Alex Honnold: I GIve A Third of My Income to Charities | Forward Progress

Alex Honnold on fame, doing what he loves, spending habits and giving a portion of his salary to charity.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Hey, it's Graham, it's Thursday,and that means we're offering
you another positive piece of a past interview.
Each week our team digs through the archives to find our
strongest feel good stories to present to you in podcast form.
This week, Alex Honnold, how do you view fame?

(00:22):
I view fame is like a a means toan end, and the end is to be
able to climb my whole life without having to work and fame.
It's like a very useful way to do that.
How do you view media and sponsors I.
Don't know, I mean, yeah, media and sponsors are all just like
part of the whole game. I mean, I don't know.
I mean, I love being able to go climbing all the time and, and
sponsorship and media and like, you know, making films and

(00:44):
writing books and all those kinds of things all just sort of
tie into like enabling this lifestyle and to be able to
share the lifestyle with people,which has never been like my
goal. But it is nice to be able to
like inspire other people and tolike, I mean, throughout my
life, I've gotten a lot of inspiration from like seeing
climbing films and like reading people's books and like reading
climbing magazines And like, youknow, I've, I've taken a lot

(01:05):
from the climbing community and that's like really inspired me
to like go and push myself. And so it's nice to be able to
contribute to that whole culturea little bit.
Generally, why do you think it'sso difficult for most climbers
to be able to earn a living fromthe sport?
I mean, generally climbing just isn't that big a sport.
So there's not much money in it.So there's not that much to go
around. I mean, it's hard to, like, make

(01:25):
a living from sponsorship. But that's changing a little
bit, though, because climbing isgrowing so quickly and gyms are
taking off. And like, I mean, the sport of
climbing is wildly different nowthan it was 10 years ago.
What do you think has allowed itto become financially lucrative
for you? I.
Mean financially lucrative mightbe overstating it because it's
like, well, I mean, you know, like it's the top primers in the
world are like getting paid lessthan a dentist.

(01:47):
Right. I mean, I was going to say it's
like featured Jack who's making 20 million.
So it is all relative, but I mean.
If you're I mean, I read some stats about the NFL and it was
talking about like the base salary or something for like
basically you can be the worst player in the entire league and
you're still making like easily twice as much as any of the
climbers in the world. Yeah, but the.
Difference is too the average lifespan of somebody in the NFL

(02:08):
is 3-4 years, and then most are.Yeah, climbing is like 20 years
a. Couple years.
That's because they don't save properly, right?
That's true. Because they buy a tiger or
whatever, they freaking they have to feed it all the time
too. Yeah, I know.
I saw that, Yeah. I mean, it is obviously all
relative, but making a couple 100 grand a year or whatever it

(02:28):
is, I mean that's a good living and definitely better than.
I think. I think.
What you love? So I mean, what do you think is
allowed? I think I've been lucky with the
sponsorship stuff because the type of climbing that I like
doing the most, the soloing and everything, is also like the
easiest to understand for a general audience.
It's like the most visually appealing, you know, even though
it's not nearly as difficult as something like the Dawn Wall,

(02:48):
let's say. But so like the things that I'm
doing, you can just show like one image and you're like,
that's amazing. That's so beautiful, that looks
so cool. And so like, it's easy to, it's
easy to sell, you know? What do you and you've been open
about this before, what do you live off of annually now?
And when you were living off thewell, you know there was a.
Yeah. So I mean, it was.
Living off very little and probably more now, but.

(03:10):
Yeah, it was to know, it's been published that I was living off
like a grand a month or less or something.
I mean, when I first started traveling, it was probably less
than that because it was just food and gas.
And I was like shopping at like Walmart in like terrible places,
you know, just buying like the cheapest pasta and like, oh,
$0.68 for dinner. That's perfect, you know?
And now obviously I spend a lot more on food.
When when you did not have, whenyou had very little money, what

(03:34):
did that teach you about, you know, savings and all of that?
I mean, The thing is I've alwayslived the same way.
Like I only buy things if I needthem and I still just like don't
spend money frivolously. I don't like, I don't have any
things, you know? But the difference then versus
now is you're able to have moneyto sort of plan for.

(03:59):
Yeah, yeah, now, now it's awesome to be able to like save
money and, and also I have a foundation now and so I've been
giving probably a third of my income to charity, like
environmental nonprofits and stuff, which is pretty sweet to
be able to like try to do something positive like that,
but which. Is pretty substantial too,
because I mean, you know, you dowell, but I mean 1/3 of.

(04:20):
Yeah. You know it's easier for.
Yeah, but my living expenses. Are their savings.
Yeah, but my living expenses arestill super low and like, and I
mean, I'm saving enough that like, I feel comfortable with
like being OK and yeah. And I just, I feel like that's
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(04:42):
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