The Rich Roll Podcast - Rich On Rock Bottom, Resolutions & Reframing Family Dynamics

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

Roll On returns! Just in time for the holiday gauntlet. Adam Skolnick and I unpack three questions the season demands: how to navigate family gatherings when the same dynamics play out like clockwork, what rock bottom actually means (hint: it's a launchpad for transformation, not a life sentence), and why I've traded rigid goals for something more like trajectory. We get into the superpower of extreme neutrality, why everyone is right from their perspective, and morning pages as the unlock you didn't know you needed. We also celebrate Adam's debut novel “American Tiger”—finally out in the world! Last but not least, we crown our favorite films of 2025. Enjoy!  Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: On: High-performance shoes & apparel crafted for comfort and style👉🏼https://www.on.com/richroll LMNT: Get a free LMNT Sample Pack with any purchase👉🏼https://www.drinklmnt.com/richroll  Pique: Get up to 20% OFF plus a FREE rechargeable frother and glass beaker with your first subscription👉🏼https://www.piquelife.com/richroll Momentous: High-caliber human performance products for sleep, focus, longevity, and more. For listeners of the show, Momentous is offering up to 35% off your first order👉🏼https://www.livemomentous.com/richroll Bon Charge: Get 15% OFF all my favorite wellness products w/ code RICHROLL👉🏼https://www.boncharge.com AG1: Get their best offer ever – Welcome Kit, Omega 3's, D3+K2, Flavor Sampler, plus AGZ sleep supplement FREE ($126 in gifts)👉🏼https://www.drinkAG1.com/richroll Rivian: Electric vehicles that keep the world adventurous forever👉🏼https://www.rivian.com Check out all of the amazing discounts from our Sponsors👉🏼https://www.richroll.com/sponsors  Find out more about Voicing Change Media at https://www.voicingchange.media and follow us @voicingchange

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What does that mean? What do you do if you are finding yourself in that situation? How do you emerge out of it? And the third question is around setting goals and resolutions for the new year, because I think that's something we're all kind of thinking about right now. After that, we're going to talk a little bit about Adam's brand new book, his novel, American Tiger. Very exciting out this week. that sort of conjures a discussion around the relationship between dads and daughters, something I'm familiar with.

Without further ado, let's just get into it. We're recording this on Monday morning after the Thanksgiving holiday. So by the time this goes up this Thursday, people are in the aftermath of that experience and they're thinking about the impending upcoming holiday season of, you know, whether it's Christmas, Hanukkah, et cetera, how do I make that the best version of what it can be, knowing that I'm going to be immersed in a family scenario? that tends to be fraught, certain things kind of happen every single year. Can it be different? And how can I take care of myself in the midst of all of this? And I think the first thing is that you need to go in with a plan. You can't just roll the dice and hope for the best and think, well, maybe it'll be different this time, even though every single year it's kind of exactly the same.

It's a carbon copy of what happened the year prior. Obviously, the definition of insanity is sort of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. So if you want a different result, make a plan in advance. How are you going to handle yourself differently this time? Because the thing is, I guess the first thing you have to really get your head around is your essential powerlessness over this family dynamic. Like, you just cannot change or control other people's behavior.

And you have to get to a place of acceptance around that and relinquish your attachment to people behaving differently than they always do. and make peace with that. So there's that acceptance piece, that powerlessness piece. And in terms of the plan, I think that that begins with staying out of expectations around other people's behaviors, like this expectation that they are going to behave differently, and making the plan really about controlling the controllables. And there are only a very few things that you actually can control, which is your behavior

and your either response or reaction to what's happening around. you. So it really boils down to you. And I think we all go into these family dynamics, thinking about the other people, like, I hope they don't do this or I hope they don't do that, or if they say that, then, you know, it's all going to go crazy. And it's just, it's very extrinsically focused rather than, you know, accepting the reality that the only thing that you have power over is yourself, right? So the plan has to be around like self-care. It has to be very self-focused. All you can do is alter your own behavior, how you act. And so that really has to be the focus. In the context of all of that, I think you need to

set boundaries. Just because you're going into a family scenario, it doesn't mean that you have to be available all the time or just be a sponge for everybody else's behavior that tends to, you know, enervate you. And so it's fair to set those boundaries, to limit your exposure, to know when to step away, to really know where the exits are. Like, you know, You know, like where, how can I, you know, if I need to get out of this situation because I'm going to behave badly if I stay in it or I'm going to, you know, basically it's going to, it's going to be deleterious to my mental health, like having a plan for either leaving early, knowing where the exit is and not necessarily having to be there all the time to attend all of the gatherings. Maybe if you're used to going and staying in the same house as everybody else, you know, get a hotel if you can, if you can afford that, things like that where you're creating some separation. and some boundaries. And that can be scary if you have a habit or a practice of always doing things a certain way

because you, you know, that might ruffle some feathers. Well, yeah, that you can get resistance for that. Yeah, then they'll, oh, you're going to do that, blah, blah, blah. But it's like you have to really stand in your strength with that and let people react how they're going to react. And you only have to do it once. And not try to control that. You do it once. Then every year you're the hotel guy.

That's okay. Let people be mad or whatever. Yeah. It's really about like how you're comporting yourself. Yes. make sure you're exercising, make sure you're taking that moment in the morning for meditation, get good sleep, like have a breathwork practice so that you can keep yourself calm. Because I think the superpower throughout this whole dynamic is neutrality,

like extreme equanimity. That is the goal, that is the superpower. No matter what is happening around you, can you remain calm, neutral, and equanimous? and non-reactive, the meditation, the sleep, the exercise, all of these things by you, that just extra little moment where you can pause before reacting so that you can respond more consciously. And what comes out of your mouth, how you behave, to whatever's going on around you really dictates the nature of the experience that you're going to have. And I think that's super important. Maybe don't drink. That would be good. You know, never seems to make anything better.

You think, well, if I have a few drinks, then I can calm down. But then you just, your filter is off. You end up saying the thing. You wish you didn't say. And that just, you know, sets a chain reaction off of all kinds of insanity. So it's really about your relationship with yourself. One technique that I find extremely helpful in these situations, look, I have a lifetime of history, you know, lifetime history of, like, dealing with these sorts of situations.

And even specifically recently with my mom, you know, succumbing to dementia and having to put her in a memory care unit, like everything is extremely heightened right now. And I've just been very focused on how can I be as calm and non-reactive as possible no matter what is happening. And the technique that I deploy, I've talked about this on the podcast, I think, but it's probably been a long time, is just to pretend like everything that's happening is a TV show that, you're watching. Like, you can literally, like, draw, like, you know, around your peripheral vision, like, oh, what if it's, this is just a screen? And these are characters in a drama or some kind of weird sitcom. And, you know, when you're watching a television show and people are doing crazy things, you don't get agitated or stressed or anxious about it. It's sort of entertainment, right? So can you adopt that stance where you feel like, oh, this is just a,

these are characters in a show that I'm watching. And I have a choice. Like, I don't need to react to this or personalize everything because people are just behaving as they always have and they're going to do what they're going to do. And so it's really just up to you how you're going to interact with all of that. The second thing that I would suggest is when you're in that moment of agitation is to remind yourself, this is something Julie tells me all the time that's very helpful to me. Everybody is right from their perspective. So based upon their lived experience, their information silo, their friend group, whatever it is, their worldview that you disagree with is informed by their personal set of experiences. And had you lived, you know, their life,

you would probably see the world the way they do. And so understanding that everybody is right from their own perspective helps to depersonalize it as well. And just allow them their experience, allow them, their opinion. You don't have to correct it. You don't have to, tell them why they're wrong, you don't have to prove a point, and you certainly don't have to win an argument. I mean, if there's anything to be gleaned from these experiences, if you have a history of them, is that that's pointless. There is no winning in this situation, but there is an opportunity to be compassionate, you know, and I think when you struggle to be in that state of neutrality, like just trying to find a way to be compassionate to these people that you love,

of why it's so heightened is because you do care for these people, right? It's the love that is the flip side of the anger and the resentment. Like all of those things are informed by each other. And so adopting this sort of wall of pleasantry and just, you know, letting it all wash over you like a waterfall and being non-reactive and being neutral and being compassionate, I think is really the goal here. And these are all obviously things that are easier said than achieved and that's why it's a practice but and this is why you know this is one of the reasons why meditation is such a crucial tool mindfulness practices breath work all of these things that can ground you in the present moment and fundamentally lead you to live a more non-reactive

life so disabusing yourself of the idea that you can control other people allowing them to have their experience understanding that they're right from their perspective trying to find some kernel of compassion and focusing on that, being non-reactive, and just adopting this neutral stance. It's like being a lighthouse. Like we've talked about this, Adam, like just stand in your strength and, you know, emit your beam and be completely detached from whether or not anybody responds to that beam or needs it. And no matter what is going on around you, no matter how tumultuous the sea is, like you remain unmoved in the midst of it. that's what I kind of I try to do in my family now is I always talk about like finding cruising altitude

like to me it's like staying in cruising altitude it doesn't mean be detached or to be to kind of not connect it's more like you want to keep yourself in that equanimous state like where you're you're going to be the non-reactive person you're going to be the one bringing positive energy and I think that that like that is the key to kind of making sure you can control the controllables. It's the only thing you can control. What about the people, though, that aren't worried about the conflict so much? They're worried more about they're prone to people pleasing. They're prone to kind of going along with the flow to their own detriment. They know it's not good for them. They know it doesn't feel right. But they don't know how to pump the brakes.

They don't know how to kind of assert themselves and create that space. They don't know how to achieve cruising altitude and a big group of people. What would your advice be to them? Yeah, I mean, that's a tricky one. If you're habituated to accommodate everybody out of fear that you will be marginalized or judged for standing up for yourself, that can be a pernicious trap. It's something I'm very familiar with as well. I think when you telescope back from that. The first piece is understanding that all of the accommodation and the people pleasing comes packaged with this idea or this illusion that that makes you a good person. You know, it's like, I just want everyone to be happy. And so if they want me to show up,

I'm going to show up and I'm going to do all the stuff and I'm going to take the path of least resistance. On some level, there's value to that. But fundamentally, that is a betrayal of the self. Like you have allowed your own self. to be sublimated out of this idea that if you are just accommodating enough that everyone will be okay. And there is a narcissism to that on some level because fundamentally you're still attached to this idea that you can control other people's behavior and emotions. If you're just pleasant enough, if you're just accommodating enough, then everything will be fine. And so again, you have to disabuse yourself of that degree of control over other people's behavior. And ultimately, the best thing

for you is to honor yourself by setting those boundaries that you need so that you can show up as your best self in those limited circumstances. And so it's actually a service that you're providing to everyone because if you allow yourself to be a pinball and just bounce around where everyone else wants you to go, you're going to be frazzled. You're going to be frazzled. You're you're going to be less grounded and you are ultimately going to end up more reactive. So it can be difficult to say, hey, you know what, I'm not going to stay at the house this you are going to stay, you know, down the street in the motel or whatever. That's a pattern interrupt that may very well ruffle some feathers.

I'm just using this as an example. But you then have to just allow them to be upset. I mean, you can say, listen, I really want to show up as my best self and I just need to do this. Like, I'm, you know, I'll be at all the things. Don't worry, you know, I can't wait to see all you guys. But I'm just going to be, you know, I'm going to stay down the street this time. And there might be some, you know, reaction to that that you could predict or whatever. But standing your ground and just allowing them to have their reaction to that without buying into it, that can be hard.

But I think you just, you have to do that. And then you show up. And then if you're your better self or whatever, that all gets forgotten. and you've interrupted the pattern, and then next time it's easier to do those things. So, yeah, it's hard to overcome the people-pleasing instinct, the accommodation impulse, but understanding that that is on some level a self-betrayal,

and it is a narcissistic impulse as much as it is a communitarian one, you know what I mean? Yeah. I think understanding that makes it easier to take that leap, and you can start with something small. It doesn't have to be some big, drastic thing. but I think I would also avoid making proclamations about it. You know, like, I'm doing this for me.

You know, no, just like quietly, you know, like, you know, create those little boundaries or, you know, make the Irish exit, you know, like just the Irish goodbye. Like, you don't have to stay at the party to the very end. No. You can be like, I need to get back. Okay, I'll see you guys tomorrow or whatever. Just do what you need to do for your own self-care. And the byproduct of that is not only a better experience for you, but a better experience

of you for the people that you care about. I love it. Can I add two things? Clean up and get in the kitchen early to cook. Both ways you can kind of be a part of the group and you don't have to get content. You're not disengaged. Yeah.

Well, that's a, I mean, that's the other big piece here, which is be service-minded about it. Don't go into this. Like, here's what I'm going to get out of this. And they're going to finally see me for who I am. And I'm going to make sure that they understand that like, you know, I'm, I need to be respected. Like, oh, forget about all that. Like, no, just go in.

Like, how can I be of service? How can I contribute? Oh, I can do the dishes. Hey, do you need help here? Yeah, and you can use that as a way to extract yourself from the tricky conversations and situations. Immune health is one of those things that most people don't really think about unless they're sick or getting sick. But the real game is promotion, played in the daily choices you make when you're feeling. just fine. And that's my approach with Peek's daily radiance liposomal vitamin C, which I've been

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I always thought of it as kind of the place you wound up and it was really truly the end. But I know that you and I have discussed it a bit. How would you explain kind of this gradient rock bottom the way you see it? Yeah, I mean, you know, rock bottom is a phrase from the world of recovery. And it basically means that moment when you're sick and tired of being sick and tired. and you're finally ready to, you know, give up what you've been doing and try something different. And I think there is this idea that Rock Bottom is an objective event that is defined by external circumstances. Like, when you get fired or you, you know, become homeless or name your whatever, right?

Like that it is this objective thing that happens when suddenly you wake up and you realize like you have to change your life. And that's not really what Rock Bottom is. Rock Bottom is a subjective experience that is defined by this sudden surge of willingness to do things differently than you have before. And, you know, you and I have talked about willingness before. Willingness has this sort of, you know, force of the universe that descends when it wants to. You know, it's not something you can just decide to have. But rock bottom is the defining aspect of rock bottom is that it announces the arrival of willingness that you didn't have prior. It's not a one-size-fits-all thing.

It's a decision, not a disaster. And it's this incredible lever or launch pad for transformation because with that willingness, you then have this sudden swell of energy to make changes that, previously you were unwilling to. So, rock bottom is a moment of taking responsibility. It's a decision, and it's a lever for transformation. And if you think of it as an elevator, as a metaphor, like, if your life is going in the wrong direction, like your elevator is going down, it could be drinking, it could be anything, right? At any moment, you can step off the elevator.

You don't have to go all the way to the ground, wait until it, like, falls all the way to the bottom and hits the bottom, right? You have that opportunity to step off. But rock bottom is really, you know, before it hits the bottom, that moment when you decide, okay, now is the time to step off? Because that elevator can always go lower. Like, just because you've hit rock bottom doesn't mean that there isn't a lower moment for you. And so you see, for example, it's mythologized though, as the absolute bottom. Right, like this is the absolute bottom. And it never is. It could always be worse, right? And so what you see, for example, in AA are, you know, like low bottom, they call them low bottom drunks. Like, these are people that are, I mean, dude, it got, it was so

bad and dark. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's just like, yeah, it was rough. You know what I mean? And you're like, wow, okay, well, they finally turned it around. Amazing. And then you have teenagers who at like 17 get sober, you know, where, you know, like their life just wasn't that calamitous. They just had their own rock bottom moment where they realized, like, I can't live this way anymore. And, you know, well in advance of their life going completely sideways, like make that decision and course correct. So, yes, it is a subjective experience. But fundamentally, the way I define rock bottom is it's that moment when the pain of your circumstances exceeds the fear of finally doing something different. Again, meaning that rock bottom is when you

find willingness, which gives you the power to do things you previously couldn't or wouldn't. And in my own personal experience, I had much lower moments than the day that I decided to check myself into a treatment center. The only difference being that that day was the day that I was suddenly willing to do what the day before I wasn't. It's defined by this decision that you make, this decision empowered by willingness. But rock bottom, we also look at it as a negative, right? Oh my God, he hit rock bottom, like how terrible. But these things are gifts, because when you hit your subjective rock bottom and you're graced with that level of willingness to do something otherwise you wouldn't, that is this incredible lever for change and transformation. And I think we all,

you don't have to be some like gutter drunk to have a rock bottom. I mean, everybody in life has rock bottom moments. I don't think you can escape life without them. And if you're in such a moment to recognize it as a divinely inspired experience custom created for your change in transformation, like it's almost something you should have reverence for because it has this potential energy to shift your life in magical ways. And when you can recognize this, like, you know, this terrible situation, then I'm in and I know that I've got to make this change and now I feel like I really want to make

the change. Like, have an awareness of that. Like, be present with that because I just know in my own experience, like my various rock bottoms when I look back on it, there's such gifts because they course corrected my life and set me on different trajectories that I would have never explored had I not been in those painful experiences. You almost have to depersonalize it in a way. but it's hard when you're when the when the volume is so loud in your head and the pain is so heavy so it's like it help it would be helpful to have someone kind of reminding you of that it's hard because in those like the true rock bottom moments you're alone in your head you know you're like at least my my experience is like you feel alone in your head and so how do you de-personalize it and turn down that volume and remember to like have reverence for this thing that is so painful at that time you know it's an interesting balance i mean it's it's very difficult you know you know You know, when you are in that much pain, you're paralyzed. Like, the idea that, like, oh, this is the moment where you're going to change and you're going to be all motivated and inspired is delusional, right?

Like, you're completely hamstrung and paralyzed because it is, if it truly is, like, your subjective rock bottom, like, you can't see your way out of it. So the lived experience of it is very disorienting. It's only in retrospect when you can actually see the merit of the whole thing, of the whole enterprise. because there is a hopelessness that kind of descends upon you. That is the flip side of the willingness, I think. All I can say about that is that just, like, hearing that, like, if you just hear this, it instills a little bit of hope

that, you know, there can be a shift. And you don't have to do anything immediately. Another kind of, like, annoying AA catchphrase is, like, this two will pass, you know? It's just like, when you're in it, you're like, you know, fuck off, right? Like, you know, you don't understand my life. You don't understand how difficult it is for me.

That's not helpful. And I think in those moments, it's about trying to identify the smallest thing that you can do in that moment to leverage that slight degree of willingness to move your life in a little bit of a different direction. And it can be the tiniest thing, but you have to, like, plant those seeds and sew them. and ultimately over time with a great degree of patience, that's really what moves the needle. I love it. Rock bottom is really just like the part of the crag where you get the foothold and you can keep climbing

versus like the actual bottom of the rock wall. It can be the bottom of the rock wall, but maybe you arrest the slide earlier and you can start climbing again. If you're in pain and you're wondering whether this is your rock bottom, you can make the decision that it is. Because I think it's easy to say, well, it could be worse.

Like, my friend over here, like, he lost everything and his wife, you know, there's always somebody who is an example of why, like, whatever you're doing is not that bad. You know, like, I can keep doing it. Like, I didn't lose my job. Or I didn't, you know, like, they haven't repossessed my car or whatever it is. So that can be an excuse to keep, you know, perpetuating the bad behavior. But if you know, like, I think in our heart of hearts, we all know, when we're off track, and we make these excuses, these rationalizations to give ourselves

permission to keep doing the thing we know that we shouldn't be doing anymore, right? And so that's where the decision part of Rock Bottom comes in. If you are in pain and you have that spidey sense that you're off track, you don't have to stay on the elevator and keep going down until you're at that lower level where your friend, you know, is or whatever. you can get off. And so while willingness can come in these lightning bolt bursts where you suddenly have this, you suddenly have this like swell of energy that you didn't have before,

I think to some degree or another, we always have a small amount of willingness. So it's about identifying the willingness that you have and how to put that into action to make a different choice in those moments. I like it. We are our own worst enemies, aren't we? 100%. Yeah. Good to know.

Just remember that when you're making a... This is the human condition. Is it not? We are, we are, yes. We have great degree of clarity when it comes to other people's behavior and what they should be doing differently. And when it comes to ourselves, we are just unbelievably myopic. We see almost nothing.

Yeah. It's interesting. Like, yeah, almost everyone's an unreliable witness. You know, almost everyone. Yeah. You know, very much so. But, you know, what happens, though, when we're in, in these moments, even if there's willingness,

when we're dealing, we're in the storm, is that often we're ashamed, right? We're ashamed of how we got there. We're ashamed of where we are. The humiliation is such that when we even look in the mirror, I'm speaking personally, I remember looking in the mirror and seeing, not seeing something that was positive. Like I remember seeing someone who was gonna be bereft forever,

you know? And a lot of that was shame and I know how toxic it is. How do you recommend people kind of turn dial down on the shame, you know, like, how does, how do you get to the point where willingness is louder than the shame? Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think that is the common experience, right? We're so embarrassed. We're so ashamed of our behavior. And it's just easier and better to keep it all quiet and to ourselves. Obviously, that keeps us stuck in the problem and divorced from the solution. These are all socially constructed ideas, though, like

the shame and the embarrassment are a function of social constructs that threaten our standing within our group, right, you know, within our community, within our village, right? And if people really knew, like, what I was like, I would get exiled, right? So I can't tell anyone, and I'm going to try to figure this out, you know, by myself quietly, or I'll just continue to hide from everybody. But all of these things are at cross-purposes with the solution. And I think the way forward here is to understand that shame can't survive the light. Like shame thrives in darkness. Like it wants you isolated and alone. It wants that secret locked up. Because once it's exposed, shame can't, it can't withstand sunlight, right? And it's, as

scary as it can be to raise your hand and ask for help or find somebody to talk to, that really is the solution to disabuse you of the shame and the embarrassment that keeps you rooted in the problem. And so my suggestion is to find somebody that you trust, that you can talk to. That can be a therapist. It can be, you know, a grandfather or an uncle. It can be, you know, it could be a stranger, you know. It could be a 12-step meeting. There's many, many, different modalities and avenues to explore with that. But I think you have got to find somebody that you can communicate with and that you can open up to honestly.

And that's the first piece. Like there is a catharsis when you finally say out loud this thing that you're afraid to say to another person and you have that experience of thinking that that person is going to shun you or judge you. And then when they accept you or they respond to what you share with them with compassion, that is a first step towards emerging out of the shame spiral that keeps you stuck in the problem. And once you have a confidant, then you have an accountability partner and you can begin the process of constructing a path, you know, out of that hole that you've dug for yourself. I like that. That's good.

I have so many examples of this. You know, we almost had our house foreclosed on. I've had cars repossessed. I've had my credit destroyed. You know, like financially, you know, so many things to be embarrassed about and ashamed about as a grown-ass man. And in the addiction recovery context, like, you know, countless examples of this. I mean, I remember relapsing in Hawaii after, I think I had like 13 years of sobriety at the time. It was after Ultraman 2011 didn't go well, and I kind of made Ultra Endurance my higher power, and I had a slip, and I'm so, you know, wrought with, to this day, like, it's still mortifying to me, you know, and in the moment of that experience, the shame was like so overwhelming.

But I had enough experience in sobriety to know that I had to do. what my friend Scotty G. says you do in these situations, which is if you're going to eat crow, like eat it hot, you know, like, meaning if you, you know, you got to deal with shit right away. And, you know, thanks to my family and Tyler, who's here today, like I was in an A.A. meeting the same day as the relapse that evening, and I had to pick up the phone and call my people in recovery and tell them exactly what had happened, which was a, you know, a very ego-deflating thing to do as somebody who was sort of considered himself like a somebody with a lot of experience in sobriety who could like go to the rooms and you know always knew the right thing to say

and ultimately all of this made you know my program all the more stronger because i needed that ego deflation and i needed that reminder that there is no cruise control and i'd taken my foot off the gas on my program and i had to pay that price and that was a life lesson that i needed to learn and ultimately one of great value, but I was only able to course correct because I was willing to pick up the phone and deal with the shame emotions, right? By like just exposing them to the light

as quickly as I could. So I think that would be, you know, one example of that. I mean, that was all heightened by the fact that I already turned in my manuscript for Finding Ultra, which was this story of like addiction and recovery. And I couldn't make any changes to it. And here I had, you know, and then here I relapsed. You know, it was just like so, it was like,

I was so completely just laid out from that experience. It's almost like something an enemy would do to you. Yeah. Like, what is that called? Oppo. Opposition researchers. Your opposition came strong. Yeah.

Came strong. These are not easy things to do, you know. I don't want to minimize how the degree of difficulty that they present. And so that's why I'm always trying to boil things down to like, what is the smallest kind of thing that you are willing to do and figuring out how to build upon on those tiny little actions. You know, it's funny because, like, you do, looking back on going through something horrible,

you do remember like those little snippets, those little moments where you do see clearly what's happening. and you don't just keep tumbling forward, but then you often do. I mean, I remember, like, one time, one of my worst moments, it was like I was going through divorce. I felt horrible.

And I got pulled up, my buddy was driving me home, and we pulled off the freeway. This is like you think there's always someone worse off. We pull off the freeway, and there's a guy panhandling, like a guy's wasted,

who knows, on what high or drunk, and he's like panhandling. and he kind of looks at me, he sees me, and he peers into me, and he goes, it'll be okay, bro. And that's what I knew. I wasn't carrying it well. I was not carrying this divorce well. But like that moment didn't, it didn't shift anything for me, you know, but it could have been.

It could have been one of those moments where you're like, wait a second, you know, it's not as bad as I think it is. But it didn't really do it. But like, it's just wanted to share one of my rock bottom. I guess it wasn't rock bottom. and I still had to tumble a little bit. Yeah, I mean, when I think of my, you know, kind of descents into darkness over the years, the rock bottom moments are not the darkest, most dire moments.

You know, I, like, speaking of divorce, like, I had a marriage that ended on the honeymoon. Like, and then I had to come back and, like, deal with the aftermath of that. Like, I didn't want to tell, I didn't, I was so deep, leasing. And then I, and that was before I got sober, and I had to continue drinking for, I can't remember how long. six or eight months or whatever because it was I was so emotionally debilitated by that that even though that was really like the nadir of like my career in alcoholism I had to continue to drink until I had gotten over the immediate aftermath of that before I could kind of contend with the problem that created it in the first place well speaking of kind of getting better

and and kind of building back is we're almost to the point where resolution are being hatched. Maybe they're already being hatched. And so the question, this third question is kind of around, you know, how do you think about New Year's resolutions? What are some of the tools that you use kind of going into a new year? And if you have any goals for 2026. Yeah. I have evolved my thinking on this. I mean, I'm certainly somebody who believes in setting goals and having a strategic approach for achieving them. I've moved my life forward in many ways by dint of this process. But the older I get, the less interested I am in setting like specific goals and focusing my life on achieving them.

And I'm more into kind of the being of it all, you know, like in the allowing and letting the universe kind of direct me, you know, not that I've transcended the need to set goals and work towards them. But I think I hold goals a little bit more loosely. And I'm more focused on direction over goals. Like, I think you can have goals, work towards them. Either you achieve them or you don't. But the more important piece in all of that is whether or not you are on a trajectory or on a direction. So whether or not you achieve that goal, you maintain that trajectory. Like you've set a course for your life. And you're kind of unaffected as to whether the goals along the way are satisfied or not because you're unwavering in that kind of like focus on the direction

of your life. And I think part of that comes with age and experience. But I've built my life on the shoulder of setting goals and achieving them. And I think it's a worthy exercise at this time of year specifically to really reflect deeply on what you want for your life in the coming year and maybe in the coming decade, because as I've said many times before, I think we're all better off thinking of our lives and decades over than years. I think we wildly overestimate what we can achieve in a year and underestimate what we can achieve in a decade. And that's part of why things like New Year's resolutions trip us up because we have an impatient unrealistic perspective on what we can achieve in a certain period of time, and we get frustrated

when we don't see immediate progress, and we allow the externalities of all of that to derail us from just maintaining, like I said before, like a certain direction. Goals are important. You can't improve what you don't measure, and if you're going to set a goal, you should use that smart acronym, meaning that they should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. That's the way to really establish a goal and then work backwards from that time-bound moment of achieving it to create all the steps that you're going to need to travel in order to get there. Those are all good things. But I think what most people don't do is reflect deeply enough on the goal that they're setting for themselves. I think we set goals reflexively.

I want to lose a little weight. Oh, I want to run a marathon. Or, oh, I want to make this amount of money or whatever it is. Like, whether those are impulsed by the culture or our friend group, I don't know that we spend enough time doing the interior work to try to really uncover the best goal for ourselves. And that's really a function of how invested you are. in having an interior life, right? So that comes with Asian experience also, and there's nothing wrong with setting a reflexive goal and achieving it,

because anytime you achieve a goal, you're going to engender more self-esteem for yourself, and that's going to empower you to set more ambitious goals, and there's a self-perpetuating aspect to all of this. But I think a lot of people set the wrong goals for themselves, and then when they peter out, they feel bad about themselves without really understanding that maybe it wasn't

the right goal for them to set for themselves in the first part. So think, spend some time thinking about the values that are most important to you and, and how this goal that you're contemplating relates to that value. Because the best goals are ones that are intrinsically motivated, obviously. And to the extent that your goal is being impulse by something extrinsic, that's going to make it easier to derail when life doesn't exactly line up for you to do the things that you need to do to achieve it. Or if you achieve it, and then afterwards you feel like, wait, I don't feel any different. Yeah, exactly.

If you think this goal, especially if it's a material goal, is going to, you know, heal that inner child or, like, fill that void in your soul, like, you're going to, you know, quickly realize when you achieve it that it doesn't. And so, yeah, this is, that can, like, precipitate an existential crisis, right? Next thing you know, you wake up at rock bottom. We don't want that. But, like, setting goals are good, you know, resolution. solutions are fine. Everyone, I think it's something like 80 or 85% of people abandon them by mid-February.

And so why is that? Well, is it the wrong goal? Is it that they were overly ambitious? Is it that it really wasn't tied enough to their values to make it meaningful enough such that when there's friction in life, like you can't show up for it? I mean, there's so many things that play into this. So that's why, again, like I'm always coming back. to direction. Like, what is the direction you want your life to go on? And what are the things that you can be doing every single day that are moving your life on that trajectory? That, to me, is much more important. And it goes back to thinking about your life in decades rather than years. If I don't lose this much weight by this time or I can't blah, blah, blah, these things become less important when you're like, yeah, well, I didn't like exactly do all the things that I thought that I could in the first six months, but, like, I'm on this path, you know and every day like everything in my life took at least a decade you know before it started

to bear any kind of fruit and you know it takes a certain resilience to play the long game but if your values are aligned with whatever that trajectory is then it just becomes who you are and it's less about this burdensome thing that you're always having to move mountains to make time for yeah i like that it's like because first of all the year is an arbitrary concept anyway right it's kind of an abstraction. So then if the year doesn't really matter, and the goal is actually, you actually just want to be better,

you want to get better, you want to learn more, you want to love your life more. That's basically what we're talking about because goals are you're just hurtling yourself against the modern world in a way. It's like this abstraction. You're just trying to,

I want to achieve this goal because, you know, I want to see if I can do it. It's like an experiment, right? And that's fine. That's good. There's value in that. But sometimes if it's like,

I'm going to achieve this goal, you're putting blinders on because every time you decide to pursue a goal, you're saying yes to one thing and you're saying no to other things, right? Like you have to say no to a lot of stuff to achieve a goal, right? And so what can happen is that you're saying no to things that maybe you actually should say yes to. And I think when you have those blinders on, you're so focused that sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees.

and the older that I get, it's sort of like, what happens when you hold your goals a little bit more loosely so that you can pivot when needed? Because sometimes I know that in my life, like, I've started out on a goal, and then I'm like, oh, that's not really what this is about.

I think what I need to be doing is like going over here because I'm feeling this way, or, you know, the world is kind of showing up for me in this way that I didn't think that I really, you know, like I didn't really think that my life was going to go this. way, but like this seems to be where there's a lot of energy right now. Maybe I should pay attention

to that. Yeah. And if you're so focused on your goal, you're going to miss that. And a lot of these great things that I've experienced in my life are because I had the awareness to allow myself to hold on to the goal a little bit loose enough so that I could be aware of that and, like, you know, pivot or move, make these little micro adjustments in my life to move in different directions. And that's about, you know, being present in your life, like having, you know, the tool of awareness to, you know, read the energy of the room, read your internal energy, pay attention to, you know, what's working and what's not. Because if you're pursuing a goal and you're just hitting roadblock after roadblock after road, it's like Matthew McConaughey

and his green lights, right? Like, where are the green lights? Like, when you're aware of where the green lights are and you're like, I'm going to go over here because everything's flowing, you know, over here, even if it doesn't feel like that's where. you should be going, maybe you just don't know yet that that's the better direction for your life. And so I think acclimating yourself around the green lights is anathema to holding on or clutching onto goals because you said you were going to do it. You know what I mean? So it is this dichotomy. It's a weird kind of dualism, right? A yin-yang kind of thing when it comes to goals. Yeah, no, I like that though, like this idea that maybe the goal is to be more

present maybe that's your resolution maybe it is it is in a lot of ways it's like well it gets into you know it's like okay if i'm gonna like if i need to make some changes if i really want to like up level my life what are we really doing here you know what i mean like oh i can set a goal and achieve it but like honestly all the growth in my life that uh is waiting for me out there is a function of of moving towards the things that I'm most avoiding, you know what I mean? Like, avoidance is really the signal that is telling you, like, where your energy should be directed. But the thing about avoidance is, we avoid it. Like, that's, you know, we don't, like, no, I'm not going over there. I'm going to go over here. Like, we can set goals that everyone will celebrate that are just

elaborate ruses to avoid the thing that we actually should be looking at, right? And so, So to your point about presence, like, if there is a goal, like, well, how can I be more present in my life? If I'm more present, then I'm more aware of the things that I'm avoiding. And if I'm present enough, those things that I recoil from and avoid become less threatening. And I have the capacity to move towards them in a way that otherwise I wouldn't, I think. And so, yeah, it's almost an anti-goal. Like, if I'm just present, you're kind of letting go of everything, right?

It's sort of like, what if there is no goal? and I'm just present with my life, and I'm riding the waves of energy and letting life, you know, kind of direct me. So the holidays are awesome. I think we can all agree on that. But, you know, not without their irresistible temptations. Cookies everywhere, pie at every gathering,

the sugary fruit thing your aunt made. And listen, you know, I'm not immune. But neither is your gut, meaning your microbiome is absolutely paying attention to what's going on. All of which is why AG1 matters during this extended two-month stretch. You need something to anchor you. And one scoop of AG1 consolidates your multivitamin, your superfoods, your antioxidants. This daily health drink takes 30 seconds.

Easy peasy. And the next-gen formula is clinically shown to fill nutrient gaps, which is huge, when your dye goes sideways for a handful of weeks here and there. I keep all four flavors around, original citrus, berry, and tropical. Cold water, first thing in the morning, just one baseline thing locked in before everything gets away from me. And right now, AG1 has their best offer ever at drinkag1.com slash rich roll. You get a welcome kit, a flavor sampler, plus $126 in free gifts at drinkag1.com slash rich roll. I want you to pause for a moment because I want to tell you about my friend RJ.

Now, you might know this guy as the founder and CEO of Rivian. He's certainly that, but he's really so much more. He's one of those rare people who actually walks the walk. I've watched him over many years, and I know him to be this incredibly deeply committed person, committed to preserving wild spaces, while also inspiring people to explore responsibly. And that's basically Rivian in a nutshell. Their mission, keep the world adventurous forever, comes from this understanding that adventure and a healthy planet, these are not separate things. They're the same thing.

Here's what gets me. Every generation deserves wild places to roam, to climb higher, to run farther, to be changed by the journey. But obviously, that's only possible if we're not destroying those places in the process of getting there. So, yeah, Rivian builds electric vehicles. But really, they're building something bigger, momentum toward a future where exploration does not come at the expense of nature, but actually inspires us to protect it. It's like, why create the ultimate adventure vehicle if we're not protecting the adventures themselves? And that's why I'm so proud to align forces in partnership with Rivian. This isn't just about transportation.

It's about building a world worth exploring. for our kids, for their kids, and for generations to come. I remember, like, probably the best resolution I ever came up with for myself was I'd kind of gotten out of, like, my rhythm with nature, and I think it was January 1st, and I was in coming out of that same divorce part. I think it wasn't long after, it was long after I had that confrontation on the side of the highway, but I think it was, actually it was before that, it was like several years before that, I was coming out of a different break. up and I was like in this horrible space and I decided I just need to go in the ocean every day and I hadn't been in the ocean and ages this was before my love of the ocean swimming so this would have been like end of 2004 beginning 2005 I hadn't been in the ocean much and so certainly not in California and so I would just walk from my apartment every morning and jump in and that was the thing starting January 1st I wanted to do it every day for I think it was 40 days to see if I could do it and that what that ended up doing is sparking

my entire journey as an ocean person. And it wasn't the goal. The goal was never to become a surf or an open water swimmer or a free dive or any of that. The goal was to be in touch with nature. That was like my resolution. And looking back, it's probably the most powerful thing I ever did.

And yeah, interesting. Yeah, I have my version of that. Like all of the best things that I've done in my life are not the function of having set a goal to achieve it. You know, like my whole career in ultra-endurance began similarly. Like, you know what, I just want to do things that make my body feel good. You know what, I know there's a lot to do, but I'm going to, no matter what, like, I'm going to go swim or I'm going to, like, go up on this trail in the morning and feel what that feels like.

There was no goal. It was just a decision to, you know, do this thing that I felt compelled to do that made me feel good. And that set in motion all these other things. And the podcast, it was just like, hey, wouldn't it be cool to, like, I was just curious. Like, let's have a conversation. Let's see what happens. And everything that came from, it wasn't like, I'm going to start a podcast and here's how we're going to launch it. And in five years, this is what it's going to be.

No, there's none of that. If you told somebody that they thought you'd be insane. Yeah, there's no, there was no goal setting to any of this. I didn't set a goal to, like, write Finding Ultra. It happened, it unfolded naturally out of an act of service. I've told the story before. But, like, the best things in life are, like, byproducts of being service-minded and pursuing life with curiosity.

And so I think it's important to contextualize these goals that we set and these resolutions, you know, within that framework. Like, if there's anything, it's like, be curious about your life. Give yourself permission to do the things that bring you joy, you know, reserve judgment and like just try new things. Like, that's a very non, you know, acronym smart, you know, goal. But like, I think it's quite valorous to, you know, adopt that as a general sort of disposition. or an ambition for how to think about your energy.

So 2026, what are your goals? So like I said, like, you know, being present, actually, you know, there are these amorphous ambitions, like, how can I be more present in my life, how can I be more service-minded, how can I love more unconditionally? But I think the reason for all of those is the impulse behind all of that is, like, how can I enjoy this life that I worked hard to, construct more. You know what I mean? Because I'm always caught up in what's the next thing, or I'm overwhelmed, or there's too much to do, or I lose the joy amidst all the responsibility

of it. And it's like, it's not, these are the good times. Like, this is, it's not going to get any better than this. Like, it's happening now. Like, I need to find better ways to really enjoy and be happy, you know, in this incredible, you know, privilege situation that I found myself in. So, So that's the big one. But within that, I still have, like, goals and projects. You know, I'm working on projects. I have things that I want to do and all of that, like, at the same time. So I've been thinking about my life in these six-month chunks. So May 8, I had my back surgery. And so from May to November, that six-month period, I've just been completely laid out. I could barely work. I couldn't do anything in terms of exercise.

all I could do is walk. And now, from this past November until May, this next six-month period, I have the green light to resume a modest exercise routine. So this six-month period, I want to focus on returning to a base level of fitness, like sort of getting back, not back to where I was, but just rebuilding my body

and also completing this book that I've been working on. And that will bring me to May, which is the one-year anniversary of the surgery. And then from May to November, I have six months, the next six-month period of time. And I thought, well, what's in November of next year? Oh, the New York City Marathon. Wouldn't it be cool to tow the line at that race? So from this upcoming May to November, I'm going to attempt to return to some relationship with running,

because I haven't been able to run in many years, with the goal of just being able to participate in the New York City marathon. So it's not like, oh, I'm going to go run the Moab 240. Like, I just want to experience the ability to run pain free and enjoy it and, and, you know, be a runner among runners the many, many thousands at the New York City Marathon next year. So that's like, that's sort of like big, you know. That's a big announcement, bro. It's a pretty practical. Like, it's not like that crazy, but given that, you know, my surgeon, it was sort of like, yeah, I don't think you're going to be running anymore. Like, he was pretty, he was not, you know, exactly encouraging when I asked him, like, do you think I'll run again?

Like, he basically said, you know, there's certain things in your life. You've got to retire. And he kind of bluntly let that hang. And then, you know, and so I've been sitting with that. And I'm like, well, we'll see about that, you know. Not that I need to go recapture some glories and ultra endurance athlete, but I would like to be able to run again, pain free, and be able to just do it for the joy of it and for no other reason. Well, I remember what, I just saw your recent story on.

the bike, I was already inspired. This idea that New York City marathons on your radar is very cool. Well, you know, it could be a Tommy Riv's situation where, you know, I'm just going to walk it. You know, I don't know what's going to happen. Right. Right. Right. Right. I don't know what's going to happen. But that would be cool, too. You know, I'm hopeful that I'll be able to run it, but, you know, time will tell. Exciting. Okay. So we're talking about this as two guys that have kind of been through a lot and accomplished some things. But like, there's young guys out there, young women. who are being fed a line about hustle. You got to hustle everything.

You got to make some sacrifices to get where you want to get. You need to shoot for something great. You need to make your mark. And the only way to do that is to work hard and start to eliminate some distractions. And there's value to that advice, and they're getting it from all sides now. It's not just from the parents or from coaches.

It's literally every time they turn on a screen, they're getting some version of it because it's kind of gamed by the algorithm. You know, acknowledging that that's a thing, how would you then kind of advise folks to kind of also incorporate some what you're talking about with their goals? I mean, I'm of two minds on this. I mean, listen, you're the guy who wrote the Goggins books.

You know, like, there is value in hard work. Like, I have worked very hard to achieve the things that I've achieved in my life. And I'm very good at compartmentalizing aspects of my life and enduring a fair degree of suffering to achieve the things that I want to achieve. And I don't think there's a real shortcut to that. And if you aspire to do something great in the world and, you know, make your stamp sacrifices involved. Like, there isn't an easy path. Like, you will have to say no to lots of things, and you will have to be pretty regimented about how you live your life.

Like, that is just a fact. And there's no way around that, honestly. You know, and I say that as somebody who, look, when I was in high school, I woke up at like 4.30 every day to go to swim practice. Like, I've been doing this for a very long time and playing this long game. And even within all of that, all of the fruits of my labor, you know, took decades to emerge. And so I think the message that I want to convey is that within this, you have to find a way to make it sustainable within the construct of the busy, modern, life and it can't intrude too heavily or tread upon the other values in your life that are important because if they do it will end up moving you in a direction away from what's really

important in your life or it will just be unsustainable and you'll end up abandoning it so when you open up your phone there's no shortage of like hustle porn videos and if you're a young person and then you see that, it either inspires you or it makes you feel guilty and bad about yourself. And I would imagine that most people have that experience of feeling bad about themselves because they can't possibly live up to the insane hustle porn culture

that they're constantly being inundated with. And so that's the flip side of this. Like I think that that is doing damage to people, making them feel like if they're not so regimented, you know, down to the, like, first of all this is illusion. These people are making these things these videos are not living this way, you know, with the exception of maybe, you have David Guggins, you know, it's like, nobody else is actually doing this. And so first, understand that

you are consuming a fictitious world. So these are unreliable narrators. First of all, not everyone's wired for that kind of, some people like David's wired for it or what, you know, and you can benefit from adopting some of those principles into your life, but they don't have to monopolize everything and when they do monopolize everything they end up blinding you to the other aspects of life that are important and that you need in order to live a fulfilling you know self-actualized life so the important thing is finding the thing that's meaningful to you that lights you up that you have curiosity around and making a decision to invest your time and your energy around that and and holding on to your timelines loosely or relinquishing them all together again it goes back to this idea of direction, like just be on a direction. You don't have to set these violent goals and punish yourself if you can't live up to them or create some kind of morning routine or daily regimen that is just superhuman and impossible to sustain for longer than 10 days without like falling off the wagon, right? So what can you devote yourself to that

gets you excited when you wake up in the morning? Obviously, if it animates you, it's easier to stay in it and stay connected to the direction that you're on. And not everybody, you know, has that. And I think that's another thing that does people of violence. Like, well, I don't have a passion or like, I don't have that thing that I'm excited to wake up in the morning and go after and, like, chase. If you don't, that's the thing that you feel guilty about. But the only way to find that is by engaging with your curiosity. And I think there's some tools that we could talk. that might be helpful to people who are like, well, I don't know what my goal should be,

or I don't know what gives myself my life meaning, or I feel like I don't have purpose. It all goes back to investing in your relationship with yourself, like having a healthy dialogue with, you know, your interior, right? And, you know, we can talk for hours about meditation and mindfulness practices and the like. But even just physical exercise, anything that connects you to your body and gives you the time and the space for your unconscious mind to wander where you can reflect. But I think the real, the sort of principled and most helpful tool that I have found for creating clarity amidst this type of confusion is the practice of morning pages.

And this is something I actually, Tim Ferriss tweeted about it the other day saying like if there's one thing you can do like morning pages, You're just like vomiting, you know, three pages every morning for a couple minutes can change your life. And I retweeted it and said, I concur, and, you know, a lot of people kind of re-shared that. And I think it's really true. Like, I started this practice of morning pages back in 1999 when I read Julia Cameron's book, The Artist's Way, which is a primer on recovering your innate creativity. And it's this practice of every morning sitting down and writing three pages, not with any agenda, but really just to cut through the cobwebs and just allow yourself to write whatever the pen wants to write, without editing yourself. And it becomes this unlock where you start to see patterns in your behavior, you start to allow your unconscious mind to spill out onto the page. And all of these are like data points that very subtly and over a long period of time,

you know, create a little bit more clarity about what's important to you, what you care about, and the decisions that you should be making, the things that you're avoiding, right? We're talking about like all the growth is on the other side of the things that we're avoiding. This practice has just been, you know, absolutely crucial and central and everything that I've been able to do in my life. And so if you were in that confused space, I don't know what my goal. is, I don't know, you know, I don't know where to begin with all of this stuff. Like, that's where you begin. Yeah. The only thing I would say is it's something you've already said, just to bring back and highlight is that if you don't have a passion, you do have values. And, you know,

if you read David's books, everything he's doing is values based. And that's the first thing you said is to make sure that your direction is empowered or guided by your values. And so, if you don't have a passion, you don't know what you want to do, I was in that space. You know, you think of your values first. And the great thing about David's message is it's really one of personal responsibility and discipline. And these are just things that most people lack. You know, they lack in huge amounts, I think.

And we can all benefit from taking a little bit more responsibility for our lives and having a little bit more discipline, especially in this distracted world where it's just so easy to, you know, fall into this lullaby of scrolling and Netflix where everything around you is oriented around creating comfort. Yeah, that's right. So we talked about a lot of different things. Can we boil it down to a checklist for people who are interested in kind of getting there with their goals, their direction? What are kind of like four or five things that people can do? So in terms of getting clarity on your goals and really being more certain about the validity of this being the thing that you're going to invest all this time and energy into, self-care is really where it begins and ends. You have to be moving your body.

You've got to be exercising. You've got to be sleeping well. You have to be nourishing your body. You have to be spending time in nature. You have to be with your community of friends who are also going to act as accountability partners. And you've got to get, you know, get that pen to paper and start with that morning pages practice. Do not do it on the computer. This is not, you know, you're not dictating this or any, you have to literally get a pen in a journal and write it out longhand.

So as boring and as mundane as all of those, you know, sort of things sound, like, that's really what it's about. And I think being patient, you know, this idea that you're going to get struck by lightning and have this epiphany or, you're going to have some degree of certainty also is something that I think we allow to do ourselves of violence. It's like what Dr. Ellen Langer always says. We ruminate on these decisions, and what we need to do is develop a reflex to action. Instead of worrying about whether you're making the right decision, just make the decision right. Like, you have to like, change is an action-based affair, right? So if you want to make a change, you have to make these changes and you have to do them decisively. And we get into this mental, you know, kind of masturbation around, well, should I do

this or shouldn't I do that? Or yeah, but if I do that, I don't have the right shoes. So I'm going to have to research that. And all of these are impediments to action that prevent us from just engaging with change in a tactile and fundamental way that is moving our lives forward incrementally every single day. So release the timelines, invest in your curiosity, get eight hours of sleep, you know, try to eat healthy foods, enjoy your friendships, and get off the phone. You know, this is like dumb shit, right? You know, but like, we all struggle with these things. None of us is doing it perfect. And give yourself the grace to be imperfect within the construct of like giving yourself space to make these changes. I had a whole phone hygiene thing

going. And it kind of went out the window with book promotion. Yeah. Now I'm... Yeah, like, let me like provide the seamless transition from answering these three questions into getting to talk about your new novel. We're entering into the new year. And you have toiled diligently for a long time to give birth to this creative project, which is a testament to you having set a goal that you were going to write this novel and put it out into the world.

So congratulations for that. It's no small achievement. I can't imagine writing a novel. I'll tell you this. I had to run through a lot of red lights. It is. There's a lot of red lights. Yeah, but you're right here

and I've given you a green light. You know what I mean? You had enough green lights to be here, right? Yeah, that's true. I'll tell you, I can there's some green lights. Yeah, it's sort of like, when do you heed the red lights and when do you ignore them?

You know what I mean? So this has been a journey of resilience. on your part because there were a lot of roadblocks and plenty of people saying, don't do this, or you shouldn't do this, or, you know, we're not interested in what you're doing. And you could read that like, well, they're right. You know, maybe I shouldn't be doing this. And something inside of you felt strongly enough about this to believe in it and believe in yourself to do an end run around these red lights, you know, drive right through them and get a bunch of tickets. And until you finally got a great

greenlighter too. So before we even get into the book, like what, you know, what has that process been of overcoming those obstacles and finding the resilience to, you know, push through and achieve this goal for yourself? Oh, man. It's, it's, well, thank you for the compliments. It was, it was, it was a lot harder than nonfiction. I can say, you know, that's what I can say. But I think there's a couple, like, the first red lights that I was dealing with were in my head. So they weren't really red lights. They were like, the doubt, can you do it? So for a couple of years, it was like, this sucks, this sucks, you suck, this sucks. That was like many hours a day when I was living in that space. It's not a real nice space to live, but it is kind of... It's also not the greatest headspace to be in when you're trying to be creative. Right.

So what you learn is you have to... It's not like it's constant, but it comes up, right? And sometimes it's like in the first couple drafts, things aren't good. And so you do need to get, like, it's knowing, I think, a couple of things. I had abandoned a novel before. I'd completed a manuscript before, too. So I had had experience listening to the doubt and getting off something that was a good project. So I knew that.

And so it was easier to run those red lights because I knew they weren't really red lights. They were just, it was just myself trying to stop this, whatever this was, which was kind of the complete takeover of my body and soul of a story that I, really felt like that was kind of coming through me. I could feel it, I could see it now from a distance that I thought it was me coming up with this idea, but in actuality, it's this idea coming through me. You know, it's kind of like how Elizabeth Gilbert

and Anne Patchett had that thing in Big Magic where Elizabeth Gilbert had an idea and didn't pursue it or pursued it lightly and then gave up. And then Anne Padgett wrote a book about the same idea years later. And so there's actually a story I just heard that's kind of similar to that. But to answer your question, I was getting a lot of nose right away, and that continued for years and years. But there were also some green lights, and the green lights were coming from

early readers, from early readers of the manuscript. But they were also coming from the world at large. Like there's a, there's a one-legged crow in this book. When I thought I divined the one-legged crow on the page, I'd never seen one before. But then we moved house. We were still in the middle of, I was still middle of writing the book. I wasn't even finished with it yet. We weren't even full manuscript form yet. And April saw one-legged crow on our block. And next thing you know, the one-legged crows in our backyard every day for like a year. And so that was all happening while we were looking for a publisher for this book and we were going through all those red, you're getting those red lights. But knowing that like this one-legged crow, this ambassador from the crow community was in our

backyard every day, it made it almost impossible to stop at those red lights. Because like, and maybe it's like delusion and maybe it's all quixotic. And maybe it's just me fleeing myself against the world as like a goal-oriented person trying to see if this experiment is worth anything. But I couldn't stop because I knew like to me it's like there had to be some reason that this was happening. And that's just one story with all of this. And so I was just driven to tell something that's different. And like, if you look at every, every book out there, 99% of them are about human beings having a human experience in society or trying to, society is keeping them down, nation states, relationships. And there's a lot of that in here, too, the search for

identity. But the difference with this book is, is it, the search for identity doesn't stop at the human level. The search for identity goes to the nature level. And I feel like what's powerful about that is that there's so much unity in that. And so I was trying to tell a story that is, first of all, entertaining. It's a bit of an escape. It takes place in 2005. It's a real story about a tiger in the suburbs of L.A. It really happened. I really covered it. But it also is an opportunity to kind of see your place in the world a little bit differently. And so that's kind of what I was after. And I feel like I achieved it. And so having written something that I knew was good and getting some green lights that were kind of almost cosmic,

I couldn't stop at the red lights. Yeah, the idea of discerning the difference between what is truly a red light and what is like your internal self-sabotaging mechanism or your excuse maker. You know what I mean? And that becomes like tricky. It is tricky.

Yeah, I mean, I had experience, though, with that self-sabotage or that doubt. I knew how to quiet doubt. I knew how to not listen to it. And that's part of the job of the professional writer. And I think Stephen Pressfield talks about this. That's part of the job is to turn down the volume on the doubt and tune into the job of the day.

And the job of the day is either putting words on the page or to try to get this character going over the pages to make sure this character arc is right. And if you don't know what you're doing for the job of the day, that leaves a lot of space for doubt. So part of the job is to zero in. And that just comes with experience. I mean, you know, I've been at this in some form for 20 years now.

So it's like I had, and when I started writing, it would have been 15 years. But still, that's a lot of time. And I've had enough success in that period of time to know my way around it. At the same time, every time you start a book, it's totally new. And so you never know completely, can I do this one? You know, so it's also terrifying at the same time. But, like, if you have this toolkit, you have a process, you trust, you like the process, even the days that are hard, you'll still do it the next day. And I think that just comes with experience in the habits, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, here we are. As Seth Godin says, the job of the creator isn't just to create. It's to create and then ship. Yes. And so here we are on Monday. Tomorrow is the official pub day, right?

That's right. Tuesday. It comes out. December 2nd. American tiger available everywhere. We showed the poster on the last roll on, some beautiful cover. And it's basically the story of this motherless nine-year-old girl who sees a tiger outside of her school bus. No one believes her.

And then, you know, sort of then there's this journey that ensues from that, that, you know, is all the things that you said, that you mentioned, you know, about our connection with nature and, you know, what does it mean to be in the modern world? and this idea that we are separate from all of these energies and forces. Right. That's the idea that we are apart from rather than a part of nature, which is, you know, like nature's always here. You know, like we think of it like, oh, we're abusing Mother Nature. No, Mother Nature is always underneath and it's coming up through the cracks and the concrete and it's all around us.

And so that's part of it. You know, you tell the story of a tiger roaming around Simi Valley. Like I said, a true story that happened. and people think of it as jaws. Like, and that's what people, like, first want. Right. They want the story of this tiger. Killing people.

It's going to be a murder. It's going to be a true crime. That's right. But this one is... And then you hit them with, like, this kind of, you know, Buddhist. Well, it's more like, you know what it's like? It's like a different Spielberg movie. But it has Spielberg elements.

You have the, you know, the child with the awe and wonder. That's right. And none of the adults believe the kid. Exactly right. Exactly right. And her father, single dad, is the Game Warden, who ends up being tasked with, like, figuring out, is she telling the truth or not? Because she has a, you know, she tells stories.

But this is not Jurassic Park. This is where it's different from. I was thinking more like E.T. Yeah, it's E.T. Yeah, yeah, that's what it is. It's really the story of Jay Turn and Bell Turn, the nine-year-old girl and Jay, the father. And it's really kind of a father-daughter story as he's dealing, he's a stoic game warden who has an ethos, has vexed. value system that drives his life and drives her life at the same time because she wants to be

like him. But then they have secrets, you know, like Jay is grieving something and can't bear to talk about it. And that impacts Bell's knowledge of her mother and who she was. And that's what kind of drives her lies in the first place is trying to figure out, you know, who am I? And so it's her quest for identity and his quest to keep the lid on all the pain. And that becomes the driving force for it. But at the same time, it's like, it's also just a story of like, can you imagine having this precocious nine-year-old daughter? I mean, and nine is like this crazy age, right? You mean, you've raised two daughters or raising.

Like, your youngest is still in high school. I mean, what was their nine-year-old year? Like, do you remember that well? I mean, yeah, that's a great age. You know, that's the waning years of innocence, you know, where there's a sweetness, you know, and a closeness, you know, that I remember that quickly evaporates when, you know, with the onset of puberty. Yes, yes. You know, I think dads and daughters is a very interesting dynamic relationship. And, yeah, I have experience with it. I have an 18-year-old daughter and a 21-year-old daughter, soon to be 22, and they are roller coaster rides. You know, there's nothing like the bond that a dad has with the young daughter, like at that age, like the sweetness. You know, there's just something really special about that.

And then it goes haywire for a handful of years, and then it starts to come back around. And I think what makes it interesting is the dad doesn't quite understand the young female animal, you know, And they're sort of sniffing around each other and curious about each other, but they fundamentally don't understand each other. You know what I mean? It creates this fascination because both of them are yearning for closeness, but they have different languages and they have different kind of constitutional dispositions that sometimes are a mismatch for each other, which creates a fraught, you know, kind of confusing relationship in which each party is trying to figure out, like, how can I get closer to? this person, but signals are easily, you know, misinterpreted, you know what I mean? So it's like, for example, just like, you know, like I have an 18 year old and I spent the day in the car with her yesterday and just trying to find ways of like points of connection, like how to get, how to like

communicate and and have this open, you know, kind of channel, an intimate, you know, kind of level of communication is, is challenging, you know what I mean? And you just get these glimpses every once in a while where there's an opening and you're like, oh, this is the best, you know, and then they go away. And, you know, they, it goes through different stages of life also. It's a special kind of relationship, I think. Yeah. But here's the main question that I have for you, Adam, about this book.

It's an important one. Okay. Turn it upside down. Yes. And as you will see on the back there, there is a blurb by me. And my question is, why is my blurb third and at the bottom? I didn't have anything to do with this, Rich. What do you mean?

It's a self-published book, right? Did you not, are you, were you not involved in every decision? April's, April, overseas everything. After all I've done for you, Adam. You marginalize me. No, no. I've got Elizabeth Gilbert and you. That's like the perfect, the perfect bookends.

Yeah. Well, congratulations on it. I'm excited. So you can get it on Amazon. Is it in, are you going to have it? bookstores? Oh, yeah, yeah. At the painted porch in Bastrop, Texas.

Yeah, at Diesel here, Brentwood. I mean, you can get it. You know, it's going to be at heritage goods and supply as well in California. But any bookstore you want can get it. So all you have to do, if you want it, if you want your bookstore to carry it, is just call them and order it from the bookstore. They'll get it in. But if you want it in your favorite bookstore, the best way to, and if you want to get it from

them, the best way is to call and order it. But you can also order it. Obviously, Amazon. There's an audible coming. Yes. We've been... Which we recorded... You recorded here at Voicing Chain.

That's right. Jason Camello, the recording engineer on that, and he and I've been working on it for a while now. And so I'm the narrator of it. And so that'll be fun. That comes out in January, most likely. And if you look in the acknowledgments, if you get the book, you'll notice that not just Rich Roll,

but the Rich Roll podcast community is thanked in it. And because I can't, the only reason I'm able to do this at all is because of this connection. It's because of being a part of this community. And, you know, it'd be interesting to see how far we can launch beautiful, good stories, positive stories into the world. And so that's what, you know, you've done for me already. And so I guess that's my only invitation is for us to kind of be in this together. Because the only way this thing surfaces to the top of the pile is if the people who know who I am

and care about the work I've done are involved in that. And you've been involved in that. So I want to thank you and thank this community because it's really been amazing. Thanks, man. Well, all right. So everybody, get off your butt, order this book. It's a great Christmas gift.

You got your gift sorted. We're supporting Skolnick. And like you said, we're in it together. And speaking of the community support, we forgot to talk about these hats that we have here. So these baseball hats were created by a fan of the show. Peter, Peter G. We can't, like, I'm trying to read his last name on this beautiful card that he sent.

I think he's, I think it's given. But either way, Peter, thank you for these. As you can see, it's got a scuba mask and the Rich Roll Podcast logo right next to it. So this is the official roll-on baseball hat, which is pretty clever. It is it. I appreciate it. I'm putting my arm. And this shirt that I'm wearing was a gift from John Price, the union psychiatrist who I had on the show recently.

And you can see it's got these hermit crabs on there, which is a symbol that he that he talks about a lot as like, you know, the man has to, has to, you know, basically shed his shell and grow a new one. You know, when you grow, you need to expand your shell. Yeah. So anyway, thank you for that, John. Thanks, Peter, for the hats. All right, I think we did it. We're done for today. We'll see you in 2026.

Yes. Congratulations on the book, Adam. Thank you, man. American Tiger. Pick it up on Amazon. call your bookstore, fill them to stock it. It's pretty. It's pretty.

Coming in January. And more good stuff. We have lots of exciting stuff planned for 2026, format-wise, event-wise, all kinds of interesting things that we're cooking up right now. So I'll tell you more about all of that in the new year. We're going to be doing more on substack and just, you know, live events, all kinds of cool stuff. So I'll leave it there for now. And have a wonderful holiday, everybody.

and we'll see you in 2026. Thanks, Adam. Thank you, man. All right. Love you, buddy. Love you, too. Happy holidays. Congratulations on the book. Yeah, thank you. Peace. Peace. All right, everybody, that's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. I really do hope that you enjoy the conversation. To learn more about today's guest, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit today's episode page at richroll.com, where you will find the entire podcast archive, as well as my books, Finding Ultra, the voicing change series, and the plant power way. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing

you can do is free, actually. All you've got to do is subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review or drop a comment. Sharing your show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is, of course, awesome as well, and extremely helpful. So thank you in advance for that. In addition, I'd like to thank all of our amazing sponsors without whom this show just would not be possible or at least you know not free uh to check out all their amazing product offerings and listener discounts head to richroll.com slash sponsors and finally for podcast updates special offers on books and other subjects please subscribe to our newsletter which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll dot com today's show is produced

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along with her cousin, Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support, and I'll see you back here soon. Peace, plants.