The Rich Roll Podcast - Roll On: Body Brokers

Episode Date: March 4, 2021

This is a story of spiritual swindlers. Sober living scammers. Underground insurance fraud. And widespread institutional neglect. In today’s edition of ‘Roll On’, Adam Skolnick and I discuss the rampant corruption incident to unregulated addiction treatment centers—brutal truths brought to light by the new independent film Body Brokers. We share good news and bad. We perform a bit of show and tell. And as always, we answer listener questions. For those new to the podcast, Adam Skolnick is an activist and veteran journalist best known as David Goggins’ Can’t Hurt Me, co-author. Adam has written about adventure sports, environmental issues, and civil rights for outlets such as The New York Times, Outside, ESPN, BBC, and Men’s Health. He is the author of One Breath and is currently hard at work on a novel. Some of the many other topics explored in today’s conversation include: an update on Adam’s preparation for the Goggins’ 4 x 4 x 48 challenge; the Iron Cowboy’s ‘Conquer 100’ challenge; gravel cycling & Rich’s Specialized ambassadorship; the new documentary ‘Diving Deep’ and the life of activist Mike deGruy; Barack Obama’s new podcast and the future of the podcasting; the recent rise in Asian hate crime; and Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s impact on free speech—and what it means today. In addition, we answer the following listener questions: If you could have a conversation with three luminaries living or dead, who would you choose? How do you make time to pursue ultra-running without disrupting work and family balance? What books, podcasts, and other types of media do you consume? Thank you to Josh from North Carolina, Tara from Long Beach, and Emily from Minneapolis for your questions. If you want your query discussed, drop it on our Facebook Page, or better yet leave a voicemail at [phone]. FULL BLOG & SHOW NOTES: bit.ly/richroll585 YouTube: bit.ly/rollon585 Peace + Plants, Rich

Hey, everybody, welcome to another edition of Roll On. Goodness is on the way, but first, we're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment, an experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A

problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do.

And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Hey, everybody, welcome or welcome back

to another raucous rendition of Roll On, wherein to wit, the duly anointed, pod-knighted, Sir Adam Skolnick and I dissect matters top of mind, matters seminal and of great consequence, and matters perhaps specious, whimsical, and or vapid, depending upon your vantage point. We also do a wee bit of show and tell, and of course answer your questions from our voice mail.

Did a Scottish man write this copy for you? I didn't realize I was- I was feeling free with the pen when I came up with this. I like it. I didn't realize I was a pod knight, but I appreciate it. You could do the whole podcast in that accent. How about that?

I think you'd lose lots of listeners. It does not be good, right? You know what? I'd speak to dogs that way now. So as I'm running by, if there's a dog, hello, mate, how are you? And the dog owners love it. This would fall under the specious aspect

of things to be discussed today. TMI, my friend. Listener questions, if you want your question answered, leave us a voicemail at 424-235-4626. So lean back, lean in, smash that subscribe button as the YouTube kids say, that is what they say, right? Is it? The only YouTube kids I watch are 30 years old, Chad and JT.

Yeah, well, they're like 14 though. Yes, I love them. All right, well, let's get into it. I wanna kick things off with just a quick announcement. Voicing Change is back in stock. So for those of you who are new here, Voicing Change is my latest book. It's a coffee table rendition of the podcast

featuring wizened excerpts and poignant essays and glorious photography from some 50 of my favorite guests over the last eight and a half years of doing this thing. We are ready to ship globally direct to your coffee table or your commode, depending upon how you enjoy literature. I enjoy literature on my commode. Plenty do, I'm not afraid to say. Yes.

We have signed copies available. So to learn more and snag your tone, visit richroll.com slash VC, which is the only place you can get this book. We're not making it available on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. This is a self-published thing. So again, richroll.com slash VC. Adam, what's up?

I like that you made that choice. Well, you know, I get a lot of messages like, how come I can't find it on Amazon? So this is why we have circumvented. I can't believe Jeff Bezos is texting you like that. Yeah, it's because of a personal vendetta that I have with Jeff Bezos. Oh yeah, it's Bezos.

I'm good, man. Life is, it's Bezos. I'm good, man. Life is good. Life is, it hasn't changed. Still, you know, still mostly at home. It has changed though. What? It has changed. Well, everything has changed and yet nothing has changed. The universe is expanding, Adam. It's expanding in front of my eyes.

As is your consciousness. I'm not so sure about that. Really? Yeah. I don't wanna be- Is your consciousness contracting? It just depends on the that. Really? Yeah, I don't wanna be. Is your consciousness contracting? It just depends on the night's sleep. Like today I feel like my consciousness has expanded. Yes.

I didn't sleep so well last night. So it's a narrowed. Yeah, the wind, it's been so crazy windy here. And for some reason, the wind keeps me awake at night. It does to me too. And the full moon, I never sleep well. So we're just past a full moon. I never like the day before a full moon,

the full moon evening and then the following night, every month I have, it's a weird like lunar gravitational pull. I don't know what it is, but I have restless nights every time. If anybody out there knows anything about why that might be actually in getting Matthew Walker on the podcast, we have him scheduled sometime in the next couple of weeks.

He's the guy who wrote, Why We Sleep. He's like the leading sleep expert. That's gonna be my first question for him. Well, Chinese medicine has like considers wind in like wellbeing, considers elements like that. And I think Ayurvedic medicine does as well, if I'm not mistaken. So experts chime in.

Right, I think your consciousness is expanded based upon that response. Thank you, just based on my, but how does my consciousness look? Cause that's what's really important. I think you're looking fabulous today. Good. Yeah, the weather's been, I mean, other than the wind,

the weather's been great. I'm enjoying the new studio. I'm excited about all the pods that we've been producing. Dude, you got your hero going, right? We had Raghunath, which was great. It was so fun talking to him. Steven Pressfield, personal hero. Jedediah Jenkins, all stellar.

What a great lineup so far just this year. Yeah, we've got exciting new people on the horizon. Also been working on some compelling new top secret projects that I'm not ready to discuss quite yet, but that has me getting out of bed, pretty pumped up for the day lately. Yes. Feeling fit, feeling grateful.

So something must be wrong. How's your body feeling? What's going on with the back? Back is feeling okay. I've been getting some good work on it from my man, Lawrence Van Lingen, who's really been helping me out with my posture and my pelvic placement,

all these like things that he's been doing, subtle changes in how I move and run, that seems to be helping. So yeah, man, I feel good. Nice. Speaking of feeling good, we're one week out from the Goggins four by four by 48 challenge.

So we gotta check in on where you're at with that physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, consciously. Okay, where should we start? I don't know, you tell me. Well, I'm spiritually dead, so let's not go there. No, I'm just kidding folks. I feel good.

Maybe that'll be good for getting you through the challenge. Okay, so first of all, Nicholas Ramirez has come in hot with some great coaching in the last couple of weeks. He snapped to it after the last podcast. Here's the thing about podcasting, as you may be well aware,

you don't always say what you want. It doesn't come out right all the time. And then it's like out there and people listen to it. I have a little experience with this. Yes, that's what I'm saying. Do you experience podcast regret the next day? Not often, but it certainly has happened. And now we're in such a hair trigger world

that I feel more cautious than I ever felt before. Not that like, I don't know what I would say that would be that controversial. Well, all I said in relationship to Nicholas was that he wasn't really doing a lot of personalized coaching and mostly I was just getting stuff through the app, but that was okay,

cause like I actually liked that. And so that's what I didn't say, because I actually, personal coaching feels kind of intense for me. And I actually like kind of just doing my own thing, give me a workout to do, and then I can make it work and do it. And so I've actually really enjoyed it

and it has helped my fitness overall. But then once he heard that, yes, he kind of is like- Thursday morning, the phone's ringing. What do you mean? He wanted to talk. No, not so much that, he was like, he felt bad, which I didn't want him to feel bad. I mean, he's got a million things and it's great just to have the team and bowl workouts,

but he has been, he's been tailored some stuff. So it's kind of been a combination of stuff you've suggested, he suggested, and David suggested to me. So on, I guess it was a week ago, Sunday or Saturday or Sunday, I did my first simulation, which was three times every four hours. He suggested instead of doing a two and two and two or whatever to do three, four, five.

So I did that. And that included the five mile at night, which was my first night run. Cause I never really run at night. I don't know the last time I had run at night where I started out at night. And so that was great. That was a good little beginning.

And then just Friday I did four, four, three, three. He wanted me to do four, four, four, four, but then David thought it'd be better because he knows my foot situation just to do three threes, four threes, but I decided to do a little bit of kind of a mix. I did four, four, three, three, starting at noon, no starting at eight in the morning or eight or nine.

And then every roughly three to four hours. So I did the last one at night. That's great, man. And I felt strong. How'd that feel? I felt really strong. Like I felt like my fastest miles were the last run and I wasn't going fast cause I'm doing zone two, but like I felt strong.

Like I could have done another run. So I feel like the first day, I feel very prepared for the first day. Like other than I'll have to grab sleep, but other than that, I feel like six fours is not going to be extremely difficult for me barring any sort of weird mishap where I step off a curb and hurt myself.

So this kicks off Friday. Friday at 8 p.m. Friday at 8 p.m. So this podcast goes up Thursday. So it'll literally go up. People will be consuming this on the eve of the launch. And I will do some Instagram stories. So David's gonna do every run, he'll be doing something.

I'll be watching his and then I'll do something either before or after a run. Probably after is probably when I'll check in mostly cause I wanna be connected to him. David just posted about this. There are 500 people who've already signed up through his website from 45 countries. I heard from someone from Iceland

through Instagram messaging just now, there's two people in Iceland that are gonna do it, but 45 countries literally. How many people total? Just the 500 that we know of because they've messaged through the website, but really you're not supposed to post about that you're gonna do it.

You're supposed to post about that you've done it. So he wanted people to do it that way, but people have been doing it ahead of time, which he's embraced. So it's a whole worldwide movement really of people doing this. I think it's really cool. It is very cool.

It's so wild how David has been able to just marshal this massive following of people to get on board It's so wild how David has been able to just marshal, this massive following of people to get on board with something challenging and hard like this. It's amazing. And yeah, and he was talking about it, the unifying aspect, how if people just wanna focus on getting better and doing something hard for themselves and that it becomes a unifying thing that people from all over the world,

different vantage points, viewpoints, backgrounds, whatever political leanings can come together. It just shows that we are capable of coming together, which is cool. And this is in the name of really a very challenging thing. So the second day I have no doubt will be extremely difficult. I'm not like going in overconfident at all,

but I've got some electrolytes now. I know I was gonna ask you if you've been practicing your nutrition and hydration. I have, your sponsor sent me about 150 packages of electrolytes. Oh, Element? Element. So they're either terrified that I'm going to fall on my face at some point

or just want me to try it. So I use that during the sex. So the first simulation, I didn't hydrate very well. I didn't have it planned out very well. The second one, I had the element stuff, which really helped. I hydrated and ate much more mindfully and it was working. And I have a dozen sweet Japanese sweet potatoes, those small ones that I'm gonna cook ahead of time.

That's good. I'm gonna have a lot of avocados in the house. Soak some dates too. Yeah, dates, I gotta get dates. That's great, man. No stomach problems. You know, what's funny, what's good about the Friday simulation, it's funny, what's good about the Friday simulation,

it just so happened, I woke up with like a little bit of a weird digestive thing and one of those headaches, it's kind of like those nine kind of almost food poisoning headaches, and I woke up with it and I went running and the first two miles of the first run, I felt it and then I finally ran through it. And then the second run, same thing, because I hadn't hydrated enough. And after the second run, same thing, because I hadn't hydrated enough.

And after the second run, I really made sure I did two electrolyte 16 ounces and then that kind of washed it out and I felt great by the end. So, yeah, I mean, that's why the, one of many reasons why doing the simulations are so important because you're putting yourself in the position that simulates what you're gonna feel like

in that moment and you're able to test things like hydration, et cetera. The other thing that I thought that you said that was great is that you began a run and you didn't feel good and you kept going and that shifted. And I think that's a really important lesson for anybody who's listening, who is dipping their toe into the endurance world.

There's gonna be days and moments and times, whether it's in training or in a race where you're not gonna feel good or you're gonna start running and you're gonna feel terrible and think, well, I don't have it, I need to quit. But if you just stay in it, you realize and you learn that things change and shift just because you feel lousy in one particular instance doesn't mean

that that's gonna persist. Like you can kind of work through that and you have these breakthroughs when you do these simulation weekends and you realize, oh yeah, I got through that. I ended up finishing that run feeling better than when I started. And that's very empowering in terms of providing you

with the confidence and the experience to weather something like this. Thank you. That's what I felt. I felt like, okay, the headache's not great, but it's not the worst headache I've ever had. So I'm gonna do it and I'm gonna look at it. And we slept horribly the night before

the baby was really restless. And so I felt like good, I felt confident. I'm like, this is a good thing. This will, let's see if I can do it now. So that's how the simulation started and it ended like a lot better. The rough part's gonna be those like ones

in the middle of the night or in the early morning. That's gonna be tough for me. It's gonna be tough. You just gotta get through those. I think the first night, I'm gonna stay up to the midnight run. I'm not gonna try to get any sleep until after midnight. And then do the midnight run,

then get a little bit of sleep, get up for the four, get a little more sleep and then try to stay awake all day. Cool. That's the plan. Well, I've got a ride planned for Saturday. So maybe on Saturday, I'll ride down to your neck of the woods and try to track you down. Hell yeah.

And I'll do a little, I'll grab your phone and do the Instagram thing. That'd be amazing. Well, speaking of riding, that's really been something that I've been focusing on lately. I've just formed this new ambassador relationship with Specialized, Specialized Bicycles.

Yes. Which has been really great. And they've got me kitted out on this new Turbo Creo SL. Okay. And I put gravel tires on that I started out on this new turbo Creo SL. Okay. And I put gravel tires on that and I've been getting out on and riding on gravel for the first time. I've never been a mountain biker.

I've always been a roadie. Right. But there's so much gravel and fire roads around where we live. So gravel bikes are good for fire roads and like those gravel roads? They're not meant for like super technical, you know, sort of mountain biking

where you're like jumping over rocks and things like that. You know, the gravel bikes don't have like the shock absorption and that kind of like geometry, but they're great for just riding on dirt and loose gravel and the fire roads basically, like the wide fire roads around. And that's been super fun and kind of a learning curve for me, but it's opened up like a whole new world.

So I rode from my house, like I took Dirt Mall Holland all the way to and down Mandeville and like into Brentwood and around Santa Monica. From your house? Yeah, like it was super fun. That's amazing. And the thing about- How long is that? It was like a 50 mile ride, I did like a big loop. That's fantastic. But here's the thing.

So the Turbo Creo SL is an e-bike, right? It's got a motor in it. Is that the one you took? Is that the one you took? Yeah, so I took that. And what's been cool and interesting and new is the experience of riding an e-bike, which is something I have no experience with

and never thought in a million years that I would ever have an e-bike. Like I'm a fitness junkie. Like I don't want a motor in my bike. I wanna test myself, right? You gotta be some kind of lame-o to like put a motor on your bike. Don't say lame-o, you'll get canceled.

I would have never, I don't know what the appropriate vernacular is anymore. Just kidding. But I had two experiences. One, I went up to Santa Barbara a couple months ago to hang out with Dan Buettner. Yes. And he's got a bunch of e-bikes.

Yes. And he's like, you gotta ride, these are super fun. I was like, an e-bike, really? And we took them out and we had a blast, went all over Santa Barbara, up all these climbs, super fun. And then I had Brian Fogle on the podcast who people know as the filmmaker behind Icarus.

So he's a sick cyclist, like incredibly fit. He also made the Dissident, the Khashoggi dock that's out right now. And he was the one who got me excited about this Turbo Creo. He's like, you gotta get this bike, it's the greatest thing. I'm like, I don't get e-bike. He's like, no, no, no, it's so fun.

You end up riding longer, you ride more because it's more fun and it allows you to go places you wouldn't ordinarily go. Like going up these fire roads that are crazy steep that even if you just had a regular gravel bike, you might not ride up. And he said that he's like increased his riding, like, I don't know, 30% from what he used to do

because of this bike. And he's able to go out longer. So do you use it selectively? Basically, I keep the motor on like the low, it has like different rungs of power. So I keep it, I either turn it off or I keep it on the lowest rung and it just gives you a little bit of kick.

So you're still getting a workout. It's not like you're not riding, but then when you hit some like 20% grade on a fire road, you can just cruise up it without wrecking yourself. And so I've been out riding quite a bit and I'm able to get a good workout, but not destroy myself. So I'm exhausted all day.

And then wake up the next day and do it again. It's been like really fun. And again, it's something I never would have thought that this would be something that I would be into, but I'm really enjoying it. The only thing that I had to do is I had to decouple my bike computer from Strava cause I don't want any of these rides.

It's like, I've got a motor assist. Like I can't have this stuff up on like, you know, Strava where they have segments and all of that. Like it's not legit. It's like totally cheating. So I'm not riding and I'm like feeling guilty. Like when I'm riding by somebody or some, you know, riding next to somebody, I'm like, that guy's got a motor.

Like how lame is that? But I'm actually having so much fun with the whole thing. And I wanna just thank Specialized. Like I'm excited about this relationship and appreciate the gear. It's a heavy bike though. You couldn't go up a hill without it. I don't know what the weight specifically is of it,

but yeah, it's like 26 pounds. I mean, it's heavy to lift. Yeah, it's definitely like a very heavy bike. What's the charge on it? I think you can charge it up in like six hours and like that. And it also in one of the water bottle cages, you can put a secondary battery.

So you have actually have two batteries, like a backup battery. Does the crank generate any sort of charge? No, I don't think so, no. But the range is pretty good. I mean, you can, it obviously depends on the power mode that you're on and how much pedaling you're doing

versus how much the motor is doing the work, but it's got something like an 80 mile range. So, you know, I've gone out, like I did a six hour ride the other day, maybe two weeks ago and still had plenty of power to go when I was done. Cool, sounds fun. Super fun go when I was done. Cool. So yeah, sounds fun. Super fun.

So I've been doing that and also amping up the strength training, which has been fun too. Oh good. There's a gym near my house, one of those chain gyms, and they moved all their equipment into a parking garage and they have like, you know, they take your temperature when you go in, but it's essentially all outdoors and with,

with masks and all the equipment is like spaced out over like a very large lot. And I've been hitting that like a couple of times a week. So that's been my thing a little bit less running. I haven't been swimming very much. I mean, the pools are tricky to get into right now. Right. The ocean is cold.

The ocean is cold. Yeah. I was just out there. I was with a friend, my friend Drew the other day and he's been out swimming and he just, with a wetsuit, a sleeveless wetsuit, it's like, he said something like 55 or 54. It was 55 on Saturday, but then it got really windy again. It was one of our friends watches had 51 earlier in the week.

I wasn't out that day, but it's been cold. Yeah, I'm gonna wait until it's about maybe 59. He's like, I don't need that right now. My blood is thin these days, my friend. Speaking of cold weather and fitness challenges, I do wanna shout out my boy, James Lawrence, the iron cowboy. For those that don't know,

James has been on the podcast a couple of times in the past, most notably for performing one of the greatest feats in endurance history, in my opinion, which is this crazy accomplishment where he did 50 Ironmans in 50 states in 50 days, which I just, to this day, I just still have a hard time wrapping my head around. How do you literally traveling from state to state

and making sure that he completed an Ironman in each of the 50 states, never missed a day, got the whole thing done. Did he like cross state boundaries on the, like the run leg so that he could start again? No, I think each Ironman was completed within the boundaries of a particular state. They had an RV and a couple of vehicles.

There were, I think he started in Hawaii, then he went to Alaska. So obviously planes were involved. And then I think he went to Washington and then Oregon and worked his way down the West coast and then across the states doing it by RV. And then I went to, he's from Utah. His 50th was in his home state,

obviously near his hometown. I traveled and ran the final marathon with him. I made a little video about it that's up on YouTube that I can link up to the show notes. He came on the podcast before attacking this challenge. And then I did a second podcast with him at his house after he completed it. And so the reason I'm shouting him out right now

is he's doubling down. And today we're recording this on Monday. Today is the first day of his 100 challenge where he's gonna attempt to do a hundred consecutive Ironmans in a hundred days. He's not traveling state to state. He's doing it all around his home. Right.

But that's just- So that means a lot more hills. He's got a pool. I mean, it's snowing. It was like 27 degrees in Utah yesterday, but there's an outdoor pool that's heated to 82 degrees. Okay. He's sharing everything on Instagram stories.

He's got a bunch of kids and a huge crew and lots of support. And they're all kind of chiming in on his Instagram, so you can follow along on his Instagram stories. It's pretty cool. That's awesome. He's at ironcowboyjames, I think is his account on Instagram.

So if you're not already following this guy, you should be. And this is gonna be a very interesting drama that's gonna unfold over a hundred days. I mean, it's basically a third of a year. It's gonna take him to do this crazy thing. I feel shamed right now. I know, but this guy's bred for this thing. This is a guy who, I might butcher the story,

but as a demonstration of his sort of perseverance and ability to suffer when he was a kid, there was some contest in his town. I think he's from Canada originally. There was like the carnival came to town and there was some contest who could ride the Ferris wheel the longest without getting off.

And he's, I don't know how, I can't remember how long he stayed on it, but he just refused to get off it. Like he just wants, so this is a guy who does not quit. And we gotta get him to the Huberman lab and find out like how, he should, like what's going on in there. He should.

So anyway, I've had some texts back and forth with him. He's in good spirits and I'm excited to watch this whole thing unfold. And I was the first person prior to him beginning the 50, 50, 50 to say, I don't think this is possible. Like I told it to him, I was like, I don't, just not because I didn't believe that he wasn't mentally capable or physically capable,

but there's so many variables with the travel in between states and logistics and just innumerable things that could go wrong that he couldn't control. And having done something similar. I mean, I tried to do five and we ran into all kinds of stuff that made it impossible to get it done in five. And he did 50 and met tons of obstacles,

but was able to overcome all of them and complete it. And I just think that that's an unbelievable feat. And here he is now trying to do a hundred. So kudos, cowboy hat off to the iron cowboy and we'll be paying attention and following along. And speaking of like persevering, even when you don't think you can, like you don't feel good.

I remember from your book, I believe it was the fourth iron man where you thought you were toast after the swim. You spent all that time in the shower, or was it after the bike? That was the, yeah, like after the bike on the fourth one. Yeah, I really met my maker. And you just decided, okay, I'll just walk for a little bit,

but you for sure were done and yet you weren't. And then just this one, you actually hammered it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that goes to the point that I was making earlier. Like you just have to keep moving, you know, and these things shift and change. And that fourth one, I mean, a lot of that had to do with sleep deprivation.

And also heat. And this is an interesting thing about James. It's like, why is he doing this March? Like it's 27 degrees. Why doesn't he start this thing in like May, or later in the year where he doesn't have to deal with snow and sub freezing temperatures. But he answered this question the other day on Instagram.

He's like, I do better in the cold. And I don't do well in heat. So yeah. Running in the cold, running in cool air is much easier for me. Yeah, but would you rather, there's cool and then there's cold. Yes.

Like 27 degrees doing an Ironman is not, that's in my book, give me to Hawaii. Exactly. Right? Yes, yes. Anyway, we love you, James. Good luck with this. Good luck, James. We'll be checking in.

So let's take a quick break and we'll be back. We got a couple of big stories, important stuff to talk about, and we'll see you in. So let's take a quick break and we'll be back. We got a couple of big stories, important stuff to talk about, and we'll see you in a few. All right, and we're back. We got two stories for the big story. The first one, Adam, why don't you kick it off? All right. Well, I just wanted to just talk a little bit about this hate crime spree that's happening to the Asian American community or Asian community across the United States.

And what started, I believe it started first in Oakland where there was a bunch of older elders just walk in the streets and getting pushed over from behind or beat up or just slurs hurled at them. But a lot of it was violent. Like people were getting pushed over, people were getting into the hospital with getting stitches, breaking bones.

This was in Oakland. They caught somebody there, but then in New York City, a lot of stuff was happening as well, Queens was in Oakland. They caught somebody there, but then in New York City, a lot of stuff was happening as well, Queens and in Manhattan, it just became this replication. And then it happened in San Diego. And then, I was saying it's nice around LA,

at least we've been spared it. And then Q, I believe it was yesterday, I'm looking at the LA Times story from the 26th and the Buddhist temple in Little Tokyo, which anybody in the LA area, you know, is immediately where that is, was vandalized and they tried to burn it down. Two wooden lantern stands were burned,

metallic lanterns were vandalized. It's at the Higashi Hong Anji Buddhist temple. And I've seen it many, many times. It's a beautiful landmark building. And listen, I just find it appalling, first of all, that old people can't walk the streets without fear for their lives. It's reprehensible, but it's not something

that hasn't happened before. We saw it after 9-11 with Indian American community and people of Arab descent. We, you know, after Trump was elected, hate crime sprees spiked in those communities as well. And now it's happening, it's landing on the Asian American community. So much that Jeremy Lin, the basketball player,

was called the coronavirus on court during a G League game. So crazy. So does this track to the coronavirus or what is the genesis of this? It started, actually, if you look back in, if you will really, you could connect this more recent kind of rash of cases to right after lockdown, it started to happen right after lockdown as well.

So there was like, I think a viral video of a woman getting called racial slurs on the subway in New York, right when it was really hitting New York City. So it started then and now it's just kind of this new rash of cases has happened. There are leaders in the community, Lisa Ling, CNN. She's doing a lot of kind of highlighting these cases on her Instagram. Andrew Yang spoke about it. I mean, it's a major, major epidemic.

It's appalling and just wanted to urge people. Yeah, I mean, there's not, what is there to say about it? Like, don't be an asshole. Like what is wrong with people? I don't know. I don't understand it. And I would suspect that if you drew the Venn diagram

between the people who deny the existence of coronavirus and the perpetrators of this type of crime, there's gonna be some overlap. So does the coronavirus not exist or is it, is it the fault of Asian Americans who are citizens of this country? I mean, it's appalling, it's disgusting, it's disappointing and disheartening that in 2021,

we're having to contend with this kind of racial strife. It's unbelievable. It's hard to fathom. You know, it's like, look, every day you wake up, you have a choice to make in your life. And the choice you're taught from the time you're a little kid, I mean, sure, some children don't get taught not to push people over

when they're little, but like, even if you had the worst upbringing ever, if you get to the point where you're 15, 16, 17, and you think it's a good idea to push over an old person, kind of trying to make it down the street, I just don't know what to do with you. And it's like, so there's the hate crime aspect and there's this elder abuse aspect and it's all rolled up

into one and that's why it's so horrifying, I think. You know, that's why it's even more horrifying from behind too. And so like the cowardliness that's involved here and this, we're better than this, but we're not. So it's like the human being should be better than this, but we're not always. And this is all of our responsibility to fix this problem.

And that is calling it out. If you see it, defend people who are getting abused. And there was one video in Queens calling it out if you see it, defend people who are getting abused. There was one video in Queens where this guy like shouldered through an older woman, pushed her down and nobody did anything. Like he just kept walking down the street. You know, it's like.

It's honestly like, I don't know what to say because I can't wrap my head around like what would motivate somebody to do that. Yeah. You know, it's people that are, people that are angry and disenfranchised and looking for somebody to blame and they see a helpless person who's an easy target and that becomes the locus of their rage

and it's inexcusable. And we're seeing this in addition to this Asian hate crime spree, we saw it with the black surfers in Southern California recently as well. At El Porto. Yeah. And the same thing, a black surfer was hassled and splashed

and called racial epithets and nobody in the lineup came to his defense. And so then there was this paddle out and- Right, I saw that. And that was good, that was well attended. It was hundreds of people I think came down to support the black community there. And look, we are a melting pot.

We are fed from all sorts of different cultures. Surfing is a perfect example. Surfing is not a sport that originated in the white community. It only exists because there was a friendship tour from Hawaii that came and demonstrated it up and down the coast of California. And then it became endemic here, but it's look, we rely on each other.

We need to keep our radar up. And so obviously your listeners aren't this problem, but I think it's incumbent upon all of us to be ready to respond. Yeah, well said. I wanna move on to other issues that we gotta talk about. The next thing is something that caught my eye and I thought was worth spending a few minutes on.

I was listening to Mark Maron's podcast and last week he had two actors from this new independent film called Body Brokers. He had Melissa Leo and Michael K. Williams. I listened to both of those and then was so intrigued that I went and watched this movie, Body Brokers, and it really struck a nerve with me.

Less for the cinematic aspect of the film itself and more for the issue that it's addressing. Essentially, it's a movie about a recovering junkie who's recruited to a rehab only to discover that said rehab really isn't about helping people, but it's actually a cover for a multi-billion dollar fraud operation that enlists addicts to recruit other addicts.

And this is something that is going on in the treatment industry at large, and is an issue that I think is under discussed, under addressed and in need of being dealt with in a large way. And as somebody who's very interested in addiction, somebody who's been in recovery for many, many years and a product of treatment and a treatment center,

a very good one, I'm well aware and I'm steeped in kind of the recovery community here in Los Angeles and in particular living, you know, sort of near Malibu, am also aware that Malibu has become this kind of rehab Riviera, where there's just tons of mansions that are now sober living facilities.

And they're usually McMansions. Yeah, exactly. And I knew that on some level, this is like a money-making real estate play because you can lease these houses that have like 10 bedrooms. And rather than rent them to a family at X dollars, you can rent out each bedroom for a crazy multiple on that.

So instead of maybe $2,000 a bedroom, it goes for like $20,000 a bedroom. And so these things become money-making machines and that's why you're seeing a proliferation of them. So I knew that that was going on. And I knew that there's a lot of sort of shady sober living houses and treatment centers. But what I didn't fully understand or appreciate

is the extent to which this has escalated into a full-blown insurance scam that is generating billions of dollars. So essentially what happened is that when the Affordable Healthcare Act was signed in 2008, it required every healthcare provider to cover substance abuse treatment, which is on its face, a good thing, right?

It's like, we're trying to provide access to treatment for people that otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it. But since that bill was passed, nearly 2000 sober livings, 100 inpatient treatment centers, and 200 detox facilities opened up in Southern California alone. So like 35,000 beds that need to be filled every month and almost 500,000 that need to be filled every year,

which brings a profit of something like $12 billion annually just to Southern California. I think the market cap all told is something like $42 billion in the United States, which is crazy. And so basically what happens is, and what the film illustrates is how these sober living facilities and treatment centers are basically-

They rely on brokers, right? They rely on these brokers who go out into the world and find junkies. And then they're able to, even if these people don't have insurance, they have like these umbrella policies that they can get their name under so that they can get the insurance money.

And then they get them in the centers. And then every single aspect of that experience is monetized from the pillows to the sheets, to the urine tests, like everything that goes into that gets billed to the insurance company. And a lot of these not so above the board institutions, like crazy over bill, like $600 for a pillow or something like that. And then the insurance company will say, well, we're not gonna pay 600,

but we'll pay 200 or whatever for like a $20 pillow. And these things just start, they're like money laundering operations. And then it becomes about making sure that those beds are always filled. So it's not about getting these people well, it's about keeping them sick. And if they relapse, bringing them back in

and then cutting the addicts in on the VIG. So that the people that are in attendance in treatment are actually getting paid to go to rehab. They get a kickback. And then there's something about like the first urine test has to be negative in order for them to build properly. So they want you to get high one last time before you get in.

And I saw that in a couple of stories. That was in the movie, but also in Florida. That was documented in California. It's been documented. Florida and California, like South Florida and California are the two. Yeah, South Florida, right. The sort of most high profile transgression

took place a couple of years ago with this guy called Christopher Batham. That story is just- It's a crazy, crazy story for people that are not familiar with it. It ended up being adapted into a series on Amazon called Bad Therapist. But basically this guy Batham became director

of a treatment center in Malibu called Seasons in 2010, he was pushed out after a bunch of heinous sexual abuse charges and he would do drugs with the inpatients. And I think he OD'd at one point. He then opens up this other treatment facility called Walking Miracles in Koreatown in 2011. I actually have a friend, Cliff Brodsky, who was an investor in that. In Walking Miracles in Koreatown in 2011. I actually have a friend, Cliff Brodsky,

who was an investor in that. In Walking Miracles? Yeah, and ultimately Cliff, who I've known for many, many years, ends up being one of the whistleblowers on this whole thing, which is interesting. And in any event, Walking Miracles goes bankrupt. That's why Cliff started to come out

and kind of tell the world what this guy, how this guy was really operating. But then Batham opens up community recovery in 2012 as this luxury rehab chain. I think it grew to something like 20 clinics across LA all the way out to Joshua Tree. He had something like $30 million in revenue in 2015 at a 30% profit margin.

And when Cliff and others started talking about what this guy was actually doing, the FBI got involved, the LAPD got involved, started investigating him for his sexual relations and his drug use and- Well, he assaulted him, right? Assaulted patients. Yeah, I mean, this guy was a bad actor across the board.

And then in 2015, Hillel Aaron, who's also a guy that I've been acquainted with over the years, a journalist here in LA, wrote a cover story for LA Weekly that kind of went into the details of what this guy was actually doing. He wasn't, he was never a therapist. He was like a pool cleaner,

all the stuff that he was up to. Oh, but he did have certification in hypnotherapy. He did, yeah, he was a hypnotherapist, right? And like, I think- He wasn't in recovery himself either. He's never been through recovery. He didn't know anything about addiction, treatment or anything.

And that highlights one of the problems is that a sober living house is different than an inpatient drug treatment facility in that you don't need to have a certification or something. Right, and the kind of, if there's a genius to all of this, what he figured out was that if you combine a detox facility with a sober living facility,

you're essentially running a treatment center without calling it a treatment center because treatment centers have to be registered and licensed and all this sort of stuff. So he was able to operate, you know, sort of quote unquote lawfully, and then run all this money through this operation to the tune of $176 million

before the house of cards just, you know, completely caved in on him. And then the victims of this insurance fraud are the insurance companies. That's why these things persist because there's no, even though addicts are getting, some are actually coming through these things and somehow getting sober,

but a lot of people are suffering. And there's, I think there were seven, I saw two different stats, seven and then 17 people who ended up ODing and dying after going through his programs. And so yes, addicts will suffer through this, but no one believes the suffering of an addict really, when they're especially at the height of their addiction.

It's like, they're like not as sympathetic. Like you don't believe- Right, yeah, because their trust has been so eroded. So a couple of things, yes, the financial victims in all of this are the insurance companies, but the addicts themselves are treated like chattel. And there's no regard for their wellbeing or their recovery. Yes, some of them do end up recovering,

but the vast majority of them just gets cycled through this system and are used like cash registers to do like a churn and burn, right? And six months sober, people are hired to them. And that was one of the things the movie did a good job at, which was Melissa Leo plays like the therapist at the, you know, she seems well-intentioned in that regard.

But when the protagonist of the movie, who's played by Jack Kilmer, who does a really fine job with this. He did a great job. He's acquainted with my boys, Trapper and Tyler. Jack, when he's basically saying, I'm gonna leave, like he's gonna leave against medical advice, Melissa Leo's character just says,

well, I don't think that's a good idea, but okay. And there's no plan for any kind of long-term treatment protocol to get him sober. Like he doesn't end up getting a sponsor or going to meetings. Like there's nothing in place to make sure that he stays sober because that's not really part of what this is all about.

So ultimately, I won't spoil the movie. You can watch it, it doesn't end well. But- You just spoiled it. But well, I can say it's a dark movie in that regard. It ends in the darkness. And I forget the actress's name who plays his girlfriend, but she was unbelievable at embodying

like what a young addict is like in that place as somebody who's known many of those types of people. Yeah, she was good. The other crazy thing is that a lot of these treatment centers end up hiring the addicts and alcoholics that quote unquote graduate from these facilities. So you're literally letting addicts run the insane asylum. And if addicts are anything, they're incredibly crafty

and diligent and persistent at getting what they want. And so if you have any of them that are at all criminally inclined, like this is gonna go off the rails, which is exactly what happens in the movie. Well, that's what's so interesting about, not interesting, but what makes this whole story so crazy is that basically the mentality of the scheme

that perpetuates this fraud is the same mentality. It's a drug dealer mentality. And anybody who's ever required the services of a drug dealer knows that drug dealers cannot be trusted. And yet some of these people who are building it literally have a dealer mentality when it comes to getting people in treatment, getting them out, not giving a shit what happens,

just selling and making the money. And then these addicts are kind of acolytes of the drug deal. I mean, don't you think there's like a parallel there? Yeah, they become indoctrinated into this system. And essentially many of them are, you know, relatively unemployable or they're felons, or they've never had a real job.

And they get a taste of like, hey, we'll just do this. And it's like low hanging fruit. And suddenly they're in this system, which is another aspect of the film's narrative that I think is really potent. And I think on top of that, it's, well, first of all, to kind of wrap the story about Batham. I mean, he ultimately gets indicted on 50 counts of fraud,

grand theft, money laundering, sexual assault, rape. He's sentenced to, I think he was 20 years. No, it was 52 years, 20 years just for the fraud. Oh, okay. And then 30 years for the serial sexual assault. Right. Because he was convicted of that, seven women. So 52 years total. So he's in prison now. Yeah. But this is convicted of that, seven women. So 52 years total.

So he's in prison now. But this is sort of the tip of the iceberg. Like this is still going on and that's what's disheartening. And to your point earlier, there are addicts that are coming out of these experiences and these recovery houses and telling people like, look, this is what's going on, but nobody's believing them. They're like, yeah, this is what's going on, but nobody's believing them, right?

They're like, yeah, whatever. Like you're not a trustworthy source. No one believed those women. That allows this kind of thing to continue to perpetuate. So I'm really glad that this movie exists because it's shining a spotlight on this. And like I said, at the outset of this, like I care deeply about recovery

and it's so disheartening that it's been hijacked and abused to such an extent. You know, I had a life-changing treatment experience. There are good treatment centers out there. There are good people, well-intentioned people who are providing really good care to people out there. But now- You paid for that, right?

Yeah, I did, I did. And, but I'm saying that still exists now, but I think anybody who's kind of looking at this needs to be more cautious than you used to have to be about what you're getting involved in. So maybe you can explain, because one of the closing kind of thoughts in this movie is it's not about like basically going to the bells and

whistles kind of real world house version of, of a rehab center. And it's more about 12 step is free and 12 step has this incredible track record. So maybe you can explain the difference between those two and why 12 step for you, do you think is still kind of the undisputed champ in terms of its effectiveness and what it does?

Well, 12 step is very effective. Like it works if you work it, not everybody works it and not everybody gets sober. And when you've been in recovery for any extended period of time, you end up going to a lot of funerals and you see a lot of people go out and not come back. So it's heartbreaking as much as it is life affirming.

You know, it's real life and sobriety is hard and it's slow and it's not linear. And, you know, 12 step is not perfect in that regard. You know, if you look at the statistics, the truth of the matter is most people who try to get sober don't achieve long-term sobriety. They just don't, you know, and that's just a fact. But 12-step is free.

It's open to all comers. It's decentralized. There's no money laundering going on. There's no boss, nobody's in control. And that sets it apart from the treatment, the sort of corporate conglomerate treatment, you know, infrastructure, which is about making money. And when there's so much profit to be had,

you're sowing the seeds for ultimately corruption to exist. I think, you know, my experience was about indoctrination into the 12 steps. And that was a part and parcel of my treatment experience was learning what that was all about and then creating a long-term care plan for when I got out so that I could maintain what I had, the process that I had begun during that 100 day stay.

It's not about massage and Reiki and going four wheeling you know, massage and Reiki and, you know, going four wheeling and, you know, like, like some of these are like luxury spa experiences. And like, I'm not against self care, but don't be confused. That's not treatment. Treatment is rolling up your sleeves. And look, there's a, in the movie you see,

there's a therapist and like, that's great. But also that should also be understood to sit outside of and be considered distinct from actually the process of like working the 12 steps and working with a sponsor and helping newcomers and the like. One of the horrible outtakes of the Batham story was he would rape or sexually otherwise sexually assault women. And then they'd end up in a survivor's kind of support group

within the sober living house. and he was running it. It's like unbelievable. So that's how bad it was. So what you're saying is going to a safe space helped kind of removing yourself from the real world as it existed because it was so twisted for you and you were kind of twisted up in it, helped to put you in a place

where you could receive some of this information and then linking it to a 12 step program was like the bridge you needed to be able to work it in your daily life. Yeah, I mean, there was something very valuable for me to be able to opt out of my life and go someplace and focus entirely on getting well. But it was not a luxury experience.

Like in the movie, he just kind of waltzes in and they give him a bed. Like when I walked in, they strip search you, they go through your luggage, they make sure, cause people are trying to sneak stuff in. They're not that kind. Like they threw me in a room and they basically wouldn't talk to me for two days

until I like dried out. And it was pretty intense and hardcore. There was not a lot of coddling. We weren't going out on, you know, field trips or anything like that. Like it was really structured and it was more like a mental institution. And the, you know, it was a great facility,

but it was kind of like being in a hospital ward or a dorm. It wasn't like being in a mansion with an ocean view. I mean, I could tell you that. Yeah, and then the idea that like, that's what's so heartbreaking about the story is that they are advertising safe spaces to try to get well. And then it's anything but a safe, actually you're the prey.

You know, it's like, it's twisted. I didn't even know anything about this. So I hope that this movie will prompt more conversations like this and greater oversight, because a lot of this stems from the fact that there is very little oversight when it comes to sober living houses and detox facilities. And there's just too much money to be made.

So we need regulatory oversight over how these insurance funds are dispensed to make sure that people who are in need of treatment can still, and detox can still access that. I mean, I think sober living facilities when done right are incredibly beneficial. Like the idea is you detox, then you have inpatient and then you have outpatient.

And for a lot of people, they need a transition to real life and the sober living house provides that soft landing. So they can live with other recovering addicts and alcoholics while they go out into the world and try to get jobs, but they're still accountable. And there are still certain rules. So to the extent that we can craft and create some regulatory oversight over how these things

are conducted to make sure that people are safe and that they're fulfilling their intention is what I think we all want. Yeah, I mean, I think from what I read, that was the reason that there's so little regulation around sober living houses, at least at the time, was because they didn't wanna be a lot of red tape because the more red tape, the less,

the more likely that someone in the neighborhood will find out there was a sober living house now in their neighborhood. Yeah, it's like a not in my backyard thing. It would be a NIMBY thing. And so there are good intentions that created this situation, like Obamacare trying to get mental health

and drug addiction recovery mandatory for these insurers. That's a great intention. Right, and it can't be considered a preexisting condition. Right, and then sober living houses, the intention was to make it discreet so that they could exist. Right, but the tragic thing is that you have addicts who cycle through this and become,

not only do they not get well, they become calcified around recovery because their experience was so bad and they realize like what's really going on there and they become hardened to the process of recovery at all. And then lives are lost. Lots of lives are lost. Well, thanks for bringing it to my attention.

I can't believe I missed this entire story over the last several years. It's crazy, right? All right, let's move on. What do we got? We're gonna do a little show and tell now. Yeah, show and tell. All right, show and tell.

Well, do you wanna start with the newest podcaster on the block? Yeah. He's like, he's kind of a, you know, he's a small timer in the game. Yeah, you might've heard of him though. The boss and Obama getting together on Spotify. So listen, Barack, I know you were president for two terms

and you're dashing and handsome and the like, but I don't know what makes you think you can host a podcast. This is a skill, my friend. It takes years. Listen, you might have a degree in hypnotherapy, but you're not a podcast host. Right.

So actually- I had to go to DeVry to get this job. I haven't listened to this podcast yet, but this was big news. Spotify made a big splash with this Bruce Springsteen, Barack Obama podcast episode. Is it intended as just one episode or is Obama gonna now like interview people?

Like what's going on? I don't know if Renegades is this shingle where they're gonna just pair two people together and it'll become something or if it's- Like an Iconoclast. Remember that show Iconoclasts in IFC where they get into like they had Eddie Vedder and Laird Hamilton spend the day together.

Right, right, right. Or is this renegades, does it belong, is Barack Obama gonna just interview other people? It's hard to know. I listened to the first episode on the way here. And I mean, Barack Obama is very good. I'm sorry to tell you. He's such a good interviewer.

But you know, I'm struck by two things. One is Barack Obama is a great podcast host and he is the host. He's interviewing Bruce and it unfolds over the course of like, I don't know how many episodes, maybe a half a dozen. And the first one is about being outsiders,

growing up as an outsider. And you know, it's not like Bruce Springsteen hasn't told his life story before. Right. He's told it over the course of many record albums. I went to the River Tour where he just talked about, like he just performed that album and talked about his life. He did a Broadway show and now he's in this.

But every time he talks about his life story does feel fresh. I mean, he is very gifted in that category. And the two, it is great to hear them together. And I found myself suspending all those kinds of thoughts about what this means for podcasting and just kind of enjoying these two people. But so it's good, it's good content.

You know, Spotify is like, if you couple this with what Joe Rogan's deal was with the Bill Simmons ringer deal, it's incredible what they're doing. They've really stepped up. I mean, they have made big plays to try to own this corner of the internet and they're putting great stuff out there.

So hands off to them. It's an interesting move on behalf of Spotify. They're recognizing that owning a significant part of podcasting market share is in their interest for a number of reasons, not the least of which is, when you look at how these tech platforms grow and become de rigueur, it's about monopolizing your time, right?

Like the idea, the sort of parameter is how long can we keep you on our platform? And when Spotify has listeners listening to music, they have to pay royalties out to the record labels. But when they have a podcast on, if that podcast is two, if they're listening to Joe Rogan for three hours, they're on Spotify for three hours listening to ads,

but they don't have to pay. I mean, they paid Joe upfront, but they don't have to pay royalties out. So it's in their interest to move towards podcasting and away from music as a way of capturing people's attention. And they've got this crazy war chest that they can marshal to get people like Bruce Springsteen and Barack Obama on their platform.

Are they profitable yet? I don't know what the numbers are, but they're running it like a Hollywood studio. Don Ostroff is running podcasting for Spotify and she's been magnificent at recruiting top talent and developing, you know, what they're, you know, it's basically like Netflix for podcasting. Right.

So. Crazy. Good on them. And did you, you had some other insights into this, you know, you're reading something right before we went on. How does this help or hurt kind of podcasting going forward? What was your takeaway on that? Yeah, it's interesting. There's a New York Times article today

by a guy called Ben Cesario. The title of the piece is called, "'Podcasting is Booming. "'Will Hollywood help or hurt its future?' I have a variety of thoughts on this. I mean, first of all, there's a conversation to be had that I'm not that interested in,

which is if a podcast is on Spotify, is it even a podcast? Because it's four walled there, it's not an RSS feed. Podcasting technically is when you can disperse an audio file and make it publicly available across the internet. I don't think that that's an important distinction. I think we're moving towards this subscription future

where everybody's gonna be putting their stuff, you know, like whether it's sub stack and newsletters, like everybody is segmenting content behind a variety of subscription paywalls right now. So it seems like this is just the natural evolution of things. You know, podcasting, you know, I wasn't the first to start a podcast,

but I've been in it longer than most, now eight and a half years almost. And it's changed dramatically. It used to be a hobbyist sort of pursuit, you know, and something that a lot of comedians were doing. Yeah. But now it's being monetized significantly across the board with the bigger shows.

And with that influx of money, you're gonna see the corporatization of it and the growth of things like Spotify. So it's not surprising. I still believe, I wouldn't say it's a meritocracy. I think if you're starting a podcast right now, it's very difficult to get audience share because there's so much content out there,

not just in podcasting, but across the board. So if you're just looking at trying to grab attention share in the attention economy, when there's Netflix and Hulu and HBO, all the streaming platforms, and then everything that's going on with audio right now, including all the apps that are available, what are you creating that's gonna be compelling enough to draw people away from whatever it is

that they're paying attention to and pay attention to your thing? I think it's incredibly difficult right now. And we've benefited from being early on and getting a little bit of, you know, a land grab that we've been able to hang on to. God forbid we tried to start this thing now. I think it would have been incredibly difficult.

But I do believe that being said that, you know, quality rises to the top over the long haul, right? So. It can. It can. It doesn't always work that way. Right, but if you're good, and it's not about getting millions of people to listen to.

It's like, who are your hundred true fans or the thousand people that are interested in what you're doing. And podcasting is still, there's no barrier to entry. Anybody can do it. And if you pick a particular niche that you find compelling, there are other people out in the world that probably will agree with that.

And you can- One thing that would help you is you had three, kind of three pronged niche. You were kind of like, you have the sobriety, you have the plant base and you have the endurance power and putting those three things together was kind of a calling card for you early on, right? I guess, I mean, I never really thought of it that way.

I mean, that's probably true, but I just followed my curiosity, you know? And now if you were just gonna start a podcast and just say, I'm gonna talk to interesting people, like good luck, you know, even movie stars have tried to do that and failed, people who already have big following. So it's not easy.

And just because you have name recognition doesn't mean that you're actually good at this thing. It's a skill, even though Obama is knocking out of the park with his first go. Yeah, great first guest. I think, like if I go back and listen to my early podcast, I'm sure I'd cringe. I would never do that.

But it's like you grow and change with it. But I think with this influx of money, you're gonna see higher production quality, higher production value. And you're getting these scripted series. We see a lot of the true crime stuff. And now these new narrative storytelling, which is old radio.

It's old timey radio coming back, packaged with movie stars and big budgets. And the idea is that this becomes IP that you can develop into miniseries, TV shows, movies and the like. Like We Crash, the Wondery series is being developed as a movie right now. Like there's a lot of that is going on right now.

So there is a lot of attention being paid to this. But at the same time, like the way that I look at it is, I'm just gonna keep doing my thing. I'll try to get better at it. And I believe that long form, interesting conversations with compelling people is never gonna go out of style. Yeah. I think it's interesting the kind of family rivalry

that's budding between Michelle and Barack. Michelle's book kills it. Then Barack comes out, his book kills it. She has a great Spotify podcast that's doing great. He comes out with Bruce Springsteen, like six part series. They're fueling each other. It's funny, isn't it? It's great.

I wonder what those conversations are like at home. I'm sure they're very supportive of each other. There's definitely some like poking though. Like, oh yeah, how many books did you sell today? We're gonna have to get the real story from Sasha and Malia at some stage. But I will say like, as part of this New York Times article,

this idea that, you know, as podcasting becomes big business, there's unease that the diversity of voices in our earbuds, never a strong suit of the industry, could be put at risk too. That may be true, but like, what are we supposed to do about it? Like, are we supposed to put protective measures?

To what? I don't know. That's what I'm asking. To make sure you have the right amount of percentage people that have the not microphone. Right, which brings up the broader discussion about content moderation and podcasting, which I don't know how you could possibly do that.

I think you have to just let, like you said, I think anybody can get into it. Anybody can buy a couple of Shure microphones and get into it. You can do it on your iPhone and upload with anchor. You don't even need Shure microphones. Shure microphones are nice though. Doesn't it sound good?

They're not cheap. No, but they're, what are they, 500 bucks? Something like that. Yeah, I mean, just go on TikTok and start dancing. You'll build a huge following and you can just create a podcast out of that. There you go. All right, man, what do we got next?

Okay, I saw a movie this week called "'Diving Deep, The Life and Times of Mike Degree." Mike Degree, I mean, it was made by his wife, Mimi. Mike died tragically, I don't wanna spoil it, but he was an incredible underwater cinematographer and nature host. And you may never have heard of him, but he was also a submarine pilot, a technical diver.

You've seen his footage. If you've seen Blue Planet, you've seen Mike's work. If you saw the Titanic documentary that James Cameron produced about finding the real Titanic, he was the DP on that. If you've seen the footage of the orcas playing with the sea lions on the beach, hunting them, he was the first guy to shoot that.

So he is a giant in that space. He's on the level of kind of in the Jacques Cousteau, Sylvia Earle category in terms of incredible all around scientific mind and cinematographer and kind of blurring those lines. I mean, he is one of the truly great people in that space. And I didn't even know his story until I watched this movie. And it became, I think Mimi started to look at footage from his years in the editing room,

nine months after he passed away and started to put together this movie. This is a great snapshot of who Mike was, where he grew up, how he got into it, a shark attack that he survived, his becoming a submarine pilot, his going to the Gulf of Mexico after Deepwater Horizon, that disaster happened and how he got so angry

when the dispersants were dropped to sink all that oil and what dispersants do post oil spill to the ecosystem and in general and how that kind of angered him and mobilized him. And she interviews a lot of luminaries from that space, including James Cameron several times. And I've never seen James Cameron, who you all know, Avatar, Titanic director,

I've never seen him so disarmed in an interview. Usually he's pretty kind of uptight and reserved. And he is just like really wide open in this interview. And there are reasons for that and you'll see why, but you credit Mimi for that. And just to respect these watermen that people don't hear about and how much he cared about sharks

and how much he cared about the marine ecosystem and how curious he was and how excellent he was. All these, to become a great underwater cinematographer is one thing, to become a great technical diver is another thing. To become a submarine pilot is another thing. To do all of that while raising a family and do it all in one lifetime is absolutely, it's unfathomable to me.

It's incredible. Right, well, I'll have to check it out. I haven't watched it yet, but I'm super interested in that. Yeah, yeah. Diving deep, we'll put a link in the show notes about the life and times of Mike Degroy. Degroy. Degre. Degre.

Like he's from Mobile, Alabama. His wife Mimi is the one who directed the movie. Yep, she made it. Cool. So technically this is show and tell. So I thought I don't have any big specific show and tell thing, but I did wanna say that I get like so many books in the mail and often I get multiple copies

of the same book. Really? Cause they don't know that they sent it to me or maybe the author sends it to me and then the publisher sends it to me. And generally these are books from, for podcast guests or potential podcast guests. And I've had a habit of either donating them

to libraries or to Goodwill, but I thought I would do a giveaway. So I just grabbed a couple that were in my office right now. I've got, I have multiple copies of Adam Grant's Think Again. I've got a second copy of Jed Jenkins' Like Streams of the Ocean.

I got two copies of this amazing book that I'm just starting called Exercise by Daniel Lieberman, who's a Harvard professor. He was one of the pioneers of the barefoot running movement. Oh, really? He's part of Born to Run. And I'm trying to get him on the podcast. This guy's got amazing stories and he's super cool.

There's a petroglyph on the cover. There is, yeah. It's all about like human ancestry and movements. Is that a petroglyph treadmill? Yeah, it is, I think. Wow, we were so advanced. It's a Peloton on the cover. Is that an ancient Greek Peloton?

The point is, Adam, stay on track here. Oh, sorry. I got a bunch of books that I wanna give away. So, and plus I brought out a sketch that Brian O'Hara did for me on YouTube. You can see this. So Brian, my artist friend, Brian, who I've spoken about on the podcast before,

he's the one who created our logo and he's got a bunch of artwork here in the new studio. He has a very interesting lens on the world. He sees words backwards. He's not dyslexic, but he has a different relationship to- The written word. His like visual cortex than most people. So his art is in this kind of reverse hieroglyph style.

Interesting. That makes it almost look like Arabic or something like that. And he kind of encrypts his artwork with positive messaging. And this is just a piece that he like did really quick and ripped it out of his sketchbook and gave it to me. I've got a bunch of these.

So I thought it'd be cool to give this away on the podcast. I'm not even sure what this says. Are you gonna give it away? I think this says peace and plants. Oh, does it? Can you read this? Let's see. Well, there's definitely peace and plants. Oh, does it? Can you read this? Let's see. Well, there's definitely peace.

Yeah, you see peace. I think it says peace and plants. And as you can see for people who are just listening, it's just torn out of a spiral notebook. It's amazing. It's not framed or anything like that. But I believe in Brian's talent. And I think one day he's gonna be a massive success

as an artist. So this could be a valuable thing to hang on to. So how do I do this? I don't know. I mean, maybe just subscribe to the YouTube channel and leave a comment below the video with why you think that you should get this book or this piece of art and we'll pick somebody.

Perfect. How about that? I love it. Cool, so that's my big show and tell for today. Good show and tell. All right. You wanna talk about Lawrence Ferlinghetti, right? I do wanna talk about Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

And this is kind of the teachable moment and maybe a hat tip to a legendary man in publishing and in poetry. He died, you may have heard or read at 101 years old, recently, I guess it was February 23rd, the obituary. So either that day or the night before. Lawrence Ferlinghetti started a bookstore in 1953 called City Lights

in San Francisco. It's in North Beach, kind of in the transition zone between Chinatown and North Beach. Dwight Garner, the literary critic at the New York Times called it almost certainly the best bookstore in the United States. For me, it is, you know, like it was, it's kind of- It's a historic landmark.

A landmark, a holy temple. It's an icon of a time. Yes, a holy temple of madmen and people who are looking for truth in this world. And basically he started the bookstore within a couple, and it was just all paperbacks at a time when paperbacks weren't really being sold too much. So he started this paperback bookstore.

And because of that, it was like, things were cheap and he acquired a bunch of people were coming to San Francisco and they showed up at his doorstep. And a lot of them were poets. And within a couple of years, he launched a press to start publishing these people. One of them was Allen Ginsberg.

And his story turns in the story of beat, the beat literary movement turns when he publishes Howl, which I'm holding it up here. It's a 50s- Ferlinghetti publishes Howl, which I'm holding it up here. It's a 50s. Ferlinghetti publishes Howl. Yeah, Ferlinghetti published it. Under City Lights has like a banner. That's right.

And he published it in, I think it was 59, 57, 56. Publishes it in 1956. It's the first thing he published, it's Allen Ginsberg's Howl, because he performed it in City Lights. And 56 page book that became a sensation. he published, it's Allen Ginsberg's Howl, because he performed it in City Lights. And a 56-page book that became a sensation. And partly because everyone heard about it, they came in to buy it. And the police, San Francisco police, had an undercover cop come in. And I guess he was under

18 or had someone, they were following someone, and they sold, the bookseller sold it to someone under 18 and it's sexually explicit. And it talks about homosexuality and all sorts of things in this 56 pages, especially the poem Howl, which is, as you know, one of the great poems, because what it did was it broke verse from something stodgy like poems of the old age and became much more stream of consciousness style.

And anyway, the bookseller was arrested, Ferlinghetti, the publisher of the book was arrested and the owner of the store was arrested and it became a landmark first amendment case where basically it was tried. Can you, you know, is this obscene literature? Can you, you know, is it, or is it not? And is it protected by the first amendment?

And it turned out it was, they had a good lawyer. Was Kunstler the lawyer on that? I forget, you know, there's a James Franco movie that talks about this. I didn't watch it. I saw that a long time ago. Something tells me William Kunstler was the lawyer. I couldn't be wrong about that. Yeah, they got like a heavyweight lawyer

that came in and argued it. Kunstler's the guy with the law, he did Chicago 7. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was a municipal case, but it had national implications. And luckily there was a federal court case that they use as a precedent. And this kind of reinforced that precedent

that if there is social value, it can't be considered obscene. And so that's what the argument was that everyone was innocent of charges. And this poem became a sensation and basically fueled this beat movement, which included Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac on the road and all of those,

Gary Snyder, Neil Cassidy, and Ferlinghetti himself, who published Coney Island of the Mind, which is one of the most successful poetry books in history, 1 million copies in print. And so, the legend was built right around that era. And what I think is one of the things he used to say is when life gets too awful, look for the lyric escape.

That's something Ferlinghetti says. And that can be writing, it could be painting, it can be sex, you know, making love. It could be running, swimming, diving. Reach for a peace of mind. That's the lyric escape. And to me, City Lights was a lyric escape every time I entered that building.

And so, you know, they gave us great literature, but they also kind of bridged, they were open to Zen Buddhism. They were open to kind of an expansion of the mind. It wasn't just about reading a great book. It was reading a great book that allowed you to look for that expansion of your own self.

It kind of was a precursor to a lot of the yoga stuff that kind of came right in the 60s and the yoga movement and the personal development movement. So it's one of those really pivotal literary movements in our culture and Ferlinghetti was a foundation. Right, and I don't know that we mentioned this, but we're bringing it up because he just passed away. Yeah, no, I did mention it.

Oh, you did, okay. He passed away at 101 years old. Right, I mean, City Lights, the vortex of the counterculture movement of the 60s, it birthed the beat poet generation, Neil Cassidy, all of that. And if you haven't visited city, I mean, still there. It closed down during the pandemic.

Oh, it did. So it just closed down and then it raised a bunch of money through one of those, we have GoFundMe. And so now it has $400,000 to hopefully reopen, but they have not committed to reopening. Yeah, yeah, they can't let that fail. You can't let it fail. Just like you can't let the strand fail in New York.

As a Stanford student, did you go into the city? Did you kind of, was that on your radar city-wide? Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I remember the first time that I went in there knowing full well the legacy and the history that's baked into that. And I was, as a young person, fascinated with that period of time.

I remember reading Tom Wolfe's, the electric Kool-Aid acid test, and it just blew my mind and reading on the road and all of that. So I love all that stuff. And it is interesting how, what is the long-term legacy of that and how it's getting played out right now?

Like everything from Lululemon to this now swap in how we're thinking about free speech. Like free speech being the vanguard of the progressive liberals during this period of time when people are getting arrested for selling copies of how to underage people to now that being a mirror image of what it once was. Right, well, so like exactly to your point, of what it once was. Right, well, so like exactly to your point,

it was the overlords of the old culture of the 1950s, the stodgy kind of religious institutional culture that was saying, no, you can't say this, this is the wrong thing to say. And basically arresting people for publishing a book because it had the wrong words in it. And now we're making punk rock nonconformist stars out of mediocre minds when progressives are doing that

by saying you can't say this. Progressives are the ones who are policing speech. Exactly. It's strange and disorienting to see that happening. And part of that is rooted in progressive progress and part of it is perhaps a bridge too far in terms of- I think it starts with, again, good intentions. We're not condoning hate speech here.

And people, if you allow free speech to the maximum level, hate speech has to be protected too. Like there's a reason the ACLU have filed cases to support KKK marches. The idea is that you keep it open so that the marginalized have a space to speak, but that is by nature going to allow everyone to have a space to speak.

But we're not condoning hate speech at all, but we need to have the big picture in mind always when we're talking about freedom of speech, you know, a good beat poet title for the current age, Jason was saying this before we went on, please stick to the approved words. That would be the great poet title of the current age. Right, because that's like a very provocative

punk rockish title to have in this moment right now. Right, right, right. And that doesn't mean that we don't understand where it's coming from or don't have empathy to people who felt marginalized and want to make things better, but you can't control making things better by saying what you can say and when you can say it

and how you can say it. Cause if that was true, we wouldn't have old people getting pushed over on the streets. Everything would be cool, but it's not cool. Yeah. All right, let's do some listener questions. Okay. Listener questions.

Let's hear from Josh from Raleigh, North Carolina. Hey Adam. Hey Rich. This is Josh from Raleigh, North Carolina. Hey, Adam. Hey, Rich. This is Josh from Raleigh, North Carolina, calling. My question is an aspirational riff off of the conversation that Rich recently had with Lexi Pappas about the importance of surrounding oneself with high-vibration people. So my question for both of you is if you could have a road trip, a pilgrimage, some type of adventure with three people, living or dead, who would they be? For me, it would be Rich Roll, Ram Dass, and Father Richard Rohr. Sorry, Adam. Please play this on air, and thanks so much, guys. Much love.

Namaste. Oh, my God. Namaste, Josh. I can't come? Can I be the driver? That's very generous. I'm flattered. I wouldn't pick me.

You're bemused, you wouldn't pick yourself? No. You have to go, it's your road trip. Who do you got? Me? I divided up into the living and the undead. In the living, I'm pricking Barack Obama cause he's my favorite podcaster.

You're fired. Teak not Han. And Elizabeth Gilbert, cause she's pretty chatty and she'd be fun. Right. Yeah. Because when you're going on a road trip, there's lots of things to consider. Like how often is this person gonna need to pull over

and go to the bathroom? What are their dietary restrictions? Like, are you gonna be able to do the long hang as you go all the way across the- Well, that's what I'm thinking. So you have Thich Nhat Hanh, old timer, who's seen it all, and Barack Obama. They could talk, I think you'd have a lot of like

great insights in Elizabeth Gilbert, all very well-read people. I'd learn a lot. I just like to sit in the back seat and listen to Barack and Liz Gilbert get chatty. Yeah. Which would be good. And Teague Not Han would just like.

Chime in with you, he'd just drop a little pearl every once in a while. You know, Teague Not Han was as you may or may not know, a giant in, he was a Vietnamese, not refugees, Vietnamese monk who ended up having like early mindfulness meditation influence. And he and Martin Luther King Jr. were very tight. So my undead is Bruce Lee,

cause he's a cool movie star. John Coltrane, cause you know, he's him. And Anne Frank in the Liz Gilbert role. Did you intentionally make these sort of appropriately diverse also? You have for each, the living and the undead, you have an African American, an Asian and a woman? Well, I'm trying to be, I wanna make it,

you know what, yes, I wanna make it, I wanna, you know what? Yes, I thought about it, but- So woke. I probably would have, I probably would have, you know, it probably would be John Coltrane, Bob Marley and somebody else if I had to pick. But in this sense, since we're on live on the air here, not live, but on the air,

I figured I have so many things I'm interested in. You know, I'm not even into martial arts, but I saw the Bruce Lee documentary recently and it was either him or Napoleon and I went with him. Napoleon would be cool. He might be a pain in the ass though too. He'd wanna drive. Yeah.

He'd wanna drive. Be in control the whole time. But we'd have to like strap blocks on his feet so he could reach the pedals. Yeah. This is tough. I get asked this question a lot. Like who would you have dinner with?

I always stumble. I can never come up with anything that interesting. I mean, I just riffed off this off the top of my head, but for the living I had Michael Stipe, David Attenborough, and Richard Branson. Okay. Or possibly Haruki Murakami.

Okay. That would be cool. Okay. But you know, I don't know. Michael Stipe because he's the lead singer of your favorite all time band. All time. Yeah. Yeah, he's a must.

Yeah. But I could go with Barack, Liz Gilbert, you know, these are all cool people. Like it's also about the curation, right? Yeah, that's a must. But I could go with Barack, Liz Gilbert, these are all cool people. Like it's also about the curation, right? Yeah, that's the point. Because you're not gonna be talking the whole time or listening the whole time. Like, are these people gonna get along with each other?

You need to have, first of all, you need to have men and women because you have to have a nice balance. You can't, yes. And will they get along was a big thing. That's why I think my living car is pretty rock solid. I don't think that goes anywhere. But the dad, you just don't know how John Coltrane

and Anne Frank are gonna get along. I think they'll be fine. But if you have Liz Gilbert or you have like Brene Brown, like they get to the heart of things quickly. Yes, but maybe almost too quickly. Maybe when you're dealing with 3,000 miles ahead of you. I don't feel like they would run out of things to talk about though.

No, definitely not. You know. Who's your- The undead, I got Marcus Aurelius, because what is it like to be the most powerful man in the world and be a philosopher king. And be played by Russell Crowe. No, he played, Russell Crowe didn't play Marcus Aurelius.

Oh no, he played. Marcus Aurelius was played by Rich, I'm blanking. Oh, that's right. He just passed away. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Richard Harris. Richard Harris, exactly. JC, Jesus Christ, I mean, why not? Let's get to the bottom of this, right?

I had Jesus on my list. I crossed him out for Anne Frank. It's a cop out though. It's like, oh, Abraham Lincoln and Jesus Christ. And you know. I know, I didn't wanna- But like, are you gonna not pick him if you can pick anybody?

And let's get to the root of things. He's pretty famous. Right? And while we're at it, Bill W., why not? Bill Withers? Bill W. from the secret society, the founder, the co-founder of The Rooms. I don't know.

You don't? No. Wow. It really has, it has been kept anonymous at the level of press, radio and film. He's at one of the co-founders of AA. Oh, okay. Bill Wilson. Bill Wilson.

But you know, I don't know, like that's not the most diverse list either. No, I don't think there's a right answer. I feel like, I feel maybe one of the reasons why I struggle with this a little bit is that I get to do this every week on the podcast. Like the podcast is my version of going on a road trip with somebody I wanna talk to. Right, and if you listen to your podcast,

you're getting that. And you're also getting the, it's almost like the Barack Obama, Bruce Springsteen is half of the car. Come at me, Barack. Exactly. Come at me. There's an open seat.

I'll kick Adam out of here right away. Barack wants to come and step in to roll on, you're fired. I'm out of here? Yeah, he's shown his chops. He can handle himself behind a microphone. That's true. Who knew? There's a job opening. What about the boss?

That might be tricky. Oh, all right. Could be good, I don't know. I don't know. I don't see Bruce coming over here every week. If Barack wants to come here every other week, I will. Yeah. I mean.

He's gonna get a pad down in Point Dume. He's gonna ride his Ducati over here. Podcasting is a meritocracy. I will have to give way. I will give way. All right, let's move on. All right, cool. This is another interesting question.

We don't get every day from Tara in Long Beach, California. Hi, this is Tara. I'm from Long Beach, California. Tara. Absolutely fine to play this clip on the air. I wanted to call and clarify my prior question. So my question is, I'm a family physician who works full-time. I have twin three-year-olds, and I am trying to dabble in ultra on without disrupting the balance of my relationships as well, specifically with longer runs on the weekends and time away from family? What is a good way to address these issues and have everyone's needs met? Thanks, guys. Bye. This is a great question. I think this is relatable for anybody who gets involved in endurance sports. You know, the term Ironman widow exists for a reason. Oh, really?

Because these pursuits can often end in cataclysmic relationship results, if not handled appropriately. I figured you are the perfect person to ask this question. Well, it's not easy. I mean, this is the first thing I would say is, you're set up for failure right out of the gate because this is a very difficult hat trick to accomplish.

And I think to launch into this, the first thing to bear in mind is, you can't excel at all of these things every single day. Like there's this idea of how am I gonna balance all of these things so that I'm giving them an appropriate amount of attention every single day. And I think that's the wrong way to think about it because you can't do that.

You can't be at your best as a physician, as a partner, as a parent, and as an athlete all the time. Like it's just not rigged that way. So let go of that fantasy out of the gate and try to configure a schedule and a structure that allows you to kind of toggle between these pursuits, understanding that on certain days, your priority is gonna be in one of these buckets

or two of these buckets, but not all of these buckets. So that over the course of a month or a week, they're all getting an adequate amount of attention, but not all on the same day or at the same time. So structure and scheduling, super important. I think that you should craft that schedule in cooperation and partnership with your wife, so that your wife is part of organizing

what these days are gonna look like, that your wife is participating in the allocation of your time and energy. And to come to that conversation, trying or endeavoring to the best of your ability to structure your training at periods of time that don't compromise the goals that your wife has or the parenting needs

that you both mutually share. So that might mean that your runs have to be super early in the morning before anybody's awake or late at night when everybody's asleep. And I understand that you have a full-time job. You're not a professional ultra runner though, right? Nobody's paying you to do that. This is something you choose to do,

but you've gotta make the choice of how you apply that in a way that's not disruptive to your family. You already know that. And that means, you know, finding those windows of opportunity that don't put, you know put your wife's schedule at peril and create this tension in the relationship. The other thing is you don't wanna ever set yourself up

to be over-trained or overly fatigued. You've gotta be able to show up 100% for your kids and for your wife when you're not training and you're not working, so that doesn't become an additional drag on top of the hours spent when you're not at home. And I think what's been helpful to me in doing this is twofold.

First, anticipate your wife's needs and your kids' needs in advance so that you're planning for that. And you're not like showing up, oh, you didn't get the groceries because you had to go running or planning for that. And you're not like showing up, you know, oh, you didn't get the groceries cause you had to go running or something like that. These are the things that like are small things in isolation but they add up and they can really, you know,

derail a relationship. So being ahead of the curve in terms of understanding and anticipating what your wife is gonna need and fulfilling those needs before perhaps she's even aware that she needs them filled. So that way you're demonstrating through your behavior, repetitive behavior, that you're conscious of the fact that you're ultra running

is perhaps taking you away from the relationship more than she would like, but you're showing up in ways that are telling her like you're here, right? Even when you're not there, you're showing up in ways that are telling her, like, you're here, right? Even when you're not there, you're actually there. And then when you are there to be 100%. Like when I was training for Ultraman at my peak, I've told this story before, but, you know,

I come back from like a 30 mile run or a, you know, six hour bike ride and I'd walk in the house, like just wasted and Julie would like hand me a baby and be like, you're turned by, you know, I'm gonna go do my thing. And I couldn't be like, I need a nap or I gotta like shower. It's like, no, you gotta be on point, right? It's your turn. And by respecting that and making sure that I was present

when those moments arose, that's how we were able to kind of keep everything moving and on track. If I was just like, no, I can't, or sorry, I got to train right now. Like that's not gonna work. So- Were there times where she pushed back against like-

Well, she was very, I mean, I was lucky because I had a very supportive person. She's all about you finding like- Right, and that doesn't mean that it wasn't hard because we're talking about a ton of time. And also, you know, we were going through some financial stuff. It was like a very, like. Right, and that doesn't mean that it wasn't hard because we're talking about a ton of time. And also, you know, we were going through some financial stuff. It was like a very difficult period.

And, and, you know, I credit Julie tremendously for, for really, you know, being an incredible support in a way that I think most partners wouldn't and can't be expected to, honestly. So it's understandable, like what, you're gonna go run for five, like we have twin baby, like what are you doing? You know, like you gotta be here.

So that's why I think anticipating your partner's needs and the needs of your children is so important. I also think that you have to choose your moments. Like I said, at the outset, it's impossible to excel at all of these things every single day. And if you attempt this, you're gonna fail in all the categories. You're not gonna be able to train like a pro.

So don't try to. And there's gonna be days where maybe you have some big run on your calendar and this is really important to you, but something went haywire at home and the kids need you. And you gotta be like, what are my priorities? Like I gotta show up for my kids. I gotta show up for my wife. Like what is most important in the grand scheme of things?

Is it really worth derailing your relationship for ultra running? Like ultra running is something you can do your whole life if you do it responsibly. And so that doesn't mean that your needs shouldn't be met either. It's important if this is bringing you happiness and fulfillment that you should have the freedom

and the license to like do the things that you enjoy doing, which is why communication is so important, right? And if this is important to you, it's incumbent upon you to communicate the importance of it to your wife so that she really understands. Like, does she really understand? Why is this important to you? Why are you doing this?

And the more that you can have that channel of communication open with your wife, I think you'll be in a better place to engender the empathy and support that you're looking for. But that's a two-way street. You gotta give it in return as well. You can't expect her to support you unless you're supporting it in return as well. You can't expect her to support you

unless you're supporting her in kind. So what is it, what is her, what is your wife's ultra running? Like, what is it that she would like to be doing and how can you go out of your way to make sure that you're supportive to her in that regard in the way that you would like to be supported? That's great advice.

I can't offer anything to really to this discussion other than, cause I'm not doing 30 miles. But you have a baby and you're trying to do this Goggins thing and you've got April at home. So how's that going? I had to talk her into the Goggins thing. She was not really feeling the Goggins thing. Well, cause for her, she's like with the baby

almost all the time. And I have my work, which at least allows me, even if I'm in the same apartment, I'm in a psychic space that is my own. And she's not really permitted a psychic space that is her own too often. And so when I run training, often I'll take the baby out with me in a stroller run.

Right, that was the other thing I had on my list of things to respond to, like get the twin baby carriage thing, what is those called? I haven't had babies in a while. Strollers. What do you call them? Yeah, stroller. It's been a while, but they're still called strollers. And she lives in Long Beach,

there's like those paths along the ocean, where you can like push a stroller and- Pretty soon they can ride bikes alongside you or whatever. So I did have to talk her into that. And it just took that. I explained to her why it was important to me and best I could, even though I couldn't really explain to you

why it was important to me, but she understood that. She never didn't want me to do it. And it doesn't really show up as much in the running. Cause for me, most of my runs are a little over an hour, sometimes less, sometimes a little over an hour. And if I wanna do a long one for me, it's like a 10 mile run usually. So that's like, it's not like a 30 mile run.

But swimming, at least doing the dives in Malibu, that has become a lot less frequent than it used to be for me. I try to get us out there once a week, but that includes taking everybody out, getting a beach tent set up, doing the whole thing. Otherwise I can't. As somebody who participated in that with you,

I can affirm that that is a languishing affair that goes on for hours unnecessarily. I'm like, are we gonna swim and get this done? What are we doing? We're looking for our octopus teacher. Yeah, I'm like, I'm out for a workout and you're looking for octopus. Yes, that's right.

We're getting in touch with our Lyric Escape. Yeah, I'm like, no wonder she's like, what are you doing? Get back here. Well, no, but she comes out with us. So she's only been able to, she went one time. She doesn't like 55 degree water. So for her, it's like, if the vis is good and it's warmish, she's down.

And so we have made it possible for her to go with the group and then I did my own thing after, we've done that once. But it does take, like, I can't expect her to go sit on the beach when the wind is howling and it's getting sandblasted with a baby while I go on a little swim. So that is not happening as often as it used to, but she loves the beach also, So she likes being out there.

So it's really about the communication aspect is important. And you do have to kind of sublimate, especially knowing that I have four by four coming up. Basically after four by four, she prefers kind of workout, mat workouts with this trainer from our gym that we don't want to go to because of the pandemic. And so we've been having him help us sometimes.

And after the four by four 48, we're gonna prioritize more of those workouts that she can do and that I'll do. And so we're just doing that. So that's kind of the thing she wants to do to, how am I supporting her in kind? That's the next step. So my running, I probably do little less mileage every month

and build in this other strength aspect. And that's just how it's going to have to be because you can't do it all. Right. Yeah. Next question. Yeah. Sorry I made that about me. No, it's good. You're in it right now. You got a baby. I'm in it. You're trying to do something hard. I feel you, Tara. All right. Emily from Minneapolis. Hi, Rich and Adam. This is Emily calling from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and this is AOK2Play on the air. I was just calling today because I've been listening for years and am almost two years sober and about 98% vegan. So you could say I am drinking the Kool-Aid. But the reason for my call is where are you both consuming information at this point?

I'm curious what kind of podcast you might be listening to and also media and books and things like this where you're getting that inspiration from. So I look forward to hearing this on air. Thanks so much. Adam? Yes. You want to take a crack? She wanted to hear from both of us. Oh, you want me to go first again? Go ahead. Okay. Probably because my answer is going to be so disappointing. So go ahead. Come on. Right now I'm reading James McBride's Good Lord Bird, which is about, basically it's a historical fiction.

It's all about the John Brown abolitionist, who was this kind of had an army of abolitionists. And they went and they wreaked havoc on all sorts of slave owners in Missouri. So he was in Kansas and they would run across the border and just kill slavers and deliver God's justice. And it's really hilarious. It's actually kind of an offbeat hilarious take

on this real thing that happened. James McBride, author of Color of Water, which won sorts, I think it won national book award as well or Pulitzer or something. And then I didn't read that, but that was an incredible memoir about his mother. Kill Him and Leave was the first McBride book that I read. And that's about James Brown.

It's remarkable. I found it in some bookstore. Not many people have read it. It's like a 200 page book. And it's a sensational. And this book is magnificent. So I'm reading that and I'm listening to Save the Cat Writes a Novel.

That's part of my, it's my audio book right now. Part of my deep dive into the craft. Save the Cat is the screenwriting thing, right? Right, and so there's novelist kind of took it and spun it. It's under that banner, but it's for novelists. And she takes the same lessons and spins it and kind of uses fiction. And it's helped me just kind of like think,

cause I'm between drafts on a novel I've been writing and I'm just kind of listening to it and see if I can, you know, this is, I'm in after two drafts, I'm looking at like 10 draft kind of plan. And so I'm listening to it now. And then the podcast I listened to aside from the Rich Roll podcast, which I do listen to. Okay.

I listened to Barack might have to wait. Well, yeah, it's true. I am listening to- Trying to hold onto that seat. I listened to, I love listening to the Rich Roll podcast. I also listen to every morning, pardon the interruption, this shouty sports podcast and occasionally the daily and revisionist history is a regular for me as well.

You know, Good Lord Bird is a show starring Ethan Hawke. I knew that it became a show. I've been wanting to read the book for ages. Then it became a show and I thought, no, I'm reading the book first. Yeah, I love Ethan Hawke. He's fabulous. We talked about his Ted talk, didn't we?

Yeah, we did. Yeah, we did. I still wanna get him on the podcast. I just listened to him, speaking of podcasts, I listened to an interview that Ethan did with, I think it was on, it was either on the watch or the big picture, like those ringer TV movie podcasts. It was great.

I love listening to that guy talk. And he was talking about Good Lord Bird and how much he loved the book and how it was his passion of his to play this character, even though he thought he was too young to do it. Like he thought this should be like Jeff Bridges or somebody like that who was older, but apparently I haven't watched the show yet,

but it's been very well received. Yeah, I mean, and well, the story is told through the eyes of an eight-year-old or 12-year-old boy, something like a young boy slave who John Brown liberates kind of against his will and mistakes him for a girl. And so then he goes around dressed as a girl, which saves his life.

But he's like liberated against his will, goes with John Brown and John Brown is prone to all sorts of like crazy sermons. Like you can't eat unless he's done two hour prayer. Right, well, he's all crazy fire and brimstone. Like he's over the top, like all the time. Yeah. Right. I said at the outset that my answer

might be a little disappointing. I mean, here's the thing. So much of my information diet is dictated by the podcast. Like who's the guest who's coming up. Typically there's a book or a bunch of podcast interviews with that person, a deep dive into their life that involves, you know, 30 tabs open on my browser. So I immerse myself in the world of the upcoming guest

and try to inhabit that in the most method way that I possibly can. And that consumes most of my time. In terms of news, my kind of go-to for news is generally Twitter. Like I follow tons of journalists and I follow journalists of different mindsets and worldviews.

So I keep things mixed up by in my feed in that way. And so rather than, you know, I'll open up the New York Times or the LA Times, but I tend to consume my news through Twitter. I don't know how many people still do that. I do a lot of that too. I get to a lot of links, but it ends up being- And then I can read different takes on the same story

or different perspectives on what's going on. In general, curiosity leads the way for me. And that's really what the podcast is about. In terms of podcasts that I consume and listen to, I don't, and people are always surprised to hear this, but I don't listen to a lot of podcasts that are in the vein of what I do. Like there's a handful of other people

that are kind of would be considered, kind of similar to this show. And unless I have a guest that I'm researching, who's on one of those shows, I typically don't do that. Cause it sort of feels like this is what I do. And that feels like homework. Yeah. As opposed to enjoyment for me.

Yeah. So I ended up listening to podcasts that piqued my interest in other areas. Like I also, I love everything Malcolm does. So I listened to revisionist history and his other various shows broken record. I love conversations about movies and television. So I listened to the big picture on the watch.

I do subscribe to the daily. I don't listen to all of them. I kind of pick and choose with that. I still, old school, I still love Mark Maron, the WTF podcast. I've been enjoying Mike Birbiglia's podcast, Working It Out, which is fun. Have you ever listened to his?

No. It's pretty cool. Like he'll bring on, most of his guests are comics, but he brings them on and he has kind of a series of questions that he asks all of them. But the premise is really, I'm working on this material and let me like try it out on you and give me feedback. And then they're like, I'm working on this.

And then they're like, so it's like a note session. That's great. Which gives you a glimmer, like a glimpse into the creative process and how to, and also this is a very important thing for anybody who's trying to do anything creative, like how you give and receive feedback and notes is really important.

Like, can you, like who you choose to bring into that circle is important, how you ask the question and how you receive the response and how the person provides the response. Like there are people who are really good at giving feedback and doing it in a conscious way that's constructive versus destructive or just negative. And I think there's an art to that.

And when you can be in a receiving mode and set your ego aside and actually hear what the person is saying and not be reactive and kind of embrace it, even if they're like, I don't like this, I think you completely lost the thread with this and you're like, oh, that's, can you be curious and interested in why that person feels that way?

I think is fun and helpful. And I think Mike is really good at that himself. And he's so fun and engaging to listen to. So I like that. I listened to Pivot with Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher for business. I love Brian Koppelman's The Moments, which is all about conversations with people like,

what is your inflection moment in your career? Okay. That's kind of the focus of that. Just for fun, I love the rewatchables when Bill Simmons like, you know, talks about old movies, like, you know, that you love to go back to. I love Rob Bell's podcast. I like Pete Holmes, You Made It Weird.

Like I'm always mixing up my podcasting- I like it. Kind of lineup, but those are just some that I've been listening to lately. Love it. And I watch a kind of lineup. But those are just some that I've been listening to lately. Love it. And I watch a lot of docs. I watched the... You see everything.

No, I don't see everything, but I try to see as much as possible. I watched the first half of the Billie Eilish documentary last night, which is fantastic. Really? Is that Netflix? On Apple, Apple Plus.

What else is on your radar for movies right now? I don't know, it's weird. Like the Golden Globes were last night and I didn't watch it, but I was kind of scrolling through Twitter and looking at all the people that won and I was amazed at how few of the movies or shows that I've actually seen.

Yeah, it's one of those years well, it's one of those years you're not going to the movies, you know? I know, I know. Lots of good movies to be streamed at home in the coming weeks though. All right, stay tuned, roll on. That's it. So, that's it, listeners.

Yeah, I think we did it. Are we done? We rocked it. I think we're done. We're gonna land this plane. Awesome, man. Thank you. How do you feel?

I feel good. I like this one. I think I'll listen to it. Do you go back and listen to roll-ons? No, I don't. No, hell you say. No. I maybe once or twice.

I try to, I'm trying to get better. You've been doing this eight and a half years. Yeah, but I can't go back and listen to old shows. I never do that. I never do that. No. I can't just cause I can't, I can't, I can't listen to my own voice.

I can't bear to hear yourself. I'm with you. But what you can do is you can follow Adam on the socials at Adam Skolnick, on at Rich Roll on all the places. I might do a Clubhouse. Are you gonna do a Clubhouse? Well, I listened to my friend Neil Strauss did a conversation with Jared Leto

on clubhouse the other night. And I thought it was great. It was super fun. And people got to ask Jared questions. And I was like, this is cool. Okay. We'll do something there. I don't know.

Anyway. Let me know. Clubhouse. Do you need a for that or no? I don't know. Well, I don't know what I would do there. I'm just, you know, I just thought I had a good experience listening and you know. How many people were in the clubhouse?

I mean, it maxed out, I think they max out at 5,000 and then there's like spillover rooms. So it was, you know, look, he's like a huge movie star. Right, so it was like everybody wanted to hear what he had to say, but it was fun. All right, if you want to have your question considered for a future Roll On episode, again, leave us a message on our voicemail,

424-235-4626. Pick up a copy of Voicing Change at richroll.com slash VC. Check out the show notes to see links to everything we talked about today on the episode page at richroll.com. Don't forget to subscribe out the show notes to see links to everything we talked about today on the episode page at richroll.com. Don't forget to subscribe to the show on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, all the places.

We got a clips channel on YouTube. If you dig the short stuff, including the answers to all the questions we asked, we're uploading those there too. So you can find that at Rich Roll Podcast Clips. You just search it on YouTube and it's linked up in the show notes and all we're uploading those there too. So you can find that at Rich Roll Podcast Clips. You just search it on YouTube and it's linked up in the show notes and all that stuff. That's it.

Done. I wanna thank everybody who helped put on today's show. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes, interstitial music and matters sundry and unlisted. Jack of all trades behind the scenes. Blake Curtis for his video wizardry, filming and editing all of these. It's no small task.

Jessica Miranda for whipping up the graphics. We got Ali Rogers on deck today for portraits. What's up Ali? Georgia Whaley for copywriting. DK, our man for advertiser relationships and theme music as always by Tyler Trapper and Harry. Appreciate you guys. Thanks for the love.

I don't take your attention for granted and see you back here in a couple of days with another episode and back with Adam in two weeks, yeah? I'll be here. To tell us about the four by four by 48. You might have to wheel me in, but I'll be here. You might. And just remember when you're out there

and you're hurting. Yes. That the Iron Cowboy is doing an Iron Man a day. Okay? Damn you, Iron Cowboy. All right. Remember when you're out there and you're hurting, that the iron cowboy is doing an iron man a day. Okay. Damn you iron cowboy. All right. Peace. Thank you.