The Rich Roll Podcast - ROLL ON: American Tiger, Adventures Abroad, & The Art of Showing Up

Episode Date: October 9, 2025

Roll On is here! Adam Skolnick and I catch up after a month of nonstop travel. Tokyo for the Track & Field World Championships, New York, and DC multiple times. Big news: Adam announces his debut novel American Tiger—20 years in the making, with the audiobook recorded right here in our studio. Also on tap: my family crisis that required an Ocean's 11-style heist, accidentally crashing the wrong high school reunion, Alex Honnold scaling skyscrapers live on Netflix, the Norwegians sweeping Ironman Nice, and Sean Penn's performance in “One Battle After Another." I get candid about what it means to show up when every button you have is being pushed, generational trauma, and practicing unconditional love. Buckle up! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up   Today’s Sponsors: 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  On: High-performance shoes & apparel crafted for comfort and style 👉https://www.on.com/richroll              Seed: Use code RICHROLL25 for 25% OFF your first order👉https://www.seed.com/RichRoll25                           Pique: Get up to 20% OFF plus a FREE rechargeable frother and glass beaker with your first subscription 👉https://www.piquelife.com/richroll                   Roka: Unlock 20% OFF your order with code RICHROLL👉https://www.ROKA.com/RICHROLL      Go Brewing: Use the code Rich Roll for 15% OFF 👉https://www.gobrewing.com               Check out all 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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supports you every step of the way it's nice to see you i can see you we're doing it roll on is happening here we go i'm a little bleary eyed i just flew in from the east coast last night uh my energy is is a little unstable so it's unclear how this is going to go do you notice anything different about the studio, though. I do. I can see you perfectly. Yeah. Yeah, there's no obstruction. How is this being recorded and put on the internet without a microphone? And no lapel mics. I know. I don't really have a lapel. Look up. Look up. We have the overhead mics. You got an overhead boom situation. Hopefully people can hear this, but there is something beautifully liberating about not having a microphone right in your face. I kind of like it.

We'll see how this goes. It could go completely off the rails because we're going to forget that we're being recorded. Oh, that'll be even better. That'll be better going forward, yeah. How's it going? It's going good, man. It's nice to be here. You know, I've had this very interesting, I didn't tell you this, but for the first time,

I had an Instagram post go, not viral, but fungal, without your health. Fungle? Fungle. Meaning it burrowed into the soil underground. It reached its tentacles far and wide, but in ways that people can't quite. I'd see it. The tens of thousands. Do you ever go to the Dodgers?

Do you ever go to Dodger game? I do not. I have been to a Dodgers game, but not in a long time. Do you remember the guy that tosses peanuts that, like, he used to do behind the back, and he's, like, very famous. Kind of. Okay. So I was a couple weeks ago, I was at the game, and I saw him, and I was with April and

her friend from Australia, Christy, and our friend from Australia. And the three of us were there, and I said, this guy's a legend. You know, I grew up going to the baseball. Like, that's been part of my life for a long, long time. And I've seen this guy since I'm a little kid, and he was famous. His thing was he would take at the time they were double bag, wrapped paper bags, and he'd go behind the back. He'd do sky hooks.

He would no look. He would go, you know, honestly 20 rows away, and he'd be hitting you. And you just raise your hand, he'd hit you, then he'd come back around for the money later. Turns out, so I was talking to him, and he's still doing it. He's 83 years old, still out there doing it, and I told his story, which is that, you know, he was a teenager when he got the job and the stadium open in 62, and he's been doing it. He's only missed one year, and that was last year because he had a stroke, and he was 10 months in a rehab hospital, and nobody knew about it. Like, he was just kind of, like, buried there. And then a Dodger fan found out, word leaked out, cards kind of started trickling in, and then, like, all of a sudden, his room was just decked out.

And it was all, come back, come back, we miss you. And that drove him through the rehab. And now he still has like a slightly uncooperative thing with his left side. He still has to kind of be mindful sometimes. But he's literally hauling this big bag of peanuts. He's still doing it. He's still doing his thing back on the job. So I took a photo and just like told his little story.

And it's been so fun seeing all the people who recognize him and just like posting on the comments. It's one of those that, like, people are just, like, tagging their friends and just talking about this guy. Oh, we love him. We get him a bobblehead, that kind of thing. So his name is Roger Owens, amazing guy. He was super cool to talk with me a little bit there. 83? 83.

83. Yeah. Wow. 83, and he's still hauling peanuts. And apparently he used to do the USC games, too, football. I've been hearing from people who know them, who are friends of mine. Jessica Ritz, who we had some fun on the comments, talking about, like, the old carnation maltz, all the different things, how it used to be. the stadium. But then you see lots of

older people who are like inspired by the story. Just people who, you know, this is a guy who's touched literally millions of people, right? Like this, Dodger Stadium is one of L.A.'s like power spots, right? We have our little power spots, and it's definitely one of them that unites the whole city. We've been doing it

for 60 years, too. So imagine how many people have passed through and experienced his thing. Right, and he's just there to deliver you some fun, a smile. He's there for the vibes. And then you You put the vibe out, and I'm heartened by the fact that, like, a good news story, a heartwarming news story could go fungal.

Totally. It's completely blown my mind. I've been doing Instagram wrong this whole time. Like, when I started to do it, it was like I was a lonely planet writer. I thought, oh, I'll just give, you know, it was really Instagram. It would go up immediately. And I thought, you know, I'm in unusual places. And I'll put, like, unusual photos, no caption.

but now it's like if you're a journalist though where's the story right i need to find the roger owens is of the world but what i like about roger's story more than anything is it can show no matter who you are no matter what you do you can make a huge impact you know and that's what this guy has done just just through doing this thing that brought him joy yeah bringing other people joy and now you have had the uh the joy of experiencing the dopamine hit of the internet And you're a goner. I know. It's so weird.

You're going to become a slave to it. You're going to be like, I need a story. Well, what was weird about this one is like it had gone. It's like gotten its 3,000 views of the people in my world that would care a little bit about the Dodgers. And it was like, you see the interior stats and it's like 98% followers and 2% non-followers. And then I thought it was done. And then all of a sudden it just got this lift off like the algorithm found it or somebody re-shared it or with a lot. larger profile or whatever and then it went from there and so for the first time i'm like diving

into the statistics of my following and i realize i am not i am not killing it with gen z i am not killing it with gen z stay away from that all right i want to keep my friend don't become a slave like ever like the rest of us i won't i won't um but you have actually uh some even bigger news i do yeah it's very big yeah go get it okay go get it tell you tell you tell me what it's about well um for those that are just listening you just held up a giant poster with the cover art for your new book your novel american tiger yeah this is my this is my announcement like i haven't announced it at all publicly you've been super quiet about this i've been quiet it's coming out December 2nd american tiger it's um the origins of this go

back 20 years but i've been working on it intently since uh the pot since the the pandemic yeah All right, you can put it away now and sit down. All right, all right. Pretty amazing. A novel. A novel. Yeah. That's a bold move, Skullnick.

I know. You know who John Branch is, the New York Times reporter. He writes about sports. I used to know him. We work together a little bit and just work communications a while ago. And he's like, what are you working on? Are you working on another book? And I said, I'm working on a novel, actually.

He goes, you're insane. That was the, you're insane, didn't hear from, that was in the mic drop. And he was right. I was insane. It drove me insane. But, you know, we're getting close to, I'm so excited to share it. I think it's, you know, you hear this all the time, but I do feel like it's my best work. I feel, ever since I got into writing, I've wanted to do fiction and nonfiction.

All the writers I most admire have done that. You know, you just had Liz Gilbert on here. She's one of them. And so it's something that publishing doesn't really want you to do. So it took a while to figure out the right pathway to publication, but we found it. We're excited. And you know what? It's been great.

I'm so happy to be able to announce it here. We have a pre-order campaign that's just kicking off. You can go to American Tiger Book.com. You can sign up to win one of ten signed copies. So we're just getting that all rolling. And you can go to the substack, Adam Skolnick, it's dotsubstack.com as well. Get some more info on it. And so we're just getting this whole process rolling.

A lot of fun stuff lined up. And one of the best parts of it is being able to record the audiobook right here. It's pretty exciting that an actual audiobook has been recorded in this facility. It is exciting. And even more exciting that it's yours. And our guy, Jason, up there, engineered it, right? He did. Yeah, yeah.

It's pretty cool. So we made this whole booth and everything. It was a whole process, right, to get the engineering of it correct. Because it's very different than doing a podcast. Like anyone who has voiced an audiobook will know. Like, it's a very specific kind of way to engineer this with a different kind of software. And you need a proper booth that's soundproofed. And there's all these standards, right?

Before you can get approval to have it on. audible and all of these places, right? So you have to go to typically, like, the kind of recording, the recording studios that were made for musicians. It's like that kind of level where you have the right door and you have the glass and all that. And so you guys put the studio together recently and you didn't have that, you weren't great if that,

that wasn't something that was on your radar. But one of the reasons I wanted to do it here besides just to collaborate with you guys and because it's been so meaningful for me to do that, is that the book takes place in this, I'd say, ecosystem, because that's what it is. You know, it's about a Game Warden and his daughter and the rumors of a tiger

kind of roaming around the suburbs of Los Angeles. And it's based on a true story I reported for the LA Weekly in 2005. I won't go into too much detail now about it, but the whole idea is it's rooted in Southern California. It's rooted in this ecosystem, the chaparral, the mountains, the wildlife. And so it takes place out here. And literally the wildlife crossing that's going in a couple exits down leads to, the whole idea of it is to lead wildlife from the Santa Monica Mountains to that very ecosystem that's

in this book. So it's like it all fits and for it to have come together because it wasn't easy. Like you said, we had to kind of get the booth to a certain standard and Jason was busting his ass to do it. and we managed to do it and so that has allowed me to record it in the natural habitat which is exciting and thrilling

and the whole thing is cool and reading a fiction book is different than non-fiction like I had to learn how to be a narrator in a very different way because I had the success with the others but so this has been a complete learning experience and quite wild yeah

I'm excited for you man thanks it's a whole that is like such another level to write a novel I can't imagine Oh, dude. It's like 25, 26 drafts. And the thing about writing any book is that you're always in the weeds for a period of time. And that period of time could be one year, could be five years, could be four months. It depends on the scope of the project and how you're able to do it. But like... I wouldn't know anything about that. Yeah, right. As you know, we've been talking about it. But like, with a novel, the first 10 drafts, I was convinced I was like, what am I doing? Because what you're doing is you're spending literally all my time for a year. was on this book. And I'm like, my kid is, like, growing up.

Like, I should be earning money. Like, what am I doing? Like, you, so the doubt gets kicked up another level. But, like, all these books, you get to, you know, the freedom comes, or not the freedom, but at least the uplift comes when you realize that what you're writing is pretty good. But that takes a long time to get there. And for fiction, it takes even longer than nonfiction, in my opinion. Well, I'm proud of you, man.

Thanks. And I look forward to getting into the book. that place at some point in my life you're getting there you're gonna get there um awesome man so american tiger tiger book dot com american tiger book dot com um that'll take you right to kind of the book page and then also on on substack now i finally join the substack brigade yeah welcome to modernity thank you thank you um so yeah it's all just starting a lot of fun stuff coming um and you know roll on book club maybe a roll on book club night maybe for the roll on people yeah live audience maybe situation yeah we'll figure it out okay um i went to new york city then i went to dc and i

came back to la for like two days and then was in tokyo for 12 days at the world champs right at the track and field world championships then i was in new york city back to dc back to new york and then flew back home last night. So I'm a little bedraggled. It's been a lot. I mean, Tokyo was dope. I'd never been to Japan before. What an incredible experience.

I was there to work with On, our brand partner, the Running Shoe and Apparel Company. They were making a big presence in Tokyo around the World Championships of Track and Field. They had an On Labs that was similar to the one that they had in Paris for the Olympics, but on just a much more massive scale, like right in the heart of Shibuya, which is the bustling, you know, like very populated area. Like when you see photos of Tokyo or whatever, it's probably that area.

You know, like, where there's lots of people. Yeah, it's not that far from that big mega crossing and all of that. And it was, you know, a two-story, gigantic complex that had, you know, all of these experiences for the public to take advantage of. over the course of this track and field meet, they could try on the light spray. It was all the light spray stuff, you know, the shoe that they have engineered. But then they had like an athlete lounge and they would do panels

and then they would have all these cool things at night, like sort of urban street culture events with DJs and, you know, run club stuff, like a dance experience. And then they had a woman who was like painting gigantic, like Japanese characters on walls. It was very cool. Is this their big splash into the Japanese market? I mean, I think it was their introduction to the Japanese market as a brand. Not that they didn't have a presence there, but they were really putting a big imprimatur upon like

this on this country. And they opened up a brand new store in Ginza, this fancy, you know, on store. And so, yeah, it was sort of like, we're here now. And they had 60, athletes competing in the track and field meet, which is their, it's like, I don't know if it's double, but it's close to double what they had, like the last world championship. So, you know, they're just kind of expanding their scope in elite performance, but also in the kind of consumer market with everything that they're doing. And so it was just cool to be there as a brand ambassador and do a bunch of stuff with them. I got to do this Kinsugi experience with one of their athletes, Bella Whitaker.

There was a video that went up on our Instagram. Did you see that? Yeah, I did see that. Which was really fun. It's cool. We kind of like had a podcast while we were doing Kinsugi. Yeah, you're doing the gold and gold. Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, I did a couple things like that. I did some man on the street interviews for a video that they used for this town hall that was an internal kind of live stream that they did for their entire team, like while I was there. And it was fun, man. I went to finals on two nights, the first night that I went. I got to see George Beamish when. the gold medal in the 3,000 meter steeplechase. That's amazing. He's the first on gold medalist at the world championship level.

He's an on athlete. And I was in the on section as all these people that work for on, including Olivier Bernhard, who's the co-founder. And when this guy won the gold medal, like he was the guy who in the, in the, in the, in the heats, like he fell and almost got stomped on. It looked like he did get stumped on. Well, that photo was a little like the way it made it like if you. Watch the video.

Yeah. I think the shoe wasn't quite as close. It was sort of, it wasn't lined up with his head. But that photo made it look like literally, you know, the spikes were going into his temple. Well, I saw the video first. And I'm like, did that guy just get stomped on? And then I saw the still. I'm like, he did get stomped on.

But then. He didn't quite get stomp. Yeah. I guess when you're a steeple chaser, is that what they call them? Yeah. A steeple chase athlete. When you're chasing steepals. You're a steeple chasteman.

Yeah. You're used to falling. You fall a lot? I don't know. I mean, how could you not? You're, like, jumping over these things. First of all, how do they, you know, those hurdles, like they're all jumping over the same hurdle.

And it's wider. It's not like a thin, you know, the top of it is like this metal thing. It's wide. They're like traffic barricades. But they're in spikes, which are like a slippery. Maybe they have a different kind of shoe. I should know this. So it's amazing to me that more of them aren't falling all of the time.

But I guess the point being like they fall. So they know how to practice their fall and get right back up. But in the heats, he gets up, but he's obviously way behind now. And he runs his way all the way into second place and almost like won the heat. If he had another 10 meters, he probably would have. And he only needed a second, right, to get it. Yeah, exactly, to advance. So by the time he gets to the finals, he already has, like, the crowd is behind him because, like, of this story.

But with about 300 meters to go. Just as a layperson watching track and field, like, I'm like, there's no way this guy's going to wait. Like, he was so far back. I'm like, oh, well, you know. Oh, well, there goes on the sky. 200 meters, it was like, there's no way, you know. And then this guy's kick was so insane. Like, he just literally flicked a switch and just passed everyone and, like, won to victory.

It was like crazy. I've never seen anything like that. That's awesome. But the on section obviously goes insane. Yeah. And Olivier, you know, he was like a kid in a victory. candy store. He's so excited. It's their first gold medal. And then shortly thereafter, they won their second gold medal in the women's 100 meter hurdles. Amazing. Dita, this

athlete Dita, who won that. And Olivier is like, it took 15 years for us to win our first world championship gold medal and like 15 minutes to win our second one. That's how it works, right? The way it works, right? But what was cool was that he was so, he was like a little kid. He He was so excited. And even after the finals were over and we're kind of in the stadium, you know, in the hallway trying to exit, he's like taking photos of the team and he's like jumping up and down. And it was a moment, like a sweet moment, you know, in this brand that has grown so much and now has this global presence, but still is this newcomer, you know, they're not Nike. They're not, you know, they haven't been around. Like they had 68 athletes there, but, you know, they're still, you know, trying to, you know, put their stamp on that. this, and they were able to do that and be able to be there. It was super cool. That is cool. And I got to see Mondo break his world record in the pole vault, which is great.

And was he, is he an on guy, too? No, he's not. The Swedish guy, he kind of looks like Timothy Shalame. Do you remember him from the Olympics? I do, I do, I do, I do. Well, the great thing about him is that he's so much better than everyone else. Right. But he gets, like, a bonus payment every time he breaks the world record.

So he has no incentive to, you know, break it by a wide margin. So once a year or whatever, like, he'll just, you know, it gets to the point where it's, like, you know, one centimeter higher than it was the year before, and he easily clears it, you know. So he's just going to keep doing that, I guess, instead of this, he could, like, you know, put it up, like, you know, probably, like, I don't know, quite a bit more. It's interesting. I wanted to have, like, the Paul Vault technology has changed. you know like the pole i wonder if it's more bendy if it's like i don't know i don't know yeah i don't know yeah i don't know anything about that i mean obviously the training is advanced in the the apparel and the shoes and the gear i don't know about the pole though what about this light spray so is the idea

that like the light spray is the place you'd go to get a shoe that's like custom right for an event and then or is it is it like no it's not it's i mean it could it could be that one day uh they have the technology for that but essentially it's just this robot arm that can create an upper for a shoe in three minutes, and it adheres to the last, the soul, without any glues, and it's just one ingredient, this microfiber, and it revolutionizes the supply chain of shoe manufacturing, because most running shoes are comprised of, you know, something like, you know, 80 to 100 different pieces, and those things are shipped from all over the world and require, you know, human interaction in order to finally assemble them.

Right. And this removes all of that. And so the ecological, like the sort of the carbon footprint is obviously much lower. And you can have these robots like all over the world. So you don't have to, you remove like the need to like ship massive volumes of shoes. But it's still in its early days. Like it's not even available for retail yet. But they have some of their Elite athletes are wearing them in competition. Not all of them, but plenty of them are. They're being tested and they're developed in cooperation with the athletes to make sure that they're getting the best product.

It's kind of an amazing innovation, actually. There's a story behind it, and so the OnLabs and part of my role is to kind of help tell that story, the same way that I did in Paris. The shoe without a footprint. Oh, that's good. That's good. Yeah, that one's free. You want a job in marketing, in advertising? You know what?

I'm a novelist. I obviously need a job. I might know a guy. Yeah, that's right. That's true. And Tokyo is just fantastic. I said in the intro to another podcast recently, I kind of rehashed that experience, but we did get a chance to hang out with Craig Maud for a day. And he took us on a walking tour through a couple different.

neighborhoods and we had an authentic experience and that was pretty cool I mean that's amazing like I would like we I mean I you know I love that that podcast I want to meet that guy but it would be so amazing just to walk do one walk with him yeah just through any town in Japan and it was fantastic yeah you know because he knows every little nook and cranny and he has stories about everything and he took us into this like Omicasse coffee experience that was you know one of the most you know high you know, kind of like high-level experiences you could imagine. And it was just this tiny little place.

You would walk right by it and not know. That was cool. We went to see his friend's apartment. He's friends with this young kid who is an artist who just graduated from art school or maybe still in art school anyway. And he just moved out of his house and had his own apartment. So we saw like the in authentic young person's apartment in Japan, which is essentially, you know, a tiny room, you know, but like he was so happy.

and it was fantastic. That's cool. What about the food? What about the food for you? Was it challenging at all for a plant base? There's a lot of vegan places now, actually. I guess that's pretty new. It hasn't always been the case.

Historically, it's pretty difficult to eat plant base there because fish is in everything and fish sauce and stuff like that. Wasn't that big of a problem. We had some great experiences and some misses, because Julie and I were walking around, I'm well, let's try this place. And, you know, it's like, not every place is, you know, going to be amazing. But it was, it was super fun.

I loved it. I, you know, just, it solves for so many problems that we experience in America, just the congeniality of people and the respect and the dignity and, you know, the care, like the sort of care that everyone takes for each other and also for, like, for their, occupation, like whether they're cleaning the public bathrooms or their taxi car, you know, taxi cap driver or whatever, like it was very evident. Like that is a, you know, like a cultural thing that we don't have here, which is super nice. Yeah. I loved it. And it was a lot different than I expected in certain ways, having been programmed my entire life to believe that like all

of Tokyo is so crowded, you can't move around. And, you know, everyone's smoking all the time. And it's not like that. Certainly there are crowded areas. But, But I found it to be incredibly livable and rather delightful. Man, I've only spent nights there, like, at different times. Because when I used to do the Indonesia beat a lot, I would go back and forth through Japan. And there was, like, a flight you could take LAX to Bali or Jakarta, that it would basically, Japan Airlines just made you stay the night,

and they'd put you up in a Narita hotel, which is kind of far from the city. but you could take the bullet train into the city. You're there in an hour, and you just go have fun. And a couple of times I spent two nights there just, like, in Tokyo. But that's all I've ever done. Yeah, you've got to go back. I got to go back and do it probably. I got friends over there, man.

Yeah, I got like the free divers. Oh, that's right. I got the free divers over there. There's a big free diving community. There is. They're fabulous. We're brought to you today by Seed. I have hosted so many microbiome experts on the show over the years.

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So that was great, and then I, you know, I went to New York and my intention was to... You came back straight to New York, right? I went straight to New York, yeah. Was to really focus on the book that I'm working on right now. But that got interrupted by some family stuff. As I've mentioned before on the podcast, my mom has dementia right now. And we've been trying to figure out how to best take care of her. And there have been fits and starts with...

with getting my parents into assisted living that have, at the last minute, kind of fallen apart or they've backed out of. And my dad has sort of living, has been living with my mother trying to take care of her on his own. And it's just an unmanageable situation because she really needs help that he can't provide. And this has been going on for a long time to the point where it's starting to get dangerous. And I was in D.C. before I went to Tokyo. and got a real taste of what's actually going on and realizing like this has gotten dire and needs to be addressed.

And, you know, I don't want to impinge upon my dad and his autonomy and make decisions on his behalf about how to live. That's for him to decide. But, you know, he, it was clear that he needed some help here. And so I went from New York down to D.C. and have been in D.C. for several days. And the long and short of it is that I showed up to really help solve this problem by getting my mom into a memory care unit in Washington.

So it was a very trying and difficult emotionally draining week that was tremendously sad and challenging and difficult for my dad, for my mom, of course. she's in a state where it's not that she doesn't recognize me at all, like it takes her a minute, but, you know, she doesn't really remember that I'm married or that she has grandchildren. If you remind her, she'll kind of clue in and you're not sure whether she is pretending or whether she really knows. And because she can't really remember anything from one minute to the next, like, my dad has been having to, like, manage this and he can't really leave the house. or if he wants to do something with her, it just becomes an incredibly unwieldy thing. And like a lot of people who suffer from this condition,

she's prone to angry outbursts and paranoia and thinks that, you know, everyone's against her. And he's kind of suffering in silence and has been for a long time to the point where, you know, it's almost like elder abuse, honestly. And it's dangerous because, you know, she was starting to wander out of the house and she can't really quite dress her. herself and it's you know there's a there's a lack of dignity there and and and also like a

level of denial on some part like it's fine my you know it'll be okay and it's like not okay you know so I had to kind of insert myself to move this thing forward and what ended up happening was that we had to perform a bit of an ocean's 11 type you know heist to get my mom out of the house and into this place and it was not easy you know it was it was extremely extremely difficult in draining. And so I'm kind of in the midst of a hangover from that experience. And as sad as it was, it really was the right thing for her because she needed to be looked after in a way that none of us are equipped to.

But also I'm choosing to look at it like a gift that I was able to help give to my dad because now he finally is able, he still has some vitality left. in him and he's still at our house and he can kind of live his life now. You know, he needs some help, but on a day-to-day basis, he can function and he's been suffering for so long. And now he has an opportunity to kind of, you know, do what he wants to do without feeling like he's been captured. So, yeah, it was, it was tough.

And, you know, we're at that age where this is life, you know, we got to, we're taking care of, like, life stuff. And I think the lesson really, for me, is that, yes, it's part of being an adult. But it's also like, this is what you get to do when you're sober and you're clear-minded. Like, you show up for the people in your life that need you when they need you, you know, to be of service to them. And so I'm so grateful that I was able to be able to be there to help my dad do this. because I could have easily been in Tokyo or it could have happened

at a different moment or something bad could have happened or I could have come up with some reason why I couldn't be there. You could have avoided it. I could have avoided it or circumstances could have been that I couldn't be there or whatever

but actually I could and so I was there and I'm really as difficult as it was and as inconvenient and like disrupted like this entire experience that I was supposed to be having like this is what you do

when you're a sober person and I feel really good about that and very grateful that I could be of service in that way and to help my dad reclaim his life and also be of service to my sister who lives there and is kind of dealing with it on the front lines on the daily you know so she's she's the one who's burdened with it while I'm out in Los Angeles like doing what I want to do right so it's nice to be able to show up for that they're in their 80s right mid 80s yeah my dad is My dad is only like maybe a year older than the Peanuts guy at the Dodgers Stadium, you know. And my mom's a couple years younger. And they've been together like over 60 years.

I mean, they've been together since high school. Must have been so hard for your dad. I mean, it seems like your dad and your sister are there, but they weren't going to be able to get to cross the finish line with this thing and you came in. I mean, do you want to talk about like your relationship with them over time and how that complicates this? even more. Yeah, I mean, my relationship with my dad is quite good. And this experience has brought us closer together, meaning just the experience of him trying to manage my mom over the last couple of years.

So I would say that our relationship is better than it's ever been. My relationship with my mother has always been difficult and challenging and just fraught. She's somebody who was never able to kind of see me for me. and I want to respect her privacy in some regard so I don't know how detailed I want to get about it but it's been a painful relationship with her for many years

and I've been trying like I've been on this journey to try to find a way to have more compassion and unconditional love for her because I have a lot of resentment and anger about my emotional needs not being met and it's crazy like to be like I'm almost 59 years old you know to like be like thinking about these things you know but but I bring it up because I think so much of the dynamic under which I was raised by her continues to impact like my relationships as an adult like in the way that I interact with my wife and my kids and because I've hosted so many

experts in psychology and early childhood trauma and addiction on the podcast for so many years, I have a hypersensitivity or a hyper awareness around the psychological issues at play. And I'm so determined to, like, heal them so that I don't feel this way about my mom. And I can be liberated from patterns that inhibit my ability to experience more intimacy with my wife or to parent my kids in the healthiest way possible, right? So I think it is important. I think part of our job as parents is to interrupt unhealthy generational pattern so that we don't pass them on to our kids.

I feel like that's a really important part of the job. And that's what I've been trying to do. But being with her in her demented state where she's reverted, you know, into more of a childlike state of mind has allowed me to do that. Well, also, at the same time, part of the dementia is just her more unfiltered. So I get a really clear picture. It's like, oh, this is what she's always thought. Right.

You know, that's interesting. Right. You weren't imagining it. Maybe she never liked me. Yeah, right. You know, it's like, this experience, I was like trying to help her all day. And it was so difficult, and she's so combative and doesn't want to be around me. Like, my presence antagonizes her.

And I remember going to bed that night, and I was like, my mom doesn't love you. Right, right. It's like a grown-ass man, you know what I mean? But, you know, it's interesting. Like, if you trigger her and she triggers, like, I wonder how much of it is, like, competitive fire, like, that you have, like, that you got you to the place. You know, because, like, if you look at it, just because we've been talking about, you know, we've been working on this other thing. And I got, I'm understanding you a lot more. And I'm seeing, like, the aloneness that that brings when you, when you're not sure if your mother is approved or even likes you.

You know, like, that's an aloneness there that is going to hover. And it takes work. It takes, I mean, it's, that's what the sobriety, to bring up the sobriety, I think it plugs in right there because that's the beginning. of you know, you getting sober is the beginning of you looking inside, right, and figuring out where the broken bits are. And so I just wonder, like, you think about it, like, here's someone who's kind of competing with you in some weird way, diabolical way, which is not healthy and she shouldn't be doing that, but, like, what, you know, you just think about these generations and with, and this is not to degrade her anyway, because it's with compassion. Like, you think

of generations of women who didn't have the options to be living in still not a fully equal society. I'm not trying to say it is, but there's much more opportunity now. And so you wonder how much of that played into the misery that people ended up in and then take it out on their family or their loved ones. Yeah, I think that's an astute observation. I would say that the competition aspect, that's probably more with my dad. I'll see my dad, you know, saying things where I'm like, oh, he's.

trying to compete with me, you know, whereas, like, all I've ever wanted is his approval, you know, like all these things that I've done in the world are solely for the purpose of him saying, good job, I love you, you know, and never quite getting it, you know, but with my mom... You should have gone to Harvard, Rich. Yeah, I'm constantly reminded of that to this day. It's hilarious. But with my mom, I think that, like, the armchair psychologist in me, if I had to diagnose her, I would diagnose her thus, thusly. This is a person who grew up in a household where her mom was a depressive shut-in. This is a person I know almost nothing about like no one in the family talks about her.

My mom never talks about her. My dad barely brings her up. But essentially, my mother didn't have a mother. There was something going on in terms of mental health with her mom. But this was a person who was checked out. So my mom never learned how to mother because she didn't have a mother to model it for her. And I would imagine that must have had a significant impact on her ability to give and receive intimacy, right? Because she just, she didn't get it herself.

Sure, yeah. But she had an older brother and a father that I presume she became close with out of necessity. I know that she revered both of these people. Her dad, who I'm named after, and he's the guy who I talk about in Finding Ultra that was captain of the University of Michigan. swim team and nearly made the Olympics and was an American record holder in swimming. This is like this crazy story in ways that like my life sort of, you know, mirrored his. Anyway, he passed away from a heart attack when I think he was 56 and she was in college. And I know that was a traumatic experience for her.

And then her older brother died in a tragic car accident. He was a lawyer. He was 40 years old in Grand Rapids. And I think he was coming home from a business trip or something like that. I know he had a 280 Z, a Dotson 280 Z, and I think it was a collision with a semi, like an 18-wheeler. Anyway, I remember vividly when he died the grief that my mother experienced. It was just, you know, something that I'll never forget. And I probably was like, I couldn't have been older than maybe seven or something, maybe eight or something like that.

But I remember her just being inconsolable and like apoplectic from the loss. and she never sought or received help. So she suffered these two losses. She didn't have a mother. And so what do you do? Like she compartmentalized it. She pushed it down. She put on a happy face and got on with her life.

But what you resist persists, of course. And so her pain, I think over time, manifested in fear, like this fear that the world is an unsafe place. And if you care about people, they're going to abandon you and you're going to get hurt. So be careful who you become connected to because then you're vulnerable. And she probably protected herself by not allowing herself to feel too close to anybody while also having this control impulse, like wanting to make sure that the world was safe for her children and over-controlling me, you know, as a result. out of a genuine desire to, like, protect me, right? But ultimately ends up, like, suffocating me. And the worst, you know, and then manifesting the thing she's most afraid of,

which is that I'm going to leave her, which I had to survive. Like, I moved to California, and I had to get away from her. At the same time, I think there was, you know, some unhealthy attachment stuff going on. Like, my job as a young person was to meet her, emotional needs. She was a very fearful person and constantly needed reassurance that she was safer okay. And I had to do certain things in order to make her feel that way. And I adapted to that and became that dutiful son who would like do the things that she wanted me to do so that she

would feel okay. And it wasn't until much later in my life that I realized that was a betrayal of myself. And so it's not a surprise that I ended up like drinking out of confusion because I just done, you know, like I was living somebody else's life, essentially. And I don't think that she would have accepted, like, anyone I married because my job was to be her, you know, I was, I was supposed to be the primary relationship for her. Right. Right. So, it's not a shocker that she's not a fan of my wife. And, you know, so it's been a very difficult adulthood, like trying to find a way to have somewhat of a relationship with her. And so we've gone through extended periods where we don't talk

or she can't really be around my family. And it's sad. There's a lot of sadness there. But I think this is what happens when you have unhealed wounds or you refuse to acknowledge and work through these sorts of things. Like they spill out and they affect your relationships in ways you never intended. And of course, I'm sure she never would have wanted to be estranged from me or to not have a relationship with her grandkids and all that kind of stuff. But that's kind of how it played out.

And that's why, to me, it's so important to heal whatever wounding I have so that I don't end up in that place with my kids. You know, I have a different relationship with my kids and I'm setting them up for healthy relationships in their own lives. So that's, you know, occupies a lot of my headspace these days and going to DC and just being in her presence, like, in this unfiltered state where I'm seeing her behave in an unbridled way, like the clarity is like, oh my God, like, I can see it so clearly now, like where she's coming from and what she really thinks of me and how that has impacted me, like doing the math on that equation, which was liberating. but also painful while I'm trying to get her into this facility where she doesn't really want to go. Like, this is somebody who won't go to the doctor. She's living in such denial. Like, it's in the same way that she denied her grief and her pain. She's in denial that there's anything wrong with her.

She can't hear, but she won't go to the ear doctor to get a hearing aid. Even if you bring it up, she gets angry. And I know this is something that's normal with people with dementia, but I promise you that she would have reacted that way without the dementia. This is just the way that she's wired. And so the prospect of her being put in a home, like, that's her worst fear. Right. And then that's exactly what happened.

So there's guilt with that and there's guilt that I know that my dad feels. But also a conviction like this had to happen, you know, like making peace with that. The emotional caught, like the, I'm just exhausted, you know, for days after this. So it's been, it's been very difficult. I'm sorry, man. So, but this is, this is adulthood, man. It is. It's real.

You know, my parents are 81 and 79, and so you kind of, you know, we're not there, obviously, but it's, you know, it's, you hear this and you hear these tales of, you know, that's how these things go, is that people, you know, as you get older, it becomes harder. And you realize you're at a place where, you know, it's your job to take care of them. And it's not always, these decisions are not always clear cut, man. They're not always clear cut. Sounds like this was, but it wasn't. It wasn't, but yeah. One of the interesting observations that I made was how much the dynamic mimics alcoholism just without the alcohol.

So I have this mother who's in denial, right? And she's behaving in ways that is creating chaos for everyone around her, but has no awareness of the impact of her behavior on other people. Like that's not important. What's important is that her needs are met and there's no conscious awareness at all of just the toll that is being incurred by everyone around her. And then my dad, who is a very kind of avoidant personality, has that disposition. He's a wonderful man, and I love him to death. But he just wants everyone to get along, and it's easier to just say, it's fine, you know, and avoid, like, the hard conversations or confronting reality.

And so you could say that he's codependent in that behavior as an enabler, you know, and that's perpetuated this situation going on much longer than it would have otherwise. And I'm like, wow, this is just like, this is just like an alcoholic relationship, like, you know, the same way as someone. who would be married to somebody who's using drugs, right? And they're, like, trying to, like, make it okay. But suffering, and the addict's behavior is, like, causing chaos for everyone around them. Crazy. Which is kind of an amazing thing. But on the unconditional love tip, like, I just do this conscious meditation, like, before I go to see her every time.

And I'm, like, just, you know, it's just unconditional. Everything is, like, just your response to everything is just more love, you know, just more love, more love. like, this is what the Dalai Lama, you know, is talking about, right? And it's like, can I practice this when all of my buttons are getting pushed because she installed them? Can I be non-reactive and do the contrary action, which is just more love for everything? And so she could say the most outrageous thing. And I'm like, I love you, mom. And I kiss her on the forehead, which makes her very uncomfortable, you know.

And that's the only way to liberate yourself from all of this is to transcend it because there's no. There's no possibility for reconciliation, right? So it becomes about your relationship with yourself and the dynamic, not some understanding that you're going to come to with this person that you have such a challenging relationship with. Yeah, you have to make peace within yourself with the circumstance. I mean, I had a, the only thing I can think of is, you know, my grandfather abused me. And when I was first dealing with that, like when I first kind of started telling people about it and my family, like he ended up having a stroke like a week after and then was in

a hospital and then it was like, I had the opportunity to go see him, but I was like, I didn't feel like I didn't feel like that was right to confront a sick man in his hospital bed like that. How old were you when that happened? I probably was like 27, 28. You know, I got some advice from Gru Singh, who was like, you know, write it all out and tear it, like, letter by letter and, you know, have a ritual with it.

And he's like, you don't have to, his thing was you don't have to have these gnarly confrontations because the confrontation is within yourself and your relationship to the story and what happened. And, you know, you, you know, because I got advice from some people, you should go have the big confrontation. But he was like, but that's not, I'm kind of more like your dad. Like, that's not really in my nature to confront people like that. Also, it's not, it's not going to get you anywhere. No, it doesn't solve the problem.

You want him, you're going to want this person to give you something they can't give you. And they're like. Stroke aside. Right. They're just, yeah, either way. It's never going to work, right? Like, that's how, right, that's the problem we're all in as a society now, is that like, we want to get something out of this. But you're never going to get what you want out of the confrontation.

So, or very rarely. So, yeah, so I did that kind of, I developed my own relationship to it, which has been good over time. But, like, I mean, obviously, there's a very different situation. I didn't mean to commandeer it. But that's, I just, my brain went there to, like, you have to, because your mom isn't in a capacity to where you can have an honest discussion and try to unpack these things for both of you and for her as she gets older so she can kind of see things more clearly

and at least understand. Oh, that would never happen. But even if she was, right, even if she was in full capacity. No, no, yeah, there's no possibility for that being successful. Right. So, yeah, it's about you and the story and your relationship to it. Yeah. Which is wild, man.

Heavy. Heavy stuff, dude. You know what you told me about this? I was thinking one thing I want to bring up is kind of just not to make light of it, but you were saying how nice this place was because my memories of these places are usually. My dad found this great place. Like, it's expensive. You know, but it's like, in terms of, like, what a facility like this could be, like, I'm telling you, I can't imagine there's a nicer version of it. In the old days, like, it doesn't matter how much you spend, it smells horrible in there. It's like, it's really depressing.

And then the same is true with dorms. Dorms now are like MTV real world level. So, like, somehow these kinds of weird institutional. Is that true? I don't know anything about dorms. Yeah, dorms have gotten nicer at colleges because they're trying to recruit. so dorms and assistant living facilities are getting they're getting some bling it's not so it's not as you know hostels too

hostels are like all the places that were like hellholes that you had to kind of go through at some point in your life are becoming like I don't know dialed out dialed up that's got to be a good thing isn't it I'm all for that kind of gentrification you're like bum that you can't go to Indonesia and have what was that the beach that Leonardo Caprio did he goes he's in the hospital stole there. The other day I was thinking about, like, you were saying these people that work there, how amazing it is that they choose to do this with their life.

These people are incredible. The level of patience that they have to have to just be in the presence of these people all day long and manage them, like, God bless these people, man. And it's kind of amazing watching them because someone will get agitated. And they just know how to, like, gently, you know, next. navigate them and, you know, change the subject. They're like, they were telling me, they're like, it's a lot like improv. It's like yes-ending people.

Oh, it's fine. Here. We'll just go over here. Yeah, we'll take care of that in a minute, you know. And then, you know, the mind resets every, you know, minute or so or whatever. So they forget whatever was agitating them. But this, it's just this recursive process. Yes, and just it's so draining and exhausting to be around. And these people have elected this to be their job, their vocation, you know, like it takes a certain special kind of person to do that kind of work.

No doubt. And I'm grateful for these people because I know that they're, you know, like my mom is in good hands with them. So if they're listening, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, folks. Anyway. Today's episode is brought to you by Roka. You know, it's funny.

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No, I got to tell you about my 40th high school reunion. That was also a D.C., right? We can't have a four-hour podcast here, but I've got to tell us. So, the amazing thing in the context of, like, universal synchronicities is that when I had to be in D.C. to, like, manage this whole thing, it just happened to coincide with my 40th high school reunion. Like, what are the chances of that? Like, I would have ordinarily not, like, I'm not going out of my...

I'm not going to fly across the country to go to this thing. Like, I'm not really that close with anyone I went to high school with, and anybody who read Finding Ultra knows that I have a challenged relationship with the school that I went to and, you know, that period in my life, which is another thing in need of healing. You know what I mean? Like, I have all this pain and I have this story about it, right? And here we are.

It's like, hey, not for nothing. Like, I know you're tired from dealing with your mom, but now you've got to go over here and do this. your itineric like the gods it's like it's like some kind of yeah like spiritual rehab like treatment situation that I'm in and I'm like all right well clearly I have to go to you know I'm going to have to go to this like I can't like be here and not go like how lame would that be right but I was dealing with my mom all day so I didn't go to the school for like all day festivities or whatever but there was I was on an email chain where there was discussion of like

oh, on Saturday night, we're going to go to this restaurant. You know, we've reserved a room or whatever, so just come here, you know, between 7 and 10. So I was like, all right, I'm going to go, I'm going to go do this. This will be interesting. And it was in Bethesda. So my parents live in Georgetown. I'm staying in Georgetown. I had my dad's car, so I drove to Bethesda, which is where I grew up.

Which is across town, right? Yeah, it's just up with, it's like, you know, it's like a 20-minute drive or whatever. Bethesda is now like a city, though. Like when I grew up there, it was just a suburb. But now there's, like, buildings everywhere. And this restaurant was in, I think it's called Bethesda Row. Like, there's like a whole nightlife scene happening. Really?

Like all these restaurants and bars. And I see the restaurant. I'm like, all right, I got a park. I pull into this parking garage. And I just made a mental note, like, okay, when I come out of the garage, I need to turn right and left. And the restaurant's on the corner. So I go into the parking garage, park, come out. I make the right.

I make the left. I go into this restaurant. It's pretty crowded. It's a big place. But there's a back room where there's like, clearly there's a party going on. And I was like, well, that's obviously it. I go back there and a guy gives me, here's two drink tickets and here's, you know, write your name on this thing. I put my name on my jacket and I go into this room and it's very crowded and I'm alone.

Like, I'm by myself and I'm mingling around, like walking around, like looking for a familiar face. Like 70% of the guys are bald, but like, okay, so that's going to make it a little more difficult. But hopefully like, you know, somebody will recognize me or whatever and I'm doing a loop. I don't see anybody. I'll do another loop. And then it's that awkward thing when you're alone at a party and you don't know anyone. And you're trying to like, you're like, how do I behave? So I don't look weird.

You know, go to the bathroom. And I'm like, I can't, why can't? Like, I don't understand. Like somebody, I should be able to see somebody here. And I do another loop and I end up facing, did I tell you the story? No. So then I'm facing the wall and there's a class photo on the wall. And I look at the class photo and said,

because Walt Whitman High School, class of 2000. And I'm like, I'm at the wrong fucking reunion. And the wrong year. There's literally a high school reunion going on. This is a high school reunion party. It's just not the right one. I stumbled into the wrong reunion party. I also didn't notice the fact that, like, I graduated in 1985.

I'm 15 years older than all these people. That didn't occur to me. Like, I'm looking at these people. So they all, once you get at a certain age, it's like, everyone looks old. Right, right, right. So I'm like, oh, my God, like, I'm in the wrong, this is not the right party. Maybe there's another room in this restaurant. I leave that back room, and I'm wandering around the restaurant.

Maybe they're eating at a table. I'm looking at everyone eating. I go out on to the, there's a patio where people are out there. I'm looking there. They're not there. I'm like, what is going on? And I think, do I have the date right? Like, I check my email and my phone.

I was like, maybe I had the wrong day. No, I have the right day. let me try one more look like no still don't see anyone I'm like maybe I'm being punked like maybe like I'm getting bullied again you know like it was a setup like we're going to get this guy to go to the roll wants to go to the other high school reunion I'm like what is wrong something is wrong and I couldn't figure it out and then I look around and I and I go oh this is a Mexican restaurant and I think the restaurant that I'm supposed to be at is like an oyster bar plate? I go, I'm in the wrong

restaurant. I walked in the wrong restaurant. The wrong nice, but there's a restaurant. There's too many options. What does the matter? And I realized when I came out of the parking garage, I went out, I thought I was going out the front of it the same way I drove in, but I went out like the back. And so I took the right and the left, which was correct, but it

landed me at a restaurant that's like on the other side. It's like, oh my God, you're such a dumb fuck. What is the matter with you? So I go over it. Like, so then I go in I'm in the right place and it's just like 15 guys that I went to high school with and actually you know what it was it was super nice I ended up having like some really cool conversations I mean at 40 years post high school like you're kind of past the bullshit everyone was fantastic and it was wonderful to reconnect with these

people many of whom I hadn't seen in a very long time so was there instant recognition like you saw that guy oh that's like somebody haven't seen well there was an email chain so I already knew there were a couple guys that I was like I'm not quite. And then it kind of locked in. I had one embarrassing moment where I mistook somebody for somebody. I won't name any names about that. Like I kind of stepped in it in one situation accidentally. But for the most part, yeah. And because what I do is public, like they kind of know what I do and they know more about me than I do about them. But it was it was actually super nice. And quite healing. Like I talked to a couple guys that, you know, in my mind, I had a whole story about who they are and like what they. they think of me. And of course, it's all illusion, you know. So that was interesting and healing in its own right. And I'm really glad that I went. That's cool. I've only ever been to my 10th high school reunion. And it was, I think you should go. You think I should go to mine. Yeah, I think what's coming up. It would be, it would be my fourth. The next option is for,

I don't think they do 35 or any like that. I don't know. Maybe depends on, I think, well, I don't know. Samohan, Class of, maybe. 89. I mean, I will say this. Yes. It's helpful when you're happy in your life and you like what you do for living and you're feeling fulfilled. That's a better way to go into a reunion. Then I went to my 10th reunion. No, I don't know. I don't know how you felt.

But I'm just saying like for me, like I feel good about my life. Like I don't, you know, I imagine a lot of people, the prospect of going to reunion, like if you're not happy with your life or you feel like, you know, maybe you're not living the life that you wish you. you were or thought you could be, then the idea of showing up at an event like that is challenging. I bet it is. I mean, my 10th reunion, I wasn't necessarily on the track that I wanted to be on.

I didn't hate my life by any means, but I was like, what I found was it didn't matter. Like nobody care, because you end up having like these speed, this is different now. There's 15 people you're going to have longer conversations. But what I found was that was what was refreshing about it was it didn't matter at all what anybody was doing. It was just people were happy to see each other.

Right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And the conversations that I had with these guys, it had nothing to do with, like, what do you do for a living or whatever? It's just like your kids and like, you know. You guys were like, no one cares anymore. So it's like the lessons with my mom and memory care are about showing up sobriety service

and the lessons with this are like not dissimilar. Like you show up, right? you show up and you realize whatever your bullshit story is, like, I guarantee you it's unfounded for the most part. And, you know, unless you show up, you can't be surprised and, you know, experience closeness. Like I just had Katie Couric in here earlier today, and we had this amazing conversation for two hours. And at the end of it, I said something like, you know, what is your advice or what have you learned over your, like, 40 years of, like, talking to every amazing person in the world. and having this storied career. And basically, her answer was, you know, happiness is about your relationships.

It's about your closeness with the people you care about. And the people that are happiest and live the longest, obviously like a blue zones thing, like are the people who really foster and cultivate and care for their friendships and their relationships. And I feel like this reunion thing was a way of me beginning the process of not just reconciling my past, but also, you know, reaching out to people that I have a lot of history with and realizing that there's more connective tissue there and shared experience than you realize. And I left just feeling better about myself because I just felt more connected rather than disconnected from this formative experience in my life. life. So the lesson is like show up, you know, and don't be avoidant, you know, like my dad, like, you know, walk, walk towards the thing that makes you uncomfortable. And that's the only way that you can grow, but also be disabused of whatever narrative you have in your mind

about what it means. It's so interesting because, like, if you think about it as kids, we're just, it's basically all a science experiment. Like, all life, it's just a weird science experiment. You're like, you know, we're sending our, we're sending Zuma to a certain school. We like the school, but he doesn't have any choice in the matter. Like, he's just being put into a bag and shake it up with the other ones that have been chosen. It's like, and that's what happened with you and your classmates. It's like, you got sent to a place and you had this weird experience and it was all the science experiment. And now at the end, you come out, and you're like, whoa, it was weird to be subjects in that experience. What was that like for you? And then you can

have this connected. Like, ultimately, the stories, I think, that you're talking. about when we get into stories about what our life was like and all the all the you know our dramas and our relationships and how people see us all those stories are like these fake separators when in reality like we have almost everything in common with every human being you know we have almost everything in common and um let's focus on like that one thing that i remember you know 40 years ago right part of it is that we've been subject to a this bizarre science experiment called life, right? And our reactions to it are probably more similar than different.

So it's interesting. And we're mad at all these people who just didn't know any better, you know? Because the truth is, the older you get, you realize no one knows anything. And, like, all, you know, when you're young, you think, like, adults have, they've got things under control. And then you get older and you're like, no one really knows what they're doing at all, pretty much. And, like, that, nothing freaks me out more than someone who thinks they know what's going on. Right. Yeah.

There's a lot of, I heard there's a few people like that on the Internet. Have you discovered that? On the Internet or like, they know what to do. This will solve the problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, man. So, yes, I encourage you to go to your next high school reunion. I don't know what your high school experience was like, but you seem like a guy who probably, if I had to guess, you were a guy.

who knew how to get along with all the different kinds of groups. You weren't really in any one click, but you could maneuver, like you could hang with the athletes and then hang out with the podheads because you have a certain, like, ease about yourself and not necessarily class clown, but like a disposition that allowed you to, like, maybe not be like a super popular kid, but like a kid that, like, everyone was cool having around. I feel seen. Is it? Was that accurate? Really? That's pretty good. Maybe it should be a psychologist.

That is accurate. That is accurate. I don't know how like, I definitely wasn't in the popular crowd, but I wasn't like, yeah, I was one of those boundary walkers. I've been like that boundary walker type person my whole life. But also, you could show up at any of the parties and it was cool. Yeah, yeah, I could go to the parties, but I often would rather not. But like the, the, Samoa High was different because it was so.

so big. It was like 3,000 kids or something like 700 kids per class. So it wasn't like one of those right out of like, you know, central casting kind of places where there's the losers and the jocks and all that wasn't like that at all. There was a lot of room for anonymity. And so there was a lot of us kind of that had little pockets and that kind of crossed over in different places. So I think that was one of the healthy things about salmon. We didn't have like the big bully culture. And I'm sure some people had horrible experiences that I wasn't aware of. But it was pretty, it wasn't, you didn't have to get, you know, you could avoid a lot of conflict if you wanted. It was just a big

spot. But you're right in the sense that I had friends in different groups and, yeah, you're 100% right. All I know about Sammo, Santa Monica High School, is from stories that guys like Charlie Sheen and Rob Lo and, like, Sean Penn,

like, you know, all these guys who became huge actors, Robert Downey Jr., like they were all classmates at Samo. Who did Roblo go there? Around the same time. Yeah, I think he did. And it was Charlie Sheehanes, was Rob Lowe there too? Rob Lowe. I mean, Rob Lowe is the best storyteller amongst them from the whole Brat Pack era.

He even does like a one-man show where he tours. And he just, he just like tells the craziest stories about those years from high school, you know, into the St. Elmo's Fire. You know, like when they were like with the Brat Pack and that whole thing, he's very good at that. Like, they're really compelling. But there's something, you know, there was something special about Sam O'Hie at that. period of time, because literally it gave birth to, like, you know, basically a whole generation of Hollywood. Yeah, it's crazy, huh?

Because Malibu was there, and Malibu wasn't, you know, Malibu was coming. But Malibu wasn't a thing. Like, did you watch that Charlie Sheen in Netflix documentary? Yeah, no, yeah. I've only watched the first episode of it. I couldn't stop watching it. It's so interesting that they had all that Super 8 footage of them being kids running around Point Doom.

Because Point Doom, now it's, like, super fancy. So, Point Doom, for people who don't know, is a neighborhood of Malibu that is very fancy. You know, lots of fancy houses. Point Doom is like that rock. It's the promontory. Yeah, so it sticks out, and there's these beaches there. And, you know, if you live there, you get a key and you can go and open this gate and you have access to these beaches where, you know, you go down there and it's like crazy you would see. But that's for people that live there.

It's not open to the public. Right. But it had always been a working-class neighborhood until, I don't know, a couple decades ago. Yeah, Trankus. Maybe like 30 years ago or something like that. Trankus, too, yeah. Yeah, Trankus, too. And so Martin Sheen raises his kids on Point Doom.

And it was just, you know, feral kids running around, riding bikes. And in the case of Charlie Sheen and his brother, Emilio Estevan, they have this Super A camera. And they were just making little movies themselves. And they had all this footage in that show. But Rob Lowe's around, Sean Penn's around, Chris Penn, yes. They all grew up in that area, and they all went to Santa Monica High School, even though it's way down PCH because there was no Malibu High School. Right, right, yeah, and that's the same. When I was in, like, Malibu High didn't come until the 90s.

Maybe it was the mid-90s or maybe it was early 90s, I forget. But, like, I went to school with those Malibu kids, and so we would go out sometimes to parties in Point Doom. And Sean Penn says that the documentary is 100%. true. It's, it was school teachers and contractors. There were the nine houses. There's still a couple of those houses in Point Doom. Right. Yeah. But they're like few and far between now because most of, you know, those houses get raised. Yeah. And then mansions get built. And the same was true with the palaces. We talked about in the Palisades fire. There was that same thing. So it was a different era because in the old days, the money wanted to stay closer to L.A. and like Beverly Hills was kind of a

who wanted to go up to Malibu. Like there was nothing going on up there. Right, right, right. And so, And I think, I don't know the reason that Martin Sheen chose it, but I know he's really deeply connected to that, like, Catholic retreat, Sarah Retreat. Oh, Sarah Retreat. Yeah, so I don't know if that was. Was he deeply Catholic way back then? I don't know. I think, I kind of feel like he was, he's been religious or something, but I'm speaking out of turn because I don't know. Yeah.

But I know that's a kind of place that I know he's been known to go there in recent years. And so maybe that was something. But, yeah, so you see this super, I always love that, like these documents. that can find that footage, like, that Charlie Sheen has, was making movies with Emilio Estabez. When they were kids. And their rivalry that they had. And, like, one of the tributous things for me was, like, Emilio Estabez was originally supposed to be the Star Platoon. And then the funding fell through. And then, like, Charlie Sheen got it. And that's, that must have been like. He was the late comer. Because everything was set up for Emilio, like, breakfast club and all of that. Like, he had the early, the early ascent. And then. Charlie, like, market corrected him a little bit, it seems like. Yeah, and then Jennifer Gray, like, got Charlie Sheen the job. I know, that story is crazy.

Yeah, and, like, but what's also crazy is that he's alive. I know. It's a-huh. That guy's constitution for drugs and alcohol is superhuman. It's unbelievable. But the interesting thing, like, I liked that he's just owning it and is not afraid to, like, just tell you everything that happened, because it is an amazing, like, sort of document to, like. It is.

see how this person survived this. And an interesting exploration of alcoholism, ego, insanity, Hollywood. You know, it's an indictment of what happens when you're young and you have an addictive personality and you have power and money. I didn't realize that Nicholas Cage was like his main dude, his main running man. That's weird. That's weird. So you're only the first one.

What you find in the second one, like Denise Richards. and then I forget who is, I guess would be his third wife because he was married really young and then he had Denise Richards and what you find in the second one, and it's worth it, I don't want to spoil it, but like is that he's, like, and you don't know what to think because he's obviously like he's an actor and like who knows how much of this is genuine or not, but it does come across genuine to me,

but it takes you through that whole meltdown with the two-a-half men. So the first one is like building up and it's the reminiscing. The whole like winning and Tiger Bloods and all that. And it shows how weird that was. But one takeaway for me was this guy's like ex-wife still love him. And during the meltdown, you didn't get the sense that he was anything other than a bully and like, you know what I mean? I got a real bully energy from him. He wasn't like he seemed like he was very demeaning to people, but it was obviously he was in the throes of a serious addiction.

So I'm not trying to place judgment. But that's how I felt. But then you and you watch this. that are like these and it could be a show but like it seems like he's on good terms with with his ex-wives and it like a like they're close and he and he's you know his kids are kind of back at least you know it's hard to say but his son was living with him he's close with one of his daughters she's in it so we don't really know what's real but um it makes you think that we didn't fully also know how he who he really was even when he seemed to be showing us you know who knows i mean

I mean, that's nice to hear. In the first episode, you're introduced to his, like, best friend from high school, the football player guy who's still his best friend. So I guess that says something. But there doesn't seem to be like any kind of, like, spiritual awakening. You know, it's sort of like, here's what happened. And it was crazy. You know what I mean? And I'm still living as opposed to, like, what did I learn from this that could make me a better human?

And so to me, it rings a little empty, and maybe that's why I didn't end up watching the second episode. Yeah, maybe so. But it is remarkable that he was able to survive all of that stuff. And I also think it's interesting that his brother and his dad decided not to participate. Right. And, you know, we don't know why, but I would have to imagine maybe it has something to do with the fact that by participating in it,

Like, anything, like, it's, imagine you're Martin Sheen, who was just terrified when his son was doing this because Martin has had his own, you know, had, like, the parallels between Platoon and, like, Charlie being on set for Apocalypse Now when his dad was, like, going through that and had the heart attack and all of that. Like, it's great. That's pretty wild stuff. And it was, was, like, portrayed very cinematically in the show. But anything that is potentially ego aggrandizing, you know, for this person. is going to set them back towards their addiction. That's true. You know what I mean?

So, like, all of the... Suddenly, he's back in the limelight. He's got his book. He's got this Netflix. Is this really, like, in Charlie's mental health interest, you know? And maybe just by saying, we're not going to participate in it, is their way of saying, like, you know, we don't want to be involved in anything that might move him back towards a drink. Yeah, but there might have been economic necessity involved. You know, like, he spent all his money, maybe, you know, like, who knows?

Right. Right, but that doesn't mean that his dad and his brother have to, like, you know, kind of, you know, contribute to this, I guess. And who knows? I mean, I don't know. One brother's in there. I don't know. One brother's in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And Sean Penn is in there a little bit, you know. I mean, that dude. He's sweating through it. Yeah. He doesn't seem stoked to be there, but he's there. Yeah. Speaking of which, you haven't seen one battle after another. No, I haven't seen it.

I read the interview, the David Marchese interview in New York Times that Sean Penn did. I thought was interesting. No, I haven't seen it. No spoilers, please. I'm desperate to see it. But I haven't, you know. Yeah, I won't spoil it. I was in D.C.

And despite me being kind of full-time on deck for my family, I did find, you know, a four-hour window where I could escape. And I went by myself to go see it in Georgetown and IMAX. It's a remarkable. It's a remarkable movie. And Sean Pence's performance is really something. I mean, it's out there. You know, it's really out there. It is, it's masterful filmmaking.

And I think, you know, Paul Thomas Anderson sort of asserts himself as one of, if not, our greatest living filmmaker. Like, it is a remarkable work of art. I can't wait to see it. And an achievement. And you're going to love it. Try to see it in IMAX. In L.A., it's all. about seeing it in VistaVision. Oh, what's that?

Which you could see at the Vista in Los Feles. But, like, it's basically the film cut that is made for the specific camera, the VistaVision camera, that Paul used to film it, which has a certain grain. And so film enthusiasts are, like, you have to see it in VistaVisian. But at the Vista theater in Los Velaus, like, it keeps breaking. That's hilarious. And so they just end up putting it up, you know, in the digital. projection or whatever. And I think there's only like a couple theaters in America that even are outfitted to

screen it in VistaVision anyway, but IMAX is definitely worth it. Okay. So Charlie Sheen's on Netflix. We have a couple other Netflix things happening. I know. You should talk about, right? Which where you want to go first? Well, we can start with the fact that I was in, I was also in New York City the past

couple weeks and I happened to be in New York during Climate Week. Oh, okay. And I went to this event for Protect Our Winters, which is this nonprofit and doing all kinds of cool stuff. I'd heard the founder speak before. And they were screening one of Alex Honnold's movies, one of his climbing movies, not free solo. But there was a little gathering beforehand. I'd already seen the movie. So I just wanted to go and mingle and socialize.

So I saw Alex and I was catching up with them. And this was before the announcement of what we're going to talk about. But I was asking him, like, aren't you supposed to go? and climb some skyscraper in Dubai or something like that. And he's like, no, it's Taipei. I was like, yeah, we've been working on that for a long time. And I was like, because he was saying, well, he was talking about, like, I was like, how is it being a dad? You know, like he's being a dad now.

And also, you know, he's a celebrity. So he gets asked to do talks all the time and, you know, come to New York for Climate Week and do all sorts of stuff. And, you know, how does that work with you being a professional climber and, you know, your goals? Like, what are you goals? Do you still have goals? What do those goals look like? And just a talk about, like, how it gets harder, you know, to, like, prioritize that kind of stuff. Like, does he have anything to prove?

But he still loves it. And, like, is there anything that he still wants to accomplish? Like, he probably has 40. So he probably has five years, you know, he has a window of time, you know, where he can, like, be a baller. And then it starts to, you know, decline a little bit. So we were just talking about that. And I was like, well, aren't you doing some skyscraper thing or whatever? He's like, yeah, he's talking about.

Anyway, so there was an announcement in the trades about this Netflix. It's Netflix, right? I was going to do this, so he's going to scale this skyscraper in Taipei. Do you have the details on this? Yeah, 101 floor skyscraper, 1,667 feet high. And I think you asked him about it, and you said, wow, and it's going to be free solo. Yeah, he's going to free solo. A two-hour free solo special.

and they're going to live stream it basically so it's it's meant to be this global event like we're going to be able to watch him do this in real time around the world on Netflix which is kind of kind of amazing yeah according to him you know assuming it's not raining or you know like crazy windy or whatever he seems to think this is not that big of a deal he always says that yeah he's like it's pretty basic it's easier than it's easier than it looks well it doesn't look easy it looks insane I know I know it looks insane I know I know No, it looks completely insane. Yeah, he's like, it's pretty basic. This is a pretty basic climb. Because we really had time for training. And he was sort of like, well, I don't really need to train for that. Like, that's not so interesting. That's not that big of a thing or whatever.

I was like, okay. Our frame of reference, you know. It's all like, you know, it's all a matter of perspective. But how do you train for a building? Like, do you do it in like a climbing gym or do you actually go climb other buildings? You know, like the guy who, you? who did the, I forget his name, the great Frenchman who did the high wire between the Twin Towers.

He was doing like Notre Dame. He did it. He had to do it a few times. You know what I mean? Like, how do you... I don't know. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I'm sure that'll be part of the show.

But like, yeah, it's interesting. And, you know, they're getting into expeditions. Colin O'Bradie's got an expedition on Netflix that's happening, right? Well, first of all, before we move off of the Alex thing, I mean, the only other thing I can remember seeing in recent memory is, is, what's his name, the magician, didn't he... Yes, David Blaine? Yeah, David Blaine, like, did a skydiving stunt, or he did something crazy that was

live streamed on a streamer or whatever, and so... And I remember, like, it was a big deal, like, the whole world was sort of watching it, because you didn't know what was going to happen, and this feels a little bit like that. Yeah, this is definitely like that. It's like, evil caneval does, you know, like jumps the grand king. Right, I know. It's like, this is when we were little kids or stuff like this, you know? I kind of dig it.

I remember that. Oh, I'm going to watch this. jumping snake it was snake river yeah that's what it was and he didn't make it he didn't make it yeah yeah i can't i can't wait to watch this i'm like i'm like you know i'm a junkie for the alex honnold's stuff i mean he's in climate week probably for the honald foundation yeah it was a it was a protect our winters but it was also on behalf of honnell foundation so yeah he's very um involved in that yeah and protect our winters is jeremy jones great great snowboarder yeah he was at the event he was at the event also yeah um and yeah there's

another Netflix. This is Netflix also, right? Our friend of the pod, Tano Brady, has a, is going to be doing this new adventure show where he's going to go across Antarctica again. Again. He loves it there. But it sounds like this one is

like longer, like he's going from... I don't have any insight into this because the first I heard of it was a day ago or something and we were, and then we emailed. It was an article in deadline. Right, yeah, yeah. I was just texting with him because he was doing some retreat and he was with guru sing right and so he sent me a photo and we were chatting a little bit and he said he was

training for his next thing he was doing this retreat there was like a love retreat he's a love retreat that's what he called it but then he's he's like I'm training for my next thing and I didn't know what his next thing was but now I do right well the only thing I can think of is after we you know he did the Antarctica race against Lou Rudd in 2018 finishing and like I think New Year's Eve was like or whatever it was like shortly almost I think it was almost on New Year's Eve when he finished I have to go back and look at those stories. But for people that don't know, like, you were covering that for the New York Times. And it was like this multicolored, like it was a big, splashy kind of ongoing story that you were covering.

Yeah, I covered it periodically. I was covering the, I was talking to Lou and Colin while they were out there on their satellite phones. I was keeping, I was messaging with them. And Colin was, you know, the whole thing. Colin brought me in as, hey, can we, you know, would you be interested in a story? And so kind of he told me, he tipped me off early. But in the aftermath, those stories went. really large, right? People liked them. But then there was a whole undercurrent within the real

serious expedition kind of community that were backing a guy named Borge Osland. Borge is the amazing Norwegian explorer, like, who wasn't necessarily, all of these guys want the attention to what they do, but he wasn't like, he was like really the kind of nuts and bolts or old school explorer. And he had used a kite to help him a little bit on the ski, but he went from C to sea. What Colin and Lou did is they went from the edge of the sea ice, like a couple miles out on the sea ice, to the landmass. And what they were crossing was the landmass. So as soon as they got to the other sea ice, they were done. But in reality, the sea ice is kind of expands to the point where it's like makes Antarctica twice as wide in some places. And the ice is

fused there. So if you look, if you flew over it, you'd be like, well, that's part of the land. So that was criticism that they both received and Colin I think must have felt that I haven't talked to him about it specifically but it must have sunk in because this is C to C to C to C. And it's going to be a series I guess on. Is it a series? I don't know. But I know that it's being directed by the guy who directed my octopus teacher. Right. And did that win the Oscar? I think it did. I can't remember. It should have. But either way, like high level director, you know, so this is not a, you know, not like a love. Ramp Project, this is going to be a high profile kind of thing. But it is his fourth time back there, from my count, at least. His fourth time in are you including the Drake Passage thing? I mean, technically that product, you mean

just pulling the pole. Oh, right. Well, the last time he was there, he fell into the crevasse and like almost died. And he pulled out, right? So that was, and that was like another type of race. There were multiple people going to try to break his record or something and he was, I don't remember that. That was 2023. And he was also there for

the Explorer Grand Slam, the first, the kind of thing that put him on the map in this adventure kind of community, where he broke the FKT for the Explorer's Grand Slam, which is the seven summits and both poles. And so he pulled a polk to the South Pole as part of that. It's just interesting that these adventurers are getting Netflix shows. I know. You know, it's wild. It is wild.

It's good. I mean, it's cool. It's like, you know, what I've heard about what I read, I did a little bit of just baby digging on this Netflix thing. I guess in the streaming wars, everyone kind of suffered some erosion. They suffered some subscription erosion, and getting into sports and live events enables them to get some advertising dollars as well as gets people who want to pay for the subscription. So it kind of helps retain subscribers and recruit more and then get some advertising dollars

and it helps the stock price stay buoyant or something like that. It's like a strategic play because they'd already kind of played out what they could do. in their original model? Yes, if you're a competing streamer. If you're Netflix, you're in an entirely different situation. Like, Netflix is so much bigger and more powerful than any of the other ones. I think it's like basically if you added up all of the other streamers, Netflix would still be bigger. Like, it's so dominant in the space.

So they don't really need to do that in the way these others do. But I think that they also recognize that the future is in live events. And so I think this Honnold thing, like, the one thing that the streamers have yet to really conquer is like live sports, right? Like live events. And that's the one thing that's keeping people tethered to cable boxes. Right. Right. Because you're not going to be – I mean, you can, like, stream sports on – but it's not the same.

You know, it's not the same experience. So anyway, all of that's super interesting. Well, they're doing it. I mean, Amazon Prime has football. MBA is going to be on – A couple of the streamers. So, yeah, it's shifting. Wasn't there some of those deals?

I don't know. I should, you know, listen to the town, that podcast. They'll tell you everything. Yeah, like, I don't know. I'm not, like, steeped in that. I know there's, like, a lot of deals going on right now in that space, but I'm no expert at that. Amazing. I think we should wrap this up.

Is there anything final you want to say? Well, we should congratulate the Norwegians on their sweep in Nice. Casper, Gustav, and Christian. Casper Stearns. He, he, he, he, he, because usually you don't hear about him as much as no, no, and Christian, you know, coming into, this is this with the Nice, the Nice World Championship, like the Iron Man World Championship? Iron Man World Championship, yeah, and Nice.

Which was going, which happened when I was in Tokyo, um, at the World Championships and Gustav and Christian are both on athletes. So, um, obviously, you know, everyone at On was pretty excited about those guys going two, three. It's amazing. Well, I mean, Christian coming in was absolutely dominant. Absolutely dominant. He'd won, I think, three starts in a row,

two full Iron Man's and won the half Iron Man championships he won. And Gustav has had a harder kind of comeback trail. His mother passed away. I think he had an injury or something like that. And it was unclear, like, if he was going to be back in form. But he just absolutely crushed. He crushed. And so they were all kind of together at one point.

And I guess Storms won, 7.51, 39. He was their training partner, right? Like, they trained, all three of those guys trained together. It's nice to see. You know, it's not, you know, in Norway, you know, not under the tropical sun somewhere. No, they're in, they travel a lot. No, they're in Spain a lot, I think, to train and stuff. But, like, the, what's interesting is, you turned me on to their data, like, the, their data-driven approach.

And that became a New York Times story that I did. Then you wrote an article about that. Right. And this became, but it's amazing to see it continue, because that was a while ago. Right. It was, like, several years ago. I mean, Christian didn't exactly perform in Paris in the way that he wanted to. And then he didn't acquit himself well at the Iron Man World Championships last year after Paris.

And I did a podcast with him then. And so there was a big question mark. And meanwhile, like Gustav was struggling. He was dealing with the grief of his mother passing? And so it's like, was that just a chapter? And now we're on to something else? So to see these guys come back and prove that, you know, they're in it for the long haul, and that what they're doing is working is pretty cool.

It's amazing. Amazing to see it. So, congrats to those guys. Congrats also to Antonio Argoias. He got his seventh Catalina Crossing and our boy, Hank Wise. That's right, Hank Wise. Was he, so he, was he in the boat? You were in the boat with this experience, right?

So just explain for people like what the Catalina crossing is all about. So it's a 20 mile crossing from Catalina. to the mainland or vice versa. It's a channel. And so it's one of the Ocean Seven, one of the seven main channel crossings. It's also one of the Triple Crown of Open Water swimming along with English Channel and swimming around Manhattan.

So it's one of the major places. And Antonio was going for his seventh crossing, and we set off, and he invited me to be on the boat. And as much as I've written about the sport, I'd never been on a boat for one of these crossings. And so I had to go, you know, I wanted to experience it. And also on the boat were Stephen Muna Tonez, you know, who we all know, who is like a long time open water swimmer and open water swim booster. And sort of like the man in charge of storytelling.

Like he sort of lords over open water swimming as the person who champions it and is writing about. it and um telling stories and doing it and and he's you know he won scar one year he's instrumental in helping get in the Olympics he invited diana and niad it was the first time diana and so she was in the boat with she was in the boat they'd had dinner like a couple days before and then she came on the boat and she was a blast i mean you were you were hanging out with diana and i had like on the boat for the yeah i'd heard so many you know people tell these horrible stories about this person you know and even watching the movie you get the sense that it's not really her it's like it's like the movie i enjoyed the movie a lot i'm not criticized the movie but

it was like she seemed much more serious and she's like she was a lot of fun i mean she was a good time i mostly hung out with diana that was cool that was most of the time and so hank was on the boat or not sorry so hank i came with munitonos to say hello to ntonio and then um and then you know we took a picture i told you that yeah he was texting me i was in the middle i just you know i owe him a phone call but anyway go ahead but he you know you're you're you're you're So Hank Wise, so Hank Wise was my teammate at Stanford, and he's one of the most interesting, hilarious, and cool, unique people you're ever going to meet. Yes. And like me, you know, he didn't exactly become a star on the Stanford Swimming team.

But he really found his groove in open water swimming later in life. And he holds the record for the Catalina Crossing. Did you know that? I didn't know that. I just ripped it up. Yeah, seven hours, 55 minutes. in 2018. That's amazing.

He's the fastest guy to ever cross from Catalina to Los Angeles. That's incredible. I didn't know that. He still holds it. And I think he did a swim shortly after that swim. Like he went and did it again. I don't know what he did or whatever. But he's still out there getting after.

No, he just did it. He swam from Tarinaa Resort, so from Palis Verdez to Catalina. So he went the opposite. Oh, he went the opposite. And he did it in eight hours and like nine minutes or something. And 60 years. I mean, that's incredible. He's probably 57, 6 or something like that.

Yeah, he was a couple of years younger than me. But I've known Hank since he was, I don't know, 17, 18 years old. He's a great follow on Instagram if you find him. He's hilarious. He's got a little mustache, and it's basically cooking videos for the most part. Plant-based. Yeah, he's plant-based, you know. So do the math.

Fastest guy to ever swim the Catalina channel, plant-based, and he's 50, you know, he's my age. And he's a swim coach. Yeah. I know. I mean, he's a great guy. He is fun to meet him. He is an amazing, amazing person. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So shout out Hank and shout out Antonio. Yeah, man. Cool, man. Well, I think that's a good place to put it in it. We had other stuff on here, but, you know, we'll, you know, we'll, we're not here to exhaust the audience, are we, Adam? No, I've been told. If you're still here, I'm exhausted. I'm pretty exhausted.

No. Hey, it's good to see you, man. You too, man. Hey, maybe we'll do this again sometime. Let's do it. Let's do it. Peace up. That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guests, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive, My Books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change, and the Plant Power Way.

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Peace. Plants. Namaste. Thank you.