In 2017, I was at a trade show with some of the world's top outdoor athletes.
It was mid-summer, and Alex Honnold had just free-soloed El Cap. The climbing world was rightfully going nuts. He'd been making main-stream media appearances too, but the rest of the world didn't really seem to get it until the movie Free Solo came out a year later in 2018. But in the summer of 2017, Alex was basically a movie star already in the world of outdoor sports. Same with Jimmy Chin, co-director of what would become the Oscar-winning documentary. And they were both talking about Alex's climb on a panel presented by The North Face at the trade show.
It was standing room only.
Everywhere you looked, you'd see someone wearing a short-sleeved button-down. Lots of people in trucker hats, too. We all stood grouped together, shifting back and forth in either a pair of Chacos or trail-runners.
At the time, Alex seemed like he was more nervous to be on stage than he'd been on that 2,900-foot rock wall in Yosemite without a rope. Same with the mingling portion of the event after the panel concluded. I remember he was chatting with folks from various companies, looking like he'd felt out of place. That had made me pause, because we were all there to see him, but his body language made it clear that he was confused by that. When I talked to him, I could see him trying to understand the best way to volley the conversation. It seemed like it took energy—thought and intention intricately embedded within every comment.
Fast forward almost ten years, and he's just famously free-soloed the Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taiwan. I listened to him talk about it on a recent episode of The Rich Roll Podcast and was completely and utterly blown away.
And it had nothing to do with the climb.
He sounded so at ease... even though the pod, much like that panel in 2017, had been recorded in front of a live studio audience. I don't know if it was comfort or just extensive media training, but the contrast was visceral for me. I thought back to my first conversation with him at that trade show where even his body language seemed tense.
Compared with the publicity he did for his El Cap/Free Solo project, the difference in hearing him speak on the podcast was staggering. I don't know if it’s just his years of exposure to the press by now, or the evolution of his life with getting married and becoming a dad... but damn.
Alex notoriously talks about his diluted fear response, as measured in the analysis of his amygdala for the Free Solo project. His repeated exposure to high-risk situations, decade after decade, has made him a formidable athlete but a potentially hard person for most people to relate to. In that podcast interview, he was cracking jokes about fear that would actually land with the average Joe listening. That was so different than the direct, sharp, and sometimes out-of-touch responses he used to give.
The thing that stood out most to me while listening was that he’s not trying to convince, correct, or justify anything about his climbing anymore. He seems really secure and grounded.
And I’m insanely happy for him.
I even found this photo from that trade show in 2017...
next, I have to go find that shirt.
When's the last time someone else's growth taught you about your own?
onward.
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