All episodes of The High Performance Podcast

The High Performance Podcast · 2026-01-22 · 48 min · 10,728 words

Free Solo Legend Alex Honnold: What Conquering Fear Actually Looks Like (E280)

Listen to the original audio · Transcribed with NVIDIA Parakeet · Why times can differ in your player

If I know anything about fear, it's from having experienced it a ton. Ten years later, ten years of consistent training and practice and preparation, all that, I finally felt ready to actually do it without a rope. Like I have to just perform. You know, I just have to trust my feet and my feet slip, I'm gonna die. And that's it.

Now it's like it's on. If you're really trying to think about leading a high performance life, I would think honestly about what's holding you back from it. Like maybe you should just do the thing you've been wanting to do. What's to lose? On January 23rd, Alex Honald will attempt something most of us can't even comprehend, climbing up the outside of a skyscraper thousands of feet above the ground with nothing but his hands and feet.

He's also the man who became the first person to free silo El Capitan, climbing Yosemite's 3,000 foot granite wall without ropes, a feat many considered impossible, and one that National Geographic documented in the Oscar winning film Free Solo. But here's the thing about Alex, he doesn't eliminate fear from his life, he just transforms it. And in this episode he takes us inside the mind of someone who's mastered what the rest of us spend our lives avoiding. From his legendary ascent of El Capitan to the everyday moments of terror two thousand feet up a rock face, he reveals the mental techniques that allow him to turn paralyzing fear into perfect execution.

That is the first couple of minutes. The rest is $1.49.

We already have this episode, so unlocking it is cheap and permanent: the full transcript (48 minutes, 10,728 words), segment and word-level timestamps, and .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like, forever.

No account needed, we create one from your checkout email. With credits it is 1 credit; packs start at 5 episodes for $3.49, and monthly plans are cheaper still.

get it now

Ready in under two minutes.

credits never expire

Packs go up to 1,000 episodes. Need more? Email contact@podmenti.com and we will make you one.

One episode is up to 4 hours of audio; a longer one counts as one more for every started 4 hours. Secure checkout by Stripe. Paying once needs no account: we create one from your email. By paying you agree to the terms.