The Greatest Climber Alive: I Shouldn't Have Attempted That Climb!

**Steven Bartlett** (0:00)
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**Alex Honnold** (1:07)
It drives me crazy that nobody else thinks about risk in this way. People look at my life and they're like, well, you're crazy, you're such a risk taker. Well, at least I'm taking the risks that I'm choosing. Because think of all the people that like go out partying every weekend and they get buzzed and they drive home. And even sedentary people who are like, well, I don't take risks, I stay home and I play video games. No, you're at a much higher risk of heart disease. They're taking all kinds of risks that they're not actually choosing to take and you're still going to freaking die either way. So you might as well take smart calculated risks and do all the things that you want to do and at least die happy when you go. He's done it. Alex Honnold has made history again. Scaling one of the world's tallest skyscrapers.

**Steven Bartlett** (1:41)
But 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 is lighting up less when you're shown scary images.

**Alex Honnold** (1:50)
I actually hate all the brain stuff because people always put me in this box of like, well, you're different. And I'm like, well, not really, like I'm a middle class suburban kid. Nobody in my family is athletic. I just after 20 years of climbing five days a week and being really freaking scared, I respond differently than an average person. And there was tons of emotional turmoil throughout it, periods where you're just like, I'm trying so hard and I'm just like, not as good as I want to be. You know, I was like living in a car. I had like a couple hundred bucks a month for 10 years. Like, that's challenging, but you just can't master a craft overnight.

**Steven Bartlett** (2:15)
I guess that's what people don't see. And so how do you create the conditions to out persist other people? And then in all your career, when is the moment where you were most scared?

**Alex Honnold** (2:23)
On an expedition to Antarctica. I kept hoping that it's going to get better and it just kept getting worse. Like, I could die.

**Steven Bartlett** (2:28)
Do you have a conversation with your partner before you go and do something like this? Because she wrote a letter.

**Alex Honnold** (2:32)
Oh, gosh.

**Steven Bartlett** (2:33)
Obviously, this is your worst nightmare, she said. But we all have to do scary things sometimes, Alex. Guys, I've got a favor to ask before this episode begins. Sixty nine percent of you that listen to the show frequently haven't yet hit the follow button. And that follow button is very smart because it means you won't miss the best episodes. The algorithm, if you follow a show, will deliver you the best episodes from that show very prominently in your feed. So when we have our best episodes on this show, the most shared episodes, the most rated episodes, I would love you to know. And the simple way for you to know that is to hit that follow button. Thank you so, so, so much.
Alex, to understand you, I think from everything I've learned about you, from the research I've done, from speaking to your wife, your agent, everybody I could speak to, I think to understand your context, we first need to understand the circumstances in which you were raised and the childhood you had because it seems to be, I mean, for all of us, there's like fingerprints left on us that define the anomaly that many of us become, including yourself. So, what do I need to know? What does the viewer need to know about the early context?