The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. That book changed my life, blew my mind. If you’re going to read that book, take it slow in my opinion.

It’s amazing. I just started looking at everything differently. I love that book. But a book is a kind of thing of magic. It contains a universe of information.

Professor [Bernhard] Rensch influenced me a great deal because I talked with him about these matters and in his book he raised all the problems that would... or at least most of the problems that would occupy my mind in the later years.

The Fountainhead , I think, pretty much saved me in the initial years of Teach For America. I loved that book, but I’m not sure books were the seminal thing that guided my path. ... I think it was sort of about “the creator against the world,” and I was probably feeling at that point that I was up against lots of boulders, to pull off the big idea of Teach For America.

Anyway, it's very much a work in progress, but I'm basically just hoping to do something useful in the world besides just climbing rocks...

And you know, then you can just take that breath and be like, okay, time to--time to reset, you know, like, relax your grip a little bit, take in what you're doing and start again.

I’ve always wished I had stronger fingers, and most of my friends always have stronger fingers.

I pretty much always just get up and have like a big breakfast and then go climbing. That’s kind of the standard.

And, you know, Chris Sharma obviously was like setting all kinds of world record type things when I was a kid. I was just like, “Oh, he’s so amazing.” And Tommy Caldwell was also a big hero, which has been cool because now I get to climb with Tommy as an adult and I’m just like, “Oh, that’s pretty cool.” I’m still always excited to climb with Tommy.

Thanks for asking, this is a bit of a cool side project for me. The main thing that motivated me to start it was just a general feeling that I had more than I needed and that I should give back. I donate money through a charitable foundation (rather than just through personal checks) in the hope that it will inspire others to consider supporting causes that they believe in.