The Secret Fear Men Don't Talk About with Jimmy Chin

Anyone watching “Meru,” the documentary film depicting professional mountaineer Jimmy Chin’s ascent of the peak of the same name, would be forgiven for assuming that Jimmy is fearless. The film shows Jimmy and his close friends hanging perilously from near-vertical rock walls in an effort to summit the 21,000-foot Himalayan mountain. And did I mention that they’re doing so in sub-zero temperatures?

But as Jimmy confesses in this episode of Shared Secrets, he has a secret fear common to most men—a fear that is rarely spoken of, especially among athletes and other cultures that prize stoicism and strength. And, as we discuss in the podcast, it’s a fear that our age of social media has rendered taboo.