The Rich Roll Podcast - Roll On: America's Overdue (R)Evolution

Episode Date: June 11, 2020

It feels wrong to talk about anything other than this current historic moment. So let's address it, head on. The first in what I anticipate will be an ongoing series of ask-me-anything themed episodes we're calling 'Roll On:', I'm joined today by Adam Skolnick to discuss all things Black Lives Matter. Best known as the co-author of David Goggins' juggernaut memoir, Can't Hurt Me, Adam is an activist and veteran adventure journalist who has traveled the world writing for The New York Times, Playboy, Outside, ESPN, BBC, Men’s Health, and many other prominent publications. You may recall his outstanding reporting on Colin O'Brady's historic solo Antarctica traverse in 2018 for The New York Times. And long-time listeners will fondly remember his 2016 appearance on the podcast (RRP #218), in which we discussed One Breath — his poetic biography of Nicholas Mevoli, America’s greatest freediver. Shifting roles from host to guest, today I share a perspective on race in America. Civil rights and social unrest. White privilege. And how I'm actively seeking to better myself — and this podcast as a whole. The RRP is not a news program. And it's not a political talk show. But it is a show about what is important. It's about having conversations that matter. And right now, no conversation matters more than redressing racial injustice. This is an exchange about our collective responsibility to act. To speak up for what is right. And to finally dismantle the systemic ills that have contributed to unspeakable harms that can no longer go unchecked. It's also a discussion about the history and mission of this podcast. My vision for the future. And goals set to broaden the inclusivity of my advocacy. But more than anything, this is a dissection of the untold history of racism in America. And the unprecedented opportunity this unique moment presents to evolve and heal. As individuals. As a nation. And as a global community. Note: This is the simply the first of many conversations to come on the theme of race. Over the upcoming weeks I will be sharing impactful conversations with a variety of people of color, including Byron Davis, Phil Allen, Jr., Knox Robinson, John Lewis (aka 'Badass Vegan'), John Salley, Shaka Senghor, Neil Phillips and many others. In the interim, I encourage you to explore the many copious resources listed in the show notes below. Read. Listen. Challenge yourself. Get active. Donate if you're able. The visually inclined can watch our conversation on YouTube. And as always, the audio version streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. To coin Cornel West's phrase, what we need right now is 'all season love warriors.' It is in that spirit that I offer this exchange -- with gratitude and respect for all my brothers and sisters. Peace + Plants, Rich

The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. It's Rich here, Rich Roll, your host. This is my podcast. Welcome to it. How are you guys doing? So I think it's time to talk about what's going on, don't you think? It's time to talk about systemic racism, police brutality, civil rights. It's time to talk about Black Lives Matter, national upheaval, call for change. this unprecedented opportunity that this unique moment presents right now for us to evolve, to grow, and heal as individuals and as a society. So, to do just that, I've enlisted my friend,

Adam Skolnick, to host or sort of co-host what I anticipate will be an ongoing series of Ask Me Anything themed conversations, which is this new experiment in format change that I will be, to some extent, trading duties, reversing roles from time to time, swapping seats, in order to share a little bit more of my own personal perspective on matters of audience interest. As for my friend, Adam, longtime listeners will recall his 2016 appearance on the podcast.

That was episode 218. In that conversation, we talked about his life. We talked about his book, One Breath, which is this really beautiful, magnificent biography of America's greatest free diver, Nicholas Mavoli. But for those of you who are unfamiliar, Adam is an activist. He's a veteran journalist, perhaps best known as the co-author of David Goggin's juggernaut memoir, Can't Hurt Me. You guys read that book, right? Adam has written for the New York Times, Playboy, Outside, ESPN,

BBC, Men's Health, and many other prominent publications. And you might've caught his series of really outstanding pieces on Colin O'Brady and Colin's historic solo traverse of Antarctica in 2018 that Adam wrote up for the New York Times. In any event, Adam is a great conversationalist. I think he's a really perfect fit for this new series, this experiment. And you guys are going to soon find out. But first, let's take care of some business. We're brought to you today by recovery.com.

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the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay. So, before we launch in, I just want to say up front that this podcast is not and has never been a news program or a political talk show. I don't go out of my way to court controversy, and I always endeavor to unite people rather than divide. But this show is also about what's important, and it's about fundamentally having conversations that matter. And right now, no conversation matters more than Black Lives Matter. I've held off on posting an episode like this, not just because of the historically evergreen nature of the show

and the kind of protracted production cycle we've historically operated under, and the kind of protracted production cycle we've historically operated under, but also because I didn't want to just simply react in the moment. I really wanted to take a minute to listen before speaking, to kind of process what's going on, to also participate in the protests with my family and, of course, read, because I think it's important to address what's happening from an informed and reflective point of view rather than a reactive or kind of impulsive, reflexive perspective. So that's what we're doing here today. I'm ready to talk about it. And

this is the first of many conversations I'm going to be sharing over the coming weeks about race in America. This particular conversation is about privilege, and it's about our collective responsibility to act, to speak up for what's right, to finally dismantle the systemic ills that have contributed to really unspeakable harms that I think can no longer go unchecked. And it's also about, again, this unprecedented opportunity in this brilliant, unique moment and what it presents to evolve and to heal as individuals, as a nation, and as a global community. Finally, it's also a discussion about the history and the mission of this podcast, how I'm actively seeking to better myself and to broaden the inclusivity of the program and my advocacy in general. Final note, in the show notes, you'll find many resources, readings, essays, books, other podcasts, documentaries, and links to Black Lives Matter centered nonprofits. So I encourage all of you guys to explore that list, check it out, donate to the nonprofits there if you can, or find a way to support in other ways.

I appreciate all you guys. I don't take the responsibility of this platform or the authority that I have over this sphere lightly. It is a privilege and it's one that I intend to use to better myself and humanity as a whole. So with that being said, let's do it. This is me and Adam Skolnick. Welcome to the podcast. Today, we're gonna do something a little bit different. We're gonna do a version of Ask Me Anything. We're experimenting with the format a little bit here to try to be current, not only with audience interest,

but also with the news cycle to some extent. This is something that came up in my recent podcast with James Altucher, who was encouraging me to share more of my voice and my perspective and opinions on things that the audience is interested in. And I expressed to him in that conversation my discomfort with just speaking into a microphone alone. So I then reached out to my friend Adam Skolnick to join me so it could be more of a conversation and less of a monologue. You guys, longtime listeners will remember Adam. He was on the podcast. I can't remember what episode number it was, but it was quite a while ago.

He is the author of a book called One Breath about Nick Mavoli, the freediver. He's also a journalist and a writer, frequent contributor to the New York Times, Outside Magazine, anything else, all kinds of different outlets. And you write about environmentalism, you write about endurance sports and a number of other- Yeah, human rights, whatever stories, underreported stories kind of that terrain. We've been good friends. adam has recently dipped his toe into the world of swimrun uh adam's the guy who wrote the article for the new york times about when i did the otillo world championships and then you participated in the uh the one um the

swimrun in catalina recently that's right that's right i i did the experience yeah and uh and i haven't stopped running since. Right. And you're looking super fit. Hey, thanks. And I always enjoy my conversations with you. And I just thought that you would be a great person to volley back and forth with in this format. So we're giving it a go. Thanks for having me. Yeah, man.

I'm excited. Great to be here. I'm excited to talk to you today. Yeah. I think a good place to kind of kick this off is to directly address this very unique and historic moment that we're in right now, Black Lives Matter. I've been not struggling, that's the wrong word, but trying to figure out the best way to communicate around what is occurring in the moment. Historically, this podcast has been constructed in a way that has prevented it from being nimble enough and responsive enough to be of the moment. Like the conversations are typically evergreen, right? And I will record lots of conversations and then we have a production

cycle and those conversations will be released some weeks later, sometimes four, six, eight weeks later. In normal times, that's fine. Right now, that seems to be dysfunctional because everything is changing so quickly. And I felt this urgent need to be communicating about what is happening more concurrently with this rapidly escalating and changing landscape that we find ourselves in. So this is an effort to do just that. And I think, you know, one thing I want to speak to directly upfront is, you know, some criticism that's been hurled in my direction. My most recent podcast that went up this past weekend was with my friend, Doug Evans. He wrote this book called The Sprout Book. We talked about sprouting. We did touch on food injustice, but predominantly we spoke about his book Book. We talked about sprouting. We did touch on food injustice, but predominantly we spoke about his book and the nutritious power of sprouting. And there were some people who were ruffled by that

because it's so asynchronous with what is happening right now. And my immediate reaction is to be defensive, but in truth, that's correct, right? Like it does feel wrong to talk about anything but what's occurring in the news cycle right now, and I understand that. And this is – what we're doing right now is one way of rectifying that. And I do want to say up front that I have scheduled numerous people of color to be coming on the podcast yesterday. I did an amazing episode with my friend Byron Davis, a former USA

national swim team member, and his friend, Phil Allen Jr., who's a pastor and a poet and a filmmaker. We had an incredible conversation. That's going to be going up late Sunday night. We had an incredible conversation. That's going to be going up late Sunday night. I've got Knox Robinson coming back on the show. I've got John Lewis, the badass vegan. I've reached out to a whole number of other people, including Shaka Sengur, Reverend Michael Beckwith, some women, of course. So that's all going to be coming, but this takes time. There is a production cycle here, So I encourage people to be a little

bit patient. And also I just want to let people know that I hear you and I understand. And I think that as I grapple with how to communicate about this, I went through a period in which I didn't wanna be reactive in the moment. Like I wanted to say my piece, which I did in an Instagram post for the moment. But then I also expressed that I wanted to take the time to also learn and listen. And I've done that.

Our family went out and protested and I've just been paying attention to what's going on so that I can, when the moment does arise to speak to this, I'm a little bit more informed and I can respond intelligently as opposed to reacting impulsively. Yeah. Makes sense. I was going through some of the listener questions and you're talking about the future guests. Um, was it something that you ever tracked before in terms of having a diversity of guests or, or is that something that you're just kind of, you're, you're noticing now and wanting to pivot to, or is that something

that you've been, has been on your mind for a while? And, and, uh, yeah, it's been on my mind. I mean, it's, there has been criticism in the past that the podcast is not diverse enough. And that's come up again more recently, like why is your podcast so white and so male-centric? And again, that's another instance in which I get defensive because I look at my list of guests that I've had over the years and I think about Myrna Valerio and Shaka Singor and George Raveling and David Carter and Brian Terry and Knox Robinson and David Goggins and Dominic Thompson and Light Watkins and Sean Stevenson and Dr. Robin Shutkin and Silas Rao. And I can think of lots, I can rattle off like a lot of African-American guests that I've had. But when

you look at the canon of the work, 520 plus episodes, it doesn't hold up. And that's something that I have to own. Like, I think that the podcast has a lot of growth potential in terms of the diversity of voices that I can bring to it. And I will be the first to admit right now that I haven't done the best job with that. And that's part of my learning curve in this moment is being more sensitive to that truth and that reality, rather than just doubling down and saying, look at all the people that I've had. You know, why are you saying that? It's to actually reflect inward and honestly and objectively and try to understand where that perspective is coming from. And when I do look at it objectively, I see that point.

And I think that there is improvement there that I need to commit to. And so I am committing to that right now. I've already taken action to rectify that to some regard. And I think that it's important right now to open this up to a diversity of voices. You know, this is not a news podcast. And I resist trying to be, you know, I've resisted politics in general, and I don't court controversy.

But without a doubt, this is an unprecedented historic moment. And I think it's super important to be engaged in what's happening right now. I very much want to be on the right side of history and I want to get this right. And despite the fact that this isn't a news podcast, at the same time, it is a podcast about conversations that matter. And right now, nothing matters more than Black Lives Matter and what we're seeing unfolding, not just nationally, but globally, worldwide. Totally agree. I think, and by the way, that question came in from Stacey Alice Johnson, so I want to make sure that we acknowledge that. But, you know, when you're talking about that, a couple of things come to mind. One is this is a moment where we all have to do, and by we all, I mean white people, have to do the inner work and examine our own relationship to race in this country.

And I think that it's kind of a, this is the reconciliation moment. You know, when I started to think about kind of the greater issues here and why it's taken so long and what this moment means, you know, in after World War II, I know this because as a Jew, I know, I mean, I'm like well steeped in Holocaust info. And after World War II, there was reconstruction in Germany. And around 1960, there was this resurgence of German nationalism. And around that same time, Israel found out that Adolf Eichmann, who is kind of the managing director of all things Holocaust, he managed the trains and the schedules. He was found in Argentina. And they got him and they put him on trial all over the world.

They could tune in and see him on trial in Israel. And after that moment, Germany totally changed devote a substantial amount of time to examine what happened, how they slipped into nationalism, and what happened in the Holocaust, all the horrors in great detail. And we don't do that. We've never really done that. We gloss over slavery. We gloss over Jim Crow stuff, segregation. It's not taught every year. It's not taught in great detail.

And it's taught through the lens of the victors. This is something that came up in the podcast yesterday. The way that we were educated around these issues is from a perspective that is rather myopic. And those are the covers that are getting pulled right now. Yeah, exactly. And so you can't, if you don't examine it, and it's all about hard truths.

I mean, your podcast isn't a news podcast, but it is a how to live better podcast. It's not just a podcast of ideas. It's a podcast of ideas that you can relate to and improve your own life if you take the information as it is, like brain food and decide to dedicate yourself to it. And these are hard truths that we have not dealt with in this country.

And so now people are. It's very exciting to see the top of the bestseller lists are these How to Be Anti-Racist and White Fragility and some books that are very recent that did well enough but now are really selling. And I think that's a great thing because people are now doing their own education. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be doing more systemically. Yeah. Systemically is the key word. And it's this interesting juxtaposition. On the one hand, you have these massive protests that are very diverse in their socioeconomic and ethnic makeup. It's so interesting to take to the streets and see so many white people and brown people, people of color, people of all shapes and forms uniting around these ideas.

And I found myself much more emotional than I expected, which is so hopeful and heartening. At the same time, you go online and the vitriol and the resistance to these ideas is of equal force and measure at times. I think that that is going to lose out in the long run, but there is a certain swath of the population that's very threatened by this. And I'm interested in why that's the case. And my sense is that on some level, there's a perception that it's a zero-sum game. Like if we're talking about Black Lives Matter, that that somehow dismisses the value and importance of other lives. And right now, on top of this uprising in awareness,

we're also seeing the greater disenfranchisement of a lot of people due to unemployment and the sort of domino effect of coronavirus in this pandemic. And that's making people more afraid and more calcified around their identities and their sense of, you know, protecting what's theirs. Yeah. And so there's an interesting turf war that's going on right now. And I think so much of that resistance to change or resistance to embracing this idea that we, I mean, it's obviously an illusion, right to travel abroad, other lands, other cultures, take the land, take the stuff,

do whatever they want with it to subjugate the people. So why? Because we were superior in the eyes of God. That was the idea of race, right? And it was created by white people. Nobody else created race. So that's one. And the other reason it was used to divide people, to divide people up, mainly poor white people for years have been fed this idea

of race saying, no, you're better off than, look at these black people over here in this country. Anyway, look at these people over here. You're better off. You're superior to them. And that's what a lot of people latched onto. And that has allowed the powers that be, whether it be wealthy people, whether it be kings and lords, just wealthy Americans or the power structure, to exploit them and exploit all of us. And so it's basically a divide and conquer trick that was created. And that's all race is. Race is an illusion and it's a divide and conquer trick. And now it matters because it's been baked into the American way of life. It's like this weird neuroses that has been baked into all of us.

And we all have it. That's why we're doing this kind of inner work now. Because we grew up and live in a place where that has been baked into all of us and we all have it. That's why we're doing this kind of inner work now because we grew up and live in a place where that has been baked into the sauce. Yeah. And it's a matter of debugging ourselves, like rebooting our operating system with some kind of antivirus software to cleanse us of that. And I think that process of looking inward and evaluating the extent to which race plays a factor in the conscious awareness of the average person is challenging because most people would consider themselves not to be racist. I don't think that I'm a racist person. I don't, you know, commingle or surround myself with racist people. But when the racism is systemic, there are institutions in place that function in a way irrespective of our own personal relationship with race that tip the scales in the wrong direction and perpetrate these sorts of harms. And even deeper beneath that is that embedded system, that operating system,

that on a very unconscious level, there is that awareness of stratification around race. And that's very uncomfortable to say, what part of my own psyche is functioning on that operating system? And how can I deconstruct that? Or how can I get honest with myself about that so that I can transcend that? And I think a lot of people take offense to that because they think they're not racist and there is no work to be done. But I would challenge everybody to, that's what I'm trying to do right now. I'm trying to be honest about that. And a perfect example is like, well, just look at all the guests that I've had on the podcast, mostly white people. You know what I mean? So what's going on with me? I'm trying to do right now. I'm trying to be honest about that. And a perfect example is like, well, just look at all the guests that I've had on the podcast, mostly white people. You know what I mean? So what's going on with me? I'm not a racist person, but here's the manifestation of

my life's work. And that tells a story, right? So what is that story that's being told? And what aspect of that has to do with race? And that's the hill that I need to climb right now. Yeah, I mean, we're all grappling with our implicit biases and that just happens because we do have this weird, overt awareness of race that isn't serving anybody, especially black people. And like Toni Morrison, I just saw Toni Morrison clip from the old Charlie Rose show.

And she was like, but she flipped it. And she was like, no, what's that doing to you, white people? Because I'm fine. Right. Well, Charlie asked her something like, is race still a thing for you because you're this Pulitzer Prize winning, you know, heralded poet laureate, like you've transcended race. And she said, that's the wrong question.

Yeah. That's the wrong question. How do white people have to deal with race? And it's almost like, if you can only be taller than me because I'm on my knees, what's that say about you and your significance? And so that, but if you look at the story of, uh, of America, that's really the story. I mean, I was watching this, uh, Ken Burns documentary about Jack Johnson, the boxer last night, and to see, um, how the LA times and New York times were writing about him, the greatest athlete, because at the time, heavyweight boxing was the pinnacle of sports, the greatest athlete in sports. You'd be surprised how vitriolic it was, how racist it was. And these are, you know, I write for the New York Times, but we don't even know that, right? We don't know that as modern Americans, that that's how overt it

was, that like there was straight up racist stuff in news stories. You know, we talk about fake news now because Trump's always talking about fake news and he's delivering and retweeting fake news. And we had actual fake news affect our election in 2016. Black Americans have been dealing with fake news for hundreds of years. Right.

Stuff that they know has happened to them reported as false in the mainstream media for years and years. Stuff that they know has happened to them reported as false in the mainstream media for years and years. This is nothing new. So I don't know where I got on that tangent, but- Yeah, well, it goes back to history is told by the victors. There was an interesting thread on Twitter and I'm forgetting who posted it, but it was a very long thread about Martin Luther King and the extent to which white America embraces him and pivots about. Yes, nonviolence was part of it, but what gets missed in that is that it was all about civil disobedience. And with that, we're talking civil, yes, but disobedient, right? Making people uncomfortable was a big part of it, not protesting where they tell you you can protest, but protesting where they tell you you can't, right? And that gets lost in the conversation around MLK. I mean, that's just

one example. And I think another flare up that we're seeing right now is the conversation around defunding the police. Yeah. Because a lot of people are upset about that. Like, oh, you want to get rid of the police? That's not what defunding means. Defunding could mean a lot of things, but I think what it really is getting at is the core dysfunction in the systemic institution of policing to begin with, which is very much a community-based thing, but it goes back to what you were saying earlier about erecting mechanisms of control to solidify power structures. Yeah. of control to solidify power structures. I mean, we see protect and serve,

but really fundamentally, that's what it's about. And it's become highly dysfunctional in our current era. And defunding is a call to have a conversation about the fundamental purpose of policing and the allocation of resources to drive towards a more productive goal for everybody. Yeah. I wrote something down here, so I'm just kind of sifting through, but these big ideas are very exciting. They scare people. I mean, the defunding police talk does scare some people, especially more conservative people. But these big ideas are inspiring, and we should stay open to them.

Because I think what defunding the police, and really, we're just talking about cutting budgets. In very few cases is it talking about abolishing a police department. Yeah, nobody's talking about that. It's talking about cutting budgets, right? And I think personally, I mean, this is just my personal opinion, that we've for a long time have had a skewed budget towards militarization and the national level. I've always thought, God, why don't we take some of that military budget and put it into our underfunded schools and pay teachers more? Yeah, social services, kids programs, mental health. And the funny thing is I always thought about it as a national thing, but it's going to start now with the police because of the activists in the streets, because of Black Lives Matter.

This is where it starts. And I think we're going to see if this, if we can push this and continue the protests and continue the lobbying efforts and having lawmakers get on board, if we can see it at the local level, moving some money from militarization and enforcement and basically, let's call it what it is, weapons and death, and move it towards nurturing and nurturing life and giving people a better chance at a great life through education and through healthcare, I think we're going to see a better country come

out of it. So it's funny, the thread of defunding the police could be the trick. That's what it is. If the thread is white supremacy and you can start pulling it through the defunding the police, what can happen to this country in a positive way? And I think that's the big idea to think about. We're already seeing it. Minneapolis has already done that. They basically said, we're stripping this thing down to its studs and we're gonna rebuild this from the ground up. And I believe Camden, New Jersey

is kind of a pilot program example of that. They've done something similar in that regard. And again, that's another- Austin, Texas has something where you can call 911, but you can choose police or mental health responders, first responders. Yeah, it's super inspiring.

At the same time, we're seeing this malignant narcissist in the White House who's constructed a wall around his domicile. It's not his domicile. Yeah, right. It's the people's domicile, right? Yeah. Ensconced in this building while he's basically pulled out every trick from the despot's handbook

to activate his base. And my sense is that it's backfiring right now. There will always be, you know, his people who are going to support what he's doing, but there are significant cracks in that firmament at the moment. You know, I don't think that the average person takes kindly to seeing the extent of militarization in the streets to police its own people and armies, battalions of essentially soldiers who won't tell you who they work for or who they report to or Bob Barr out there pretending like he's Patton or something. It's disturbing. And I think most rational people are struggling with what that means and what that says about America. I think so. I mean, I think you were talking about the hardcore people that are resistant. Look at Buffalo Police Department and how I think they demonstrate this mass

resignation from the riot squad because two people pushed over a 75-year-old man instead of just dealing with them in a more peaceably way. Right, it was like 57 of them. They didn't resign, they got reassigned, right? Right, they quit the riot squad or whatever. And then 100 people showed up for the arraignment of those two officers and they cheered them.

And it just shows you there's a sensitivity, especially among cops and police around the country. But this hardcore group, they're very sensitive. They don't want to talk about these things. They're resistant. And I think even a lot of us don't want to be piled with a bunch of guilt. No one's talking about this to make anyone feel guilty. It's about making us feel responsible. Guilt is a worthless emotion. Responsibility is where you want to go, right? Like what can we do to make it better? And, you know, channeling it into efforts like banning chokeholds, you know, cutting the police budget so that it can go to, I think we should

talk about not just defunding police, but what are we funding with it? And I think that's part of the equation, funding schools in a more profound way, making sure people have enough to eat, just making sure we have a safer place for everybody to live. Yeah. And we get to have that conversation now. You know what I mean? We were talking yesterday about the work that DeRay McKesson is doing with 8 Can't Wait and Campaign Zero. And he's very much about data-driven solutions to the police force and what's required to, in a very tactical way to deconstruct some of these practices that are leading to the harms and the results that we're seeing right now. And I think a broader conversation about, you know, where this money is going so that

we can redress homelessness and we can redress everything from college debt to mental health. Yeah. I mean, if there was a social worker in that police car in Minneapolis also to deal with the first car, the first car that showed up to deal with someone who was struggling and didn't wanna get into that car because he was claustrophobic. If there was someone, and the same is true all the way down the line. If there is a mental health first responder

in a car with a policeman, what does that do? Who does that benefit? It's not gonna just benefit these would be victims of police violence. It's gonna benefit the cop as well. It benefits everybody because now you don't have that on your conscious, on your soul.

So, I mean, I think these ideas of incorporating mental health into policing or into the way we protect one another, because it's not just protecting the neighborhood, it's protecting one another, right? Yeah. Just to be clear, I'm not anti-police. No. You know, I'm not.

There are plenty of amazing police officers and first responders and, you know, all the kind of, you know, people that we need to, you know, keep society, you know, on the right track. But I do resist the bad apple narrative. Like there's a lot of talk about bad apples and certainly there are bad apples, but what we saw with George Floyd was, and I said this yesterday, like it was so brazen, right? And the casualness with which that harm was perpetrated, that murder, and the fact that there were the other officers who were just standing by and doing nothing speaks to a greater systemic issue that needs to get redressed. And I think that, I'm sure it's community-based, but the bar to becoming a police officer,

I feel like needs to be raised. Like you don't become a Navy SEAL until you go through BUDS, right? You go through rigorous training to become somebody who's capable of handling high stress situations that could potentially escalate and be violent. Yeah. And I would like to see more rigorous standards around

who gets to become a police officer. These are people who are putting themselves in harm's way on the daily. Yeah. And with that comes anxiety and stress and post-traumatic stress and all these mental issues. And we want those people to be mentally, emotionally, and spiritually fit to handle those situations, to understand what's required to avoid excessive force or lethal force when at all possible. force or lethal force when at all possible. And that, you know, it's common sense that that requires better training. When we're seeing what's happening right now, it speaks to a lack

of understanding and training around these skill sets that are crucial. Yeah. I mean, the idea of when a crisis hits, does your pulse rate go up or does it go down? We want people whose pulse rates go down, who can stay on task in the midst of trying circumstances and aren't afraid of them. And if they are afraid, don't act. It's okay not to act sometimes. It's okay to pull back. back. The fact that we have lost someone because he spent a counterfeit $20 bill is repulsive. The fact that he was even dealt with in any physical way when you could just write a ticket for something like that is ridiculous. So that goes into the training of exerting a physical will on another human being. There should be limits on when we do that. That should be a last resort,

not a first resort in my opinion. But I think that if we think about George Floyd and going back, and you were talking about the news cycle earlier, I don't want to ask you a question about this, but first we have this long, really boring pre-apocalypse moment with everyone staying at home with the pandemic, right? And everyone's kind of at home and it seems like,

oh, wow, we're looking at videos of dolphins coming into- We're making sourdough bread. Right, we're making sourdough bread. It's this long kind of like, kind of low key type thing. And then overnight the it's, it flips, but it started not with George, but it started with Ahmaud Arbery. And, um, we want, for me, you know, I'm a runner like you, uh, not like you, I'm not a runner like you.

Yeah, you are. I'm a runner. Also, I got a back injury. Now I'm sidelined from running for a little bit. So you're actually running more than I am. But Ahmad, I mean, it's very personal. Like during where I live in Santa Monica, the beach path was closed. So I start running into these neighborhoods and I'm running into tax brackets that I don't belong in. And I never once felt unsafe doing it or that it wasn't OK. And then we had Ahmaud Arbery.

I know you posted that great video on your Instagram. But I just wonder what you think of now. Because who would have thought then, and now it leads to this, but it is part of what's happened. I mean, that was the first thing to drop. Yeah, yeah these things yeah there there is a domino effect here in it and and and this episode that we're seeing began with a mod and um it's horrific in every regard and i think you know to the point of looking at my own behavior around this, I feel like I didn't speak up around that at that time. I was late to the party on that in terms of putting words together

in the public conversation around it. And I should have done that as a runner, as somebody who could identify with that aspect of who that human being was. It's unbelievably tragic. And in reflecting upon that, it's very clear. My privilege becomes very clear because I've run all over the world. I've run not just the trails around my house,

but I've had the privilege of traveling to lots of different places. And whatever hotel I'm staying in, my favorite thing when I go to a new city is just to put on my running shoes and run around it. And never once did I ever think I'm putting myself in harm's way, no matter where I am. And when I posted that the other day, there were some snarky comments like,

well, you're not running through Watts and you're not running through Compton. We have an apartment downtown because my daughter goes to a high school right next to downtown. And that apartment is around the corner from Skid Row. And I make a point of running through Skid Row on purpose because I want to see what's going on there. And I've never felt threat. In fact, people, when I run through Skid Row for the most part, and I've said this before, people are nicer to me than they are out on the trail. Like when I'm out on the trail and I wave to somebody

and they don't wave back, I'm like, what the fuck, right? I run through Skid Row and I'm giving high fives to these people who live in tents. And that's a potentially dangerous neighborhood. Now. Yeah, no, I'm not running through Compton every day or anything like that. I understand that's a different thing. But the point is that I don't have to think about that or worry about that. And I've been pulled over by the cops so many times in my lifetime. When I was out of control alcoholic, I got pulled over for DUI tons of times,

never once. Not only was I not afraid of anything happening to me by the cop, I got let off like tons of times when I should have gone to jail or been arrested. So many times. And I've run in the Middle East. I've run all over the place. And I've run through Beirut, Lebanon and weird neighborhoods and places where I am the minority and never thought once about

my own personal safety. Because it's not the law enforcement apparatus isn't geared towards you. And that whataboutism is kind of people, again, not wanting to listen because it's hard to hear. You know, I mean, I think you talked about David Goggins. You know, obviously I- Right, when we were giving your CV at the beginning, we left out like the thing that you were in cooperation, partnership with David, wrote his book, Can't Hurt Me,

which is still like the number one book in the world. It's crazy. And you did the audio book with him. Yeah, I narrated an audio book. And I mean, he's such a masterful storyteller, the way he tells his story. But one thing he is not afraid to do is look at himself with a microscope

and talk to himself in a way that's real. And the approach that you want to take when people are telling you something isn't, well, what about this? What about that? It's to listen and to look into yourself before you say, what about, what about? I mean, like a great example of systemic racism in this country is, you know, remember when all the gunmen came around the Michigan State House, the guys with the AR-15s and all that, and people were talking about, you know,

if that was people of color, if those were black men, it would have been National Guard, they would have been arrested, all that. It got me to think of California gun laws because California has one of the best gun control measures in the United States. And do you know who passed those gun laws? Now who? Reagan. In the 1960s, Reagan was governor and he passed those gun laws with the full cooperation and support of the NRA because Black Panthers did try to come to the state capitol with guns to do a demonstration.

The guns were removed and they still came and they stormed the capitol and they were able to break into the actual floor of the statehouse while legislation was going on. The legislative session was going on, and then those people were arrested. And then soon after that, they actually passed gun control measures in California. It wasn't Democrats who passed those measures. It was Reagan with the full cooperation of NRA. There's no real better episode from history

to show you that we couldn't even pass gun control measures in this country after Sandy Hook. So that just shows you kind of like how the system is played out and lean, you know, as much as anything, in my opinion. Yeah. It shows you how it's how it tilts. Another interesting wrinkle to the issue of guns when you look at the Second Amendment and the intention behind that, which was to empower the people to rise up against a corrupt government. The deployment by the government of basically a private militarized police force, which is the very thing that the founding fathers had in mind supportive of the despotic move by the government right now. And there's an inherent irony in that, which is, you know, kind of amazing. It's so weird. You know, I was watching, my wife is six months pregnant. So I've been very careful during quarantine and not, have not attended the,

uh, the demonstrations, not out of a lack of wanting to be there, but just out of being super careful. Um, and it's really exciting to see how many, everyone is an activist. Now I've been in and around activism, uh, mostly in the environmental side for, you know, most of my adult life and to see everyone become an activist is very exciting and to want to be there. But that first, I was watching it very intently as it started unfolding in Los Angeles that first Saturday around Fairfax. And there was no looting in Los Angeles, especially around Fairfax and Melrose until the cops oriented all their attention around the peaceful protesters and started hitting them with batons. That's when the first glass started to break. I mean, that's just the facts. And in Santa Monica, it was a very similar story, how it played out.

And when I was watching the looting at first, it was hard to watch. You know, you don't want to watch that. You feel really badly for business owners because of what they've had to endure with quarantine. Yeah, 100%. And so you feel terrible about that. Nobody wants to see that. But at the same time, like 24 hours later, I started having a totally different view on the looting.

And that view is, that's what no justice, no peace means. It doesn't just mean 100,000 people marching down Hollywood Boulevard peacefully. It doesn't mean just sitting in front of the mayor's house. That's part of it. But it also means if we can't create a more just society where everyone has a fair shot, everyone has a fair shake, then that's what no justice, no peace means. And it means that there is going to be times where it's going to blow up. The frustration is going to boil over and allow other people, opportunists or not, to get involved and loot. And so I think if we look at it, again, the hard truth, that is a hard truth.

We created that moment by allowing this frustration to build and build and build. That's not something that happened because of them. It's not a them, them. Well, you have to back it up and look at the seed, this germinated out of these other events. You have to look at it from a global perspective. And listen, look, that's certainly true. At the same time, there are other people

who are just opportunistically out there looting, who don't give a shit about no justice, no peace. They're just like, oh, the cops are distracted. I can go break into Nordstrom right now. Totally. But then why are the police so focused on peaceful protesters? Why don't you just let people march and protest? That whole situation was created because of the events that unfolded, of course. Yeah, and the strategy of orienting your peacekeeping

around the peaceful protesters versus around, okay, let's just let them march and just protect the buildings. And then nobody gets hurt. And nobody's throwing bottles at anybody. I mean, it's choices that are made over and over again. If you go back to the Michael Brown incident in Ferguson, when people were really pissed off in the streets, and even in Minneapolis, people were pissed off in the streets.

And I thought, let people be pissed off in the streets, especially now during quarantine. No one's trying to get anywhere. So like, let people be pissed off in the streets. If you start to try to control that, it's going to blow up. I mean, it doesn't take brain surgery, but for some reason it's built in. People in the streets are a problem. We have to try to control problems as opposed to just let it run its course. Right. Yeah. There was a sense when Ferguson happened that that was going to be a tipping moment. Yeah. That was 2014.

what's going to be a tipping moment. Yeah. That was 2014. It was not. It wasn't, right? And I will admit that when the protests began in Minneapolis, that I couldn't have predicted that it would catch fire and sweep the nation in the way that it did. Not me neither.

I called my friend, Brogan Graham, who lives in Minneapolis. After the first night of protests, it's a check-in with him. He lives right in the middle of where all that was going on. And during that conversation, we were just talking and he was telling me the experience of being essentially at ground zero for that. But never once during that conversation did I think that these protests were going to start happening in essentially every city and community across America and now overseas.

It's crazy. That's what's exciting about it, right? That's the excitement that everyone now is keyed into this other virus that is white supremacy and wanting to tackle it. But at the same time, look at Arab Spring. Not to be a downer on this, because I can see anything happening from here on out. I could see Trump losing 50 of 50 states. Yeah, there's nothing off the table right now. Nothing's off the table.

You can go from Trump losing 50 of 50 to him winning. Or to winning in a landslide. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, who knows? I would doubt a landslide, but he could certainly squeak out a victory. Yeah. But Arab Spring is a perfect cautionary tale. Maybe Tunisia came out of Arab Spring okay and did better, but of all of the countries, I think every single one regressed.

And look at Syria. So we have to continue. You're talking about eight can't wait. What would you suggest your listeners do? Do you have advice on what to do if you're not, in addition to protesting or if you haven't protested things that you can do? Did you guys discuss that yesterday? Yeah, a little bit. And I've been doing a lot of thinking about this. I mean, I think that I'm sympathetic on some level to the predicament of the white person in figuring out how to put, you know, whatever they're feeling into, you know into a productive channel right now. I think there's a lot of people who are hesitant to say anything because they're not sure what the right thing to say is. And like myself, they don't want to say the wrong thing. And so there's a paralysis

that happens with that where you're like, well, I don't really, this is, I should take a back seat here and let the black leaders lead the charge here. But there's a narrative that this problem is like going back to what Toni Morrison said, like this is a white problem and it's incumbent upon the white people to fix it. And that's going to require all of us to look inward and take stock and inventory of our own behavior. Change doesn't happen without interpersonal change and interpersonal change, right? So we have to be fearless in our own self. Interpersonal change, which starts with interpersonal change. Exactly. Right. Like you've got to reflect inward and do an honest and open and objective inventory

on your own behavior. And that's what I'm attempting to do right now. And with that comes a responsibility with how you interact with other human beings on the one-on-one and then on public forums like Twitter and Facebook and the like. And that means being open to new ideas, being open to challenging your worldview about your own personal relationship with race, you know, being,

you know, courageous enough to, you know, read the books, like to Be an Anti-Racist or watching the documentaries and entertaining perspectives that might be different or uncomfortable for yourself. I think there's no way around that. It has to begin with ourselves and our relationship to ourselves and our own, you know, mining our own, you know, consciousness to try to peel back the layers on, you know, our own interpersonal history with race. How do you do that? Have you just, is it something that you just do, like you meditate on it?

Do you journal about it? Have you been just talking to, you know, Julie or other friends or how has that manifested for you? I mean, it's, you know, Julie or other friends or how, how has that manifested for you? I mean, it's, you know, I'm talking to a lot of friends, you know, I, I will admit also that, you know, I, I was, you know, I was hesitant in how I communicate publicly about this because I didn't want to get it wrong. And I had a sense of that paralysis and I did want to take a beat to like learn and listen. And I think my sense is that there's a white fear about how the black community is going to respond to what a white person has to say about this.

Especially in the public eye. But the more African-Americans that I speak to, Americans that I speak to, they're waiting for those white voices. Like they want, you know, the white people to come forward and acknowledge what is happening right now and to give voice to their openness for entertaining new solutions right now. So I'm trying to have those conversations. I am trying to listen, but I'm also trying to responsibly message around that to encourage everybody to find, you know, their way of being part of the solution. And I think that's going to depend on your own psychological makeup as well, right? Like not everybody is the person who's going to take to the streets with a sign, but we all have people in our lives and we have choices around how we communicate with them about these issues. I think that that's interesting because I love how you said the interpersonal is an interpersonal.

In this kind of thing, yes, you can journal. You can write it all out if that's your thing. But also, interpersonal can open the door to the interpersonal. If you have someone you trust that you want to talk about these issues with, it could be really valuable to get on the phone with someone and just talk them out and be completely honest, be completely raw, and be unafraid of what comes from it. Because that's how you purge it, right? I mean, it's interesting.

I think it's, you know, for those that are on social media, it's also about, you know, seeking out the people of color and the variety of voices that are available to you and making the choice to follow those and to pay attention to what those people are saying, like break out of your silo that's comfortable for you and seek out the people that are giving voice to this in a different way, even if that challenges your own personal worldview. 100%. I remember a book that kind of politicized me in a deep, deep way when I was 20 years old was the autobiography of Malcolm X, which is the original kind of how to be an anti-racist tome. And it's written by Alex Haley. I think the best ghostwritten book ever. It's an incredible book. Probably the best memoir, American memoir ever. I think that's a good place to start. I haven't actually seen that on some of these reading lists that are popular. Yeah, it's interesting. I've noticed that as well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But to me, that like, and at the same time, I used to read a lot, like when I was 20, 21, 22, this, I was, I read about COINTELPRO, which was this, and you know, CIA, FBI, local law enforcement apparatus that was set up to crush the civil rights movement, especially the black power movement. I read all about that. I have not been reading about that voraciously as I grew older. I've gotten comfortable on knowing what I knew

and feeling like I'm a pretty good person. And that was good enough. Even with Ferguson happening, even with all these horrible things happening, I've not skewed my life towards getting involved in police brutality issues or violence. You know, I haven't. So, you know, that's my personal failing too. Right. And that's from somebody who I care about these issues a lot. You know, I've been studying these issues

for a long, long time. So, you know, we all have a lot of work to do because we don't want this to be Arab Spring 2.0. Right. You know, we do want to end up with a 50-50 kind of landslide and victory. And most important, we don't want our brothers and sisters

getting killed in the streets anymore. 100%. Yeah. 100%. Well. 100%. Well, the one thing we can all do is we can vote. And I have concerns about what's gonna happen in November. Talk to me. If the pandemic and coronavirus continue

at their current rate, or we see a second wave. Listen, we were joking about this before the podcast, Like, listen, we were joking about this before the podcast, and this speaks to my own cognitive biases. When I saw videos of people partying at Lake of the Ozarks, what was that, like 10 days ago when those videos were going around? I remember feeling outraged. Like, how could these people do this? This is so irresponsible. They're just going to contribute to the spread of this virus. Fast forward to two days ago or three days ago or whatever it is, and you see this drone footage above Hollywood Boulevard, and it's just packed

with thousands and thousands of people. And my heart was full. And I thought, what a beautiful, amazing thing. And yet in the context of coronavirus, that's perhaps the worst possible thing that anybody could do. And it's like, did we just decide that the coronavirus isn't a thing anymore? I think what it is, is there's a hierarchy of concerns and needs, right?

When we're thinking about our own personal welfare, we wanna sequester, we're wearing the masks, we're doing the social distancing. But when a problem so acute and so demanding of immediate redress in voice, we will take to the streets. And there's something that makes that extra inspirational, but also worrisome in terms of the inevitable spike in coronavirus cases that we will undoubtedly see unfolding over the next couple of weeks. And what is that – how does that bode in terms of what's going to happen come November?

We have this huge election on the horizon. There's so much unrest right now. There are so many questions that are being asked about what America means for the people and in the eyes of the world. And we're going to cast a vote and decide. If we're in a situation in which people can't access the ballot box or there are certain measures in place that provide a chilling effect on that, that's going to lead to greater social unrest. And if whoever wins doesn't win by a significant margin, we're going to see potentially greater unrest around campaign malfeasance that could literally lead to the undoing of our country. Like I'm deeply concerned about that. On top of that, we have this problem of weaponized social media and fake news. Yeah.

I would have hoped that in the wake of what we saw with the 2016 election that we would have figured out how to get a handle on this. But instead, all we've seen is an explosion, a mushroom cloud in the impact of how the media functions on the psyche of the American voter. And I despair the more that I think about that because I don't see a solution to this problem. I see it only being fomented at an exponential rate. And I think that that means that it's incumbent upon all of us to be as active as we possibly can and to make sure that our voices are being heard and to be, you know, on that personal inward journey to, you know, challenge the edifice of our own information diets to break out of those silos and to make sure that we're empowering ourselves with

the best, most vetted education possible. Yeah. I mean, I think anything can happen, just like you said. We're at the crux of either we're going to go into... It's not going to be status quo, no matter what. It's either going to be a perverted version of the last four years with Trump, even worse, or it's going to be some re-imagining of America, which is a beautiful thing, but it might be messy at times, but it's a very cool opportunity. I feel like we're at this opportunity. We haven't been since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was running for president in 1968. And of course, Martin Luther King and him were killed very, very close together. And everything went kind of, the nadir came and the advancement that we were all hoping for,

the pull out of, I mean, I wasn't alive yet, but I studied it. America didn't get out of the war. They doubled down. We didn't get better. We did slide back. And now you have this same moment. But the good thing about it is that people are so politicized that even in a pandemic, they are marching shoulder to shoulder. Right. That's the uplifting aspect of this. And so people will turn out. I don't think people are going to be afraid to vote because I think we're going to remember

all those people marching in the streets. I don't think people will be afraid to vote. I think we will vote. And Trump's going to lie anyway. I mean, no matter how he loses, he's going to lie about it. If he loses 50 out of 50, it's almost worse. The lie might even be more believable to some people. They're like, how could I lose 50 states?

How could I lose all these red states? They love me in Texas, you know, that kind of thing. So I think we can't be worried about that. That's just inevitable. That's like the sun coming up in the morning. He's going to lie. But what's interesting is in this re-imagining of America that I think, because another great read that I haven't seen people talk about is The Case for Reparations,

which is Ta-Nehisi Coates' essay from the Atlantic that kind of launched him in terms of being a public intellectual. And we're seeing the first bits of reparations. The Kentucky governor has extended healthcare coverage to all black residents. We're starting to see these little bits of what America could be coming out of this. And so that's exciting.

It's very exciting, but you're right. There's a lot of work to do. This is just the beginning of something, like you had said to me earlier today, not nearly the end. It's just barely the beginning. Yeah, and I think on top of that, there's always this push with every election cycle, like we got to get the

young people out to vote. Like, you know, it's all about like trying to, you know, marshal that sector of the population to get them to the ballot box. And they never do, right? Like no matter what, it's always, you know, it's like, whether it's MTV, you know, whoever's pushing this, like the young people still don't do it. But I feel like now they are. Like I've never seen young people more energized around anything in a civic manner like they are right now. And I think that that is super encouraging. Agreed. I think that's, to see this level of politicization

and knowledge of it and to see it pop of politicization and knowledge of it and to see it pop up in viral videos from like Whitefish, Montana, small towns in Mississippi. That's why I think the 50 for 50 thing is in play. Losing 50 is in play for Trump because I'm seeing stuff I've never seen before. But it's going to take concerted effort and people are doing it. There's all sorts of efforts. I would love to see McConnell get kicked on his rear end out of town.

There's lots of stuff that are in play now that we never would have thought before because of this incredible moment that we're in. What's also interesting is the power of the moving image and how that plays into all of this. The most impactful filmmaking that's happening right now in the world is happening on the cell phone. that's happening right now in the world is happening on the cell phone. These moments that are getting captured, whether it's what we saw with George Floyd or what we saw with the Buffalo police officer

that knocked over the elderly man, or even with the white kids that are looting the Nordstrom or setting fires or whatever it is, like this is all playing into how we're grappling with how to think about these issues in such a powerful way because they just get shared. The manner of distribution has become so democratized that it doesn't matter that the movie theaters are closed.

You know what I mean? Like we are being fed these images in like this waterfall of information, and we're trying to figure out how to process all of this and then determine a path forward for this country at a very you know interesting time like this is we are living in a truly historic moment right now i mean it's partly because the movie theaters are closed it's because no one's going to work it's because of i mean i don't think the crowds would be this big you know there would be some crowds i mean occupy wall street happened when everyone was working, but like it wouldn't be to this level if there wasn't this many people available.

Right. So it's almost because of it, in my opinion. But that's how history happens, right? It's like multiple crazy things all happening in the confluence of one time and place. Right. That's what makes history. Yeah.

Yeah. And to think, like, think back to New Year's Eve, right? And we're all thinking about what's going to happen in 2020. Nobody could have ever imagined that we would be in this position. It's quite remarkable. It is. It is. I mean, I'm going to have, my wife's going to have our first kid in September. What's the due date? September 10th. And, you know, we've been having a fine time. We've been staying very close to home and it's all good. But, and she's handling this like a rock star. She's not like poor me at all.

And I'm built, I'm built to find the higher ground. I'm built to keep it simple. Like it's very easy for me to find the good in, in, in any moment. And what I can do to make my life, uh,

great on a daily basis. I'm just kind of, I've done some work on the, in that area and I'm, I'm built for that. But when this started to blow up with George Floyd at first, when we first saw his video, it's very sad. You think about bringing somebody into the world, into this world,

the way we have it set up. It was very sad. We were both sad about it. And now, a week or two later, I'm excited. I'm stoked to be bringing another person into this world because we could make it better. We can become like an American version of this social democracy. We can have like an American version of this social democracy. We can have like affordable public school, I mean, great public schools and affordable daycare and affordable preschools,

maybe even free preschools that set people up. We can democratize nutrition to the point where we have better food for more people. We can do all those things. And it's so interesting because even though I studied this before and I've heard it from friends who have been kind of had to have to deal with white supremacy their whole lives, the key really is now, I mean, the thread is loose. And if we pull

that thread and we eradicate that one thread that's just been woven into everything um maybe that is the antidote like pulling that thread maybe that is what's going to take to become a better version of ourselves and i mean look at the nfl look at the commission nfl now right the guy who was like anti-kaepernick is now publicly saying he's with the players i I personally, you can read that in a number of ways. You can read that as a political move. But you have to, the whole point of activism is to change people's minds. So to me, that's a win.

It's a small win. It's a small win. It was definitely political. It's political, but you do this for a reason. And you don't do it to get people to change their minds and then shame them. You do it to change people's minds. That's a key thing here.

We have to allow people to grow and change. And we're in this cancel culture where we're holding people accountable for things that they said and they did very much in the past. We have to provide people with a path to redemption. And we have to allow people to, we have to celebrate those wins, right? When people are able to make those shifts rather than continue to harp on the thing that

they did in the past. I think that's a healthy way to go forward right now. And it's so interesting to think about like the hullabaloo over Kaepernick when that was happening in comparison to what we're seeing right now and how relevant that remains to be. Yeah. I mean, what a hero that guy is. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's unbelievable. And then there was the videos going around, which I didn't know, like the guy who inspired him to take a knee in the first place was like a Green Beret, like a white Green Beret guy

who was like telling his version of that story and how it all came to be. Because he asked what would be a respectful way of doing it and the Green Beret said, Neil. Right. Yeah. So he was trying to do it the right way. I know.

He wasn't even trying to be, yes, he was trying to make a point, but he knew, I mean, he's very smart. So he knew it was was trying to make a point, but he knew. I mean, he's very smart. So he knew it was going to cause. Of course. Yeah, he knew. Well, one more thing I want to talk about before we round this down.

You're talking about having a child and I've got four kids and there was a question that came in about how my kids are doing through all of this. It's been a very interesting time. And I've got a 12-year-old daughter. My youngest turns 13 this. It's been a very interesting time. And I've got a 12-year-old daughter. My youngest turns 13 today. It's her birthday today. Happy birthday. Happy birthday, Jaya.

And I look at her and I think about what the world is gonna be like for her when she's 30, 40 years old. What is the psychological imprint that's happening right now? And how is that going to be manifest in a society that exists when I'm long gone, right? Corona kids, like what is, you know, she hasn't been able to see any friends

and we've been homeschooling her. Like she's gone through this period where she's been incredibly socially isolated. Like what is the impact of that? And on top of that, I can tell you from the perspective of my kids, Jai's turning 13, Mathis is 16, our boys are 23 and 25. They're so politically up to speed on everything by dint of social media.

Social media has got a lot of problems, especially with young girls. That's a whole other podcast. But one thing that it is serving them well in is how informed they are about what's happening and how not only are they aware of what's going on, they are fully briefed on all the arguments about why things should be a certain way. And when I reflect back on what I was doing when I was 13 or 16, I can tell you that the conversations that I was having with my friends

were not around civil rights and social justice and the like. And that gives me great hope. That doesn't mean that this hasn't been a challenging time for them, but I think there's sort of this chrysalis moment. They're being forged for lives of purpose. And the seeds of what is right and what is wrong and what should the world look like are being kind of like fertilized at the moment. And I think that's happening all across the world. Yeah, and this doesn't have to be as scary like this new America, this new future

that we're imagining right now together. It can be beneficial for everybody you know i think that's what what we want to keep in mind is like i've seen some stuff online saying losing your privilege will feel like oppression um so but don't be afraid and i i don't feel like that's actually true i feel like how i don't even understand that. Well, the idea is, right. Like the idea is that I think I've seen online is if you freely give up your white privilege, it'll mean you get less or something. But I don't agree with that idea. I think that what we want to do is create a place where everyone can have a better life and everyone will benefit. want to do is create a place where everyone can have a better life and everyone will benefit so i don't think um there should be any fear of like you know losing your station in society or any of

that bullshit you know like you know there is there is only us you know it's like a team it's like we're we haven't been behaving like a very good team. It's been a fractured team. But we really actually are on a team. It would be nice if we had some leadership, if we had a coach that could unify us a little bit. Well, that's where old Joe comes in, I guess. Yeah. Good old Joe. Right.

Oh, Joe. Joe. Right. Oh, Joe. Joe, he's what we got. I hear you, brother. Wouldn't it be funny if Bernie, I mean, it would be great. If Bernie was around here, he'd be screaming at the cameras somewhere. Oh, my Lord. Yeah, it's amazing that we don't have him actually talking about it. I know.

Yeah. I know. And there's all different, I think also it's interesting how relevant some of the things that Andrew Yang was talking about. It's like UBI, this is the moment. He was ahead of the curve and bringing that into public awareness. Absolutely. That's a real conversation that we should be having and entertaining right now. We've got it. I mean, people are getting checks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He actually predicted it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But I think we need to institutionalize that in a real way,

not just this one check and say we've dealt with it. I mean, certainly that's not the case. No, no, no. No, no. There needs to be more effort, but cool, man. That's good. I'm not sure if we asked you a lot of these reader questions. What was funny is, yeah, so here's the thing. We started this with the idea of doing an Ask Me Anything. I went on the Facebook group and said, I'm going to be doing this. And there were like, you know, over a hundred comments. And Adam dutifully went through all of them and created a spreadsheet. And I said to you, like, I'm so long-winded. We're only going to be able to answer like two or three of these.

But the truth is, like, we have to talk about what's going on right now. So I understand and realize we didn't get to – I think we answered two questions out of this. But I think this went well. How do you feel? Oh, yeah. It was great, man. So I think we're going to be doing this. We're going to try to figure out a way to do this on the regular and um and that way we can sort of you know begin the process of of working through the questions that you that you

want answered and this is something that that i want to do more of the podcast obviously has historically been about putting a spotlight on the guest. It's not about me. But as I discussed in my conversation with James Altucher, and I think he's correct, there is a place on this show to have looser conversations where I can share some of my insights. And there seems to be an interest in doing that. So I want to serve that. Absolutely. And we'll do this more. And are the show notes,

are you going to direct people to different things they can do reading or, or. Yeah, I think I'll put some, I'll put some effort into the show notes and try to provide some, some resources so that people can broaden their horizons and their perspectives. A friend of mine sent me a Google Doc

that had tons of amazing stuff on it. So I might just put a link so other people can access that same document, which is basically like a syllabus with all of these links and books and documents, et cetera. And I think that would probably do the trick for now. Perfect. All right, man.

Will you wanna come back and do this again with me? Hell yeah. All right, cool. Let's do it. All right. Let's talk about sprouts. Awesome. Yeah.

Talk about sprouts. It's funny because I did a podcast with an environmentalist the other day. And just talking about anything other than what's going on right now just feels awkward and wrong. It's tough. It's tough to get anything done either. And yet we're still in the midst of a global climate emergency. It's not like that went away. No.

So it is important to also talk about other things. But you can't do that unless you're also engaged in what's happening right now. Agreed. And this is the moment that could unlock a lot of solutions if we let it, if we follow, if we walk through the door together. Yeah. Well, other than cooking a new baby, what else you got going on? Are you working on any long pieces or what are you writing right now?

I am. I've been working on, I've been wrestling with this novel that I've been wanting to write for a long, long time. And so I'm almost done with the very first raw draft of that. And then working on a nonfiction project kind of at the same time. I can't announce anything about it yet. So I've kind of been doing those two, researching a little bit of nonfiction and writing this novel. And then when stories come through, they come through. The

most recent thing I did journalism-wise was a story on surfing during the pandemic for New York Times Sports. You also did a story on the wall. I did a story on the outside. Yeah, that was outside. That was in late November last year, I think it came out. It went down to Tucson and was there when they were building the first pieces of the wall through preserved national park land. Right, so it was through the lens of the environmental impact. The environmental impact on cutting off wildlife corridors

and the environmental impact of the wall because basically what's been happening in there, while this protests have been happening, he actually expanded these powers of the federal government to waive the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act. 21, I think it was, environmental laws were waived with a stroke of Trump's pen. And that became legal because of a very obscure law, which was passed during the W. Bush years, basically as a budget rider. And so that was buried as a budget rider in this bill that passed easily. And Trump is the first to use it to sweep away environmental laws to build.

And he did it to build the wall. But just recently, he did it to build anything. to build the wall, but just recently he did it to build anything. So now you can, those same laws have been waived for construction projects in cities across the country on infrastructure stuff. Right. It's a bit of a sleight of hand because there's so much unrest right now, but behind the scenes, there are measures being taken like this that are erased from the news cycle that he is able to accomplish and get away with because our attention is placed elsewhere. Exactly. So you got to always watch what that other hand's doing. Luckily, there are lawyers that do watch that. There are lawsuits. I mean,

obviously, the wall is being built. That's happening right now. But the more recent measure of, I think it was last week, those will be challenged in court. So no reason to panic just yet, but it just shows you where the mind of this administration is. And it's not for the benefit of everybody. You talk to Goggins lately? I haven't spoken with him lately. I spoke with Jennifer more recently, but I have not spoken with him lately. But yeah, he-

He blew out his knee or something, right? Yeah, it looks like he blew out his knee. But I ain't stopping him. He's walking on his hands on the treadmill. I saw that. And I was like, oh my God. I mean, I think of, obviously working with Goggins

has been the highlight of my career. I think about the lessons that he talks about all the time in my life and even now. That's another thing to think about is making sure you're honoring yourself and doing the hard work you need to do no matter what's happening out in the world. The world's always going to be noisy and crazy. So take time to do that too. I would tell all your listeners, make sure you're doing what you need to do too. Sometimes it could feel like if me swimming in the ocean and doing some free diving and it seems like it's not fair, why am I doing that when all this stuff's going on? And I just don't pay attention to that. You have to do also, you have to refuel. You have to take care of yourself.

Yeah, you gotta, and, you know, Goggins' mantra is really, there are so many things in this world that you can't control. So stop being a victim, take control of what you can control, and, you know, take care of yourself. Right. And deal with the hard truths.

Yeah. We're dealing with them. Yeah, and that's what we're dealing with right now. That's right. All right, my friend. We're going to be doing this again. So thank you. If you want to find out more about Adam, where's the best place to track you down? Adamskolnick.com is my website and Twitter and Instagram. No, Twitter and Instagram is just at Adam Skolnick. At Adam Skolnick. What was Adam's Vibe? Oh, that's just, you know, you really want to know the origins of Adam's Vibe.

In the 90s, when email first became a thing, it was Adam's Vibration. Okay. Adamsvibe at yahoo.com. And then that became this thing, but I think I'm gonna fix that at some point. Maybe, because when you're 70, you don't wanna be Adams Vibe. Right, okay.

Awesome, man. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. This was super fun. Yeah, man. Thanks for having me. And I will link up everything in the show notes, also link up Adam's stories that he was talking about and all the good stuff.

So go there. And that's it for today. I guess I'll just do – I can just do the outro now. I appreciate you guys listening to the show. Check the show notes for all the links and resources. Find out more about Adam. I want to thank everybody who helped put on today's show. Blake Curtis, who videoed today's show.

Jason Camiello for doing the audio engineering. Allie Rogers for portraits. My boys, Tyler, Trapper, and Hari for the theme music for the podcast. Georgia Whaley for copywriting. Who else? What did I forget? Jessica Miranda. Ah, Jessica Miranda for her graphics, of course.

Awesome. What's that? I forget. Jessica Miranda. Ah, Jessica Miranda for her graphics. Of course. Awesome. We'll be back here in a couple days with my conversation with Byron Davis and Phil Allen Jr. It's a banger.

You guys are going to love it. Can't wait for that one. Until then, be well, my friends. Peace. Plants. Thank you.