I think I'm a pretty creative person. I love building things. I love working on my house. Landscaping, stuff like that.

I love finding something. For me it's not just about the athletic challenge, it's about finding new things. When I'm not doing that in climbing, it manifests itself in other ways. There's the athletic side of it, but it is very much an artistic thing.

One of the things that separates climbing from other sports is how independent and personal it is. With most sports, you either win or lose, but climbing is about your own personal experience.

I really learned to approach climbing not just with a pure athletic mentality, but also to appreciate all these beautiful places we get to go to.

Climbing is my lifelong journey. And in the same way you go running and you have days where you really feel in tune, you have some days where you don't feel that good. It's this never-ending process. Accepting that and enjoying that for what it is, that's really where the life of climbing is.

For me now, I feel that climbing is a part of who I am. It's my way of life. It's my way of expressing myself. My way of being in the world. In the past, I questioned it a lot. Now it's obvious. This is who I am. This is what I do.

There are strong people who aren't able to climb. It's about reading the rock, knowing how to position your body and having the tenacity to not let go.