#160: Assessing Risk and Living Without a Rope – Lessons from Alex Honnold

Alex Honnold (@alexhonnold https://twitter.com/AlexHonnold, Facebook: /alexhonnold https://www.facebook.com/alexhonnold) is a professional adventure rock climber whose audacious free-solo (no ropes, no partner) ascents of America's biggest cliffs have made him one of the most recognized and followed climbers in the world. Honnold is distinguished for his uncanny ability to control his fear while scaling cliffs of dizzying heights without a rope to protect him if he falls. His most celebrated achievements include the first and only free-solos of the Moonlight Buttress (5.12d, 1,200 feet) in Zion National Park, Utah, and the Northwest Face (5.12a) of Half Dome (2,200 feet), Yosemite, California. In 2012, he achieved Yosemite's first "Triple Solo": climbing, in succession, the National Park's three largest faces—Mt. Watkins, Half Dome and El Capitan—alone, and in under 24 hours. He is also the founder of the Honnold Foundation http://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. Enjoy! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. This podcast is brought to you by 99Designs http://99designs.com/tim, the world's largest marketplace of graphic designers. I have used them for years to create some amazing designs. When your business needs a logo, website design, business card, or anything you can imagine, check out 99Designs. I used them to rapid prototype the cover http://99designs.com/tim for The 4-Hour Body, and I've also had them help with display advertising and illustrations. If you want a more personalized approach, I recommend their 1-on-1 service http://99designs.com/tim. You get original designs from designers around the world. The best part? You provide your feedback, and then you end up with a product that you're happy with or your money back. Click this link http://www.99designs.com/tim and get a free $99 upgrade. Give it a test run. This episode is also brought to you by Headspace https://www.headspace.com/tim, the world's most popular meditation app (more than 4,000,000 users). It's used in more than 150 countries, and many of my closest friends swear by it. Try Headspace's free Take10 program https://www.headspace.com/tim — 10 minutes of guided meditation a day for 10 days. It's like a warm bath for your mind. Meditation doesn't need to be complicated or expensive, and it's had a huge impact on my life. Try Headspace for free https://www.headspace.com/tim for a few days and see what I mean.

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

• 0:01Tim Ferriss?

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start to shake.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Can I answer your personal question?

• 0:08Speaker 02

  No, it would seem inappropriate to me.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 0:23Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by 99designs. When your business needs a logo, website, business card, thumbnail, or any other design, I recommend checking out 99designs. I use them myself. I've used them for many years. I use them to create book cover prototypes for The Four Hour Body, which went on to become a number one New York Times bestseller. I've also used them for banner ads, illustrations, and much more. With 99designs, you get a variety of original designs from designers around the world, give your feedback, and then pick your favorite. Your happiness is guaranteed. So check out some of my competitions in designs and some of your competitions in designs from fellow Tim Ferriss Show listeners at 99designs.com/tim. And right now, you can get a free $99 upgrade on your first

• 1:06Tim Ferriss?

  design. So check it out, 99designs.com/tim.

• 1:13Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Headspace. More than 80% of the people I have interviewed, world-class performers across the military, entertainment, sports, and beyond, all have some type of meditative practice. I tried for years and years and failed miserably. The key is making it simple, and you can dramatically improve your life in just 10 minutes a day, and technology can help you. This change comes through guided meditation, and Headspace is by far the most popular app for this purpose. More than 4 million users. It's meditation made simple. So what I recommend is that you take this practice, meditation, which is rooted in thousands of years of tradition, supported by thousands of scientific

• 1:55Tim Ferriss?

  studies, and try it for 10 minutes a day for 10 days. That's all you need to do. You could also check out the founder, Andy Puddicombe's TED Talk, which has more than 5.5 million views. His last name is P U D D I C O M B. E if you want to look that up. But otherwise, download the free Headspace app, I have it on my phone, and begin their Take 10 program. For 10 days of guided meditation, completely free, 10 minutes a day, that's all it takes. You should give it a shot. Headspace.com/Tim. Just go to Headspace.com/Tim. Hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where each

• 2:35Tim Ferriss?

  episode it is my job to deconstruct a world-class performer, to tease out the habits, routines, tips, favorite books, et cetera, that you can use, whether that is someone like Jamie Foxx, or a chess prodigy, or a special operations commander, and everybody in between. This episode, we have Alex Honnold. I've wanted to interview Alex for a very, very long time. You can find him on Facebook.com/AlexHonnold, H-O-N-N-O-L-D. He is a professional adventure rock climber who's free solo, that means no ropes, no partner ascents, of America's biggest cliffs have made him one of the most recognized and followed climbers in the world. If you want to sweat profusely from your palms, you can watch videos of Alex, and

• 3:18Tim Ferriss?

  I'll put them in the show notes at 4hourworkweek.com/podcast. Honnold is distinguished for his uncanny ability to control fear while scaling cliffs of dizzying heights without a rope to protect him. And we really dig into that, how he looks at risk fear, addresses both in training and with these first ascent attempts and so on. His most celebrated achievements include the first and only free solos of the Moonlight Buttris, that's a 512D, which means "super fucking hard," that's 1,200 feet, in Zion National Park in Utah, and the Northwest Face, that's a 512A of Half Dome, 2,200 feet, and that is in Yosemite in California, right in my backyard, beautiful spot.

• 4:01Tim Ferriss?

  In 2012, he achieved Yosemite's first triple solo climbing, that means in succession, the national park's three largest faces, Mount Watkins, Half Dome, and El Capitan, alone, and all in under 24 hours. He is the founder of the Honnold Foundation, an environmental nonprofit, and to this day, and perhaps one of the Most fascinating aspects of Alex is he maintains a very, very minimalist dirtbag climber existence. And that's not meant as a slight, that is meant as a compliment. Living out of his van, and I think he's done that for the last 10 years or so, despite the fact that he has big sponsors and traveling the world in search of the next great vertical adventure. So we dig into all sorts of things.

• 4:41Tim Ferriss?

  And without further ado, I will let you hear the wide ranging conversation that I had with Alex Honnold.

• 4:51Tim Ferriss?

  Alex, welcome to the show.

• 4:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, thanks. Thanks for having me.

• 4:55Tim Ferriss?

  I have wanted to interview you ever since I first saw footage of you climbing. Because I trained long ago at Mission Cliffs here in San Francisco. And did top roping, never have climbed outside except for Castle Rock. I don't know if you know.

• 5:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, by Santa Cruz.

• 5:12Tim Ferriss?

  Exactly.

• 5:13Speaker 03

  That's where I started as a kid, kinda.

• 5:14Tim Ferriss?

  Really?

• 5:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's one of my local areas.

• 5:16Tim Ferriss?

  So you grew up in Sacramento or am I making that up?

• 5:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, I grew up in Sacramento.

• 5:20Tim Ferriss?

  And what was your upbringing like? I mean, if you had to describe your childhood, how would you take a stab at it?

• 5:25Speaker 03

  Uh, just, just normal suburban life, you know, Sacramento, good times.

• 5:29Tim Ferriss?

  Good times, Sac Town. I haven't spent a lot of time there. I mean, Mark Bell, who's a buddy, has a gym called Super Training Gym up there. He's, I think, one of the top 10 in his weight class of all time. But that is the extent of my exposure to Sacramento, is just hanging out with him and feeling really weak. Which probably would have been the experience if I'd gone climbing with you even in the early days. What did your parents do?

• 5:49Speaker 03

  Uh, my parents are both teachers or professors.

• 5:52Tim Ferriss?

  What did they teach?

• 5:53Speaker 03

  Um, they taught language, like English as a second language and French.

• 5:57Tim Ferriss?

  Were, were your parents born in the US or were they elsewhere?

• 6:01Speaker 03

  Um, yeah, they were both born in the US though. Mom was born to Polish immigrants, so I mean, she's born in the US and she's American. And her parents were actually born here too, but they were like 100% Polish, like fresh off the boat style.

• 6:12Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, how did you start climbing? I know it's probably a story that you've told a million times, but how did that begin?

• 6:17Speaker 03

  Um, my parents just read about a gym opening in Sacramento and they thought I'd like it. And so they took me to a climbing gym. I mean, just like you were saying in Mission Cliffs, like there was a comparable gym in, in, uh, Sacramento. And so I went in there when I was maybe 11 and then just kept going all the time.

• 6:32Tim Ferriss?

  What was, what was the first day like? Can you describe?

• 6:34Speaker 03

  I like, I honestly have no recollection. I was like an 11 year old and then I probably went to the gym, you know, three to five times a week from 11 to 18. So it's like, it all kind of blurs into like one epic gym session.

• 6:45Tim Ferriss?

  Did you know in the early days of going to that gym that you had a predisposition to it?

• 6:51Speaker 03

  Um, no, not particularly. I mean, I loved climbing and I, I loved going in there and, and just playing all the time and climbing as much as I could. But I was never like gifted in the way that a lot of people are gifted rock climbers. And, you know, I wasn't like winning the competitions or anything. I did some comps on and off throughout my teenage years and, uh, I never won, you know? I was never, I was never super strong, but I just like loved climbing all the time.

• 7:13Tim Ferriss?

  Why do you think you didn't win? I mean, what?

• 7:16Speaker 03

  Well, cause I wasn't very strong, you know?

• 7:18Tim Ferriss?

  Strong, no, but strong meaning in what capacity? Like I, the, I like to dig into the details with this.

• 7:22Speaker 03

  So for example, I mean, this is kind of getting into the nitty gritty, but so like.

• 7:25Tim Ferriss?

  That's what this is about.

• 7:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. Okay. Here we go. So Chris Sharma is like basically the, then the best climber in the world for the last 20 years. And he was like my hero when I was a kid or, you know, he was one of the people I watched videos of. And I was like, that guy's the man. So he's from Santa Cruz. He started climbing when he was 14 and when he was 15, he put up a route called Necessary Evil and it's outside of Las Vegas. And it was like the first 14th seat in the country. So it's, it was the hardest route in America and he did it after one year of climbing as a 15 year old. I mean, that's like a prodigy. I mean, he was like freakishly strong from the get go. He could just always pull on really small edges. He had freakishly strong fingers. He could do one arm pull ups off like anything. And you're like, that guy's gifted. Um, I was not that guy, you know? Actually this season I tried to do that route, Necessary Evil, um, this winter and I totally failed on it. It's like, I still couldn't do it.

• 8:10Speaker 03

  And I was like, God damn, I've been climbing for 20 years and I like tried pretty hard, you know? And I still just can't climb as well as he did after one year. Well, I still can't climb as hard, like I'm just not as strong as he was after one year. I mean, there are plenty of things that I'm probably better at than he is. You know, it's all relative technique and everything.

• 8:25Tim Ferriss?

  What would, what would some of those things be that you're better at?

• 8:29Speaker 03

  Well,

• 8:29Tim Ferriss?

  Not necessarily, I mean, not to necessarily compare you to him, but that you're very good at.

• 8:33Speaker 03

  He's never done any alpine climbing. He's never really done any big walling. He's probably not super efficient logistically and, um, you know, but he's very, very strong. And I'm just not strong like that, but you know, but I do other types of climbing.

• 8:44Tim Ferriss?

  For those people who are not familiar with the world of climbing, could you describe some of the different types, so the alpine, big wall?

• 8:51Speaker 03

  Yeah. So climbing is, is pretty complicated because it ranges from say indoor bouldering, which is probably the simplest thing you can possibly do, um, to alpine climbing, you know, like climbing in the Himalaya, climbing huge walls around the world. And so that involves like ice and mixed climbing where you're using ice tools and crampons and that kind of gear. And then, you know, there's big wall climbing, which is basically climbing huge vertical rock walls where you're on the wall for multiple days. Um, then there's, I mean, there are just a ton of categories.

• 9:19Tim Ferriss?

  And the, the bouldering, so for people who don't know what that is, that's typically, it's no ropes.

• 9:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's unrobed. Um, it's, I mean, an easy way to think of it is practice climbing.

• 9:27Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 9:27Speaker 03

  You know, basically practicing movement. So you're climbing maybe three or four meters, maybe five max, you know, but you're climbing small, small heights that you're comfortable falling off and landing on a pad. And you're basically just doing really hard physical moves. It's actually an easy way to compare it as, um, to the running world between sprinting and, and ultra running or something. Like the spectrum of climbing ranges from short and super intense to super, super long, but obviously low intensity. And I've, I've always been more of the low intensity, long distance type of guy, you know, where some people are just freakishly strong.

• 10:00Tim Ferriss?

  And you were attracted to that because of the, the relative lack of strength? Or was there something else that appealed to you about that?

• 10:06Speaker 03

  Um, I don't know. I mean, I think it might just be one of those things that I sort of naturally gravitated towards the thing that suits me. But I don't know. I mean, I think part of it is just that I've always loved climbing. I like doing a lot of rock climbing. And so I've always been attracted to high volume. I mean, I like to like tick the roots in my guidebook, you know, be like, oh, I climbed this and I climbed that. And so I like to climb a lot of roots. Yeah. So it's just, yeah, I mean, I just, I like climbing a lot.

• 10:29Tim Ferriss?

  That's certainly clear. I, uh, I wonder what, what did you think you were going to be, or what did you fantasize about becoming when you grew up, when you were a kid?

• 10:39Speaker 03

  I mean, as a kid, I thought I was gonna become an engineer or something, you know, I just thought I would have some normal job and um. I mean, when I was growing up, there really wasn't a professional climbing scene, like you couldn't really be a professional climber because the whole climbing industry hadn't really taken off and there weren't so many gyms and it was like a different world. So I never thought that I was gonna be a climber. Uh, I just thought that I'd have some random job.

• 11:01Tim Ferriss?

  You, uh, now I'm going off the internet here, so that's a, that's a risky business, but uh, you ended up at one point at, was it UC Berkeley?

• 11:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:10Tim Ferriss?

  Planning to be an engineer.

• 11:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:12Tim Ferriss?

  What type of engineering?

• 11:13Speaker 03

  Um, I'd applied for civil engineering. I was gonna, yeah.

• 11:16Tim Ferriss?

  Why civil?

• 11:17Speaker 03

  Uh, I mean, basically, one of my uncles was a civil engineer. I was just like, that's cool. And I love, I liked building things and the idea of like building bridges or like big, big projects like that. I mean, it's appealing, you know, the idea of like constructing something cool.

• 11:30Tim Ferriss?

  Do you, did you collect anything as a kid or do you?

• 11:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was way into Legos.

• 11:33Tim Ferriss?

  Legos, okay, so no, this is like the theme, right? So the kind of large structures, large walls. Uh, how long did you collect the Legos for? I mean, do you have any idea? I'm not looking for exact timelines here, but.

• 11:47Speaker 03

  Well, I don't know when I first started getting Legos, but probably when I was really small and then up until being a teenager, basically, I had a ton of Legos.

• 11:53Tim Ferriss?

  Did you have any, any like, uh,

• 11:57Tim Ferriss?

  uh, I'm not, coup de grace is not the right expression here. I'm looking for like your landmark pieces or anything that you remembered. I like, I had friends who built like the Death Star out of Legos and that was like the pinnacle of their Lego career.

• 12:10Speaker 03

  No, I mean, I think I had a few just epic forts and like really cool pirate ships and things and um, no, but I never constructed anything that was like the, the culmination of my Lego, Lego career. I don't know. The thing is, I, I think I took almost as much pleasure in destroying the things afterwards, you know, because you create like this elaborate city and then my sister and I would take like a golf ball or something and just like destroy it and be like, oh, starting over. It's more the process of building it that was so fun.

• 12:37Tim Ferriss?

  And you have, uh, one sibling or do you have more?

• 12:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, I have an older sister.

• 12:41Tim Ferriss?

  Older sister. How, how much older?

• 12:43Speaker 03

  Two years older.

• 12:44Tim Ferriss?

  Do you talk to her much?

• 12:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, we're, yeah, we're good friends.

• 12:47Tim Ferriss?

  Very close.

• 12:48Speaker 03

  Fair amount, yeah.

• 12:48Tim Ferriss?

  What is, what does she do professionally?

• 12:51Speaker 03

  Um, I don't know. It's complicated.

• 12:54Tim Ferriss?

  It's complicated.

• 12:54Speaker 03

  She basically just like makes the world a better place.

• 12:56Tim Ferriss?

  Okay.

• 12:57Speaker 03

  Um, she's, she, uh, she's lived in Portland since she went to college there and she's like vegan, has never owned a car. She's like ultra thirsty and, um, she basically does outdoor participation stuff with kids and, uh, it's kind of like, I don't even, she's basically getting like at risk. It's like a work program for at-risk youth or, so I don't know. It's like a whole thing.

• 13:15Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 13:16Speaker 03

  But over the years, she's, she's also been like a middle school teacher and she's done like, you know, bike programs with kids and all kinds of, you know, wholesome things that make, make the community better.

• 13:26Tim Ferriss?

  If you had to pick a fixed location, well, I mean, we're definitely going to get to the van and everything surrounding, uh, that story, but if you had to pick a place to park up in the U S for say five years, uh, yeah, let's, let's make it a five-year timeline. Where would, where would you pick at this point?

• 13:43Speaker 03

  I don't know. That's a tough, that's tough, but, um, I mean, the obvious choices as a climber would be somewhere like Boulder, Colorado, or say Salt Lake, or Flagstaff, or any of the cities that are sort of known, or Las Vegas, actually, places that are known as climbing hubs where you have great outdoor climbing all around them. And, and I could see living in any of those places if I had to, um, or like say, you know, I got married to somebody that lived there or something crazy. And I'm like, well, I could see, I could see being happy in any of those cities. Um, though honestly, I love Portland too, though there's no real climbing there and it's not a great place to, to live as a climber and the climate's terrible with too much rain. But as far as progressive cities that go, it's like probably my favorite city in the country.

• 14:20Tim Ferriss?

  They have Voodoo Donuts too. Unless you're a big donut guy.

• 14:23Speaker 03

  I'm not, I'm not, no, I've eaten there and I was like, oh, you know, I didn't think it was that great though.

• 14:26Tim Ferriss?

  Not the best.

• 14:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. I was like, I don't know. I was a little underwhelmed.

• 14:29Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Could have been my blood alcohol content at the time, but, uh,

• 14:34Tim Ferriss?

  do you think, uh, so I want to talk about, uh, climbing and the ability to climb full-time. Because you, you touched on, I think, a really important point, which is when you began climbing, the prospect of becoming a professional climber just didn't really exist, right, as a notion.

• 14:51Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, there were a handful of professional climbers when I started, but it was like such a small, there wasn't like a climbing industry. It was really small.

• 14:58Tim Ferriss?

  Exactly.

• 14:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:59Tim Ferriss?

  And, uh,

• 15:01Tim Ferriss?

  You have a reputation for, or you're well-known for, living as, and this is a term I hadn't heard until I watched a documentary that Yves Chouinard was in, Dirtbag. So, living as dirtbag climber. Can you describe that? What does that mean, first of all? And what is your version of that?

• 15:22Speaker 03

  Well, so I mean, I guess that just means somebody who, like a lifestyle climber, like somebody who just lives to climb. So it's like the full-time, on the road, you know, doing whatever it takes to be a climber, I guess. I mean, being a dirtbag isn't, isn't a negative thing in the climbing community. It's just like, oh, that guy's committed to the, the cause. And I'm sure there's the same kind of term for like the surf community or whatever else, you know, people who just like live to go mountain biking or surfing or whatever, you know, taking odd jobs and just like doing their thing just to, to be able to do their sport as much as they can.

• 15:50Tim Ferriss?

  And it seems, I remember years ago, I chatted with Steph Davis, when I was wearing the Four Hour Body. It seems like a very semi-monastic lifestyle. I mean, you're, you're really dedicated. It makes me think of like the marathon monks in Japan. But instead of, you know, running every day, you're climbing, sort of this itinerant lifestyle. Now, you live, do you currently, do you still live in a van?

• 16:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mostly live in my car. But then I'm overseas a lot more now. And then when I'm traveling for work stuff, I get put up in hotels or whatever. But, um, but yeah, I mean, I'm still focused in the van.

• 16:23Tim Ferriss?

  What kind of van?

• 16:25Speaker 03

  Well, I just sold my old van. So I lived in a van for nine years and then I just sold it to one of my cousins because I was just kind of over, I felt like I sort of outgrew it. And so now I have a Dodge Pro Master, which I can stand in, which is a big, big upgrade.

• 16:38Tim Ferriss?

  How tall are you?

• 16:39Speaker 03

  I'm like 5'11".

• 16:41Tim Ferriss?

  What's, so how have you, how have you kidded out this van to be suited to your needs?

• 16:45Speaker 03

  Well, so I actually just left it with a friend of mine who built it out while I was on an expedition in Patagonia this winter. And so he just made it nice. I mean, you know, a super nice bed and like a kitchen and good cabinetry and, you know, a refrigerator. And, um, yeah, I mean, it's basically a really small apartment. It's super nice.

• 17:01Tim Ferriss?

  And, uh,

• 17:04Tim Ferriss?

  The, coming back to the industry, so are there people who criticize the industry of climbing, the sponsor influx? And the reason I bring that up is not because I'm critical, it's because I've seen, for instance, in the UFC and MMA, when in the very early days, it was, it was really unfeasible for people to be professional MMA athletes. And as soon as sponsors came in, and you had that sustainability, the level of athleticism and training and competency just went completely through the roof. Is, is there something similar in climbing? I mean, do you feel, how do you feel about the so-called climbing industry?

• 17:47Speaker 03

  I mean, I think it's, I think it's great. I mean, there is obviously criticism. I mean, you can find stuff online from, you can always find traditionalists and stuff who are like, this isn't the way it was when I grew up, so I don't think it should be this way. Or like, oh, I feel like it's corrupting the art of climbing, or whatever else, you know, the, the having corporate money coming into the climbing world is, is tainting the, the artistic experience. I mean, whatever. I mean, you know, you can find criticism for it. I think it's great. I mean, obviously, since I'm making a living from it, and I'm able to go climbing all the time, you know, I'm very content with the whole situation. But mostly, I just feel like it's sort of a, a natural outgrowth. I mean, climbing gyms are becoming much more popular because people enjoy climbing, you know? And so if people are into it, and, and the industry's making money, then, then power to it.

• 18:29Tim Ferriss?

  Well, it also strikes me as sort of a, not a self-fulfilling prophecy, but a virtuous cycle in so much as, the more people see your exploits, Sharma, people of that caliber, the more they're inspired to try climbing, the better the gyms do, the more climbing you have. Do you not think that's the case?

• 18:47Speaker 03

  Well, that, that might be true a little bit, but um, I honestly think that part of it's just having the facilities. Like, the more good gyms there are in, in urban centers, the more people just wind up trying it with their friends, or whatever. You know, when you have like a nice bouldering gym next to a college campus, like, everybody tries it because it's fun, it's sociable, everybody has a good time. And I feel like that sort of like grows the sport.

• 19:06Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, so the supply helps create the demand?

• 19:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, to some extent. But, I really doubt that any particular climbing film can be responsible for like, growing the whole industry. You know, it has more to do with tons of people like going to gyms and trying it and enjoying it and going more often.

• 19:21Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I guess it uh it depends a lot on a multitude of factors. I mean, with not to belabor the point or the comparison to the MMA world, but like the Ultimate Fighter was kind of the breakthrough for them and then led to a lot of uh Jim's opening.

• 19:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, though climbing has never had anything quite that.

• 19:42Tim Ferriss?

  No, totally.

• 19:42Speaker 03

  Like, I don't follow fighting at all, but I've even heard of Ultimate Fighter and that kind of stuff. And so I don't think climbing has really had that. You know, there's no like big hit reality TV climbing show, you know?

• 19:53Tim Ferriss?

  No.

• 19:53Speaker 03

  Though, actually, there have been pitches for that kind of stuff, though, which are pretty comical.

• 19:59Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I'd love to see the actual, it's aliens meets bouldering.

• 20:05Speaker 03

  No, there was an ultimate solo thing that got like pitched to me once. And I was like, dude, you can't just take random people off the street and like train them how to solo for six weeks and then just like set them off of a big wall. It's like, you know?

• 20:16Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 20:16Speaker 03

  I was like, you may as well just have gladiators fighting lions in the pit. You know, it's like, like, people will literally die on your television show. Like, you don't want people die on TV, like.

• 20:25Tim Ferriss?

  No, no, no, that's exactly what we want.

• 20:27Speaker 03

  Well, I was like, I was like, are you guys kidding? You know, because you have to ensure the show and everything. Like, no one's gonna make this because like half your contestants are gonna die, like, straight up. That's so messed up.

• 20:37Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, we'll have, we'll have some beer sometime and talk about exploits in television. But uh, when, when you are getting ready to climb something that is going to be challenging, I'm not saying uh, like a first ascent or something like that, but really anything that you're expecting to be reasonably challenging, what does your self-talk sound like? What is your, do you have any sort of prep, anything you ritual, ritualistically say to yourself before you get going?

• 21:05Speaker 03

  No, I don't really, I don't self-talk like that. But um, normally if I'm planning on doing something challenging, I spend the time. Sort of visualizing what the experience will feel like and what the individual section. So, I mean, with climbing, there's a, there's a component to it of just memorizing the actual moves. So I'll think through the sequences and make sure that I remember like which foot to move in which order and like how to do everything. And then particularly if it's a free solo or something, if I'm climbing ropeless, then I'll think through what it'll feel like to be in certain positions. Because some kinds of movements are insecure and so they're just like kind of scarier than other types of moves. And so it's important to me to sort of think through how that all feel when I'm up there. So that when I'm doing it, I don't suddenly be like, oh, my God, this is really scary.

• 21:48Speaker 03

  You know, like I know that it's supposed to be scary. I know that's going to be the move. I know what it's going to feel like and I just do it.

• 21:52Tim Ferriss?

  So you rehearse the fear in a sense, or rehearse the sensation, one type of which could be fear.

• 21:58Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I think through, you know, how airy certain positions will feel because sometimes you can be all spread out with like the void below you. And you're just like, wow, this is like quite the, quite the air around me. And so it's good to have like thought about that, basically to think through all potential things beforehand. So that when you're up there, there's no like unexpected thing that happens.

• 22:14Tim Ferriss?

  You know, we were talking earlier about this, this, this odd looking fellow, the white bust over on my counter. Who is, for those of you who don't have a visual, is, is Seneca the Younger, uh, which was a gift. And of course, those of you who listen to this podcast a lot know that I'm somewhat obsessed, uh, compelled to read a lot of Stoic philosophy and Marcus Aurelius and so on.

• 22:39Tim Ferriss?

  How would you describe your?

• 22:43Tim Ferriss?

  If you had to stab at it, I know this is a hard question, but you're just like general, how does your philosophy or philosophies of, of life and living differ from most people?

• 22:54Speaker 03

  I don't know. I mean, I've never really thought of any comprehensive life, life philosophy or anything. You know, I don't feel like I have a particular set of principles that I live by, though, um, you know, I suppose I'm pretty minimalistic and, and, uh, you know, I'm leading a fairly simple life. And I mean, I guess that's basically how I'm, how I live. I don't know.

• 23:15Tim Ferriss?

  What are the benefits of living simply to you, aside from the ease of travel? But I would imagine at this point, you could probably travel reasonably easily.

• 23:22Speaker 03

  Well, no, I mean, that's kind of it is that, um, yeah, just the ease of living. You know, basically, it just cuts away everything except for what I want to be. I mean, because my, my goal is basically to climb as much as I can. And that's what I enjoy most in life is climbing. And so everything else, to some extent, is a distraction from that. And so, you know, I basically just cut away the what I don't need.

• 23:42Tim Ferriss?

  So I heard a story, and this was like a friend of a friend of a friend relaying something they had heard. So we'll see, we'll see where this is.

• 23:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's like telephone.

• 23:51Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. So who knows?

• 23:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:53Tim Ferriss?

  But they, they told this story about you free climbing. And this, this.

• 23:59Speaker 03

  Free soloing, probably.

• 24:00Tim Ferriss?

  I'm sorry.

• 24:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:00Tim Ferriss?

  That's right, free soloing. A big wall where at some point, there were some people resting. I don't know if they're in a, how do you say it, bivouac?

• 24:08Speaker 03

  A port-a-ledge, maybe?

• 24:09Tim Ferriss?

  Port-a-ledge.

• 24:10Speaker 03

  The camp thing that you.

• 24:10Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 24:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:11Tim Ferriss?

  And, uh, and you kind of ducked your head around the corner like, hey, can I borrow some chalk? And they're like, uh, sure. And gave you some chalk. And then you were like, thanks, great. And just kind of like continued on your merry way. Did, has anything like that happened? Or is that just?

• 24:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, so that is a real story, sort of, with some details.

• 24:27Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, can you, can you tell the story?

• 24:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I was, um, I was soloing the triple link up in Yosemite. So I wasn't free soloing, but I was climbing by myself. So I had a little bit of, I had a small rope and I had.

• 24:38Tim Ferriss?

  I got it. I guess this is an important distinction.

• 24:39Speaker 03

  So. Yeah.

• 24:40Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, got it. So solo climbing is just climbing by yourself?

• 24:42Speaker 03

  Yeah. Free soloing means that you're free climbing and free climbing means using your hands and your feet and not using gear. And so if you're free soloing, it means that you're climbing with just your hands and your feet by yourself, like no gear, no anything.

• 24:53Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 24:53Speaker 03

  But so in this case, I was soloing, so I had gear. And I was soloing the three largest faces in Yosemite in a day. So Mount Watkins, which is like way up at one end of the valley. And I'd done that first. And then I came down and I was climbing the Nezbele Capitan through the night. And in the logistical shuffle and the darkness, whatever, I forgot my chalk bag. So I basically climbed the first thousand feet of the nose without a chalk bag. And it was like, which is kind of a bummer. I mean, that's definitely not ideal.

• 25:17Tim Ferriss?

  Understatement.

• 25:18Speaker 03

  And it had actually, it had actually rained a bunch the day before. So like the bottom pitches, which are at a lower angle were like fairly wet. And I was like constantly trying to dry my hands on my shirt and it was just all kind of scary. And so I got up to this ledge called Bolt Tower, which is, you know, about a quarter of the way up the wall. And there were two groups bivvied on the ledge. And two of the people were just like passed out and the other two guys were like cooking dinner. And so I pop over the one side of the ledge and I'm like, uh, hey, so could I borrow a chalk bag? And they were like, yeah, I mean, I guess like no problem, you know? It's one of the guys gave me this chalk bag. It was like completely full of like fresh chalk. I was so stoked. And then I took his chalk bag and then I climbed to the top of the root and then I left it like tied to the tree on top. And then I got it back. I met him again later and then, yeah, so they got their chalk bag back like four days later.

• 26:06Tim Ferriss?

  Do you have a particular type of chalk that you like?

• 26:09Speaker 03

  No, but I mean, any chalk feels amazing when you've just climbed a thousand feet of wall.

• 26:12Tim Ferriss?

  Hands are wet.

• 26:13Speaker 03

  Wet, you know? Yeah.

• 26:17Tim Ferriss?

  What is, uh, what's a story? And I realize a lot of these questions are kind of out there, but what is a story that your, your family or parents like to tell about you?

• 26:28Speaker 03

  Oh, I don't know. Um.

• 26:31Tim Ferriss?

  I'll buy us some time and let you think about it. So, so one that my parents like to tell about me is I was completely infatuated with the Incredible Hulk when Lou Ferrigno was doing the TV show. So I'd run into the, into the living room when my parents had company and rip the cushions off of the couch and throw them on the floor and yell like the Hulk had run out. So my mom feels like that in some way represents like me and my totality.

• 26:53Speaker 03

  Characteristic of your.

• 26:54Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, which I don't know how to take, but that's a story that she likes to tell. Anything come to mind?

• 27:01Speaker 03

  Um, I don't know. I mean, mom likes to talk about how I always climbed on everything as a kid and how I was such a wild child, but, um, though I honestly feel like she's kind of like. She talks about that more now that I am an actual professional climber. You know, I feel like had I become an engineer, she would instead focus on stories of like how I always love to play with blocks or do whatever. But, um, and my whole family would always tell stories about how I was such a picky eater and how I'd only eat, you know, Cheerios and bread and like whatever, just things, I don't know. But.

• 27:30Tim Ferriss?

  What do you, we were talking just during the sound check about eating, uh, and I'd like to talk about that for a second.

• 27:40Tim Ferriss?

  What is your typical breakfast look like?

• 27:43Speaker 03

  Generally, well, so I've kind of gone through two main phases, I guess. I used to always do like an egg scramble for breakfast. And now I pretty much always do some kind of muesli concoction with like fruit and some kind of alternative milk stuff and like flaxseed hemp hearts, like random things, sort of like a wholesome muesli mix.

• 27:59Tim Ferriss?

  And then I asked you about lunch and what do you have to say about lunch?

• 28:04Speaker 03

  Yeah. So I, I rarely eat a lunch per se. I pretty much always just snack for the several hours in the middle of the day. Um, normally like a couple of pieces of fruit, maybe some nut butter, um, you know, a bar or two or something. And then I eat like a big dinner. I normally do a pretty big breakfast and a pretty big dinner and then just snack throughout the rest.

• 28:20Tim Ferriss?

  Why, why no lunch?

• 28:22Speaker 03

  Well, the no lunch thing makes sense when you're up on a wall for the day or if you're like out at the cliff or it's just like a bunch of work to take a real meal.

• 28:31Tim Ferriss?

  So I wasn't gonna get to this immediately, uh, this, this early, this is early for me.

• 28:36Speaker 03

  I'm always premature, so.

• 28:38Tim Ferriss?

  But what was that?

• 28:39Speaker 03

  I said, I'm always premature.

• 28:42Tim Ferriss?

  It's like my friend when he drives, we call him a premature accelerator, but that's, that's, that's a whole separate story. So this is from a friend of mine who's an elite athlete, very high level female athlete. I'll, I'll ask her main question first. Actually, no, I'll ask the related question first. So the food, real hassle. So the, her question was, what happens if you have to take a shit on the side of a mountain?

• 29:04Speaker 03

  Meaning like. I've got so many good pooping stories.

• 29:07Tim Ferriss?

  Okay.

• 29:08Speaker 03

  We could do a whole podcast on poop stories.

• 29:10Tim Ferriss?

  Well, let's, uh, let's give a preview. That could be the round two. But yeah, let's, I, I mean, I was wondering, as soon as she brought it up, I was like. Holy shit, yeah.

• 29:18Speaker 03

  Should I go straight to my most epic dump story?

• 29:20Tim Ferriss?

  Yes, please.

• 29:21Speaker 03

  Okay, so like, uh, uh, two years ago, I guess I was free soloing this route called Romantic Warrior and the Needles, which is actually a super-

• 29:28Tim Ferriss?

  Romantic Warrior?

• 29:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's like, it's actually one of the most striking granite walls like in the world. This is totally beautiful route on this crazy spire. It's, it's an amazing, amazing route. It's something I thought about for a long time and it's actually quite difficult. And so I was going up there to free solo. It was like kind of a big thing for me and I was way stoked. And typically when you get to the base of a free solo like that, if, if you have to poop at all, like you have to go like then, you know, when you're at the base. But I was like, I don't know, it just didn't quite happen. And, uh, and so I started climbing and that route, the first 400 feet or so were like pretty moderate terrain. And then it goes into like some pretty extreme terrain for the second 400 feet. And, uh, so basically right before I got into the real stuff, I was like, oh, now I really need to shit. I was like, oh, man, you know, basically I was like, oh, it's about to get real up here.

• 30:13Speaker 03

  And like I, now I need to poop. And so, um, I basically hand traversed on this little feature. So I traversed off the route because it's really poor form to like shit on a route. Cause obviously people have to climb that.

• 30:24Tim Ferriss?

  So that hand traverse meaning you're just traveling horizontally?

• 30:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. So I sort of just like meandered to the left 20 feet. And this flake that I was hanging off, it was like fairly big and I had a backpack on me with like my shoes and some water and some food, random things that you kind of need for, you know, going up a long route like that. And it had some TP in it. So I like shoved my backpack into the flake and I just like hung there off of it. And basically just took a poop like straight off the wall, just like while hanging. And then, you know, like wiped, tidied up is all good. And then like put my backpack on, traverse back in and then finish the route. It's like-

• 30:52Tim Ferriss?

  So no, I just want to really dig into this for a second. So, cause I'm just like envisioning, I had bats. Uh, I grew up on Long Island. We'd have these bats that would like crap off of the shingles. And we'd be like, where the hell is that from? And then we'd see the bat kind of perched there. So I, what's the technique here? So you, you, you're hanging off this flake, you have your backpack shoved into it. Like legs straight and straddled, are you in like a, like a crouched position?

• 31:17Speaker 03

  Semi seated crouch, you know, pushing away from the wall a bit.

• 31:19Tim Ferriss?

  And are you going like out of the bottom of your shorts? Are you pulling them down?

• 31:23Speaker 03

  Pulled my shorts down, just like normal.

• 31:24Tim Ferriss?

  Like usual.

• 31:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, it was actually totally easy. I mean, I'd call it a space dump.

• 31:29Tim Ferriss?

  Space dump?

• 31:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, a climber would call it like a perfect space dump. It's just like taking a dump in a free space and it just disappears.

• 31:37Tim Ferriss?

  So what are other challenges of climbing on big walls?

• 31:42Speaker 03

  Aside from the, yeah. Don't let that give the wrong idea because normally you try to like poo in better places, you know, preferably a toilet like, or at least like burying it properly at the base or, you know, like being, being responsible about it. But like from time to time that happens, you know?

• 31:55Tim Ferriss?

  Things happen.

• 31:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:56Tim Ferriss?

  What are other, what are other issues that crop up that people might not think of when you're doing these climbs?

• 32:02Speaker 03

  Well, people frequently ask like, what do you do if you have to pee or whatever? Because they think, I mean, I think that people have the wrong impression that free soling a big wall is just like holding on for dear life the whole time. But there are actually all kinds of little ledges, like even a ledge the size of say a pizza tray is big enough for you to stand there comfortably, no hands.

• 32:18Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 32:18Speaker 03

  And so, I mean, that's an easy place that you could take a leak, you could, um, you know, take a sip of water, you can eat a little bar. And, and anytime I'm on a ledge, say the size of a sofa cushion or something, I'll basically pop my shoes off and relax my toes for a minute. Cause climbing shoes are quite tight. So you're like, your feet start to cramp after a while. Um, I mean, there's a lot more self-care going on up there than people might think.

• 32:39Tim Ferriss?

  Do you carry for that self-care, do you carry any other tools? And you're like, I don't know, nail clippers, any particular type of like, I'm just making this up, like lotion or anything, not that you don't want that on your hands, but.

• 32:50Speaker 03

  No, no, I mean, I normally just take food, water, and then a pair of, say, pro shoes I can walk down afterward.

• 32:56Tim Ferriss?

  What type of food do you bring with you?

• 32:58Speaker 03

  Um, typically I just bring, you know, sports bar type.

• 33:01Tim Ferriss?

  What kind of sports bar? I'm all, I'm obsessed with details.

• 33:04Speaker 03

  Gritty. Um, I don't know. I mean, um, I mean, I used to be sponsored by Cliff Bar. So I'd, I do like, you know, shot blocks and Z bars. I love the Z bars, the little kids' Cliff Bars, mostly because they're kind of half sized. They're like a hundred calories and they basically taste like a cookie. So I can like always eat them, um, cause they're just kind of delicious. Um, but now I've been kind of getting more into like nut butters and things, though the typical free solos are short enough that you don't really need like a full hearty meal. You can kind of get by with like a pack of shot blocks or like one little, one sugary thing to just kind of keep you going. Um, it's on like bigger climbs like alpinism or something where you have to take like a lot of, you know, fatty, like higher calorie food.

• 33:42Tim Ferriss?

  So this, this is actually, I will be the first person to admit that I actually do not know what alpinism is. Uh, and, but one of the questions that came up, this is from Kelly O'Shea, one of my listeners. Is ask Alex about his recent achievements in alpinism. Uh, what was it like as someone who's so accomplished in one discipline to be a beginner again in another type of climbing? Can you explain what alpinism is and then how you'd answer that?

• 34:11Speaker 03

  So alpinism, I guess, is basically just climbing bigger mountains or big snowy or icy faces or, you know, granite walls that are also covered with ice. I don't know. I mean, alpinism is just climbing the things that you see in posters where you're like, whoa, that looks like a big scary mountain. You know, because I've always been more of a rock climber, which is climbing like vertical, dry granite walls. Um, alpinism is like when you do that in more remote places and like you hike across a glacier, you get to the bottom of some huge icy face and then you do all kinds of shenanigans to get to the top.

• 34:41Tim Ferriss?

  But so what, uh, what mistakes did you make if anyone first starting that type of climbing?

• 34:49Speaker 03

  Uh, well, so basically, I mean, I haven't done a lot of alpinism and I still, I can't ice climb at all. I've like never led a pitch of ice, but I've actually done a handful of things that are considered like noteworthy alpine ascents now. But it has more to do with choosing like the right partners because I go with somebody who's like way more experienced than me or just someone who has much more of a plan. And then it's sort of about the division of labor, you know, like someone who's good at one thing and then I'm, I'm obviously good at the rock climbing component of it. So even though I'm a total beginner with the ice climbing and with all the logistics and the camping and like dealing with living on a glacier, all that kind of stuff is totally new to me. But at least I know how to do the climbing pretty well. So then, you know, you just find the teammate who, who complements the skill set well. And then you can go out and climb all kinds of crazy things.

• 35:32Tim Ferriss?

  So now I probably mentioned this in the intro, but just in case I haven't for people listening. I'm sitting in my living room. We are sitting in my living room and we have a whole like phalanx of people surrounding us because we're filming this. Now, one of the, one of the people here has actually been on the podcast before. So Jimmy Chin, how does your climbing differ most from his?

• 35:54Speaker 03

  Well, Jimmy Chin is predominantly a photographer. So his climbing, it's not really climbing. It's mostly just going up behind people, take pictures. But I'm talking to you, Jimmy.

• 36:05Speaker 03

  No, I mean, but so Jimmy has been Jimmy has been classically more of a big wall climber. I mean, Jimmy's never been like the best free climb like, you know, I mean, he's not doing one arm pull ups on small edges and he's not like climbing the hardest sport routes. But he's always been able to like get to the top of big walls and then been able to do that in the mountains. You know, with ice and snow and bad conditions. And so he sort of the climbing that he's been good at has been like farther along the spectrum of, you know, big and badass than the type of climbing, you know, because I grew up in a climbing gym. And then sort of gradually extended to like big rock walls. You know, and he sort of started on big rock walls and then extended into the bigger mountains.

• 36:44Tim Ferriss?

  Who were, when you were getting started, just thinking back to say the first 10 years of climbing, how old are you now?

• 36:50Speaker 03

  I'm 30.

• 36:51Tim Ferriss?

  30.

• 36:51Speaker 03

  Getting old.

• 36:52Tim Ferriss?

  I thought I heard your joints creaking.

• 36:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know. I feel like you're right now.

• 36:56Tim Ferriss?

  Who were some of your early mentors in climbing?

• 37:01Speaker 03

  Um, I didn't have a lot of mentors when I, I mean, I kind of just grew up in the gym, just climbing a lot. So I didn't really have mentors. I mean, I definitely had people that I looked up to and people in the climbing community, but that's just sort of the typical hero worship style. You know, like Peter Croft was a really prominent soloist from this generation before me. And I was like, oh, Peter's the man. And, uh, you know, Chris Sharma obviously was, was like setting all kinds of world record type things when I was a kid and I was just like, oh, he's so amazing. And Tommy Caldwell was also a big hero, um, which has been cool because now I get to climb with Tommy as an adult and I'm just like, oh, that's pretty cool. I'm still always excited to climb with Tommy, but.

• 37:35Tim Ferriss?

  What, uh, if, if you were, so I'm going to take like 20 different questions and hopefully wrap it into one question and we can, we can take some time on this. But if you were taking a, let's just say an athletic rope beginner, so someone who's never done any climbing, but has a decent athletic background.

• 37:56Tim Ferriss?

  20, 25 years old and they want to get really good at say, bouldering. And you were going to kind of lay out, give them advice or train them for like eight weeks. What would you, what would you have them do? What would, what would the, what would that look like?

• 38:12Speaker 03

  I, I don't know. I'd have to think about it a lot because I mean, particularly with bowling, it's sort of, it's interesting. So adults are more prone to injury than, than kids to some extent, and especially with, with something like bouldering where um, it's really heavy on fingers. Like basically it's really easy to injure your fingers and hands because all the connective tissue and like tendons and ligaments take a very, very long time to strengthen. So I mean, there's no real shortcut to, to avoiding tendon injury. Whereas an adult, like a 25 year old male would gain muscle mass super fast. So really quickly they could exceed the capacity of their tendons and then basically just rip their tendons out of their arms. You know, and so it's like one of those things where, I mean, if I was trying to train somebody to be a good rock climber, I would focus on, on movement and technique and footwork and all those kinds of things.

• 38:56Speaker 03

  But if somebody was like, in eight weeks, I have to be able to boulder like a certain difficulty level. I'd be like, well, I mean, just start like training your fingers and hope that you don't get injured. But like, obviously that's not a sustainable, like if you're trying to be a good climber, that's not the way to do it. It's better to start with like the foundation.

• 39:09Tim Ferriss?

  So if, let's talk about the, the footwork and technique then. Because I've, we've, I mean, you've been to a ton of climbing gyms. I've been to Mission Cliffs. I'm not a good climber, I would not say.

• 39:20Tim Ferriss?

  But I can also recognize, but not dissect when I see good climbing versus bad climbing, right? Where people are just like shaking like a leaf and using all arm strength.

• 39:33Tim Ferriss?

  What, what types of advice would you give someone who wanted to do it the right way? But they're like, all right, I just, I want to focus on the right things. What should I really focus on?

• 39:41Speaker 03

  I would say the right things are, are movement and technique. And so like how you move over the rock has nothing to do with how well you can hold on or like how hard you pull. It has to do with, you know, knowing where your center of mass is and like being able to move your body around in the right ways that you can stay balanced over your feet and you can move yourself upward with your feet.

• 40:00Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, how do you conserve energy when you're climbing? Leaving out the pizza sized pizza box.

• 40:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, the main ways to save energy are to keep your weight on your feet, which is kind of the same thing to stay balanced over your feet so that all as much weight as possible is on your feet. So you're just standing and then to keep your arms straight or to keep all your limbs straight so that you're hanging off your skeleton more than your muscles. Because if you have your arms bent at 90 degrees like a T-Rex or something, then you're like totally engaging your bicep and your lats and you're getting tired. If you have your arms totally straight, then you're only engaging just as much muscle as you need to keep your fingers holding on, but everything else is relaxed because you're hanging off your bones.

• 40:39Tim Ferriss?

  So I want to underscore something you said a little earlier because a lot of sort of aggressive dudes listening to this podcast.

• 40:49Speaker 03

  Aggressive dudes.

• 40:50Tim Ferriss?

  Aggressive dudes, meaning they're like, hey, wait, just slap on a ton of muscle on my arms and like biceps and lats and go crush this bouldering wall. But you made a really important point, several, one of which was that if you if you pack on a lot of muscular strength, you can outstrip your sort of tendon and connective tissue really quickly.

• 41:09Speaker 03

  Well, particularly as an adult. I mean, if you start climbing as a kid, then then you gain muscle at the sort of the same. You know, that's like, yeah.

• 41:15Tim Ferriss?

  You're in like hormonal nirvana as a adolescent. And this is something that also a guy named Chris Summer, Coach Summer, underscored for me, he is the former national gymnastics team coach for men's. And he was saying that unlike many other sports, like it's contraindicated to say use anabolic's in gymnastics because all you're going to do is end up rupturing a tendon or a ligament for the same reasons.

• 41:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, totally the same as climbing.

• 41:45Tim Ferriss?

  What do you worry about when you go to sleep at night? If anything, like when you worry before you go to bed, what kind of stuff do you worry about?

• 41:53Speaker 03

  I was like, that's a quick 180.

• 41:54Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, this is going to be full of all sorts of weird night.

• 41:58Speaker 03

  Keep listeners on their toes, you know, so that people scrubbing through the podcast get confused.

• 42:02Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I don't want any storyline that they try to skip ahead.

• 42:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. No, I don't really worry that much when I when I sleep. I mean, the stuff that I get stressed about is all like real life stuff with, you know, dealing with email and responding to calls and like, you know, hustling and I don't know, like doing my taxes, you know, like all the stuff that I'm just like not good at.

• 42:22Tim Ferriss?

  So let me ask, this is like partially me turning this into a therapy session for myself.

• 42:27Speaker 03

  Should I just lay down over myself? I was like gonna lay on this over here.

• 42:31Tim Ferriss?

  That's usually my second date podcast, the project, but the, just relax. But the, the question I'd like to ask is, why do this?

• 42:43Tim Ferriss?

  When is enough enough to fuel the climbing? Meaning, what do you hope to do with the additional money you make above and beyond what you need to sustain climbing often? Because it's not, at a certain point, you surpass that pretty easily. But you're certainly keeping busy. You have a number of sponsors. You're tremendously good at what you do. So what do you want to do?

• 43:11Speaker 03

  I mean, that is interesting because, and I've, you know, thought about this a lot over the years because for, say, the first five or seven years that I was living in the van, my overhead's probably 10 to 15 K a year. And I now obviously make a lot more than that through sponsorship and just doing like one commercial or something, you know, I can make many times what I need to live in the road for a long time. And so, you know, part of that, I mean, I'm obviously saving for retirement and things like that, trying to be responsible with money. But, and then I've also started a foundation where I've been giving probably a third of my income now to, to environmental nonprofit things.

• 43:45Speaker 03

  But yeah, basically, I mean, honestly, the foundation was kind of my, my response to that kind of stuff. Cause I was like, I just don't need to make more. But the thing is, it is actually kind of fun to make more. You know, it's like fun to do the random opportunities, like to do a commercial project or to like give some talk to some interesting company or, you know, whatever. I mean, it's kind of fun to be able to hustle a lot of money like that. But then it's like equally fun to be able to, you know, use that money for something positive, which is, you know, through the foundation, basically.

• 44:11Tim Ferriss?

  What is the name of the foundation?

• 44:12Speaker 03

  Oh, it's just the Honnold Foundation.

• 44:14Tim Ferriss?

  Easy to remember.

• 44:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's like kind of douchey, but like it kind of made sense.

• 44:18Tim Ferriss?

  I don't think it's douchey. I think it's easy to remember and just sensible.

• 44:23Tim Ferriss?

  So the reason I was asking about. The what do you worry about before you go to bed is because there are people I have never seen so many questions about brass balls in my life when I polled my readers for questions for you and we've never had an in-depth conversation but I know a lot of people say here in Silicon Valley or other folks who give the appearance of being invincible. They've they never worry about anything and it can be kind of demoralizing for people who feel like they need to be superhuman to achieve good things and so what I always like to ask people who are spectacularly good at what they do or dig into is like what challenges they've had or what they struggle with. So for those people who say

• 45:08Tim Ferriss?

  like that guy's got everything together, he doesn't worry about anything, I'm not like that. What are some like what are some of the challenges or dark periods that you've had if any come to mind? And if the answer is none, then that's that's a fine answer too.

• 45:21Speaker 03

  I'm invincible. No, I mean, it's funny you ask me, just in the last two months, I've had two sort of random injuries that are like super annoying, which I haven't really had any kind of injuries climbing in in years or like ever really. But like last month and in April, I got a I got dropped by my partner. So I got lowered off the end of a rope and I like compression fracture to vertebrae in my back and I was ultra bruised and so my hips and butt and stuff, you know, my back's been really tight. I've been kind of achy. Though that worked out kind of okay. It was two days before I was supposed to fly to China for a climbing expedition. And so I was like, well, the travel time will sort of be like good rest, I guess. And then, you know, I got there and I was like a creaky old man, but I actually did manage to climb the thing that we were hoping to do and it

• 46:04Speaker 03

  all kind of worked out. Okay, in the end. But you know, there's definitely it was a little touch and go. So I was like, at first, I mean, when I was going to the airport to fly to China, I couldn't even lift my duffel bags because like my back was too sore and everything was too too creaky. And then actually, just like two days ago, I took a weird fall. Well, actually, I took a totally normal fall, but I somehow tweaked my hand in a weird way. And actually, I mean, you can probably see the back of my right

• 46:24Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I was looking at that.

• 46:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, my right hand is like all messed up right now. And, you know, I mean, there's definitely a lot of uncertainty there because I mean, I can't even like click the power button on my phone without like pretty serious pain with my right hand right now. But you know, it's been two days and it's kind of improving and you know, we'll see like. And the thing is, the forecast is rain for the next three days. So I'm like, well, I'll have three days to rest. And then, you know, maybe it'll be okay. Or maybe it'll be good enough that I can at least work towards some of my other goals for the season. And then by the time it's recovered and say another two weeks, I'll be like, ready to, you know, do some of the things I want to do. I mean, we'll see. Which is kind of how China went. I was like, well, you know, I can at least do all the work towards what I'm trying to climb.

• 47:06Speaker 03

  While I'm crippled. And then by the time it was ready, by the time I was ready to, to actually try to climb the route. And I was like, oh, well, I'm actually feeling good enough by now and I was able to do it.

• 47:16Tim Ferriss?

  Do you ever get depressed or have you ever been depressed?

• 47:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. No, I think, I mean, I think I kind of gravitate towards being a somewhat depressed person. I don't know. Or I don't know, actually. Or I'm just sort of like flat.

• 47:33Tim Ferriss?

  We'll stick into that first part and we'll see what we come up with. So why do you say that you think, I, I definitely

• 47:40Tim Ferriss?

  oscillate to fairly high highs and reasonably low lows. And I've been trying to take the edge, like take the 20 top, like the top and bottom 20% off of those to make it a little more manageable. But why do you say that you might tend towards?

• 47:55Speaker 03

  See, I feel like I don't have any of the highs and I kind of go from, from level to like slightly below level to back. You know, it's all like, it's all pretty flat, I feel like.

• 48:05Tim Ferriss?

  And does that, when you, when you dip, does that, is that triggered by certain types of things? Or is it just a cycle that comes with time?

• 48:16Speaker 03

  Um, I don't know. Yeah, maybe it's just a cycle of time. It's like sometimes you just feel useless, you know? But I mean, in some ways though, I embrace that as part of the process because you kind of have to feel like a worthless piece of poop in order to get motivated enough to go do something that makes you feel less useless.

• 48:31Speaker 03

  But then, but then ultimately that still doesn't make you feel any less useless. So then you just have to keep doing more.

• 48:37Tim Ferriss?

  So that's perfect segue to the, the, the, the main question from the, from the person who asked, what you do when you have to take a shit on the side of a wall?

• 48:46Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 48:47Tim Ferriss?

  Is there, or do you ever see a point where you'll feel that you've accomplished all that you can in climbing? Or is there always a what's next?

• 48:57Speaker 03

  Um, I think there's definitely, you know, I can definitely see a point where I wouldn't continue pushing. I mean, there is always a what's next in climbing and, um, you know, I mean, you can always try to improve in some way or like go to new places or do first ascents. Or I mean, you know, there is always something new to be done in climbing. Though I can definitely see personally a point at which, you know, I'm like, okay, I'm satisfied. Like I've done what I need to do and, um, you know, yeah, we'll, we'll see kinda. Though I will say climbing, um, more than most other professional sports has like quite a long career span. Kind of because of that, because there's always more you can do with like trips and expeditions and first ascents. And, and there's a really creative process to it. You can always like come up with interesting challenges and just sort of like do things that nobody's thought up before.

• 49:42Speaker 03

  And so, you know, I mean, you know, there are professional climbers in their 50s that are still like getting after it like that.

• 49:48Tim Ferriss?

  When, uh, when you are about to do a big climb or just a very strenuous, um, climbing workout, I'm not even sure if you do that anymore. Maybe you could then talk about it. But how do you warm up if you do?

• 50:01Speaker 03

  Um, I always warm up pretty, pretty gently when I can. Just so just, um, I mean, it depends on where I am. If I'm in a climbing gym, um, then I just warm up on a handful of easy routes and then, and then start the harder ones later.

• 50:14Speaker 03

  I mean, for the last month and a half, I've been stretching like every morning and every night because of the back thing and because of how tight my hips and, and everything feel right now. Um, so doing some stretching and some like light exercise to sort of warm up and then. Yeah.

• 50:27Tim Ferriss?

  When you can't climb, uh, let's just say you're, you're on the road. What type of exercise do you do?

• 50:35Speaker 03

  I mean, I, I try to still climb when I'm on the road. Um, I mean, there are just so many gyms in different places that you can always do that. But, um, if there's absolutely nothing, then maybe I'll run or I'll go hiking or it kind of depends on what opportunities there are. I mean, I'd rather go mountain biking than, than other things, or I'd rather go skiing if, if that's available. But I mean, as long as I'm getting some kind of exercise, I mean, even like stand up paddle warding or something like, well, at least I did something today. You know?

• 50:57Tim Ferriss?

  A, a lot of recreational climbers deal with, as we've touched on earlier, sort of, uh, hand issues, wrist issues, elbow issues. Uh, I'm, I mean, you saw me when, when, when you guys arrived today, I had myself wrapped up in this stuff called voodoo floss. Cause I, I, my elbows are killing me. Uh, and how have you seen climbers, uh, keep their elbows and joints in good health? Is there, are there any particular approaches that you think have?

• 51:25Speaker 03

  No, I don't, I don't think there's like an easy answer to that kind of stuff. I mean, I had some elbow issues for a while. Um, now it's like eight or nine years ago or something, but I had sort of like chronic elbow pain on and off for almost a year. Then eventually it just sort of resolved. And I mean, I think the best way with that kind of stuff is sort of prevention, you know, like ma- maintain antagonist muscles. And just sort of like stay well balanced and everything and just, and if you start to feel achiness or pain coming on, then to, you know, take the appropriate rest. Or, or maybe change your training to some extent, or basically just not to let it become a big problem. Cause I feel like all those overuse injuries, like once they're a problem, then it's like really hard to deal with.

• 52:01Tim Ferriss?

  So the antagonistic muscles, meaning if you're doing a lot of say like flexor work, kind of gripping that you're going to use like finger extension and wrist extension and so on.

• 52:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, though I've actually never done the whole extension stuff with, with hands. I don't know. But to me, um, antagonist muscles are more like doing pushups or random, you know, or tricep pulls or things to balance out your arms a bit. Since you do so much pulling, like to be able to do some kind of pushing sometimes.

• 52:28Tim Ferriss?

  What's in your mind separates a great climber from a good climber? And you can answer that however you want.

• 52:34Speaker 03

  Uh, I don't know.

• 52:37Speaker 03

  I mean.

• 52:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 52:40Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, I'll ask it differently. Who impresses you right now? As a climber, just one of, I'm sure, many, but.

• 52:46Speaker 03

  Uh, this kid, Marc-Andre Leclerc.

• 52:49Tim Ferriss?

  Marc-Andre Leclerc.

• 52:50Speaker 03

  The student of this Canadian guy. Um, he's been doing like all kinds of crazy Alpine soloing. You're just like, whoa.

• 52:56Tim Ferriss?

  What makes it so crazy?

• 52:59Speaker 03

  I don't know. It just, it just like kind of blows my mind a bit. And it's funny because I actually don't ice climb or, or Alpine climb at a high enough level to quite understand what he's doing even. Like, so it's hard for me to probably appreciate just how hard it is. But then a lot of my friends who do climb at a very high level are like, whoa, that's messed up. And I'm just like, yeah, respect. Like, I don't know.

• 53:16Tim Ferriss?

  And for those people who want to see visuals on this stuff, we'll, we'll grab some video and, uh, links to.

• 53:24Speaker 03

  Though one of the interesting things with Marc-Andre is that I don't know if there like is video of most of the stuff he's doing. Yeah, I mean, he's just going out and doing all this crazy stuff.

• 53:30Tim Ferriss?

  Okay.

• 53:30Speaker 03

  You're just like, it's, um, it's pretty full on.

• 53:33Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I will, I will attempt. Uh, Jimmy, you know this guy? You know of him? What, what in your mind makes him impressive as a Alpine, alpinist or Alpine climber?

• 53:43Speaker 03

  But I bet Jimmy hasn't even heard any of the stuff he's like recently been doing in the Rockies. It's like pretty crazy.

• 53:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. And the stuff he's just soloed in the Emperor face and.

• 53:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's like so crazy.

• 53:54Speaker 02

  It's just.

• 53:55Tim Ferriss?

  I'll repeat for you guys listening.

• 53:57Speaker 02

  And then like all is like extraordinarily high. And I think that in climbing, there's like people who kind of, you know, every generation is like evolution, progression, this or that. And every time there's people becoming that like jump generation, yeah, I know. I feel like he's kind of in that stage doing things that people weren't considering.

• 54:20Tim Ferriss?

  So he's, his, yours, so just to try to paraphrase here, so his commitment level is just next level and he's sort of pushing everyone else to consider things that haven't been done.

• 54:29Speaker 02

  Usually like Alpine climbing at that level is. That back commitment level is based on experience you have and he's very calm.

• 54:37Speaker 03

  Though he does have a ton of experience really. I mean, you know, because he's just done so much of it. Yeah, he's been doing like a.

• 54:43Speaker 02

  But I mean, for like, you know, normally.

• 54:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:46Tim Ferriss?

  So the commitment level, meaning pushing the envelope, is usually predicated on experience level. Therefore, you see the, some of the older guys doing it, but.

• 54:53Speaker 02

  Not, not even. You're not, you're not seeing all the guys doing it.

• 54:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, because they're all like, that's messed up.

• 55:00Tim Ferriss?

  On the. On the, uh, on the danger side, um, this is a question from Paul Jones. So being the first sponsored superstar of free soloing, do you ever have concerns about the influence that you could have on young climbers who may not put in the mileage and the training to get to a point where they can do it as safely?

• 55:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, so there are two things. One, I'm definitely not the first superstar or whatever. Um, cause there are a bunch of European climbers who are well-known for soloing, who've, you know, come before me. And even in the US, somebody like John Backer was like super well-known in the 1970s and he was on all kinds of TV programs. It might not have been sponsorship in the same way that we have today, because the industry wasn't the same. But he was definitely on, you know, like the evening news and all kinds of crazy things, free soloing. So, um, I mean, I'm definitely not the first by any means. Um, and, and it's interesting because, you know, I was obviously a kid who was influenced by that kind of stuff. But then I've gone through, you know, years and years of, of practice or whatever.

• 56:02Speaker 03

  I kind of feel like soloing is a bit, um, I don't know, almost like self-regulating in a way, because the thing is, is that anybody can watch a video and be like, I want to do that. But then as soon as they climb 15 or 20 feet off the ground, they start to have a very frank discussion with themselves. Like, do I really want to do this? You know, like it suddenly feels very scary. Cause I mean, people have like an overwhelming fear response to the prospect of falling to their death. You know, and so.

• 56:23Tim Ferriss?

  I have an overwhelming fear response just watching videos of it.

• 56:26Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, exactly. I mean, that's kind of the thing is that hardly anybody sees that film. It's like, oh, I'm going to go do that. And then even, even if they do, once they start trying to do it, I mean, it is actually quite difficult to climb these walls. So it's not as if some kid can just like wander up and do that. And then, and even if they are strong enough or like, you know, well-versed enough in climbing to climb a little bit, then they're also like, wow, this is really, really scary. I didn't expect it to be this scary. And then they just climb back down. So, I mean, you know, you know, I've thought a little bit about influencing kids and like, you know, wondering if that's a bad thing. But in general, like you just don't really see copycat things. Like you see it a lot more in, in gravity assisted sports or like action sports. So like kayaking or skiing or something where like anyone can just line up at the top of a cliff and be like, I'm going to huck this cliff and I'm going to stick it and it's going to be sick. You know, and then once they sort of commit.

• 57:11Speaker 03

  Start going. It's like they're going off the cliff. They can start the music. They can't turn it off. Yeah, exactly. But with climbing, it's like each move that you make upward is like a decision that you're going to continue going upward. You have to decide over and over like, I want to keep going. I want to keep going. I want to keep. And at a certain point, you're like, I don't really want to keep going. Like, I think I want to go down. And then you're just like, mommy, you know, and then like, yeah, I mean. Have you ever hit that point? When it was, let's just say. When I've started screaming for mommy. Don't you, well, yeah, scream from mommy or like hundreds of feet up and you're like, I don't want to keep doing this. Yeah, no, I've definitely had a bunch of time soloing where I'm like, I'm not into this. I'm going down. And what happens then? Because I've, I've never seen footage of you climbing down.

• 57:56Speaker 03

  Well, the thing is, but that's kind of a practical thing is that if you have people that are filming with you, it's like, obviously you're doing something that you've rehearsed or, or you know a lot about, or it's like, you know, it's a classic enough route that it's worthy to film on. Like you have all those epic misadventures on things that like, aren't that well known that, you know, people aren't climbing all the time. But no, so I've had tons of experiences where, um, especially when I was younger, I didn't really know how to read topos that well, the little maps that show you like where a climbing route goes. So I'd look at it and be like, okay, I think I'm climbing that big corner. And then I'd go up there and be like, this isn't even the right route. Like, what the heck am I doing? And then I'd start like questing way to the left or right, being like, well, maybe if I traverse 200 feet that way, then I'll get to the real route. And then you're like, oh God, what am I doing? And then it all starts to go south, you know? And, and then you would climb down in an instant.

• 58:39Speaker 03

  Well, or I would like quest over to some other route and escape off. Quest over is, is just a traverse? Yeah, or, or whatever, you know, there have been a couple of routes where I've been like, especially when I was younger, when I was soloing a route. And I get up and all of a sudden I'm like, oh, I'm on a bolted face, but this route isn't supposed to have bolts. And then I'm like, oh no, I'm on the wrong route. And then you like look over and you see that the real route you're supposed to be on is like a hundred meters to the right. And then you're like, I wonder what route I'm on. And then you're like, oh, I hope it's not hard. And then you're something like shit. And then you start like pulling on the bolts, which is cheating. Um, and you're just like, whatever it takes to like, get off this wall, you know? And so you're like pulling on bolts and stepping on bolts and like doing whatever, just like get to the top. And then later you're like, oh, I wish I knew how to read the guidebook.

• 59:21Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, now, so this is, this is a related question from Drew Cordova. So there's a video that shows Alex climbing LCAP free solo where he said he was freaking out.

• 59:33Speaker 03

  No, so that's, uh.

• 59:34Tim Ferriss?

  Incorrect?

• 59:35Speaker 03

  Well, there are all kinds of incorrect.

• 59:36Tim Ferriss?

  I'm sure there's lots of incorrect.

• 59:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, just go on and I'll, I'll respond at the end.

• 59:40Tim Ferriss?

  Where he's freaking out on the cliff face at one point. I'd like to know from his perspective, what it takes to overcome that fear.

• 59:46Speaker 03

  Okay, so the video clip that he's referring to, I'm actually free soloing the face of Half Dome, which is a different wall.

• 59:51Tim Ferriss?

  Yep.

• 59:53Speaker 03

  And that's actually complicated because it shows me standing on this ledge on Half Dome, like having a moment, being really scared. But we shot that film like a year after my actual free solo. So I'd, I'd gone up there and soloed it by myself, nobody around, which is kind of the point of free soloing normally. And then we'd gone back and filmed on it. And when we filmed on it, I walked out on that ledge and like had a moment where I was a little bit afraid. And then like sorted myself out, turned around and, and climbed back. But then they used the voiceover of me talking about the original experience when I'd actually been free soloing it the year before, uh, where I had like a much more significant moment on a section 100 feet higher, which is actually quite difficult climbing. Cause like walking across a ledge is never that scary. You know what I mean? Like in the grand scheme of rock climbing, like when you're standing on a ledge, like you're not scared.

• 1:00:35Speaker 03

  Um, it just happened in that case because I was standing face out, which is like a little off balance and a little scary. And I was like, whoa, this isn't what I expected. But it's not that big a thing. But the actual experience up higher, it was like one of those things where they caught this moment on film and it kind of went well with the voiceover.

• 1:00:48Tim Ferriss?

  The magic of the mist.

• 1:00:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. And so it made for a great film and it definitely like shares the free solo experience pretty well. It was one of those things that first I was like, I was sort of annoyed that it's not the literal, like this isn't what happened. But the thing is like, nobody's there when it actually happens. So then it does share the experience pretty well.

• 1:01:02Tim Ferriss?

  So in the actual Half Dome experience, when it was scary, even though, like you mentioned earlier, you've kind of rehearsed what it's going to feel like as you're going up this, this route. What do you, what do you, and not to belabor this point, but it's, it's, uh, it's something I'm fascinated by. What's going through your head and how do you?

• 1:01:21Speaker 03

  Well, so that particular Half Dome free solo, I actually hadn't rehearsed it that much really. Um, I'd sort of intentionally chosen not to rehearse the route very much because I was like, oh, that's going to take the adventure out of it. I want to just go up there and do it. Um, which in retrospect like wasn't the best idea. But so, uh, yeah, on half dome, I didn't, I hadn't memorized the sequences. I didn't really know like exactly what I should do. I just knew that I could do it. I knew that I'd gone up there and I'd done it. It was fine and that I was able to. Um, you know, in retrospect, I probably should have spent a little bit more time. And so why I got so scared was I got up to a certain sequence and I basically like didn't want to trust a specific foothold. And I was like, oh, this feels like my foot's gonna slip and I don't want to fall. And then I tried to use some other feet, but I was like, oh, this doesn't, these are worse. And

• 1:02:06Speaker 03

  you know, so you're standing there hesitating, being like, what should I do? What should I do? And then you start to get all gripped, like, oh God, what if I can't figure it out? And like, you're obviously getting more and more tired as you stand there. Your calves are getting pumped. And, you know, yeah, it's just traumatizing.

• 1:02:21Tim Ferriss?

  All right, we're back, back in action. So during the little break, we were just talking about some, some past lives and, uh, it's mentioning that I wanted to be a comic book penciler, was an illustrator for a period of time, paying expenses in college and had this other weird side gig of bouncing, which was terrible because I was always the smallest guy, uh, as a bouncer. But what are the, what are the best and worst jobs that you've, that you had prior to climbing?

• 1:02:47Speaker 03

  I haven't really had that many jobs. I mean, I worked at the climbing gym as a kid, um, just, you know, cleaning the bathrooms and doing summer camp stuff with kids. And then I worked doing night security at Berkeley for, for a semester that I was there. I mean, I was only at Berkeley for a year. And so for my second semester there, I was doing night security. I was basically just like walking around campus at night, getting paid to like look at buildings. But.

• 1:03:09Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, when you were at Berkeley, how did you decide to leave? And what was that calculus like? I mean, how long?

• 1:03:17Speaker 03

  Um, yeah, I mean, I didn't, I didn't decide to just drop out of Berkeley. It was more that I wasn't really happy there. And then, um, my first year at Berkeley, I happened to get second at, uh, the national, at nationals. And so I got invited to the youth world cup, um, which was during what would have been my second fall semester. And so I decided to take the semester off and then go do, you know, youth worlds and then travel a bit and climb and do whatever. And also, my father happened to die the summer after freshman year. And he was part of the pressure for like going to school and not really pressure, but he just sort of like expected the kids to go to college type thing. And then when he died, it also left life insurance money for my sister and I to finish school. And so, you know, that sort of allowed me to not to not go back to school.

• 1:04:01Speaker 03

  And so, uh, yeah. And so it just kind of a combination of events just led me to take the semester off. And then I just like, you know, I've just taken the next 10 or no, like 20 semesters off since then.

• 1:04:11Tim Ferriss?

  Were you, uh, close to your dad?

• 1:04:15Speaker 03

  Um, I, I was fairly close to my dad. I mean, or we weren't super close and like talking about things and like having, having deep chats. But he definitely invested a ton of time in me. You know, he took me to the climbing gym all the time. He would drive me all over the state to competitions. You know, he would take me camping, take me outside, like, you know, we, we, we would be doing family camping trips in the mountains and stuff. Um, so I mean, he definitely put a ton of energy into me.

• 1:04:40Tim Ferriss?

  Do you, and I apologize, I don't know your status, do you want to get married, have kids?

• 1:04:45Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah, I think I'd like to have a family someday.

• 1:04:48Tim Ferriss?

  So that, that brings up something that I, I've wanted to talk about and hesitated to ask in part because I'm sure you've been asked a million times. But as it relates to mortality, let's just say that somebody came to you, this is kind of two in one. They said, I have $10 million and I'm going to dedicate it to you, but with the following condition. You have to predict how you're going to die accurately. And in that case, it goes to the cause of your choosing. So what would you predict? And what cause would it go to?

• 1:05:24Speaker 03

  Um, that's interesting. And if I predict wrong, it just like doesn't go anywhere.

• 1:05:28Tim Ferriss?

  Disappears.

• 1:05:28Speaker 03

  Poof. Um, okay. Um, I don't know. I mean, I think I would predict. I don't know, I'm sort of fifty fifty between natural causes, just like dying of old age at some point, or like climbing accident in the grander scheme of like, not necessarily, um, you know, like falling to my death, which is what people think with the free souling, but just the random stuff like, you know, rappelling in the mountains or like being swept by an avalanche or like being hit by a random rock because there's a lot of just like random cha- or not a lot, but there is random cha- chance involved with climbing and just the fact that I am out climbing all the time. Like it wouldn't be shocking if some random thing just happened to me like that. Um, though, I mean, that's kind of the, the, you know, price, price to play.

• 1:06:09Speaker 03

  You know, like if you're going to be in those places, like there is just a random, random risk associated with it. Um, so yeah, I mean, I think, and then the cause I would devote it to, um, I don't know, some probably envi- I mean, basically the stuff that I'm supporting through my foundation, which is, uh, you know, any kind of environmental project that like improves standard of living, which has mostly been, uh, like off-grid solar projects or like energy access and stuff for-

• 1:06:31Tim Ferriss?

  Off-grid solar and energy access for, for whom or where are those?

• 1:06:35Speaker 03

  For like rural communities. I mean, I've been supporting a group that does that kind of work in Africa, which, you know, makes sense because folks have no access to energy. And I've also been supporting grid alternatives here in the States, which does, uh, like home PV systems for like low-income families. Um, basically it's just a way to like help, you know, folks that need some help and it helps the environment, obviously.

• 1:06:54Tim Ferriss?

  And

• 1:06:57Tim Ferriss?

  just when we took a break, you were talking about, we were talking, talking about books and the fact that you read mostly nonfiction. What nonfiction books have had a, had an impact on you or the, or do you particularly like?

• 1:07:10Speaker 03

  Um, I mean, in the last several years, I mean, some of the most noteworthy books I've read, I guess, um, like a people's history of the US, the Howard Zinn book, totally changed the way I look at politics. Um, and then in the same way, uh, I read a book recently called Sacred Economics that like totally changed the way I looked at economics.

• 1:07:28Tim Ferriss?

  Sacred Economics?

• 1:07:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was actually totally interesting. I forget who the author was now, though. I didn't know him.

• 1:07:33Tim Ferriss?

  I will, we will look it up and put it in the show notes.

• 1:07:36Speaker 03

  Sacred Economics is like kind of awesome. It like, yeah, changed my world a bit.

• 1:07:41Tim Ferriss?

  What uh, what's, what are the, what's this kind of basic thesis of sacred economics? Or is it?

• 1:07:46Speaker 03

  Um, I don't know what the author would say that the thesis, but um, but the things that I took away from it were, well, I mean, basically he's sort of envisioning different systems for like a more just kind of economics. You know, cause I mean, current, our current style of capitalism basically just concentrates wealth in the hands of the already wealthy. You know, and that's kind of like by definition, the way interest rates work and stuff. Like if you have a lot, you'll just continue to make a lot. And that's not a fundamentally fair system because if you don't have anything, you continue having nothing. But if you already have more than you need, you just get more and more and more. And that's just like not the way the world should work, I don't think. Or at least I don't, and so one of the ideas that he throws out in the book, which I found totally interesting was like negative interest rates.

• 1:08:28Speaker 03

  So like, um, if you have a lot, it basically just like slowly dwindles away unless you're actively using it for things like investing it into things. So, you know, just by having a lot of money is not going to guarantee that you continue to have a lot of money.

• 1:08:41Tim Ferriss?

  Unless you're allocating it in a certain way.

• 1:08:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. Unless you're using it wisely to like create value, but.

• 1:08:47Tim Ferriss?

  How do you assess risk? Whether that's with, and you can, you can focus on one of these, but whether that's on a particular climb, on like a business venture, a decision to do A versus B, how do you, how do you think about risk?

• 1:09:05Speaker 03

  Um, I don't know. That's an interesting question because obviously I spent a ton of time thinking about risk. But I just don't have like a clear cut, you know, like I don't have clear metrics for like, oh, you know, this is, and because with the climbing so much of it comes down to a feeling of like, I feel a lot of fear when I think about that. Obviously it's not for me. Um, yeah, I don't, I don't know exactly. And I've never really had to evaluate business ventures and things.

• 1:09:29Tim Ferriss?

  So when, uh, so let's touch on something you just said, which is if you're very afraid of something, then that's something you shouldn't do. So do you then climb?

• 1:09:40Tim Ferriss?

  Say hard routes in an absence of fear, or is it present and then you overcome it?

• 1:09:46Speaker 03

  That's a good question. I generally climb hard routes in the absence of fear. I generally don't go up on them unless I feel comfortable and I don't have that fear, yes. Though, yeah, though, I mean, it's important to sort of differentiate fear and risk and like all the terms, I guess.

• 1:10:03Tim Ferriss?

  Definitely.

• 1:10:03Speaker 03

  Because,

• 1:10:06Speaker 03

  you know, I mean, if there is a high level of risk, I mean, you should be feeling fear. I mean, fear is sort of that warning that, you know, like, that there is real danger. And so like, if there is danger present, like, I mean, you should be feeling fear. And so, you know, and there are times and maybe you should just suppress that fear and go for it anyway. Maybe not, I don't know. But so with the free soloing, typically if I'm feeling a lot of fear, then I just, you know, wait and prepare more, or I don't know, some do whatever it takes to mitigate that to like, to feel comfortable and then, and then do the climb when I feel comfortable.

• 1:10:36Tim Ferriss?

  And do you have a, my suspicion says no, but do you have a checklist, like, I have to do this with gear X number of times, and then do this Y number of times before I'm willing to free solo this, or is it?

• 1:10:51Speaker 03

  I don't have a checklist, but I definitely have a degree of comfort that I need to feel on the route before I'm willing to solo it.

• 1:10:59Tim Ferriss?

  What does that feel like?

• 1:11:00Speaker 03

  Well, it just feels like a certain, I guess I need to have a certain amount of reserve, I guess, you know, I need to feel like I can climb the route in a variety of conditions. And have some extra in the tank just in case, you know, like if I can climb the route only by the narrowest of like razor thin margins, like, I mean, that's probably not good enough for free soloing.

• 1:11:19Tim Ferriss?

  And the definitions point is important. So for instance, I'm involved with a lot of speculative startups, or startups.

• 1:11:29Speaker 03

  They're all speculative.

• 1:11:30Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I mean, most would be considered very highly speculative. And people say, wow, that's a really high risk investment. You have a very high risk tolerance, right? Doing things in entrepreneurship and so on. And I've never felt that way. I actually feel like I'm focused on risk mitigation at all times. And so for me, I thought about it at one point, because they're like, oh, you have a really high risk tolerance, risk, risk, risk. And I was like, well, wait a second, like, we should try to figure out. The definition of this term that we're using before we have a discussion.

• 1:12:00Speaker 03

  Isn't the thing with startups is that you're sort of willing to lose money on a certain number as long as like some of them come out?

• 1:12:05Tim Ferriss?

  Right, no, exactly. So I.

• 1:12:06Speaker 03

  So you're sort of just doing the math on the overall picture. It's like, doesn't matter if some of them fail.

• 1:12:09Tim Ferriss?

  That's exactly right. And what's important, at least in that game, right, is, or that sport, I mean, you can look at it that way, is following your own rules. Like, if you set rules.

• 1:12:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:12:20Tim Ferriss?

  And you understand, say, portfolio theory and the math, if I follow these rules is going to, is going to turn out likely this way. Therefore, I need to make X number investments.

• 1:12:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, or at least having like a plan that you're willing to stick to and not, and then not start to just get hog wild where you're like, well, this guy said that.

• 1:12:37Tim Ferriss?

  And not deviate.

• 1:12:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:12:39Tim Ferriss?

  So, so what I realized for myself, that risk in my mind is the likelihood of an irreversible negative outcome. And if I look at it that way, if I do something that fails, if I can get back to where I was very easily, then that's not a risk. It's not a high risk, for instance. Do you, uh, do you think you relate to risk or think about it differently than other people?

• 1:13:00Speaker 03

  Um, no, I mean, all that's pretty much in line with the way I look at risk. I mean, yeah, I mean, with the startup stuff, I wouldn't consider that particularly risky. Because like, obviously, people make a lot of money off startups. It's just a matter of like, doing it well. And like, you know, playing the stock market and things like that. People obviously make a lot of money. So it's not like a fundamentally risky activity. Just a matter of like, how you do it, how well you do it. And obviously, I'm not in either of those worlds at all. So, I mean, for me, it probably would be dangerous because, you know, I'd be like, well, now I have no money. But it's because that's not my thing. Like, I don't, I don't know anything about it.

• 1:13:30Tim Ferriss?

  What is the best decision you've ever made not to do something? Or a good decision that you've made not to do something?

• 1:13:37Speaker 03

  Well, I think pretty much any of the free solos that I backed off of and climbed down were probably all pretty good decisions. I mean, who's to say? I mean, maybe they all would have been fine and I would have just like climbed to the top and had a nice day. But, you know, there's no point in second guessing that stuff. I mean, if you're not psyched, you're not psyched.

• 1:13:53Speaker 03

  But I haven't had any like clear, or like near misses where I decided not to climb something and then there's like a huge avalanche that sweeps the whole mountain. And you're like, thank God I wasn't up there.

• 1:14:02Tim Ferriss?

  You have a very minimalist lifestyle. Uh, what is, what is something that you spent too much on but don't regret? Or something that you spend too much on but don't regret? Or a lot on too much is too judgmental.

• 1:14:18Speaker 03

  Um, I don't know. I don't think it's too much, but um, when I bought noise cancelling headphones, I was like, this seems really indulgent, but it made my life so much better. Like, I love traveling with noise cancelling headphones. It's like my favorite possession, I think.

• 1:14:30Tim Ferriss?

  How do you use them?

• 1:14:31Speaker 03

  I just, I mean, I cancel noise with them. It's amazing.

• 1:14:36Tim Ferriss?

  Do you use them all the time when you're traveling?

• 1:14:39Speaker 03

  In the airport and on the plane, I pretty much have noise cancelling headphones on the whole time. I love it. I'll just like listen to soft music and like read my book or work on my computer, do whatever, you know, just hang out. But I just like love not having all the crazy bustling noise around me the whole time.

• 1:14:53Tim Ferriss?

  What type of music do you listen to most often when you're flying?

• 1:14:58Speaker 03

  Um, flying, I do a lot of soundtracks, like so sort of like classically type music, but you know, set to Indiana Jones, let's say, or whatever.

• 1:15:05Tim Ferriss?

  Braveheart.

• 1:15:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. Actually, I've never done the Braveheart soundtrack, but like Last of the Mohicans is a favorite.

• 1:15:10Tim Ferriss?

  That's a great soundtrack. Uh, do you ever climb to music?

• 1:15:16Speaker 03

  Um, I'll do easy climbing to music for sure. Um, I normally just have my phone in my pocket and will just blast it like, you know, stereo style. Um, but that's only if I'm climbing something where there's nobody around and because I think it's super annoying when you like hike up to people on a trail with like a boombox going. Cause obviously it's like diminishing their outdoor experience.

• 1:15:34Tim Ferriss?

  What do you, in those cases, what type of music do you listen to?

• 1:15:37Speaker 03

  Um, I pretty much only listen like modern rock, like hate rock and stuff.

• 1:15:40Tim Ferriss?

  Like what?

• 1:15:41Speaker 03

  I said, but like what?

• 1:15:43Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, what kind of bands?

• 1:15:44Speaker 03

  Oh, I don't know. Like, I was listening to like Bad Religion. We listened to Metallica last night on the drive and like, you know, I'm a Chevelle or, you know, Tool or random, whatever.

• 1:15:56Tim Ferriss?

  What is something that people, and this is in quotes, know about you that is wrong?

• 1:16:02Speaker 03

  I don't know. I mean, I think a lot of people, I mean, certainly online commentary, a lot of people think I have a death wish or like have never experienced fear, like just don't, don't care about my safety. I mean, the thing is that if you just watch YouTube videos, you get the impression that I just like walk up to a wall and climb it. And like you sort of miss the 20 years of, of climbing culture that's behind it, you know, the fact that I've, that there's a huge history behind all these roots and I know a lot about them and I have tons of friends that have climbed them and I can, I could like recite half the moves on them from memory. You know what I mean? Like there's a ton that goes into it that people like don't see in a three minute YouTube short and yeah.

• 1:16:36Tim Ferriss?

  Well, it's kind of like, uh, you had Laird, had Laird Hamilton on the podcast, right? The sort of undisputed king of big wave surfing and people would. It's funny how people look at that and they have a different judgment than when they look at you on a wall. Even though in practical terms.

• 1:16:51Speaker 03

  You think? I mean, don't people look at his big waves or even be like, that guy's crazy. He has a death wish?

• 1:16:55Tim Ferriss?

  Well.

• 1:16:55Speaker 03

  Cause I kinda do. I'm like, that's what it looks like to me.

• 1:16:58Tim Ferriss?

  So I think that it's slightly the degree, the frequency with which I hear people say that is different because they look at a wall and they're like, oh, I could climb up things, but they look at a hundred foot wave and somebody getting towed in on a jet ski and they're like, I wouldn't even be able to stand up on the board while getting pulled on a jet ski. Therefore, assumption, assumption, assumption.

• 1:17:20Tim Ferriss?

  What do you think of say, uh, freedivers who try to break records in freediving?

• 1:17:25Speaker 03

  I mean, I, I don't know much about it, but it does seem like it's one of the riskiest sports in the world. I mean, more people die doing that than virtually anything else.

• 1:17:33Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:33Speaker 03

  I mean, it kinda goes with wingsuiting or something where like, you know, it's fair to say that it actually is quite risky because people do actually die all the time doing it.

• 1:17:41Tim Ferriss?

  Have you ever done any wingsuit stuff?

• 1:17:43Speaker 03

  Um, no, I did my AFF, so I like learned how to, to parachute out of a plane. Um, on the thought that I would maybe eventually learn how to base jump or something. And then I was basically just like, I'm not into this. I'm like, I don't think this is cool. I don't like it.

• 1:17:54Tim Ferriss?

  Just the, just because the risk, the downside risk, the downside is too high?

• 1:17:57Speaker 03

  Um, no, uh, skydiving is not dangerous, you know? So I mean, when you're learning out of the plane, like it's not sketchy at all, but mostly I was like, I just don't like this. You know, and like, I don't want to devote the energy to like learning how to do this. And I sort of realized how much it would take for me to, to feel comfortable doing that. And I was like, this is just dumb. I'm not into it.

• 1:18:14Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:14Speaker 03

  And then as it turns out, um, you know, like one of my good friends and climbing partners died wingsuiting. And then last year, uh, notably Dean Potter died wingsuiting. And so, I mean, you know, climbing has lost a lot of high-end climbers to wingsuiting accidents. It's like, yeah, I mean, it is a very dangerous activity.

• 1:18:30Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, you mentioned Dean Potter. Do you, I mean, I, I think when I hear his name, uh, I also associate it with.

• 1:18:36Speaker 03

  Slacklining?

• 1:18:36Tim Ferriss?

  Exactly, slacklining. You seem to have the like perfect slacklining feet. I, I mean, maybe we could take a photograph.

• 1:18:43Speaker 03

  They're all messed up.

• 1:18:44Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, you, you've got some amazing, like. Functional feet. Do you slackline much?

• 1:18:49Speaker 03

  Functional. That's a very kind way of putting deformed. But yeah, highly functional, yes.

• 1:18:54Tim Ferriss?

  Do you slackline or what's your opinion?

• 1:18:56Speaker 03

  No, I can slackline at like a low level. You know, I can like walk lines back and forth just because there's so many slacklines in campgrounds and climbing areas and things, you know, I definitely have done a fair amount of slacklining. And I can do some like really easy tricks and things, but, but no, I'm definitely not a slackliner and I've never done any high lines and I'm not like, I'm not into slacklining.

• 1:19:12Tim Ferriss?

  When you think of the word successful, who's the first person who comes to mind for you?

• 1:19:17Speaker 03

  When I hear successful?

• 1:19:18Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, just the word successful.

• 1:19:19Speaker 03

  I mean, when you just said it, I thought Elon Musk, but then like I have no idea, you know, like, cause I don't know, but I don't know that much about business, but I'm just like, that's rad.

• 1:19:28Tim Ferriss?

  Is there, uh, is there anyone that you would want to model your life after in any way?

• 1:19:37Speaker 03

  Um, probably not, but though I do like reading, you know, a biography or something and then sort of, um, like I have some notes on my phone of like lists from random things I've read. You know, where you sort of choose little lessons out of like a book about somebody and you're like, oh, like that person did these things well, and those are all things that I could apply to my life. But, you know, I wouldn't want to model my whole life on somebody that's more like, you know, cherry picking the good lessons here and there.

• 1:20:02Tim Ferriss?

  Which biographies have produced a lot of notes for you?

• 1:20:06Speaker 03

  I've known this a few times, but so I read, um, the biography of, uh, Brad Washburn, who was like a big, if you know him, he was like an Alaska explorer photographer. He also ran the, like a natural history museum in, in, uh, Boston, I think.

• 1:20:22Speaker 03

  But so he just had like a wide and varied career and he was like a national geographic explorer type, you know, he just did a lot with his life. And so after I finished reading the book, I was like, whoa, this guy like got shit done, you know? And I don't know, you know, I respect that. And so I just like, kind of thought about it.

• 1:20:38Tim Ferriss?

  What is something that you believe that other people think is crazy?

• 1:20:43Speaker 03

  That I believe that other people think is crazy. Well, I don't know. I mean, I think that my evaluation of risk and all the things we were just talking about, a lot of people think is totally crazy.

• 1:20:53Speaker 03

  But that's, I mean, I think it's because they don't have a full set of facts on it, you know, that they don't quite appreciate it in the same way that I do. But

• 1:21:02Speaker 03

  I don't know if I have any other like totally outlandish beliefs like that. I don't know.

• 1:21:06Tim Ferriss?

  Do you, uh,

• 1:21:10Tim Ferriss?

  I'm sure you've had this question before, but would you consider yourself a religious person? Do you have a particular belief system?

• 1:21:17Speaker 03

  No, I'm like strongly atheist and just like not into religion at all.

• 1:21:22Tim Ferriss?

  Were your parents religious at all or no?

• 1:21:24Speaker 03

  Um, yeah, mom is at least used to identify as Catholic. She'd probably still say that she believes in God, though there's no evidence of it at all, you know, like she doesn't go to church anymore or do anything. But, um, yeah, so as kids we were taken to church, but at no point did I ever believe anything.

• 1:21:42Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, so there was no sort of transitionary period. It was just from day one.

• 1:21:45Speaker 03

  It's funny, like even though we were being taken to church, I just always thought it was all a bunch of weird stories. You're just like, it made no sense to me. I'm like, why would you believe in some invisible thing that, you know, I'm like, like, why would you ever believe any of that? Like, it doesn't make any sense. It's weird. It's weird that so many adults believe all that stuff because it still doesn't make any sense.

• 1:22:02Tim Ferriss?

  There's a lot of stuff that doesn't make a lot of sense that people believe too.

• 1:22:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:22:06Tim Ferriss?

  A lot in the theater, politics and elsewhere too.

• 1:22:08Speaker 03

  Well, you know.

• 1:22:08Tim Ferriss?

  But, uh, this is going to be a gear shift. I mean, I mean, we're shifting a lot of gears. I'm grinding out the transmission of gears, but uh, food, I want to talk about, do you have any particular thoughts on food or how do you think about eating yourself?

• 1:22:26Speaker 03

  Uh,

• 1:22:27Tim Ferriss?

  not literally eating yourself, but you get the idea.

• 1:22:29Speaker 03

  Uh, I mean, I'm not much of a cook and I don't like love food or food prep or anything, you know, I mean, if I could, I would just like take a pill and be like fully, fully fed all day, every day and just like, sweet, I don't have to worry about it. But, um, I don't know. I mean, in the last couple of years, I've I've gone vegetarian, um, which has more to do with all like the environmental nonfiction I've been reading. It's more just as like one of the few things that I can do as an individual to like really have an impact on the world.

• 1:22:57Speaker 03

  But yeah, I don't know. I mean.

• 1:22:58Tim Ferriss?

  Do you have any uh, do you have any go to dinners? Like, what are your most common dinners? What do they look like?

• 1:23:05Speaker 03

  Um, I mean, for all the years that I've lived in the van, one of my go to dinners was like mac and cheese with with stuff in it. You know, like adding a vegetable. I used to add tuna to it a lot. Then I've switched to just like vegetables or, you know, maybe some beans or whatever. You're like mac and cheese and chili, though now I'm sort of easing away from the mac and cheese too, because I've kind of stopped eating dairy. But so like, you know, rice and vegetable stuff or uh, like lentils or whatever.

• 1:23:30Tim Ferriss?

  Keeping it simple.

• 1:23:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:23:33Tim Ferriss?

  So many questions, so many questions I want to ask. Do you have any morning rituals? Like, what are the first sixty days? Sixty days, the first sixty minutes of your day look like?

• 1:23:43Speaker 03

  Pretty much always just get up and have like a big breakfast and then go climbing. That's kind of the standard.

• 1:23:47Tim Ferriss?

  When is usual wake up time?

• 1:23:48Speaker 03

  For the last two months, I've been waking up, doing some fifteen minutes of stretching, then eating my breakfast, then going climbing just because of the back stuff. But um.

• 1:23:57Tim Ferriss?

  What time do you generally wake up and go to bed?

• 1:23:59Speaker 03

  Um, I generally, I'm pretty unstructured, so I basically just go to sleep whenever I'm, whenever I need to or whenever it makes sense, then I just wake up whenever. I try to sleep as much as I want to.

• 1:24:12Tim Ferriss?

  What is that typically amount? I mean, I, people think they're like, oh, that four hour work week guy, like I must sleep three hours a night. I try to sleep eight to ten.

• 1:24:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, I'm all about the eight to ten for sure. I think last night, I mean, I was sleeping in front of your house last night. I think I slept, uh, I think I slept nine last night.

• 1:24:26Tim Ferriss?

  Well, because, wait a second, is that the van?

• 1:24:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, that's my car.

• 1:24:30Tim Ferriss?

  I just walked in my dog and I was like, who's camped out in front of my house?

• 1:24:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:24:35Tim Ferriss?

  That is fucking hilarious. Okay, yeah, with like the reflectors in the window. I was like, who is trying to kidnap me?

• 1:24:41Speaker 03

  No, no, that's that's my rape wagon parked in front of your house.

• 1:24:44Tim Ferriss?

  Well, it's one of those things like, yeah, we drove to San Francisco last night and then I'm like, well, I don't want to park somewhere else, then have to drive here in the morning. So I'm like, I'm just gonna go park there. I'm gonna sleep as late as possible. I'm gonna wake up and I'm gonna come in and do a podcast. It's gonna be like totally chill. From

• 1:24:58Speaker 03

  Well, that's the thing about living in a car is you're all about like minimizing the wasted time. You know, there's no point in like driving around in circles. You just park where you need to be, sleep and then do your thing.

• 1:25:07Tim Ferriss?

  That's amazing. All right.

• 1:25:08Speaker 03

  And the thing is after, and I've lived in a van for like 10 years now, you know, it starts to become a routine. It's like hard to imagine like going to a hotel, moving all your shit into a room, moving it back into your car later, moving the car. You're just like, what a waste of time. I just want to like park where I need to be.

• 1:25:20Tim Ferriss?

  So a lot of people have asked this and I'm kind of curious myself, like the logistics of Alex Arnold. So if you have a date and the date goes well, what then?

• 1:25:31Speaker 03

  They come back to the van. I mean, it's a nice van. It's like a, you call it a little mini home or whatever. You don't want micro home stuff or what's it called?

• 1:25:38Tim Ferriss?

  Tiny homes. Yeah, I've got a bunch of tiny home books right over there.

• 1:25:41Speaker 03

  See, I have one up front.

• 1:25:42Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. So now before you go out on the day, you're like, just in case this goes well, do you put out like, like, like some rose petals in a bowl of water?

• 1:25:50Speaker 03

  Preferably go back to their place.

• 1:25:54Speaker 03

  It's like a little classier.

• 1:25:58Tim Ferriss?

  Do you have any favorite documentaries or movies?

• 1:26:03Speaker 03

  I don't know. Not particularly, I guess. Um, I mean, my movie taste runs toward just straight like Hollywood action movie, like total fluff. You know, like Gladiator or something, just like fun times. Um, like, yeah.

• 1:26:18Tim Ferriss?

  Roger. All right. Well, we'll, we'll keep that at that.

• 1:26:20Speaker 03

  It's all pretty. Yeah. It's all just pretty like unimpressive. But it's kind of because like movies, because I do a lot of like reading, nonfiction and stuff. I feel like movies fill the fluff category. You know, like I hate heavy nonfiction or like heavy documentary type films. I just like fall asleep to those.

• 1:26:35Tim Ferriss?

  Just too much thinking after all the nonfiction computing. What movies have you seen the greatest number of times? Is there anything you've watched like over and over again? I have that habit.

• 1:26:45Speaker 03

  Um, I've probably seen the Star Wars movies lots, a lot of times, but that's partially just because I started when I was a kid and then I've like rewatched them over the years. I don't know if I've seen anything else like more than that probably.

• 1:26:56Tim Ferriss?

  I think I have maybe weird numbers because for each of my books, I get very, I feel very isolated if I'm writing at night in a dark house by myself. So I always put this-

• 1:27:05Speaker 03

  You put on certain movies?

• 1:27:06Tim Ferriss?

  I have movies for each book, they're usually one or two movies that I'll just put on repeat. And I'll put them on mute and then listen to music, like the same tracks over and over and over and over again.

• 1:27:18Speaker 03

  Your brain might be like hardwired in some weird ways here.

• 1:27:21Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I gotta, that's definitely true.

• 1:27:23Speaker 03

  That's getting tweaky.

• 1:27:24Tim Ferriss?

  I gotta, I gotta-

• 1:27:25Speaker 03

  I have like the same music, the same-

• 1:27:26Tim Ferriss?

  I had a recommendation from this very, very, very brilliant and capable entrepreneur named Matt Mullenweg, who's a great coder, and he always, he listens to the same single track over and over again, almost like a noise machine when he's coding. And I thought, okay, well, I'll try that with writing and it worked really, really well. But the movies end up being really weird because-

• 1:27:48Speaker 03

  Yeah. So what movies are we talking?

• 1:27:49Tim Ferriss?

  So, well, for the four hour work week, it was the, this isn't that weird. I think these are fine movies, but The Bourne Identity was the first. And then for the four hour body, it was Casino Royale, which I think is fantastic.

• 1:28:03Speaker 03

  Also, when you're gonna say like Rocky or something, it's gonna be non-stop training montages.

• 1:28:06Tim Ferriss?

  Well, you know, there are a lot of fight scenes and the parkour sequence in the beginning with Sebastian Fokan, who's incredible. So that's, yeah, that's a whole separate-

• 1:28:16Speaker 03

  I didn't know that was him.

• 1:28:17Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, oh, yeah. So good. And then for the four hour chef, this is super, this is off theme completely, but I was just looking for a movie when I was just getting started. And on Amazon Prime, the first movie that popped up was Babe.

• 1:28:32Speaker 03

  With the pig?

• 1:28:33Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, Farmer Hoggett. And I watched Babe like a thousand times because I just put it on repeat and watched it like four or five times a night.

• 1:28:39Speaker 03

  Whoa.

• 1:28:40Tim Ferriss?

  Go figure. Yeah, we could psychoanalyze that.

• 1:28:44Speaker 03

  Hardcore.

• 1:28:44Tim Ferriss?

  Hardcore. Aside from the noise cancelling headphones, what purchase has most positively impacted your life in the last, say, six months?

• 1:28:54Speaker 03

  Definitely my van.

• 1:28:56Tim Ferriss?

  Definitely your van.

• 1:28:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, no question. I mean, the last van that I, you know, I bought a $10,000 van and lived in it for 10 years. And then this new van that I bought, it's a new van, so it's obviously a bit pricier, but it's like pretty awesome. And I'll probably live in it for another 10 years. Well, maybe not actually live in it, but you know, I'll be based out of it.

• 1:29:15Tim Ferriss?

  Again, returning to the, this is, this is not directly related to the dating in the van, but this is, this is a question from Michael Cipriano. I've always found climbing to have a large positive effect on my libido. Do you, does Alex find this to be the case?

• 1:29:31Speaker 03

  Well, I've climbed for my entire life, so I mean, maybe it explains.

• 1:29:34Tim Ferriss?

  Just permanent.

• 1:29:39Speaker 03

  No, I mean, is that for real?

• 1:29:41Tim Ferriss?

  That's a real question.

• 1:29:41Speaker 03

  Like, I guess, I don't know. But I mean, that's probably true of anybody who's like staying active and staying fit. And you know, you're just like, it's the way your body's supposed to work.

• 1:29:49Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Are there ways that you've seen lessons learned or skills developed in climbing translate to other parts of your life? And if so, does any, are there any particular examples come to mind?

• 1:30:05Speaker 03

  I don't know exactly. I mean, so I've gained a lot from being a professional climber, like having to go and give talks and like do the whole work side of climbing. I mean, that's really like helped me grow as a person and feel comfortable in public speaking and all that kind of stuff. Though I think from the actual climbing itself, maybe the most useful thing I've gotten has been sort of being able to differentiate, you know, risk and consequence and fear and like all these different things and sort of being able to separate my feelings from what's actually happening. You know, like, oh, I feel fear, but is that fear justified because I'm actually in danger? Or is that like totally irrational fear that I should just squish and like move forward with something? And I don't, I don't know. I mean, I feel like climbing has sort of helped me understand like the different things that are going on there. You know, whereas I, I feel like a lot of people are just like, oh, I'm afraid. And then they're just like, oh God, I'm afraid, you know?

• 1:30:50Speaker 03

  But sometimes like, I mean, fear shouldn't necessarily control you any more than anything else.

• 1:30:54Tim Ferriss?

  You know, desire or fill in the blank.

• 1:30:56Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, I mean, like hunger, you know, when you're really hungry, you're not like, oh God, I'm hungry, I'm hungry, I'm hungry. You know, just like, oh, I'll eat lunch in two hours. You know, and I feel like fear to some extent should be the same way where you can just register like, oh, I'm feeling fear right now. But sometimes that doesn't matter. I mean, sometimes it does and you need to be like, oh, you know, I'm about to die. Like I should watch out for that. But, but a lot of times, I mean, you should be able to just set that fear aside and just do exactly what you're supposed to be doing.

• 1:31:21Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, so I mean, in a way, I mean, you're a connoisseur of fear, right? I mean, you can distinguish sort of the

• 1:31:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, all the different flavors.

• 1:31:27Tim Ferriss?

  The varietals of fear.

• 1:31:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, when you experience enough fear in your life, you're like, no, now I can sort of differentiate between all the different types.

• 1:31:35Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, do you drink coffee or caffeine?

• 1:31:39Speaker 03

  No, though I don't have, I just don't like coffee. Um, and I don't really like tea and, but I don't have any problem with caffeine. I don't really even notice caffeine, I don't think that much because you get it in like shot blocks and gels and goos and whatever, all the little energy products. Like some of them have caffeine and some don't, and I don't feel like I notice an effect either way.

• 1:31:56Tim Ferriss?

  Well, the reason I asked is that I find personally, I remember I did a three day meditation retreat, my first meditation retreat. And they disallowed caffeine. They said, no caffeine and no alarm clocks. You wake up when you wake up. And when I came

• 1:32:10Speaker 03

  Welcome to my life. I'm on a 20 year meditation retreat.

• 1:32:15Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I need to do more of that. And I came back from that experience and went back into my normal routine, which was drinking not coffee at that point, but a lot of iced tea. Like I'd go to a restaurant and they would just endlessly refill my iced tea. And I felt like a complete crackhead, like a miserable crackhead. And I was like, is this what my normal was? Holy shit. And the reason that I brought it up is that it strikes me that at least in that state, I would have a lot of trouble distinguishing the fine nuances of different types of fear. Because you're just overwhelmed.

• 1:32:47Speaker 03

  When you're all jacked up on sugar from iced tea stuff and then you're in like caffeine, who knows? Yeah, totally. There's like a lot going on physiologically and it's hard to differentiate like what the, what the finer points are.

• 1:32:57Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, the signal from the noise.

• 1:32:59Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:33:00Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, at what climbing grades have you plateaued the most? This is from Liz Wolfe. Um, and she's, she just said five 11 plateau has been really bad for me.

• 1:33:11Speaker 03

  Which probably means she hasn't got past the five 11 plateau. She's just like mired in five 11 mind. Um, no, so I've basically, I pretty much progressed steadily to about mid five 14. So like 14 B or C, and I've basically been plateaued there for like seven or 10 years or something.

• 1:33:28Speaker 03

  Though I feel like I've sort of plateaued there because I'm at the point, um, I mean, cause mid 514 is definitely a fairly high level of climbing, though it's by no means elite by the world standard anymore. Like that's not, that's not like super hard.

• 1:33:40Tim Ferriss?

  Just to put in perspective, what it, what would be elite?

• 1:33:42Speaker 03

  The hardest thing in the world is 15C, but only two people have climbed that. But there are a lot of people climbing like 15A and 15B-ish now. And so climbing like 14B or C is like, you know, respectable, but a lot of people can do that like first try, no prob- not a lot, but a handful of people can climb that first try, no problem. It's like trivial for them. So, you know, I mean, it's not, it's by no means world standard, but you know, it's, it's solid. But so I think that for me, that's sort of my natural plateau, like that's kind of what I can climb, um, without having to train much to climb harder. You know, because the thing is I spend a lot of my year doing like adventure trips and expeditions and, you know, doing stuff through my foundation and going to Angola last year.

• 1:34:21Speaker 03

  I mean, trips like that, that do not help your fitness at all, like they won't help you climb harder, but they definitely make you a more well-rounded climber and probably a better person and more interesting. You get to do fun stuff. And so, you know, I've sort of been content being plateaued at, at mid 514 for a long time. Though I could see at some point in my life, I might devote a year or two to like actually trying to climb hard. Cause I'd love to climb the, the French grade 9A, which is 14D and US grades. Um, it's just sort of like a meaningful benchmark grade that if I ever climbed 9A, I'd be like, respect, like I'm good, like that's, that's hard enough for me.

• 1:34:51Tim Ferriss?

  So if you wanted to do that hard climbing, what would the most important components of that training look like?

• 1:34:58Speaker 03

  Um, I'm not totally sure. I mean, I think for me, it would require more finger boarding or hangboarding, like basically just focusing more on finger strength. Because I think as a climber, that's probably what I'm worst at is just like the pure strength, holding on to things. Um, but also I think for me, it would just require more dedicated, focused, hard climbing for the year, you know? Like right now I'm climbing in Yosemite and, uh, in my whole season of climbing Yosemite, I won't do a single hard move, basically at the, you know, at the physical limit of like what I can actually pull on. Because I'm climbing these like great big walls and I'm trying to climb them quickly and sometimes I'm climbing them ropeless. But anyway, I'm doing them in all these styles that like, it just doesn't help you pull harder. And so like, if I wanted to climb harder grades, I would have to just pull harder.

• 1:35:40Tim Ferriss?

  If you could no longer climb, but had to pick a physical activity, what would you pick?

• 1:35:48Speaker 03

  If I couldn't climb, I don't know, I have a lot of respect for ultra runners, I think, um, because they sort of interact with the landscape in the same way that I kind of like to, you know, like the, something like the ultra tour Mont Blanc, when you like run all the way around the Mont Blanc, Messif, I mean, that's pretty cool. And like, I would love to be able to do things like that, but I just like, don't really, I can't run that well. But, um, but the thing is, is that I really love running like mountain ridge lines and things, and then that quickly becomes actual rock climbing. And so I'm like, well, it's like, I don't know. But yeah, ultra running is pretty awesome. Or, um, I don't know. I could be into like big mountain skiing too. Like it's same, but see, it all sort of gravitates back towards mountains. And I'm like, wow, that's basically climbing.

• 1:36:30Tim Ferriss?

  And then you get exposed to nasty things like avalanches. For those of you who haven't seen Meru, Jesus Jimmy, both of you guys make me sweat. Not that I need any help. I tend to run hot drinking tea anyway, but, uh, I digress as usual. Uh, what are you world class at aside from climbing or within climbing that people might not realize?

• 1:36:53Speaker 03

  Um.

• 1:36:54Tim Ferriss?

  Or how would your best friends answer that question?

• 1:36:57Speaker 03

  I don't know. I mean, I guess one that within climbing, I'd say that, um, isn't it, because I'm known as a free soloist. I'm known for the ropeless climbing and that's like what you'll see online and, you know, all the videos and all that. But I'd probably still be a professional climber, even if I didn't free solo at all. Um, like right now I hold the speed record on like pretty much every major formation in Yosemite. Um, well, you know, all the different faces, like all the classic routes, like, um, I mean, I think that's basically true. And so, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'd probably still be like one of the more well-rounded climbers in America, even without the free soloing. But, um, but it's all sort of overshadowed by the like, oh my God, he's ropeless. And it's funny because I only do, you know, a handful

• 1:37:41Speaker 03

  of solos a year if that. And then I spend the whole rest of the year climbing with partners and ropes and like normal climbing with my friends, just like doing all kinds of interesting things and expeditions and whatever. And yet it still just comes down to like, whoa, free soloing. But you know, I'm fine with that because at least I get to go climb all the time.

• 1:37:59Tim Ferriss?

  What advice would you give to your 25 year old self, 25 or 20, depending on who needed it the most? And if you could just place like what you were doing, where you were at the time?

• 1:38:10Speaker 03

  Well, 20 is still slightly too old, but like my 18 year old self, I would just tell, I would say just not bother going to college at all. Cause like the year that I spent at Berkeley was a total waste of my time, basically. Not, not because there's anything wrong with Berkeley, but because I just wasn't passionate about what I was studying. And there's no, there was no point in me like grinding out a year of studies that I didn't care about that, you know, I should have just like gone climbing. Cause I mean, that's what I really cared about. And that's what's been so funny over the years is that like with climbing, you know, I have no problem putting in, you know, 20 to 40 hours a week, every week, all year into climbing. Like, and I mean, that's a fair amount. I've been keeping a training journal. Um, so I have like sort of hours of exercise. And last

• 1:38:51Speaker 03

  year, um, I counted up at the end of, at the new year, and I basically averaged like 27 hours a week of exercise every week last year, which is, you know, like, I think that's kind of comparable to other, I mean, you would know more than me, but other sports like for training volume. But I mean, then when you think that I've probably been doing that for the last 10 years that I've been on the road. And actually, and last year was a particularly low volume year for me because I, I had a book come out. And so I did a month of book touring and I also did like a month of touring in South America. And so like, I was climbing much less than I normally would. So presumably a few years ago, living in the van, I was probably doing like 30, probably 30 or 32 hours a week of exercise, which is like a lot of time spent climbing.

• 1:39:28Tim Ferriss?

  It is a lot of time.

• 1:39:29Speaker 03

  But.

• 1:39:30Tim Ferriss?

  What else do you put in your training journal? What other details are in there?

• 1:39:35Speaker 03

  Um, it's one line, I do one line, hours of exercise, one line, um, any additional like strength training type stuff, or like the stretching I've been doing recently. And then one line diet, which is like ate well, ate poorly, ate so so, or like, you know, too many cookies, like whatever, things like that.

• 1:39:52Tim Ferriss?

  Do you go back, do you eat a lot of cookies?

• 1:39:54Speaker 03

  Uh, sometimes I have an unfortunate problem.

• 1:39:56Tim Ferriss?

  What's, what's, what's your go-to cookie?

• 1:39:58Speaker 03

  Should I just chalk your cookies like straight? I can eat a lot of cookies.

• 1:40:03Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, well, that's probably the only thing that athletically, well, not athletically, that we share in common.

• 1:40:08Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Do you go big on the cookies?

• 1:40:10Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, there are these.

• 1:40:11Speaker 03

  I see you looking towards your kid.

• 1:40:12Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, well, I was looking, I have this like secret stash, I have to keep it out of sight.

• 1:40:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:40:17Tim Ferriss?

  There are these chocolate chip cookies that are actually from Long Island Tates, I think they are. There's somebody nodding over there.

• 1:40:25Speaker 03

  Imported chocolate chip cookies?

• 1:40:27Tim Ferriss?

  Well, originally from Long Island and they have, there's a, they're chocolate chip cookies, then there are these, I think they're gluten free ginger cookies. And I can't have those in my house or I would demolish the.

• 1:40:38Speaker 03

  That's my thing with desserts too, is I don't really buy dessert much because if I buy it, I just eat it all immediately. Like I'm terrible with moderation. So I generally don't have any dessert in the van and then when I do, I just eat it all.

• 1:40:51Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, if you were to, I know this is, this is a bit of a reach, but you're 30 now. Let's say you're idealized 40 year old self, right?

• 1:41:03Tim Ferriss?

  What advice do you think that 40 year old would give you now?

• 1:41:07Speaker 03

  I don't know. I mean, I feel like I'm doing pretty well right now.

• 1:41:10Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I'm not saying you're not.

• 1:41:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, I don't, I don't know. I mean, just, you know, just enjoy the ride.

• 1:41:15Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:16Speaker 03

  Just enjoy the process.

• 1:41:19Tim Ferriss?

  What would you like your life to look like in 10 years?

• 1:41:23Speaker 03

  Um, I don't know. I mean, maybe have a family or something, or at least like a solid partner, solid something going on.

• 1:41:31Speaker 03

  I think I'd like to maybe own a home or like have, have a place that I'm kind of living, like more of a solid home base. Just because like living in a van is great, but you know, at a certain point you're like, man, it's nice to have like a bathroom.

• 1:41:45Speaker 03

  I'm having like a shower or things.

• 1:41:47Tim Ferriss?

  So how do you deal with that actually? Now that, now that.

• 1:41:50Speaker 03

  Well, that's why when I came into your house, I use your bathroom.

• 1:41:52Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, got it. But like.

• 1:41:54Speaker 03

  So like last night, you're like, oh, man, I had too much water. Well, I have no, I have a pee bottle. I mean, you know, I've used a bottle forever. And actually, the thing is, when you get used to using a pee bottle all the time, like when I pull into a grocery store or something, I always just like pee in my bottle before I go into, you know, because you're like, why would I ever go and find some like dank public bathroom when like I can just use my bottle? Do you have, do you have, is it a disposable pee bottle? Like, no, no, it's like I use. Like a Nalgene? No, I use like a two liter bottle, just like some random plastic bottle. And I basically use it over and over until it's like, this is repulsive and then I recycle it and then I move on to another. But it's actually kind of this natural, it's like a natural life cycle because I'll use the same water bottle for climbing. It'll just be like some random two liter bottle that's in my bag for like months, but then eventually it starts to get disgusting.

• 1:42:37Speaker 03

  Or just kind of, you know, a little gross. And so then I'm like, well, that becomes the pee bottle and then I get another bottle. It's like the, the four month cycle on my bottles, you know? Do you, do you label them or do you just know by smell? Yeah, with a pee bottle, you just know, like, you know, when you open a bottle, you're like, oh, I shouldn't drink this.

• 1:42:56Speaker 03

  But also I have systems with like where things go and you know, I'm never going to accidentally like drink my pee bottle.

• 1:43:03Speaker 03

  Do you have, do people visit you in your van, like hang out in your van aside from the dates? Um, yeah, no, I mean, friends hang out in my van for sure. I mean, a lot of my climbing friends would be staying in a tent normally or staying wherever. So I mean, for them, it's a big step up to hang out in the van. It's like climate controlled, you know, you can, it's like sheltered. You can cook on a nice stove. It's lit. I mean, it's a nice place to hang out in the evenings.

• 1:43:24Speaker 03

  If you could have one billboard with anything on it, what would it say? Or what would you put on it? So you can give a message to the world.

• 1:43:35Speaker 03

  Oh, I don't know. I mean, like, it's just like, I don't know, environmental propaganda or something. Or like, uh, the meats. I'm like pretty stoked on all the vegetarian type of stuff now, just because it's such an easy way to minimize your impact on the planet. And it's just, you know, I mean, it just solves so many different environmental issues. But, um, I don't know. But the thing is, a billboard is not the best way to say, don't eat meat. Because it's like, it's obviously a lot more complicated than that. And nobody's gonna read that and be like, oh, okay, I'll stop.

• 1:44:05Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:44:05Speaker 03

  You know, it's like.

• 1:44:07Tim Ferriss?

  Requires more of a conversation.

• 1:44:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, it requires like a whole. And, and even then, it's like, it's not to say that like meat is fundamentally bad. It's like how you get it, where it's from, what you're supporting. I mean, you know, it's like a whole.

• 1:44:19Tim Ferriss?

  Feedlot versus this versus.

• 1:44:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, even that's like really complicated.

• 1:44:23Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:24Speaker 03

  Because there are places in the world where it makes sense to, to raise animals. Because like you can't raise anything else, you can't grow crops, you know.

• 1:44:30Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:30Speaker 03

  Whatever, and so.

• 1:44:32Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, what have you changed your mind about in the last few years? If anything?

• 1:44:38Speaker 03

  Um, I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is like, in high school, I was reading a bunch of Ayn Rand or Ayn Rand, whatever. You know, like objectivist, all super black and white, basically like F the poor, people should work harder, they should try harder. And now, as a thirty year old, I'm basically like, all about trying to help the poor, trying to help the planet in different ways. Trying to make the world a better place. It's like a full one eighty from, you know, the black and white that I was into in high school. And then, yeah, I mean, I've had massive changes on all those kinds of things. I mean, I used to be way more harsh, you know, and like my political views are like way further left now. I'm just way more, I mean, I'm a lot more compassionate now, I feel like. Though it's funny, not so much on a personal level, because I don't really care, but on like a societal level, I'm a lot more compassionate.

• 1:45:23Tim Ferriss?

  All right, I can't let that one go right away, so.

• 1:45:26Speaker 03

  Well, because I was like, I can't self describe as compassionate, because none of my friends would agree, you know? Because the thing is, I'm not like nice to like my friends or, on like a one on one level, I'm not like a super kind person, I don't think. But, um, but definitely in the grander sense, I mean, I'm trying to make, I'm, I aspire to make the world a better place and like a more, more just world, you know?

• 1:45:45Tim Ferriss?

  On the macro level.

• 1:45:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:45:47Tim Ferriss?

  So. So if I took, say, a couple of your closest friends and gave them a bottle or two of wine, or just hanging out, how would they describe you?

• 1:45:57Speaker 03

  I don't know. I mean,

• 1:45:58Tim Ferriss?

  I mean, if you had to guess, I mean,

• 1:45:59Speaker 03

  I shudder to think. Well, I mean, the thing, I'm pretty frank, I think. And so people can, you know, I think I can kind of be a dick sometimes. And though I just consider that being very honest, you know,

• 1:46:10Tim Ferriss?

  keeping it real.

• 1:46:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm just keeping it real. Keeping it real. No, I mean, I'd like to think that my friends would still call me a good person, you know, that I'm still like, still trying to, I'm doing my best, you know?

• 1:46:22Tim Ferriss?

  Do you have any, we're going to wrap up here, any ask or request for my audience? And that could be something you want them to think about, something you would like them to try, something you'd like them to do?

• 1:46:32Speaker 03

  I feel like they're all MMA fighters. I'd ask them not to beat me up ever.

• 1:46:36Tim Ferriss?

  They're not all MMA fighters. I assure you.

• 1:46:39Speaker 03

  I don't know. Do something positive in the world.

• 1:46:43Tim Ferriss?

  Not a bad place to wrap up. Where can people find more of you online? Best place to say hello, see what you're up to?

• 1:46:53Speaker 03

  I mean, my most personal outlet is probably my Facebook fan page. I'm like constantly posting stuff that I care about, and it's all managed by me. And so it's just like me posting articles that I think are interesting. It's kind of like a combination of of the climate stuff that I'm into, and then like the environmental stuff that I'm into. Basically, I post the environmental stuff is all the stuff I care about. And then I post just enough climate so everyone doesn't leave.

• 1:47:15Tim Ferriss?

  And is that, what is the URL for that?

• 1:47:18Speaker 03

  It was just facebook.com slash Alex Arnold, I think.

• 1:47:20Tim Ferriss?

  Okay.

• 1:47:21Speaker 03

  But if you just search, search for it, it's, you know, like a fan page, it's like several hundred thousand people or whatever.

• 1:47:25Tim Ferriss?

  H O N N O L D.

• 1:47:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:47:28Tim Ferriss?

  Well, Alex, I really appreciate you taking the time. I've been hoping to meet you for a long time, given that we're not that far apart oftentimes with Yosemite. So

• 1:47:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's surprising.

• 1:47:38Tim Ferriss?

  This is, uh, this has been fun. And once I, once I fix my elbows, maybe I'll see if I can tackle

• 1:47:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, you should.

• 1:47:43Tim Ferriss?

  A B zero or two. And maybe actually get outdoors, which I would enjoy. So, uh, yeah, I will, uh, hopefully do more than a three day meditation retreat, given that you've been doing it for 20 years. I think I might extend my ambition a little bit. But, uh, thanks very much. I really appreciate it.

• 1:48:01Speaker 03

  No, thanks for having me. A pleasure.

• 1:48:02Tim Ferriss?

  And everybody listening, for show notes, links to everything that we talked about, please just go to fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. And until next time, as always, thank you for listening.

• 1:48:20Tim Ferriss?

  Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday? That provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend. And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short.

• 1:49:02Tim Ferriss?

  It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out. And just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it.

• 1:49:24Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Headspace. More than 80% of the people I have interviewed, world-class performers across the military, entertainment, sports, and beyond, all have some type of meditative practice. I tried for years and years and failed miserably. The key is making it simple. And you can dramatically improve your life in just 10 minutes a day and technology can help you. This change comes through guided meditation and Headspace is by far the most popular app for this purpose. More than 4 million users. It's meditation made simple. So what I recommend is that you take this practice, meditation, which is rooted in thousands of years of tradition, supported by thousands of scientific studies, and try

• 1:50:07Tim Ferriss?

  it for 10 minutes a day for 10 days. That's all you need to do. You could also check out the founder, Andy Puddicombe's TED Talk, which has more than 5.5 million views. His last name is P U D D I C O M B E, if you want to look that up. But otherwise, download the free Headspace app, I have it on my phone, and begin their Take 10 program for 10 days of guided meditation, completely free, 10 minutes a day. That's all it takes. You should give it a shot. Headspace.com/Tim. Just go to Headspace.com/Tim.

• 1:50:46Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:51:30Tim Ferriss?

  So check it out, 99designs.com/tim. And until next time, thank you for listening.