The Rich Roll Podcast - From Actor To Change Agent: Adrian Grenier On Creating Symbiosis With Self

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

What happens when you’re massively rich, famous, and rewarded for living a life of over-indulgence? If you’re lucky, you awake one day to realize that a life of sex, drugs, rock & roll—a life you were convinced would make you happy—only leaves you empty. You then embark on a Victor Frankl-esque search for meaning that ultimately leads to spiritual awakening and a path towards purpose, self-actualization, and service. This is a story that recurs on this show in many forms. Today’s version of that story comes in the shape of Adrian Grenier. You know Adrian as an actor—he’s appeared in many films and television projects—but of course, most well known for his portrayal of Vinnie Chase in the HBO hit show Entourage, a dizzying and meta experience for Adrian that in so many ways came to parallel his own life. But Adrian has evolved past this archetype of adolescent id, trading Hollywood for a ranch outside Austin, Texas. He’s matured into a regenerative farmer, environmentalist, and founder of the Lonely Whale Foundation. He’s also an impact investor, leading DuContra Ventures as co-founder and Chief Experience Officer. A heart-centered community builder who cares deeply about our symbiosis with self, each other, and the natural habitat we share, today Adrian shares his worthy story. It’s about the hidden, ugly truths that lay beneath the modern American dream. It’s about the work required, and beauty to behold, in wrestling with the soul. It’s about endeavoring to connect with and express that which is more fundamental and meaningful. But most of all, it’s about finding ways to be in service to a better world. To read more click here. You can also watch listen to our exchange on YouTube. And as always, the podcast streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. This one is soulful—I hope it resonates with you as deeply as it did with me. Peace + Plants, Rich

I was trying to save the world. I was trying to, you know, make all this money, do all this stuff to go out and proselytize and tell everybody how they needed to behave. I've really come to terms with how important it is that I take personal responsibility for myself and I take ownership of how I am and how I show up. I've let go of the ego part of me that thinks I know the way the world should be and surrendered to the playfulness and the joy of just being a part of this existence.

We're alive. How can you not be optimistic? We're here. It's incredible. The Rich Roll Podcast. Here's a question for you. What happens when all your fantasies come true? When you come to discover that you're being massively rewarded for living a life of just extraordinary overindulgence?

Well, if you're lucky, you awake one day to realize that life, your life, a life so many aspire to, a life of sex, drugs, rock and roll, wealth, and fame, a life you're absolutely convinced would make you happy, instead leaves you empty, but also motivated to evolve, to embark on a sort of Viktor Frankl-esque search for meaning that ultimately leads to a spiritual awakening and a path towards purpose, greater self-actualization, and ultimately service. This is a story, an archetype that has recurred on this show in many forms, but today's version of that story comes in the shape of Adrian Grenier.

You know Adrian as an actor. He's appeared in many films and television projects, You know Adrian as an actor. He's appeared in many films and television projects, but of course is most well-known for his portrayal of Vinnie Chase in the HBO hit show Entourage, which was this dizzying and meta experience for Adrian that in so many interesting ways came to parallel his own personal life.

But Adrian has grown up. He's evolved past this archetype of adolescent id, trading Hollywood for a ranch outside Austin, Texas, maturing into a regenerative farmer, an environmentalist. He's the founder of the Lonely Whale Foundation and impact investor as co-founder and chief experience officer of Ducontra Ventures, a heart-centered community builder who cares deeply about our symbiosis with self,

with each other and the natural habitat we share. Today, Adrian shares his story and it's a good one. A couple more things to mention before we excavate his soul. But first, a few words from the sponsors that make this show possible. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally

saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers

to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com

and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, Adrian Grenier. So this is a conversation about growing up. It's about the hidden ugly truths that lay beneath the modern American dream. It's about the work required and the beauty to behold and wrestling with the soul

and endeavoring to connect with and express that which is more fundamental and meaningful. And it's about finding ways to share what you discover in service to a better world. This one is soulful. I hope it resonates. So let's do the thing. This is me and Adrian Grenier.

Well, first of all, happy birthday, man. Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate you inviting me to your birthday party last night. I'm sorry, I couldn't make it. I didn't get the email until too late, but. Who emails birthday invitations? I don't know.

We should have texted you. It's cool, man. It's cool, man. It's cool, man. But happy birthday. Thank you. How old are you now? 44? 45.

45, yeah. You're a man. Yes, officially. You're in your middle age, officially. Yeah. How does it feel? Good. I just grew up fast enough to squeeze in manhood, you know, within the 45 years.

Had I waited another year, I probably would have never grown up. Yeah, well, I feel like you've been on this crash course. You've compressed a lot into the last couple of years. Yeah, which is what we're gonna get into. What's funny, well, thank you for making time to do this today. It's super nice to finally meet you.

And what's funny about the fact that we're sitting here today is that we were first introduced. We talked about this on the phone the other day. I don't know if you recall, but we were first introduced by Mishka Shubali back in December of 2015. And we had some back and forth on email. Yeah, I remember. December of 2015. And we had some back and forth on email.

Yeah, I remember. And that didn't seem to go anywhere. And then like, I feel like every year and a half or so, you'd resurface and we try to figure out how to sit together and then we just couldn't sync it up. So you are officially the longest just dating podcast guest in the history. This has taken six years to make happen,

but I've learned to not force these things. Like they're meant to happen when they're meant to happen. And I feel like had we done this in 2016, it would be very different and far less meaningful. I don't think I had anything interesting to say back then. You know, maybe a few things, but I feel like now you're in a position to talk about a lot of important, meaningful things.

Yeah, well, you know, so back then, I had a lot more people between me and, you know. Yeah, I gathered as much. There were a lot of gatekeepers. A lot of gatekeepers. So a lot of the stuff didn't even get to me. And, you know, and I willfully remained ignorant because, you know, I didn't want to have to work too much.

You know, it's like if I didn't, if my people didn't call me and tell me I had to do something all the better because I could go to brunch. Sure. And then I went through a period where I just shed everything and was doing nothing

because I was basically in isolation. And now I'm sort of finding a nice balance where I have some people that I work with, but I do most of the things myself. So I have actually some, I know what's happening in my life. I manage my own schedule. And so, we actually, I think sort of mostly scheduled this.

Yeah, it was just us. In person. Yeah, it was just us. But I feel like when you're in that position and you're on a television show, I mean, on some level you need those people. The incoming has to be just completely dizzying. So there's no way that you'd be able

to manage it on your own. Oh yeah, you become a big machine. If you're successful, you become a lot of moving parts and you become like sort of the millennium falcon or something. But now you're living on a farm outside Austin. Is it in Bastrop? Yeah a farm outside Austin. Yeah. Is it in Bastrop?

Yeah, outside of Austin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're like Ryan Holiday's neighbor now. I am, yeah, I was texting with him yesterday, in fact. Are you? So that's hilarious. That's so interesting. How has the, how does it feel?

Like there's this sense that there's this great migration to Austin right now. Is that, do you feel that? Is that real? Or is that just like a handful of influencers move there? So it feels like more people than it actually is. No, the inundation is real. I mean, it's palpable.

You feel it for sure. And already before the pandemic, there was an inordinate amount of people moving there every day. And then the pandemic hit and then a lot of people, and then all the like influencers and all the people you recognize. Right. And then I'm sure like a second wave of people that want to be around those people. Yes. Yes. And I, you know, honestly, I'm, I'm concerned. I'm concerned because, you know, Austin's slogan is keep Austin weird.

But there are a lot of people that just aren't that weird. They're just kind of typical. And they're coming in and they're not passing through that rite of passage to keep Austin weird. of passage to keep us in weird meaning like, you know, being a part of like that, that culture, which is unique to Austin. Yeah, but not too many of those people are gonna be buying ranches or farms and growing their own food.

Unless they do fit that bill. Yeah, well, you know, they're in Austin. I skipped town almost. Yeah, you're not even in outside of that anyway. Well, I'm really interested in this arc that you've been on which kind of parallels this Victor Frank, old man's search for meaning kind of hero's journey. I think it's fascinating.

It's a recurring theme on this show, but it's really my favorite kind of landscape to mine. This exploration of how you go from achieving your wildest fantasies as a young person and living this overindulgent lifestyle only to wake up one day and discover it ain't all that. Yeah. So why don't we go back to the genesis of that?

Okay. I rewatched Teenage Paparazzo the other day. And I also watched, I had never seen the documentary that you made about reconnecting with your dad, a shot in the dark. And I found it super interesting. I mean, I think Teenage Paparazzo feels almost quaint compared to what's going on right now.

Everybody with their flip phones. And although Facebook existed, social media wasn't what it is today. And so it was sort of cute compared to what it must be like now. Had you been living kind of the life that you were living in this particular moment. It was totally simpler times.

Yeah, I know, right? Yeah, it was like celebrities were celebrities and they were chased by the paparazzi and the paparazzi were just trying to make a buck and they were tabloids and you know, now it's just far more complex. Right. Yeah.

The teenage paparazzo movie for people who haven't seen it, you connect with this young kid who's out there shooting pictures of celebrities. He's like 13 or something like that. And he goes on his own kind of exploration of fame as his notoriety increases in no small part because of your interest in him. He's gotta be like 25 now though, right?

Have you stayed in touch with him? Yeah, the last time I ran into him was at some LA party, but I know we don't talk much. No, is he still doing that? I think he's transitioned into more photography. I mean, he's a talented kid. So he's, I mean, I don't know exactly to be honest, but I've seen his Instagram and a lot of photographs

and write pretty pictures. Interesting. In the documentary about your dad, you get a glimpse of what your mom is like, the era in which she grew up, the circumstances under which you were born. And looking at your life now, it feels like you've become your mom's son.

Like she's this hippie, you know, into all this spiritual, mystical stuff, which is kind of much more in your wheelhouse now. Well, you know, I finally stopped rebelling and, you know, decided to just embrace my nature. Yeah, I suppose, instead of rebelling against my mom and trying to be, you know,, don't tell me what to do or who to be, I'll decide myself. And I realized there's a lot of wisdom in what she was sharing

with me and what she was offering once I decided to just stop being a rebel without a cause. And ultimately, I owe so much to my mother and so much gratitude and appreciation for the way she shaped my thinking and my heart, mostly my heart, my spirit. I'm so grateful to have grown up in a home that was as loving and as supportive as I did, you know, even though I was a single mom

and she was working really hard and often absent in many ways because she was in the grind. Not to say she was an absent mom. She just was working so hard. I didn't get a lot of her attention. Yeah, no, she was busting her ass for you. I mean, you get that in the movie.

Like this woman is incredible and the responsibility that she decided to shoulder for herself to create this life for you, uprooting you from New Mexico and moving to New York City and just being on the hustle to provide for you. Yeah, and also now as an adult, finally, I'm able to recognize that my mom was operating within a larger culture

in which men were mostly absent. Males were around, but like men, like divine masculine men, embodied men who were showing up and providing that support system and playing a positive role in the family. It didn't exist. It didn't exist for her.

It didn't exist for her mother. So, and I think in the movie, she says, she had a sort of a displaced sense of the role of a man. And so that pattern carried out in her while raising me where she didn't really have any men to support her. So she took on that male role for me. And that's actually been quite an inspiration for me today now is how can I now be the kind of man that would show up

for my mother, for me as a kid. And of course now for my partner and my future children. Yeah. And having to learn that without having a strong male figure in the household when you grew up. I mean, she says in the movie that after you reconnect with your dad and you have a few simple moments with him

that you have actually received more love than she received from her dad, even though her dad was in the house because he was so emotionally unavailable. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and trying to, part of that movie, although on the surface, it's kind of like this road trip to meet your dad.

Beneath the surface, it's really this exploration on your part to try to understand what fatherhood is. And this all takes place like a couple of years before entourage even happens, right? So you're grappling with this idea of what it means to be a man when you grew up without that presence in your life.

So it's not like a new, this idea of what does it mean to stand tall and be an emblematic responsible father It's not like a new, this idea of what does it mean to, stand tall and be an emblematic, responsible, loving, compassionate provider. These are subjects that you've been thinking about for a long time. They've occupied a lot of space in your consciousness. Absolutely.

I mean, I believe that, we've come to this planet to wrestle with these themes of manhood and father and all that stuff. And it just keeps repeating itself in different aspects of my life. And I mean, if I had to make that, I probably should remake that movie because it has so many holes in it.

I was 20. Yeah, you were so young. I was 20, 20. I turned 21 while we were shooting that film. And I didn't know anything. So I was, you know, it's a film from the perspective of a 21 year old kid about what it means to be a man or, you know, what fatherhood is having not had one,

not grown up with one. Yeah, I should probably do this. I think it would be cool because yeah, it's this time capsule, like what is a mind at that age? Like what is the preoccupation and what interests you and what problem are you trying to solve? But to figure that out as a mature adult now with everything that you've gone through and experienced

and all the growth that you've experienced, I think you could create like a sequel to that that could be powerful. Yeah, I think it's, what do we call it though? I don't know. That title comes later. I don't know what to say about that. I mean, it's strange

because I'm practicing so much in just the being part and not the telling part. For a long time, I was spending a lot of time performing. Look it, I got it all figured out and I have a lot to say. And now I'm much more interested in just head down, chop wood, carry water, and just be present in my daily practice really

of being that embodied man. And I haven't quite, as I said, I was in mostly isolation and now I'm just coming out. It's like, how do I tell my story? Even this is awkward for me because I haven't had a lot of interviews over the past couple of years, especially to talk about something so personal.

So I'm trying to find where that balance is between the beingness and then telling and communicating that to others. And when that compulsion arises to express yourself or to tell a story or to tell people the way it is, is that coming from an egoistic place? Is that coming from an older version of you? Or is there something more pure,

like in figuring out how to parse those two things? Yeah, well, I mean, I got lost in the business of acting and filmmaking where I was trying to climb that ladder and always maneuvering to put myself in a position where I could get that next role or make that next buck so that I could always be expanding and growing and lost track of the art of expression. And the reason why I initially was drawn to filmmaking was to be vulnerable and share something of myself. Not entirely, but more and more the money gigs started taking precedent over the meaningful gigs.

And that's the nature of the business. Yeah, I mean, it did start that way. You were kind of this, you know, punk artist kid who was all about purity and integrity. You went to LaGuardia High, right? Like, which is like the fame school. Did some acting there, went to college for a stint and kind of became an actor

because you had a facility for it, but it was mostly a way to fund these other artistic endeavors and interests that you had. I mean, in many ways, it was my ticket out of the hood. I was like living pretty meager means and I didn't wanna have to, I wanted more you know, wanted more. I wanted all the, I wanted the financial security. I wanted, you know, the, the cool parties and all that. So that was the easiest route for me to just, I, I had, I had the talent and I had people that were

prompting me and, you know, asking me to come audition and do stuff. So I had a lot of people that were wanting that of me. But my sense was that you would take these roles to kind of pay the bills, but the heart was really somewhere else. Oh, I tried to make that work. I tried to sit in sort of this artistic integrity while it's still like robbing Peter to pay Paul type thing. Like I'd go in, I'd make a couple bucks in Hollywood

and I'd come back and try and do real art. Right. And spend all my money on it. You were in bands and you were making documentaries and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. And then entourage, like, you know,

everything goes out the window. Yeah, I said robbing Peter to pay Paul, but I meant like Robin Hood. That's what I meant. That was the, like the Robin Hood mentality. I get this money from the fat cats and I'll put it to a more- And in many ways I'm still in that trip.

Aren't we all on some level? I mean, this podcast is supported by sponsors and I love my sponsors, but you know, we live in a commercial world and to some extent we have to play by those rules if we wanna function and share what we're here to share. Yes, yes, well, we think so. We've been told that that's the only way

that we can structure our civilization. Help me reimagine this. Yeah, well, that's what, so what I've been doing now in my life is focusing on the role of money and investments and how we actually build a civilization that serves not only humans, but also the environment, sort of a more holistic approach to investing. So I started an impact investment company

that has a certain philosophy, a certain approach to investing. So I started an impact investment company that has a certain philosophy, a certain approach to investing that is novel. It works within a capitalist system, but it also seeks not just ROI, return on investment, but also YBM, what we call is yields beyond money. The things that are intangible, the things that are, you know, perhaps create meaning in our lives.

The things that are in harmony with and interconnected with our natural systems. And so that's really what I've been focusing on because I do believe that our economic system is a story that we built and we told, you know, and it's worked for us thus far. But, you know, if you look around, it's just not working the way we thought it would. And we need to, I think, reinvent how we exchange value with one another and what it is that we're focusing on creating. Because money, capitalism,

focusing on creating, because money capitalism incentivizes certain, the creation of certain types of businesses and certain types of material things that are on many levels, just not serving us anymore. Yeah. Well, it promulgates a zero sum perspective on everything and it prioritizes, you know, quarterly gains over the long-term interest of individuals in the planet.

I mean, you could go on a long rant about that. And on some fundamental level, like from a you've all know Harari perspective, like the entire structure, the system of money and commerce is built on a story, a social contract that is actually just illusion, right? We think of corporations as entities, but it's a couple of pieces of paper

and it's a collection of individuals and people. So how can we create a new story that's in better service to all of our interests? And I think the cynical would say, well, look, you're still a venture capitalist, you're investing in these companies, you're operating within the system and you can call it conscious capitalism

or whatever you want, but are you not just doing the same thing? And how do you create a tangible like metric around yields beyond money? Yeah. And that's the challenge, right? And I judge whether or not we're on the right track based on the amount of resistance we get, you know, and sort of calibrating the resistance. You can't do that. What? Like you can't do that. Exactly. Like, oh, that's not possible.

Or, you know, when, and I've been judging just the nervous systems of people that I've approached with this concept. And, you know, a lot of these guys have a lot of money enough to never worry again. And yet in those moments, you feel their heartbeat race a little bit and their breath speed up because the idea that they would be investing in something that wasn't purely focused on ROI, although we do pretty well anyway, but really looking at the things that are intangible. And that's the scary part is like the things, because we crave certainty. So we want to see the numbers and we want to make an investment that's's gonna guarantee a certain return so that we can have more dollars and cents in the bank, more zeros and ones on the computer screen

of our bank account, versus the things that are perhaps more important are the things you can't calculate. They're just beyond the edges of our calculators. It's the human to human shared experience. It's how we live in nature and connection and family and community and a state of being health, wellness, mental health, sense of self, intelligence,

like all these things you can't calculate so easily. And so it's a little bit more challenging, but I do believe that we have a winning formula if you wanna get formulaic to actually bridge that gap between making fine returns, ROI, and also putting an emphasis on the yields that are beyond money itself. Cause money in our current system is the focus, is the goal.

When money in our minds is not a goal to accumulate more and more and more, it's the tool that we use to create the things that we want to see in the world. Or a by-product of something mission-based. And by the way, one of my favorite ideas is you can't be rich unless your neighbors are rich, right? If you buy the nicest house, the biggest mansion,

the most beautiful, pristine piece of property, and there are slums all around you, are you really wealthy? You're gonna have to build higher walls. You're going to have to be more isolated. But if you distributed that wealth, or at least it was distributed naturally within a system to as many people and everybody had a nice house, then you could walk down the block for miles and there'll be rolling fruit forests in people's yards and people would be out playing and it'd be a safe neighborhood and that's wealth. You don't have to get locked up in your castle

because you're afraid for your life or you're afraid to leave. So I sort of, I apply that same philosophy is, yeah, I mean, is it great to have a lot of money in your bank account? I don't know, I mean, it's just sitting there, right? What's really great is to have the richness of life that comes from spending your money in wise ways

so that the return is more connection, more friends, more family, more health and wellness, those things, experiences. Yeah, I think that's a very powerful statement. And I think it's buttressed by the fact that you tried it the other way, right? Like you're coming from a place of experience with this. It's one thing to say, you know, academically,

this may or may not be true, but you lived a life of, you know, of indulgence, I guess would be a fair enough word to say it. I don't know how you would characterize it, but you kind of had all that and deployed it in a self-serving way as probably, most young people in their twenties would only to discover that it left you feeling empty

and that the wealth that the kind of sense of wealth, wealth being defined in a more broadly, in a more broad context, brings your life meaning by deploying resources to the benefit of others. Yeah, it's the zero sum game versus the infinite game. Right, the world is infinitely abundant because the limited definition of wealth, when you spun your example of the mansion amidst the slums,

as human beings, we're kind of predisposed to measure wealth only in comparison to others. So if everybody, if you deploy that wealth and you're living in a robust community where everybody's needs are met, are you wealthy? Yes, in the broader definition. In the limited definition, you're not because your house is the same size as everybody else, right?

Right, right. And I'll just, I'll make a celebrity analogy that makes me laugh because I've been there, I've experienced it. So I would often get paid stupid amounts of money to show up to a club. Like I'll just, I'll tell you frankly, that's what would happen. They'd pay me a big check so that I would show up to a club. I'll tell you frankly, that's what would happen. They'd pay me a big check

so that I would show up to their club so that their club would look cool or they could say that I was there. And so bring up the cool factor of the club. I don't know why they hired me, but some people think I'm pretty cool. But anyway, they would basically, now I'm the product why they hired me, but some people think I'm pretty cool. But anyway, they would take, they would basically, now I'm the product because they paid me and they would place me in the VIP section with the velvet ropes and the bouncers.

And I would be sitting there all by myself alone while everybody's out in the club dancing and having fun. And I'm like, I want to be- You're a zoo animal. Exactly, a total zoo animal. I want to be out there like dancing, having fun with people. And so I would, you know, I'd tell the bouncers,

like, I'm sitting there looking at their asses, right? Like I'm sitting there looking at these big bouncers' butts. And I'm like, guys, you know, I don't, it's cool. You guys can go somewhere else. I'm, remove the velvet ropes, remove the velvet ropes. And then suddenly the commoners come in and start hanging out in the VIP section. And when you have people in the VIP section that aren't in isolation and aren't up on like a pedestal, suddenly the VIP section looks a lot like the rest of the club. And now it's-

You're happier, they're happier. Right, but the club owners, they didn't get their money's worth because now it's just another section with people having fun as opposed to creating that mystique and creating the separation, which elevates me to this status

where people can gawk and like taking pictures of zebras behind in a zoo. The counter narrative is that, look, if you come to this club, you actually might get to hang out with this guy as opposed to look at him past a rope. Wouldn't that be more alluring to their customers? Well, once you start hanging out with me,

it's not that special. So they can take the pap shot. A lot of these celebrities need the velvet rope because when you break down the facade, it's like, they're just people, right? It's like not that interesting. I'm a pretty good dancer, but other than that. Coming back for more, but first.

Okay, back to the show. Well, what's wild, and I know you've told this story a million times, but what's wild about the whole entourage thing is the meta nature of it all, because in so many ways, it parallels this trajectory that you went on in your personal life where the lines got incredibly blurred between the character you were portraying on television

and the way you were acquitting yourself in your private life and kind of public life as you. Yeah, I mean, the lines are so blurred. I can't even tell you what was what. Right, like when were you Vinny and when were you Adrian? Well, so acting is really just tapping into the parts of yourself that are true and honest to a character that's not you, right?

So just borrowing the piece, because we have all of it in us and we choose to be, you choose to be rich at a certain age, you decided this is how I'm gonna behave. And these are the patterns that I'm gonna express as rich. And then me, Adrian, but we have all of it. If you think about the time when you were in eighth grade and you were going to high school and you're like,

oh, it's an opportunity for me to totally change my look. You know, and no one's gonna know, no one's gonna call me out as being a fraud or inauthentic because nobody knows me yet. So you can actually change yourself. So we have all of that within us. And in acting, that's what we do, right? We find the parts within ourselves that are the villain,

that could do what that villain does or the parts of in ourselves that are romantic and we can play that romantic part. And at the end of the day, that's, what was the question? I'm sorry. I don't even know what the question was. The meta nature, the surrealistic nature

of playing that character and the way you were living. Exactly. So when I got the role of Vince, I said no to that role. You were like doing a documentary in Mexico or something like that, right? Yeah, I was still attempting to maintain my creative integrity by doing a documentary about Cuban hip-hop I was sneaking into Cuba um and and I had a thousand dollars to my name I had a camera

I was gonna make that film and then I was like you know what I'll make money later and in the meantime I'll make a great film and then I get this offer for this show called Entourage I read the script and like, this is the most superficial, you know, this is not, these are not the kind of values that I want to promote. And I said, no. And then they kept coming back to me and I was like, I don't do TV. It's not TV. It's HBO. And no, I don't, you know, I don't, I kept saying no, essentially. And then finally I, you know, I came to terms with the fact that if I didn't say yes, eventually I was gonna,

Hollywood would turn its back on me entirely. Your manager was gonna fire you. Right, yeah, he's find a new manager. And so I did end up taking the role. And I had to, I mean, I would say that I had the hardest time out of all the cast and they're all fine actors, but to play that part was so different than who I was at the time.

And so it was not easy to become Vince. And the more I did it, yeah, the more praise I would get from the directors and producers and creators of the show, and then the show comes out and then now the fans start giving me thumbs up. Then I would go out in the world and people would expect they wanted me to be the character

because they're so familiar with it. So I'd walk into a room and I would get instant approval and then rewarded every time I showed up in the Vince milieu. So yeah, I started to indulge that for the sake of the fans, but also because I was parlaying that into other opportunities. And then suddenly the thing you're performing,

the thing you're pretending becomes you when you do it enough. Right, the thing you're pretending becomes you. Right. When you do it enough. Right, the lines get incredibly blurred. And I suspect the defense mechanisms come up or the rationalizations like, well, yeah, but at some point I'm gonna get back to the documentaries or what is the narrative that you're telling yourself

to justify the behavior or does that just go out the window? Well, yeah, look, I did make teenage paparazzo at the height of my celebrity. So I was still on some level maintaining my connection to art and remaining grounded on some level, which is I think what allowed me to come back to earth now. Because had I been, if I truly believed, you know, you have to believe,

you have to allow yourself to believe that you're somehow worthy of the attention and worthy. Otherwise it feels so dissociative. Like you're just like, it's not. But there's a lot of actors that don't feel worthy of that. And that's what really creates the psychological dilemma. Yeah, yeah. No, it's a tricky thing

because nobody really is better than anyone else, right? No one's somehow, and you have to make excuses for it. And over time, over history, it happens with wealthy people or people somehow convince themselves that they're better than other people. And it's because if you're royalty, it's because your blood is different

and you're somehow special. And there's this rationalization that you somehow deserve all of the riches and the spoils of this thing. So you rationalize it so that you can keep having more of it and taking more and taking more. Because if you realize that somehow there's something amiss, then you start coming down to earth

and you have to start letting it all go. Right, yeah. Which is really hard. I mean, you're in this for like a decade, right? 20 years. So, you know, the constant approval and the feeding of the ego, I mean, over that extended period of time

has to really do a number on you. Yeah, well, and attention. Attention is, it's a drug of sorts. It's humans crave attention. We, it's like, you know, like a puppy, you can, you know, pet them and they'll like it. But humans need like that approval, that acknowledgement that, you know,

the attention itself and in a media-based culture where all the attention goes to the few that get clicked on, the rest of us start to feel like, who's looking out for me? You break down of communities and the family unit and people are living in more isolation on their phones and in technology and in their little tiny one-bedroom apartments. So yeah, it's intoxicating to have all that attention. You want more of it. Yeah, and yet, I mean, when I watched Teenage Paparazzo, you had a significant level of self-awareness around it

to at least explore the meaning of it. Cause the real narrative of that movie is exploring what fame is, what creates fame and what does it all mean? Like going behind the velvet rope of the media machine to see how the sausage is made. Yeah. And when you kind of ingratiate yourself finally into the paparazzi community and they accept you,

like you're not there to like, put them on blast or anything like that. I mean, it's pretty fascinating that whole like kind of subculture and ecosystem. That was such a fun movie to make. It really was. I got to infiltrate the media machine from like the vantage of a celebrity. You know, I had a lot of access

that another filmmaker wouldn't have. And to be able to use my position and take advantage of, you know, what I had accomplished as an actor to make a film, nobody else, the thing I'm proud of is nobody else could have made that film because I don't think anybody else would have made that film.

If you're famous, you don't wanna rock the boat. You know, you wanna just like, okay. In fact, a lot of the entourage guys pulled me aside and they're like, what are you doing with this film? Cause I was hanging out with Paris Hilton and like, glimpsing into like her experience from her perspective. And of course, when you hang out with Paris Hilton,

all the gossip rags start writing about it. Right. They don't know. And you create your own, it's so easily manipulated when you're like, I'm gonna go to Paris's house and we're gonna walk out together and Austin's gonna take our picture. Exactly.

And then two days later, it's gonna be everywhere. Yeah, and the opportunity to just indulge the meta-ness of that hall of mirrors, where it's, we're creating the stories, the paparazzi are taking the bait and they're using those stories to generate for their publications. And then now we're making a film about that.

And then Austin, a little paparazzi is becoming, it was so- He's becoming famous in the making of that. Like the meta layers of it, like just continue to unfold. Yeah, and now we are living in that exact meta reality, the fractured, you fractured hall of mirrors that, I think that movie sort of preempted. And you mentioned, we were early days,

it was Instagram didn't exist. It was all about those magazines. Right, the internet was a new thing at the time. Not nearly as relevant as they were then, but now the phone is a hundred fold what those things kind of did to our brains. Yeah, and there are all these people that have 41 million followers.

And I'm like, who is that? I've never heard of that person. How could 41 million people know who this person is? I've never heard of this person. Exactly, and I think there was like a, maybe a 30 second little edited clip where we tip a hat to the coming technologies.

It was like, we just, cause they were new, like Twitter. Yeah, Twitter and Facebook. Facebook. Just literally a one second. That was it.

And then it was like, what's gonna come next? All this. And so. Yeah. Yeah. It just seems, it's gonna come next, all this. And so, yeah. Yeah, it just seems so innocent now, comparatively, I suppose. Totally.

But it's the same thing. It's just writ a little bit larger. But to be in the mix of all of that, for that long of a period of time and having to kind of be a part of that machine while trying to maintain some level of dignity and integrity, like while you're getting paid tons of money

and all the experiences that come with that being, what were you like 27, 28 years old? Yeah, that's when it really hit, when it took off. And so what was the interior experience of the young Adrian while you were in the midst of all of it? Yeah, I fancied myself a spiritual person. I was a good person, but in retrospect,

I made a lot of compromises to my soul, my ethics in order to keep climbing, keep getting to the next level. Yeah, and I was doing environmental work and I was starting- That's always been a part of who you are. Like, I think there's this temptation to look at that experience and say, you were off your path or you were on the wrong trajectory. And I think you were on the correct trajectory,

the entire like that, those experiences needed to happen in order for you to become the person you are today. It's all fine, it's all good. Well, we wanna be reductive. We wanna like make it pat. Oh, you were on the wrong path, now you're on the right path. It's messy.

Life is messy. And I guess I like to think of it more as like, not binary, but more embodied. Like, are you more connected with your true nature versus ignoring parts of yourself in order to have this little ride and the illusion of self, like, oh, I'm this big Hollywood fancy guy,

as opposed to what's really going on deep down inside and what's your purpose here on this planet to serve the world and to be, to be of service to your neighbors. That's how I see it now. Yeah, this was an experience that you had that was an expression of some aspect of who you are. It taught you a lot.

You've learned lessons from it and that's allowed you to mature and express yourself in a different way. And more importantly, I from it. And that's allowed you to mature and express yourself in a different way. And more importantly, I survived it. Yeah. Cause a lot of people aren't that lucky. Yeah. So I'm glad I survived it and came out the other side

so that I could bring the gold of that wisdom of the experience and then now share it. Right. So walk me through the process of kind of coming to terms with that experience and wrestling with it, reckoning with it to kind of motivate you to find more meaning or go on this quest towards greater self-actualization.

Yeah, there's a predominant perspective, I think in liberal culture that's, that thinks that somehow we can save the world, that we can save the environment, that the government's gonna pay for all these services that are gonna help you out there. I really come to terms with how important it is that I take personal responsibility for myself

and I take ownership of how I am and how I show up. I think Krishnamurti said, it was like, we heal the world when there's a transformation of the individual. And that mentality really struck home for me because I was trying to save the world. I was trying to make all this money, do all this stuff to go out and proselytize

and tell everybody how they needed to behave in order to help the oceans or do this, that, and the other. And I really did believe that I was a good guy. I did all the right things. I was, look, I'm making all this money. So like, obviously I'm doing something right. And then I started to chip away at that belief system. And I started to look under the hood and I realized there's so much that I was ignoring. And a lot of the things that I was doing where it was hurting other people or was at least ignoring their experience for my own sake. And I had to get clean and take responsibility for what I was actually doing

and get, I guess, it's the awakening where you finally open your eyes and you realize what's actually happening as opposed to just what you believe, what you're projecting, what the fantasy of your life is. And so the first step was opening my eyes and seeing the harsh reality of what actually is, what is not just what I'd been, you know, indulging.

Yeah, yeah, there's this idea that the impact that you seek to have on the world is calibrated to the extent to which you are embodying that value system in your own self, right? We can say, you know, I'm trying to do this, that and the other, but if you're living in a manner that's incongruent with that, or you have yet to reach a certain level of maturity

where you're espousing those values, where you can actually walk the talk, it will, you may have some success with that, but ultimately you're never gonna achieve potential with that and it will ring somewhat shallow. Yes. So that awakening piece, like was there a specific moment or a bottom?

Like I'm somebody who's been in recovery for a long time. So I tend to like look at these things through that lens of, you know, kind of 12 step vernacular. But that idea of kind of 12 step for an actor, but that idea of that low moment where it all comes crashing down or was it a slow? Yeah, I actually got into the 12 step philosophy, I guess, which has been very helpful to me.

I came to believe in God through this process. I started opening myself up to, I came to believe in God through this process. I started opening myself up to, for so long I was so arrogant and so in my head and cynical and godless and nihilistic, really ultimately. So I started embracing some of these frameworks, 12 Steps is an incredible framework that has a lot of wisdom, a lot of, yeah.

And I guess there was this nine cents of dread that something bad was gonna happen to me because things were just too good. When you're high and like you're half asleep, things feel very cozy and comfy, but you're not able to actually see what's on the horizon. But I felt something, you know, and I didn't know what it was.

And I was like, things can't be this good forever, right? Can they? You know, flying around the world, going to all the parties, making all the money, getting all the shows. And then rock bottom hit suddenly. And it was from like a totally unlikely place. I was dating somebody who basically, in no uncertain words said, you are a horrible human being

and you need to take a big look at yourself. I'm out and dumped me. And I was so incensed and it was incredulous. I was like, you're gonna dump me? Have you seen my house? Have you seen my status? Have you seen all the things that I've accomplished? You're gonna leave me?

I couldn't believe it. And on the way out, she gave me a list of things to look at. And I took that list and I was like, listen, I love you. And I think you're out of your mind. This list is correct. Like none of this is me. This isn't, I'm fine with all this stuff, but because I love you and I respect you,

I promise I will take a hard look at all this stuff, but because I love you and I respect you, I promise I will take a hard look at all this. So after she left, I sat down, I started looking at the list and slowly but surely I started to realize that she was right. And that one after the other were things that I had all but ignored. So what was on the list? Come on.

Well, your relationship to sex, your relationship to drugs and alcohol and escapism and indulgences, chasing shiny objects, selfishness, you know, and indulging in destructive patterns, that kind of stuff. And I was like, what are you talking about? I'm fine, I got it all figured out, everything's great.

I do, I'm a UN Environment Goodwill Ambassador for Christ's sake, you know, it's like, come on. As long as you have that, that it helps justify the other stuff. Meanwhile, you're having fun and your life is actually going well. Yeah. So it's hard to look back. And the confirmation bias,

like everybody in the world is telling me keep going. Yeah. Right. Yeah. You're on the right path. Keep making television shows. I had this woman on the show yesterday named Anna Lemke and she's a psychiatrist

and runs the addiction medicine clinic at Stanford. She's got this new book out called dopamine nation. That's about to come out. And what's interesting about her thesis in this book, she shows up in that documentary social dilemma, like the idea that we need to look at addiction more broadly especially in this technological era where everything is impulsing us in an addictive way.

But what I had never really kind of fully grasped until I read this book was this idea, and this will come back to you, that when we're in this relentless pursuit of pleasure and you're somebody who is kind of living that at a higher level, that ultimately the pain that we've crafted our lives to so desperately avoid will slingshot back in great proportion

to the extent to which we're trying to avoid it, right? So that relentless pursuit of being just ahead of the FOMO and chasing the party and doing all the things when you're in this perpetual state of dopamine inducement at a crazy level is not only unsustainable, but is setting you up for this great fall. That's it. That's right.

So boom, the woman leaves you. Boom. With the laundry list of character defects. Yeah, and I started the long road of going into the pain, going into the suffering and all the things deep down inside that I'd been avoiding probably for 30 years since I was eight or younger, all that childhood trauma that I was masking

or floating, just hovering just above. And it hurts. So of course you want to avoid it. Of course it makes sense I was protecting myself from it. But now at this stage in my life, I was like, okay, let's look under the bed. Let's look in the closet. Let's see what boogeyman's are there.

Right, and what was the process for doing that? Well, first, I mean, it was just a long process of, well, first like getting advice, asking for help, reading books, learning, finally reading that book, Iron John that my mom gave me when I was younger. Robert Bly. Yeah, which I never read.

And I'm like, I don't need to be- He's the OG in the whole kind of divine masculine space. Right, like go out into the woods and bang on drums and stuff. Yeah, connect with your beast, connect with the beast within you, become dangerous and then transcend that, but use it for good, I guess,

but become embodied and become all the, become all, you know, the range to me, it's not about being good or bad. It's about, you know, coming to terms with, in being in connection with all of the layers of, of your, your nature. So, but first I had to stop all the, the patterns, all the escape patterns. So I had to, you know, I went, I went celibate for some time. I stopped drinking.

All the things that I would use, all the tools I would use to escape, all the dopamine fixes that I had laying around all over town. Going on a dopamine fast of sorts. Yeah, essentially. I did a year of celibacy. I mean, it was the most instructive.

In early sobriety, I did that and it was so revelatory. And it just puts this mirror up and you realize, at least in my case, like I realized how much of my behavior was oriented around gaining female approval and how fucked up my disposition was or my habits were around relating to the opposite sex. A hundred percent, yeah. I share that sentiment.

Yeah, and all the things that come with it too, the pornography and the way it shapes your relationship to sex itself and And, you know, and then, you know, the one, the biggest, the biggest thing that really helped me was recognizing that I had a deep hurt because of what I'd been taught at a younger age about sex. And that was from disembodied men or men who were dysfunctional or destructive, toxic, if you will.

Meaning that you should just be in pursuit of it or that it's a notch in your belt or- Yeah, in the absence of having that divine masculine role model growing up, there were a number of men who would teach me how to womanize or how to lie or get away with things, indulge in women as opposed to be in service of or respect of our counterparts. And then men who were frankly inappropriate

with me sexually who had some pedophilia tendencies that I was around when I was at a young age. There's this one guy who used to tell me like dirty jokes when I was younger and I thought it was funny, but I realized at an older age, like that's, I excuse that kind of behavior because that's how I was trained essentially. And I thought it was normal.

Yeah. And you were desperate for a male figure in your life, I imagine. Of course, yeah. Yeah was normal. Yeah. And you were desperate for a male figure in your life. I imagine. Of course, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that gets imprinted.

Yeah. And then of course, just not being there, my father just bounced when I was younger. So I learned that, how to escape, how to run, how to not be there. It was interesting in the documentary when you meet him and he's so, I mean, the word passive is used, but he's so bereft of emotional tools

to even know how to communicate properly. And you relate your own kind of passivity with his, but I just saw somebody who was extremely, like just lacked any emotional aptitude whatsoever. Yeah, sweet guy, you know, but I think he sort of hides behind the sweet names and he should read Iron John, you know, because I believe there's a male frequency

that is harsh and, you know, and if you don't connect with that, you know, you let the world just throw you around, you know. Well, it's an interesting moment right now in the conversation around masculinity. I feel like masculinity has been just lumped in with toxic masculinity as one thing. And I know a big part of your journey

and what you talk about is a reclaiming or a redefining of masculinity in a healthy context. You can call it divine masculinity or any number of things. But in this moment right now, there's this sense that we need to be embarrassed as men, or we're not allowed to be men, or it's unclear what the appropriate role is for a man

because of the culture. it's unclear what the appropriate role is for a man because of the culture. So we should just sort of step back. And it's confusing as somebody who's a father also, like what is the role? Like, okay, provider, protector, but I also need to be emotionally available and I need to be strong, but I also need to be the available and I need to be strong, but I also need to be the guy

who goes to every school event. And it becomes like, it's much more complicated than it was in the era of our parents or my parents who are a little bit older than yours, where it was a little bit more binary and that had its problems, of course. But I find oftentimes like, I can't do all of these things all of the time, right?

Yeah. It's hard. Yeah. I don't know if it has to be that hard though. The way I see it, heart centered, masculine energy leads like your values and the direction that you're oriented to comes from, you know, your ethics, your heart, like, you know,

your love for, you know, your family, protecting the world, protecting people, doing the right thing. That's where your direction comes from. And then it's all the other parts of you as a man, I find like the beast in me that helps me go execute and go make it so. And to protect, yes, I have to learn to be dangerous.

In fact, like when I wasn't in touch with my ability to be destructive, when I wasn't in touch with my ability to be destructive, I was almost in many ways emasculated by a feminist ideology where culturally no one wanted me to be dangerous. So they emasculated that part of me. And then I became more dangerous because all of that came out in shadow. And I started doing things that were subconsciously destructive. And I wasn't stepping into that beast part of me to actually protect and serve women and my community.

And so I feel like you have to be in touch with that, but like be oriented from the heart space. Yeah. As an actor, that's sort of traditionally conjured as a feminine expression, right? It's a more feminine energy. To be an artist, to be a musician, those things would be associated, you know,

at that end of the spectrum. On some level, I feel like the conversation around divine masculinity has an inherent femininity to it because you're saying we need to learn how to connect with the heart, which is not traditionally a masculine attribute, right? Well, we're both, right? Of course, we're all, we're an amalgam of these energies.

So first we have to recognize the inherent femininity within all of us as males. Yeah, yeah, I think, you know, maybe back in the day, things were more binary and simple in which men attempted to be, you know, so masculine that, you know, it was just like undeniable that you were a man, right? You had to prove it so much that you lost touch

of the subtlety and the dynamic within ourselves. But now I, you know, I find myself to be really, you know, even leveled, still very much in touch with my feminine. And yet I've started to cultivate and fashion the more edgier masculine parts of myself to really bring myself into balance. And what does that look like? Like how have you done that?

Well, I now live on a farm, so I have plenty of- Hands are in the soil. Hands in the soil, you know, yeah, using my body and my hands and working my muscles and lifting heavy things and building things and wanting to protect my kingdom and setting it up so that there's a safe space for people to come and be, for my family to live in.

Yeah, yeah. So much of this, in addition to being in this period of time where so many young people grow up without dads, we're also in a culture in which we've been robbed of traditional rights of passage that teach us how to become heart-centered men in so many ways. And as a result, it's no surprise

that you see these movements out there of men congregating, trying to recapture some aspect of that, or to create that for themselves later in life in their own lives. And I think that that's also why you see all these, you know, whether it's Spartan or like all these challenges or running a marathon, it's because we don't have what we used to have

as tribal cultures that would put us through the ringer and teach us what it means to do something hard and the confidence that comes with that and the kind of acceptance that you would receive within the tribal community for passing those rights. Yeah, absolutely. As our culture expands and becomes more spread out throughout the world,

it's harder and harder to have that, that those intimate rights of passage that are passed down. So then we have these sort of placeholder or these alternatives, which are- Stand-ins. Yeah, stand-ins for that, sports teams and all that kind of stuff. I personally have been doing a lot of men's work,

working with other men to bring each other through these rites of passage. And it's been so, so important, so helpful. And what are those experiences like? Like therapeutic or more like tactile? I mean, life-saving, just enriching, just feel so blessed to have the kinds of men that I do in my life, which I never had.

I never had brothers. I never had those parental role models, male parental role models, but now I do through my brothers. And now I'm an adult, I'm a man. I now can start to work on being that role model for others, but to have other men to model things for me and to push against me and to hold me accountable,

iron sharpens iron. So there's a lot of, the masculine energy wants to have that pushback and that the wrestling or the horseplay is so important. And then the desire, the philosophical impetus to make the world a better place. I used to hang out with people

who wasn't really interested in making the world a better place or just where's the next fix or where's the next good time? A lot of Machiavellian, how can I get mine and how can I exploit the situation to make more money or get more fame or get more things? Now, the men that I surround myself with

want to lead the world into, I guess, a better, more stable way of being. Yeah. It's great, man. Yeah, it's awesome. How do we scale this up? Yeah, we've talked about it, you know, because it's not fair.

It's like, how can you be rich if your neighbors, you can't be rich unless your neighbors are rich. You can't be fully divine masculine if your neighbors aren rich, you can't be fully divine masculine if your neighbors aren't. We have to do this on mass, like at scale. And there's not one size fits all, but I would encourage everybody to seek groups, seek local groups that meet in person to wrestle with this.

Cause there's not one formula, but it's just showing up. And that's the most important lesson that I've learned from my men's groups. There's not one thing you're supposed to learn except just to show up. Don't retreat, don't dip because we all, all of us in the group have, and we've all shared this,

that we all have imposter syndrome. Why do I belong here? You know, this sense of belonging, like, oh, all these men are amazing. Who am I to be here with these incredible humans? And they all feel the same way. And everybody is wrestling with the self doubt or the insecurity.

And so we just remind ourselves, just keep showing up, just keep being vulnerable and keep opening yourself because when you do, it helps the group and we help each other. So I would just say to you out there, if you are seeking more, you want more from life and from, you wanna be, you wanna improve yourself. And as Krista Murdy says, transform the individual

and go find others and do that together. But all you really have to do is just show up. And be honest, that's the big piece. And I think a lot of men really you know, really struggle with the ability to, you know, summon the courage to be vulnerable, especially amongst other men, but by creating a safe space in order for that to be communicated, I think the benefits of that,

you know, can't be overstated. I mean, this is something I'd learned, you know, immediately in 12 step. And I of course get a lot of that out of men's groups that I go to in that context. But I also have another men's group that I meet with once a week. And it's like seven guys, it's mediated by a therapist.

Been doing it for coming up, probably coming up on three years now. Nice. And it's just been unbelievable. And that's not an addiction based one. That's just, we get together, here's what's going on with me, what's going on with you. We mutually support each other.

And now we know each other so well that we can, we know everybody's blind spots or we've seen the patterns. Like you keep doing this thing and you say you're not gonna do it and then you've done it again, or we give the feedback and the person doesn't take the feedback and then we have to deal with the problem and the aftermath of it.

And it's just been amazing. And it's something that I think, again, to like look to camera, like if you're out there, this is something you can do in your own community with your friends. Maybe you get a therapist involved or somebody else who has some level of expertise, but if you don't have access to that,

there's nothing stopping you from getting a group of dudes together to just talk in a safe space where it's like, this is confidential. Right, but the intention is different than like getting together with your friends and going out to a bar. Of course.

Or getting with your friends and going out and like, you know, four wheeling. No, we're not going to watch the game and it's not activity based. Like this is very focused. Right, and that is maybe the challenge because we haven't been taught how to do that necessarily. You know, so I guess maybe not to oversimplify.

It's like, oh, just so easy, just go do it. But, you know, I guess it's important to just note that it's getting together with other men, specifically men and sitting in an allotted time in a safe space where you communicate vulnerably and it's very confidential so that you can start to open up some of the lower, the deeper layers of what's going on inside that, you know,

get pushed down because of the daily grind or because of, you know, life that takes precedent. So how have you calibrated the growth for yourself? Like when you think about what's important to you now versus then, can you gauge that with some level of objectivity? I'm in such a good place now. I don't, dare I say, I'm not in an overt growth period.

I'm more in now let me take what I've learned and start applying it in my life. So that's what I'm doing. I spent the past two, two and a half years with a lot of challenge and struggle and learning and growth and shedding and rethinking everything. And now based on what I've learned,

I can go out and start to do, to build, to create. So it's a really, really exciting time for me. And I decided to express that by buying land in Texas and building a community and doing a lot of the things that I would tell other people to do. Get in touch with nature, connect with the land and grow your own food and- While you're living in Brooklyn.

Exactly, exactly, exactly. So yeah, and it's, I feel great. And I'm starting to learn some of the skills that I think my spirit craved, building, carpentry. I used to be so, I didn't wanna be dirty. You know, it was like, didn't like bugs and nature was scary. And now, you know, now I'm like dancing with it.

And it's opened up a whole aspect of myself that I, it's just so it's grounding. It's grounding is what it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's stable. You're in a healthy relationship. You've got this farm, you're growing food. You got your permaculture certification. you got your permaculture certification, right?

I did, I got my permaculture certification, yeah. And that kind of thing of having your hands in the dirt is the microcosm of the macrocosm conversation about how can we live more in alignment with nature? How can we create greater harmony, not just with respect to the relationship with the land and the foods that we eat, but how we think about and practice commerce

and how we live our professional lives and how we navigate relationships. Like everything is a dance and it's all about like moving towards greater symbiosis. Yeah, yeah. And I get to express my unique perspective of what that looks like in my little world, right? And I get to be a laboratory for what's possible.

And I think we all need to, on some level, experiment with new ways of being in community and new ways of exchanging value that aren't what we're told. It's not all about the stock market or dollars and currency. Sometimes there are other ways that we can really start to support each other. It's not all just pursuing the American dream,

which I think it's pretty much all but debunked at this point, right? So that's been really exciting. Right now we're looking to invite people to live with us as well on the land. We have plenty of space to have a few people building on that particular property. And so we're exploring all the different ways

that we can structure the agreement amongst people on how to live and share space and share effort and contribute so that we can be additive, not extractive from nature itself. So nature focused, nature centered, and nature being a shareholder within the community. It's inspirational, but I also like the kind of knee jerk that I have in my mind is we've been trying to figure this

out for a long time. Every time there's some communal experiment, personalities get involved and it ends up imploding. It turns into wild, wild country or some version of that. And so how do you avoid those pitfalls? Like what can be learned from other experiments in alternative living arrangements to find a new perfected way of doing it that is harmonious?

And I think that's exactly the right questioning. That's the right line of questioning because it hasn't worked, right? Or maybe the ones that have worked, we just don't hear about because they're working. It's always the ones that collapse and have some sensational cult leader and a bunch of Kool-Aid that we hear about, right?

So those stories strike the imagination, our imagination, and they're fear-based, right? I mean, Charles Manson or Jim Jones, that's what you think of when you think commune. Yeah, obviously disaster, right? Branch Davidian, like all the ones. So- Or scaled up communism. Exactly, exactly, yeah. disaster, right? Branch Davidian, like all the ones. Or scaled up communism. Exactly, exactly, yeah.

So that's why I believe that we need to double down and do it more to try and solve for some of those pitfalls that they fell into. So that's something that I've been considering as well is how do you create it so that there's not one cult of personality, there's like one ego bankrolling the whole thing. So initially I was like,

well, I'll just bankroll the whole thing and then everybody can come and do barn raising, and just like Amish or something. That's bullshit, right? And you're the landed gentry. Yeah. And you have surfs. Exactly.

So I was like, okay, that's not gonna work because now it's still my operation. I'm the one who bankrolled it. And there's a subconscious, if not overt sense of me being. There's a power dynamic. Exactly, a power dynamic. So one thing I've been exploring is, and this is all open, like we haven't defined it at all,

but what about taking the profit motive, taking the money out of the equation, right? So you create a land trust. You basically put the land into a trust and the land becomes at the top of the hierarchy. So we all work for the land. In service and the land becomes at the top of the hierarchy. So we all work for the land. Service of the land. Exactly. We all work to steward the natural environment to be the most bountiful and beautiful it can be. And so anyone who lives there agrees to put their focus and life force into that.

And also, I've been exploring alternative currencies like Bitcoin and- That's right. You called me when you were in Miami at the big Bitcoin conference. Yeah, using those kinds of technologies to create a hyperlocal currency, which is fully transparent.

So when people are living there, I'm not trying to exploit you because I was a first mover on this piece of land and now I get to live pretty well. You're working your ass off to pay me premium. Again, back to the can't be rich unless your neighbors are rich. Like, no, like I don't wanna make money off you.

I wanna work with you to serve the land. So if you have full transparency, then everybody knows what everything costs, what you paid for what, and there's no subterfuge or exploitation of the, through the ignorance. Right, right, right. Yeah, that transparency, I feel like,

could solve a lot of those problems where everybody's on a level playing field and they can see exactly what's going on. Right, and on a small scale, I feel like you can really do that well. The minute it gets big and you have tentacles of a machine or a system that you don't have eyes on, it becomes more difficult to oversight. You got to start somewhere. I think the blockchain and cryptocurrency and social

contracts and all of that provide this unprecedented opportunity to play out experiments in a way that we've never been able to do before. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. I think we're in a great Renaissance of opportunity for people to experiment and try things. And I think it's a positive thing if we do innovate, not just in business,

but also in ways of communing with other people, because as our traditional institutions start to, you know, break down, or maybe they're not as effective as they could be, or they're not protecting the environment, or they're not protecting poor people, marginalized communities, we need to step up, take personal responsibility and do it.

Sure, and self-sufficiency becomes a premium. Absolutely, and there's no better way to health than to take responsibility for where your food comes from and what you're putting into your body. Yeah, sure, I saw a cartoon or like a meme the other day, and it was a caricature of a guy talking to an animal and he was like, I'm so much smarter than you. You just have this small brain.

And the animal looked at him and said, you're the only animal that pays to live here. That's so funny. I never really thought about that. Think about that. So when you make the land, the land is the boss here, you're completely shifting perspective. Like it's a whole different lens on the whole thing.

And what if we all, I mean, obviously that's rooted in ancient traditions. Are you like, you're like 8% Native American, right? 12, I think. Something like that. 12%. 12%. Just under tax. What tradition? Tax write off. Something like that. 12%. Just under tax. What tradition? Just underneath that.

Yeah. Well, and borrowing from all those traditional traditions. So because it's not defined as of yet, we get to explore building our own unique little system, borrowing from those, the wisdoms of our old traditions and also new philosophies, new ideas, new technologies. That's really exciting to me. And we can just see if it works, you know,

if it doesn't evolve into some sort of weird cult, you know. Right. We'll be, keep me honest, okay? Right,'ll be... Keep me honest, okay? Right, I will. I think you're tiptoeing into cult leader status. I mean, look, I'm wearing the white pants. Yeah, I know, you're halfway there.

You got like a nice thing around your neck, you know? You could dial you up into that. Right, I found antler. Right, so get you and Russell Brand and Jared Leto together and something could come out of that. Oh, that was low, man. No, but all three of you beautiful men, you know, expressing themselves

in interesting ways right now. That's funny. But all leaders of, you know, alternative ways of thinking and being, I think in your own rights. Yes. Yeah. That's all I wanted to say. So you're in? Yeah, I'm in. own rights. Yes. Yeah. That's all I wanted to say.

So you're in? Yeah, I'm in. I wanna come and spend some time on the farm. Yeah, come on out. Yeah. I'm actually gonna be in Austin, I think in the fall or the winter, so I'll let you know. But I think it's cool, it's exciting.

And I think it's cool that you're seeking out, like when you're with Ducontra, when you're looking at a prospective investment and you're trying to establish like the level of impact or innovation that a certain company has the potential to be, like, what does that look like? Like, how do you make that decision of getting involved?

Yeah, so we have four verticals that we use to make decisions about who we invest in. And they're all reflective of the conversation we've been having. What we believe is like a winning combination of things that we need to invest in and support in order to make a better society. And that's about better humans.

So better humans make better decisions. They make better businesses. They make a better world. So we have a vertical called human flourishing. So tools, technologies, medicines that help level up the human being. So health, wellness, mental health. Plant medicines.

Plant medicines, exactly. Tools both new and ancient that will help level people up. That's one vertical. So community, communitas, like companies that are seeking to solve for some of the disconnect that we have in our society, the fractured communities. So how do we bring people together

in really important and meaningful ways so that they can do the work to build a better future? What we consume and how. So consumer goods, we call it do consumer. So better for the planet, better for you, stuff that we buy, how we consume it, supply chain, materials, health and wellness, what's the ingredients and stuff. So that's the consumer vertical.

And then finally, looking at money itself. So the future of finance, rethinking money and how we use it and investing in tools and devices and systems that bring more equity and more access to the world's wealth. And of course, blockchain technologies, Bitcoin, that sort of thing is like right up there in terms of the types of technologies that we think will actually be disruptive in a positive way. Yeah.

How do you reconcile the environmental footprint of crypto right now with, you know, your environmental work and sensibility? Obviously there's work to be done here to kind of figure that part of the equation out. Maybe it's something that people haven't really truly fully recognized about me, but I've been a moderate environmentalist for a long time,

potentially for my entire career as an environmentalist. I don't look for one size fits all absolute panaceas to solve the entire world, all the environmental problems. There are trade-offs to everything that we do. And so I think we together need to start to create systems that first of all, recognize what those trade-offs are, are honest about them, and then start to create systems

that are better for people, better for the planet. But there's, I don't imagine that there's a moment in time in which our footprint becomes zero. Sure. It's our footprint is always gonna at least be greater than zero because we are here because we do create waste but how can we create closed loop systems and how can we create ways to help be regenerative about how we live and breathe and how we you know tread lightly on the planet

so with regards to bitcoin it's a new technology. And yes, it does have environmental challenges because of its energy consumption. But I think the net benefit of the technology to society overall is going to be a positive because while there may be some environmental challenges currently, that's going to ultimately get better and better because the incentive is for miners and Bitcoin

as an industry to find cheaper and less energy intensive ways of mining. And then at a certain point, it'll cap out because you can't mine anymore. So then it'll drop to essentially zero. But ultimately the technology will help to spawn innovations will cap out because you can't mine anymore. So then it'll drop to essentially zero, but ultimately the technology will help to spawn innovations and support entrepreneurs and different new technologies

that will actually better the world ultimately across all sectors, including energy. So I think taking currencies away from a centralized place and bringing it to as many people as possible actually create a lot more benefit for society at large and the environment. Yeah. It's pretty fascinating.

I admit to knowing close to nothing about it, but I feel like from what I do know, blockchain technology just holds unbelievable potential to change our world in ways we can't even fathom right now. The most obvious being like the transparency that comes with it, the efficiencies that can be established with it that will inherently reduce consumption

and waste and things like that. But I feel like we've barely even begun to comprehend what that technology is gonna bring to all of us. Yeah, I mean, we were just talking about it on like a small scale at Kintsugi on the ranch. If there's transparency, you can't exploit your neighbors, right? Right.

You can't mark it up higher, but when there's so much murky transparency that suddenly- And you create whatever story you wanna create that serves your agenda. Right, and you overpay for things and you under deliver and then all money, all finances are flowing through a centralized system that are taking pieces without adding value.

So it's just highly inefficient and allows for a lot of exploitation. And when you have one-to-one direct exchange of value where it's fully transparent, one-to-one direct exchange of value where it's fully transparent, it's gonna be so much, I think, more productive in the long run for industry, for business, for just the way we interact and share value. Yeah. What's going on with the environmental work

that you're doing? I saw, I mean, you were at a beach cleanup yesterday and I saw the video that you made about detergent pods. Oh yeah. I didn't know. Oh, I know. I just assumed that that dissolves and that was figured out. Yeah.

So explain that a little bit. So trade-offs, right? You know, I've been playing in the world of trade-offs ever since I've been doing environmental work because you recognize that, you know, even environmentalists are flying around the world to try and save the world and burning fossil fuels, you know, even environmentalists are flying around the world to try and save the world and burning fossil fuels, you know?

So we gotta give ourselves a break and allow ourselves to think a little bit more open-minded about, you know, what solution really means. Is it about, you know, we are now saved and solved, or is it about deepening our relationship to the way in which we consume, the way in which we show up and just be more in touch with what those externalities look like? And then own that, own that you've done something that has a detriment and maybe correct for it.

But these pods, I believed like you, I was like, oh, solution. Because they dissolve and you can't see them. To the naked eye, the environment is safe. But on a microscopic level, it's just plastic that's become melted and then dissolved into water. So it's like a plastic goop in your laundry that then goes directly into the waste stream and into the oceans ultimately,

or through your water treatment plant, which doesn't have the technology to actually address that particular substance. You can't extract that. Right. And it doesn't break down. And the biggest- It should be illegal.

That's crazy. Right. And now we're getting into like centralized government. Like should centralized government come in and tell you all the stuff that you need to do you know or can we together open our eyes and start recognizing that you know a lot of these companies are you know they're greenwashing or at least they're you know they're seducing us into a false sense of security when there are better solutions. And that's one thing at Ducontro what we're doing.

We're looking, we're really doing a deep dive. We're not just investing, oh, it says it's green and it seems green and we're gonna invest in it so we feel good about it and we project an air of impact. No, we're actually looking at the realities of what those trade-offs are and recognizing, hey, we're gonna invest in this,

even though it's not a perfect solution, but we see it as a step towards a better solution or it's a better trade-off than the one we have. So we take our deep dives very seriously before we invest. And when we found BlueLand, I mean, a great solution to these pod problems. And I didn't know myself that they were, these plastic pods were actually plastic.

And so Blueland came along, it was like much better solution, yes. So they're a detergent company that's figured that out? Yeah, so they do cleaning products, home cleaning products. So they do soaps and detergents and all natural ingredients and no plastic, zero plastic. They just sell, basically, I heard something that was kind of like an Altoid for your laundry. It's like a little compressed tablet that you throw into your laundry, or then you throw one of those compressed tablets into a reusable jar for hand soap

or all purpose cleaners and stuff like that. Yeah, sure. The greenwashing thing is out of control, and layer on top of that, the fact that we live in a post-fact world and a culture that isn't just so resistant to embracing nuance. Like you're talking about the trade-offs,

like everything has trade-offs and that's true in the environmental movement, that's true in politics, that's true in everything. But we're now in this culture where everything is binary, bad, good, right, wrong, et cetera. Anybody who's tried to engineer a product and do it in a sustainable conscious way understands how complicated it quickly gets.

Like, well, we could use this ingredient, which is better than this one, but it comes from Vietnam. And so we're gonna have to ship it from there. And this box is not plastic, it's cardboard, but it's gonna cost more, or it uses this dye, which isn't great. You know, it just quickly becomes, you know, a thing where you're chasing your tail.

And if you wanna do it so that it's of the most pristine, it's gonna be priced out of the market and no one will buy it and you'll go out of business. And that's the reality. Right, right. It's like everybody wants the purest, most environmentally friendly product, but no one will pay for it.

Right. Just like everybody. And then you're an elitist asshole who's part of the problem because it's only available to the elite. Only you can afford it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, or it's like our media diet too. Everybody wants news that's like has solid information

with news people that are- As long as it lines up with your bias. Well, no, but I'm just saying that they don't wanna pay for it. Oh, right. So we let commercials pay for it and then commercials drive the content. Right, exactly.

Cause if you wanna actually pay- I feel like that's changing a little bit. Like you're seeing with Substack and everything that's going on, like people are finding ways to do subscription services. But it's serving to also like bifurcate the market so much. Like, how many Substacks are you gonna subscribe to? Well, I think our society is just breaking down

into smaller, more manageable pieces. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. No, I mean, there is no monoculture anymore. Is that good or bad? I don't know. Right, like there's all the globalization concept that we're all gonna be one big, same governing body. No, we're all planets unto ourselves.

That's where it's headed. The idea of a television show that would reach as many people as entourage is almost impossible these days. Yeah, exactly. Maybe that's good. I think it's good. I mean, how can you argue with evolution?

I mean, it's doing its thing and we're part of it and get on board. Yeah, is it evolution or is it devolution? Well, it's both. Sometimes I'm not sure. It's both, it's expanding, contracting, expanding, contracting, breaking apart, rebuilding. Are you optimistic?

I am, I'm very optimistic. So explain that to me. Well, because I've let go of the ego part of me So explain that to me. Well, because I've let go of the ego part of me that thinks I know the way the world should be and surrendered to the playfulness and the joy of just being a part of this existence, we're alive. That's how can you not be optimistic? We're here. That's how can you not be optimistic? We're here.

It's incredible. I'm just gonna let that sit for a minute. I appreciate that. I find myself vacillating between being inspired and being despondent with what I see. And a lot of that is fueled by me opening up my phone and scrolling through a bunch of stuff and seeing some street in Germany

that where cars are getting pushed down the road in a massive flood. And I just think like, we're never gonna figure this out. Oh, wait, did you think you're gonna live forever? No. Oh. But meaning as a parent also, it changes when you're a parent because you think about the world

that your kids are inheriting. Well, I do think we live forever. Maybe that's the difference. I believe that life is infinite and ever transmuting and changing and transforming. It's not ever the way you think it's gonna be. Even if you have the best projections and the best predictions about what tomorrow is going to look like, it's always going

to be a little bit different, right? So I think let go with a healthy amount of ease your And so I live my everyday, not for how I imagined this world in my lifetime is going to be, but more for how I believe like future generations should be living. And I believe that those- That's back to Krishnamurti. Yeah. The idea of being

the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual embodiment of the person who's carrying a certain resonance that you would like the world to embody. It's really the only path forward. I mean, that has roots in Zen also. Yes. The way to change the world is to change yourself. Yes.

Does that work for you? Yeah, that works for me. Okay, cool. No, I'm completely on that page. I'm completely on that page. When you're talking about we live forever, is that about consciousness? Life continues.

Life continues, certainly. But does your consciousness is transmuted into something else? Yeah, I mean. Or the oneness of consciousness, your portion of that oneness, then will find its way into some other expression. We crave the continuity of self.

Like I'm the same person I was yesterday that I am today. And now you trust me because you can rely on me being me. But that's a very limited, that predisposes that anything is static ever. Exactly, which it's not. And if you expand out to a larger timeline, you realize, oh, you've been changing every single moment. And you're not the same person you were last year.

Certainly not the same person you were last year. Certainly not the same person you were at eight, but I can also talk. I can communicate through time and space by connecting in with my inner child who I know so well. And he actually speaks to me and gives me lots of wisdom and shares with me the things that, you know, help me be a better man, a better father for, you know, not my inner child, but for my future children. So I believe there is continuity

in being able to actually connect into multiple timelines, not just your past within yourself, but also if you close your eyes, like how you imagine you want to be and where you orient your life so that you can embody and be in the embodied expression of that future potential and then let go of it. Cause you know, you're part of a much more complex system. Well, we could go down a crazy rabbit hole with this

because ultimately, you know, time is a mental construct, right? So the idea of moving through time or speaking to your inner child or communicating with your future self on some level, these things are all existing simultaneously, are they not, right? And so when that inner child is percolating up, what is it saying to you?

What is he saying to you? Is he expressing his needs or telling you it's gonna be okay? Or what does that exchange look like? Yeah, I think right now he's saying, don't be a douchebag, like make the sacrifices to be there for your kids so that they, you know,

they have a little bit easier time than you did. So it's, yeah, it's a lesson really of presence. Be the present dad that you didn't have. Yeah. Right. And so kids are gonna be a thing for you. And yeah, a hundred percent. And so kids are gonna be a thing for you. And yeah, a hundred percent. Be the role model that I wish I'd had.

When you look back on this arc, do you have regrets or wish that you had done things differently? Or I'm sure people say, what's the advice you would give yourself? I get that question a lot. I never know how to answer it because everything has unfolded perfectly.

Exactly. All the pain that I've experienced and the difficult times that I've had to weather have all crafted the person that I get to be today. And I would never wanna shortcut myself from that. Well, it's also the devil that you know, right? I'd much rather take the existence that I've already experienced

and I've already gone through and like, okay, I'll take this because it could be worse. Yeah, yeah. And are you completely done with acting or what's your relationship with the craft? I just changed my relationship to what kind of roles I take. And I'm not acting for money.

In other words, I'm not just taking jobs because they're gonna pay me a good amount of money. It's more if the role resonates with me. Some crazy, awesome role falls into your lap with an unbelievable director. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. David Venture, okay, I'll do it. There's still a tether, like maybe a thread to Hollywood.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and I'm also, as I mentioned, I'm getting back into the storytelling, like how I'm going to show up in that capacity. And it's not all Hollywood and movies, but also I have a lot to say in documentary form and short form. And so podcasts or docu-series,

I plan on doing a lot of that stuff as well. Right. Do you have anything, any projects you're thinking about that you're willing to share about? Yeah, so I've been, this is a little bit premature, but I'll share it.

I've been slowly building a channel, which I call Earthspeed, a lifestyle in the cadence of nature. And that's essentially going to be my channel for sharing stories from the land, my trials, my challenges and my successes in building the community and learning how to farm, learning how to grow my own food,

all of those things that I think should be open-sourced and shared. Again, as I use my life as a laboratory or as an experiment for possibility, I wanna be able to share that open-source so that not only I can get feedback, like, hey, don't do that, you dummy. It's so much easier if you do it this other way,

but also, you know, maybe other people might be inspired to try it themselves. And I think the more people start to experiment and explore growing food in their backyards, in their front yards, do away with the front lawn, make some food. I think we're gonna have to share wisdom in that. Yeah, so you've been documenting that all along.

Yeah, here and there. Right, yeah, that's cool. Are you connected to Zach Bush, Dr. Zach Bush, Farmer's Footprint? Not directly, but I listen to him often. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, he's a good friend. I mean, that's the first thing I thought of. I'd love to.

You should sync up with him. Please, yeah. Because all the work that he's doing in that very space with regenerative farming and permaculture. Where is he? Where is he? He's been living in Hawaii mostly, but he's got a place in Encinitas as well.

And Farmer's Footprint is located in Encinitas. But they're close with them. I can make that connection easily. I would love that. I really think the future, at least in the way I see it, will be absolutely decentralized, but you'll have little pockets of sanity, little islands of cohesion,

all interfacing, connected, but autonomous. And that's what we're looking to contribute to is that vision is our land will be its own standalone system but we'll have a lot of back and forth and exchange of ideas with other communities and other farms and other operations around the world. Yeah, I think it's just like anything else. You have to start in one place,

prove that it's possible before you can tackle the larger problem and then share the process of how that was built to then create scalable solutions. Because we're looking at a food system right now that's so broken, that's so broken that's so deleterious environmentally that creates all kinds of food injustice and a battery of problems that are making us sick and depleting the planet and truly the only way forward is to find new

regenerative scalable sustainable, sustainable solutions. So as consumers, yes, we can use our front lawns and do all of that, but those are really just pilot projects for how to create an environmental model and an economic model for the modern day farmer that will incentivize them to make that switch and get out of their big ag paradigm, big ag, you know, paradigm to create food

that is actually gonna be able to feed the planet. Yeah, I would just push back a little bit on the expectation of scalability. And I think it's this weird thing that we all believe that scalable solutions are the right solutions or a business that can scale is the best business that we can have. There's something that you lose when things scale. And as I was saying, once a system grows to the point where the tentacles are so long that you can't keep track, it starts to become inefficient and often the externalities and the destructiveness

can sort of get away from you. So I don't know if we need scalable solutions. I think we need 8 billion localized solutions within each individual that doesn't scale, but is like very unique and specific to where that person is or where that community is. So I think it's not just a consumer solution to grow food in your front yard. It's actually a environment wide solution

with if everybody takes responsibility for their own little patch of land and we stop farming out, no pun intended, our farm industry or our agriculture industry to these big scaled businesses that can't really take care of the environment. Because once you have a certain number of animals on a feedlot, the system collapses

because you need diversity in each of those systems. So it has to be small and it has to be localized and individualized, I believe. you need diversity within each of those systems. So it has to be small and it has to be localized and individualized, I believe. Yeah, no, that's a point well taken. I guess part of where that comes from for me is, somebody who's been plant-based for 15 years, but I'm under no illusion that the entire world

is gonna get struck plant-based. Like there's, it's always gonna be, you know, a smaller percentage of the population. And likewise, not everybody is gonna start planting food in their front yard. You know, there's just a large percentage of the population that either live in urban places or it's not accessible for them,

or they're working three jobs. But perhaps to your point, there can at least be these community hubs in every community, right? And you localize the whole thing. Right. And it's sort of community owned and operated in a way that creates a brand new paradigm

that does reconnect the members of that community who don't have the wherewithal to like plant their front yard or whatever to participate in that. Or instead of the local Forever 21, you have vertical farming in that building. Yeah, it's crazy. I was in New York City the other week and I did, and I love New York.

Like I have so much fun going back there. I mean, I didn't grow up there, but I get such a boost of like energy when I'm there. And I did a podcast with Eric Adams, who's most likely gonna be the next mayor. And he's got a huge food initiative. He had a crazy health story that's made him very interested and invested in shifting the city's relationship

with nutrition and schools and hospitals, et cetera. And I was like, I said to him, like every rooftop in this city should have a garden. Like, and he was like, I said to him, like every rooftop in this city should have a garden. Like, and he's like, I'm all about it. Like, you know, to the extent that a politician within that framework can motivate that kind of change, I'm, you know, I'm not sanguine about,

but just to have the conversation about the possibility of that, you know, every urban environment should make use of vacant lots and rooftops and vertical gardening. Like there is a crazy viable future if we can marshal the political will and the resources to make those things happen. And I think most people want that.

Do they? I don't know. See, I thought you were the optimist. Well, no, I am the optimist. I just think that people still believe in the old paradigm. They're still attached to this, but you have to show them. You have to show them the way. This is where the cult leader thing.

You still need the personality, right? You got the white pants. Okay, fine, I'll do it. You're halfway there. Fine. You talked me into it. Take us across the goal line, Adrian. Cool, man. Well, I think that's a good place

to land this plane for today. Awesome. How do you feel? I feel great. Yeah. I'm glad that we got to do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Me too, man. I think glad that we got to do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Me too, man.

I think it's really inspiring what you're doing and impressive that you've made this life pivot and decided to put these values that you have to work and in the forefront of the advocacy. And I know you're in a gestation period, but like all artists, you have to live your life before you can create expression out of those experiences. And I have no doubt that at the appropriate time,

you will bring expression to that. And I think that that will be impactful to many. So I wish you luck. I wish you well, and I'm at your service. Oh, thanks my friend. I appreciate it. Cool. So if people wanna learn more about what you're up to,

Ducontra, Lonely Whale, all this stuff, where's the best place to direct them? So ducontra.ventures, and we're actively seeking investments. So if you wanna invest in what we're doing and take a look at the model, reach out to us, email us. So the website is ducontra.ventures. And then of course, Lonely Whales,

my ocean conservation organization, lonelywhale.org. We have a number of really great projects and campaigns, including Ocean Heroes Bootcamp, my favorite, where we host 300 youngsters from 30 different countries around the world to do ocean work. That's cool. Yeah, I'll just leave it at those two for now.

All right. And at Adrian. Oh, at Adrian. In all the places. Yes, yes. On Insta. Cool, man. Well, hopefully you'll come back and talk to me again, man.

I really enjoyed this. Next time we'll record at the ranch. Yeah. That would be good. Okay. Cool. All right. It's a date. And I Yeah. That would be good. Okay. Cool. All right.

It's a date. And I'll expect you to be wearing full white. Okay. All right. I will. Cool. Feathers. Peace.

Bye. Plants. Take care. That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guest, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive, as well as podcast

merch, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change in the Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and or comment. Supporting the sponsors who support the show is also important and appreciated.

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Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo with additional audio engineering by Cale Curtis. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake. Portraits by Davy Greenberg and Grayson Wilder. Graphic and social media assets courtesy of Jessica Miranda, Daniel Solis, Dan Drake,

and A.J. Akpodiette. Thank you, Georgia Whaley, for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love. Love the support. See you back here soon.

Peace. Plants. Namaste. Thank you.