I Begged Alex Honnold to Stop Climbing

Lemonada. And most importantly, your loved ones want to ask you. Will you please stop? No, obviously not. Alex Honnold achieved maybe the most incredible physical feat in all of human history, climbing a 3,000-foot vertical granite wall with no rope. Dude, it took me six months just to work up the courage to watch Free Solo. And if that film didn't give you a panic attack, Alex gave you another chance when he climbed Taipei 101 live on Netflix. No rope, no net. And at one point, no hands. In a country filled with people terrified of objectively safe things, it is wild to see Alex's lack of fear of something that is objectively terrifying. So I sat down with the world's most famous climber to talk about what he's actually afraid of. I probably would have killed myself rather than do stand-up comedy, like straight up. How he thinks about the ethics of marketing his Taipei climb as a death-defying spectacle. I'm not going to do a thing where I think I'm going to die on TV. That'd be insane. And I asked the kinds of deep, meaningful questions that make this show so essential. How do you pee? And poop when you climb. I also worked on his red carpet poses because the only thing more unforgivable than El Capitan is the Getty Images database. That shit is forever. Fuck you, Ronnie. You and I were both NorCal kids. You grew up in Sacramento. I grew up in Davis. Look, people in the comments that want to parse through the details when people say I say I'm from Sacramento, they're like, Oh, you're from Davis. I'm like, dude, it's a 12-mile difference. Yeah, yeah. Just relax. I can see the skyline of Sacramento from Mesa Boulevard. It's the same kind of suburbia, too. It's the same upbringing. Totally. And you and I were both trench babies from NorCal, and we both came up going to birthday parties at Rocknasium in Davis, California. Yeah, I actually went on a school field trip there when I was a child. That was the first time I ever climbed was at Rocknasium in Davis. So describe to people what Rocknasium is for those who haven't had the blessing to go there. Rocknasium is a very old climbing gym. Yeah. So I've heard that it's changed since my childhood, though I haven't been to the new version. But I think it's pretty scrappy, but it's kind of like an original old school climbing gym. Yeah. But, you know, I mean, it was enough to give me a taste of climbing. And then actually I didn't get into it until a different climbing gym opened in Sacramento close to my home when I was 10. And so then I started going there regularly. But that moment at Rocknasium, did you fall in love? Were you like, I love this. Yeah, I always loved climbing. But the thing is, even without the Rocknasium, I loved climbing trees and buildings and, you know, climbing on stuff. I just loved climbing. How did you have that moment at Rocknasium or at the other climbing gym in Sacramento that shall not be named where you learn to be courageous? But I went to that same climbing gym and I'm a coward. Are you? Or maybe you just didn't love it as much as I did. No, I'm still. No, I am. I'm afraid of heights like the high dive at Manor Pool, the public pool in Davis. Well, super scary. Are you afraid of heights or are you afraid of getting injured? Both. Because, I mean, so most people that say they're afraid of heights aren't really afraid of heights per se. They're afraid of falling and getting hurt. They're afraid of getting hurt, which is totally understandable. And, you know, I don't want to get hurt. I'm afraid of falling and getting hurt. It's just that in certain circumstances, I feel very comfortable. You know, I feel confident that I'm not going to fall. And so it's not scary. Is there stuff that us normies do that freaks you out? That you're like, how the fuck do people do this every day? Well, I mean, there are tons of aspects of city life. I mean, we're in New York City. You're sort of like there are a lot of aspects of city life that to an outside observer would be like, this is so sketchy. Sketchy meaning dangerous. Yeah. With just like traffic and like crossing things and like so much movement, like bike messengers. Slipping past with like no seemingly no rhyme or reason to it. And you're like, this feels dangerous to somebody who's not used to it. And yet for somebody who lives here, it's totally normal. Have you ever seen a dead person before? Yeah. Yeah. And did that make you afraid of death? No, but it does remind you of the frailty of the human body. You know, I mean, it is always very sobering. You're sort of like, well, the first time I was exposed to free solo climbing was in an incredible documentary film. I think, you know what I'm talking about? The rest of the world knows what I'm talking about. I'm, of course, talking about. I'm talking about Mission Impossible 2. Now, is it humbling knowing that an actor could do what you do so easily? Well, so I know the guy that did the stunts for this, and he is actually kind of better than me. He is really, really good. This guy, Ron Kalk from Yosemite. Wait, wait, wait. Who? Ron Kalk. He's just like a. The fuck are you talking about? That's Tom Cruise. Well, I'm pretty sure Tom Cruise didn't actually climb that part. Bro, have you not heard that Tom Cruise does all of his own stunts? Well, I don't think he does all of them. But I mean, this is so cool. What do you mean he doesn't do all of them? Every movie that I watch that's a Tom Cruise movie is basically me paying $50. $50 to see if Tom Cruise will live or die. Is he a better climber than you? Well, I mean, you would argue that he almost fell off the cliff a couple times in that clip. So that doesn't really scream great climber. You know what I mean? Like narrowly avoiding death is like not the hallmark of a great climber. Great climber would be like looks happily in control and has a good time and then gets to the top. But that is really freaking cool. But I haven't seen it framed that way. That's really interesting that you framed it that way. The fact that he did that fall means he's not that great. Yeah. I mean, if somebody almost falls to their death and then. Miraculously survives. You're like, that's not a hallmark of greatness. You know, that's kind of like, oh, wow. He like narrowly dodged the bullet. I love that. Talk your shit, Alex. You know. Yeah. Well, I just I don't know if Tom wrote that scene himself. He for sure approved that. Yeah, I'm pretty sure he did. He was like, this is sick. I mean, people have a very childlike wonder with what you do because it doesn't comport with what I guess people generally do in their day to day life. But I want to ask you questions almost like a five year old. So this next segment is called questions from a five year old, but also me. OK, so these are real questions from my five year old that I also agreed on. I'm like, yeah, it's a good question. You ready? Love it. I have a four year old. I'm like, let's let's see. Great. My son was asking, why don't you wear a rope? Did you forget it? No, I chose not to bring it. But I do mostly use a rope. OK, how do you pee and poop when you climb? You just pee and poop. I shit your pants. I've never actually shit in my pants, but I've had a lot of like serious emergencies while rock climbing. Yeah, you just like freaking go. But your name? Nature. So it doesn't matter. You just make sure you're not impacting other climbers. You just let it run down your leg like when you're at a public pool, kind of. No, no, a little different. But then there's some drastic. I mean, there's been like one hand to hang out the side of a cliff taking a dump. You've done that? Yeah, a couple of times. I mean, things, you know, when things go sideways. So you were doing what what Tom Cruise is doing a mission possible, too. But you were dropping a number two. I mean, you know, when it happens, it happens. It was better than pooping your pants. I think. Yeah, Giardia for one of them. So you pull down your Patagonia baggies with your Hanes cotton boxers. You pull that down. Yeah. And you just let it rip. Yeah, you make sure you're off the route and then you make sure that it's going to land somewhere that's like, OK. And then you just, yeah, go off the side of the cliff. Do you bring snacks? Always. Do you ever wish you brought more snacks? Often. What if you get tired, but you're not done yet? Then, you know. I mean, depending on how tired and how close you are to being done, you either push through and sort of learn something about yourself. Or you retreat and go home. Do you sleep up there? Sometimes, yeah. Yeah, just this fall, I spent six days on the wall. On like a thing. You sleep up there? Sometimes. I mean, it's obviously more fun to do something in a day and go down and sleep in the van. It's more comfortable. But when it makes sense, you sleep on the wall. And you're not afraid of like falling asleep and then rolling off the side of the cliff? You're normally backed up like you're tied into something. So that if the whole portal wedge, like if the cot thing that you're sleeping on collapsed during the night, you wouldn't die. You'd be connected to the wall. OK. You have like backups for the different things. Do you ever sleep on the wall? Do you ever climb higher than the clouds? I have climbed above the clouds quite a lot, actually. I love that question. I mean, that is one of the coolest things in climbing is when you're above a cloud layer. And so it feels like infinite beneath you. And you're like, it's pretty cool. What's that like? It's amazing. I mean, it's kind of like being above the ocean or something. But yeah, I mean, routinely, if you're on the top of something and the clouds are low, it just feels like infinite cloud beneath you. And you're like up on something. You're like, this is sick. Yeah, it's really cool. Is it scary when you look down? Sometimes. But in general, no. I love the view. I mean, that's kind of half the point. What happens when you sneeze? I sneeze. You don't lose grip? No. I mean, do you ever just fall over because you sneeze? Dude, when I sneeze and I'm on the 95, I'm like, fuck, I'm going to crash into someone. Well, that might be a little different because you jerk a little bit. But it's the same thing. I have grip on something. No, but that's different because. What do you mean that's different? Well, because if you jerk your wheel, the wheel moves. But if you're holding on to a thing and you jerk a little bit, your hand isn't going to shoot off of it. You would just like squeeze it harder. Do you have nightmares about falling and dying? I actually never remember my dreams. I remember a dream like once a year. I have dreams about that all the time. Yeah, maybe it's good that you're not a climber. So you've never had that where you like, and then you jerk up? No, literally never. In all seriousness, let's talk about Taipei 101. All right. Recently, you were part of an experiment on Netflix. They wanted to see how many people would watch a man possibly die. It went great. Millions of people around the world tuned in. And you're here with me. And you're alive. We made it. How long had you planned free solo climbing Taipei 101? Well, I first scouted the building in 2013, I think, actually. For a different TV thing that fell apart. And so I kind of knew that it was possible. I played on the building a little. I was excited about it. I was like, that's cool. I think I can do this thing. But then never got the opportunity. So I've been kind of sitting on it for 12, 13 years or whatever. How did you feel about the marketing? Because the marketing that Netflix had for it was just like, come watch a man. Dude, I saw the trailer. I was like, oh, my God, it makes me feel a little sick. The freaking crazy spiraling drone shot down the corner of the building. I was like, that is intense. But I'm kind of like, you know, I mean, they're trying to sell a show. I'm like, I don't care. Even then? - One of the shots, like with your kids, they were just like, watch him hug his children. time i didn't even notice and i probably didn't see it quite that way i was probably little girl so i was like oh so cute because the way i'm watching and i'm like he could lose his children he has two small children yeah i see that as i have two small children but i'm gonna undertake this climbing expedition that's only one week long where i have great self-service the whole time i'm kind of like versus going to you know because i've done other tv climbing expeditions where i go to like eastern greenland for six weeks or i go to the arctic and you know like climb anyway all these types of things where you're like in remote places in a tent for a month at a time you're like that obviously takes a way bigger toll on your family how do you analyze this ethically because i see it with this weird triangulation there's you that's climbing this building with no rope so you are free solo climbing a very tall building then it's being televised so it's this weird thing of hey come watch man on wire you so now we're all collectively watching you so i feel like a piece of shit watching you do this i'm oddly titillated by this i feel guilty watching this so i'm processing all of it honestly i think you're experiencing a lot more than i'm experiencing i'm just like i get the opportunity to do a cool thing i'm gonna do a cool thing not overthink it so you see it the same way boxers see it like when i go to boxing or ufc matches i'm watching two dudes fuck each other up then i'm watching them get each other fucked up right and then the promoter is like you you two beat the fuck out of each other and i'm like someone's getting fucked here yeah i think it's different than that because that makes me uncomfortable too because i'm sort of like i think partially because the thing with that is that there's always a winner and loser like somebody is for sure getting fucked with the building you're like everyone's gonna have a great time because i look at the building wait alex the winner or loser would be you in this scenario no because in your family i know but you're just not gonna lose on something like that you know it's like to me it's like i mean obviously the wait you're not gonna lose has to know the program has to sort of hype it up it's like this is dramatic but i'm sort of like i'm not gonna do a thing where i think i'm gonna die on tv like no i'm not gonna do a thing where i think i'm gonna die on tv no of course i feel 100 confident it's this totally chill you know it's like you're not gonna do something where you actually feel like you're rolling the dice on live tv that'd be insane you have deon sanders chad ochocinco level confidence well it's not confident i mean i love it bro i love it no but the thing is is like there's some things you know you can do and then there are other things i know i can't do and in the climbing world there are tons of things that i can't do like i can't climb the hardest street in the world i can't climb the hardest boulders like i can't you know i couldn't compete at the olympics in climbing which is you know in la 28 there'll be olympics for climbing uh you know there are all these things i can't do as a climber but there are some things that i know i can do as a climber and and i feel confident doing this do you feel like you can beat one of the greatest climbers of all time tom cruise by scaling the burj khalifa that he did in a later mission impossible well so yeah i've also scouted the burj and i have climbed on the burj and uh that what they show in mission impossible with him climbing the burj is like not actually a thing like he can't climb it that way sadly it doesn't go oh you mean the way he repels down no so he repels in he's like using his suction cups or whatever he like loses one and then he starts chimneying between little features he's doing this like counter pressure like pushing thing yeah and it like looks cool and it looks like it would work doesn't freaking work just to give historical context to this there's a long tradition of daredevils in america going back over 200 years we had the tightrope walkers over niagara falls in the 1800s cool you've never seen this i haven't seen that picture but i mean i know the idea did you ever see this the wing walkers in the 1920s yeah i've heard of that that's cool incredible in the 1980s david copperfield flew over the grand canyon did you ever see this no i haven't seen this dude this was fucking incredible are you kidding me yeah they did a close-up of his face so you know it's real i don't totally understand how he's doing that but i like it i mean how is he how is he he's doing it this is in the 80s they didn't have green screen then yeah that's really cool i'm not sure if he's doing that though what do you mean you're not sure that he's doing it he did it and they broadcast it yeah you know i'm not sure what do you think draws people to these types of events i mean it's hard to say i mean i think particularly with free it's hard to say i mean i think that what i hope that some people take from it is a reminder that humans can do hard things if they try or something to that effect you know that like uh something around human potential or capabilities i mean the same way that like have you ever seen the documentary hero dreams of sushi yeah like you know sushi chef japanese dude freaking totally insane yeah you watch movie you're like this is so incredible someone's devoted their whole life to doing this thing and he does it so well yeah and so i mean i think that or the the film man on wire i mean he's also a documentary with course like incredible yeah i mean i remember watching that and being so inspired and so i think anytime you watch a film where you see somebody devoting their life to a craft and then and then you know basically executing that at a very high level you're kind of like oh it's just so inspiring to be reminded of the potential of human effort and so i think ideally these films you know people see it and they come out of being like that's so cool like i should try hard at the thing that i care about because you know like i'm capable of more what is it about for you well i just love going rock i mean it's really that simple i mean basically it's not like a celebration of the human spirit it's not you're not trying to make it represent something more than what it is no no i just love going rock i mean i mean the thing is like it's the same as you climbing at rock nasium in davis california no i mean obviously it's more exciting than climbing at the at the climbing gym but it's not that far removed you know in the same way that we'll have this chat and then i'm going to go to the climbing gym because like i'm in a city and i want to go climbing so i'm going to go climb right um but if i had the opportunity to go climb the empire state building this afternoon or something like that i probably would because i'd be like that would be way cooler than climbing the climbing gym today but though the empire state building doesn't go actually there's no way to climb it why isn't there a way to climb the empire just you just can't like the break's too small like humans can't do that okay it was climbed a long time ago so this guy uh alan robert the french spider-man the guy's sold tons of buildings around the world but so alan robert sold the empire state building back in the day did they broadcast it no no he he's most of the things he's done he did illegally just as like a sort of performance artist just doing his thing just for the love of the game yeah but so then he generally gets arrested and that's kind of the thing that i've always been like yeah it'd be amazing to climb these buildings but it's like it's not really worth uh doing jail time there's a famous quote by george mallory who died climbing mount everest in 1924 have you ever seen this quote yeah because it's there because it's there someone asked him why he was doing it and he said quote because it's there yeah though i think that that sounds incredibly flippant and uh i've read that in context it's at the end of like a long media thing and he's basically just like kind of over it and just gives a throwaway answer you know like i don't know oh he was sick of it he was sick yeah i think he was just kind of like and we're done you know like oh god because to me i was like that's the laziest excuse ever because i i did that too when my mom would leave me at home and i would eat like a bag of halloween candy before halloween and she's like why would you do that and i'm like because it's there yeah like it's in the drawer what am i gonna do not eat it yeah no i think uh but i mean but obviously that answer does kind of speak to the you know it's like if it's an obvious challenge and you feel capable it's like you gotta do the thing what's the scariest thing for you right now the scariest like yeah what makes you afraid oh they're my two-year-old to get out of the crib one more time and not go to bed no i don't know i mean just like snakes no i don't spiders no ghosts i used to be afraid of of some of that stuff and then just through enough climbing expeditions but i'm kind of like yeah you know what's the scariest movie you've ever seen scariest movie scariest movie you've ever seen well i don't know um i don't really like scary movies i don't watch scary movies you ever see the exorcist no don't watch it have you ever skydived no so i i did my aff like the this like your certification for skydiving yeah i thought i might learn how to base jump which is like when you jump off cliffs and things with the parachute right because it kind of makes sense that if you're climbing mountains and you know free soloing and all that like it makes sense to learn how to use a parachute and learn how to fly down and all that kind of stuff yeah yeah um but i basically learned just enough to realize that it wasn't for me i was kind of like i hated the small planes i hated the jumping out i found it all pretty scary and i also get kind of motion sick in the planes and everything about the experience was just like not for me and then i also realized how much i would have to learn to get good at it enough for a to actually be helpful at all because you actually have to be quite good at parachuting before you feel safe doing it why don't you wear a parachute when you well this is exactly what i'm saying is that it takes a tremendous amount of effort to get good enough at it so like with type 11 let's say we're on the on the building for most of the building if you fall off you're just going to hit something before a parachute would do anything it's not like you know for a parachute to work you have to be falling into clean free space so ideally you'd be on an overhanging wall so you're falling away from the wall right and there aren't that many natural walls like that in the world there are there are some there are some big cliffs and things where you could get enough separation but in general on most natural mountains and things if you fall you're going to tumble down the mountainside not fall cleanly into the air this is some relationship advice for those of us that are in relationships how do you explain to your partner we all want to be seen by our partner but we also want to be understood and supportive how do you explain to your partner hey babe i gotta pursue this um i may die but please support me i mean i don't know is that that dissimilar than i mean there are plenty of other professions where people run real risk there's real professions where people die but they die internally you understand what i'm saying they work at kpmg they work at deloitte they work at they work with microsoft excel macros they're dying in here slowly but it's a slow death but they're also professions where people really do take real risks like firefighters police like i mean even with military type things i mean and those are all considered totally normal mainstream professions yeah you know and we celebrate those people sort of rightly as heroes because they're serving the public good yeah but they are risking their life i'm kind of like well i mean isn't it basically the same conversation you're like i'm doing a thing that i love to do i'm providing for the family i'm you know doing all this and i'm doing it as carefully as i can i'm gonna list out a series of things that people consider scary you give me how scary they are yeah from a scale of zero to ten okay okay ten being very scary ten is super sick scary you're having a birthday party for your child there are 30 kids coming you will be the only adult person like an eight or like at least a solid six i mean that's that'd be terrible uh nuclear war uh i mean like a seven or something i don't know seven like a you're telling me nuclear war is lower than a kid's birthday party in your mind well the thing is the kid's birthday party would immediately be like the next hour or two is going to be like hell nuclear war you know depending on who gets nuked like might not actually affect my day-to-day life i mean is that weird would you be scared yeah i'd be pretty horrified yeah i mean well that's the thing is that horrified is different than scared and so i would be i would say very concerned about the humanitarian out the the moral the ethical like all these kind of things like not to say that i'm unconcerned about it i'm just saying that i wouldn't feel fear and i think that's an important distinction because i think that a lot of people wrap many things into fear like oh i'm afraid and i'm like well no you're uncomfortable with this or that or you know you're concerned about these other things but it's not necessarily like deep physical fear what is deep physical fear what do you mean by that is are you talking about specifically just to be specific it's the idea that i may die from this well yeah fear for my safety that's funny because you know joking about the kids it's like obviously not this scared for your safety yeah you're more like scared for your comfort where you're sort of like oh this is going to be a very uncomfortable situation for the next little while yeah when you just get totally run roughshod over by a bunch of kids yes yeah yeah totally no hey i've been there yeah um trying stand-up comedy oh that would be terrible for me like uh public speaking i mean yeah you're just risking public humiliation i know you're for real but a lot of people rate that as scarier than death and i would be one of those people i suppose just someone being like that was mid scary i mean honestly now i've had so much practice with public speaking just because of everything that it's probably less scary than it used to be but there's a you know in my say at age 22 i probably would have killed myself rather than do stand-up comedy like straight up just be like no i'm not doing that wait what i mean you'd rather commit suicide than go to laughs unlimited in old sacramento and do the open mic i would never ever do that brother trust me the talent bar is not very high doesn't matter i made it through the laughs unlimited open mic and that's a pretty low bar like i'm not that good yeah we have different sorts of gifts i'm not that's not for me we both turned 40 this year yeah we're halfway at least yeah how are you feeling how's the back back's great i would say the fact that i exercise professionally does keep me in probably better shape than the average like middle-aged person l4 r4 okay i don't even know those are those the the twos your spinal column oh yeah they're great discs l4 and r4 okay i feel very good i think now now i got you and your feelings about it now you're like reassessing shoulders good oh yeah shoulders good knees good knees good hamstrings actually i just tweaked one of my knees a little bit i knew it bro i fuck it i i i knew it you can't be yeah it's not like actually it's not it's not damaged it bands no they're great yeah great no in general i'd say everything is is really quite good right now i take care of myself so you're generally loose yeah yeah but you're not as loose as you were at 21 were you um probably pretty similar i mean if you say loose in terms of like supple then yeah i'm probably about as flexible and all that um i really think that's the biggest difference is recovery and just like how energetic you know what is something that you now understand at 40 that you wish you understood at 20 well i mean there are a few things like now at 40 i'd say i'm much more on top of all the sort of lifestyle things like recovery and just being smart about like diet and training and lifestyle and whatever and i just like didn't need to do all that at 20 but now i sort of wish that that retroactive had done all those kinds of things because i just would have been so much better at 20 because like at 20 i had a bunch of days when i was like living in my van where i'd like be parked somewhere in yosemite let's say and i'd be i'd eat like a whole flat of oreos while like binge watching some show and then the next day go do like a speed record on some wall you know i basically get all like oversight just like eating sugar and like watching some tv thing and then just be like okay i'm gonna go do something rad tomorrow and then go do it i'm kind of like you know in retrospect i probably would have performed better if i'd eaten well and like stretch that day and then gotten done something rad the next day but i had way more of this like up and down crazy you got it like yeah so i probably could have lived a little smarter damn so you were just out here living in a van like cookie monster meets no i lived in a van for like 12 years or something yeah yeah i've been in a van for a very long time i lived in a freaking ford econoline which is like a not stand-up van like a little like a plumber type van yeah uh for 10 years and so i like didn't stand up in my home for 10 years it's like pretty speaking of back issues are you still going to be climbing at age 80 oh for sure i mean i probably won't be climbing at an elite level and i won't be trying hard things but yeah for sure it's so fun you should you know if you could were you about to say you should do it well kind of yeah it's like i just wish you could experience like the joy that i get from it oh dude alex you haven't seen my low lights from the nba celebrity all-star game they're not highlights they're below the room low lights no it's so it's so fun it's just like no i by the way i totally get i'm gonna be doing stand-up comedy until my 80s i will be performing at rooster t feathers comedy club in sunnyvale california which is next to a tire station they will have to drag me off stage there is no green room you just don't wheel you on and it's handicapped friendly so someone's gonna have to carry me like a like a baby and then put me on the stool that's nice yeah no i mean that's but i get it i i would love to continue pursuing what i love to do until the very end yeah exactly i mean i think and the thing is when you ask will i be climbing it's like climbing is not that far removed from hiking and sort of scrambling like being outside and so there's this whole big range of of outdoor experience like for sure i'll be going on hikes in the mountains my whole life and like scrambling on ridges and like getting at the you know whether or not that's extreme rock climbing like what you think of is like climbing the side of a building like i probably won't do that when i'm 80 but i for sure will be scrambling on mountains you know what's so interesting is you and i our lives could not be more different but there's something very similar about the life of a comedian and your life as someone who's pursued this industry that kind of doesn't exist totally which is where we are just basically like traveling vagabonds well yeah for sure truly you were living in your van comedians we live in we live out of yeah essentially hampton ends or yeah you're just like touring and like grinding yeah generally the lower tier uh motel six motels or hotels that are part of the uh marriott bonvoy program but you have now transitioned to this other phase of your career where you give these talks to people in the white collar industrial world and i call it the inspiration industrial complex alex honnold will fly around the country and or the world to give ted talks corporate conferences university talks you do the circuit people want to be inspired you have 60 minutes smart people don't want to hear from smart people don't want to hear from what you have to say but you feel like tech bros really want to hear yes finance bros love that they fucking love it do you ever feel scared or guilty that by giving this speech in front of a bunch of dudes and patagonia fleeces that they may try to climb half dome and falter their death i mean honestly if uh you know half a year old and sax goes out on ill-fated climbing expedition is that so bad oh my god no no i'm kidding um bars alex honnold aka luigi 2.0 so real real answer about like sort of copycatty stuff because people do ask me this all the time with the film free soul like but don't you worry that kids are going to do this and i'm like no basically i don't because climbing it's it's really self-limiting it's like it's the kind of thing you can watch a film and be like that's cool i'm gonna go try that but if you haven't devoted your whole life to learning how to rock climb learn how to free solo you can't just go do that you know the barrier of entry is too high and like so even if you can't even if you get off the ground you have to choose to make the next move and choose to make the move after that and then you know pretty soon you're eight feet off the ground and every time you make a move you have to look down at your feet because moving your feet is you know half the half the thing for climbing and each time you look down you're like oh i'm starting to feel kind of high and if you're not really into it you can't really climb that high it's like you have to you have to know what you're doing when you finish those big kind of longer ted talks what are you telling them to do oh i don't really tell people to do anything actually i mean that's what do you think they're looking for well i think most people are looking for like a kick in the butt to go do what they want to do well at least this is what i found with the free solo tour so like everybody watches the film free solo and they come out of it and and i found this uh with doing events with audiences after like people would always come up and they're like chit chat and i found that nobody comes out of it saying like i'm not going i want to go free soloing or like i want to go climbing they come out of being like i'm going to sign up for the half marathon that i've been putting off because it seemed like too daunting or whatever like i'm going to finally plant my garden that i've been putting off you know like all these like random kind of life things got it and i was always like that's so cool because and and i've taken that attitude into my my corporate speaking now like whenever i have to give a talk instead of trying to like tell people to do a thing i just lay out like here are the things that i'm passionate about here's the way i've done them like this is you know this is my story and then people can kind of cherry pick the nuggets that they want and and use that however it's useful for them i spend my time here in new york my office is here i do stand-up comedy this is the mecca of stand-up comedy so this is my home this is where i live this is where i have become the person that i am but you love nature what am i missing out on by being in this city oh my gosh versus being surrounded by trees in nature everything i come to new york like a couple times a year obviously for work things and and it is amazing i mean new york is so dynamic and there's a lot that i'm impressed by with new york but i'm like oh my god compared to just nature yeah it's insane i mean i was literally yesterday i was commuting through new york city and i was like trudging up the steps out of this very long subway tunnel yeah in this like crowd of people yeah and i was just looking down and i was taking one step after another right behind somebody else's steps i was like man in a city you're just always doing something that someone else has already done like that day you know you're just doing the same things as everybody and you know as a climber or like or even just out in nature in the west it's like you can routinely do things that you're like i don't know if any human has ever done that i don't know if anyone's ever done this before you know and it's like and not that everybody needs that or wants that but it is like kind of exciting kind of fun we're like oh this feels new and fresh and different meaning just you taking those footsteps and those footsteps have never been yeah like it's not a traverse before it's not uncommon for me to climb something even just near my home i'm sort of like i bet no one has ever been here before and not not so much like the summits because other people go to all the same summits but you can like climb certain routes and like traverse between them and like just do little variations like do new things where you're like oh like nobody's really done this because you love nature so much how do you feel about climate change because for me and a lot of people uh it's it's tough to keep on top of we understand it intellectually but we don't feel it in our day-to-day life as much but you're out there yeah no i feel i mean that's the thing is a professional climber you're like outdoors all the time i mean you do notice yeah i mean talking about environmental issues and like changing climates like yeah it's like a whole i mean when you go on expeditions to the polar regions i mean you see things changing so quickly you see uh you know i mean even going on climate trips in the alps like in europe you see glaciers retreating so quickly and you're like oh it's crazy like the the scope and the scale of change i mean i did a uh climbing expedition to alaska two summers ago i guess yeah um there was a show for um disney plaza like national geographic program where we like climbed this thing called the devil's thumb anyway we got up there and we had photos like not that many people climb the that particular mountain it's kind of in the middle of nowhere and when we got there we had photos of the wall from like 2014 or something that doesn't feel like that long ago and yet in the 10 years that you know people had done this particular thing the glaciers receded so much that it totally changed the way that you approach the mountain and totally changed the way that you get to the climb basically it just totally changed the whole nature of the mountain yeah you're kind of like and these are areas that feel timeless you know i mean like when you're looking at these you know 4 000 foot granite faces that are like covered in giant glaciers and the remote alaskan wilderness like it feels like beyond time and space like it right you know it feels infinite yeah and then you're like wow it's changed so much in one decade that it's like unrecognizable from folks who've been doing photos but how do you get people to care about a place they'll never go well i mean yeah i mean they're that's that's kind of the question i think that's why the u.s in particular has been so slow to respond to any kind of climate action like to actually do any kind of environmental things because i think so many people live in cities and it's just like hard to break through like what they care about um i mean you know i mean one way is helping people understand the direct connection between what happens in these remote places and you know the air that they breathe and sort of like ocean health and how that relates to the oxygen that we're breathing every day and you know basically it's like the global climate how that relates to you know we're all part of the same ecosystem we're all we're all in the same boat together here you know like planet earth it's just like one living system right it's like helping people understand that you know i hope would get them to care more about about nature but you're someone who is definitely deeply entrenched in the natural world i mean you couldn't argue there's anybody probably more you are so in nature but then there's also these billionaires that are super obsessed with space and traveling to mars what do you think about those people that are obsessed with this idea of escaping and climbing out of our immediate atmosphere and going to a new planet the same way you scale buildings and go to these places beyond what normal people have gone to how do you feel about these billionaires scaling and climbing out of our immediate out of our orbit escaping earth yeah escaping earth and going to mars i mean i'm a little bit of two minds because part of me you know sees it as a bit of a waste of resources and a bit of you know i just think that there's so many issues that we could face on earth you know to have a tremendously positive environmental impact a human impact like basically help people in need like you know basically seem like there may be more useful places for the resources to go on the other hand i mean i love exploration i think there's real value in space exploration because i do think that eventually humans will be traveling throughout the solar system or you know the rest of the universe hopefully i mean who knows and so you know i like the aspirational call of of the frontier you know like to go into new places and do new things and i think that that pursuing that leads to a lot of technological benefit on earth you know it's like obviously i use gps all the time i'm sort of like those are sorts of things that are enabled by satellites and by space travel and so so i'm not like opposed to it yeah but i do think that people should balance that against like what can you do for humans uh on earth right now kind of like i don't know there are a lot of issues at home yeah and it's funny because anywhere else we go to in the solar system is worse than earth you know so you're kind of like uh like it makes sense yeah places like it makes sense to explore but you know it's going to be way way worse than here right so you're kind of like why not focus on exploring like do you know how bad the public schools are going to be on mars exactly playground's gonna be pretty rough yeah why don't we fix the playground even the most barren and desolate parts of the earth or the deepest parts of the ocean or like anything they're still teeming with you know to our knowledge so far is not you're kind of like well i mean earth is pretty great yeah yeah totally and i've done stand-up comedy in south dakota and i'm like this place sucks but it's better than mars that's the crazy part yeah hey it's julia louis dreyfus from the wiser than me podcast among other things and i've got a little holiday wisdom for you hosting during the holidays means lots of cooking and that means your trash is going to be full of smelly rotting food yuck so here's the wisdom get a mill food recycler i did we've had ours for years and it has totally transformed our kitchen it's unbelievable how much cleaner everything is now plus it's so easy to use you toss in basically any food you don't eat peels pits meat dairy bones last year we put in a whole turkey carcass really while you sleep mill automatically dries and grinds all your food waste down to about a fifth of its size that means at night you can fill it after a big night and you're ready to go elaborate dinner and by morning there'll be room for breakfast nothing rots nothing stinks no fruit flies and my favorite part no more of those gross drippy mid-dinner garbage runs if you want a cleaner calmer kitchen this holiday season go to mill.com slash wiser for an exclusive offer that's mill.com slash wiser happy hosting speaking of trying to help humanity you have founded the honnold foundation now some foundations are sketchy uh and they can oftentimes be this one is not yeah this one is not sketchy now by sketchy again my definition is billionaire tax avoidance schemes but yours seems legit tell me about it yeah so the honnold foundation supports solar projects around the world um community-led solar i mean uh i started i guess in 2012 and yeah yeah i mean i think we've given over 10 million to date to to community solar around the world so i mean basically because i i felt like solar was the the best way to have both the human and environmental impact basically like help human communities in a way that's good for the planet so you basically start each year from scratch you raise this money and then you just give it all away yeah yeah there's no endowment or anything so we just raise as much as we can every year and we give it all away as quickly as we can um i mean i give about i've been given about a third of my income to the honnold foundation every year since you know 2012 and for the most part that's pretty much scaled to cover the uh the staffing and everything i mean because now there's full-time staff and we evaluate grants we take an open call for grant application from around the world so we get all the best ideas for community solar from all over the world and we fund the ones that we can and so basically what i give to the foundation covers the the cost of the foundation and then anything that we fundraise just goes straight to projects 13 million dollars have been invested over the past 10 years in solo projects in over 30 countries oh wow okay yeah i said over 10 i was like oh we're at 13 i guess that's because uh last year we gave three what what other kind of projects are you involved in in the honnold foundation um it's just solar though uh sometimes i mean the thing is solar is such a broad and sort of scalable technology it's like some places that means light for the first time you know like rural communities i mean there's something like 800 million people on earth without access to power yeah and so just having electricity for the first time can be you know game changing like being able to charge a mobile phone being able to light your house after dark like those are all incredible sometimes though it has to do with like say pumping water or refrigerating uh you know food processing yes refrigerating medications like uh health care types applications and then there's some more interesting applications like uh we did this like in the amazon thing which like we really like to support projects that have sort of secondary and tertiary benefits we're kind of like oh it does this thing but that also helps all these other ways and so like solar powered boats in the amazon are an interesting example because you know you're allowing people to transport themselves and their goods more cheaply on the river they're not having to ship diesel and or gasoline around uh which is super expensive when you go like way up river in the amazon though when you keep the cost of river transit low then it keeps people from having to and when you cut roads that's the sort of avenue for illegal mining and deforestation like illegal timber extraction and so basically if you keep the river as this primary mode of transit then you can prevent the cutting of roads which leads to all these other terrible things so i don't know it has a lot to do with sort of indigenous sovereignty and protecting the forest and i keep reading that we're living through a solar boom right now oh yeah it's insane but how is the solar boom plugged into your work um i mean we just benefit from the falling cost of solar components solar modules like all of it just means that the money that we raise goes further has a bigger impact on communities but we're completely technology agnostic like basically we're just looking to do the most good that we can for communities and for the environment and so we're just using consumer goods you know like whatever you can buy on the normal market typically in whatever market we're serving you know so it's like if we're supporting some community and say rural south america it's like whatever they can source there the cheapest that's still and basically as the costs have fallen i mean the cost of solar have fallen like more than 90 in the last 10 years or something it's crazy economy's a scale and i mean there's so much solar being deployed around the world it's crazy i mean there's so much solar being deployed around the world why hasn't it cotton on as a widespread use of power here in the united states of america dude policy i mean federal i mean you know look at like yeah politics basically is part of it but the thing is i mean the the most installed capacity over the last several years has been renewables i mean solar and wind so um even though it might not be catching on as quickly as it is in other parts of the world i mean basically the power that we are currently building is mostly renewable it's just not as fast and so i mean you're pretty excited about the future i'm i'm shocked that i still have to pay a pg&e bill i'm like why is this not all just solar well i mean just put solar in your home and i mean yeah live our house is all electric and uh and we have solar and we basically pay 20 bucks a month it's like the base flat fee for connection to the grid you're kind of like oh and then i drive electric and you're kind of like it's nice to just opt out of the whole system to some extent i'm like i'll pay 20 bucks a month and it's pretty chill yeah um you are hosting season six of the planet visionaries podcast in partnership with rolex perpetual planet initiative first of all congrats on the rolex sponsorship thanks it's a very interesting corporate sponsor yeah you know what i mean because generally rolexes kind of represent two different things it's like you're going to climb a mountain but the people that wear rolexes usually work on wall street or they're indian guys who host podcasts yeah but there's a real history with rolex with exploration i mean you know from the first big mountaineering expedition certainly a ton of undersea exploration i mean i think rolex has traditionally supported explorers in that way and i think now moving into the you know sort of the future i mean rolex has been putting a ton of effort into conservation efforts i mean basically like as the world has been explored now it's more about protecting what we have and so the rolex perpetual planet initiative has put tons of money into conservation and so they're supporting the hana foundation uh the work that we're doing with with solar around the world and then hosting planet visionaries is kind of great because i interview all these scientists that are doing both interesting research and then also interesting conservation work like trying to protect some of these places i mean honestly it's one of my favorite things that i do because the people i talk to are always so inspiring that it leaves me all fired up you know how like i'm sure you know this too like some work you do kind of drains you and then other work like fulfills you yeah like when i do planet vision i always always come out of it all fired up to like go work harder and try harder and like go train or something what is it is it the thought leaders or the scientists that fire you up oh either i mean it's just i mean what's funny is that you know i always do all the research like all this interview prep before each person because they're like these scientists in some niche field who's doing like some you know like deep sea microbes or something yeah and i'm always like do i care about deep sea microbes like is like does that matter and then i talk to them and by the end of the interview i'm always like deep sea microbes are so cool i'm like it's amazing i learned so much i'm so interested it turns out this whole hidden world that i knew nothing about it's like super important i mean you have another podcast just about climbing it's called climbing gold yeah okay i've heard that climbers that live the life that you live they have to live a very intense what what are the traits that climbers have that us normies don't have oh i don't i don't know if there's anything set like that i mean climbers are just people who are really into climbing i mean i think ultimately the only trait you need is a passion for climbing and a willingness to practice all the time but the thing is if you're really into it then that often means that you wind up living in your vehicle in order to travel and climb full-time and so then you know you wind up spending a lot of time camping and time a ton of time outdoors that winds up translating into a you know you wind up getting worked by nature all the time but you don't like need that to be a passionate climber like all you need is a passion to go rock climbing is it lonely is it a lonely life no because there are a lot of other climbers who are really passionate about it so even if you're living in your car by yourself and traveling between all these climbing areas you see the same community in different places and people make the same sort of migration it's almost like birds you know because you go north in the summer when it's hot you go up to canada right and in the winter you go down to the southwest like to the desert oh so you'll meet other climbers yeah so you don't find the woods to be really scary at night no no like not even a little i mean what's there to be scared of i mean it's it's three they're basically no predators in the u.s what are you talking about bears snakes or sex shit that's why i'm scared of the woods when i go to campgrounds and i'm like i'm either scared of birds snakes or sex shit no they're no i mean they're basically you know depending where you are they're grizzly bears but but not really like bears are not a huge thing to be worried about snakes also i mean nobody really dies from snake bites but you're not afraid of like the real sketchy stuff that goes yeah the real sketchy and that's what i meant by sex shit but so that's the type of weird stuff that actually i do worry more about when you're living in a car and you're like parking on the edge of town and totally stuff like that but you worry about that more in cities than you do in deep nature because no i mean when i was traveling for road gigs this is where i'm saying we have a weird venn diagram overlap remember those there's a thing called kona kona with the k yeah yeah yeah yeah man dude i have yeah with the k yeah dude i have slept at a kona campground or two yeah and that's sketchy yeah i don't do that i just i park more in like nature nature because that's i wouldn't consider that like nature because that's like some kind of weird curated thing where there are people in rvs next to you and you're kind of like i don't know what they're doing and why they're there but no the thing when i'm parked in the middle of nowhere like way out down some logging road you know people always like worry like who are you gonna find out here the thing is that those people are just as worried about you because they see some van parked on the side of the road and they're like who's that guy and you're like well i'm just out here rock climbing like what are you doing out here i mean i would disagree there's way few serial killers in time square than there are just in the middle of the woods i don't know if that's true i'm just saying there are a lot of people in new york odds are that some of them are way sketchier than like the one do the meet out in the woods i mean a lot of people in the woods are sort of characters you know like they're out in the woods for a reason and you're like oh they're really into looking for a certain type of mushroom how do you make small talk there we're just always friendly and you're like hey you know no no you say hey what are you doing here and they go what are you doing here no you're just kind of like oh hey and then you hope that they don't engage and you just each go your own way but if you chit chat you chit chat i don't know so i had this experience on this expedition in uh guyana in uh so like northern south america and so we're in it's sort of like the upper part of the amazon let's say it's like rainforest yeah and we went to go climb these giant walls but so um the indigenous people there we basically like take these boats up this river to the middle of nowhere yeah um a bunch of dudes from this like indigenous village like take us hiking up into the thing to help carry our stuff and like get us to the wall yeah anyway these guys are literally just like in shorts with a machete just like walking through the jungle and anywhere we stop they just like machete some things they basically erect the structure they put up a tarp they just sleep it's all super chill yeah they carry like nothing with them they just live off the jungle it's all easy living for them and i remember you know i'm just spending a couple weeks with these guys like going back and forth to like climb this big wall and come back it's like this makes a complete mockery out of like survival tv shows and all that kind of stuff where people are like how long can you live in the wild and you're like these guys literally just live in the jungle their whole life you know they're born here they die here they live here like if it's raining they receive medical treatment here it's all here they literally do everything with their machete and they just like make fires they cook their food they have a good time and they're like singing they're laughing like we'd get to a campsite and like six or eight guys would just disperse like walking out uh with their machetes and they would basically like come back together and all of a sudden a village would be created and it would take them like 30 minutes and you'd be like i don't know how they're doing this but it's incredible and it just made this total mockery of like survival survivalism all that kind of stuff anyway i say that because i'm like do you think those guys are afraid of being in nature you know like are they afraid of the forest you're like no they live in the forest yeah and i'm like anywhere you go on earth human populations live in those areas you know i mean like deserts forests like any of those things like humans have traditionally lived in any area of the earth i'm kind of like you know they're not afraid like why should we be afraid right you're right they figured it out who am i to be spooked by this yeah and so that's kind of the thing and so when people are like oh i'm afraid of the ocean i'm afraid of the forest i'm afraid whatever i'm kind of like you just need to go do more stuff like you know just get out and do the thing because it's like there's nothing really to be afraid of in all these places i think watching you climb is watching you in your most natural form um i've seen you in your unnatural form is that sitting and chatting with you no it's generally when you're on the red carpet let's take a look oh wow so i don't know what's happening here but this is you covering your events at various nat geo toronto i think that one i might be wearing the same shirt and pants yeah um i still have my same costume we got to work on your red carpet game well i don't know if we do because i don't think i'm just spending a lot of time on a red carpet i could teach you how to do it i don't really want to but what do you think i should do differently just a little more cool yeah we could i have a psych i can show you yeah i'll show you you probably have like two or three different poses tyler can shoot us are we gonna do some posing yeah let's get it popping bottles slightly yeah we're dancing slightly this face has got me feisty feisty feisty hurry right away no delay stop if you haven't subscribed to lemonada premium yet now's the perfect time because guess what you can listen completely ad free plus you'll unlock exclusive bonus content like hally berry on how to be a good partner during menopause or medi hassan on the dumbing down of media clips you won't hear anywhere else just tap that subscribe button on apple podcasts or head to lemonada premium.com to subscribe on any other app that's lemonada premium.com don't miss out