Thriving And Driving

Nobody is doing any of it (except maybe a little driving)

Author

Matt Zeigler
May 06, 2025

Kris Abdelmessih shared an Alex Hannold interview quote that I want to isolate and drop in my personal archive. If you don’t know Hannold, he’s the (crazy) free-solo climbing guy:

“We biked across the entire American West. Interacting with the land that way is different from driving or flying over it. At first, I thought we were both just trying to have a nature experience.

But my main takeaway was how much of the landscape has been pillaged by man. It was crazy—the amount of environmental degradation, the loss you could see, and just how scrappy the towns were.

Nobody is thriving.

The landscape isn’t thriving. The people aren’t thriving. The communities aren’t thriving.

Nothing about this is working.”

Alex Hannold, on Rich Roll’s podcast, as quoted/emphasized by Kris Abdelmessih

Hannold’s living a big life and making a big metaphor. You should read the full quote (or listen to the full interview) if curious. But I wanted to snip this bit out because of a much smaller reflection.

My wife and I are fresh off a road trip out to Chicago and back.

We didn’t bike. We definitely drove. Just us and the dogs.

In our little station wagon bubble, I wasn’t really thinking about the rest of the world thriving.

I was on vacation, I was busy being myopic.

My wife was happy I wasn’t working (I handed her my phone, asked her to tell me she lost it, but then confirmed she really wouldn’t lose it but “I know what you meant, it’s ok” she assured me).

My dogs were happy, albeit vacation-confused but not upset, and we learned Jack - our newest edition - thinks he’s a 15lb monster who can rule city streets with his bark, as much as Otis - my oldest and bestest bud, aka lil b**** - has acquired a new level of bladder control where he can consistently hold just enough in his bladder to pee on new objects for a personal best record of a 35 minute walk.

We were thriving.

But thriving starts small, and it expands big.

Hannold’s point really shook me when I read it in Kris’ email.

If we know how to thrive small, like my wife and my dogs in the car, what are we doing to thrive bigger because - I see what Hannold’s saying here.

And I don’t have a good answer.

Not yet. But I’m working on one.

If I know how to thrive small, at a 1-1 (or 1-3?) level, theoretically, I should know how to scale it up too. There’s a community layer to build on top of it. There’s a community to community layer to build on top of that.

All I know is you do not fix this from the top down.

What about you - are you thriving small and struggling to think about what thriving big could even look like these days too?

I’m thriving. And pitching my wife on Wilco who she still doesn’t like. let’s just say - I am not above weaponizing selfies to let me play Wilco in the car.

Jack giving us“The world is my toy store” eyes