Most Replayed Moment: Fear Is A Skill You Can Train! Lessons From The World's Greatest Climber

(upbeat music) - If your kids came to you, if two girls, right? - Yeah. - If they came to you and said, "Dad, "give me advice for more of your name, that, and life." Would you tell me? - Oh, I wouldn't give an advice. I'd be like, "You do you. "You find the thing you love to do, go hard." You know, basically learn some skills, get good at something, what do you like to do? I mean, that's kind of the thing for me, especially with climbing, is like, if someone had told me you're gonna train climbing for the rest of your life, I'd be like, "Oh, that sounds like kind of a grind." 'Cause I mean, it is hard work. You're like hiking uphill, the heavy backpack, and it's cold and it's windy, it's basically physically uncomfortable. I mean, being a professional rock climbing means that you're physically uncomfortable all the time. But like, often, you know, like, it's hard. - Yeah. - But if you're doing it because you freaking love doing it, it doesn't feel very hard. And so I mean, I think the key for a kid is find the thing that doesn't feel like hard work. - And when you started, we used to get a big tool rock faces and stuff like that. I mean, yeah, I had like a healthy intimidation of things. I mean, like my first season to eat somebody, the first time seeing LCAP as a climber, I was 19. And it looks impossible. It looks completely insane. It's like, that's so big. But then, you know, within a couple seasons, you know, I climbed some bigger walls, learned how to climb. And then a friend and I had the sort of season goal. Like, we were gonna climb any 70-all season with the aspiration at the end of climb LCAP in a day. So basically, there was this long progression on LCAP specifically where it's like, you go from just trying to get up it, trying to get up faster, to trying to get up it with just your hands and feet, still using protection. But basically, there's like all these steps you can take. And so over a bunch of seasons, you know, I climbed LCAP like 60 times, different routes, all these different things. And then eventually, you're sort of like, oh, maybe I can start thinking about free-sowing it, which is where the film free-solo comes in. And then eventually, you do this thing. But then people like, well, aren't you scared? And you're kind of like, well, I've spent 10 years like building up on this thing. - I guess that's what people don't see. - Yeah. So they do something. - I mean, like the documentary in free-solo, I think does a pretty good job of showing the direct preparation, like the training involved in doing that specific climb. But it just doesn't show the like eight years before that, I guess, because the documentary was filmed over two years. And I guess I've been going since 2006. So it was nine years before that that I've been going to Yosemite and I've been spending maybe three months a year climbing walls. - I guess that's the illusion of like, all people that do great things, and become like athletes or sprinters or whatever, Brinale, they're all messy, is you don't get to see the-- - Yeah, the whole life that they put in to do in the thing. - Yeah. - So it looks like a magic trick when we see the outcome. Like we show up on Netflix to watch you climb Taipei, we're like, whoa. - Yeah. - So hanging with it from his leg. - Yeah, I mean, people watch some of those programs and they're like, he just walked up and did it. And you're like, well, yeah, after 30 years of practice, I just walked up and did it, but no, it's not like just walking up and doing it. - What do they mean? - Like, I've literally been climbing five days a week for 30 years. That's so much climbing. I forget love climbing, and I climb a lot. On this idea of like exposure therapy, as well as like fear and anxiety and confronting ones things that terrify them, was that in the early days? Well, you like scared at some point? - Oh, all the time. That's actually something that I think, I've obviously not so many interviews around fear and like managing fear and all that. And I've talked about fear a lot of different ways over the years. And I think as a front-older, I've sort of come to realize that that actually you're just scared all the time as a climber, like low-level fear, low-level, but climbing is fundamentally scary. Like it's always kind of scary because they're always consequences. Like even if you're climbing with a rope, you're still always visualizing like, what happens if the rope breaks? Like what if, you know, like is this safe? Like, you know, is the gear good? Like is this actually safe? And so you're always a little bit scared. And so after years and years of always being scared, you get pretty good at managing that kind of stuff. - Because there's a lot of misconceptions swirling around this brain scan you get. - Yeah, no, I hate all that stuff. That's just all from the film Free Solo. It was like too short of a scene in the film. They needed a little more. They needed a lot of breath. You know, explain things a little better, I think. - So they scanned a control subject, another person scans you, looked at the amygdala in your brain, and the conclusion that a lot of people have arrived at is that you don't experience fear because when they look at these two brain scans, your amygdala's lighting up less when you were shown scary images, basically, right? - But like shown just this image, like what does that even mean? Like my brain's purple and his brain is orange. You're like, what does that mean? Like I don't know. - But no, I mean, the thing is though, and this is what I wish was explained in the film better, is that this is, we're being shown black and white photos inside an FMRI. So you're inside a sealed metal tube, you're totally safe, you're physically safe and comfortable, and you're being shown black and white photos. And so to me, obviously, that's not gonna light up the fear of response in my brain because you're looking at pictures, you're like, who cares? I'm totally safe. But in a control subject, you know, apparently, your brain sort of responds to images one way or another. But I'm kind of like, I've been climbing for 20 years, so I've been like, scared quite a lot. And you're kind of like, well, black and white photos start to lose their edge if you've been scared all the time for 20 years. So it's like, obviously, that's not gonna trigger much. - Yeah, I imagine everybody in their life can think of it as a scenario where they have mastery. That would, like, stand up comedian looking at a stage, probably wouldn't be as scared as me. - Yeah. - Because that would terrify me. So again, this is not necessarily some sort of neurological. - No, I mean, I think the real takeaway is that I have an amygdala and it works. - Mm-hmm. - You know what I mean? Because I think if the results had shown that I was missing my amygdala, then I would have all kinds of, I would have died already at youth because I wouldn't be able to function as a human basically. But, you know, had it shown something like that where there were, like, structural differences or like some real change. But this is basically just showing that after 20 years of conditioning, I respond differently than an average person. And you're like, yeah, no kidding. Like, if you put a monk into an fMRI, their brain responds totally differently than an average person as well. Which I actually think is a really inspiring conclusion because it means that we can all grasp our fears better and even, you know, people won't know this about me. But 10 years ago, I sat down on camera with my friend Ash in his apartment to record a two-minute video. And as I sat there, I was so scared I couldn't get the words out. So you actually, in this two-minute video that comes out, you see I go from night and day in the background just because we did that many cuts over seven hours trying to get me to say two minutes on camera. And obviously after 10 years of being on camera, I can now speak without shitting myself. And I imagine my brain state looks significantly different because of my exposure to actor. - Totally. - Yeah, you should do the fMRI. Yeah, you should have done 10 years ago 'cause then you'd have your control and then you do it now and it'd be totally different. But also this like, religious upset with all confedness. They took about exposure therapy. - Yeah. And I went through exactly the same thing with public speaking. Like I was always so afraid of public speaking. I was also very shy and just not like, it was terrifying. And now because of the free soul of film tour and you know, all the public things I've done since then, I'm like basically fine. You know, I said you still got a little nervous. But it's like basically easy now. And you're kind of like, well that's a total change. It's like obviously there's a tremendous capacity for humans to learn. - People talk to you about fear all the time because I mean your work, 'cause climate's really freaking scary. It makes sense. It's totally incredible. - Yeah. And they also realize I think at some deep level that the thing holding them back from who they think they want to be or who they aspire to be is fear often. It's judgment of someone else. It's of taking a risk. - Totally. - So you've become for many people like, tell me, tell me how to overcome. - Yeah, well I think that everyone's like, what's your hack to overcome fear? And you're like, there's no hack. You just get really freaking scared over and over for so long and eventually it's not that scary anymore. But I will say that that's like a very enduring way to overcome your fear. It's like if you're willing to go through that process, then you are actually unafraid. You know, because like you can do like hacks. I mean you can crank up loud rock music and just go for it. You know, like, and there are plenty of examples of that in what I call gravity assisted sports. Like say if you're gonna jump a cliff on skis, like you can get to the edge, be like this is really scary and then be like, three, two, one, do it and just like go. In climbing you can't really do that as much because it's so slow. Like when you climb you make one move and then you make another move and then you're like, do I still wanna be here? Like it basically fear creeps in a lot more. That sort of in gravity assisted sports, you can have more of that moment where you just like overcome your fear and then it happens. You know, like making a big drop in a kayak or like skis or things like that. Whereas like once you commit, it's happening one way or another. Anyway, there's a lot to get into with like, no, but I mean, I wanna get into it. I watched a video of you climbing half-dome. I think it was. - Yeah. - And it looks like you got scared half way up or? - Yeah. Yeah, so that video is actually filmed later. So the voiceover in that video is me talking about the experience of me free-selling when I was totally alone and I did get really scared on half-dome and I had this whole so much traumatic climbing experience and you're at the top of the wall. But then when we went back to film it, I had a different traumatic experience while we were filming less traumatic, but like very scary for a moment and they got that on camera. So they basically in the film, they just cut the two together as like, 'cause it shows me like being really scared. - What's half-dome to start with? And then what was the traumatic experience? - Yeah, so half-dome for anyone who hasn't seen is this just totally amazing wall in Yosemite. It's a 2,000 foot granite face. Actually, it's the North Face logo. It's a-- - That's freaking-- - That's half-dome. - Okay. - Yeah, so it's like an iconic wall in Yosemite. It looks like half of a dome, but actually it's more like a hockey puck just shoved in. It's actually a full dome, depending how you look at it. But the North West Face is vertical for 2,000 feet is incredible. And so I free-sold, that was one of the first major free-solos I did in 2008. And one of the things that sort of made me a professional climber in a way. But when I did the climb, I did the bare minimum preparation. I basically didn't know. It was the biggest thing I'd ever free-sold out. I didn't quite know how to go if I got ready for it. Anyway, I climbed it and basically hadn't practiced enough. It was really freaking scared. Got off-root, got confused, skipped some stuff. And then at the very top had this whole moment of extreme panic. Basically I got up into some stuff and all sort of crumbled mentally and like sort of barely managed to finish the supper slab. Like the hardest part of the climb was like right near the top. I was trying to walk across this ledge. Basically I've walked across that ledge, face in and face out. And normally people hand traverse it or they crawl across it. There are different ways to go across the ledge and I've done it every which way. And then we were up there filming and I was like, "I'm gonna walk it face out." But it took me a while. turns out when you walk a face out, it's really fucking scary. And so I made it kind of halfway and was like, oh my gosh, and then bailed. - And when you say you're having like a crisis in your mind, what is that? Is that just, oh my god, what I mean? Like how does that sound? When you think it's kind of like-- - Well, I mean, so in this case, so walking across this ledge, it's like it starts, maybe as a foot wide, so your foot is fully on the ledge and you're shuffling across it, but then at a certain point, yeah, I mean, that's-- - What's the video put on the screen for anyone watching? - Yeah, that's the ledge. But basically at the narrowest part, your feet are sticking out over the lip of it and the wall bulges ever so slightly, so it forces your back out a little. And so you're basically like rocking on your heels with a, I don't know, like a 1700 foot drop or something, or 1800 foot drop, like straight down below you. And so, you know, it's like pretty, it's pretty at odds. Anyway, and so I thought I was gonna walk across it like that and I made it to the bulging part and was like, oh my god, this isn't like, this isn't for me and then managed to like shuffle back and change my strategy. Is it like panic in your head? It's not panic, but you're like, oh, I made the wrong choice. Like this is bad, this is bad. You know, I mean, it's not like for like five alarm bell, like panic panic, but yeah, you're like, oh, I'm so screwed. And you have fallen a long, long way before. I was hearing it about a time when you were young and you fell off a mountain and called your mother, managed to call your mother and-- - Yeah, that was like sliding down a nice, you cooler type thing. It's a little different than like free falling off of a cliff. That's like sliding down a mountain. But yeah, I got totally messed up and yeah. Yeah, and I've like broken my arm several times as a kid falling off things and then with a rope as a climber, you take big falls like routinely. You know, when you have protection, that's like part of the sport basically. - I mean, it's certainly easy to visualize falling 70. You know, when you're like standing on a little ledge and you're just bulging and you're looking down, you're, you know, it's easy to be like, oh my god. You know, it's like if you just bend forward a little bit, you're just gonna take a swan dive like 70 under feet of the ground. - The stance in this sport are, I mean, of fatalities. How do they compare to other sports? - Safer than you would think. That's things, everyone thinks it seems crazy. But it's not that crazy. I don't know actual statistics, but I suspect that it's actually pretty comparable to skiing or something. You know, because like recreational skiers die all the time, like falling into tree wells or like going off cliff spacks and things like that. Climbing is actually surprisingly safe, which is one of the things I love about climbing. I mean, climbing is very, it's very a sort of binary where it's like either you're totally safe or you're gonna die. And the odds of you dying are very, very, very small. But because they're there, they always keep you on. You know what I mean? Like it basically keeps you alert, but you're never really gonna get hurt. Is that including free-send of it? - Yeah, I mean, for the most part. I mean, a couple people have died free-sendling. I mean, people occasionally die free-sendling for sure. But actually, most of the sort of cutting edge free-solists have not died-sendling. They've like died in other things. - I think it was then in the documentary on Netflix, free-sendling with one of your colleagues. - Yeah, Tommy is like, most free-sendling are dead now, which is kind of true, but it's slightly misstated. I mean, you know, he's just like speaking off the cuff and it's not like strictly true. Like a couple of the best free-sendling have died free-sendling but they die on very easy terrain. But then the majority of other great free-solas have died in sort of climbing adjacent accidents, like wingsuit-based jumping and one got swept to sea by a rogue wave. Like while he was out climbing a sea cliff, but he was like standing on shore and got swept out to sea. You know, things like that where you're just kind of like, you know, obviously they're taking risks in their lives and they want to be dead. But it's not the way that people think. You know, you see a photo like that and you're like, "Free-sendling, you're gonna die for sure." And we're kind of like, "Well, people don't actually really die that way." I mean, they have, I mean, not to say that it doesn't happen. But way less frequently than people would suspect. If I was to try and like, you know, professionally talk to you, and again, I'm not talking in extremes here, but what life would I prescribe you to live? Or being like a finance bro or something? Having to like just work spreadsheet my whole life? Is that what is my like worst? I don't know, something like that. Or honestly being like a choreographer for dance or something like I just say I couldn't do like, or being like an opera singer, like, "Oh, I just killed myself. I just couldn't do that." Why would we be being a finance bro? It'd be like the worst thing for Alex. Just the idea of sitting in a computer in a cubicle, just like typing, I mean, I'm kind of contrarian and I'm like, rules, I don't wanna like jump through hoops. I don't wanna do arbitrary things. Like, I don't want some manager to come and tell me, like, "Oh, you gotta file that report again." You like, "Mr. Lond." I'd be like, "You go after so, you know, I just like walk out of the building." Like, it's just, I just like, don't know if I could take that. Be like, "No." But that's like how much to the world live. We will live in like, you know, I just don't know if it's for me. I don't know. I mean, doesn't that just seem? I mean, I had this moment. I've been in New York a couple days and I took this subway down to see some friends and I was like, coming out of tunnel and it's like packed with people and I was just like, looking at the ground and I was like, just, you know, following someone else's footsteps up this like, beat down path of stairs. And I was like, "I couldn't live like this." Like, not day in and day out every day. Like, this is just, like, feeling like you're just doing the exact same thing as everyone else around you. Like, I seem so, so boring. - So funny 'cause so many of us look at your life and go, "Wow, that's not very normal." But actually, maybe at a foundational level, you're living a much more normal life than, when you're out in nature, you're moving your body. - Yeah, yeah, in that way for sure. - And like, going on a quadventure, doesn't it go on a mountain? - No, no. - I think that's also part of why the sort of attraction and the lure with your life, especially when you watch your free solo is, you do seem to be a free man in a way where most of us aren't free or something. - Yeah, I mean, I think we're all sort of aspiring to that to some extent. I mean, most people see that those, like, they get their vacation for the year, they're planning to retire at some point and then they're gonna have their freedom. And you're kind of like, "Well, I don't know. I mean, maybe you gotta try to live that way as much as possible." - If your young girls came up to you, June and Alice, and said, "Dad, what is a meaningful life? Like, what are the principles of living a fulfilling meaningful life? Would you give them advice there?" - Yeah, yeah, I mean, it'd be a long, rambling, multi-day conversation with them about, but I mean, following your own goals is, is I think, you know, certainly one of the, the cores of having a meaningful life. Like, having things that you find valuable, I mean, really like living in line with your route. You find things that are important to you and pursuing them with as much as you can give them. - You wouldn't, you'd look at your early 20s to 30s, it kind of looks like you're living like a Buddhist a little bit. - I mean, yeah, I went on a trip once where they called me the monk. It's just because I was living such a sort of a seated lifestyle. I was like reading, I've never, I don't drink, and I don't like party, and I didn't just, for personal preference, whatever. And so I'm just like living in my little van and reading books and climbing all the time. Like, and those are the things that I'm into doing, you know, it's like, it's, yeah, it's just doing what you want to do. - Have you ever been depressed or? - Yeah, probably not like deep clinical depression, but there's certainly periods from time to time where you're just like, what am I doing or why? Or what are my goals? Like, you know, what's, and I think to me, the most surprising thing is that, you know, I've put like my whole life in the climate, like trying to be the best you can be all the time. And sometimes you put tons effort in, and you just don't see results, like for whatever reason, you just suck, you're like, I'm trying so hard, and I'm just like not as good as I want to be. And like that's challenging, you know what that's? I mean, everybody faces that to some extent. And we're like, I'm working hard at a thing, but I'm just not achieving the results that I want. I'm between that sort of that period of no-man's of 2030 where your career hasn't taken off yet. The documentary's not out, you know, climbed Taipei. How much money are you earning from climbing? I mean, the first, my first couple of years, my small show through the North Face, was like, I think my first year was like 10K a year. I was like, this is amazing, so I was living in my car. And, you know, making 10 grand when you live by yourself in a van is like more than you need, basically. It obviously went up beyond that at some point. But it was, you know, like in the 10 to 100 range for the first, for the whole, yeah, for years. - And at some point it increases? - Yeah, and then it increases. I mean, then free solos, obviously like a big thing. And that sort of opened up all these opportunities. Because then I started doing corporate speaking and stuff like that. And I mean, as I'm sure you know, that's just like a whole different world. And so then you go from just like making some money from sponsors to like making money from other corporations and stuff. And you're like, okay, now you're making some money. - One of the things when I was hearing you talk about some of your incredible climbing stories is, I was trying to understand what role visualization or your preparation plays and how that's like transferable to me in my life. We talked a little bit about just how much preparation you did for something like LCAP. But you, it sounds like you really break down the challenge into smaller bits and then really go through those individual steps. Whereas a lot of people just look at LCAP and go, oh my god, they'll be terrified. - And that's impossible. - Yeah, which is fair. I mean, I spent years looking at LCAP and being like, that's too big, that's impossible. And then, you know, after years of that, I kept hoping that I would look at it and they would like look easy somehow. And I'd be like, cool, and now I'm gonna do it. And it just never looked easy. And so then finally I was like, okay, I'm gonna have to like put some real work into it. And then I started slowly breaking it down. And then once you like breaking into pieces and start working on the pieces, then you're feeling like, okay, it starts to feel more reasonable. Break it into pieces and start working on the pieces. What does that mean in terms of climbing? So if we, I mean, I've got this model here of type 1. - Type 1. - Type 1. So, you know, and this is also a metaphor for any challenge I have online. - Okay, but this is actually perfect, 'cause it's right here. - Yeah. - So I scouted this in September of this year. I did the climb in January or whatever. In September, we went and, well, we had to like, one, make sure it was possible before you sort of like, commit to it doing a whole TV program. We were kind of like, let's make sure we can do this. And then they also had to get all this sort of marketing material. you get the photos with the building, all the stuff that becomes the trailer and whatever. And so we went in September to do the prep. And so we basically checked out all the different pieces. And so anywhere where you see it, looking a little bit different, it's like this whole bottom part, it's like a low angle slab. It's like punctuated with these two little Ruiz, these little coin things, whatever the clouds are over there. Now, and then there's the dragons on the corners. These are all over handing each of these eight blocks. It's like a big, over handing thing. It feels a little bit different. Then you get up here, there's like these balconies, these are actually overhanging. Like basically each little segment of this is quite different. And you know, obviously on this model, like looks the same, but each transition between the different pieces is like a thing. So I checked out all of them with ropes. And yeah, you just go piece by piece all the way up the whole thing. - And you hadn't ever climbed it before we saw it on Netflix live. - Well, I hadn't free saw it. - I know, but I had climbed it. I climbed all the pieces with a rope for sure. I'd like checked out the different things. - Okay, so you look at these as individual challenges. - Yeah, it's like you go, well, even just getting off the ground, the first move is a slightly different move than any of the other moves. You have to like jump up to a thing and like press it out. Then climbing over these little clouds is a different thing, each dragon is a different thing. Yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, there's a surprising amount of complexity to it. And so our first on the scout, you know, I had a note on my phone and I'm just like riding down all the different, basically I'm trying to learn it the way you study anything. Where I'm just like making notes and sort of like from floor 54 to 72, it feels like this. I climbed this out these corners. So left, right, you know, just, and then you're just riding and all that. - And I mean, there's this famous photo of you hanging with your leg. - Yeah, that's this. These are the rings up here. - So you're hanging, you're hanging here from here with your leg. - Yeah. - Now I, this is really a question of endurance. Like how would you plan to have the energy? Like how would you know if you're gonna have enough energy when you're up here, when you're just planning it? - I mean, well, this is what makes it exciting 'cause you can't be sure. But, you know, I've done a lot of climbing in my life. And I've done a lot of climbs that were like 24 hours. I mean, I had this experience in Patagonia once. It was a 54 hour push with like the last 20 hours we hiked without food, 'cause we got caught in a storm and it's a whole crazy story. But basically, you know, I've had a lot of experience in my life where I've done hard exercise for more than 24 hours. And so this, you know, I expected to take me somewhere in the hour and a half, two hour range. And I'm kind of like, yeah, I mean, I'll be tired after two hours of exercise, but I'm not gonna be exhausted. Like I know that I have a much deeper reserve than that. - So much of the conversation around, after you've done this, or some of the conversation was around whether this was a harder challenge than Al Capitan. - No, no, it's obviously much easier. I mean, I'm doing on live television, you know, it's like obviously it's easier. But what makes it cool is that it's different, it's fun, it's challenging. Like for me, it's really like in my sweet spot, where it is challenging enough, like it's not easy, you know what I mean? Like saying easier than Al Cap, it doesn't. You know, Al Cap was like a 10 year life project that I did an absolute secrecy. I did on my terms on the correct day, after years of effort, I had failed attempts. I had, you know what I mean? Like Al Cap was like an all consuming life project for years. Kind of like obviously you can't do that for live TV. It's like you just can't put, anyway. But this was very much in my sweet spot, where you're like, oh, it's hard enough that it's hard. Like it's cool, you know, like it's fun. It's interesting, the climb is engaging. It's, you know, gave me something to train for for months. It's like it's super fun. But it's not, you know, it's not like the absolute limit of what I can do, because you just can't do that on live TV. I mean, if nothing else, I was climbing the southeast to red because it gets good morning light and it looks beautiful and it's like great for filming. But if I was trying to do the absolute most cutting edge climb, I could do, I'd be climbing the northwest to red because it'd be full shade because it'd be good, better conditions, you know, be colder. Like you just don't want to be in the sun and makes your skin, you know, it makes you hot and stuff. And so, you know, just things like that, you're like, what if you're doing it for TV and you're trying to broadcast it, then you want it to look good. But like if you're trying to do it for hard climbing and good conditions, you do in full shade. And Netflix had a 10 second delay just in case you fell. I mean, I'm sure part of it's in case you fall, but part of it's like, what if somebody unplugged one of the things or you know what I mean? Like, it's so complicated, there's so much stuff going on, it's insane. Was there a hardest part of this, a part where you were a little nervous? The thing I was most nervous about when I started was where the band-buck boxes, like doing these eight-overhanging segments because they're just so relentlessly the same move. And it's just, it's pretty physical, like you get tired for sure. I mean, the actual physical hardest moves, I can't see randomly one of these corners up here, would have been quite a hard move, but there was this freaking security camera bolted out of the wall. And so you use the security cameras, this handle I was really pretty cool. And it was like bolted out of these giant bolts so it looked super safe and it was very robust and secure. But it would have been kind of like this extreme jump, which I wasn't, you know, it's probably possible, but would have been like a major thing. But instead you just refoff the security camera. I was like, it's so cool. There's, you said there are a few things like that, like individual moves that are kind of mussely, but overall it's the stamina, like the challenge of doing this over and over for hundreds of feet that was the hardest thing. Do you have a conversation with your girls and their wife before you go and do something like this about just in case you don't come back? Not with the kids 'cause they're too young and like they wouldn't, they don't understand it anyway. And not with her because she came with me to Taipei or she was there for like the whole end of it. I went a little bit early, so I could adapt to the times I'm more and like feel better. But basically she was with me. So you know, like we went to bed together that night and woke up that morning, had breakfast together. So it didn't feel like a big goodbye. You know, it was kind of, actually she was with me at the base. I mean, we did the start together and then I literally was like, okay, bye. And walked over and did the thing and started at the top. So we were only apart for like an hour and a half of the whole, you know, I was like, and I started through the window a couple of times. And so it felt like she was just there having the whole experience with me. What you just listened to was a most replayed moment from a previous episode. If you wanna listen to that full episode, I've linked it down below. Check the description. Thank you.