How do you stay calm and focused when you’re 3,000 feet off the ground — with no ropes, no safety lines, and no room for error?
Legendary climber and free soloist Alex Honnold returns to The Finding Mastery Podcast for a raw, insightful conversation about mindset, being great with fear, and what it means to live at the edge of human performance.
Alex is best known for his historic, ropeless ascent of El Capitan — captured in the Oscar-winning film Free Solo (which you should watch if you haven’t seen it yet). But in this episode, we go far beyond climbing.
We explore:
- How Alex manages fear, consequence, and risk with rare mental clarity
- What it takes to perform under pressure — and when to walk away
- How fatherhood and loss reshaped his relationship with ambition and danger
- The underrated power of optimism and framing hard moments as growth
This isn’t just a conversation about climbing. It’s about the psychology behind pushing your limits, the skill of regulating your mind under stress, and how to chase a bold, purposeful life — even when the summit feels out of reach.
Whether you’re an athlete, entrepreneur, or anyone seeking mastery under pressure, Alex’s honesty, humor, and hard-earned wisdom deliver lessons for all of us.
“I think the joy is found in the challenge and the striving and the struggling. And if there’s nothing to strive or struggle for, then you’re kind of like, oh, where’s the fun?”
Resources + Links
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