Whenever I see a tree that is climbable, it must be climbed. Sometimes when I'm on a run, I'll just run up a tree, jump on a branch and swing off. My favorite tree, in Saratoga, gets me a good 75 feet up.
It's because I have no sense of shame that I'm always willing to give things a go: I've ridden horses naked into the sea, I've climbed rocks, all kinds of things.
While the developed world has shifted from agriculture to manufacturing and then to services, the number of jobs has always climbed.
When I was 12, I forgot the keys to my parent's apartment. So I simply climbed up seven floors to get in.
If you've climbed the first 140 meters it doesn't mean that you've succeeded; you are going to succeed by climbing the last 10 meters.
I did climb about 80 buildings around the world and I climbed even the five tallest.
I have a journal of everything I've ever climbed since 2005. For the entry about free soloing Half Dome, I put a frowny face and added some little notes about what I should have done better, and then underlined it. Turns out that is one of my biggest climbing achievements.
I've done routes where I've climbed 200 feet off the ground and just been, like, 'What am I doing?' I then just climbed back down and went home. Discretion is the better part of valor. Some days are just not your day. That's the big thing with free soloing: when to call it.
When I first climbed into a go-kart, aged 13, I thought to myself: 'This is what I want to do with my life, and I want to drive F1.'
It is wrong when we, in effect, throw safe and sound financial institutions into the same category with banks and lenders that climbed too far out on a limb with no way to return.
