Adventure Rock Climber Alex Honnold on Mindset, Progression, Pressure

Alex Honnold (0:00)

So, my father died when I was 19, and actually in the few years before, or maybe the year after, but both my grandfathers had died as well. And so, it was just kind of a lot of heavy, you know, family, all started at the end of high school.

I think the main thing that I take away from that is just a reminder that life is short, and you need to do the things that you want to do. You don't have forever.

Michael Gervais (0:23)

All right, welcome back, or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm Michael Gervais. And by trade and training, I'm a sport performance psychologist, spending most of my time in the trenches of very high stakes and even rugged environments. And for the past 20 years, I've been working out how people push their own limits, how they push their own boundaries, which occasionally can shift the global understanding of what's possible for humans. And the idea behind these conversations in this podcast is to learn from people who are on the path of mastery, who have dedicated their life's efforts to working to understand the nuances of their craft, the nuances of themselves, the nuances of people, if you will. And what we want to do is to work to search for what they're searching for. We want to understand the mental skills that they've used to build and refine their insights and understandings as well. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Bubbs Naturals. Like many of you, I'm mindful about what I put in my body. For me, it usually comes down to ingredients and simplicity. The shorter the list, the better. And if I have to look it up, I'm usually out. That's why I've been loving Bubbs Naturals. Bubbs creates products with high quality, all-natural ingredients designed to help people get after their adventures in life. I've been a huge fan of their hydrate or dye electrolyte mix for years now. It only has six total ingredients, but it's packed with five times the electrolytes as conventional sports drinks with none of the added sugars, artificial flavors, sweeteners or preservatives. It's great for post-workout recovery, outdoor adventures and staying hydrated during long periods of travel, which I've done a lot of lately, and Bubz is a go-to for me. Plus, all Bubz products are 100% NSF4 Sport certified, which means they pass the most rigorous quality standards. They're currently in just about every MLB locker room, working closely with the Red Sox, Yankees, Rangers, Cardinals, Diamondbacks and more, of course. I'd love for you to go and check them out. Just head to bubznaturals.com and enter the code Finding Mastery at checkout for 20% off your first purchase. That's bubznaturals.com and use the code Finding Mastery for 20% off your first purchase.

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This week's episode is special. Not only is it our first Finding Mastery Live, which was recorded at the USC Performance Science Institute at Marshall School of Business. That's cool. And if you're not familiar with that, Pete Carroll, the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, Dave Belasco, the executive director for entrepreneurial studies at USC, and I created the Institute to teach and train and research the science and best practices and applied principles for a high-performing mindset in any domain. And that's our mission, right? To really sort out what are the best practices, what are the key principles, and how do we take our minds, uplift them or optimize them as many ways as we possibly can, that will work in a variety of domains, whatever domain is of most interest to the person.