Tim Ferriss: …Do you ever get depressed or have you ever been depressed?
Alex Honnold: Yeah. Yeah. No, I think—I mean, I think I kind of gravitate towards being this somewhat depressed person, I don’t know. Or—I don’t know actually. Or I’m just sort of like flat.
T. Ferriss: Let’s dig into that first part and we’ll see what we come up with. So why do you say that you think—I definitely oscillate to fairly high highs and reasonably low lows, and I’ve been trying to take the edge, like that the 20 top—like the top and bottom 20% off those to make it a little more manageable. But, why do you say that you might tend towards—
A. Honnold: See, I feel like I don’t have any of the highs, and I kind of go from level to like slightly below level of the bag. You know, it’s all like—it’s all pretty flat I feel like.
T F: And does that—when you—
A H: I don’t know.
F: When you dip, does that—is that triggered by certain types of things? Or is it just a cycle that comes with time?
H: I don’t know. Yeah, maybe it’s just a cycle with time. It’s like sometimes you just feel useless, you know. But, I mean, in some ways though I embrace that as part of the process, because you kind of have to feel like a worthless piece of poop in order to get motivated enough to go do something that makes you feel less useless.

But then ultimately that still doesn’t make you feel any less useless. You do it more.

F: …Do you drink coffee or caffeine?
H: No. I don’t have—I just don’t like coffee and I don’t really like tea. But I don’t have any problem with caffeine. I don’t even really notice caffeine I don’t think that much. Because you get it in like SHOT BLOKS and gels and goo’s and whatever, all the little energy products.
F: Right.
H: Like some of them have caffeine and some don’t. I don’t feel like I notice an effect either way.

F: …On the danger side, this is a question from Paul Jones. So being the first sponsored superstar of free soloing, do you ever have concerns about the influence you could have on young climbers who may not put in the mileage and the training to get to the point where they can do it as safely?
H: Yeah, so there are two things. One, I’m definitely not the first superstar or whatever, because there are a bunch of European climbers who are well known for solo and who have, you know, come before me. And even in the US somebody like John Bachar [d. 2009 free-soloing] was like super well-known in the 1970s and he was on all kinds of TV programs. There might not have been sponsorship in the same way that we have today, because the industry wasn’t the same, but he was definitely on like the evening news and all kinds of crazy things fee soloing.

So, I mean, I’m definitely not the first by any means. And it’s interesting, because, you know, I was obviously a kid who was influenced by that kind of stuff. But then I’ve gone through, you know, years and years of practice or whatever. I kind of feel like soloing is a bit, I don’t know, almost like self-regulating in a way, because the thing is that anybody can watch a video and be like, “I want to do that.” But then as soon as they climb 15–20 feet off the ground they start to have a very frank discussion with themselves, like, “Do I really want to do this?”

You know, like it suddenly feels very scary. Because I mean, the people have like an overwhelming fear response to the prospect of falling to their death. You know, and so—
F: I have an overwhelming fear response just watching videos of it.
H: Well, yeah, exactly. I mean, that’s kind of the thing, is that hardly anybody sees that film and is like, “Oh, I’m gonna go and do that.” And then even if they do, once they start trying to do it, I mean, it is actually quite difficult to climb these walls. So it’s not as if some kind can just like wander up and do that. And even if they are strong enough or like well-versed enough in climbing to climb a little bit, then they’re also like, “Wow, this is really, really scary. I didn’t expect it to be this scary.” And then they just climb back down.
F: Mm-hmm.
H: So, I mean, you know, I’ve thought a little bit about influencing kids and like, you know, wondering if that’s a bad thing. But in general like you just don’t really see copycat things. Like you see it a lot more in gravity assisted sports or like action sports. So like kayaking or skiing or something, where like anybody can just like up at the top of the cliff and be like, “I’m gonna [inaudible] this cliff and I’m going to stick it and it’s gonna be sick.” You know. And then once they sort of commit and start going, it’s like they’re going of the cliff one way or another.
F: Right. They can start the music, but they can’t turn it off.
H: Yeah, exactly. But with climbing it’s like each move that you make upward is like a decision that you’re going to continue going upward. You have to decide over and over, like I want to keep going, I want to keep going, I want to keep—and at a certain point you’re like, “I don’t really want to keep going. Like I think I wanna go down.” And then you’re just like, “Mommy!” You know, and then like, yeah, I mean.

F: Have you ever hit that point when it was—let’s just say—
H: When I’ve started screaming for mommy?
F: [Inaudible] well, yeah, screaming for mommy or like hundreds of feet up and you’re like, “I don’t want to keep doing this.”—
H: Yeah, no, I’ve definitely had a bunch of times soloing where I’m like, “I’m not into this. I’m going down.
F: And what happens then? Because I’ve never seen footage of you climbing down.
H: Well the thing is—
F: Yeah.
H: But that’s kind of a practical thing, is that if you have people that are filming with you, it’s like obviously you’re doing something that you’ve rehearsed or you know a lot about, or it’s like, you know, it’s a classic enough route that it’s worthy to film on. Like you have all those epic misadventures on things that like aren’t that well known, that you know, people aren’t climbing all the time.

But no, so I’ve had tons of experiences where—especially when I was younger, I didn’t really know how to read [inaudible] that well, the little maps that show you like where a climbing route goes. So I’d look at it and be like, “Okay, I think I’m climbing that big corner.” And then I’d go up there and be like, “This isn’t even the right route. Like what the heck and I doing?” And then I’d start like questing way to the left or right being like, “Well maybe if I traverse 200 feet that way, then I’ll get to the real route.” And then you’re like, “Oh God, what am I doing.” And then it all starts to go south, you know—
F: And then you would climb down. And then it’s [inaudible].
H: Well, or I would, like, quest over to some other route and escape off of that one.

F: …Again, returning to the—this is not directly related to the dating and the van, but this is a question from Michael Sipriano. I’ve always found climbing to have a large positive effect on my libido. Does Alex find this to be the case?
H: Well, I’ve climbed for my entire life, so I mean maybe it explains—
F: Just a permanent—
H: —the tremendous libido.
F: Do you—
H: I mean, is that for real?
F: That’s a real question.
H: Okay. I guess, I don’t know. But, I mean, that’s probably true of anybody who’s like staying active and staying fit. You know, you’re just like; it’s the way your body’s supposed to work.