into jujitsu now, but they want they, except for my, my son went, didn't go, he wasn't allowed to go through a phase of no jujitsu. My daughters went through a phase of no jujitsu. My son was like, no, this is what we're doing. The minimum family standard for the boy was like

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Very high.

• 23:47Jocko Willink?

  Six days a week of jujitsu.

• 23:48Speaker 01

  That seems like a lot, right?

• 23:49Jocko Willink?

  It is. It's too much. And, and really the key thing, and this is, if there's any and I used to, look, we've been doing this podcast for, I think, seven years, seven, eight years. And in the beginning, I wouldn't like give parenting advice because my kids were, what, 13, 15, whatever, nine? And I was like, the jury's not out yet. I might not know in a whole lot of doing. I feel a lot more comfortable now and putting this out and, and giving advice around raising kids. The main thing is, in this total common sense, unless you're an idiot parent like I was, is make things fun. If you make it fun, if they have fun, then everything is, they just want to do it more. And then they get better at it. And then when they're

• 24:34Jocko Willink?

  better at it, they like doing it more because they are successful at it.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 24:37Jocko Willink?

  It just becomes, it's just a better way to roll. You don't want to be like, like I was. We would spend five hours on Saturdays and Sundays here at this gym, training.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  No, slightly psycho.

• 24:53Jocko Willink?

  Slightly psycho. Slightly psycho.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  I'm like, I love climbing and I still don't think I'm going to push, push anybody quite that hard.

• 24:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And that's the cool thing is eventually, you know, the kids kind of will, they're watching you all the time and they'll see the joy that it brings you and they'll see what you've gotten out of it and how much you enjoy it. And they'll be like, oh, I'm gonna try that too. And as long as you're not like, you need to do that again. You need to run that route again.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 25:17Jocko Willink?

  Don't go full psycho like I did. I don't recommend it. It's a really hard balance too, because with your kids, you

• 25:26Jocko Willink?

  Let's face it, if I was like, okay, you can, you can plot out the perfect life for your kid. You could probably do, you know, a normal person could go, okay, here's what you should do and here's how you'll be successful and happy in life. According to what I think happiness is, you could probably plot that out pretty well, probably anyone could.

• 25:45Jocko Willink?

  But they're people and they're, they're.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, they have their own, their own thing.

• 25:49Jocko Willink?

  That's what I, I always say.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  I mean, even as a two-year-old, we're starting to see that with our daughter, which is kind of fierce and independent woman. You're like, you follow your heart, dude, you do what you want to do.

• 25:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, they're going to be, the way I explain it to adults now is they're going to be who they are, not who you want them to be.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 26:04Jocko Willink?

  The more you just open up your mind to that is the, the easier it's going to go.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  Actually, I've, I had this idea that I think could be a good book and I'll just give it to you because you obviously write books, you can have it. But, um, but it's a concept I've, I've invented, I think, that, that I'm calling downstream parenting, where you just do everything with the current. You know, you just go with the current, like everything that's like chill, you know, within grounds of sort of safety and, and you know, some basic constraints. But every time I find myself trying to stop my daughter from doing something or wanting her to do a certain thing, I'm like, is it because I want her to do that thing? Or is it because she actually needs to do that thing? You know, I'm sort of like, you know what, if, like, if she wants to do something and it's not dangerous and it's not going to like cause harm to the property or whatever, then like let her do the thing. It's downstream and just go with the current. And part of that, I think, is because she's young enough that you can't reason with her anyway and like teach her things and exactly.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  So I'm kind of like, you know, why fight it all the time? Just like let it happen.

• 26:55Jocko Willink?

  Let it happen.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Go with current.

• 26:57Jocko Willink?

  And the minimum standard that you talked about, that, that can be used as well, especially it's really important, just like in leadership, it's really important to explain to people why you need to do something. So if you've got your daughter and you're like, hey, you need to know how to do this stuff. Oh, why do I need to be able to, you know, repel, repel, why do I need to be able to do that? And just, well, there's a couple of reasons. Number one, you don't know what kind of situation you're going to be in. Number two, like the confidence that'll bring you. Number three, the opportunities that this will give you and the access that you'll have to look. So you just have to have some reasonable things.

• 27:30Speaker 01

  Number three, the odds are she's going to have to rescue her dad at some point. Gets into something weird and she's got to go run back to the garage and get a rope and sort them out.

• 27:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And then, and then I was recently having a conversation where.

• 27:42Jocko Willink?

  You know, what if you can't, what if you don't have a good why? For instance, like clean your room. Why, why do I need to clean my room? And you say, well, and there's some legitimate reasons like, well, if you need to find something, you'll be able to find it quicker if your room is clean. Or if the, if there's a fire in the house and the, the firemen show up and they're tripping and falling over your toys, that could make it really hard for them. And, and those are, both those are a little bit of a stretch. And so-

• 28:03Speaker 01

  In our case, it's, you don't want to make habitat for the cockroaches. In the desert, you get cockroaches in the house.

• 28:07Jocko Willink?

  Well, there you go.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  You just don't want like creepy crawlies and all your stuff.

• 28:10Jocko Willink?

  So, so you can find legitimate reasons and then occasionally you find something where you don't have a legitimate reason?

• 28:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, but actually, so I'm, I personally basically don't do anything like, so I leave,

• 28:21Speaker 01

  like I'm in my pajamas right now because I'm like, I'm staying indoors today. I just stay in my comfy clothes all day. And so basically at my house, I have my pile next to my bed of my outdoor clothes, which are really, really dirty. And then my indoor clothes, which are my pajamas. And I just alternate, you know, throughout the day. I go from my pajamas to my outdoor clothes, my pajamas again. And my wife has just given up fighting on it. It's just I have my two piles next to the bed. That's all I use. And I use the same for like a month or two and it's totally fine. I'm sort of like, I suspect that our children will get away with sort of the same routines. Cause like I've, I've already done away with like, like my family was like, you take out the trash every day on trash day. Like even if it's not totally full. And I'm like, well, that seems stupid because it's not full. And so now at our house, you know, some of the trash cans get emptied like once every six or eight weeks or something. Cause they never fill. And you're like, that's fine. And I'm like, you know, my life is easier for it.

• 29:05Jocko Willink?

  Well, you're already in the place where I was going, which is-

• 29:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, downstream. That's what I'm saying. It's all downstream.

• 29:10Jocko Willink?

  If you can't give your kid a legitimate reason why to do something?

• 29:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, then don't do it.

• 29:14Jocko Willink?

  Then, then what's, then ask yourself, go look in the mirror and like, wait, is this just my ego that wants the room to be cleaned?

• 29:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. If you're doing it for control sake, like you're just telling them to do a thing because you want them to do the thing. You're like, that's douchey. Cause you wouldn't want somebody else doing that to you.

• 29:30Speaker 01

  It's like, it's like the golden rule, the two year old, you know, it's like, don't tell her to do something that I don't want to do.

• 29:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. Uh, as you're pursuing rock climbing, you drop out of college, it's not really a, there's no real future in it at the time. How are you explaining that to people? How you explain that to your parents? How you, how, how are you talking to, explaining that? Was it the same thing that you just said, like, hey, I'm gonna do this for a few years and I'll figure something else out?

• 29:52Speaker 01

  Kind of. I mean, when I initially dropped out of college, I wasn't dropping out of college. I was just taking a semester off. Um, and actually at the time I'd qualified for the youth world cup. So like this competition in, in, uh, I'd gotten second at nationals. So I qualified for international. So I was like, oh, I'll take a semester off. I'll go to Europe and do this competition. And then, you know, and then travel around and climb a little bit and then I just never went back to college. It was like, turns out traveling and climbing is, you know, was was more of my thing than than than class.

• 30:19Jocko Willink?

  When did you realize you were good?

• 30:21Speaker 01

  Uh, it's taken, I don't know, I'm like, it's taken a very long time. And even then, it's like, what is good? Cause climbing is a really broad, broad sport. And so most of my friends and peers who are, you know, professional climbers or serious climbers are sort of better than me at lots of other things or other aspects of it. And so, you know, I still struggle with that. But I mean, obviously now I'd accept that I'm much better than average, but but still way worse than most of my friends at at many things. So you're kind of like, well, I'm still always working on it.

• 30:53Jocko Willink?

  Did you, did you, when you were trying to get better, when you were trying to improve, was it just based on like, hey, I'm looking at a route? I I can't do it right now. I'm gonna work until I can do this route. And you're just doing that over and over again? Is that?

• 31:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's that's a big part of it. And then part of it is reading books, climbing history, you know, old school climbing media, like VHS stuff. Where you're like, oh, that's cool. Somebody did this thing. You know, I mean, just basically, yeah, what you're describing, like inspiration of whatever kind, leading you to to push yourself until you can do that kind of thing.

• 31:24Jocko Willink?

  And when you're looking at, you go to Joshua Tree and there's a route that you try and climb and you can't climb it, you fail.

• 31:31Jocko Willink?

  Do you, do you, you go back a month later, you go back a month later, you go back a month later and finally you're able to pull this thing off?

• 31:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's kind of the idea. I mean, the thing about climbing is that it's hard to know what failure means because you fall off routes all the time. And when you're climbing with a rope, this is like normal climbing. If you're like bouldering where you have pads or you're climbing with ropes and, you know, you have protection that catches you. That's kind of normal day to day, like your bread and butter climbing. I mean, you fall off routinely, like that's part of the process. And so you only really fail if you give up and you walk away from it and you never come back. But falling off is is fine. That's like, that's, that's normal. It's just that, you know, like you don't characterize that as failing, per se. You're just sort of like, oh, I'm still training, I'm still practicing, I'm still learning on this route. And then eventually you do it. So I mean, the the mindset is always. I don't know, it's all sort of cliche, you know, like growth mindset sort of stuff.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  But that's, but I think that's sort of an integral, you know, that's sort of foundational to climbing is that you're always, like anytime you fall off something, you're like, oh, that's fine. I'm like practicing, I'm learning, I'm refining the moves. I'm figuring it all out and eventually I'm going to do it.

• 32:34Jocko Willink?

  And you could, when you were younger, could you track your growth or were you like, oh, four months ago, I couldn't do this route and now I can, I'm better now?

• 32:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's always so much more fun in the sport when you're at the, the beginning of the growth curve, you know? It's like you improve really quickly and yeah, it's a little more painstaking now.

• 32:52Jocko Willink?

  Did you do, did you like exercise specifically, did you start to do finger boarding in your bedroom or anything like that? When you were younger, trying to get better?

• 33:03Speaker 01

  Uh, no. So actually, I mean, I grew up climbing before there were fingerboards really. I mean, some people did, but it just wasn't a thing that you could just buy online like you can now. I mean, there wasn't even online to buy, to buy the things, but, uh, but yeah, I mean, you know, the most elite climbers still use tactics like that, but it wasn't normal enough for a suburban kid growing up in Sacramento to, to know about that really. But, um, but I had a pull-up bar on my door frame, like so through high school, I was doing 150 pull-ups before bed every night. It's just like, this will make me a better climber in sets of like 10, 20, 30. But, um, in retrospect, it didn't really make me a better climber, but, but I was able to do one arm pull-ups after that. I was kind of like, oh, you do a shiller pull-ups.

• 33:41Jocko Willink?

  I can attest that I was always really into pull-ups and would do hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pull-ups. And it did never translate to my climbing. I'd go climb with someone that actually knew how to climb and you'd just be a total idiot. Your strength, it means nothing, just like any, any sport, you know, you look at these sports, whatever they are, and you think, oh, that, that, I could probably do that. No, there's so much technique behind it. It's totally ridiculous. And climbing is, well, I think climbing is just one of those many sports that people look at it. And they don't realize how

• 34:12Speaker 01

  How hard it is.

• 34:12Jocko Willink?

  How technical it is.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:14Jocko Willink?

  How much technique matters.

• 34:15Speaker 01

  How much subtlety there is in the body position, the movement, how you place your feet, how you adjust your hips. Like, yeah, there's a lot to it.

• 34:22Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's way more to it than it, sort of like boxing, right? Boxing, you think guys are just throwing punches, but there's so much going on there. Jiu Jitsu, you look at and you go, oh, there's a lot going on and you can see that you don't know what's happening. Right? And rock climbing, you're like, oh, hold on to that thing. Okay, I, I can, as a, as a primate, I can understand what that means. Kind of like as a primate, I can understand, I punch, punch in the head and it makes sense. Uh, an, an umaplada in jiu jitsu doesn't make sense to a primate. It's like one of those things you go, this doesn't, I, I, there's something I don't understand.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  What is an umaplada?

• 34:56Jocko Willink?

  It's just like a, a move with your body where you're taking the person's arm and you're wrapping your legs around a certain way and moving your hips. Like it's a very complex move that you would never think of as a primate. You wouldn't think of it as how to win a fight. And it's the same thing with boxing. You look at boxing, oh, they're just swinging. You go, if you have ever boxed against a good boxer, someone that was like a Golden Gloves boxer, or mu- much less a pro or an amateur boxer, like I've boxed against professional boxers, you're an idiot, I'm, I'm an idiot, right? I just, you're just getting touched, like there's nothing you can do about it. And yet, people watch boxing, go, oh, move your head a little bit, punch him in the head, you know, it's, there's so much going on.

• 35:36Jocko Willink?

  And that's what, that's why, you know, the, my early experiences with climbing was like, oh, I can do a bunch of pull-ups, I can do many pull-ups, I will climb rock. And it was like the most ridiculous, uh, pathetic thing. I was telling you earlier, I was climbing a rock out in, in Mission Guard with one of my buddies and I was like, probably, I don't know, maybe 25 feet up, something like that. And I'm coming over the top, like almost done. And it was a sloping kind of rock and I am gonna fall, like I am so freaking gonna fall. And I, I used my face and like chin and face to like secured smear on the rock and got it, inch my hands up more. And I was like, dude, I am dumb. I am really a dumb person.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  Or you're innovative, you know?

• 36:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  The face smear is a, is a new kind of technique.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  Though everybody's done things like that when they get desperate enough, start wedging their body into things and like, oh god.

• 36:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  Actually, I ran into somebody at the Basel Cap this season. We were hiking down from something and he was climbing a sort of notorious off with like a off-sized crack where his whole body's wedged in. And he just described an experience where he'd basically gotten bowed it and then wound up clipping off his helmet for protection, like leaving his helmet behind wedged in the crack with the rope slung around it as like, well, maybe the helmet will catch me if I fall. Which you're like, the helmet's not gonna freaking catch you. Like, you're for sure gonna die. But now I think of that as my sort of gold standard of, you know, the sort of low bar of like, things are going sideways, but you just like, leave your helmet behind as potential protection. Like, maybe it'll catch me. It's like a freaking little plastic bucket. You're like, it's for sure gonna break. You're gonna die.

• 37:14Jocko Willink?

  Not gonna work out well.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's not gonna save you.

• 37:17Jocko Willink?

  Scary. As you're like, going Moonlight Butchers, which again, go on, if you're listening to this, go on YouTube and just go look at Moonlight Butchers and go look at what that freaking thing looks like.

• 37:32Jocko Willink?

  How'd that come across? Like, what made that sort of like, this'll be the first big one?

• 37:39Speaker 01

  Well, so that, I mean, it was, it was a logical progression in a lot of ways. So, so the first like big solos that I did, Astor Man in the Rostrom, those had actually been done in the mid 1980s by Scott Petercroft, who's a famous Canadian climber and total legend of Yosemite. And so he'd been a personal hero forever. And so there was kind of a roadmap as to how to do that. And those represented the edge of big wall soloing at the time, really. Like, those were kind of the biggest, hardest things. But so this thing, Moonlight Butchers, is only slightly bigger. It's like almost the same size as Astor Man, like roughly a thousand feet tall, but significantly harder technically, like a harder number on it, you know, a bigger number, so it's harder. But the style actually is, is very similar. It's just one crack feature that splits this butchers straight up the middle.

• 38:21Speaker 01

  So even though it's harder, which means your forearms get more pumped, like your muscles get more fatigued, but it's, but it's still a similar style, like the, it still feels secure. Like, if your bones are locked into the crack, like, you know, basically if you have the fitness for it, you don't feel like you're gonna fall off. You know, and that's an important thing when we're talking about freestyleings, is the differentiating between the different styles, because... If you're climbing a crack, it means that your fingers, your hands, or whatever, your feet are wedged into the crack. And as long as you don't get too tired, there's really not a reason for you to fall off. And so, and fitness is relatively easy to build as a climber. Whereas technique, you know, so, but contrasted against like, say, crack climbing, you have like face climbing. Or like slab climbing, where it's just a ball, kind of what you're describing in Mission Gorge, where you're just like crawling over the top of some rock.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  And so if you're imagining climbing something that's like a bald, smooth, blank rock, no matter how big your muscles are, it's still all about how carefully you position your toes, how carefully you balance, like how well you move your hips. You know, like those are the things that you can practice for sure and you can improve at. But you just can't train the same way and you never feel safe doing it, you never feel secure. Like no matter how strong you get, it's still gonna be really friggin scary. So anyway, Moonlight kind of hit that sweet spot where I was like, this is roughly the same size of what I've done, just a little bit harder. But harder in a way that's secure and controllable. And then that said, I'd also just come off several months of climbing in Indian Creek in Utah, which is like home to these perfect splitter sandstone cracks, like exactly the same style as what Moonlight is.

• 39:51Speaker 01

  And so I just spent three months there where I'd basically done every hard thing in the desert at the time. And was feeling like, like a boss on sandstone, you know, I was like, oh, I feel good. And then, you know, but actually it was interesting though, because I'd had sort of this nagging elbow injury at the time. And had been climbing less than I wanted to be, you know, I wanted to just be going full bore, but I was kind of hurting. And so I'd have to like rest a couple of days and then I'd go out and do something really hard and, but then still be hurting. I was like, damn it, you know, it was really frustrating. And so it's kind of that good combination of being kind of pent up and like antsy and chomping at the bit, but also feeling really fit in a way. And I mean, I think part of that led to Moonlight, where you're like, I really want to do something rad, but I'm kind of hurting, but I'm really good at the style right now. And so then Moonlight was like the obvious thing.

• 40:35Jocko Willink?

  The obvious thing.

• 40:36Speaker 01

  And I'd done it with a rope and a partner two years before, so I knew I could do it. I'd done it first try with with this partner and, you know, like, I knew that it was a beautiful, inspiring, like, perfect route and like, yeah, right style and everything.

• 40:50Jocko Willink?

  Did you do it a few times before, like immediately before?

• 40:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I went there by myself and then I spent two days working on it. And each day I basically climbed the whole route twice. So, and and Moonlight is also really convenient in that there's a paved tourist trail that goes up the back, the the Angels Landing Trail, which is like one of the most famous trails in the country, or in Zion anyway. It's a really, really cool trail, but that goes up to the top of Moonlight. And so it's super easy to work because you just stroll up this path and then rappel down the face.

• 41:20Jocko Willink?

  In in the movie Alone on the Wall, a guy says, and I don't know who it is, but he says, um, the most mind blowing thing in climbing ever, when you climb, when you climb that.

• 41:31Jocko Willink?

  This is a weird thing. Well, at least from from the from outside the climbing world. It's a weird thing. So you climb Rostrom, you climb Astroman, you climb Moonlight Buttrus. And you tell one of your but you basically tell your buddy that you climbed it. And then he kind of posts it on the the interwebs. And that's sort of it. Like, no, no one took pictures of you, no, there's no video of it.

• 42:01Jocko Willink?

  I, Echo and I were talking about it yesterday, like, what is it about rock climbing? Like, if if I if I posted on the internet today, hey, everyone just want to let you know I squatted a thousand pounds. People would be like.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  I'd believe it. I don't know. I don't know if that's hard or not, but I think you could.

• 42:17Jocko Willink?

  But the rest of the community would be like, we want video, we want to see, we want to see what you did, we see, you know, we want to come and check the weights. Like, we want to see that we want to measure the weights to make sure this is true.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  Can you squat a thousand pounds?

• 42:28Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  Can anybody squat a thousand pounds?

• 42:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, some people can, but, you know, it's a, it's.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  Does the bar bend when you squat a thousand pounds?

• 42:35Jocko Willink?

  The bar definitely bends.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  That's fucked up.

• 42:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, but it's but here you are, you're doing that you're achieving these things. And I it sounded like uh moonlight buttress. There were some people that were like, oh, well, you know, really like.

• 42:49Speaker 01

  Actually, people were skeptical, not of the climb really, but because it was posted on on uh April Fool's Day. You know, people are like, oh, that's a funny fake news story. And then and they're like, wait, is that a real news story? What the fuck? But nobody ever was like, oh, we don't think he did it.

• 43:04Jocko Willink?

  Also, people don't question it.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  No, but I think climbing, I mean, there are a few things going on. I know what you mean. And and that's starting to change a little bit for climbing as well. Um, where I think if you posted like truly outlandish claims nowadays, people sort of expect video evidence or or something. Or at least like a GPS tracker, you know, depending on what exactly you're doing. But I mean, the nature of climbing is that you're normally doing the climbs in remote places without service, without people. I mean, particularly with soul line, you know, by definition, you're by yourself. So, you know, I mean, you are really are just taking people at their word. I mean, that's a big part of climbing. But part of it is also that if people don't believe you, you can just go do it again. You know, if the rock is still there, the in the same way that if someone doesn't believe that you lifted a thousand pounds, you're like, oh, I can just do it again tomorrow.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  Or if not lift a thousand, you could at least lift like nine hundred and fifty or something and be like, you know, it's close enough that you can imagine that on a peak day I did what I said I did.

• 43:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, except for it's well, that's a little messed up because close enough on a free solo isn't.

• 44:02Speaker 01

  No, no, but but what I mean with with close enough is that, you know, people can see you soloing other routes. They can see that you could do, you know. I mean, in my case, I mean, especially now, I've done I've done a lot of soloing and and I think maybe I counted this. I have a list on my phone, actually, of of things that I've done that are sort of firsts, like what you're describing with, uh, you know, moonlight and half dome and things like that. And so I've done something like thirty five routes that were sort of like firsts or things that hadn't been done before. And of those, I filmed on roughly a third of them or like went back and took photos on them later or. Or like in the case of El Cap with the film Free Solo, you know, we actually it's a full on documentary film where they shot the real thing. But so. You know, there's maybe a third of the things I've done that there's evidence for.

• 44:43Speaker 01

  And then there are the other two thirds that there's no evidence, but you know, occasionally somebody would see you or you occasionally you pass people on the route like as you're climbing, you just climb over other people. And they're just left being like, shit, what a day, you know, like that's, that's crazy.

• 44:56Jocko Willink?

  That must be, that must be the craziest thing in the world being two thousand feet up on a wall and have Alex roll on by like, can I, can I pass you guys?

• 45:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, yeah, it's.

• 45:07Jocko Willink?

  What was the climb where you borrowed somebody's chalk bag?

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was on the nose, you know, I forgot my chalk bag, what a botch. But, yeah, but I got it back to him. I left it on the tree for him.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  But, so you got it back, you know, four days later, whatever, and you got to the top.

• 45:24Jocko Willink?

  You mentioned that too. You mentioned it real quickly, reenactment, right? Which I didn't even being like I said, like a, a rock climbing sort of adjacent fan guy. I didn't realize that when I was watching Alone on the Wall, the movie, that you did, those were reenactments.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, though, I mean, a reenactment, I don't know if that's even, because you are up there soloing again, you know, it's like you're, the difference is just that you're only soloing key parts of the route. And you know, you're soloing the things typically you're choosing the parts of the route that look the coolest, but feel the most secure, the things that you can do on command. Because anytime you're doing it for a camera, you have to wait for the camera guy to get in position and you're like hanging there. And then they're like, hold on, got to change batteries. And you're like, okay, tick tock, you know, like I'm getting pumped, you know, and then they're like, oh, hold on, got to change lenses. And you're like, tick tock, tick tock, you know, like I'm, I'm, my arms are tired. So, you know, it's not like you're exactly reenacting, like it's not like it's fake.

• 46:19Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, it's not like you're not.

• 46:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Whatever you're seeing, like you are seeing photos and video of free soloing. But it's normally construed or you're sort of portrayed as like, this is the real thing. And you're like, well, this is actually the day that we had the crew and went back and shot it. And though that's not the case for the film Free Solo, which is like an actual documentary where we did the real thing. And there are a couple of other films like that where, like occasionally it makes more sense to shoot the real thing. But most of the time it makes more sense to just go and do it whenever it makes sense for you weather wise and fitness wise and conditions wise. And then to go back and shoot whenever it's convenient for the whole crew.

• 46:53Jocko Willink?

  This feels like the kind of thing that would make me, I don't get mad, but this feels like the kind of thing that would make me mad. Like I get done with something awesome, they're like, hey, you gotta do it again, because we didn't get a good shot.

• 47:04Speaker 01

  Well, that's, that's the nature of being a professional, though. It's like being good at doing the thing just makes you a good climber. Being a good professional climber means that you can then tie back in and do it again. And like get the crew up into position and like deal, you know, I mean, to me, that's like, that's the nature of being a professional.

• 47:20Jocko Willink?

  Well, the also in, in these various movies, they'll talk to the camera guys. Or I've seen documentaries about the guys that were making the movies and they'll all feel kind of the same way that I feel. They'll be like, dude, like, you don't have to do this section or uh, can you do that? But they don't really want to ask you and they don't feel comfortable asking, they don't want to put like, they don't feel good about it either.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  Well, this is, yeah, that's, that's the challenge of shooting any of this kind of stuff is that the crew doesn't want to be there. You don't want the crew to be there. Everybody feels uncomfortable depending. And that's why typically when you're reshooting something, you choose the parts that are the most secure, you know, basically the safest. Because you don't want to traumatize the crew, like you don't want to fall on a, you don't want to die on a workday. Like, like I might be willing to risk death for my personal projects, but I'm not going to risk death to like, get the, get an ad for a jacket or something, you know, you're like, whatever, I don't know. Like, you know, I'm up there like shooting photos of a chalk bag or whatever, and you're like, yeah, isn't this a great shot? And you're like, no, I'm not going to risk, yeah, exactly. I'm like, I'm not taking any, any risk for that stuff.

• 48:20Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's wild. I was watching, I was watching you climb the Phoenix, right? And you grabbed this photographer dude like morning of like, hey, you want to go shoot me? I'm going to go do some climbing. He's like, okay. And then you rappel down into the Phoenix. And then like, hey, can you just haul all my stuff back up? And he has like an image of him pulling up everything, your rack, your harness and everything but your chalk bag. And this dude is, you could see his camera shaking, his camera, does this make him, him not a professional? He's like camera shaking. It was like freaking, but what was weird about that was like you rappelled down. The rope is already on you. It's like a perfect top rope scenario for you to do all your stuff and climb up there. But it's like, no, I'm going to do this and.

• 49:05Speaker 01

  Sometimes you choose the challenge.

• 49:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you choose the challenge.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  But I mean, that's another interesting example, though, because sometimes you film on things because it's more convenient for the experience itself. Because like if I wanted to free solo the phoenix, but I didn't have somebody with me, didn't have somebody shooting, let's say. Then it means I would rappel down, tie all my stuff to the rope and the rope would just be kind of dangling behind you and that would totally compromise the nature of the experience. Because you'd know that if you fell off, you could just jump back and try to catch the rope. And maybe you would, maybe you wouldn't, but, but either way, you would feel like.

• 49:33Jocko Willink?

  You're one of the few people in the world that like takes, takes comfort in the fact that, well, if I fall, I can possibly jump back.

• 49:39Speaker 01

  And catch a 10 millimeter rope. But I mean, there are stories of people catching ropes like that, and you know, it can happen. It would require a degree of luck and, and you'd burn the shit out of yourself, but, but you'd probably, you could potentially survive that way. And so it would just change the, the nature of the experience. And there are several solos that I've done that I took photos or video on because I wanted somebody there. Like actually a different route in Yosemite called Cosmique Breather, there's still photos of it. Actually, the guy, Mikey, who you mentioned in the, my, the excerpt from my book, who was shooting the long shot and free solo. He, um, he's a photographer and I've worked with him a ton over the years. But he, I recruited him once to shoot photos of me on this crack because it's basically a crack to nowhere.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  It just goes up this blank wall and then just ends. And so if you were free soloing, you would just get to the top and be like, well, now I just have to climb right back down. And it's really, really hard. Actually, it's the hardest thing that's ever been solo in Yosemite, grade wise, uh, like technically. And so, you know, I asked him to basically go up there and like get into position with a rope and his camera ahead of time. And then I could just show up whenever I wanted to climb it. And then when I was done, we would just rappel down together. And you're like, oh, it just makes the whole experience more doable. And you know, I probably could have rigged some other way to do it totally alone, but it just kind of makes sense to have your buddy there and take a picture.

• 50:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, this is Mikey in the, down in the meadow when you're climbing, who's like, can't look at the camera, he's looking away. Gosh.

• 51:06Jocko Willink?

  Half Dome. That was like the next obvious thing?

• 51:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, basically it was. So Half Dome was the next obvious step because it was bigger and sort of more rad, like more intimidating, like just bigger and more awe inspiring. But actually, it's graded technically easier than Moonlight. So the, the, the difficulty grade is technically easier. Though the style, as it turns out, is much less secure and, and sort of more difficult in a way. But, uh, but basically it just felt like the next big thing. You know, it's only a little bit harder than the Rosterman Astroman, but it's, but it's like having the two of them stacked on top of each other. It's like really big.

• 51:42Jocko Willink?

  Two thousand feet.

• 51:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. And also, I mean, it's two thousand feet high, but it's 2,500 feet above the valley floor. So you're like 4,000 feet up above Yosemite, like feels, feels very airy. You know, you're up there, you're like, oh, it's, it's pretty mega.

• 51:56Jocko Willink?

  Bro, 30 feet, sounds pretty big to me right now.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  Well, honestly, the difference between like 50 feet and a thousand feet doesn't start to matter that much. Cause like, you know, if, if you fall more than 50 feet or so, you're gonna die.

• 52:09Jocko Willink?

  I gotta go to the book on this one.

• 52:13Jocko Willink?

  This is, so now you're like 1,800 feet up, something, you're almost to the top. You have a little bit of a situation, we'll say. You say, "I climbed into the upper crux, feeling good about doing things legit. And then I ground to a halt. I'd expected to find some sort of different hold or sequence from the one I'd used two days earlier, which had felt pretty desperate. But perhaps I'd done it wrong. This time, in the same position, on the same holds, I realized there were no better options. I had a moment of doubt, or maybe panic. It was hard to tell which. Although I'd freed the pitch maybe two other times the year before, I could remember nothing of the sequence or holds,

• 52:58Jocko Willink?

  perhaps because there aren't any."

• 53:01Speaker 01

  It's very dramatic writing. I'm like, oh, God.

• 53:04Jocko Willink?

  "A gigantic old oval carabiner hung from a bolt about two inches above the pathetic ripple that was my right hand hold. I alternated back and forth, chalking up my right hand and then my left, switching feet on marginal smears to shake out my calves. I couldn't make myself commit to the last terrible right foot smear I needed to snag the jug. I'd stalled out in perhaps the most precarious position of the whole route."

• 53:32Jocko Willink?

  I considered grabbing the beaner. With one pull, I'd be up and off. Taurus oblivious laughter spilled over the lip. Tons of people were up on top. I was in a very private hell. I stroked the beaner a few times, fighting the urge to grab it, but also thinking how foolish it would be to die on a slab, sliding and bouncing almost 2,000 feet to my death, when I could so easily save myself. My calves were slowly getting pumped. I knew I should do something soon, since treading water was only wearing me out. Down climbing never occurred to me. I was going up. It was just a matter of how high, one way or another.

• 54:15Jocko Willink?

  But now, real fear seized me. Once again, I took a deep breath, studied the holds in front of me, and tried to think rashly about what I had to do. Although I never wanted to be on that slab in the first place, I had to finish what I'd started without invalidating my ascent. Finally, I compromised. I kept my hand on the pathetic ripple, but straightened my right index finger just enough for the tip of my last pad to rest on the bottom of the oval. My thought was, if my foot blew, I could snatch the beaner with one finger and check my fall. I smeared my foot, stood up, and grabbed the jug. No problem.

• 55:00Jocko Willink?

  I was delivered, free from my little prison, where I'd stood silently for a good five minutes. And I hadn't cheated by grabbing the beaner. I took the final 5'7" slab to the summit at a near run. Twenty or more hikers sat on the edge of the precipice, witnessing my final charge. But no one said a word. No yells, no pictures, nothing. Maybe they thought I was a lost hiker. Maybe they couldn't conceive of where I'd come from, or maybe they just didn't give a shit. When I mantled onto the actual top, I was met with a flood of humanity. A hundred odd people spread across the summit plateau. Taurus ate lunch next to me.

• 55:43Jocko Willink?

  They made out, took scenic photos. People everywhere. It was so weird.

• 55:52Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, so, uh, Half Dome, you can, you can hike up Half Dome like a normal person can hike, can get permits and hike up Half Dome and they got these cables that you can kind of go up in between. So there's normal people up there.

• 56:04Speaker 01

  Though that was written pre permitting system.

• 56:06Jocko Willink?

  Oh, okay.

• 56:07Speaker 01

  That's why, it's funny because I mentioned how crowded it was. No, no, so it used to be a zoo and now with the permits, it's way less zooey. Yeah, because nowadays it's rare to see so many people on top at any given time because the, their permits.

• 56:17Jocko Willink?

  Uh huh.

• 56:18Speaker 01

  Um, but anyway, yeah, hearing that I was like, oh, I kind of forget because there've been permits for quite a long time now. But yeah, back then it was just free for all and so the cables would get packed and there'd be so many people on top, which is, it got slightly dangerous and so they instituted the permitting system.

• 56:32Jocko Willink?

  So, yeah, and I bet people didn't even like comprehend what had just happened. Like you just show up, they kind of like, oh, it's.

• 56:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's funny because when you climb Half Dome with a partner in climbing gear and you have all your gear jangling on your harness as you get over the top, then when you get over, people are like, oh my God, you know, how many days do you spend on the wall? That's incredible. Like what do you do? But when you top out free soloing, you know, I don't even have a shirt on. I've got like nothing. I'm just sort of like, ah, you know, people are like, that guy looks psycho, you know, like, like kids, don't make eye contact. It's like, like who's that guy? You know, it's like a whole different vibe.

• 57:08Jocko Willink?

  That's, that's that moment right there, right? Where you're like, kind of not feeling the next move, really, is what it is. And the, it's, if you don't, if you've never done any rock climbing, what you're doing with your feet, I don't think I've ever even felt freaking the way it's supposed to feel like when I have rock climbers. You, so what you're doing Echo Charles is you, you're taking your foot, you got like rock climbing shoes on, but there's very little to, it's not like a step, it's not even like an edge, it's just like smooth.

• 57:38Speaker 01

  It's like a blank ripple.

• 57:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and you're just kind of.

• 57:40Speaker 01

  I'm looking around the table for something like comparable, like ripple wise.

• 57:44Jocko Willink?

  Just.

• 57:45Speaker 01

  But it's just.

• 57:46Jocko Willink?

  Like this right here. Tiny.

• 57:48Speaker 01

  No, I was like, I was trying to think about like this part of the lens.

• 57:52Jocko Willink?

  Oh damn.

• 57:52Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? Like not on the edge, but like on the part that's just slightly slanted.

• 57:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 57:55Speaker 01

  Where like, oh, if you just, and because climbing shoes are, you know, really tight with like a precise edge to them. And they have rubber that's like stickier than than normal shoe. And so if you just imagine putting your big toe against that ripple and like pushing against that and then sort of balancing just right. It's like, it's all, yeah, but that's what I'm saying that that's a style of climbing that, you know, you can practice and you can prepare for. But no matter how strong you are, it doesn't make it feel any easier.

• 58:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  You know, it's like, so it's a, it's a tough thing, like it's a tough style to free solo. Because no matter, you know, there's, it always feels a little, little on edge. You're like, what if my foot slips?

• 58:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cuz I mean, what's the term you use? Blow, if your foot blows out?

• 58:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you blow foot.

• 58:36Jocko Willink?

  Like that sometimes happens, right?

• 58:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you know, yeah, it happens if you weight it wrong. Like you'd like to think that there's a degree of control to it where like you only blow your foot if you're inattentive in how you place it. Or if your shoes are old, or if the friction's bad, or if, you know, there's a lot of freaking variables. And so then you're sort of like, well, you know, but it feels random because you're like, oh, I thought it was good and my foot blew.

• 58:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  Like, oh, oops, well, I must have placed it poorly or something, but you know, it doesn't help if you're dead.

• 59:02Jocko Willink?

  No. And then, so, so you get done with this, and again, this is just like your work. You're like, you told your buddy like, hey, I, I free soloed half toe, by the way, yesterday or whatever. And then he posts it somewhere on the interwebs and then people kind of catch what you're doing.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I kind of forget how all this stuff played out cuz I mean, so that was in 2008, which feels like a long time ago now. And that was like pre-social, I didn't have a smartphone yet. There was no easy way to disseminate information around climbing like that. And so, you know, I did it, my friends knew about it at some point, you know, I like, obviously told a few people. Like the, I'd climbed the wall with a partner two days before with a rope to practice it to, you know, see if it was doable. And so, um, so he knew that I was, you know, at least toying with the idea. I mean, he, you know, he was kind of like, oh, why are we going up here to practice? Like obviously he kind of had a sense of it. And so I texted him when I was done, just so you wouldn't be worried and, um, you know, text like the people I was climbing with the next day. It'd be like, okay, let's go do, you know, whatever. And I don't really know how it spread from there, but then, but then the next year, we filmed

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  the movie Alone on the Wall, which is what you saw in film festivals and things that toured with Real Rock and it went on the Banff Mountain Film Tour thing. So it kind of toured internationally. And so I feel like the real, you know, the Half Dome Free Solo sort of became a big thing, sort of a year and a half later.

• 1:00:23Jocko Willink?

  You're already over it.

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, by then I'd already done a bunch of other solos, a bunch of, you know, been on a couple of expeditions. Yeah, it was like ancient history by then.

• 1:00:32Jocko Willink?

  Dang, and then you had to go back and reenact it?

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, but that's fine because that was just like two days of, two days of work on Half Dome, basically.

• 1:00:40Jocko Willink?

  Look, like I said, it would make me mad. I'm getting mad for you right now. Apparently it doesn't make you mad at all.

• 1:00:45Speaker 01

  Like, no, no, well, can you imagine a better place to work? You know, I'm sort of like, oh, I'm going up with three of my good buddies to go camp at one of the most beautiful places in the world. And this is what I do for a job. You're like, this is awesome. You know, just, and, and then the part, and well, so this is the thing that I think people don't, don't totally get. And there's a lot of these films, like Alone on the Wall, when you're like, that's such crazy free soloing. What you're seeing is the safest and most secure stuff on the whole route. Like you're not seeing any of the stuff where I actually think I could fall. You're seeing the stuff that, you know, I feel totally comfortable doing on command in weird weather, you know, like just whatever. When the guy tells you that it's time to go, you're like, okay, I can go. So whatever you're seeing is like the chill stuff.

• 1:01:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:22Speaker 01

  So just imagine the not chill stuff.

• 1:01:23Jocko Willink?

  In the book, you talk about the fact that, that the move that I just read, you're like, you, you didn't do that again. You didn't reenact that one for the camera.

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  No, no, we didn't run that pitch.

• 1:01:32Jocko Willink?

  You're like, hell no.

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, hell no. Hell no. Or if I was gonna, I mean, I'm sure I could do that again if I had to, but if I went up there again, I would make some major marks with chalk all over. Be like, left foot, right foot, left foot, and like be positive of like, this is exactly how I do it every time. And that's a big part of the difference in my process between the Half Dome experience and then later, uh, Free Soloing LCAP. It's like that passage you read in the intro with the Boulder problem on LCAP. That was perfectly executed where I knew exactly what to do. So I was sort of able to go into autopilot and just do it. Whereas on Half Dome, you're up there all self-conscious the whole time being like, is this the right way? Am I, is this the right foot? Should I try a different foot? But that feels even worse. I should try an even different, you know, it's like you're just doing different stuff and it's like you're panicking.

• 1:02:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, well, even when you're climbing half dome, I didn't read this part, but you like got a little lost and turned around on the route itself, which is a little crazy.

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's because I'd intended to go one way and then I got up there and I just wasn't feeling that great. And I was sort of like, oh, I knew that there existed an easier way that bypassed one of the cruxes in the middle of the wall, but I'd never actually gone the easier way. But I was like, oh, I'll figure it out. And then it turns out I totally overshot the easy way and did a bunch of stuff that was unfortunate. But that was a whole different experience because then you think you're just lost in the middle of this 2,000 foot wall. And you're like, holy shit, you know, like you're seeing no signs of human passage. They're like bushes in the cracks. And you're kind of like, you know, am I like totally lost up here? It's yeah, but eventually I found my way back to the root.

• 1:02:58Jocko Willink?

  And eventually, if you you could sit, you mentioned in the book, like, well, I could sit here and wait till some more climbers and yell at them and like get some help if I had to. And, and then it's the way you described getting helicopter rescued, it seemed like you would rather die. That's, that's the way you didn't say that in the book, but it seemed like you would rather that.

• 1:03:15Speaker 01

  The deepest of shames.

• 1:03:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  That'd be, no, I mean, that's the interesting thing with free soloing and Yosemite in particular, because Yosemite is quite popular. I mean, they're tourists, they're climbers, they're they're folks around. And so you could always yell for help. You could always just sit down on a little ledge. And that's the thing with free soloing is that if you slip and fall, you're gonna die for sure. But if you just suddenly had a change of heart and you're like, you know what, I'm not into this, like, I can't do it or something, you could find a little stance here or there. You know, like, the slide pitch that I'm describing on a half dome, it starts off of this little ledge feature, sort of half the size of this table, let's say. So you could just go sit on that little ledge and just sit there carefully for like a day or two and wait for somebody to get you. And in the grand scheme of survival situations, like you'd be fine, you know, you'd shiver through the night and in a day or two, someone would collect you and it'd be better than dying.

• 1:04:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  It'd be, it'd be deeply embarrassing and, and, and sort of a, you know, it'd be a hard thing to overcome confidence wise, but, but you'd be alive and then be fine.

• 1:04:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And then when you've got this carabiner that you can kind of grab on to, and no one's really watching, and it's like you're either gonna die or make it. But I'm gonna hold the line.

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, but then the whole rest of your life, you'd be like, yeah, I free soloed half dome mostly sort of except for that one key move where I skipped the hardest move on the route. You know, it'd be weird because you spend the whole rest of your life being like, oh, this thing that I did that I'm really proud of almost, but I'm not that proud of, I'm actually kind of deeply ashamed of, please don't tell anyone. You know, it's like.

• 1:04:43Jocko Willink?

  It's the alternative also being you spend the rest of your life, which is about five seconds tumbling.

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. I know, it'd be terrible. But I know it's just, yeah, it's, it's a predicament though, because it's something that you're like, this could be, you know, one of the crowning achievements of your life so far, or it could be this like deeply embarrassing thing that you don't want to talk to anybody about. It's just sort of like, oh, I got it over my head and then, and then it all went sideways. Kind of like, I don't know.

• 1:05:09Jocko Willink?

  Uh, what about El Cendero Luminoso? You like that Echo Charles? How was that?

• 1:05:16Speaker 01

  Well, you know.

• 1:05:17Jocko Willink?

  Not bad. This one again, now this one looks like little tiny freaking holes. This isn't much, as much crack activity, is it?

• 1:05:26Speaker 01

  No, no, but it's, um.

• 1:05:28Jocko Willink?

  It's horrifying, man.

• 1:05:30Speaker 01

  Well, an important distinction is that Cendero is, uh, is limestone, so it's a different type of rock, so it's, um, it's like these porous solution pockets, it's all these little holes. And so actually it's way more featured than the Yosemite, everything we've talked about, so actually not everything. So several of the things we've talked about so far have been non-granite, so it's basically like smooth blank faces with cracks on them, through them. And then, uh, Moonlight Butchers is sandstone, but that's also just a pure crack. Cendero is just a whole different thing because limestone is like a different type of rock, it's porous, it has like different types of little nooks and crannies in it. And so, I don't know, I mean, Cendero though, is actually harder than any of the other ones, uh, that we've been talking about technically. And it's just kind of bigger and harder. I mean, Cendero represented a whole different step, like it was, and also it was many years later and I was a much better climber.

• 1:06:14Jocko Willink?

  This is now like 2014.

• 1:06:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I saw Cinderella though as part of the lead up to freestyling LCAP. Like, there were, there were three routes, basically. Like, I wanted to sell LCAP. As soon as I sold it half dome, like in 2008, LCAP was the obvious next thing. I was like, I should do that because it's the next big. But it just was too hard and too daunting and like too, too far beyond. And so I kind of had three other hard walls that, uh, that I wanted to do leading up to LCAP. And Cinderella was one of them, and then the other two, uh, were never filmed or got photos or anything. They're just these two random routes that you haven't heard of. But they're also, one of them I did with almost no prep because I ran out of freaking propane in my van. And the drive up into the mountains to get to the place was so heinous and windy that I was like,

• 1:06:58Speaker 01

  there's no way I'm going to drive back to town to get more propane and then drive back up here. I was like, I'm just gonna not eat dinner and then climb it tomorrow and then leave for good. Because I was like, I don't want to drive there.

• 1:07:08Jocko Willink?

  Where was that?

• 1:07:09Speaker 01

  That's, that's in the Needles. It's, uh, this place in the High Sierra, um, uh, between Fresno and Bakersfield. It's kind of like in the middle of nowhere. It's like these really nice granite spires that are like tucked away in the mountains.

• 1:07:20Jocko Willink?

  And it was really hard?

• 1:07:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really hard. It's, um, it's like the same as any of the other ones. Yeah, it's hard. It's like a 10 or 12 pitch, 12B, but it's really, really technical granite.

• 1:07:31Jocko Willink?

  Did they film, um, Luminosa live or did you reenact it?

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  No, so they, I think there were people there when I did it. But this was like pre-documentary filmmaking. I think the filmmakers were uncomfortable. Everybody was kind of like, well, just let you do your thing. And so I actually sold that with a little day bag on because I needed food and water and I needed my shoes so I could hike down off the summit of the mountain. Cinderella Luminosa climbs this sort of tower feature. And so normally you climb it and then you rappel the tower with two ropes. But if you don't have a rope, then, uh, I scrambled back to the, to the wall of the mountain behind it and then continued on to the summit of that mountain. So another like, I don't know, 500 feet or 1,000 feet or something of like kind of bullshit jungle climbing to get to the top of the mountain. And then you can hike down the other side of the mountain on like a normal tourist trail.

• 1:08:17Speaker 01

  But so my freestyle experience was like a little unusual in that I have a little bag on. I've got food and water. I've got supplies, you know? Because climbing with a backpack, you know, it only, it's like, what, two or three pounds or something of extra weight, which represents almost nothing in the grand scheme of, you know, as a percentage of mass. And so, but obviously it looks way worse in film. And so they didn't want to shoot like a long shot of me up there with my little day bag, like going, going to school. You know, so then later, when we went back and filmed on it, you're just up there in your t-shirt, looking like a hero. And you're like, oh, what a great, what a great shot. You're like, yeah, it looks way better. Everybody's happy. It's like, makes a great film.

• 1:08:52Jocko Willink?

  It's freaking psycho to look at.

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that one especially, the things, like, so filming on Cendaro, I don't think, I didn't do the crux again. I didn't do a couple of things, but the sections that I did do are still five twelve. They're still like, sort of elite rock climbing. And they look, I mean, they look, yeah, like the footage still looks insane.

• 1:09:10Jocko Willink?

  It looks heinous.

• 1:09:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:12Jocko Willink?

  And there's like a massive wind, like it's super windy, which also, you know, I'm just already uncomfortable. And then there's this super strong wind blowing and I'm like, this does not look cool to me. I mean, it looks awesome to me, but it looks horrifying.

• 1:09:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's, I mean, that's the nature of filming in mountains, you know? Sometimes it's cold, sometimes it's windy. It's just like you're in the mountains.

• 1:09:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And, and, and so you said as soon as you climbed Half Dome, you were, you knew that El Cap was gonna be somewhere in the future.

• 1:09:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, El Cap was always kind of a life dream for sure. I mean, it's just, I mean, you've seen it. It's, have you seen it? What? El Cap. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've been to Yosemite? No, I've never been there, but I've seen it on. Oh, no, you guys see it in person, I mean. Oh, yeah, in real life, different. When you see it in real life, I mean, it's just so, it's so mega. It's so, it's awe inspiring. It's grand. It's, it's vast. It's like, it's everything. You're just like, wow. And so, you know, I was spending maybe three months a year in Yosemite in my van. And, you know, it's like your whole life revolves around El Cap, basically. It's like you drive past every day, you look at it, you're like, that's so epic. So, yeah, I mean, it was always the, the big goal.

• 1:10:18Jocko Willink?

  Is there?

• 1:10:19Speaker 01

  Also, like, at some point, a journalist had written in Outside Magazine, like, a speculative piece, like, "The Race to Free Soling," all cap. I mean, it was like, an obvious challenge for climbing.

• 1:10:29Jocko Willink?

  Who was in the race?

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  Well, me and, I mean, the guy that wrote the article was sort of speculating between me and Dean Potter, who, I don't know if you remember him, but he's not deceased, but he was also a very talented free soloist, and he was base jumping a lot, and had kind of, you know, I sort of fondly called him "The Dark Wizard" because he had a lot of sort of dark arts, like, you know, base jumping, and he was just sort of a dark, broody soul.

• 1:10:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:10:54Speaker 01

  But, but he was certainly capable of, of something like that. You know, he maybe, he was never quite there, but he certainly, I mean, I know he thought about it, like, he was, he was interested, for sure.

• 1:11:04Jocko Willink?

  So, the race was you two?

• 1:11:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, or, I mean, or who knows who else, because, I mean, anybody that has free soloed a little and climbed Yosemite has at least thought about it, you know, as like, a magical, like, "Wouldn't that be crazy?" You know, but it's an obvious possibility.

• 1:11:19Jocko Willink?

  When you are thinking about doing this, what's, like, the driving thing that's making you want to do this?

• 1:11:29Speaker 01

  That'd be so cool. I mean, you know, it's, it's just the obvious challenge. I mean, it's hard to describe how important Yosemite is to climbing history and climbing culture and, you know, climbing mythology, and then El Cap is sort of central to that, and there's been so much climbing history written on the walls of El Cap. Like, I mean, just the first ascent of El Cap was groundbreaking at the time, as the, the most difficult, biggest big wall in the world. And then, you know, I guess, what?

• 1:11:55Jocko Willink?

  Which was, which was, like, it's a different, it's a totally different thing, what they did back then.

• 1:11:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, totally different thing. Took them 18 months of effort, and, you know, 40 days on the wall, and drilling all these bolts, it's like, a whole process.

• 1:12:05Jocko Willink?

  It's almost, it was almost like a construction project, mm, you know, in a way. You're just, like, literally drilling holes into the wall.

• 1:12:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. But, but crazy, because at that point, ropes didn't hold falls, so, I mean, that's a big, that's a big thing. I mean, they had ropes, and the ropes would help, but if you took a big fall, there's, like, a legitimate chance the rope would break. Nowadays, that's not a thing. Nowadays, a climbing rope, you know, unless something crazy happens, like, you could fall the whole length of the rope, and it's totally fine. And, and the rope absorbs enough force that you won't even be hurt. You'll just kind of be like, "Oh, boingy," you know, like, a little bouncy. It's, like, totally chill. But back then, sort of like, "Oh, you don't even have a real harness, the ropes aren't going to catch a fall." It's all pretty, it's pretty adventurous up there. But, but yeah, so...

• 1:12:47Speaker 01

  You know, there's been so much climbing history written on Al Cap from the first ascent to the first in a day ascent to the first free ascent, you know, to like all these big milestones in in climbing have occurred on Al Cap. And so it makes sense that as a, you know, mid twenties, like hungry young man, like looking to do something cool. You're like, oh, that's that's the place to do it.

• 1:13:09Jocko Willink?

  So you started thinking about that in 2008 and now 2009, 2010, 2012, or 14, you know, you're doing these other things and you're just progressively getting better. Can you feel yourself getting better? Are you getting stronger? Are you just getting more technical?

• 1:13:25Speaker 01

  No, it's so slow. I mean, I'm sure, I don't know, I assume that you've been the same with all the sports and things that you do is like you improve so slowly that you never really realize how much better you've gotten. You're just kind of like, I mean, in climbing, you just basically feel like you suck every day because climbing is mostly failing. You know, you're always trying things that are just past your limit and you're always failing. And so every day you mostly fail. And then every once in a while, you have experiences of great success where you're like, oh, I did a thing that was hard for me. Like I'm proud of myself. But but mostly you just, it's just the grind, you know, you just go climb and you get worked and you feel tired and, you know.

• 1:13:59Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's weird. In Jiu Jitsu in particular, you're like, you're getting so much better, but you don't know it. Like me right now would kill me six months ago, or maybe a year ago. Because when you get better, you don't improve quite as much.

• 1:14:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:14:14Jocko Willink?

  In the beginning, but but you definitely aren't improving over time. And if you ever have someone that like stopped training and you keep training, like they're just in a totally different world, you can annihilate them.

• 1:14:23Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:14:24Jocko Willink?

  So as you're climbing and as you're improving, but you can't really perceive that you're improving, at what point do you start to contemplate like for real, oh, this is on the map?

• 1:14:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, yeah, it's a good question. So I mean, I think that I could break it down as from, so 2008, I sold a half dome and I'm like, I'm going to solo Al Cap next. And so starting in 2009, it was kind of like, this is the year. Then I got there and I was like, this is not the year. It's like totally insane. It was, you know, I was like, makes you want to poop when you think about it. You're sort of like, oh, geez, like, there's no chance I'm soloing that this year. And then I kept kind of hoping that it would just feel easy at some point that, you know, I kept hoping that I would improve enough that I would look up at the wall and think that looks easy. Like I can just do that. And, you know, so the years roll by and I am doing harder things and I'm getting better and I'm going on expedition. You know, I'm doing all these other things that I'm proud of and climbing. But every year you'd look up at El Cap and still just think that looks totally impossible.

• 1:15:15Speaker 01

  And so, starting in, basically in 2015, I realized that it was never gonna look easy. You know, I was like, no matter how good I get, it, well, I realized two things. One, I realized that I was never gonna get good enough, that it was just gonna look easy. Cause I kept kinda thinking that I might just hit certain grades in climbing, like, reach certain difficulty levels. Where like, if I could climb that grade, then it would look easy. And I was like, that's just, one, I'm never gonna hit these grades. Two, even if I did, it's not gonna look easy. It's still El Cap, it's still, it'd still be insane. And so, I realized that if I wanted to do it, I would have to just put the work specifically into the climb itself. And like, basically do all the prep work as if I was going to, even though I wasn't sure if I could or not.

• 1:15:55Speaker 01

  You know, sort of act as if I was going to, with the uncertainty there, of knowing that like, maybe I can't, but I'll at least do all the prep work and find out.

• 1:16:02Jocko Willink?

  And that started in 2015?

• 1:16:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, and sort of by happy coincidence, Jimmy Chin and Chia Vasarelli, the co-directors of Free Solo, approached me that same year.

• 1:16:13Speaker 01

  About doing a feature film project. They didn't know anything about El Cap, and you know, I kept my cards very close to the chest on that stuff, cause it's all sort of, it's weird. Like, you don't really talk to your friends about that stuff.

• 1:16:24Jocko Willink?

  Wait, so wait, wait, why don't you talk to your friends about this stuff?

• 1:16:29Speaker 01

  Because everybody tells you you shouldn't do it. And it makes everybody deeply uncomfortable, and nobody really wants to know about it ahead of time. Like, you don't wanna put that burden on somebody, like, oh, I'm gonna go do this thing, I might die tomorrow.

• 1:16:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:40Speaker 01

  You know, it's like, it's better for them not to know.

• 1:16:42Jocko Willink?

  Because they didn't, oh, I should've said something, I should've told them this or that.

• 1:16:46Speaker 01

  Like, I thought he looked sketchy, I should've said something, and you're like, no, it's not on you, you know?

• 1:16:49Jocko Willink?

  God, I feel that way about, like, fights. Like, I've had friends that have done mixed martial arts fights, or where I've, I've been like, man, I shouldn't have let them go, I should've said something. So yeah, if they died, oof.

• 1:17:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, you'd be like, oh geez. Yeah, it's just, it's just better not to, but then, but then the other thing about it is that, if you tell your buddy, like, I'm gonna do this thing tomorrow. And then you hike up there, and you're like, you know, actually, it's kinda cold and I just don't feel it today. You know, like, for whatever reason, I don't wanna do it. But then you're like, oh, but I don't wanna have to go back and then tell my buddy that I bailed, because then he's gonna think I'm light duty, even though your buddy doesn't want you to anyway. But, you know what I mean, it starts adding all this psychology to it that you just don't need. It's better just to feel like, it's totally on you, you go up, if you're not feeling it, you walk back, there's like, no second guessing.

• 1:17:32Jocko Willink?

  The psychology of that, yeah, that, that is. That's kind of crazy. You know what's interesting? I've talked about the psychology of in special operations, right? So like my last deployment to Iraq, the special operations guys, which is me, my SEALs, we kind of got to choose what missions we were going to do. Like, oh, there's a mission. Oh, there's a bad guy or there's an area we want to go to. My, it's my decision. I'm literally saying, okay, we will go do this.

• 1:18:02Jocko Willink?

  And the burden that you have from that is like, oh, someone gets hurt or someone gets killed. That was a hundred percent.

• 1:18:07Speaker 01

  It was your decision.

• 1:18:08Jocko Willink?

  The conventional forces oftentimes, they're getting told like, hey, you're going to go do this. And so when that leader gets told, hey, you're going to go do this, they're go and do it. If someone gets hurt or killed, they were just kind of executing. And there's, there's like a different

• 1:18:22Speaker 01

  Different pros and cons.

• 1:18:23Jocko Willink?

  And a different psychological burden that you have when you're, depending on what situation you're in. And yeah, I could see that the thing like this here, you're, you're choosing to do it. You don't want to have the burden of any other

• 1:18:38Jocko Willink?

  mindset or any other pressure of like, well, you know, Fred's really going to think I'm, I'm weak if I don't do this today or whatever. They got, even they all got set up for me to do this and then I didn't do it.

• 1:18:48Speaker 01

  Well, that's the hard thing with filming is because if there's a whole crew, you know, like with filming free solo, there'd be, you know, six or eight people involved in like getting up on the wall, getting to the summit, rappelling into position. And if you get up and you're like, you know, I just didn't sleep that well and I don't really feel it today. But you know, the eight of your buddies set their alarm for three thirty so they could hike to the summit of a mountain and rappel in. You're kind of like, man, I'm doing a big disservice to the team if I don't show up and perform. So then you're sort of like, but then, but then you don't want to force it either. Because if it's not your day, it's not your day and you, and you can't force that.

• 1:19:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's weird in free solo. You can see that they're all not wanting to do, they're not wanting to apply any of that pressure to you whatsoever.

• 1:19:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, cuz they're all.

• 1:19:28Speaker 01

  I mean, they're in a super tough spot because like they don't want to pressure me. There's this whole weird mirror mirroring effect where with filming, where if you're doing something difficult and there's a film guy near you filming it, like you know that they're uncomfortable because, you know, I mean, they're a climber as well. They're watching something that they know is hard and they're like, holy shit, this is kind of intense. And so you want to make it look as effortless as possible. Like you want to look in control because you don't want to freak out your buddy. But then you don't want to climb differently because you're like trying to look smooth and in control. And so it's this whole back and forth mirror where you're like, I want to look good so I don't scare them because I know they're scared. But then, you know, it's it's all bad, basically. But that's why I am in the, in the the passage that you read,

• 1:20:13Speaker 01

  at the beginning, when I do the Boulder problem, when I mentioned that their cameras on the wall, those were both remote operated cameras that they had sort of rigged up as a as a special system so that I wouldn't have to deal with having an operator on the wall there.

• 1:20:23Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah, cuz you're trying to mirror for them that you're calm and they're trying to do the same.

• 1:20:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:20:30Jocko Willink?

  Because they don't want to look like, oh, my God.

• 1:20:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, because if I look over and I see my buddy crying, I'd be like, oh, shit. Today is not my day.

• 1:20:37Jocko Willink?

  Like Mikey who's down in the valley who's filming, he's like turning away and he's just like, can't look at the camera. That that would probably make you super uncomfortable if you could see that at the time. Super sketched out.

• 1:20:47Speaker 01

  I've done I've done a lot with Mikey because Mikey has been Jimmy Chin's photo assistant for a bunch of different things.

• 1:20:52Jocko Willink?

  He's got a poker face for when it's up close.

• 1:20:55Speaker 01

  Actually, well, no. So I've done a couple of shoots with Mikey where he was holding the lights for Jimmy. And and he would literally just was looking away the entire time. He would hold the light in the correct position. All the settings are correct, but he just like wouldn't watch the shoot at all. He's like, I don't need to see this. She'll be like, it's pretty funny. He just but he's he's a he's an elite climber himself. And and I've also been on expeditions with him and stuff like notably, we were together on this trip in Greenland year and a half ago, which was also like a TV expedition thing. And and so he's he's a hardcore climber that like knows how all this stuff works. But basically, when he's working, you know, when he's filming, he's just like, I don't need to see it. Like unless I need to watch, I'm not going to.

• 1:21:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:37Jocko Willink?

  That's how he deals with it.

• 1:21:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I remember doing this, this, uh, this crack, uh, for, um, Jimmy Chin shot this, this feature for, for National Geographic, the magazine that, uh, that I was on the cover of. Actually, there was a photo from, uh, from halftime, but so Mikey was like holding the lights for all these different photos and he just like didn't, just like covered his eyes for the whole shoot. It's like totally crazy.

• 1:22:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think, I think when you were on Joe Rogan, you were talking about, you know, he's like, how do you do this? How do you do this? And, and you were like, it, for me, it feels like I'm walking down the sidewalk. That's what you said, like something along those lines.

• 1:22:11Speaker 01

  Some, some things. It's not always quite that solid, but, but aspire to anyway.

• 1:22:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And I was like, I try to put that in perspective because, you know, we all have little skill sets that we have, what we're good at, and it seems real easy to do that thing. And yet at the same time, even the things that you're good at, sometimes you mess up. So Mikey's probably thinking, could be, could it be the time?

• 1:22:32Speaker 01

  Though you rarely mess up the thing you're good at on the day that you're not supposed to mess up. You know what I mean? Like, I think there is a distinction, like when you're on, you're really on.

• 1:22:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And you've, you've likely subconsciously or consciously gotten to a point in your life where you know how to be on and this, I need to be on right now. Cause again, with fighters, there's some fighters that they, they look great in practice and they do great in practice. And game time, they, they don't bring it. They mess up. They make mistakes. They get psyched out. And there's some people that they're the opposite, like they do okay in training and you're like, man, I don't know if he's.

• 1:23:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then they bring their A game.

• 1:23:11Jocko Willink?

  They just bring their A game and crush. And yeah, you, you probably have done enough things where you're like, oh yeah, I need to do this right. And also being able to recognize, I'm not, I can't do this right now. Now's not the day. Now's not the time. I need to stop.

• 1:23:26Speaker 01

  I think that's one of the interesting. Things that differentiates climbing from a lot of other sports is that, you know, with fighting, you have to show up on the day of the fight and you have to perform at your best. But with climbing, you show up and you're just like, nah, today's not my day. And you come back the next week, or you come back the next day, or you know, you basically just, you, you get to choose your timing. And I, I always think about that with ball sports.

• 1:23:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:47Speaker 01

  You know, when you're like, it's, it's Sunday, I have to play. You're kind of like, what if I don't want to play on Sunday? What if I want to play on Tuesday? You know, it's like, what if my knee's still kind of achy and I want to chill for another day?

• 1:23:57Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:57Speaker 01

  You know, it's like with climbing, you can always choose your best day and then you can really make your days count.

• 1:24:01Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the worst is the Olympics.

• 1:24:03Speaker 01

  Oh dude.

• 1:24:03Jocko Willink?

  It's been four years, eight years or whatever preparation. And now you feel like, I got a stomach ache on game day. You're a gymnast or whatever.

• 1:24:10Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:24:10Jocko Willink?

  And you gotta go out there and do the best.

• 1:24:12Speaker 01

  No, four years of, of periodized training where you've been like doing some crazy cycle up and down for four years. And you're like, this is my peak. And you're like, yeah, but actually I, I think I ate something weird, you know? My stomach kind of hurts. Yeah. It's like, that's crazy to me.

• 1:24:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:25Speaker 01

  I mean, climbing is, is so chill by that, you know, but by that comparison.

• 1:24:30Jocko Willink?

  I wonder.

• 1:24:30Speaker 01

  But the stakes obviously are like, you have to choose your day because you could die.

• 1:24:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I wonder if you've become like hypersensitive to how you feel just through, whereas like a, a wrestler or a gymnast has just been like, no, it doesn't matter how I feel. I just need to go perform. Whereas you're like, eh, you know what? Today's, you, you probably could rate each of your days and subconsciously like, yep, today I'm feeling good. And it's when, when you watch the movies and when you write about it in the book, you're like, you can, you, you know when you're feeling good.

• 1:24:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Actually, I wonder about that because, uh, you know, I've never done any other sport well enough to really know. But I've noticed like with climbing training, like actually, so during the Free Solo movie tour, um, like, you know, the film came out, I was doing this crazy, you know, six month like press tour and like nonstop events. And at the time I had a pretty structured training plan. Um, and I was, I was like training in the gym and, and it was like the only thing that kept me sane through the whole six months of like in just crazy Hollywood stuff.

• 1:25:23Jocko Willink?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:25:24Speaker 01

  But I noticed that when. You know, with nonstop travel, like different, different climbing gym in a different city every day sort of thing. And my climbing performance was pretty erratic depending on sleep and whatever. But when I would do the extra things like weighted pull ups and like weight sort of things, my numbers are pretty consistently good. That, you know, no matter how tired you are, you can still just like lift a heavy ass weight. Uh, maybe not like absolute peak performance, but in general, you can kind of hit your gym numbers. But my climbing performance was all over the place because, uh, and as I found out from the, the coach that I was working with, I think it has more to do with the, let's see, can I, can I repeat it correctly? Basically just that there's a, there's a coordination element to it, like, uh, like,

• 1:26:08Speaker 01

  you know, firing your muscles at the right time, like, cause climbing is such a complicated movement. It's not just like, flex your muscles. It's like so many different muscles working in concert and like, basically it's really complicated. The more tired you are, like that stuff just doesn't, doesn't fire the same way. And so as a climber, all that to say that I think as a climber, you are very attuned to like how your body feels and as a climber, when you get injuries, they're on your fingers and like little tiny where you're like, oh, I feel a tiny, tiny little tweak in my finger. And it's like, you look at the NFL or something and people have like a broken femur and they're like getting taped up and going back in. Yeah. They're taking like six Vicodins and getting a bunch of tape and they're like finishing the game. And you're like, holy shit, you know, because as a climber, you're like, I think my one knuckle is like a little swollen. I just can't quite hold that hold quite right. You're like, I gotta take a rest week.

• 1:26:54Speaker 01

  You know, it's like, and it makes you feel super light duty compared to other sports because like, you know, people are training through like the craziest things. But it just, it just doesn't work that way. You just can't.

• 1:27:04Jocko Willink?

  Especially not when your freaking life's at stake.

• 1:27:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:06Jocko Willink?

  And you're not, if you're not free soloing, you're probably not as, I mean, assume not as concerned. Like if you're just going to do a normal rock climb and you're not feeling that great, you're like, oh, okay. My knuckle's a little sore, but I'll power through it. It's no big deal.

• 1:27:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. Though actually even that you often don't power through because. Your, your fingers are so delicate, basically, like, basically the tools of the trade are so delicate. It'd be like a pianist, you know, like if they start to feel like some pain in their fingers, they're like, ooh, I should probably ease off that because I just won't be able to do my thing. If, like, you know, basically any kind of pain in tendons, ligaments in your arms or fingers, you're pretty, pretty mindful of. Because if they get out of control, like you're kind of hosed for a while. Like if, if you injure a finger, you're like out for a while.

• 1:27:49Jocko Willink?

  I'm gonna show you later some picture of some jujitsu people's hands and fingers.

• 1:27:54Speaker 01

  Oh, all broken and like twisted and crazy.

• 1:27:56Jocko Willink?

  Because especially people that compete with the uniform on with the gi on, the jujiji, everything is grabbing and squeezing and like it's, guys' hands look so gnarly. The Meow brothers, you ever seen their, their hands? Like it's famous pictures of just hands that, every knuckle is like swollen. It's, it's, it's, it's crazy, but they, their life doesn't depend on being able to hang on. They'll make adjustments.

• 1:28:22Speaker 01

  Though they do get all messed up, don't they? It's like life doesn't depend on, but they're getting punched in the face or something, aren't they?

• 1:28:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, and well, and in, when you get into mixed martial arts, yeah. Um, in jujitsu, there's no punching. There's just like choking and breaking arms.

• 1:28:35Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, just a broken arm. Good show.

• 1:28:38Jocko Willink?

  It's a little more mellow. So this is all.

• 1:28:40Speaker 01

  That, that, actually though, so that's another thing that I think differentiates climbing from a lot of these other sports is that with climbing, it's like, yes, the stakes are very high, that you could die. I mean, with freestyle and you could die. But, you know, I've gone, I've been a climber for 28 years and I've had like almost no injuries and I feel like a lot of these other sports, you know, it's like you're getting kind of messed up all the time. I think about that with outdoor sports like mountain biking, where it's like, if you're a serious mountain biker, like you're breaking a collarbone like every couple of years. You know, it's like, like you're getting injured all the time.

• 1:29:07Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:08Speaker 01

  And, and if you're a professional mountain biker, like you're having a major surgery like every four years, for sure.

• 1:29:12Jocko Willink?

  Mountain biking, mountain biking is, when I watch mountain biking, I'm, I'm just uncomfortable.

• 1:29:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's crazy. But so, but so with climbing, it's like, you're not gonna have any of those injuries your whole career, but you're always facing that risk of death. And to me, I kind of prefer it that way. Where it's like, yeah, the consequences are there, you have to stay attentive, like you could die. But at least you're not freaking getting so, shoulder surgery every couple of years. And like, you know, like, man, I don't know, I think it's a nice way to live.

• 1:29:39Jocko Willink?

  Dude, those mountain bikers go after it too. Like the downhill mountain bikers that are just bombing. And when they, and when you wipe out with a bike. I mean, that just adds this whole freaking apparatus into your wipeout that just sucks. I mean, if you fell and you were rock climbing and you fell, even if you were roped up, but you had, you were holding a bicycle with you.

• 1:30:02Speaker 01

  Maybe the bicycle tied to you and it's just swinging past when you fall.

• 1:30:05Jocko Willink?

  It's freaking awful.

• 1:30:06Speaker 01

  It's like when you fall ice climbing and you have like pointy things on every, you know, you have crampons on, you have ice tools, you have like all these pointy things swinging around. You're like, oh my God, trying to stay clear of everything.

• 1:30:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the ice climbing, you know, they sell ski poles and they have like little ice climbing.

• 1:30:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, whipits. Yeah, the little point on the ski pole.

• 1:30:23Jocko Willink?

  And you're like, well, what if I fall? Yeah. Because when you fall skiing, you're just, it's just a disaster, right? It just, everything's everywhere.

• 1:30:30Speaker 01

  Well, those are for a very specific application, like extreme steep skiing where you have to self arrest and stuff. But no, for the average person on the slope, they should not have a freaking ice tool on the end of their ski pole.

• 1:30:44Jocko Willink?

  Noted.

• 1:30:46Speaker 01

  No, if you're just out at the resort, you should not have a spike on the end of your ski pole. It's like some poor snowboarder hits you at full speed and dies and then goes through their helmet.

• 1:30:56Jocko Willink?

  Well, everything that we're talking about though, it, it actually did, it plays out in Free Solo. Because you're all, what was it, 2017, you're all in the, in the run up, going through all the drills, doing all the prep and you go, you go, you go and you start the climb and you get what? 500 feet up and you, you're not feeling it and you walk away.

• 1:31:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, actually, so it's funny, you read that excerpt from, from Half Dome because I actually did exactly what we were describing on Half Dome. I got, yeah, 500 feet up basically to the Free Blast Labs, to this like blank section of rock. And, and there are bolts in the rock so that people climbing with ropes can clip their rope in. And so I got up there and there are no handholds and I was like, I'm not feeling it and started just grabbing the bolts. And so you're still climbing without a rope, you know, you're still climbing.

• 1:31:45Jocko Willink?

  500 feet up.

• 1:31:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, still 500 feet up. It's like if you fall, you're still going to die. But by holding the bolts, it makes the difficulty much, much easier because you suddenly have things to hold that keep you balanced. And it's like way more chill. And so, you know, I cheated by using the bolts, got across the slab and then cheated a bit further and then, and then climbed another. 400 feet of easy terrain to get up to this big ledge system where there are fixed lines that go back down to the ground from there. And that's like a normal aspect, like that's part of LCAP that everybody uses, that all climbers use. And so, yeah, it's funny, it's not like I climbed 500 feet and I was like, cool, I want to go down. You know, I still had to go up another, another 500 feet to get to the weight that you can get down. Um, but I just like cheated the way I was thinking about cheating on half dome. It's just like a way to escape the wall.

• 1:32:26Jocko Willink?

  Free blast, the way it looks, it's basically a few hundred feet of what we were talking about earlier where you just don't get the full security.

• 1:32:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it's just totally blank. I mean, so the crux moves of the free blast lab, like the hardest section. Um, there are actually no handholds at all. And it's just this three foot move sequence where you just, you're just standing on your big toes. And if your foot slips, you're going to die. But, you know, it's low angle, so it's like, it's less than vertical. And it's like just tiptoeing across the wall, which is balanced in your big toes. Like, but so, and that's why I bailed because I'd sprained my ankle earlier that season, um, in a, in a climbing fall. And my foot had been kind of swollen and I was kind of swollen in the shoe. And, and also that time of year, it was early November, it's just really cold out, um, and, and dark. And you're required to climb that early because you're trying to get to some of the upper stuff before it goes into the sun.

• 1:33:20Speaker 01

  Uh, whereas in the springtime, because the sun is higher in the sky, it shades, the wall shades itself longer. And so you have better conditions for, for a longer amount of time. But in the fall, because the sun is so low, like as soon as the sun rises, you're just baking. So it means you have to start way before sunrise. So anyway, it's like, basically, conditions felt a little bit stacked against me and I couldn't feel my feet and it was kind of chilly. And then, and then suddenly you have to trust your life to this big toe. And you're like, I can't feel my big toe and it's freaking dark and it's scary. You're like, no, F this, like, this is not, this is not my thing.

• 1:33:48Speaker 01

  At the time though, it was very disappointing. I felt like a total failure. You know, where you're just like, oh, the whole team is up here and I let them down. I really wanted to do this thing. Though it's funny because now in retrospect, I'm glad I bailed because then I went home and I did a bunch of PT on my ankle, trained all season. Came back the next, uh, spring, spent two more months working specifically on the route. And then when I finally did it, felt like a total boss and it was great, you know, so. Like, you know, it's the classic thing where where what feels like a failure at the moment, you know, in hindsight, you're like, oh, it only took me six more months of effort and it wound up being a much better experience in the long run. So I'm kind of like, you know, what's what's six months of effort when compared to like, compared to like the thing you're going to be most proud of your whole life, probably.

• 1:34:31Jocko Willink?

  And the confidence level after you work an extra six months is just gonna

• 1:34:36Speaker 01

  Totally, it's so much higher. And actually, and it was good for me and the film crew to have a bit of a dry run where because actually that was the first time, and this sounds stupid, but just hiking up to the base all cap with no rope is a bit of a big mental step. And so just having done it once before, you're like, okay, well, at least I remember what it's like to walk up to the wall and just tie it, put on my shoes, tie my shoes and start climbing. Because it's really different than the normal routine, which is laying out the rope, getting all your gear ready, like talking to your partner, you know, it's like normally there's a whole process before you start climbing all cap. And when you go there to free solo, you're like, oh, this this feels different, you know, it's like feels a little heavier.

• 1:35:12Jocko Willink?

  The you use the term autopilot. When when you're talking about some of those really hard moves and even when you're talking about just like you'll get into a mode where you're just autopilot, you just know what you're doing and you do it. Is that is that what you're striving for during training?

• 1:35:28Speaker 01

  Uh, not so much during training. That's what I aspire to during performance for sure. I mean, though, actually, now that you mention, I'm like, maybe it would be better if I was a little more like that in training, but um, but it's for me, it's really hard to access that 100% effort like, you know, that's that's like flow state, that's like out of body experiences, whatever you want to call it. You know, and I think that's true across all kinds of sort of elite sports performance. But I think it's pretty hard to tap into that 100% like I'm giving it everything I have. And I mean, it's probably possible for me to do that while training on the board or something, you know, like I have a little gym in my garage and I train. But man, it's hard to care that much. Like when you're in the garage, you know, your friends are there, you're listening to music, you're, you know, it's all pretty chill.

• 1:36:11Speaker 01

  And like you try your hardest, but on sort of a superficial level of like, oh, I'm trying hard. You're not like trying the hardest you've ever tried in your life.

• 1:36:19Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's funny when people are going to compete in jujitsu and they've never competed before. They're like, oh, what should I get ready for? I'm like, get ready for someone to be going harder than anyone has ever gone at you before. And for you to be using muscles in a way that you've never used them before. So what you're saying is actually a hundred percent right. You get into competition and people are going completely insane psycho. And where, you know, if you and I are training and like you start to get a position on me, I'll go, I'll abandon that and go to something else. No. If we're in a match, like I am never going to abandon anything until you break me. And it's such a different, yeah, it's a death match. And, and so it is very hard to push someone that hard in training.

• 1:37:04Jocko Willink?

  In fact, for

• 1:37:05Speaker 01

  And you probably shouldn't because you get injured.

• 1:37:07Jocko Willink?

  Right. Yeah.

• 1:37:08Speaker 01

  You know, it's like the stakes are too high that way.

• 1:37:10Jocko Willink?

  For sure.

• 1:37:11Speaker 01

  Cause like, that's the thing is you don't really want to train with that kind of intensity because you know, I, I know that, I mean, you'll burn out, you'll get injured. It's just, it's just a lot. Like you can't, like not every game can be the Superbowl, you know, or whatever, whatever sports metaphor you want, but.

• 1:37:24Jocko Willink?

  Are, are you going autopilot? Like when it's like, okay, this is kind of an easy area and I'm just going to kind of autopilot through this. I don't have to think about it too much. And then are there areas where you're like, I need to pay attention to what I'm doing right now?

• 1:37:39Speaker 01

  No. Okay. So actually that's a, that's an interesting question. In some ways, it's almost like two different autopilots because yeah, you're right that on the easy terrain, there is, you know, I go into autopilot, but that's more like a mindless climbing. Cause on easy terrain and, and LCAP, the Free Solo LCAP kind of breaks down as like a third easy, a third like medium and a third like hard, cutting edge sort of. And so the easy terrain, you know, you can like think about your buddies, you can think about what you're having for lunch. You like, look at the weather, you look at the birds. It's like, it's, it's lovely and you can just kind of trust your body, just climb because it's quite easy. And then the moderate terrain, you can do a lot of that mindlessly as well, but typically on the moderate pitches, there'll be at least some sections where you have to like pay attention. But then on the hardest stuff, I sort of aspire to a different kind of autopilot where it's not like mindless climbing.

• 1:38:23Speaker 01

  It's more like perfect, thoughtless climbing. You know what I mean?

• 1:38:26Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 1:38:27Speaker 01

  I don't know. It's, it's a hard distinction to make, but. But that's kind of the good autopilot where you're performing perfectly, but you're just not distracted by anything else.

• 1:38:36Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Yeah. The idea of thinking about when you're walking down the stairs or up the stairs. I think, I think it's you that used that example, Echo Charles, like if you, you can walk up, down the stairs like a hundred times. But if you think about while you're walking up the stairs, you're more apt to like trip up yourself. Or it happens to people when they're speaking where they're trying to speak in a certain way. So they're thinking about what they're saying and it jams them up and they're stuttering and making mistakes and all that. Whereas you know what you're going to say, you've done this a bunch of times, you need to not think about it and just do it. I mean, this, again, any sports like that, if you're on the, on the free throw line in basketball with the state championship on the line.

• 1:39:19Speaker 01

  You don't want to think about the mechanics of your free throw. That's not the time to be like, okay, yeah, straight back and bend arms and here, you know, it's like, you just want to do the thing that you're there to do.

• 1:39:27Jocko Willink?

  Exactly. And that's the autopilot that.

• 1:39:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the good autopilot.

• 1:39:30Jocko Willink?

  We're talking about.

• 1:39:31Speaker 01

  Do what you know how to do. You do whatever you've done in practice a million times and you don't think about it.

• 1:39:35Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Monkey mind.

• 1:39:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, actually I think about it a lot for, um, I thought that a good analogy for, for the climbing, for like the, the boulder problem, let's say on, on El Cap. I compared it to gymnastics because I think that a gymnastics routine, it's like you practice the routine over and over and over. But then once you're doing the routine, I mean, I, I don't know gymnastics at all, but I imagine that elite gymnasts aren't thinking about the routine at all when they're doing it. Because it's such complicated movement and so fast that they're just executing. And then afterward, they can sort of replay it and think like, oh, I should have done something differently or not. But while they do it, I, I presume that they're just doing it, you know, they're not, they're not self-conscious about it at all. They're just performing.

• 1:40:13Jocko Willink?

  And I would venture to guess that if they start thinking about.

• 1:40:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're gonna fall. Freaking land on the face.

• 1:40:19Jocko Willink?

  It's gonna be a problem.

• 1:40:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Like halfway through your back handspring or whatever, you can't be like, am I tucked right? Like, no, you just, you just do it.

• 1:40:29Jocko Willink?

  The, uh, I had a, a thing. So there in the military, there's something called no go criteria. No go criteria means we're not going. So, oh, we were expected that we would have aircraft to support our movement to the target. We don't have the aircraft. That's no go criteria. We're not going.

• 1:40:47Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:40:48Jocko Willink?

  We don't have whatever resupply that we were expecting, so therefore we're not going.

• 1:40:52Speaker 01

  Or it's like 50 mile an hour winds and we just can't jump in or do whatever. Yeah.

• 1:40:55Jocko Willink?

  So we have no go criteria. So I used to joke around, kinda joking, but also kinda serious that for me, I had go, go criteria, which is we're going, right? This was like my attitude, like we're going.

• 1:41:08Jocko Willink?

  And that was sort of just to get over, oh, there's been a little hiccup. Hey, listen, guys, we're going. But then there was also this thing of, hey, we didn't get the aircraft. We, we got some other intel now. Oh, we, the supply, resupply that we expected isn't, like, things would start to add up. And I felt as if sort of like the universe was telling me.

• 1:41:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, that this is not your day.

• 1:41:31Jocko Willink?

  This is not the day.

• 1:41:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:32Jocko Willink?

  And I had no problem being like, oh yeah, there's three things that are going wrong. We're, we're, we're not doing this.

• 1:41:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:38Jocko Willink?

  And it, I think that it's important to know that sometimes you gotta push. And sometimes you gotta pay attention to what the universe is trying to tell you about what's happening.

• 1:41:48Speaker 01

  No, I totally agree.

• 1:41:50Jocko Willink?

  Otherwise, yeah, issues.

• 1:41:51Speaker 01

  You wanna, you never wanna be like duty. You don't wanna like give up to, you don't wanna give up prematurely. That said, there are certain times where you just shouldn't be doing the thing.

• 1:42:00Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:00Speaker 01

  You know, like, yeah, it starts to rain. You're like, it's not, it's not my day.

• 1:42:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:03Speaker 01

  Like, that's fine. That's, that's nature.

• 1:42:05Jocko Willink?

  Both in reading the book and then watching, I've, I've watched a bunch of, uh, movies with you in it, obviously over the last couple of weeks. But when you're going, it's real obvious. Like just the way you carry yourself when you're going. It's like, oh yeah, he, you could see when you're getting out of bed, you're like, oh yeah, he's going. And you can, it's pretty clear that you're amped and hyped and there's probably not much that would turn you away from making this happen.

• 1:42:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it takes, I mean, yeah, for me personally, it's like hard to totally turn on. And then once you're like on and doing it, it's sort of hard to turn back off too. Like, once you're psyched, you're like, okay, it's, it's go time. I'm doing it. And then, I mean, basically exactly what you're describing, like, you know, your go-go. You're kinda like, then it takes a lot to switch back to no-go. But. I don't know. I mean, yeah, free soloing is just an interesting, and I think it's important for anyone listening to this who doesn't climb. There's an important distinction here between free soloing and climbing in general because, you know, everything we're talking about with like elite performance and like all this go, I mean, this is for free soloing the most cutting edge things that I've done in my life. But in general, for climbing, I just go climb every day or five days a week.

• 1:43:11Speaker 01

  You know, it's like if it's raining, if it's windy, you're like, yeah, it's fine. I mean, if you have a rope, you have protection, it's worth climbing in adverse conditions. It's worth sort of pushing into discomfort just because you know it's good for you in the long term and or whatever. It's just a beautiful day to go out and do some climbing. You know, it's not like all climbing is extreme, but we're just talking about the most cutting edge free soloing.

• 1:43:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's definitely, if you're just listening to this and it sounds interesting, but you don't want to die.

• 1:43:35Speaker 01

  Go to the gym, go to a climbing gym. I mean, I started in a climbing gym. Everybody goes to a climbing gym. Normally climbing is super chill, super safe, really fun and social. You hang out with your friends on a sofa. You all boulder a little bit. It's like, it's really quite enjoyable. I think if this is your first introduction to climbing, you're getting a very like sort of the wrong look at like the most intense.

• 1:43:54Jocko Willink?

  I apologize. This is not like climbing for me. I think of, yeah, I think of going to the, going to the gym, but also even at Yosemite. Cool. We would go up with my kids who would be, you know, six, nine and whatever, and they'd be scrambling up the rocks and be roped in and be like, it's really fun. And there's little problems to figure out and they get to learn the ropes and everything. So, yeah, there's all.

• 1:44:17Speaker 01

  It's, it's fun. It's safe. There are normally all the snacks involved, a lot of chill time. It's like, it's a pretty recreational sport, really. You know, I mean, when I started climbing when I was 10, uh, my dad would take my sister and me to the climbing gym. And, uh, and he wasn't a climber, but they just read about it opening in the newspaper and they're like, oh, this would be cool. Cause I love climbing on stuff. So I thought I'd, you know, like the gym and, and yeah, we would go for several hours. There would be snacks. You know, we would take our time. We would top rip some things. Everyone have a good time and we'd go home. It's like total suburban fun. It's like going to do laser tag or something, you know? So I think that when we're talking about like extreme free soloing, you know, it's sort of belies the, the fun of climbing.

• 1:44:55Speaker 01

  And, and, and that said, I mean, even though I've, you know, I guess made a career out of doing this extreme free soloing, whatever, I'm still going climbing normally. What like 300 days a year and then I have one or two, you know, extreme high performance days, which I think is probably similar to most other sports where you spend most of your year training and practicing and doing whatever else. And then you have the occasional moments of of hopeful excellence and where you like try your best to do the thing that you're trying to do.

• 1:45:23Jocko Willink?

  We definitely hope for excellence.

• 1:45:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you just never quite. Well, but I mean, I'm sure with fights and stuff where it's like you train the whole year and then you have your one fight where you're like, this is my moment and you like, hope that you're going to do your best, but you know, but you find out. It's like the one time a year that you test yourself against your training.

• 1:45:39Jocko Willink?

  The getting to the top of LCAP, now you're the, I mean, like you said, this is the, the most iconic wall. And now you just knocked the shit out of the park. Uh, did you, how long did it take for that to sink in?

• 1:45:58Speaker 01

  Little bit. I don't know. I mean, well, you know, the crew, every, my friends were all psyched. I was psyched. I mean, we were, we were really psyched immediately. Though, so this is an example of being a professional. So I summoned it all cap. I was obviously psyched. We did some interviews and things. I actually trained that afternoon because, uh, because I was on this like routine. I didn't want to break the routine. It's funny because I summoned it and I felt so good. I was like, I could do it again. I'm so amped. I feel like a champion, you know? And then I went down and tried to do my normal afternoon training on the hangboard and I was objectively very tired and like, didn't perform that well on the board. And I was sort of like, maybe I shouldn't try it again. I am a little tired. You know, it's the classic. You're just so psyched. You're like, I could do anything. And then you actually start training and you're like, I couldn't do anything right now. I'm pretty tired.

• 1:46:39Jocko Willink?

  How about a pizza?

• 1:46:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. No, actually, um, by sheer happy coincidence, the next day or maybe the day after was, uh, was Sunday in Yosemite. They do a crazy brunch spread at the Yawani, um, which is like the fancy hotel and, and, uh, none of us were staying there, but they do this insane brunch that you can show up for. And I hadn't eaten dessert in like six months or something. And then we all went to the Yawani had like, you know, Nutella, French toast. And like, we all just did the all you can eat brunch and just gorged on like eggs and pancakes and, you know, whatever. It's like a, is a perfect sort of decompression, like party after. Cause I mean, the crew was also incredibly stressed, all the filmers and we all had been working. Very hard at it.

• 1:47:15Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, that must have been one of the biggest all time collective size of relief.

• 1:47:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally, totally. But no, so what I was gonna say though is that this is where being a professional comes in. So I did the climb, we all gorged at the buffet, and then I think I spent the next five days in a row up on El Cap filming. So I mean, it was like, did the climbs, like this is a life achievement. And then we spent five more days up there like shooting close ups of things, shooting like moving ropes around, like shooting. You know, because if you watch it.

• 1:47:42Jocko Willink?

  Like the little handholds.

• 1:47:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. All the little handholds to get cut in, like the little footholds, the close ups of things. Even some of the souling, like we shot some of the still photos, um, because there was an article in National Geographic Magazine. They shot like a VR, like a three sixty thing, you know, just like things that accompanied the film. Basically, we did all the other stuff. Oh, and like, you know, in the film, there's an aerial shot of me summiting. But it's illegal to fly a helicopter in Yosemite and they they went all the way to the head of the park service in Washington DC trying to get permission to fly drone, never got permissions. It's illegal to use drones in the park, which is great, which I think is an appropriate rule. But in this case, but well, so in this case, though, it would have been a lot better to fly drone. But so as it turns out, the legal flight ceiling for Yosemite is is either one or two thousand feet above the rim of the valley.

• 1:48:25Speaker 01

  And El Cap is the rim of the valley. So basically using a cineflex, like a giant long lens in a helicopter a thousand feet above El Cap. They were able to shoot it like normal and it's technically legal, but very much outside the like. We kind of knew that that was, well, we I had nothing to do with this, like, you know, but the the. The crew kind of knew that that would burn some bridges at the park because that's very much outside the scope of of. What you're supposed to do in a national park, as it should be. But you know, they tried every other way and they were like, we need aerial footage. And so basically the very last thing we did, we did five more days of filming, did whatever. And then I resold the last six hundred feet. Like two or three times in a row for the helicopter as like our last thing. And then we all like wrapped and then we all fled the park.

• 1:49:11Jocko Willink?

  Again, this makes me super mad, dude. Every time I hear you about you reenacting stuff and it makes me mad, I get frustrated, I get mad. Like, dude, I cannot imagine being like, hey, Brooke, can you just get that one more time? Hold on, take off your harness and get it again. Oh, talk about a burden.

• 1:49:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, so I did some of the posing, so like, I don't want to give the wrong idea that like the film is faked or posed or anything because it's not, I mean, it like they have a long shot of me doing the entire climb and it's all. But then we went back and re-shot some of the sections or re-shot stills. So some of the things I did that when we were back posing, I had like a little tiny, like a belt basically underneath my pants. And so for a couple of shots, I had a rope going down my pant leg and then like in a big loop of slack going out of the frame. And so then you could do like a bunch of stuff and still be, you could still be attached. But with this sort of catastrophe system where if you fell, it would rip your pants off and you'd get caught by the basically like a seatbelt around your waist. And so like you would survive, but it would be catastrophic, you know, like your pants would tear off, like everything would be bad.

• 1:50:13Speaker 01

  You'd be like, ow, you know, it'd be super painful, but you wouldn't die at least. But so there were a couple of sections of the route that I did, you know, like six times in a row, over and over with this giant like death loop of slack out. And I'm kind of like, like, this isn't that much less scary than just solo, you know, it's like, this is kind of extreme.

• 1:50:30Jocko Willink?

  Were you mic'd up on the real one?

• 1:50:34Speaker 01

  For, from the boulder up or something, basically at a certain point I put on a mic. Like when I passed some of the crew somewhere. So I actually was listening to music off my phone for a lot of it because that's like, I like to do that when I'm soloing, but you can't really do that when you're mic'd. Cause they're not going to license a bunch of like 90s metal and stuff. And so they're like, oh, he licensed a bunch of Tool, like, you know, Metallica.

• 1:50:56Jocko Willink?

  Cause you're breathing in the boulder problem, you can hear.

• 1:51:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, I forget if I was mic'd for the boulder or not.

• 1:51:03Jocko Willink?

  Well, whatever they did, it definitely.

• 1:51:05Speaker 01

  But I was also mic'd for tons of other climbs, so they have tons of audio of me just trying hard climbing. It's like, who knows, like what it's from. But, um, but yeah, I was mic'd for part of it, but part of it I wasn't mic'd for because I kind of didn't want the, like, I didn't want the weight. You know, like you have a, like a transmitter on you the whole time, like you have extra stuff, you feel the cable on you. And it's just like another thing that you're sort of like, I just don't want like, don't want to feel like I got caught up in a cable, you know?

• 1:51:32Jocko Willink?

  And Jimmy Chimmel wasn't like, quipping a diva, dude.

• 1:51:36Speaker 01

  No, I mean, they're, you know, that's the hard thing is that. They didn't want to compromise the climate experience.

• 1:51:41Jocko Willink?

  He seemed like, he seemed like, you know, he handled it as good as a human being could handle.

• 1:51:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, he certainly did his best.

• 1:51:49Jocko Willink?

  You do what you, you do what you gotta do, like.

• 1:51:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, he's a climber and he totally understands like the, you know, he doesn't want to compromise my climate experience. He also wants to make a great film and, and he doesn't want to compromise the, the ethics of it all, you know, wants it to be real. I mean, it's, yeah, it's super hard. It's a hard film to make. I mean, you know, so they actually kept me incredibly well insulated from the, like, most of what I know about the filmmaking process. I sort of learned afterward during the tour because we were all doing events together and like talking about the cinematography and talking about all the, the stuff. You know, that was all just sort of the Hollywood tour. But during the process, they kept me incredibly well insulated from, from the whole production side of it. So I would stay in my van by myself. Production would all be in, in a rented house, like doing their own thing.

• 1:52:34Speaker 01

  And, you know, they're up until like midnight dumping footage and erasing cards and like changing lenses and packing bags and doing all the stuff. And they're like working and then getting up at like fricking three to hike up the mountain and rappel in. And meanwhile, I'm just like chilling in my van, you know, just like doing my thing. But that's kind of how it had to be because it had to be the real, you know, like I had to just be working on my climbing project and they just had to be documenting. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's a crazy, it's, it was a, it was a whole crazy process.

• 1:53:01Jocko Willink?

  So going back to like, when did it set in that you, you, I mean, obviously you understand the freaking, the, the gravity of the situation of you making it, but then you make it, is it still like, how long does it take before you're like, damn, I, I'm, I'm kind of like, I'm kind of legendary right now. I'm kind of a legend right now.

• 1:53:25Speaker 01

  Well, so in the climbing scene, you kind of knew immediately, like this is a big deal for climbing. But, you know, nobody could have guessed that the film, so the film wasn't released until 2018, the next year. And then even then the film is released, but you know, it's a, it's a documentary about rock climbing. Like who knows how that's going to do. But then did really well at film festivals and then it did, um, then the theatrical release was better than expected. And then it went bigger than expected and then it went to IMAX and then it fricking won an Oscar. And so the whole, you know, it kind of snowballed basically. And by the time we won at the Oscars, you're sort of like, this might be kind of a thing. You're like, holy shit, like this is really taking off. But, you know. But before that, I mean, who whoever would have guessed that climbing would be so mainstream like that?

• 1:54:09Speaker 01

  You know, it's like you just, I mean, there was no real precedent for that. I mean, there's, yeah, nothing. Yeah, I never would have guessed.

• 1:54:15Jocko Willink?

  Did your, did you, how about like financially? Did your financial world change dramatically or was it a slow build?

• 1:54:22Speaker 01

  I would say it changed dramatically after the film. I mean, it's hard to say. In one way, it didn't change at all because I was already, I already was making what I needed and I was already doing exactly what I wanted. So in terms of lifestyle, like nothing changed at all. But in terms of, you know, financial security and freedom and taking care of the family, yeah, it's totally insane. Cause like corporate speaking, I'm sure you know all that kind of stuff, like making appearances and giving talks and like doing public things. I mean, once, once you're like, you're the guy from the movie, you know, you're like, yeah, cool. You can go, go give talks about being the guy in the movie. I mean, like, man, there've been a lot of, you know, a lot of like CEO kind of folks that are like, oh yeah, you're the guy that freestyled in Yellowstone.

• 1:55:02Speaker 01

  And you're like, oh man, you're like, but you're like, yeah, yeah, no, I'm the freestyle guy in Yellowstone. The place with the geysers, you know, it's cool. Yeah. You've been there with buffalo. It's nice. Like big herds, big herds of buffalo.

• 1:55:17Jocko Willink?

  When was it that you did the speed record?

• 1:55:20Speaker 01

  That was 2018, 2019. It was like the next year.

• 1:55:23Jocko Willink?

  Oh, it was the next year. Okay.

• 1:55:24Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 1:55:26Jocko Willink?

  There's like a competitive drive. You're a mellow dude, but there's obviously like a, a little threat of competitiveness that runs through you.

• 1:55:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. I mean, if you, also part of it is if you think that you can do something that other people can't do, it's almost like an obligation that, you know, you have to do it, you know? I mean, to me, I, I do feel that a little bit with climbing, history, climbing, whatever. It's like, there are certain things that I feel like I'm better suited for and, and just better at than, than, than some others in climbing. I'm sort of like, oh, I feel an obligation to do the things that I'm able to do.

• 1:56:01Jocko Willink?

  How much of it is just you got the perfect genetic makeup for this? Let me give you an example. Some people are really explosive, right? They got like explosive, like they're meant for wrestling, right? They're just super explosive. Some people have really, what is it? Slow twitch muscles and they're really good at endurance. I'm really weird. Have you ever heard of medium twitch muscle? Well, it's like, it's a newer thing. Yeah, it's in between. That's kind of what I have. I was never like the fastest sprinter and I wasn't the best at the endurance. But what I would do really good is put on a rucksack with weight in it and be able to go like pretty much indefinitely.

• 1:56:45Speaker 01

  Built for the frigging arms.

• 1:56:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, no, like legitimately, like that's.

• 1:56:50Speaker 01

  I was about to say the army and then I was like, fuck. I want to get stabbed with one of these knives. I was like, fuck the Navy, Navy.

• 1:56:56Jocko Willink?

  And then like, I don't need to sleep a lot. So for the job that I went into is like, oh, this is.

• 1:57:03Speaker 01

  You found your calling.

• 1:57:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it was so nice to like be able to have some of the things like if you need to sleep all the time and you're in the military, much less the SEAL teams, like it's gonna be a lot harder on you. Whereas if it's not that big of a deal, then cool. So, you know, you mentioned earlier, like, oh, there's people that are better at this part of this type of climbing and that other type of climbing and this other type of climbing. Whereas you're the type of climbing, like you're gonna go 3,000 feet, no rope, like that's what you're doing. Do you feel like you're the, like your genetics are built for that?

• 1:57:39Speaker 01

  I don't know. I mean, what, what, you know, what genetics make you good? So I think that if I have any natural gift for climbing, I think it's actually just more of a, like my psyche, my, my desire for it, my love of it. Cause I mean, I don't really have any physical gifts. You know, nobody in my family is an athlete, like nobody's, nobody's gifted in any way. You know, I was never winning competitions. I was never, I was never great in that way. But what I've always had is. I just love freaking climbing, you know, like I, and I've loved climbing enough for almost thirty years now that I've been willing to do it five or six days a week. Like a couple of my friends have said, I, I would never make this claim for sure, but a few of my friends have sort of are, and it could be true that I've maybe done more climbing than almost anybody else on earth.

• 1:58:22Speaker 01

  Because, because I favor these big endurance, these sort of things, like I like doing a lot of climbing. And I've been doing that nonstop for, you know, twenty or thirty years now. You know, I'm like, that is a lot of freaking climbing. And, and as it turns out, I think that that type of mileage, like that volume is maybe one of the most important things for free soloing. Because in order to free solo, and it might not be necessary, I'm sure other people could take a different path to success as a soloist. But for me, it's hard to free solo without feeling confident on rock. And it's hard to build confidence on rock without just a ton of time on rock, like feeling consistent, feeling, you know, just feeling at home on, in vertical terrain. And so I think that having that, that passion for climbing has probably been the most important thing for me.

• 1:59:06Speaker 01

  It's like being willing to practice all the time for many, many years.

• 1:59:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I was watching your masterclass. And, uh, one of the things in your, in your masterclass, you're talking about your half crimp is weak or was weak and you identified that.

• 1:59:20Speaker 01

  It's, it's much better than it used to be.

• 1:59:21Jocko Willink?

  And, and what was funny was I was thinking about my entire climbing career of being a total loser at climbing, but you're like, yeah, I was weak at this. And I was like, that's how the way everything felt to me when I tried climbing. I'd be like, no, this is all horrible. So you have a weakness. What'd you do about it?

• 1:59:35Speaker 01

  Oh, well, yeah, I trained it. It's, it's gone better over time. Yeah. I mean, basically certain grips. Like, I mean, this is like way too niche for a mainstream audience, but basically there are certain types of ways that you hold your hand that I used to be. I used to think that there was like something about particular types of holds that just forced my hand open. You know, I was like, there's something wrong with that hold. But then come to find out it was, there's something wrong with my hand, you know, that it's just really fucking weak. I was like, oh, that's too bad. You know, it just turns out that it's not the shape of the hold. It's that I'm very weak in this kind of in-between grip. And so. But that in-between grip is what you typically use on a hangboard, like on a training tool. And I've now trained more consistently for many years, which is funny because I guess it's been like at least five or six years now that I've been like training more. And

• 2:00:20Speaker 01

  I am much stronger in that position now. And so like that type of hold now feels totally normal to me. I'm like, oh, it turns out there's nothing wrong with the rock. I just had to get my fingers a little stronger.

• 2:00:31Jocko Willink?

  There's another good quote in that masterclass, and it's actually both you and Tommy kind of say it together, or one of you starts at the other. But you guys talk about like one of the benefits of climbing is being quote spiritually uplifted in the midst of complete disaster and physical hardship. And it's like that right there is such a good thing for humans, right? To go through hard things.

• 2:01:00Speaker 01

  And to come out of them uplifted. Because sometimes they're hard things that just break you down and then leave you sort of traumatized. And that's, I mean, Tommy and I actually talk about this a lot. Tommy just spent a couple of weeks for their kids' school vacation at our place in Vegas. And so I've been climbing with them last couple of weeks and playing with the family. And it's like, all been great playing with the kids. But we talk a lot about the idea of sort of elective hardship is what he likes to phrase it. But, you know, having the sort of luxury to be able to choose to do hard things. Because, you know, if hard things are being forced upon you, it's like not necessarily the best growth opportunity. But if you're in a comfortable enough place in life that you can choose to do hard things, you know, on occasion, things that push you outside of your comfort zone, things that challenge you in the right ways, then yeah, those can be some of the biggest growth experiences

• 2:01:45Speaker 01

  of your life, I guess. But, but, you know, it's all about the right challenges.

• 2:01:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And how often do the elective challenges become unelective challenges halfway through? Right? I mean, that happens.

• 2:02:00Speaker 01

  I mean, I have a, I have a, like, a bit of a family joke, sort of, that all my rest day hikes always wind up in some sort of unplanned scramble. You know, there's always, like, ropeless climbing at the end of one of my hikes. Cause like, you know, and it's not always true, but it does seem to happen that my rest day hikes, you know, where I'm like, oh, I'm gonna go check out this other place. Or like, look at this thing. And they almost always wind up with like, oh, and then I had to climb over this thing, or, you know. And then, like, you know, I once descended, uh, I live, uh, outside of Las Vegas. Um, have you, have you climbed to Vegas ever?

• 2:02:28Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 2:02:29Speaker 01

  You've never been there? Like, um, Red Rock Canyon is like this big, they're basically the 3,000 foot sandstone walls, like, just outside of town.

• 2:02:34Jocko Willink?

  I've, I have been to Red Rock Canyon.

• 2:02:36Speaker 01

  Really? Yeah, it's really pretty. It's, it's beautiful. It's a destination. But so those big mountains have, like, canyon nearing routes and pretty technical descents off some of them, like, full on, like, what you imagine Utah slot canyons, where you do, you know, 15 rappels and, like, swim through pools of water and stuff. Anyway, so some of my rest day hikes have ended in canyons and things like that by accident. Where you're like, oh, I was hiking and I was out of food and water and I was just trying to get back to the car. And then I had to down climb 15 rappels and then, and then climb across these pools and stuff, cause I don't wanna frickin swim. Cause you're like in the middle, you're like, this is crazy. But, yeah, but that's the kind of elective challenge that you're like, you know, yeah, you often get in over your head and it becomes more than you expect. But it's still by choice.

• 2:03:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. When does the, when does it get too, too hot to climb in Vegas?

• 2:03:18Speaker 01

  Actually, it never really gets too, too hot, because, uh, there's a mountain above town that goes to 12,000 feet.

• 2:03:23Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:03:23Speaker 01

  So you can climb, you know, eight or 9,000 feet in the summer, uh, in full shade, good wind. It's like, you know, basically it's, I, I mean, I live in Vegas for a reason. It's the best climate in the country.

• 2:03:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, no, I, I remember when you first moved to Vegas and I read an article about, you're like, explaining why you moved there and you're like, oh, there's just climbing everywhere.

• 2:03:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, everybody just thinks of the strip and they're like, why would you go to Vegas? And you're like, yeah, the strip is, is crazy, but just outside of town is the best climate in the country.

• 2:03:46Jocko Willink?

  The strip is, actually, even worse is when you go like four blocks off the strip.

• 2:03:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's like, they're really sad, like, like, light industrial.

• 2:03:55Jocko Willink?

  It's horrible. It's depressing.

• 2:03:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really grim.

• 2:03:59Jocko Willink?

  It's, it's like.

• 2:04:00Speaker 01

  But the mountain access in Vegas, I think, is the best in the country. I mean, the, it's insane, like, from the, from the suburban edge of town, like, you can be in full on, like, cookie. Better suburbs, houses with like grocery stores next to you. You can drive fifteen minutes to a trailhead. And then you can like run or bike for fifteen minutes and you can be in the middle of nowhere where you're never gonna see a soul. And then, you know, with like an hour of scrambling and hiking, you can be back in some canyons where you're like, I'm gonna die alone out here and no one will ever find my body. It's like, it's crazy. I mean, in a way that that's hard to experience like anywhere. Like all the famous sort of mountain cities in the US, like, you know, Salt Lake City or Denver, things like that. Most of those, if you live in town, you have to drive for like an hour to get to like the real nature part.

• 2:04:40Speaker 01

  Like you can't be in the middle of nowhere. And even then, there's so many people that, you know, the trailheads are crowded, the backcountry is crowded. It's like, I don't know. Vegas is insane.

• 2:04:49Jocko Willink?

  How has your process of domestication come along? I mean, how long did you live in a van for?

• 2:04:55Speaker 01

  I lived in a van by myself basically for ten-ish years. And then I had a different van for another five-ish years, sort of maybe fifteen years on and off in the van. And then I bought a house with my now wife and now we have an almost two-year-old and yeah, domestication is strongly on on track. I'm domesticating for sure.

• 2:05:17Jocko Willink?

  And you're not losing your mind too bad?

• 2:05:20Speaker 01

  No, it's funny. You know, sometimes I'm like, should I be more upset about this? Or like, should I be chafing? But I I kinda like it. Like my daughter is great. I'm having a good time. I'm training, I'm climbing. I feel like I'm still able to do all the big climbing adventures that I want. I think part of it is that my hunger is way diminished for it. And part of that, I'm like, oh, is that because I'm losing my fire? Am I losing my edge? But I think part of that is because I've done many of the things that I want to do. And I'm just kinda like, you know, if there was like a longer list of classic routes around the Western US that I hadn't done, then, you know, I'd probably be more excited. But I'm like, I don't know, I've done a lot, you know, I'm sort of like, I've done a lot of the things I want to do. Um, I don't know. I like I like dadding. I like training at home. I'm just like, I don't know, it's fine.

• 2:06:04Jocko Willink?

  So you like dadding?

• 2:06:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, dadding, yeah.

• 2:06:08Speaker 01

  Well, you're you're already done dadding almost.

• 2:06:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I'm almost done. Yep. And hopefully, like I said, hopefully people can learn learn from my mistakes there. So I don't.

• 2:06:17Speaker 01

  And not train their kids for six hours a day jiu-jitsu. Like weirdly, every time I punch my kid in the face, he'd get upset about it.

• 2:06:25Speaker 01

  I didn't even break his arm. It just felt like it was gonna break. I'm like, I don't know what he's so pissed about.

• 2:06:31Jocko Willink?

  You kind of, in the 10 to 15 years living in your van, you, I would say you, you must have pretty much mastered like the minimalist lifestyle.

• 2:06:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. Though, though it doesn't feel like you're, you're basically just, you know, the goal is always to climb as much as possible. And so you're doing whatever is required to climb as much as you can and nothing else matters, really. And so it's not like you're embracing minimalism to be a minimalist. It's just that you don't need anything. You know what I mean? That's kind of like you're a true minimalist because you're like, whatever.

• 2:07:01Jocko Willink?

  Just don't need it.

• 2:07:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, people are always like, oh, you know, living in a van is that hard? And you're like, well, I mean, the van, yeah, I mean, it's, it's nicer to have a shower or something in your house, but it's hard to beat the backyard. Because with a van, it's like you just open the door and you're in the most beautiful places. And if the weather gets bad, you go to the next place. And it's like, you're just sort of floating between the best destinations in the whole Western US all year long. Like, it's kind of amazing.

• 2:07:24Jocko Willink?

  Not a bad gig.

• 2:07:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's a really, really nice gig. I mean, I do, I do still sort of fondly miss that, you know, when you're deep in daddy, like you're changing diapers and my wife's pregnant right now. And it's like a lot going on at the house. And you're sort of like, man, I used to just sit in the van by myself doing nothing all day on a rest day. It's like, that sounds nice.

• 2:07:45Jocko Willink?

  And what about the, the Honnold Foundation? That you, I think, when you talk about it, you went to a trip to Chad. And that was sort of the, the inspo behind that?

• 2:07:58Speaker 01

  That was part of it. I mean, yeah, the trip to Chad was my first trip to Africa is like in 2009. But, but really, so the Honnold Foundation supports community solar projects around the world. And basically, it's like we give grants to, to community nonprofits that then use solar to sort of better their lives in various ways and around the, so it's been over 10 years of supporting solar projects around the world. And so I started the foundation, I guess, in 2012-ish, so a little more than 10 years.

• 2:08:24Speaker 01

  And I basically just want to do something positive for the environment. You know, I mean, as a climber, you're just outdoors, nonstop. And, you know, I was worried about climate change, worried about environmental degradation in general. And just sort of like, you know, you want to do something useful for, for planet Earth. But I also sort of realized that there's no point in helping the environment that doesn't help humans as well. I mean, so like that expedition to Chad in particular, you see human populations living in just the, I mean, just the grim, just abject poverty, you know, it's the grimmest condition. In a way, it's almost not even fair to say poverty because like there's no market economy at all. You know, it's like not fair to say they're poor because like there's money doesn't even factor into their lifestyle at all. Because there's nothing to buy because they're so remote and so rural.

• 2:09:07Speaker 01

  So, you know, it's just people herding goats in the desert and just surviving. And, you know, a handful of climate expeditions to places like that and realizing, you know, I mean, I was reading a lot of sort of environmental nonfiction and, and just nonfiction in general. And, you know, there's something like a billion people on Earth without access to, to, to power. And, you know, I mean, basically there are a billion people on Earth in poverty that are sort of, you know, I mean, the, the world is constantly getting richer and sort of, you know, progressing, getting more comfortable. Except for the sort of billion-ish people who are largely left behind. And, you know, I just felt like if I was going to be supporting environmental nonprofits, like putting money toward the environment, it had to help that, those billion people as well.

• 2:09:51Speaker 01

  So anyway, that's basically where the Haunafonation came from.

• 2:09:53Jocko Willink?

  And, and that's just about getting power to, to these people?

• 2:09:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, sometimes power, I mean, sometimes that means lights. Like if you're in rural places in Africa, it's like realistically the grid is never going to get there. It'll never be cost effective. So like solar power lantern, solar power in home systems. Sometimes that means more robust systems, you know, like refrigeration in rural places, like, like agricultural processing, you know, you know, I mean, there are limitless things that people use power for. And so. I mean now, so last year the Honorable Nation, well actually the last couple of years, we will have given over 2 million in grants to different organizations around the world. And normally the grants range from like 50 to 200K, let's say. And you know, so it's not like huge money. It's like relatively small scale projects, but that can be enough to

• 2:10:40Speaker 01

  like completely transform somebody's life. Cause I mean, especially when you're in rural villages in Africa, I mean, if you get light for the first time, like that's a big deal. Cause in, I mean, I mean, you know, in the tropics, it's dark for 12 hours a day. And so, you know, if you suddenly have an extra four or five, four or five productive hours a day, I mean, that's, that's a big deal for kids going to school, for people, for people just living, you know, just like having a nice life. For like having a light is a big deal. And then like having a radio, having a refrigerator, like having basic, you know, appliances. Anyway, yeah, the, the projects vary, the scope varies. We're, we're trying to do as much as we can. I don't know. I'm just, I'm just rambling. It's like, it's just,

• 2:11:21Speaker 01

  there's this crazy pipeline of projects that we get so many applications. So what I was trying to say was that we can vet the applications by the, the projects that have the most sort of win-win like added benefits. Where it's like, oh, you're using solar to do this thing that's also good in this other way. Like there's also a workforce development component, or like it's also the local people learning skills to do, to do such and such services systems. It's like, we kind of get our, our pick of the litter with the projects that we're funding because there's such a huge demand. And you know, and realistically, we just can't fund that, you know, like we don't, I'm a climber, like I don't make that much. I'm not like a tech billionaire. So I kind of wish I was, cause, cause it'd be nice to distribute the money better. But um, but yeah, so anyway, we can choose like the most win-win sorts of projects.

• 2:12:04Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And even, you know, doing civil affairs projects overseas when I was in the military, like $50,000, a hundred thousand dollars invested into a community. That's like a massive, it's a, yeah, it's a massive game changer. So that's awesome. What, what does your day look like, like to, you know, not today, but like what's a normal day look for you, look like for you right now?

• 2:12:23Speaker 01

  Well, so right now, my wife is, uh, is due with our second child in six weeks. So, so we're kind of settled at home. It's also like it's the holiday season and there've been a lot of folks and family coming and it's like chill at home. Um, so I've been in this, this routine at home where I'm climbing outdoors at this, this cave that I've been climbing out, um, trying this hard project, like this route that I can't do. And I've been trying for two months, still haven't done it, but it's, it's really hard. Um, but uh, And so I go to the cave one day, I train in like a home gym one day, and then I rest one day. And my rest days are sometimes like supplemental workout-y stuff, like, you know, shoulder PT stuff. And sometimes run a little bit, sometimes just bed rest, just depends on how worked I am from the other two days. But so basically it's a three day cycle that just repeats ad nauseam for the last two months.

• 2:13:08Jocko Willink?

  And then when the baby's born, are you, I mean, do you have other projects that you're looking out in the next years?

• 2:13:16Speaker 01

  This year, so the last two years were both sort of built around these big summer expeditions that I went on. And so two summers ago, I went on a six week trip to Greenland, which became a TV show for National Geographic, which actually comes out pretty soon in February, I think. And then this summer I did a two month bike tour to Alaska with Tommy Caldwell. So we biked like 2,400 miles and we climbed big walls along the way. And it was, it's funny that with the Greenland trip, my wife and I were like, you know what? Six weeks away from the family is too long, like not gonna do that again. That was too much because we were in the most remote part of Eastern Greenland, like totally out of touch. Like six weeks away is, is a lot because we had the new baby. And so we're like, not doing that again. And then the next summer I'm gone for two months. We're like, fuck. It was like kind of, kind of a botch.

• 2:13:59Speaker 01

  And, and then that trip, you know, my wife's now pregnant and our daughter is like a year old. And it's all sort of, it's like a lot. So anyway, but that's also gonna be a TV show for National Geographic, probably next year or something, whenever they finish making it. But so, so what I'm saying though, the last two years have been sort of focused on these big, big expedition TV project things. And then, you know, as much personal climbing as I can fit around family and everything as well. This year, I think it's unlikely that I'll do a big expedition like that just because, because the TV schedule, like the things are being released this year, it doesn't really make sense to do another one straight away. And I don't know if I quite have the appetite for it because the two month bicycle trip to Alaska, as it turns out, took me several months to recover from and like to regain fitness from.

• 2:14:42Speaker 01

  And I kind of dug myself into a hole biking 2,000 miles, like as fast as we could to Alaska. Like we, we just got kind of worried.

• 2:14:49Jocko Willink?

  How much training did you do for the bike part?

• 2:14:51Speaker 01

  Literally none. I did 100 mile ride just to make sure that I could. And then. But I do have a bit of a biking, not base, but I've done a couple of bike tours back in the day. And, uh, and for several years before I was living on my van, I didn't have a car, so I was biking a ton. And so I have a little bit more of a biking base than, than other things. But, um, but no, I got so crushed. It was terrible. It was terrible.

• 2:15:14Jocko Willink?

  So in recovery mode.

• 2:15:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the thing. And honestly, like, so I'm, I'm thirty eight now and I don't consider myself old yet, but I am. Like recovery is slower than it was in my mid twenties. And it's hard to say how much of that is age and how much of that is like having a young daughter and like, you know, just family stuff and just a different lifestyle and whatever.

• 2:15:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:34Speaker 01

  But, um, but I'm sort of like, a lot of the recovery, like recovering from the bike tour, I would have thought like, oh, maybe like a month, maybe two. And, you know, it's more like maybe three until I actually feel better. And I'm kind of like, yeah, in the grand scheme of things, like, that's fine, you know, what, what's three months? But, but it would have been nice to recover in three weeks, you know?

• 2:15:51Jocko Willink?

  Well, when you mentioned that base thing, right? Cause I remember when I was like going through SEAL training, like you run. You run so much, you run, just going to eat is six miles a day. So just, just running to the, it's like a mile to the chow hall and then a mile back. So you do that three times a day. So just without any part of the training, you're running six miles a day. So you basically.

• 2:16:12Speaker 01

  That is totally crazy.

• 2:16:13Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:16:14Speaker 01

  Why, why not, uh, why not sleep a little closer to the.

• 2:16:17Jocko Willink?

  Cause then you wouldn't get the benefit of running. So, but you build up this base where, you know, when I was. I wouldn't run for four months or whatever, for whatever reason, or I wouldn't run for a month. You just go out and run and just make it happen. But then you get a little older, you're like, yo, all of a sudden someone puts a watch on you and you're like, all right, let's, we're gonna run four mile time run. You're like, oh yeah, no problem. And you're like, yo, what happened? What happened to my quote unquote base?

• 2:16:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16:39Jocko Willink?

  It ain't there no more.

• 2:16:40Speaker 01

  It's funny you say that, cause actually, so I said, I've been hanging out with Tommy and, um.

• 2:16:44Jocko Willink?

  How old is Tommy? He's eight years older than you?

• 2:16:46Speaker 01

  Um, I think he might be seventy. He might be forty five, maybe he's forty four. I think he's forty five. But anyway, yeah, he's a bit older and he actually tore his Achilles last year. So he, he went through like a year and a half recovery process. Cause he, it re ruptured two other times. So basically he tore his Achilles three times and it was a whole process to like get it better. And, uh, so, and that's part of the reason we did the bike adventure together because he'd been biking a lot as part of his PT and he was all fired up on biking. And he was chomping at the bit to have a huge adventure because he has two kids who are, you know, ten and seven. And so he hadn't done any big trips basically since he had his family. And then he was overcoming this injury and he was biking a lot. He was like, I'm fired up to do something epic. And I was kinda like, I've been doing expeditions every year and I'm a little more tired. And I was like,

• 2:17:29Speaker 01

  I'm just not quite at the same level that he is for like this, this kind of adventure. I was like, this is, this is a lot. But.

• 2:17:36Jocko Willink?

  How do you hurt his Achilles? Sometimes people hurt their Achilles. They're like, I was grabbing a bag of groceries and my Achilles blew out.

• 2:17:42Speaker 01

  No, he took this kinda epic fall climbing. I mean, it was a normal lead fall where a rope caught him, but he came into the wall one footed and the foot that hit the wall ruptured, the Achilles ruptured. And he said he immediately was like, oh, you know, my Achilles just ruptured and then had to like hobble back down from the mountain. But yeah, I was like, when you watch the video, it is like a normal lead fall, sort of, but he like swings in all crazy, leading with one foot and then hits the wall one footed. And you're like, oh God, you know, like I think even if his Achilles hadn't ruptured, I think it would have hurt his ankle a bit, you know, cause like you're hitting the wall pretty hard with one foot. But swinging in all.

• 2:18:15Jocko Willink?

  But once again, rock climbing is safe. It's for the family.

• 2:18:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, it's totally safe.

• 2:18:19Jocko Willink?

  You'll be good to go.

• 2:18:20Speaker 01

  Though he was doing something very difficult, like kinda cutting edge.

• 2:18:24Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, exactly. That's, and if you're doing that kinda climbing, yeah, there's a higher probability.

• 2:18:28Speaker 01

  And even so, he wasn't really hurt. I mean, the thing is he's had like Achilles issues. His Achilles were tight. He's a middle aged man, you know, he probably should have been stretching a little more. But no, what I was gonna say though, that with the, the two of us talking about base, like, so the two of us have been climbing together a ton. And both of us have always had a, a good endurance base climbing, like good stamina. And I think both of us are trying to be like, I'm not sure if the base is like quite what we thought it was, you know, like you've always just counted on it being in the bank. And now we're like, I think our, I think our accounts are empty, you know? We gotta like start rebuilding some endurance and like, so both of us are kinda like rebuilding some climbing, like some base climbing fitness that, that we've always just sort of counted on, but we're like, it could be better maybe.

• 2:19:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. It's wild watching you guys do that speed run up El Cap, the way you guys are just freaking breathing like you're sprinting.

• 2:19:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Though I mean, it's still objectively very slow. It's still two hours to do 3,000 feet of vertical. It's like, you know?

• 2:19:23Jocko Willink?

  I was thinking about that too. Like if, if I was gonna go for a run right now and it's like, hey, this is a, we're going for a run. It's 3,000 feet of vertical. You're like, oh, that's like, that's a. It's a kick in the nuts, run.

• 2:19:34Speaker 01

  Kind of, but you could probably run that in forty five minutes, maybe.

• 2:19:37Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:37Speaker 01

  Or like something like that.

• 2:19:38Jocko Willink?

  It still is a gut check.

• 2:19:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, it'd be hard work for sure. But okay, well, you're you want a fun thought experiment?

• 2:19:43Jocko Willink?

  So. Yes.

• 2:19:44Speaker 01

  So the, I mean, this is also really niche, but an interesting thing to think about. So, um, so I wrote up an article about the nose speed record at some point and I was on a plane and didn't have internet, but it just doing back of the envelope math. It's like, okay, if you compare, uh, elite sprinting to elite marathoning, you know, so a hundred meter sprint to the to marathon. And you compare the times like, so I did all the math on, you know, meters per second. And so basically the marathon pace is roughly half of the sprinting pace. So I was like, okay, so if you take the two hour nose ascent, which is kind of comparable to the marathon, and then there's actually a World Cup speed climb, which is a fifteen meter vertical wall that people, the the world record for men is like roughly five seconds. So it's kind of similar to the hundred meter sprint.

• 2:20:26Speaker 01

  And I was like, so if you take the same half that pace and when you when you watch World Cup speed climbers climbing, it looks like a monkey or something. It looks totally insane. Yeah, it's totally insane. It's it's it's incredibly fast, but I was like, so if you took, uh, physiologically, though, if you took half that pace and you applied it to LCAP, how long do you think it would take to climb LCAP?

• 2:20:44Jocko Willink?

  I don't know. What's the math?

• 2:20:46Speaker 01

  Uh, is either eight or twelve minutes. I forget. But but yeah, so it's like basically ten minutes to climb LCAP. And so so I concluded my article with like, you know, while we're very proud of two hours and we tried hard and it's a good effort, we're sort of like, it's very far from the physiological limits of like the conceivable, like what somebody could do on a, you know, on a three thousand foot wall. So I think that that somebody could go down to like one forty five or an hour and a half at some point. Obviously, you can never go down to ten minutes because there's gear and there's rope and there's safety considerations and, you know, you're still climbing this crazy wall. But I was kind of like, ah, the physiological limits are much further.

• 2:21:22Jocko Willink?

  Well, you've done a lot, but it sounds like you're not even close to where you could be.

• 2:21:25Speaker 01

  But that's exactly, that's exactly, that's exactly. I know, I'm like, after twenty years of effort, all I've learned is that I'm so far from what I could have been. I should have been training harder the whole time.

• 2:21:33Jocko Willink?

  Well, there's a there's a clip in in the movie, one of the movies when you when you make that and, um, you're on the phone with Tommy, uh, I think his wife. And she's like, are you are you gonna cry? And you said, no, that feeling is past. I feel like we suck and should have done better. And that's that's where you're basically at, so.

• 2:21:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly.

• 2:21:53Jocko Willink?

  Well, awesome stuff. Are we up to speed? Does that get us up to speed?

• 2:21:56Speaker 01

  That basically gets us to modern life. I mean, that gets us to the holiday season, just trying to build some fitness. I don't know. Yeah. It's interesting. I was saying the TV, the expeditions that I've done the last two years. I mean, both of those, I think, are released this year, which in some ways buys me, as a professional climber, it buys me like a year or two of having to actually do anything in a way, because there's like content coming out. Like, there's a movie coming out. Like, I think February for the Greenland piece, and then, you know, potentially later in the fall for the Alaska expedition with Tommy. And, and so, you know, it takes some pressure off, feeling like you have to like do something that year, or like create something cool. But that basically means that I can just keep grinding away at the schedule that I've been on, this sort of like three day,

• 2:22:38Speaker 01

  which I'm kind of into because I've been really enjoying myself and it's a nice way to stay with fam and like be at home and just grind. Because I love, like, I love just climbing two on, one off, two on, one off. Like, I could do that the whole rest of my life and be happy. And, and it's interesting. I'm curious to see if I'm gonna improve a lot from it or not. Because like, in a way, just like grinding away and training, like, my arms have basically been very sore for two months straight now. I'm kind of like, eventually, I'm gonna get much stronger, you know, I think. I don't know if it'll take two months, or four months, or six months. But I like doing it and I don't mind waiting, you know, you know, we'll just wait and see like how it plays out. So I'm, I'm pretty psyched. And in a way, having the films come out gives me sort of this buffer to just like keep training indefinitely while the new child comes and we just like keep settling into home life. So I don't know. We'll see.

• 2:23:22Speaker 01

  I mean, it's less glamorous than being like, I just roam the West Coast and do cutting-edge free solos whenever I want. But I'm like, I still really like it, you know? It's like, it's a really nice, I don't know.

• 2:23:32Jocko Willink?

  Do you have a way of measuring like pragmatically your strength? Like, do you do finger hang for this amount of time with these two digits?

• 2:23:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, hangs with weight is like one simple way. It's basically weightlifting, but with hangs. And then also like training boards, like, you know, steep boards where you're like doing boulder problems for certain grades. Like, that's an easy way to sort of measure. But, but also a big part of it is the sensations of like, how do you feel when climbing? Because there are times when you feel kind of weightless and you're just like, oh, like, I feel great. And then there are times when you're like, I just kind of suck, you know? Like, to me, it's the sensation of doing something you didn't think you could do. Because like often you'll pull on two holds and you'll look up and you'll be like, there's no way I could like make it to that hole. There's no way I could catch that, but then you try anyway. And then occasionally you stick something that you're sure you couldn't do. And to me, that's like the best feeling in climbing. And you're like, I knew I couldn't do it, but I tried anyway and I did. It was a miracle. You know, like, that's so cool.

• 2:24:22Jocko Willink?

  And two months into this cycle, do you feel like you can hold more weight when you're hanging and you feel improvement right now?

• 2:24:28Speaker 01

  Hmm. Yeah. Objectively, nothing great yet. Like getting there, getting there. We'll see.

• 2:24:33Jocko Willink?

  How's your diet? Are you getting enough protein?

• 2:24:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so. I've been, um, I've been doing all kinds of diet, like experimentation and playing around and, and, uh, yeah. Nothing. I think it's good. I've been like sleeping enough, you know, very healthy, clean lifestyle. You know, the baby goes to bed at seven, we're in bed at like eight thirty. It's like, it's all pretty. Yeah. It's all, uh, but that's, it's funny.

• 2:24:54Jocko Willink?

  Welcome to daddying.

• 2:24:55Speaker 01

  Well, exactly. Yeah, dadding, dadding. Yeah. Well, that's the thing is it sounds so boring, but I kind of like it, you know, it's like, it's a great lifestyle and yeah, allows me to climb like the way I want. I don't know. Yesterday, uh, because, because I was coming here to chat with you today. Uh, like today would have been a day at the cave, but I was kind of like, oh, I won't be in town. So yesterday I climbed as a day three. But day three is always kind of useless because you're so tired from the first two days. So, um, so I went with my wife to like a beautiful sunny wall and we just climbed like a bunch of routes. And my wife's very pregnant right now, so she just, uh, was climbing on top rope and like just having fun in the sun. And I was like, man, it's so fun to just go to a cliff that we haven't been to in a while and just climb tons of routes. You know, I did like fifteen routes yesterday or something. And so kind of like a fun volume day, just to like see how you feel and just have fun climbing.

• 2:25:40Jocko Willink?

  How long is the session in the cave?

• 2:25:42Speaker 01

  In the, the hard cave that I'm going to? Um, normally like, I don't know, six hours or less or something. But the thing is you aren't actually climbing the whole time because like you drive there, you hike up, you get to the cave. Basically I do six routes in a day, like two warmups and then four hard things. Then I go home. It's like the, uh, the aspiration. Or, or maybe sometimes five routes, like one warmup and four hard things, then go home.

• 2:26:05Jocko Willink?

  And that's where you're at.

• 2:26:06Speaker 01

  That's all I do. And that's the thing. It's a grind because it's like you just go, you fail, and then you go home. And like my last day up there, I went up and it was freezing cold, like bitterly cold. And so I failed because I was too weak, but I also failed because my skin felt like glass because like with, you know, it was like zero percent humidity and freezing cold. And so it means that your skin like feels incredibly dry and hard and you like can't even interface with a rock. Like you can't even touch it. It's like feels glassy. And so then you're kind of like, well, I failed because I'm weak, but I also failed because I can't even freaking feel my fingers or toes. And I can't even touch the rock. And you're just like, Jesus. And then you go home feeling totally worked.

• 2:26:41Jocko Willink?

  Are you seeing some progress though?

• 2:26:44Speaker 01

  Uh, well, I've kind of seen negative progress on my cave project, but it's hard to say because, because the conditions have gotten way worse. Uh, but no, I'm seeing progress on the board. Like, I don't know. I, I think it's the right path. But this is always the challenge with training for a long time is because you start to second guess the path a little bit where you're like, oh, am I on the correct? You know, it's like, cause I'm, I assume with like all the weightlifting and things that you do, if you're just like grinding for months at a time, you're not going to see big PRs while you're grinding. But then if you take some time off and you chill, then you're probably going to feel a lot better.

• 2:27:14Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 2:27:14Speaker 01

  And so I'm kind of at that point where it's like, you don't want to give up on the process because you think it's the right process.

• 2:27:18Jocko Willink?

  Yep. I was literally just talking about this yesterday. Like everyone says these days, like trust the process, trust the process. And you're like, cool. And so you're like, I'm going to do what I gotta do every day. I got to set up my schedule. I gotta be disciplined about it. But occasionally you gotta take a step back and be like, yo, are you making progress?

• 2:27:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally.

• 2:27:32Jocko Willink?

  If you're not, then that sucks.

• 2:27:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you gotta know the timeframe of like how much, like how long are you willing to work or like wait for it?

• 2:27:39Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Cause sometimes that progress is so slow.

• 2:27:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:27:42Jocko Willink?

  And yet the path you're on is the correct path.

• 2:27:45Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 2:27:45Jocko Willink?

  But it still is like a rough.

• 2:27:47Speaker 01

  Actually, so on, on the lead up to Free Solo Al Cap, I had an experience like that where I was like grinding for months. And all of my friends were telling me that it was like the bad path. But all of my friends are sort of professional rock climbers where they care about performance. Like they're trying to climb hard grades. And I wasn't really trying to climb the hardest grades because I was trying to Free Solo Al Cap in a few months, which isn't the hardest grade. You know, it's, it's, it's rated five, 12 or you know, 13 minus or whatever. So like, the rating is elite, but not like, not cutting edge by any means. And so I was doing this tremendous amount of volume. And and as a result was tired all the time. And so I was never really performing at my my physical limit, let's say. And so my friends are all like, oh, you should be resting more so you can perform at your limit. But I was kind of like, that's not really the point. Like,

• 2:28:31Speaker 01

  that's not what I'm training for. And I kind of like stuck my guns, stuck to the path. But then, you know, several months into it by by sheer whatever, like part of being a professional climber, like had some work stuff or something, for whatever reason, like took a break for several days because I had like something going on, and then came back and felt like a total hero.

• 2:28:47Jocko Willink?

  Like Superman.

• 2:28:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I had basically one day outside where I was like, it's working. I feel amazing. And then I went back to just like grinding for a couple more months and then was in Yosemite just grinding. And then basically peaked for the climb and then was done. You know, I was like, okay, you know, but basically felt like I was sucking for six months, except for one day that was like a signpost that like, you're doing okay. And then and then the climb itself.

• 2:29:08Jocko Willink?

  How much time did how much? How many days did you rest before?

• 2:29:13Speaker 01

  I don't even know. Not not that much. I mean, I was kind of like day on, day off. And it was interesting because I actually had done all the prep work was like, okay, I'm ready. I'm fired up. And then it freaking rained. So like, I was gonna do it, but then it rained. The forecast was bad and it rained that day. And then, and then I wanted to repel the entire wall again to make sure that nothing got wet. And, you know, I had chalk marks on key holds here and there, like sort of marking left foot here, right foot, like, you know, because on a crack up a blank wall, like, it's hard to remember if it's like your left finger in there or your right finger in there. But sometimes it's like critical which which way you do things. So a lot of it was like marked with chalk, and the chalk washes off if it rains. And so I wanted to make sure that hadn't rained too much, because even though it hadn't rained

• 2:29:54Speaker 01

  that much down valley, like, or up valley in my van, you never really know, you know, a mile or two away, it could have just dumped on the summit and just like pressure washed the entire upper pitches. And so, so then I went and repelled the whole wall to like, double check everything. And it was all fine. Everything was dry. My chalk was there. But then you're tired from freaking repelling the entire wall. So then you're like, okay, I need another rest day. I mean, this is the challenging thing with free soloing is that, like, you want to sort of strike while the iron's hot. But then, you know, but then life gets in the way. And you're kind of like, ah, then you got to start the whole cycle again. I don't know. Anyway, so yeah, I took a rest day. And then and then went the day after. But it was like, I'm all fired up. And then it rains. And you actually don't get to go for another like three days or something.

• 2:30:35Jocko Willink?

  Got to grind and you got to rest. Echo Charles over here is a big proponent of rest days.

• 2:30:40Speaker 02

  Monitoring rest.

• 2:30:43Jocko Willink?

  You could say what you want. We know what's happening over there.

• 2:30:47Jocko Willink?

  Does that get us up to speed now? Are we good?

• 2:30:49Speaker 01

  I think we're good. I think we're good. Sorry, I'm just rambling.

• 2:30:51Jocko Willink?

  No, it's it's all good. Um, people, if people want to find you, look, I've mentioned along the wall, we mentioned Free Solo. Like, if you haven't read this book, if you haven't watched those movies, just go watch them. They're they're they're awesome. They're awesome stories. It's awesome to see, again, what I think is,

• 2:31:10Jocko Willink?

  I don't know what could be a harder feat by a human being, but this is right up there. Somebody wants to hit me up on social media and tell me what was a more impressive feat, I'm all ears. I'm listening. But check out the movies. Uh, you're on the interwebs, alexhonold.com. You got your own podcast.

• 2:31:33Speaker 01

  Indeed.

• 2:31:34Jocko Willink?

  Climbing Gold. And you you bring on people from history, talk through trips that you've done.

• 2:31:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, this year I think we'll be focusing on the the Olympics again.

• 2:31:44Jocko Willink?

  Okay.

• 2:31:45Speaker 01

  Climbing Gold, we originally created it because of the because climbing joined the Olympics in twenty twenty for Tokyo, though that happened in twenty twenty one because of COVID. But basically we created the podcast because we're like, this is a moment for climbing. You know, going to the Olympics for the first time feels like a big thing and could be a big thing for the sport. And so this year, I think we'll be focused on the Olympics again.

• 2:32:05Jocko Willink?

  Right on.

• 2:32:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, we'll see.

• 2:32:06Jocko Willink?

  Right on. So tune into that. You're on Instagram, you're on Twitter, you're on Facebook, at Alex Honnold. It's H O N N O L D. You're on MasterClass, too.

• 2:32:18Speaker 01

  Indeed.

• 2:32:18Jocko Willink?

  Got to mention that.

• 2:32:21Jocko Willink?

  Echo Charles, you got any questions?

• 2:32:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I got some questions. You meant what is crimping? Crimping? Half crimp? Is that what's the term?

• 2:32:28Speaker 01

  It's just the it's the way you hold your hand. It's like a half. It's like the way you hold an edge, like this.

• 2:32:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:32:33Speaker 01

  But yeah, crimping just refers to how you hold your fingers on an edge.

• 2:32:37Speaker 02

  So what's half crimping?

• 2:32:38Speaker 01

  Half crimping means, uh, so full crimping, imagine this is, oh, here, I'll use the edge of the knife. This is this is like a good edge. So full crimping is with your thumb over your fingers, like crimping. Half crimping would be just your fingers halfway like this. And then open hand would be like this, like draping off of it, like dangling.

• 2:32:54Speaker 02

  Ding ding. Okay. All right. And I noticed your hands like, you know, like in jujitsu, right? If you're the gi guy, you get like crooked fingers, knuckles, whatever. Uh cauliflower ear, right? Is this like, and it's actually not your hand. It looks like it's your fingers that are like real muscular.

• 2:33:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I don't think there are actually muscles in your fingers. I think my fingers are just kinda fat.

• 2:33:14Speaker 02

  Are they, no, would they, do you think? I mean, you've been climbing since ten.

• 2:33:17Speaker 01

  I've been climbing a long time, yeah. I think, I think I probably would have had pretty big hands just by nature. Cause my, my dad and my grandpa like big hands.

• 2:33:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:33:24Speaker 01

  But, um, but also I think your connective tissue gets bigger.

• 2:33:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:33:27Speaker 01

  Like it's like cranking sideways on your fingers, nonstop and cracks. Like I think you get, though I'm gonna bet you have some big old hands too.

• 2:33:33Speaker 02

  No, I don't.

• 2:33:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. Pretty normal size.

• 2:33:35Speaker 02

  You have significant hypertrophy in your fingers.

• 2:33:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:33:39Speaker 02

  I've noticed.

• 2:33:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably.

• 2:33:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:33:41Speaker 01

  But, you know, but I mean, if you saw like a stonemason that worked their whole life, just like chipping stone, you'd be like, yeah, they're gonna have some big old mitts.

• 2:33:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:33:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's just hard work with your hands. But also probably some percentages is probably callousing and stuff. You know, you'd probably sand it all off, it's just like.

• 2:33:56Speaker 02

  Off the fingers.

• 2:33:57Speaker 01

  Well, no, I mean, yeah, your tips like you're.

• 2:33:59Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, cause you like so much.

• 2:34:02Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, that's why I like, you know, I was joking, but crimping the edge of this knife, like I can't actually feel this that, that well.

• 2:34:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:34:07Speaker 01

  You know, it's like, I mean, this isn't sharp though, huh?

• 2:34:10Jocko Willink?

  Not very.

• 2:34:11Speaker 02

  Sharp, no.

• 2:34:11Jocko Willink?

  It's a, it, if you don't know this echo Charles, like rock climbing is a painful sport.

• 2:34:16Speaker 01

  Rock climbing is freaking painful.

• 2:34:18Jocko Willink?

  It's freaking painful. Muay Thai, do you know what Muay Thai is?

• 2:34:20Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, like.

• 2:34:21Jocko Willink?

  It's like kickboxing. That is a painful sport too.

• 2:34:25Speaker 01

  Cause you're getting kicked in that all the time.

• 2:34:26Jocko Willink?

  You're getting kicked in the legs. You actually, you do things to deaden the nerves in your shins. It's, it's, but it's a very, very painful sport. But rock climbing is also like just, there's, there's pain.

• 2:34:39Speaker 01

  The rock climbing is painful in like a way that feels kinda light duty compared to like combat sports where you're like getting hit. Climbing hurts in a way where like, oh, your skin hurts and like the tips of your toes hurt. And when you're in the sun, like climbing shoes are really tight, black rubber. And it's like your toes will be burning. And so it's like your fingers and toes are burning and uncomfortable. And it's like, you're holding, I mean, some, some climbing holds are literally like the edge of some of these knives, like the back edge of this knife would be like, like something that you're just pulling as hard as you can. It feels like it's cutting your fingertips. It's just like, it's painful, but in a way that's like very unglamorous, you know? It's not like getting punched in the face. It doesn't seem like it should be that painful, but you're like, man, it just, you just, you're like, ow.

• 2:35:16Jocko Willink?

  It is freaking painful. It's, I'm here to tell you, it's freaking painful.

• 2:35:20Speaker 02

  So like gloves, that's like, is that a big no-no?

• 2:35:22Speaker 01

  No, you just can't because you lose the sensitivity.

• 2:35:25Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:35:26Speaker 01

  Like, yeah, I mean, if you think grabbing tiny little things, it just tears the gloves. Like, it's better to have the skin.

• 2:35:32Speaker 02

  Makes sense.

• 2:35:33Speaker 01

  It'd be like trying to play guitar with gloves. Yeah. It's a non-starter.

• 2:35:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, huh.

• 2:35:37Speaker 01

  I mean, in extreme cold, like, I have climbing gloves. Like, I've done two expeditions to Antarctica. And normally, I would climb all the easy terrain in gloves, because if it's easy enough, it doesn't really matter. But then normally, when you get to the hard stuff, you basically pull your gloves off with your teeth and then, like, climb barehanded for a bit. And then try to put your gloves back on.

• 2:35:53Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:35:54Speaker 01

  You know, it's like, but, I mean, it's how you try to save your skin if you're in, like, sub-zero temps. You know, it's like, it's pretty unpleasant to climb in, to rock climb in Antarctica. What else, Echo Charles?

• 2:36:05Speaker 02

  Oh, you watch movies?

• 2:36:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:36:06Speaker 02

  What's your gem? Cliffhanger? Ever watched that one?

• 2:36:09Speaker 01

  Dude, bro, Cliffhanger. I forgot about Cliffhanger.

• 2:36:11Speaker 02

  Come on, bro.

• 2:36:12Speaker 01

  Actually, so, so, fun fact, so Cliffhanger is loosely based on a real story. On, on, like, real events in Yosemite. And, and actually, my podcast, Climbing Gold, we did a deep dive into that whole story. Like, this, uh, in the nineteen seventies, a plane carrying two million dollars of marijuana crashed, landed in a lake in Yosemite. Oh, yeah, that's right. It's in Valley Uprising, right? Yeah, it's in Valley Uprising. So we did this deep dive where we interviewed all the people involved. Because a bunch of climbing, like, dirtbag guys that are, like, living in a tent with, like, no possessions, all hiking in the backcountry and come out with, like, bales and bales of marijuana, which they then dry and then sell. And, uh, and so then all of a sudden, a bunch of climbers, like, driving sports cars, like, going to Europe. Anyway, it's a classic story. But, yeah, Cliffhanger is a great movie.

• 2:36:51Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, that was, that's all I got.

• 2:36:54Speaker 01

  That's all you got?

• 2:36:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:36:55Speaker 01

  That was it?

• 2:36:55Speaker 02

  That was it. Come on. It's good to meet you.

• 2:36:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. Alex, any closing thoughts, man? No, no, just a pleasure chatting, you know, just, I was, what a scene. I mean, I do my podcast, like, in my actual closet in my house. It's like a tiny little thing, and I just look at a wall, and I'm like, maybe I need more climbing accessories and, like, cool stuff.

• 2:37:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:37:14Speaker 01

  You know, it's like, it sets a mood. Like, there's a, there's a real mood in here that, that my closet lacks.

• 2:37:20Jocko Willink?

  Well, this one definitely started. This used to be the maintenance closet and it was half this size. And then we recorded in the maintenance closet for a while. And then eventually we, once we had that little desk over there with a bunch of crap, uh, getting piled up on it, the podcast place was a little too small. So we made it this big. But what's crazy is you go and talk to, you go, you know, like when you did your Hollywood tour and you'd go to whatever major broadcast network and they've got 12 people in the back room, like looking at you through the glass and all these cameras and everything, they don't, more people listen to this than that, which is nuts, right? Freaking Echo Charles with his thousand dollars worth of equipment presses record and more people listen to this than listen to whatever that major broadcast is. So.

• 2:38:03Speaker 01

  Echo Charles does the work of 12 men is what you're saying?

• 2:38:05Speaker 02

  Oh, see, my man right here. He knows, bro. That's when you know.

• 2:38:08Jocko Willink?

  I don't know. I doubt it. Uh, well, I thought he was gonna chime in earlier when you were talking about, you know, the guys are prepping cameras and downloading cards and scrubbing gals. Like, oh, he's gonna, Echo's gonna chime in with how hard his job is. And you go, I'm just over here climbing freaking LCAP, right? That's what's happening. Freaking Echo's just pressing record. That's the way it's going down. Uh, anything else, though?

• 2:38:32Speaker 01

  I don't know. A pleasure. Actually, I wanna, I wanna look around the gym a little more after this. I'll ask a few questions.

• 2:38:38Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. What if you jumped in the gi jujitsu? You would have automatic advantage, advantage with the, with your hands.

• 2:38:43Speaker 01

  No, but I'm, I'm pretty, I don't wanna hurt my fingers.

• 2:38:45Jocko Willink?

  You wouldn't do it.

• 2:38:46Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. They twist them all up. Yeah, that's true.

• 2:38:48Speaker 01

  Even like, even if I go to like a massage parlor, I'm always like, don't touch my hands. You know, when people are like, oh, I'm gonna crack your knuckles. I'm like, no. Cause like, at any given time, you know, I always have one finger that hurts a little bit in some way. And you're always like, kinda like taking care of a few things. I'm like, no, nobody messes with my hands.

• 2:39:02Jocko Willink?

  Do you ice your hands or anything like that? Do you do any kind of protocol on them?

• 2:39:05Speaker 01

  No, I get like body work once a week and stuff like that, but no like hand stuff.

• 2:39:09Speaker 02

  That's crazy. Like a guitar player, right? Where it's like, it's like so critical.

• 2:39:13Speaker 01

  I don't like to get my hands wet, actually, because you don't want to get your skin soft. You know what I mean? Like, if you get all pruney, like, if you're in a hot tub, I always hot tub with my hands out of the hot tub. Which I know sounds totally stupid, but that's actually pretty common for climbers, because it makes your skin so soft. And like, you can't, you can't grab the edge of a knife with soft skin.

• 2:39:29Jocko Willink?

  I have a weird, I have a weird, like, similar phobia of, like, lotion.

• 2:39:33Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, no, I'm a hard now. Yeah, and with our daughter, my wife has to apply all, like, creams and lotions and things. I'm like, I do not touch any of that.

• 2:39:40Jocko Willink?

  I'm a hundred percent with you.

• 2:39:42Speaker 01

  Like, I'll change diapers, I'll do all the things, I'm just not doing the lotions, like, you know? Like, when my wife's out of town, I'm just like, well, bad news, she's not getting any of the things you want on her until you get back.

• 2:39:52Jocko Willink?

  That's the other weird thing you're to fight about kids, like, the first kid, you're like, boiling the, boiling the freaking bottles and making sure that the caps have been, by the, like, I got four kids. By the fourth kid, it was like, I think it'll live, like, it's just like eating mud.

• 2:40:08Speaker 01

  By the fourth one, you're like, if the first one doesn't feed him, I guess he'll just be hungry.

• 2:40:12Jocko Willink?

  Exactly.

• 2:40:12Speaker 01

  I'm tired.

• 2:40:14Jocko Willink?

  That's the way it goes down, man. Uh, awesome, man. Well, hey, thanks for joining us, man. After, after watching you and following you and seeing you for so many years, uh, it's, it's really awesome to sit down here and talk to you, and thanks for inspiring so many people and sharing your experiences, your lessons learned, and thanks for what you're doing every day to help people around the world and make the world a better place, man. Appreciate it.

• 2:40:35Speaker 01

  Uh, thank you. Yeah, I appreciate it.

• 2:40:38Jocko Willink?

  And with that, Alex Honnold has left the building. After another, what's it been, hour and a half of talking? Hour? We should have just kept, I don't know, you just, little other topics come up and you just carry on with,

• 2:40:54Jocko Willink?

  trying to learn and trying to understand, and he's asking questions about stuff, and I think maybe he felt like he didn't want to interview me when we were, when we were actually on the podcast. So, I mean, uh, but, man, very, very cool. And, you know, man, really, just like the, it's not too often you get to meet someone that's at the pinnacle of their world, you know? They're at the pinnacle of their world, doing things that...

• 2:41:24Jocko Willink?

  No one's done before. By the way, no one's done since. You don't see people just rogering up to just go jump on that gig again. And just super nice, super humble, super good dude, man. Awesome.

• 2:41:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that it was or one thing that stood out that was interesting after hearing it and then thinking about it more. Was you know how he was talking about, hey, I don't, I don't want to get, he's like, I'd rather stare death in the face and not get hurt every day, you know? Rather, you know, that's better. I remember thinking, dang, I think I'm literally the exact opposite. I'd rather get like sprained fingers and you know, this and that and not have to stare death in the face every single, you know? Um, but at the same time, what that illustrates is like, okay, this guy obviously like thinks and looks at things like in a way different way than maybe me or at the very least me, but I, I think most people are like that. I'd rather get bumps and bruises than have to look at death like life or death like that.

• 2:42:24Speaker 02

  But it kind of offers like, okay, this is a different way of looking, looking at things. If I look at, if since I don't look at it like he looks at it, what am I missing? In, I don't know, life or whatever, like what am I missing here? And then so when you listen up, you can kind of find out things that you never would have really thought about, ways to look at stuff.

• 2:42:42Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it is interesting too. Like when we got to, we were just downstairs and we were all looking at our hands, looking at each other's hands and like, his hands are mute, are mutated.

• 2:42:51Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:42:52Jocko Willink?

  Like he kind of denied it in here a little bit, but then down there, your tendons grow, right? He's been doing this since he was 10 years old, thousands and thousands and thousands of hours of pressure. So his hands are definitely muted. I wanted to like, like, uh, give him things to squeeze, like give him like tests, you know what I mean?

• 2:43:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:43:16Jocko Willink?

  Right?

• 2:43:16Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 2:43:17Jocko Willink?

  Want to give him like, like, hey, here's a grip strength test thing. I want to do that. I want to try this. I want to see how long. So I kind of wanted to see what that was all about.

• 2:43:25Speaker 02

  I was gonna be like, hey, cause you know, when you, you know, when he first came up, I was like, hey, good to meet you. I shook my hand. He didn't like squeeze my hand. He didn't do nothing. It was normal. And then it wasn't until he was talking, I was like. Freaking, you know how you can tell, like I said, and I kind of mentioned it where it's like, okay, jujitsu guy, this guy's been into jujitsu, he's been in all the hard battles, you're gonna see on his body, you're gonna see remnants of those battles, his ears, his hands, his face a lot of the time. Um, and him, right, he's in the same exact boat. So it's like, okay, but where's his, where were those, where are those battles? Where is he wearing them? And then you look at his hand, and it's actually not really his whole hand, it's just his fingers. When you look at it like this part of his hand, like look at Dean Lister's hand. It's his whole hand. It's like a freaking abnormally huge, like two mitts, right?

• 2:44:08Speaker 02

  Him, Alex's hand is like normal, but his fingers are all like, to me, they look like big muscles on his fingers.

• 2:44:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:44:15Speaker 02

  But, and it makes sense too, where you're just holding, cause like, consider this. So when I got, when I got real more into lifting weights, right? And I have a twin brother, genetically, um, identical.

• 2:44:26Speaker 02

  And I got into lifting for like years after, you know, like after college and stuff like that. And then I remember, and he kind of stopped a little bit. And I remember, this was after years, maybe five, six, seven years. I remember like, we made a fist, and he made a fist next to mine, and his fist was like way smaller than mine, his whole fist. But I'm like, oh, this is just from just lifting, you know? So it like happens, now Alex Honnold does the same exact thing, it's just his fingers though.

• 2:44:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:44:49Speaker 02

  So they're like all huge.

• 2:44:51Jocko Willink?

  Starting at 10 years old.

• 2:44:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, yep, very impressive.

• 2:44:55Jocko Willink?

  You know, uh, I was getting neck surgery, and the doctor, you have to go through the doctor, he's gotta tell you the risks. And he's like, hey, you know, you could get paralyzed, you could get killed, you could, whatever, right? Tell me all these things. And I go, doc, well, I mean, what are the chances? What are you talking about? Like how many, I said, how many sides are on this dice? Like 10,000?

• 2:45:16Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 2:45:17Jocko Willink?

  And he goes, like 200. And I was like, hmm, I, I wish I would have asked that to Alex. Like, when you're doing the, the boulder problem.

• 2:45:31Jocko Willink?

  At 1,800 feet, like obviously there's mistakes that could happen. Like, how many times would you have to do that? How many sides are on the dice where you like go to kick your foot across? And it catches on your pant leg for a half second and that's it? You know, whatever the case may be. So, and yeah, man. The, the margin of error, like how big is that box? You know, when you read the book, definitely read the book. He talks about that, like about how different situations.

• 2:46:11Jocko Willink?

  His mindset is like, yeah, the margin of, sure, it's a catastrophic result. But the margin of error, like you can, he could make a lot of mistakes before something goes wrong. But also it's hard to translate. When you put your shoe, your rock climbing shoe on the rock.

• 2:46:31Jocko Willink?

  Like, like I said, I'm beyond, I'm below a novice in rock climbing. I've like done it and had fun, whatever. But I, it never feel, it never felt like secure to me. Like I can't imagine being 500 feet with my foot on a ripple. And that's got all my body weight.

• 2:46:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:46:51Jocko Willink?

  That, yeah, it's, it also shows you, and we did talk about this a little bit, but like the amount of technique that is involved is, it's just like every sport, man. It's like every sport is so reliant upon technique. And if you don't have technique, well, not every sport, but there's so much technique to most sports. And some, some, like we talked about, some of them are real obvious that there's technique. Some of them, you don't see the technique. Boxing, you don't, you look, if you know boxing, you know how much technique is involved. If you don't know boxing, it just looks like you're slugging it out with another human. Then you go get in a ring with somebody that knows how to box, dude, you're getting worked.

• 2:47:30Speaker 02

  Worked.

• 2:47:30Jocko Willink?

  Rock climbing, like I said, I, I thought, man, I can do freaking 200 pull ups in a workout. This would be no problem. Free, I was pathetic when I started rock climbing, pathetic. It was it was weird and actually we were just talking downstairs and we're talking to that big dude who rock climbs Grant yeah and Grant's like yeah you know it's I get a big pump in my arms and Alex is like well look you've got the same basic sized fingers as me you have to hold 200 and whatever pounds and I only have to hold 162 pounds imagine you and I do a a deadlift contest and I have to deadlift 135 and you have to

• 2:48:12Jocko Willink?

  deadlift freaking 315 for reps who's gonna win well I'm gonna win I only have to death 135 it's like of course so man so much stuff going on uh very cool to see what the human being is capable of the the mindset it was interesting too he said his advantage when he said psych I thought he was gonna say psychological no he's like psych like fired up he's like the psych cuz I wanna climb I wanna do it all the time I wanna try hard problems I wanna cut figure them out that is his biggest advantage how glorious is that my biggest advantage is I'm just freaking really into this yeah super psyched about

• 2:48:53Jocko Willink?

  this so very cool the human being capable of a lot of things let's see what we're capable of let's push the envelope a little bit death reset how's the death reset going for you

• 2:49:07Speaker 02

  well good I'm on the path that's what you mean look am I doing the actual death reset well actually I am actually I should write anything I gotta write stuff down right the boxes yeah I don't have that thing but if I when I go through the list of stuff I gotta do I've been doing that yes yeah get up early you know I've been getting up early cuz you text me I'll text you right back right there in the morning boom

• 2:49:28Jocko Willink?

  you like that don't you

• 2:49:29Speaker 02

  yeah okay yeah um but anyway it's going well thank you for for asking we would we I did a little workout with K dog the other day got it on film

• 2:49:38Jocko Willink?

  nice have you done any of uh Jason Klepper's workouts yet no but good little metcons bro throw them in there I know throw them in there

• 2:49:46Speaker 02

  yeah I I want to so every time I do mine like you know how like so I'll do rounds I told you what I do and I do rounds and I write it on on the wall with chalk you know like each round or whatever so I'll take a picture of the chalk rounds and I'll send it to Jason I'll be like full credit today six rounds full credit and he'd be like bro get on that dog I'll give you this and that and I'm like cool cool and but I never got around to it I will though But yes, I will. I hear good things.

• 2:50:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the Train Hard app, check that out. Jason Klebo, they're they're good freaking workouts. And they're not, you know what's cool about them? They're actually really good for Deaf Reset because they're like complimentary to whatever you're doing. They're like, oh, for thirteen minutes, whatever, nine minutes, like you're gonna do something, you're gonna get a good workout. Uh, one of my Deaf Reset things is a hundred burpees a day.

• 2:50:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:50:30Jocko Willink?

  And, yeah, let's just say

• 2:50:35Jocko Willink?

  is not fun every day.

• 2:50:37Speaker 02

  It's full credit. Uh, that's like a, like, that's such a good benchmark that, and even the way you structured is actually really good. When you're like, hey, get a hundred burpees or what's the two?

• 2:50:46Jocko Willink?

  It's ten minutes of burpees or one hundred.

• 2:50:49Speaker 02

  Whichever one, right?

• 2:50:50Jocko Willink?

  Which everyone comes from.

• 2:50:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, exactly right.

• 2:50:51Jocko Willink?

  Well, we're all, we all got it going on. Um, Chris Pratt's been getting, getting his Deaf Reset on, which is cool, getting after it. But so many people stepping up, making changes, doing the right thing, eating clean fuel, just awesome. The Deaf Reset dot com, check it out. Uh, Jocko Fuel, you know, we got what you need. Here's a,

• 2:51:15Jocko Willink?

  I got greens, creatine, and throw a hydrate in there. This is like a tasty, tasty, tasty little treat. That that gets you the triple threat.

• 2:51:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:51:27Jocko Willink?

  The triple production. Have you done that before?

• 2:51:30Speaker 02

  Not with the greens, but my normal daily, non-negotiable daily, every single morning is the creatine with the, with the hydrate.

• 2:51:36Jocko Willink?

  With hydrate?

• 2:51:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:51:38Jocko Willink?

  Greens too. I'm just saying, if you want to give that a crack, you look, bro. Not, I don't like, I'm not, I'm not wanting to eat no broccoli, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:51:47Speaker 02

  I understand.

• 2:51:48Jocko Willink?

  So get the greens in. Anyways, Jocko Fuel dot com, check it out. Molk, we got joint warfare. We got, we got what you need to fuel your system.

• 2:51:56Speaker 02

  There's new coffee malt, by the way, never mentioned that. Are you into that? Cause you never were into coffee.

• 2:52:01Jocko Willink?

  So coffee's not my jam.

• 2:52:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:52:03Jocko Willink?

  As we like to say.

• 2:52:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:52:05Jocko Willink?

  That being said, I taste tested it because I'm putting it out there, so I'm at least gonna see what it tastes like. And it tastes freaking good. Good.

• 2:52:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, so my daughter, she's 10, by the way, she was like, um, she was like, you didn't tell me you got new coffee milk and she had been drinking them. I was like, there's caffeine in that thing.

• 2:52:21Jocko Willink?

  95 milligrams of caffeine.

• 2:52:23Speaker 02

  That's still caffeine, and you know, I'm not giving my 10 year old caffeine yet, you know, but she's just pounding them. Apparently, she's like, oh, you didn't, because she likes coffee, the flavor of coffee. She like drinks decaf coffee. Not all the time, but I'm like, all right, sister, but she approves of the, even though she can't do it anymore. I kind of banned her and she's unhappy about that, but.

• 2:52:41Jocko Willink?

  Hey, honestly, people, Leif, like anyone that's into coffee, Jamie, like people just freaking love. They love that new milk, the milk coffee. What is it? Sweet cream coffee. That's what it is. It tastes good. It's got 95 milligrams caffeine, 30 grams protein. This is basically the best freaking breakfast a human can have. Am I wrong?

• 2:53:03Speaker 02

  You're not wrong, because, yeah, because that's, it's a thing, like people will be like, yeah, I'm on this freaking, I'm on the path. I'm doing all this stuff. I start my morning with coffee, but they get the one from wherever with all the creamy latte, venti, like all the stuff, the caramel, macchiato, or whatever it's called. And it's, bro, it jams your whole shit up. It's like 500 calories on that one. So, yeah, and so you're off the path, just right in the, like, as you start your day, you start your day off the path, right there. See what I'm saying?

• 2:53:30Jocko Willink?

  No reason for this.

• 2:53:31Speaker 02

  No reason for that anymore.

• 2:53:33Jocko Willink?

  So, there you go. Check out the new coffee. If you like coffee, you'll love this. You'll love it. Uh, you can get this stuff at Wawa, at the Vitamin Shoppe, GNC, Military Commissaries, Afees, Hanafur, Dash Stores in Maryland, Wake Fern, Shopper, HEB Down in Tejas. Thank you, my people in Tejas, for getting after that HEB, crushing. Same thing with Meyer up in the Midwest, crushing. Thank you, Harris Teeter, Lifetime Fitness, Shields, and Small Gims. If you want to sell, if you are at a gym, or you go to a gym, or you own a gym, email [email protected]. Get Jocko Fuel to your people.

• 2:54:12Jocko Willink?

  That's what we're doing. OriginUSA.com, by the way, if you need American made stuff, which you do. If you want to support America, if you want to support American communities, if you want to support freedom in the world, go to OriginUSA.com. And get some goods. By the way, we got some good stuff that actually it might not be on the website yet, but it's like it's there. Uh, we got like a jacket. You know, the kind of uh, little puffy jacket that everybody wears around, you know, around the world.

• 2:54:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure.

• 2:54:46Jocko Willink?

  Like it's just the standard wear like, hey, California, New York, Arkansas, it doesn't matter where I go, people are wearing this type of jacket. We have one now. It's freaking perfect. It's so good to go. Um, yeah. So we got that. We made a vest with it too.

• 2:55:04Speaker 02

  Yeah. Wait, is there, does that style have like a name?

• 2:55:08Jocko Willink?

  I, I, the closest I'd say is maybe people call it like a puffy jacket.

• 2:55:11Speaker 02

  Just puffy jacket.

• 2:55:12Jocko Willink?

  But it's the typical, the big outdoors companies make them.

• 2:55:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:55:17Jocko Willink?

  And everybody wears them.

• 2:55:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. I dig it.

• 2:55:21Jocko Willink?

  So if you want one that's not made by slave labor, if you want one that doesn't ruin the environment by dumping a bunch of chemicals into the ocean. If you want to support freedom for human beings in the world, go to originusa.com, check it out. Jeans, by the way.

• 2:55:39Jocko Willink?

  Jeans. Look, how many pairs of jeans you have?

• 2:55:43Speaker 02

  Me?

• 2:55:44Jocko Willink?

  No, people.

• 2:55:45Speaker 02

  People in the world?

• 2:55:49Jocko Willink?

  Two pairs?

• 2:55:49Speaker 02

  It's a lot. Well, I don't want everybody. Shoot. I don't know. I have, uh, I don't know. Eight, maybe.

• 2:55:55Jocko Willink?

  You got eight pairs of jeans, right?

• 2:55:57Speaker 02

  All, yeah, origin jeans.

• 2:55:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:55:59Speaker 02

  All in the rotation.

• 2:56:00Jocko Willink?

  What is that a lot?

• 2:56:01Speaker 02

  There's a lot.

• 2:56:02Jocko Willink?

  That's a lot.

• 2:56:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, bro. Yeah.

• 2:56:04Jocko Willink?

  But okay. Hey, look, you might not need eight pairs of jeans like I go, Charles has it going on in this world.

• 2:56:10Speaker 02

  Hey, I don't guy. Alright, so we're all good.

• 2:56:13Jocko Willink?

  Hey, that's what we're doing. Making stuff in America. Check it out. Hunt gear, training gear, t-shirts, boots. Just go to originusa.com. Check it out. Get some freedom.

• 2:56:22Speaker 02

  It's true. Also, Jocko's store. It's called Jocko's store. So discipline equals freedom. We're representing on this path whether you're on the death reset or not, even though you are, you want to represent on the path, want to wear your shirt or hat or hoodie. Or shorts, by the way, we've got shorts and we are, uh, we have socks coming. Come on, bro. A lot of, some of us choose to represent on various levels. You see what I'm saying? And socks, that's just one level.

• 2:56:46Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 2:56:47Speaker 02

  And available, some soap on there, some good stuff on there.

• 2:56:50Jocko Willink?

  Check.

• 2:56:50Speaker 02

  JacoStore.com. There's also the Shirt Locker, which is like, hey, if you want a new design every month, you can, you sign up for the subscription, you get a cool new design every month. It's relevant. There's layers on these designs. People seem to like it. Check it out. It's called the Shirt Locker.

• 2:57:05Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, check out also, if you need some steak, which you do.

• 2:57:08Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:57:09Jocko Willink?

  You do need steak. Check out ColoradoCraftBeef.com and also check out PrimalBeef.com. This is the best steak you're gonna get out there.

• 2:57:20Jocko Willink?

  And you know you need steak. Boy, is there anything better than a good steak?

• 2:57:23Speaker 02

  It's, it's very hard to find something.

• 2:57:24Jocko Willink?

  It's very hard to find something better than a good steak. And if you want to get the best steak, go to PrimalBeef.com, go to ColoradoCraftBeef.com. Get some steak. Let's go. Also subscribe to the podcast. Also subscribe to Jocko Underground. jockounderground.com. We just got done recording one of those, so check that out. We answer your questions. We talk about some adjacent topics. That's what we're doing over there. We got a YouTube channel. Subscribe. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Subscribe.

• 2:57:55Jocko Willink?

  Click, what is it? Click, like, subscribe?

• 2:57:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, like, share.

• 2:58:00Jocko Willink?

  Like, share, subscribe. Yeah, all that stuff. Hey, check out our YouTube channel. We put stuff on there. Origin USA, check theirs out. Jocko Fuel, check theirs out. Echelon Front, check theirs out. Psychological Warfare, FlipsideCanvas.com. Dakota Myers got cool stuff for you to hang on your wall. Books, obviously covered a book today, All Alone on the Wall by Alex Honnold with David Roberts.

• 2:58:23Jocko Willink?

  Freaking good book. Check it out. The new version has the entire

• 2:58:30Jocko Willink?

  ascent of El Cap in there. So it's just, it's just a crazy, awesome book to read. Also, I've written a bunch of books about leadership. I've written a bunch of kids' books too. Way the Warrior Kid, one, two, three, four, five. Kids' books. Also, Mike and the Dragons. Also, Extreme Ownership, Dichotomy of Leadership. Have Echelon Front. It's a leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. Go to echelonfront.com for details. We'll do something live right now for you. Jack Daniel, you know, Jocko Daniel?

• 2:59:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know.

• 2:59:04Jocko Willink?

  Jack Daniel Hill, he just sent me a, he just sent me an email. I'm going to read it to you. It says, "Impact. We're Echelon Front, a leadership consultancy. We teach leadership lessons learned on the front echelon of combat, thus the name. These leadership lessons were often written in blood. Our mission is to pass on those lessons so that they do not have to be rewritten in more blood." End quote. "When I tell that to clients, I emphasize that I know that sounds extreme. However, while what they do in their human endeavor may not be life or death, what their people are doing 40 plus hours a week isn't just a job, it's their life.

• 2:59:46Jocko Willink?

  Furthermore, in some instances, your ability to implement some of the lessons we teach could be the difference between life and death." And then Jack forwarded a real world example. And I'm not going to go into it just for the privacy of the client, but a client was in a real world life and death situation. They resorted to the principles that we teach at Echelon Front and got the problem solved and life was saved. So that's what we do. Echelonfront.com. If you want to know about our leadership consultancy, you can find out about it there. We also have an online line training platform.

• 3:00:27Jocko Willink?

  These leadership lessons that we teach can keep you alive, as I just mentioned, in critical moments, can keep your family alive, can keep your friends alive. Hopefully you don't need it for that. Hopefully you can just use it to increase your profit, take care of your people, build your relationships, do better at work.

• 3:00:45Jocko Willink?

  Go to extremeownership.com for our online training. Also, if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help out their families, Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to Americas Mighty Warriors.org. Don't forget about Heroes and Horses.org where Micah Fink is taking our troops into the wilderness. So they can find themselves again, and also Jimmy Mays Organization Beyond The Brotherhood.org. If you want to connect with Alex, he's on the interwebs. Alex Honnold.com. He's on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @AlexHonnold.

• 3:01:30Jocko Willink?

  And I'm on there as well. I'm at Jocko Willink. Echo is at Echo Charles. Just watch out for the algorithm. Just be careful of it. It doesn't come with a warning sign, by the way. When you log into social media, it doesn't say, "Warning: This could waste your entire freaking day." It should say that, but it doesn't. It just shows you something that you really want to see. That's what it does. It doesn't say, "Warning," it just says, "Hey, this is something you really want to see." And if you move your finger from the bottom of the screen to the top of the screen, it's going to show you something else you really want to see. And if you do that over and over again, there goes three hours of time. Don't let that happen.

• 3:02:06Jocko Willink?

  Thanks once again to Alex Honnold for joining us. Awesome to meet you, man. Very cool. And also thanks to the men and women in the military around the world right now. The world is a volatile place right now, and you are standing ready to protect us. Also, thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, and our park rangers. Hadn't talked about them. I kind of, I include them when I say all first responders. When I say law enforcement, yeah, I'm talking about you all, park rangers. But I'm also thinking about right now, talking to Alex, the park rangers. I've been going to the state parks and national parks with my family for a long, long time.

• 3:02:52Jocko Willink?

  And have been helped out in minor ways, right? Maybe directions, maybe people got stung by stingrays at some state beaches and whatnot.

• 3:03:00Speaker 02

  Sure, it happens.

• 3:03:01Jocko Willink?

  You know what I'm saying? Maybe we could use a little extra water out on a hike. So we get, we get some, we've got some help along the way. So thanks to all of you and all other first responders for what you do. You keep us safe here. We are thankful for that. And everyone else out there, I got one more quote from Alex Honnold. I think it's applicable to all of us. He said, "My comfort zone is like a little bubble around me, and I've pushed it in different directions and made it bigger and bigger until these objectives that seem totally crazy eventually fall within the realm of the possible."

• 3:03:39Jocko Willink?

  And look, you don't need to risk your life. You don't have to free solo, LCAP, or half dome, but I think it's safe to say that we can all push a little further out of our comfort zone. Take some risks. Get uncomfortable, push the envelope, and basically get up every day and to some extent, please, go and get after it. And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko out.