The Rich Roll Podcast - Roll On: Decaying Seas, Lost Hills & Gun Madness

Episode Date: April 1, 2021

How do we end gun violence in America? What can we do to stop marine destruction? How do we untangle masculinity and meat-eating? Plus, we need to talk about that murder in Malibu Creek State Park, Rich’s backyard trail paradise. Welcome to another edition of ‘Roll On’, wherein myself and the always congenial and ponderous Adam Skolnick chew on matters of the day in a manner that is instructive and possibly even entertaining. As always, we share good news and bad. We do a bit of show and tell. And we answer your questions. Aside from serving as my bi-monthly sidecar hype-beast, Adam Skolnick is an activist and veteran journalist best known as David Goggins’ Can’t Hurt Me, co-author. Adam writes 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 using the ‘new dad’ excuse to avoid working on his novel. Topics explored in today’s conversation include: the nuances of Zone 2 training & weightlifting; an update on the Iron Cowboy’s ‘Conquer 100’ challenge; the beginning of the Derek Chauvin trial & how to change public safety; mass shootings & the repercussions of America’s gun obsession; the new documentary ‘Seaspiracy’; the new podcast ‘Lost Hills’; and Robbie Balanger’s Central Park Loop FKT. In addition, we answer the following listener questions: How do you manage relationships when your values change? How do we break the stereotype that meat-eating is masculine? How can we deconstruct masculinity and see vulnerability as a strength? Thank you to Kumaran from South Africa, Casey from Austin, and Cindy from New Hampshire 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/richroll592 YouTube: bit.ly/rollon592 Peace + Plants, Rich

Hey, everybody, welcome or welcome back to another hot off the griddle edition of Roll On. But before we dive in, we're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well

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the always congenial and ponderous Sir Adam Skolnick chew on matters of the day, withdrawal repartee in a manner that is hopefully somewhat instructive and possibly at times even entertaining. You're entertaining. You're getting fan mail now. I try to develop a rapport with whoever I'm talking to. You're in communion with the audience, right?

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Let's get into it, Adam, how you doing? Happy Passover. Thank you, sir. Happy half Passover to you. Half Passover? Don't you have some? No, I'm an honorary. Oh, you're honorary.

I'm not half. Yeah. Honorary Passover. You know what's funny about Passover is that back in the day, well, today actually. Back in the day, like way back in the day? Well, like yesterday. The day.

You could actually walk from Egypt to Jerusalem in under a week or the iron cowboy could probably do it in five days. Right. But back in the day, when it was just a caravan of opinionated Jews with no ways, wrong turn, left turn, right turn. 40 years later, they wind up in Jerusalem.

Squabbling about which way to go. It took a long time. Is it really, you could do it in seven days? Now you can do it. It seems like it would be further, but I guess not. You must have to go around like through Jordan or something. But. Steven Pressfield's new book, A Man at Arms.

There's a similar journey that takes place in that novel. Oh yeah. I seem to recall it takes these people a little bit longer than seven days. Yeah, they were loafing. Well, you know, no ways. What are you gonna do? Exactly, no ways.

They were iPhone deficient. And like the monochrome of the desert. I mean, how do you know where you're going? Polynesians, they were not. I mean, you could say a lot of good things about Jews. They were not guiding themselves by the stars. Okay. How are you doing otherwise?

Good, man, good. I was back out in the cold, murky Pacific ocean. What's the temp these days? It was 53, 54. It was pretty cold. And it was like, usually the like, it was usually the water, the clarity is decent enough. I mean, often it can get murky,

but often it's also really blue. This time it was like we were swimming through the remains of a million jellyfish, like brown and green and stringy and cold. But you know, that's what is so fun about that swim around that reef and is that it's still always beautiful. It's always a good idea.

Did it give you a moment to ponder the themes of sea spiracy, which we're gonna talk about a little bit later? No, cause I hadn't watched it yet. Oh, you hadn't, okay. I crammed for my studies last night. Last minute, getting it in. I was the last minute geek.

But I was thinking about Alexey Molchanov and how cold it was for him and how cold I was. Do we wanna talk about that right now? Isn't that a win of the week? It is, but you can hat tip it. I'll hat tip it to another world record for free dive champion extraordinaire, Alexey Molchanov. He dove 80 meters in a lake in Siberia.

Underneath the ice. Underneath the ice. What was the water temp there? It was a one to two degrees Celsius. So, you know, 35. That's nuts. And I was in, and he was in a seven mil, but he actually did the test dive the day before

in a five mil. And I was in, you know, triathlon wetsuit, which has some close to five millimeter panels and others, you know, you know how they are, they're mixed panels. And I was in 53, 54 degree water. And I was, and I wasn't diving 80 meters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you wrote a great piece for the New York Times,

once again, being the free diving correspondent at large for the Times. Yes. But what's cool about, in addition to just being, very well-written piece, I guess we're kind of talking about it. Well, we can shelve it and talk about it later, but is the presentation,

like the multimedia aspects of storytelling that the time seems to really be embracing. Cause it's on another level. And they like it. And it helps actually get more eyeballs to it. It ends up, it happened with Maya's record wave as well. When you can get video, it's setting it apart. So, and that is definitely a driver to the stories

when I'm selling them, so. On a fitness level, are you resting on your four by four by 48 laurels or have you been able to perpetuate the momentum? Well, it's funny because I knew I was doing four by 48. I kind of joined one of these Garmin challenges for like a badge. And so through March 31st,

I'm supposed to run 505 kilometers from January 1st to March 31st for the first quarter. And I'm close to that marker. Good. So I've got to knock that off by Wednesday. And I've been getting some zone two motivation. Couple of your listeners, one more recently reached out and said that when he started zone twoing three years ago, he was running 12 minute miles zone twos.

And now he's doing extended periods in the low sevens. Wow. And it was just like- That's huge progress. It's really, you know what, everybody who has reached out to me, I really appreciate it. And that kind of stuff is very motivating.

And I have been continuing to do my zone two stuff and I'm not resting. I've been trying, it's hard because I wanna keep running five, six days a week, but I'd like to get in the ocean too. And I just have limited amount of time. So it's a matter of choosing. I think if you intersperse,

like I don't know that you need to run six days a week. Like I don't run that much. I mean, I think if you intersperse it with some swims, it'll actually benefit your running. But perpetuating that like dedication to zone two, it's playing a long game. Most people, I get so much feedback from people saying, I tried the zone two thing,

but I just got bored or I gave up or I wasn't seeing progress or it wasn't working. And I think people are just impatient. Like it works, but you have to really dedicate yourself to it and it does require a different kind of discipline. Cause you have to let go of everything you think you know about what it means to get fit. And just understand that you're gonna be on a journey

for a long time and you're not gonna see results for quite an extended period of time. But then when it starts to kick in, it really makes a huge difference as in the case of that example you just cited. I feel like I've shaved in six months, a minute off my average mile time in zone two. So it's not about getting faster,

it's becoming more efficient so that the strain on your body is reduced. And what you used to be able to do at a 10 minute pace or whatever, if you're doing it at a nine minute pace with the same amount of output, just continuing that trend, imagine running seven minute miles and having it feel like it feels like when you're running 10 minute miles.

That's my dream. And that's why I feel like I'm starting to see some small movement. And I also like mostly I'm feeling it on my feet, which cause I used to be such a pounder and I'd be hammering. You could hear me coming from like a hundred miles away. Shaking the buildings.

Yeah, and now I'm really just like, I'm very quiet now compared to what I used to be. And not just the breath, but my footsteps. And so I do feel like that's helping, but at the same time, my form is not great. You know, there's a lot of improvement that can happen. And then Nicholas just messaged me this morning. There's some swim run challenge happening in June

where he's trying to get like teams around the world to do Mac, you know, to pile up the swim run miles and to have some sort of virtual competition. So I'll look at that and I'll bring it to you. That's cool. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. I had my coach Chris Hout and Caroline Burkle in here the other day.

And Chris is training for a trans Tahoe assault or is gonna go end to end. I can't remember how many miles it is, like 28 or something like that. And he's trying to recruit Caroline and I to swim segments and crew him. And I just, I haven't been swimming at all. Like pools are so difficult to get into.

And I'm not thrilled about getting into 53 degree water. I mean, it's fine for a plunge, but like for training, that's a different thing. So I don't know. I got a text this morning putting some pressure on me. You gotta do it, man. Let's get up there. We'll see what happens.

How are you? How's what's going on in your space? I'm a little foggy and groggy today. So if I lapse into kind of a zoned out space, it's on you to carry this podcast. I just didn't sleep well last night. We're recording this on Monday. What's the date today?

The 29th. The full moon has been in full effect the last couple of days. Actually it's been really dramatic in LA with it resting low on the horizon. Yeah. It has looked huge. And I don't know what it is.

I think we talked about this before, right? Like I just don't sleep great on the full moon. So I'm feeling a little bit off today. Julie's out of town with one of our daughters. So I'm on kid duty, home duty. It's been a busy past week, getting in some interesting training in the gym. It's weird, like I've really committed to this,

this strength program that I'm on. And I feel like my body's changing. Like I touch a weight and I like bulk up immediately. So I feel like bulky and like, it feels good to be strong. Like I haven't felt this way in a long time, but my body is changing. And in a way that I'm not used to, like I'm used to being very lean and agile.

And now I feel like this brick walking around. Really? Yeah, I'm going from, you know, hippie trail guy with a long beard to like basically, you know, playing volleyball and Top Gun. That's kind of like the trajectory that I'm on. I wanna get back. Now it's like summer out.

Like I just wanna be outdoors. Like I'm not a gym rat, but I really do wanna, you know, take this thing to another level and get strong and see where that leads. How's the back? So it's good. I've been doing the cold plunging and that's been great. I've got the temp down to like 46 now.

I'm taking it down like two degrees every couple of days. And how long you're in for? I wanna work down towards to 39, but I do three rounds of four minutes alternating. There's a hot, we also have an outdoor bathtub. So I put hot water on that and I go back and forth. So I do four minutes in the tub, three rounds. Wow.

And it's been good and I'm adjusting to it. And I'm not like when I first started at like 54 degrees, I'd be like shivering, you know, and now I just get in. I'm like, this feels awesome. Like you do acclimate to it. Not that it gets easier. It's still kind of a shock, but I look forward to it now. And it really is quite refreshing,

especially if you do it like in the late afternoon, when your energy is starting to lull, it's like taking a two hour nap and it's really helping my back a lot, which has been great. So you get to 39, you say. I'm enjoying that. We're hard at work on voicing change volume two, which is cool.

I keep trying to carve out time to work on that book, but this podcast takes up a lot of time, brother. This particular one? I gotta tell you, but I have made time to get out on some gravel with my e-bike, which has been really fun. It's just opened up like all these trails that I've never, on some gravel with my e-bike, which has been really fun. It's just opened up like all these trails that I've never, that are kind of too far away for me to run, but now I'm exploring them on two wheels.

And that's been super fun. Like I can get from my house all the way over to the west side and tour all around. And it's just like a whole different part of LA has suddenly opened up to me and the weather's gotten nice. It was super warm. I wrote both Saturday and Sunday and that was great.

And then last night just working on getting the Alex Honnold podcast up, which just went live, which is super fun. Early feedback on that is great. Got some good stuff coming up. Matthew Walker is doing the show on Saturday. People know him as one of, if not the preeminent authorities on sleep.

He wrote this amazing book, Why We Sleep. So I'm really looking forward to podcasting with him. I read his book when it came out and now I'm listening to it on audio book, which has been great. And a really cool development is that it looks like in two weeks, we're gonna travel to Minneapolis to do a series of interviews,

including a sit down with the mayor there, Jacob Fry. As many people know today, the trial just began the Derek Chauvin trial. He's the officer who's being charged with second and third degree murder of George Floyd. So that's cities on pins and needles. And I think it would be a really interesting boots on the ground experience to go there

and kind of get a sense of what's happening there. No doubt about it. That's gonna be incredible for you to get in there and weigh in and feel it should be heavy. And by then who knows where the trial will be. I know, I know. Or the may, I mean, I can't imagine the stress that the mayor is shouldering at the moment.

He could suddenly become unavailable, but I just think it's important. I wanna understand it better and the opportunity presented itself and why not. How did that come? Through my buddy, Brogan Graham, who's been on the show. He's a buddy of mine. He's the founder of November Project.

He used to live in San Diego, but he moved to Minneapolis a couple of years ago and he's running buddies with Jacob. Yeah, you said he's a really good runner. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, yeah, said he's a really good runner. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, yeah, Mayor Fry is a very good runner. So hopefully get out on a run with him as well, which should be interesting.

In other news, I got into a bit of a Twitter spat. I saw that. The other day. Well, it's kind of a one-sided Twitter. It's not like he responded, right? No, he didn't. But I don't know, I was feeling like a little bit spicy in response to this tweet that was posted by Senator Marshall, Dr. Roger Marshall from Kansas,

who was railing, there was a video, he's railing against Meatless Mondays, like it's some kind of crazy government overreach. And he was spouting, he's a physician, but he was spouting all this nutritional nonsense and I just couldn't let it stand. So I popped in there and kind of shared my, I don't do that.

Like I'm not like a shit stir on Twitter. No, but you were polite. Was I polite? You were, you said Senator. You said, excuse me Senator. I said quote unquote Senator. I mean, that was kind of snide, I think actually. But the engagement on that tweet was so crazy.

And I was like, oh, this is how people build their following on Twitter. Like they say outrageous stuff. Yeah, like, you know. Not that that's gonna become a practice. I mean, he was attacking meatless. He opened the door. Well, he was saying all kinds of stuff.

Like if you're, it was in reference to imposing meatless Mondays in high schools, right? And he was saying that if you're a high school athlete, there's no way that you can make this work. It's just, it's gonna be impairing children. Right. And I just think that that's untrue.

Why would you take good protein out of their mouth? And this is a guy who's propped up by big ag and the meat and dairy industry. So he's probably on the receiving end of some lobbying dollars. And his constituency is making sure that those industries are chugging away as always. So of course he's gonna take the side of those industries.

And the real, like the government overreach isn't Meatless Mondays. The government overreach is propping up this industry that's going the way of the dodo. No doubt. And he's also in the receiving end of Rich Roll's boot in his ass, I'll tell you that. Not really.

It wasn't that, it wasn't like that. Anyway, and also we should talk about Kevin Roos. Yes. Who was on the show. Famous artist. Yeah, now he's, yeah, he basically is one of the most highly paid artists in the world, right?

Yes. It kind of came up in our podcast. We were talking about NFTs and he was considering the idea of doing a book and releasing it as an NFT. But what he did on the heels of the podcast was release an article, which was about NFTs as an NFT. And he auctioned off that article, the first in the 170 year history of the New York Times

to be distributed as an NFT, a PNG file that ended up at auction raising over $500,000 for charity, which is bananas, right? Who wants that? Well, it's like I have the first NFT from the New York Times ever, I guess. It's bragging rights. I mean, who wants the Mona Lisa? And we can go down this rabbit hole again, but I think whether you can get on board

with this idea or not, this is the world that we now live in. It's a currency, right? Is what it is. It's just another currency. In certain respects. I mean, it's a currency like a painting is a currency, I suppose.

It's a non fungible token, Adam, is what it is. I know, I know. I know what it is yet I have no idea what it is. The kind of just meta nature of the whole thing. And also Kevin's like sheer confusion and delight on Twitter and how this thing unfolded was really kind of fun to watch and relish. What's Kevin's take on this?

What do you think? Zero, I mean, it's for charity, right? Oh yeah, it's for, yeah. His financial take was nothing. Right. I thought you meant his like half take. I'm sure the part of him is like, damn. Yeah, he's like, well, I'm sure he's thinking,

maybe I really should do that book as an NFT, right? Yes. And it's made me think, cause we talked about this last time about creating an NFT from the first episode of this podcast. And of course there's the environmental concerns which are the real impediment.

I would have done it already if it wasn't for that. Right. But how does that balance out if we auction it off for charity? Are you looking for me to enable this NFT adventure? Cause I am your hype man. Are you gonna call your Al-Anon sponsor? Go for it.

My job is to say, go for it. That's not your job. Your job is to tell me what you think. I think that you should wait until it's on to that. It's not Ethereum. Yeah, and just wait. But then the bubble will be burst. It's true.

What do you think the first episode would go for? But what if we raised, we gave the money to like the Honnold Foundation, which is all about solar energy. So how would that balance out? I guess it would depend on how much you raised as to whether it would cancel out the carbon footprint that was required to mint the NFT in the first place. as to whether it would cancel out the carbon footprint

that was required to mint the NFT in the first place. This particular riddle requires a smarter person than me. Yeah, I know. I know the people that ask. Some sort of blockchain person that can run the numbers on that. Exactly. Maybe we need the blockchain to run the numbers if we should do the blockchain.

Yeah. Okay. Should we turn to the blockchain. Yeah. Okay. Should we turn to the Iron Cowboy ticker? How about this guy? He is picking it up. This has become like just a, you know, basically a cornerstone of roll on, right? Like checking in on the Iron Cowboy.

How could it not be? This guy is like gone from basically barely making through these marathons to actually picking up the pace and going hard. He does seem to have had a bit of a Renaissance in terms of his energy and enthusiasm and mood lately. Hasn't he? Yeah. So we're on day 29 as of today, which is Monday. He is going strong.

There is this turning of the tide. He looks strong. His mood seems elevated and all of this, despite what appears to be some pretty insane weather that they've gone through. Like if I was him, I would have started this thing in like May, you know, but he doesn't like the heat. It's hot there.

He doesn't do well with the heat, but instead he's going through sleet and snow storms and all kinds of stuff. He does maintain a pretty high vibe. So I have kind of a positive negative spin on all of this. Give it to me. But before we get into that, let's talk about the why,

because that's something we talked about when you were heading into the Goggins challenge and James posted about that the other day. He posted about the why, right? Yeah. Yeah. Do you think that was a callback on your question about the why? You think he'd listened to the podcast

and he's like, I need to declare my why. No, I don't think so. So this is something that you ultra athletes talk about your why's a lot. I feel like there's a snarkiness in how you just said that. I didn't mean it that way. Yeah. No. You ultra athletes like to talk about the why,

like it's some kind of, you know, like sort of mental exercise and nonsense. Or a mental exercise and nonsense. Or a mental exercise period. Just like in the fact that like, it's something that you guys do consider and talk about and think about before taking on something that's seems kind of like a superhuman attempt.

It's something that- But I think that should be a question everybody should be asking themselves all the time about whatever it is that they're investing their time and energy in. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

But he said specifically that his why was knowing there are millions of people in the world that need a little spark to light their sparkle and don't know where to find that spark. In his words, if I can be the spark for just one person to believe in themself, that's enough. And I think that's great. I appreciate that.

And you know what I like about it? Is that it's honest. What you see a lot with endurance athletes, they'll declare their why as being a charity or I'm doing this for the kids or I'm doing this for Spina Bifida or whatever it is. And those are all laudable things to raise money for charity which is something that James is also doing

in the pursuit of this goal. But I always find those to be somewhat disingenuous. It's like, you're not really, you're really doing it for you. Come on, you know what I mean? Like, let's be honest. No one spends a hundred days. You're doing it to see if you can do it.

And there's nothing wrong with that. You don't have to say you're doing it because of this other thing. But I think that I find, you know, James's declaration on this to be quite earnest. And I think it's cool. And listen, you know, I'm a huge fan as, you know, many of you guys know, I was early on board with James

before he even attempted his 50 Ironmans and 50 states in 50 days. I had him on the show when very few people were paying attention to what he was doing. I had him on after the show, I ran the final marathon with him in that attempt. And I've always elevated this guy's message. I just think he's a beautiful, amazing soul,

an incredible athlete, of course, an incredible family man. I've had the opportunity to see him deliver his keynote. He's a very gifted public speaker. His presentation is unbelievable. And what I like about this Conquer 100 challenge, the sort of, you know, feet itself aside, is how incredibly inclusive and participatory it is. He's developed this amazing community around this event.

He's got crazy support, all these people that show up every single day. On Instagram, he's just crushing the Instagram game with like amazing stories constantly. Who's doing that? His daughter, well, I think his daughter and his wife, Sunny are probably managing most of it. His daughter is crushing it.

She's checking in all the time. Sunny started sharing her perspective on stuff and answering questions that people have for her. Like what's it like to be James's wife and how are you taking care of yourself and all of that. And she's been very kind of engaged and forthright about where she's coming from on all of this, which I think is cool.

He's got his wing men, Aaron Hopkinson and Casey Robles, who are just hilarious. I mean, these guys like talk about good friends. Like they just show up for James 110%. They did this on the 50, 50, 50, they're doing it again. And they're like comedians. Like they're participating alongside of him, but they keep the mood light.

Like they're literally his court jesters and his ultimate support team. Well, you have to laugh at it, right? You have to laugh at it. Well, the absurdity of the whole thing. Because it's this huge dark tunnel he's in. But the thing is you would think like that it would all be about the darkness and the heaviness.

But when you watch the Instagram stories, it's like, they're laughing, they're having fun, they're joking. And yeah, I guess that's a strategy, right? I just know when I'm super tired, like it's very hard to get into that head space. Like you become really grumpy and difficult to be around. And he seems to be pretty jovial and convivial,

like throughout the entire thing, which is unbelievable. So that's cool. I mean, these guys, Aaron and Casey, truly BFF goals. Like if you could be so lucky to have friends like these guys. And the fact that they all seem to be having fun, I think that's great. I mean, on the negative, so that's the positive.

Okay. But I think, you know, I would be remiss in not sort of sharing a different side of this. You know, I think what's unique about James is that typically the mind caves into the body, right? And Goggins talks about this all the time. Like the mind gives in, you know, when the body still has 40% left or whatever.

It's the mind that goes first when the body is capable of more. But I think with James, it's actually the opposite. I think this guy's mind is much stronger than his body. Maybe his mind is 40% stronger than his body. And that's a very unique and something to be celebrated. But he's so mentally tough that I think if he had his leg amputated in the middle of this whole

thing, that he'd still figure out a way to like finish it, right? I have no doubt that he possesses the will to complete this insane challenge and that he will very well compel his body to complete it. But I do think it would be irresponsible if I didn't at least voice some concern regarding the long-term health complications that he's risking by doing this.

I really, I love James. I don't want him to break his body beyond repair and end up walking with a cane at 40. And I suspect that under the best circumstances, it's going, if he completes this, even if he pulled the plug now, it's gonna take his body a really long time to recover. It could be a year, it could be years.

I mean, the adrenal fatigue alone. So if anybody can do it, this guy can certainly do it. I don't doubt him for a second, but I would just hate to see him push his body beyond irreparable limits. So do you want him to tap out? No, I don't want him to tap out. I just, I know that he has a lot of support

and he goes home, you know, during the transitions and at night and he's got all kinds of people working on him. So I presume that he's having his blood drawn. He's got doctors who are monitoring him and all of that, who would tell him like, look, you're digging a hole you're not gonna be able to crawl out of.

and all of that, who would tell him like, look, you're digging a hole. You're not gonna be able to crawl out of, would he, if faced with that kind of medical diagnosis, would he pull the plug or would he keep going? I don't know the answer to that, but I just care for him. I just don't wanna see him get harmed in the pursuit of this challenge, that's all. I feel like the swim is kind of a break for him.

Like the swim isn't the hard part, right? The swim's like recovery. Yeah, it's like a part of the recovery. But you see him crawling out of the pool, like how ginger he is on his feet. This dude is worked. It doesn't work. You know?

So of course he is. It doesn't look easy to get up that ladder. That's gonna be a very tall ladder. He's like, fuck, now it's the real shit. There's something soothing about like every day you see him crawl up the ladder and put his crocs on and like saunter over into the locker room. And it's like, oh man, now it gets real.

It's like a metronome. Yeah, he's like, God, I like that pool. Maybe I wish it was five miles in the pool. Yeah, anyway, send him your love, follow him on Instagram at ironcowboyjames and we love you, James. It's very impressive, James. I just love his little motivation tactics,

like wearing 23 and having LeBron be the theme of 23. And then each day is a different theme. And just seeing- You gotta mix it up though, right? You gotta keep every day fresh. Otherwise, I think they switched up the course a little bit recently. Yeah, right, right.

And he likes that better. I am excited. We gotta get out, like towards the end, we should really road trip out there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll figure that out. I mean, what happened with the 50-50-50, I went out there, did the, you know,

I was there for the final day and was hoping to get a podcast with him, obviously not right after, but the day I hung around the day after and he was just too, it wasn't gonna happen. So I went home and then flew back like a week or two later and did it. But it's historic and something to be celebrated.

But if you go out there, don't bring the gravel bike cause it would be rude to have a motor. That would be rude, right? How dare you? No, I would never do that. Can you imagine? Seriously, bro? It has been funny.

Like I've posted my gravel rides on Strava. There is an e-bike, you know, it'll upload and then I got to quickly switch it to e-bike. So I'm not, you know, holding myself out as having, you know, rode a route, you know, cause the stats, you know, whatever. But there was a couple like sort of snarky, like seriously, man, you're on an E and I was like, look, man, come at me, bro. But like, I'm having fun. Like I'm just enjoying myself.

I love that you're doing that. And I love the idea of it's like, it's like under the bridge downtown, like I think of that under the bridge from Red Hot Chili Peppers, like I walked through her hills cause she knows who I am about LA. Right, right. And the fact that you're unlocking different canyons

and fire roads, it's like, I think that's awesome. To see the city through her canyons is really the best way to see LA and to understand it. And so to be able to do that and cross that much territory, it's not a small ride. No, I mean, I went down Saturday, I rode over all the, you know, I took trails all the way down into Brentwood,

through Santa Monica, down through Venice, and then rode back up through PCH, took Los Flores up yesterday, dropped down. Where did I drop down? Oh, down into the Palisades and through the Highlands. I'd never been there. I didn't, you know that whole like development in the Palisades, it's way up on the hill.

I'd never knew that existed. Up through. I lived here for like 20 years. Really? I mean, I knew there were houses up there but I'd never driven up there. I didn't know anything about it. Isn't that gated up there? Yeah, yeah, but I'd never driven up there. I didn't know anything about it. Isn't that gated up there?

Yeah, yeah, but you drop down a trail kind of drops you in at the top up there. And then I took the roads back down. Anyway. The e-bike house thieves, this is gonna be the next thing. Yeah, right. Shout out to Specialized, who's my partner in this.

I've been really enjoying working with them and the Creo is awesome. I do need to get a legit road bike and a non-e gravel bike at some point. So I'm working on that. Shout out to Specialized. It's okay, I don't want one. Don't even call me.

I've never seen you on a bike. I did see you on a Super 73 though. I have a fixie. Yeah, that's it. I used to ride back in the dead, but it's been a long time. We'll rectify that. Yeah.

All right, man, let's take a break and we'll be back with a big story and more. All right. All right, we're back. Adam, we gotta talk about guns. I know, man. Uniquely American obsession. Sure is.

Since we last convened two mass shootings, 18 people dead in Atlanta, a white dude motivated by anti-Asian misogyny hit three massage parlors and claimed eight lives in Boulder. A Muslim dude shot up a grocery store, King Soopers with an AR-556 pistol bought six days prior. I think he bought it like the day of the Atlanta shooting or somewhere.

The guy in Atlanta bought it the day of. The day, yeah, but the Boulder guy bought it like the day the Atlanta shooting happened or the day after or something like that. The AR-556 being sort of a pistol version of the AR-15. And here we are again, gun violence is up 25% from last year. Some of that is fueled in part by intimate partner violence.

Gun purchases are up in part motivated by people fearing becoming a victim of gun violence. And we're in this vicious cycle that as a society, we just can't seem to find our way out of. I agree. I personally am starting to feel complicit to be quite honest with you, because it happens over and over and over again and what have i done

about it you know like what i i wrote a story about guns after the pulse nightclub shooting and the the dallas officers were killed by that other sniper um but, and I, maybe I gave money to every town or something, but like that's not really doing much. You know, it's easy from the comfort of my desk. I can't say that I've done anything or participated in the solution. I just, when this happens, I go numb and then I feel powerless.

And I don't wanna be among the thoughts and prayers chorus. I wanna participate in something meaningful, but it's unclear what exactly that is other than, basically voicing outrage on social media, which I don't really think is productive either. It does nothing. Let's go through some of the stats, right? So we're not gonna talk about thoughts and prayers

because this is a systemic issue and thoughts and prayers don't solve it. So America has more guns than any other country, 300 million guns, one for every person in the country. One for every person. Japan has less than one gun per 100 people. So, and they have 10 deaths a year. We have gun related murders in our country

are 25 times higher than any other country on earth. We have 3.4 gun murders per a hundred thousand people. Next highest is Canada at 0.6. Right, when you see the graph, we're referencing a New York times opinion piece and they show this graph country by country. And the US is like, it just looks like it's 20 fold higher

than the next closest country. And I give Canada a little bit of a pass there. They're at 0.6, but some of those people were Americans. Model for regulating guns is the automobile. Like right now we have, you sent me this interesting story about how the NRA has basically twisted up the second amendment, right?

So we have this, we're in this position where we have no way to control guns because of a few reasons. One is we have this whole chunk of the country that has become connected to the second amendment. The second amendment is the right to bear arms. That was put in there as kind of a placeholder for states to have their own militias. So there wasn't a centralized army

that dominated different states, right? Regulated militias. Regulated militias. Which is, it's regulated militias comma, which is the part of the Second Amendment that gets glossed over in this conversation that's been twisted to be all about individual gun ownership rights,

which is not really the original intent of the second amendment. Right, and so what happened was the NRA went through a change. Like in the 50s, they were about marksmanship training, firearm safety education. And now in the 70s, they turned into kind of a legal organization to expand

the application of the second amendment to include private ownership and personal protection. Why? Because their members, meaning the arms manufacturers, not the people that pay for membership fees, the individual people, made money off it. And they made inroads in the Republican party mostly, but throughout government donating to different campaigns.

And next thing you know, you have, it makes it almost impossible to pass any legislation regulating guns. We call it gun control. That's really the wrong way to put it. It's like, we don't call driver's licenses, car automobile control or person control. We're just saying, let's make sure people are safe

when they're operating something dangerous. I'd like to, I think the NRA could be rebooted to be an organization that does all the things that could help us. That would be talking about background checks, talking about smart guns, taking a public health approach and saying, if you're gonna own a firearm, these are the things you need to think about.

Everything down the line, marksmanship, hunting classes, all these good things, licensing, certifications, all these things that could actually end up- Storage. Storage. Use, smart guns. That if they fall into the hands of somebody who's not registered to use it, they don't work. It is interesting that we've been unable

to make any inroads on that and past attempts at gun control, which have focused on outlawing certain aspects of guns, just end up in end runs around those details to create something that's just outside of the regulation that still achieves the end, right? Like whether it's a particular scope or whatever it is on the gun, I'm no gun expert.

Those have traditionally failed and it is interesting. I mean, what was the inflection point with the NRA where they tipped from being this kind of regulatory body that was heavily invested in education and the like to now being this absolutist organization that basically won't give an inch on any issue and couches the whole thing in the context of governments trying to take your guns away from you.

I think according to that story, what happened was there was a, and you'll link to it. It's called how the NRA rewrote the second amendment. And, you know, it used to be on their, I think I have it in here, on their door of their main office in DC were letters that kind of was like embossed on the door, firearms safety, education,

marksmanship training, shooting for recreation. And now there is an abridged version of the second amendment that it takes it completely out of context. And I think what happened was there was a quote unquote revolt against the leadership in the NRA, which at the time was for gun regulation and from the fifties all the way to the seventies and the whole board got fired and someone else took over.

And that so in began this kind of long game of rewriting laws and getting through the courts to expand civil liberties or I call it civil liberties, but to expand the meaning of these amendments to include conservative principles like bearing arms. Yeah, the second amendment literally says a well-regulated militia, a well-regulated militia,

comma, being necessary for the security of a free state, comma, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, comma, shall not be infringed. So it's a sentence that's rife for all different kinds of interpretations, but nowhere in there does it reference directly the individual's right to bear arms. It is specifically in reference

and that comma after regulated militia, to me, hammers at home that this is all in the context of arming a regulated militia. And it's the third clause. Yeah, and it's that third clause, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. That's the only thing they have on their door now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the first part of it gets forgotten. And I think, you know, the founding fathers would be turning in their graves at how this has been exploited. So what's the way forward? I mean, one of the arguments that gets thrown around a lot is it's a mental health argument.

This is about the mental health of these people, this idea that we have more mass shootings because we have more mental health problems, but the data doesn't really support that. Countries with high suicide rates tend to have low rates of mass shootings. They found that video games don't correlate, racial diversity and immigration issues also don't correlate.

And it really is, and this is, you know, borne out by the data that it's about access to guns. The more access you have to guns, the more shootings and deaths you're going to have. And if we look at a couple of different case studies, Sandy Hook being obviously the, one of the most horrific, every one of them is horrific. Sandy Hook is obviously on a scale

because we're talking about kindergarten children and whatnot. There was, I think an advertisement that was connected to that, where he bought a certain rifle or he wanted that rifle. His mother bought it for him as a gift because it was a lot like, you know, some ad he'd seen where it's about empowerment,

about young men and empowerment. And he went out and did that horrible crime. And right afterwards, the victims couldn't really sue the gun manufacturer because the government had passed a law, basically a rider on some other law, making it impossible to sue companies for use of their products in a crime.

Everyone thought that it had been challenged a couple of times, it always had been upheld. A lawyer in Connecticut named Josh Koscoff took on that challenge of maybe challenging, he found another way of arguing against that. And the gun manufacturers and the NRA didn't take it seriously because they'd won so many times on it.

And they showed up in court and the judge gave them the go ahead to sue. And it became this new way of approaching this problem basically, because if the companies now- Kind of like using Rico to go after the mob. Exactly. And if the gun manufacturers suddenly had to pay the victims of these crimes,

then they would do things like, they wouldn't fight things like smart guns where your fingerprint is the only way that you can fire it. Right, it's an alignment of incentives basically. So when the gun manufacturer is not incentivized to make sure that these things are safe and from a product liability perspective

can make the argument that the gun was used in the manner in which it was manufactured, there was nothing dysfunctional about the gun, right? The gun was used and the gun worked properly. So therefore the gun manufacturer bears no culpability for this. But if you say that's the argument, right? But if you say actually they do,

where are you hanging your hat on that argument though? Like how does that, I'm trying to wrap my head around how that works. The argument is if you are creating a product and advertising a product in a certain way and then it's used and you pretend it's not your fault, basically you have some responsibility for your product and how it's used and you pretend it's not your fault. Basically you have some responsibility for your product and how it's used.

Why are you selling it? How can you draw, that's tricky though. Like where do you draw the line with that? Well, that's the question, right? So, you know, the real question is, we should all be asking ourselves, is why can we go in and buy an AR-15 with high capacity magazines and things like that.

What's the use of that? It doesn't make any sense. It's absolutely insane. Right. It's totally outrageous. It makes me furious. Right. Why can't we get our shit together?

The citizenship is overwhelmingly in favor of universal background checks. There are so many things that we can do. Gun owners are in favor. Yeah. 90% or something. There's so many things that we could do. Gun owners are in favor. Yeah, there's so many things that we could do. And it's interesting when you look at how the NRA has handled this by not budging, like not giving an inch,

like that's the strategy, like never give in on anything because it's slippery slope. And because of that tactic, and they've been able to create the situation that we're in right now. But the truth is we need well-informed logical, rational regulation of this landscape. It's insane.

It is insane. That we're in this situation and it's gonna continue to perpetuate unless we do something. So now we have Joe Biden as president, we've got a Democrat controlled house and Senate. Like, can we get something done here? Well, the answer to that is,

will the Democrats wave the filibuster? Because the only way you're gonna get 60 senators to support any sort of law in terms of regulation of firearms is going to be to get the Republicans to vote for it, A, and you need at least nine of them, which I think is a reach, because you need 60 votes to override a filibuster,

or you kind of throw away the filibuster for this issue. And if you do that, what happens in the future? But that's the question, you know, this, and it doesn't look like that's happening, right? He's moving on to infrastructure first. So we'll see how, you know, what's, he's gonna do something. We'll see what he proposes.

We have this kind of brutal cocktail in this country of racism, misogyny, religion, and guns, and this growing absolutism on either side of any hot button issue. So it makes it hard to communicate across party lines and to get anything real done. And then when you have,, take the Atlanta shooting, he was the son of a pastor and evangelical kind of minister.

He felt he was in violation of his whatever, full of lust or whatever. And his solution to that is to eliminate women who are struggling just to get by working in the spas in the red light district of Atlanta. I mean, that's his solution to his own problems. Yeah, it's a complicated one because on the one hand, it's basically an anti-Asian hate crime,

but it was really motivated by this guy's internal conflict as much as it was. I don't know that had those massage parlors been, you know, populated with masseuses that weren't Asian, that it would have been any different. I don't know enough about it to comment on that one way or the other, but I think it's complicated in that regard when you dive into like motive. But part of that motive was his guilt, right?

It was a religiously motivated crime. It was. I think he might've felt the women were less disposal. Maybe. If they weren't Asian. Yeah, that's a good point. And so, and then there's the whole history and the certain context now

of all the anti-Asian hate crimes that are happening all over the country in San Francisco and New York specifically the most, but happening elsewhere. And then this one pops up as kind of like highlight, like it just, it's part of it. And, you know, he bought his gun the day of the shooting, a nine millimeter pistol.

That's crazy. The day of. It's crazy. So you can't tell me that's not the, like of all these things I just mentioned, racism, misogyny, religion and guns, which is the one you can control the easiest? Yeah, yeah.

Cause we're not looking to control the others. You can't control them. You can't control a person's. Set against a backdrop where gun related murders in the United States are 25% higher than in any other country. Yeah. It's so glaringly obvious that we need to redress this

in a meaningful way. And yet our ineptitude, because we're so caught up in these traditions and this ideology that surrounds guns, literally people are just getting slaughtered. You know, I was talking a lot about this with my wife. My wife's from Australia, she's from Sydney. In Australia, they had their own Columbine and it didn't take long for them to pass legislation

to have people turn in their own guns. And I'm not suggesting that we call for everyone turning in their guns. So don't at me about that. But I'm just saying that happened in Australia. And now she sees this happen. And it's not the first one since she's been in the country, she's seen a number of them now.

And then what is the news the next day? It's in Georgia, after this Atlanta shooting, the thing that's making news, the laws that they pass in Georgia, that's after this Atlanta shooting, the thing that's making news, the laws that they pass in the state of Georgia is to make it illegal to bring water to someone standing in line to vote. Right. That's what they did.

And she's like, where are the priorities of these leaders? Like that's what they're doing with their time. It's astonishing the lack of leadership in this country. And it's- Well, meanwhile, wasn't it the, was it the Texas governor who was bummed that Texas was only second in terms of gun purchases? And he's like, he publicly said something like,

we gotta be number one. Yeah, who are these donkeys dude? Like, how do you vote for these people? I don't understand. Yeah. I don't understand. And. I don't understand. And then, you know, then you have this black lawmaker, woman who was trying to, I forget her name.

I don't have it at my fingertips, forgive me, but she was trying to knock on the door of the governor while he was signing that anti, you know, the voting. In Georgia. They're into voting control, not gun control in Georgia. And she was arrested. And if you look at the video of her getting dragged away by those guys in crew cuts,

it could have been like Bull Connor era. Like these bullheaded guys are dragging this professional woman down the halls when she was just trying to knock on the door of the governor. You know, where are we? What is happening in this country? It's appalling and it does scare me.

And it makes me wonder like, you know, where do I belong in this place? You know, like if we can't figure out, like we all, we have kids, you know, like if you can't trust the leaders to remove real big obstacles for our children, because you can, right? We've had it with, used to be able to nurse your baby in the back seat, now they have to be in a car seat.

Why is that? Didn't Delta Airlines get dragged because they supported that voter suppression law? Did they? There was something about that. I just, I don't know enough about it. There was a headline about that. But Atlanta, is Atlanta the Delta hub?

Atlanta is the Delta hub. So I don't know if it has something to do with that. And then you have Boulder, like that's Atlanta. And then in Boulder you have, this is what? They had Columbine in 99, Aurora in the movie theater shooting. They had something in Colorado Springs at the abortion clinic.

And now you have King Soopers in Boulder. That's right. And they've had like, I think there's more, if you count any multiples of people getting shot and killed, it's beyond those four. But those are like the four real big mass shootings. And it just keeps happening in Colorado. So let me, before we die, there is one thing, right?

So that I've been thinking about, and that is if you look at the Vietnam war protests and what happened then, right? The reason that that turned and we were able, and we got out of Vietnam was a couple, there were some major reasons. One of them though, is that the draft had happened and you couldn't get out of it anymore.

And so now all of a sudden teenagers realize it was their own life and death at stake. It was no longer just about this dodgy war and this oppression of people far, far away and this military industrial complex. It was about, I might get drafted and I might die, right? And so people went nuts and they hit the streets and it grew and it grew and it grew.

And eventually the government caved. Well, we have now have, we need an uprising like that because more Americans have died of gun violence in America than have been killed in every single war combined. So it is a direct threat to us all. It's just a diffused threat. We don't feel it. That diffusion is at odds with progress though,

because we don't feel it or process it in the same way. But it is as big a threat or a bigger threat. Yeah. And I think that's what it's gonna take. It's gonna take a massive grassroots mobilization like what we saw this summer with BLM, but around gun regulation. That's what it's going to take.

Yeah, it's hard not to be pessimistic though, because we've just been around this carousel so many times and the outrage cycle just continues, right? It dissipates and then here we go again. And you're right, if we can't get it done now, if we can't wave the filibuster for this, like. I know. What can we do?

I know, the fucking filibuster. And then there's a Supreme Court just waiting there as well. Yeah. All right, well, more will be revealed. Let's move on. We got a couple more things we gotta talk about. Should we talk about. All right.

Should we talk about, it feels really like. This is a bad, this is what they call a bad segue. This is the worst segue ever. But we have this, my friend Toby Morse, shout out to Toby, punk rocker from H2O, my friend, he's been on the show, I did his podcast. When I did his podcast, he had cans of this stuff called liquid death, which is a really bad segue from what we were just talking about.

Not a good segue. But it's basically these cans that, it looks like malt liquor, they're like 16 ounce black and gold. I remember those. With like Gothic writing on it. It's basically sparkling water though. It's like La Croix for punk rockers.

And Toby just had like a whole, like multiple cases of this stuff just sent to the studio. So I just wanted to thank Toby and Liquid Death. I actually like how it tastes. Thanks Toby, it's good. But it's kind of hilarious, right? It's sort of like, if you're really dark and edgy, you can feel good about your sparkling water.

I guess, I don't know. Pellegrino. It's all marketing. It's punk rock Pellegrino. Basically, that's what it is, right? Let's talk about Seaspiracy. Let's talk about it. You hadn't watched it when you went out into the frigid Pacific, but you've watched it since.

I have watched, I've since watched it. Right, so Seaspiracy, many of you have probably seen it by now, premiered on Netflix last week, produced by friend of the pod, Kip Anderson, who's the co-director along with Keegan Coon on Cowspiracy and What the Health. This film, he did not direct or co-direct.

It was directed by Ali Tabrizi. And it basically is this comprehensive 360 look at what we're doing to our oceans. It's a deep dive into marine destruction, corruption. And it's similar to Cowspiracy in that it kind of adopts a similar storytelling architecture and dives into the conflicts of interest that exists between environmental groups

that we trust to protect ecosystems being funded by organizations that profit from marine exploitation, the fishing industry, the marine park industry, et cetera. And it's very well done. The cinematography, the editing is compelling. Ali is the much like Kip in Cowspiracy, Ali is the protagonist.

He's the filmmaker and the protagonist in this story who goes on this adventure to learn more about what exactly is going on in our oceans. And I think it's very effective at revealing some uncomfortable truths about the fishing industry, about the environmental organizations that are charged with protecting these waterways and getting into some details about things like bycatch

and farm raised fish, the human rights implications and abuses that you see throughout Southeast Asia. And I was very impacted by it. I've been trying to get Kip and Ali on the podcast. Kip, I don't know if he wants people to know where he is, but he's not in the United States right now. Ali lives in London. I'd really like to get both of them on the show

to talk about the movie. I'm hopeful that at some point I can make that happen. But until then, it's just you and I, brother, talking about this movie. You had an interesting take on it though. I do. Well, I don't know if it's interesting, but I have a take. I think I have a few takes.

One is it's great to see a young filmmaker dive into this world with such passion and energy and heart. You know, he clearly loves the ocean, cares about it just like we do. And he's gifted with a camera. So- It's crazy though, those sequences of him as a kid and he's literally wearing the Jacques Cousteau red hat

and he's got the striped shirt. Like, you know, he was channeling, you could see his future, you know, being forecast. Yeah, and he cares a lot and that's really important. And so I'm all for it. Powerful footage, especially at the end and good call to action. So at the end as well, I don't wanna spoil it.

We don't wanna spoil it, right? So, but I do have some issues with it. And the overall one is of sensationalism. So he covers a grab bag of issues we've seen before in various documentaries and reporting. And in my opinion, covered better. The Cove, Ghost Fleet, when he gets into the issue with slavery and on Thai fishing boats,

that was covered in a great movie in 2019. It came out called Ghost Fleet, which is a profile of a Thai labor activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee named Patima Tung Poochayakul. And she is based in Thailand and she's been responsible for liberating 7,000 Thai Burmese, Lao and Indonesian fishermen from those kinds of. Well, we could take these points, Siri Adam. I mean, I think in fairness to Allie and Kip, that movie, which I haven't seen was a single issue focused film

that dove deep into that one thing. Whereas Allie and Kip are trying to cover many different things. So they touch on those human rights abuses, but the whole movie isn't about that one single thing. And that's something that I knew almost nothing about other than just sort of hearing about it tangentially. Yeah.

Yeah, that's true. I mean, I just think overall there was this sense of taking the worst of the worst cases like the Maui case in Scotland, cherry pick stats on fishing, going after third party certification systems, which I think, you know, we talk about fair trade certification and products,

which is the same thing as what the Marine Stewardship Council does. which is the same thing as what the Marine Stewardship Council does and kind of casting them as in a very negative light. And when there's much more nuance involved, I know about cherry pick stats with fishing because I did a story on overfishing and it's very easy to find a stat

that sounds very alarmist when you look at all the reports. But if you do deep dives, you find that different parts of the world have very different regulation bodies and governing bodies. And it's not as simple as it makes it sound. So when you're using the most sensationalistic data, it's not necessarily the best data. So I would just question that.

There's this kind of maximum journalism is the later you are to the story, the smarter you have to be. And because there's taking on so many different aspects of what's going on with our oceans, I think it's hard to get to that level. Right, but you can't also, and I'll just, I'll be devil's advocate here on behalf of the film.

You have to appreciate the spotlight that these filmmakers are placing on some pretty horrific ills. Yes. The misalignment of incentives in the labeling industry. I mean, the fact that, you know, basically these, you know, quote unquote nonprofits make their money off of granting labels.

So they're inherently incentivized to grant these labels. And then when you have the interview with the guy and he's like, basically, I can't guarantee that this is dolphin safe. The dolphin safe tuna situation. It's outrageous. I'm not defending the dolphin safe tuna situation, but the Marine Stewardship Council is a nonprofit

because it is created by, it is funded. You don't pay for certain- Here's the thing. Certainly there are people doing good things in the world. And there are well-intentioned activists and nonprofits out there that I have no doubt are making a positive impact in this space. Clearly, the point of this movie,

I think if I was to read their minds was to provide an introductory course on where we've lost our way across a variety of different issues with respect to our relationship with the ocean. So whether it's commercial fishing with the trawling and the bycatch, whether it's shark fins, whether it's whaling,

whether it's what's going on in Japan with the dolphins slaughtering, like all of these things are horrible, horrible ills that most people are completely unaware of. So it's very energizing and enervating to watch this movie and realize that this might not be what you think it is. And your pescatarian diet, which you thought was on the better end of,

perhaps a more ecologically sound nutrition approach, perhaps might be misguided. Yes. When you realize that it basically disabuses you of this idea of the fishermen casting his pole into the sea and pulling out fish one by one. And you realize the damage that commercial fishing is reaping irreparably on the oceans.

When George Monbiot, who I think is a highlight of the movie, that guy, I've been following him forever. He writes for the Guardian on a variety of environmental issues. He was so solid in the movie. And when he's talking about, basically he just puts matters to rights in terms of how blunt he is about how bad this problem is.

And Oppenlander, who also was in Cowspiracy talking about how little of the oceans are actually protected. Like what is it? 5% is meant to be. 5%. But then it's actually like less than 1% that's actively protected and preserved in a responsible manner.

He probably means 1% is no catch zones and you're allowed to have recreational fishing in some MPAs. And I would guess, I would think that that 5% would preclude commercial fishing. Maybe there are some MPAs that allow some regulated commercial fishing.

We've talked about the 30 by 30. That's something I wish this movie got into more is that there is a movement afoot internationally to try to protect 30% of the oceans by 2030. And that means make them real marine protected areas. That would demand basically, the movie makes the point that that requires a policing effort, right?

Like the open seas, it's anything goes. And you see that being played out off the coast of Somalia and what led to basically the whole pirate thing. Right, well, so the idea of, if you haven't paid attention, I mean, this is pretty well covered area, but like Somalia's fishing fisheries were decimated by international fishing units.

And whether that was illegal or whether they paid government officials in Somalia for the rights to go in and just take out all the fish, basically all these villages along the coast in Somalia then had to turn to piracy because they lost their food source. I would never defend trawling. I think commercial fishing has a lot of issues.

I've written about it in the past and I'm not in favor of unregulated fishing, illegal fishing, I think it's horrible. But when you make a movie, it would be nice if the stats weren't cherry picked and if the issues weren't sensationalized because they are important issues and you want to make sure people understand them

in a more nuanced way. If you use the worst case scenario as your case study, then you go and start to try to have a conversation with somebody else about it later and try to really gather the energy. You end up in a conversation with someone who may be skeptical of your one movie awakening. Do you know what I'm saying?

And so I think as a piece of journalism, which a documentary should be, it would be nice if just, if the facts were the facts and not used in a sensationalized way. That's my only point. But I do agree that highlighting these horrible things that are happening in the ocean is important.

You know, I think it's- I mean, listen, if you watch the movie and the only thing you take from it is what's going on with bycatch and trawling, like that's enough, like enough already. Look what we're doing to these oceans. And because it's out of sight, out of mind, we're completely blithe and unaware

to the incredibly deleterious environmental impact. Like when, who's the woman, who's his hero at the end, the legendary- Sylvia Earle. Yeah. And she's talking about- She's fabulous. Yeah, she's incredible, right? Like she really anchors it.

Like she gives- The end is fabulous. She gives it a gravitas, I think, and allows you to really kind of embrace the message because she's so highly credible and such a legend. But basically her saying, there is no such thing as sustainable fishing. Like I believe that, like Oppenlander said that

in Cowspiracy is like, fishing is by definition over fishing at this point. And the extent to which we rely on it. But it is and the extent to which we rely on a robust marine ecosystem to sequester carbon. I think is another point that Earl makes that's so important to understand. And how that's so much more important than,

we put a lot of attention on the rainforest, but we completely overlook the importance of marine ecosystems in this equation. I agree. It's out of sight, out of mind. People don't care about the marine ecosystem even though it's responsible for every second breath. The plant life in the ocean is a carbon sequester,

carbon sequester carbon sequestration system that is number one in the world. 80% or something of our carbon is sequestered in the ocean. And the marine ecosystem is in trouble. Reeves are dying. We're losing kelp forest here. Even just here in Malibu there. I don't know if you see them,

but in right around starting right before Christmas and for several months, you get trawlers that come in from Marina del Rey and then from Oxnard and Ventura, and they come and they scoop up squid and they bring out their Christmas lights on their ships and they attract all this squid to the surface and they put their nets out and they bring them in.

And often they bring in sea lions and there's guns on these boats and they shoot sea lions sometimes because sea lion will bite your ass. Do they bring in dolphins? They very well might, we don't know. There's not someone out there really patrolling that. Well, that's the point of the movie too.

Right, no, I agree with you. That these things are completely unpatrolled. Totally agree with you. But there are people that will, there's gonna be an officer at the harbor when they come back in. So there is some control of it in the United States. I mean, there is some, but you know,

and sometimes there's observers on the boats. Right. That does happen. But we have problems just here, but at the same time, there are things we can do. Marine protected areas are one way of creating nurseries so fish can replenish. Like George said in the movie, leave the ocean alone. If you leave the ocean alone, it will replenish itself.

Right. And, but the one issue I will say to say- Paul Watson. Paul Watson. Who was the Sea Shepherd guy. They both did, I think. Yeah. And, but you know, to say any fishing now is over fishing,

I think is oversimplification. It's not exactly true. Like a spear fisherman goes out and shoots one fish. That's not over fishing. That's a sustainable mode. Right, but I think it disabuses you of the idea that that's how fishing is performed. Like- It depends where

you're eating your fish, right? If you're buying commercial fish and you don't know where it's coming from, that's your problem. You have- But also, the movie hammers on the point that it's very difficult to know where your fish is coming from. Even if you're a well-minded intentional consumer

trying to purchase fish that was raised in a more, I guess I'll say more, I don't think there's any, it's like, I don't eat fish, but in a more responsible way, I guess. Yeah, but there are changes and he goes after fish farming. Paul Hawken thinks open ocean aquaculture is one of the top 20 things you can do in draw down. And open ocean aquaculture would be taking a fish farm,

putting it in ocean where there's current that blows through, there's low density pens, they're being fed feed that comes from algae, not from wild fish. And there are fish farms doing that. And it's a very small percentage admittedly. And there is this dream of maybe somehow stringing, you know, clams and oysters off these pens,

which feed off of the fish effluent, the poop and all of that and grow. And you have kelp kind of growing at the same time. And you have this ecosystem to regenerate. There are different ways of maybe approaching the problem, but the way in this film, kind of all fish farms go under. Predominant fish farm though is of the model that you see in Scotland.

And I think it's- That's the worst case scenario in the world. So my point is you can't, if you take the worst case scenario in the world and say, this is how it is, I don't know that's responsible journalism. I guess that's my problem. Right, I don't know that Ali or Kip

would call themselves journalists though. Right, right, right. That's the thing. Yeah. Right, so you're looking at this through the lens of, through the eye of an investigative journalist. Like that's your approach to the subject matter. That's not necessarily their approach.

Their approach is more, certainly like it's more activist oriented, right? So understanding that, I think you can appreciate it for what it is and the message that it's trying to put out there and the kind of energy that it's trying to bring to this discussion. So you can hate it, you can love it, you can disagree with it,

but it's provocative enough to provoke conversations about the subject matter. It's a hit. Yeah, it's a hit. It was in the top 10 on Netflix. It's a hit. It's crushing it. It's beautiful to watch, it's amazing.

And let's just shout out just for a minute. Sorry, I interrupted you. No. But how bad ass is that fucking Sea Shepherd boat? I love it. The Sam, what's his name? The guy who started the, the guy who created, is it Sam, Sam Cedar?

No, not Sam Cedar. Who started Sea Shepherd? No, no, no, no. He was a huge donor to Sea Shepherd before he died of cancer. I don't know who he is. I think he created the Simpsons. Oh.

So he made a ton of money. Sam Simpson? No. No, no, no. What am I doing? I'm gonna have to Google it right now. Yeah, Google it. Well, Sea Shepherd, I love Sea Shepherd.

I mean, what Sea Shepherd, and he goes with them in Liberia. I can't believe I can't remember this. And Sea Shepherd. Sam Simon. Sam Simon? Yeah, the boat is called the Sam Simon. I mean, Paul Watson, what he has done and their work

just recently in the great Australian bite to raise awareness to how much, like the Galapagos of South Australia basically, and how much life there is there. And they stopped a big oil development project in South Australia with their work. I mean, it's just, they're on the short list of my favorite environmental organizations.

Incredible. Yeah. Incredible what they're doing. Also shout out to a friend of the pod, Paul De Gelder. Oh yeah, it was great to see him. He was popping truth bombs on sharks. He was fabulous. He was amazing, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you're right. It is a great primer.

Like if you're not familiar with these issues, I'm probably too familiar with these issues so that I get grumpy. Well, you're just, you're getting caught up in the details, Adam, come on. These, it's like human rights, you know, trawling, bycatch, shark fin soup,

like all these things are new ideas to a lot of people. And we just think the ocean is, you know, a resource that will give and give and give forever. And to appreciate just how delicate it is and how misinformed so many of us are. I mean, one of the things that I liked a lot was the whole, you know, talking about microplastics and how all the energy goes into, you know,

no straws and all of that. And how little of an impact that is in comparison to what's really going on and where we should be placing our focus. Yeah, but I mean, overfishing isn't as under reported as he thinks it is. So like, but- To the average person, it is.

You think it is? Not to you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's a good question though. The one question that comes up for me when I think of these alternate, cause he talks about plant-based shrimp and plant-based fish and these plant-based solutions and there's shots of him eating it.

The problem when you have, when you take this diffused kind of economy, like fishing was, and certainly subsistence fishing is, and ranching and that kind of thing. Now there's a whole industrial component and there are certainly big conglomerates doing some damage out there.

But if you replace it with, you know, a few winners in this kind of capitalistic game of, you know, there's a few companies doing these plant-based meats, is that a good replacement? You know what I mean? Like, to get a few people rich and everybody else is a consumer.

Is that sustainable for the world? Well, I mean, that's a whole other podcast that we could do. I mean, I can go way down the line with you on that, but right now it may just be a few companies, but there's actually like, if you canvas the startup landscape, there are tons and tons of companies

that are innovating in the plant-based protein sector, all the way from plant-based alternatives to the cultivated meat landscape and all the, you know, wild stuff and innovations that are going on there. Certainly some people are gonna get rich, but these are very early days and there's plenty of room. You know, Julie's got a plant-based dairy company that's very small right now.

Like nobody's stopping anybody from- Joining. Yeah, placing, making a footprint right now. And there's a lot of money that's being invested because this is what consumers want. People wanna believe that the food choices that they're making are doing right by the environment. And to the extent that you can develop

a plant-based alternative to your favorite fish that is just as nutritionally valuable that isn't harming the oceans and plays out in a carbon footprint sense better than marine life. Like, why wouldn't you do that? Like, that's the world that we're moving towards. That's the world that I would like to live in

and to kind of, you know, coin the Sea Shepherd guy. What's his name again? Paul Watson. Paul Watson. Why do I, I told you I didn't sleep very well last night. Captain Paul. Commander, right? Commander. He's a captain. He's like, look, we're on this, you know,

we're on this blue spaceship hurtling, you know, across the universe. And we've got a life support system and we've got a crew. And when the crew starts to die at some point, these life support systems are gonna start breaking down and that's what we're happening. So leave the ocean alone. And we're so far from that right now

that any inroads in that direction are things that I'm gonna celebrate. There you go. Well, I'd love to, I can't wait to see his next film. He's very talented. He is right, cool. So check it out, Seaspiracy streaming on Netflix. Really quick, cause I don't want this to be a four hour podcast.

There's a new podcast out called Lost Hills that's produced by Pushkin, which is Malcolm Gladwell's company. It's hosted by Dana Goodyear, who is a New Yorker writer. And it's all about, it's a true crime podcast series that explores this murder that took place in Malibu Creek State Park, which is literally my backyard.

And several attempted murders. And several attempted murders. And this all took place in June. It was all around June, 2018, where a guy called Tristan Beaudet was camping with his two daughters and I think his brother-in-law, right? It's his brother-in-law and was shot

like basically point blank. I remember when this went down and this podcast series tells the behind the scenes story of how this happened, who did it and so many more things that I was unaware of, which are shocking given that this is my neighborhood. It was right down the street from you. Including this guy trying to pick off cars on Las Virginas, shooting at ongoing cars on Las Virginas,

which is a road I drive on every day. And I remember when this transpired, how shocking it was to hear about this murder. But what you find out in listening to this podcast is that the car shootings took place earlier than that. And there were a couple other people who were shot at in the park, like backpackers and stuff. And none of this was reported to the public.

The Lost Hills Sheriff Department kept a lid on it. And I just, had they allowed people to know what was going on, certainly Tristan Beaudet would not have gone camping there and would probably be alive today. Probably. And I just remember how details and little anecdotes and stories amongst people who live in the community

started to eke out. We're like, what is going on? I think at some point, my daughters were going to a school that was right off Las Virginas. And there was, they got school was called off because they found a dead body nearby. And I mean, we're only on episode three of this thing,

like more is gonna happen. But this is a very idyllic part of the world, right? And Malibu Creek State Park is where I go running all the time, all the time. And I can't help but think like I tweeted- Were you in his sights? I tweeted like, don't listen to the Lost Hills podcast while you're trail running at Malibu Creek State Park,

which is exactly what I was doing. You're like the guy at the beginning of the noir movie running through the hills. Wow, this is an amazing true crime podcast getting shot at, you know? It's unbelievable. But there's a lot of interesting Malibu characters that pop up in the storytelling

who are all people that I know. You know Cece? I do know Cece. I mean, she's a- She comes up well, I think. She's a local muckraker. I've met her a couple of times. I just know that she, I don't know her that well,

but I would see her on Facebook going off about this or that or the other thing, but she's the one who really got traction on this whole thing and got people to pay attention to it. Yeah, she rattled the cage of the Lost Hills station and you know. I mean, I drove by the Lost Hills Sheriff Department on my way here today.

Like it's literally our local police department. So it's just surreal and bizarre to listen to this podcast. You don't feel very protected, do you? Well, it's all fine now, I won't give it away. But anyway, it's very well done. Dana and the Pushkin team and everybody who worked on the show. I've only listened to the first three episodes,

but it's pretty fascinating. If you like true crime and you like LA Noire. True crime is where it's at, right? Yeah, it's great. I can't wait for the series. It will definitely end up as a series, right? Or a movie of the week or something like that. It's like, what was the Dirty John?

This is the whole podcast model now, right? I mean, Wondery built its whole business on that. Dirty John is a Wondery show. Like just taking these true crime podcasts and adapting them for television and movies. It's gonna be good. So I wanna do a giveaway. I got some hats here. If you're watching on YouTube, Rich Roll Podcast hats,

we got a black one, we got a black and white one, we got a white and black one. And also some of these t-shirts, I never wear like my own swag, but this is the official. Dude, I'd wear your swag. Rich Roll Podcast t-shirt. So I wanna give away five hats and five t-shirts. There are three steps to pitch in for this.

The first is subscribe to the YouTube channel. The second is share one of your favorite YouTube episodes on social media, take a screen grab and email that grab and subscription confirmation to info at richroll.com. And we will pick five people for a hat and five people for a t-shirt. How's that sound? Sounds good.

I still also, I've been remiss, the book giveaway that we did the other day. Yeah, what about it? I gotta go through the comments and pick the winners for that. You haven't done it yet. No, we haven't done that. That's not a good look, right? I'll take care of that this week for sure.

Also getting a lot of comments about these coffee mugs, the Rich Roll Podcast coffee mugs. We just have a couple here for the studio, but so many people seem excited about it. That's not a mug, that's an NFT. This doesn't actually exist. Well, if you're watching it on YouTube, it doesn't exist in a three-dimensional space.

We need to start like taking the drinks out of our hands as we're sipping them so that people wonder if they're really NFTs. You're going down the matrix rabbit hole. Have you been red pilled Adam? I can't, I have a friend who right now is probably still typing, trying to red pill me. Right, and by the way, this liquid death sparkling water,

I'm enjoying it, but they didn't sponsor the show or anything like that. It was just a gift from the company and from Toby. So. Just a comforting gift. Yeah, let's do win of the weeks. You go. Wins of the week, I should say.

My big win of the week is my buddy, Robbie Bellinger, another friend of the pod. Many of you might recall he came on after he ran across America in 2019. Well- As you do. Yeah, as you do, right? Last week, March 20th, he set the FKT, the fastest known time for most laps logged in Central Park.

It's called the Central Park Loop Challenge. In one day, he did 16 laps for just over almost 100 miles, 98.49 miles in 18 hours, seven minutes and 43 seconds. He broke the record by five loops. It's a six mile loop. Have you ever run that loop in Central Park? No. Oh, gotta do it now.

I know. It's one of my favorite runs in the whole world. I haven't done the whole loop. I've done a piece of it. It's got a surprising amount of elevation. People think, oh, you just run around, it's flat, it's New York City. But on the north end, as you're kind of rounding the corner

and starting to head sort of Southwest, there's a huge hill there. So over the course of the day, Robbie ended up bagging, what was the elevation? It was something like 4,800. Yeah, 4,800 feet of gain. And the way this works, the rules are, you have from five minutes after the park opens at 6 a.m.

to five minutes before it closes at 1 a.m. to run as many loops as possible. So he absolutely crushed it. Super cool to see this thing happened. And I just so happened coincidentally to do a photo shoot with the guys from 10,000 who were sponsoring Robbie in this endeavor. The guys who documented that came out

and we did a shoot the other day. So they were telling me all about like what it was like. Like they were behind him on skate. They're like two dudes from San Diego and they were on skateboards and like getting all this cool stuff with them. And they gave me all this behind the scenes on just how bad-ass the whole thing was.

How about those last five loops? He'd already broken it. And you know, there must've been a great temptation to just be like, okay, cool, I already got it. Like, how do you keep going for like another five? Because he's got like, probably had like six hours left. Right, yeah. You know, so he wasn't gonna quit.

Like that kind of stuff, like it's impressive. Like I could see the first victory lap, but after a while you're like, should I keep like that last lap? I don't need it. I'm already four laps ahead. But I think what was driving him was to get a hundred miles. So I think after he got his 16 laps,

which was just under a hundred miles, I think he ran until he eclipsed a hundred, even though it doesn't count cause it wasn't a whole other full loop, right? Anyway, shout out to Robbie and classic, instead of just going home and putting on the Norma to Robbie and classic, instead of just going home and putting on the Norma Tech boots and chilling, he ends up joining this guy, Hela Sidibe.

What? On in the Navajo nation. Hela is in the middle of doing his own run across America. I did not, I was not familiar with Hela until Robbie put him on my radar, but Hela is in the midst of his transcontinental attempt and Robbie dropped in on him in the Navajo nation and ran some segments with him,

which I thought was pretty cool. Right after this. Yeah, right after this basically. Amazing. Which is crazy. So Hella is new on my radar, but I wanted to give him a shout out. He seems to be a guy who's just brimming with inspiration. He seems super cool.

He's at hellagood9, H-E-L-L-A-H, good. And then the number nine on Instagram. So give him a follow, give him a shout and put a little wind in his sails. Love it. What do you got? We're gonna talk about free diving under the ice. Yeah, I'll just talk about Alexey Molchanov again.

to talk about free diving under the ice. Yeah, I'll just talk about Alexey Molchanov again. He dove 80 meters under the ice in a Siberian Lake called Lake Baikal. He's an ambassador for this Lake now. It's one of the largest fresh freshwater lakes in the world. It goes hundreds of meters deep in different areas. It's got, I think it's like one of the biggest expanses of fresh water there is in the world,

just in terms of volume, maybe the biggest. And it has freshwater seals and all sorts of stuff. And there's villages on the shores and there's been environmental issues with Lake Baikal. And so part of his, the reason he did the dive was to kind of raise awareness for this great lake. But yeah, so he decided, it was a couple of years ago, he's got the deepest dive in the history of the sport

with a monofin, 130 meters. He's got the record for free immersion, which is pulling down the rope at 125 meters. You pull down a rope and then you pull back, no fins at all. And so he's featured in my book, One Breath and I've known him since I first started covering the sport in 2013, I've spent time in Russia with him

and with his mother who has since passed. His mother is Natalia Molchanova and she was the greatest in the history of the sport. And she disappeared in 2015, free diving on a fun dive. And overnight he had to kind of take control of the entire business that his mother had built. And so this story is about this dive and it's also about that experience for him

and recovering from that. And one thing I wanted to just kind of bring up was this idea of de-concentration. That's something that Natalia taught in freediving. And it's a tool that basically you try to de-concentrate. You don't focus on the discomforts of the freedive. You don't focus on the need to breathe. You don't focus on the busyness at the surface.

You don't even focus on how beautiful things are down below. Everything is at a remove. And that allows you to stay more present and more broad. And it makes it, puts you in more control. It's kind of like almost a Taoist way of looking at things. Right, I'm thinking like this is an approach that I would like to apply to my life. Exactly.

So deconcentration as a tool for diving in life, right? And it's exactly, that's exactly it. And if you ask Alexi, what is the sport of free diving to you? He says, it's about the mind more than, and this is a, he's a great athlete. He's got incredibly thick thighs and calves. He works out, he pumps iron, he does yoga, he does everything.

And he's an incredibly fit athlete at 34. But for him to say that, that just shows you what you can do with your mind. And so I just thought that was cool. So we'll link to that story. How many meters did he go? 80 meters in, what did we say? 39 degree.

39 degree, 36 degree water, 34 degree water. And they cut the ice with chainsaws and these Siberians built an ice sauna right there next to the hole, which isn't in the story, but they actually literally built out of these bricks of ice, nine tons of ice. They built this sauna, they heated with hot stones

and they cut another hole in the sauna. And so after he did the dive, he came back out and the whole crew came back out and they like basically had a celebration in the ice sauna and they would like go in the sauna and then diving into the water and coming back out. And that's how they celebrated. So pretty cool adventure.

I mean, imagine being 80 meters under the water in 36 degree temp. The day before he was trying to figure out what thickness of the wetsuit was. Just the composure that you would have to have to not lose it. He talks about that. Like when you get down that deep,

what you wanna do is kick hard to get back because you know how far you have to go, but you can't because it's like an oxygen savings account in your body. All the oxygen's in your blood and it's gonna burn if you kick harder and harder. So you have to tell yourself, even though your body's like rebelling, you're getting these contractions where your body's trying to inflate your lungs,

but you can't, the pressure is heavy and you can't open your mouth for obvious reasons. And so you have to kick and keep your composure, the deconcentration. And knowing that your mother died doing this. Knowing that too. But of course his position is if he had been there, she would not have, because there wasn't a pro,

there was not a safety diver at her level that was there at the time, so it was a mistake. But pretty amazing. He had just come from the Maldives, by the way, diving in tropical water. That's quite a contrast. He had one day to practice in the lake. I would opt for the Maldives. I'd stick around there.

Yeah, well, you know, and what's cool about it is the winter is the off season for most of these professional freedivers. And a couple of years ago he decided, you know, I'm gonna add some winter diving, just something else fun to do when he's not busy like teaching diving. His wife just had a baby too.

So he's got, you know, a million things going on. But he also has the record for the longest dive, 180 something meters in a quarry. How dark is it when you're 80 meters down underneath Siberian ice? I mean, it's dark 80 meters down, even in the ocean in tropical water. But in Siberian ice, that's like black ice.

It's basically midnight. However, he had a safety diver, a technical diver, excuse me, at the bottom taking footage, but also there in case something happened and another one at 45 meters. And those guys had cameras and lights. So there was periods of places where there was lights. And then the bottom plate itself was illuminated.

And he has a light, like a miner's light that he also, like a pen light that he uses even in deep dives in the ocean. But it's still dark most of the time. And then he gets down to the bottom and it must've been like blinding for him. It was a three minute dive. So a sequel to one breath, two breaths, one and a half breaths.

Can I use that? Yeah, you can use that. That one's free, buddy. The first one's free. Hats off, Alexi Chapeau. That's incredible. All right, let's do some listener questions. All right.

So the first one I'm gonna read because it came in via email all the way from Durban, South Africa. Good day, Mr. Roll. Thank you so much for an amazing, powerful podcast. You truly are an inspiration to me. I am a pediatrician working in Durban and I've been running for the last three years now. As with any sport, I sought out books on running and came across Finding Ultra on audio. It was tremendous and I still listen to it on the odd day to gain inspiration. Following the audio book, I naturally started listening to every podcast of yours. I naturally started listening to every podcast of yours. Slowly but surely, I started to adjust my diet and lifestyle with more veggie days than usual.

On one bright morning on my way to work, I listened to an episode which featured Ingrid Newkirk. And that evening I told my wife I was stopping meat and dairy. That was around the 8th of May, 2020. And since then I've been gaining all the benefits from the change. I feel that there were many straws

that were placed onto the camel's back to eventually get me to that point. But I can assure you that if it was not for your life story and podcast, I wouldn't be at the most fulfilling time of my life. I did want to ask a question on roll on, but being in South Africa, I'm not able to leave a voice note. My question deals with how to properly address being with my friends nowadays, because I find it difficult to still hang out and spend time with them. I've actually become quite an introvert

and spend more time with matters dealing with work and family which I prefer and enjoy thoroughly. Is this something you initially experienced? This is a great question. Thank you, Kumaran. Kumaran Moodley. Kumaran Moodley. Kumaran Moodley. That's an incredible name.

So a couple observations before I answer the question. A, unbelievable name. Two, pediatrician spelled P-A-E. I appreciate that. Are we sure that wasn't a- Like the sort of the Commonwealth spelling. I'm sorry, I thought that was a typo. And then thirdly,

I like how it was a bright morning on his way to work. He's got the writerly gift. I'm sorry, Kumaran for not saying it was you who sent in the note. Yes, Kumaran Moodley. Yes. So if I'm understanding this correctly, my sense is that Kumaran's introversion

is motivated, at least in part by a shift in his value system, which in turn is creating this growing distance or valley between what he cares about and that which his peers value. And it appears that he feels sheepish about just being who he is with his friends, which is not a good place to be.

So I guess my first question is, is this move towards becoming more withdrawn and introverted because you're afraid of being judged or because your values have shifted such that you now feel you have less in common with those people that you had been spending time with. If it's the former, again, not a fun place to be. So I would encourage you to do a little internal inventory on what the downsides are of just being who you are in your fully expressed state. If your friends castigate you,

then are they really your friends, right? If you feel like if I tell them that I'm vegan or whatever else is going on with him and they're gonna mock him or make fun of him, maybe some of that is just friendly repartee, but if there's something more judgmental, deeper beneath that, then it's a question of really,

how valuable are these people to you? If you feel insecure just being you, then what does that say about you and the environment that you keep? Which is a way of saying, I'm not necessarily answering the question, but suggesting things for you to evaluate or think about. environment that you keep, which is a way of saying, I'm not necessarily answering the question, but suggesting things for you to evaluate or think about.

I think personally that, Kermron you should feel super proud of the changes that you've made for yourself. Like you're basically making an investment in yourself. It's agreeing with you. You feel good about these decisions that you've made and you should feel comfortable expressing that without fear of reproach.

So I would do two things. I would look more deeply within yourself to examine that insecurity, if that's the case, that's motivating the introversion and try to figure out what is that about? And if it's your environment, then the good news is you can change your environment and start surrounding yourself

with more like-minded people. So it kind of leaves him with two options. First, the choice to maintain your friendships. And I think it's okay to care for people who see the world very differently. And hopefully your friends can do the same in your direction. And again, if they're true friends,

they should respect your values as you do theirs. Meanwhile, it's not incumbent upon you to change them or for them to change you. So it's about finding a way to gracefully coexist with these people that you care about. The second thing is that I would encourage you to consider that perhaps this trepidation around your friends,

and it's difficult to answer this question because I just don't know enough about this dynamic, but it's possible that this dynamic of fear lives larger in your mind than in reality. And the only analogy that I can share is that when I quit drinking, I thought like, oh my God, like everyone's gonna know I'm not drinking

or I'm not gonna be able to hang out with my friends because if I'm not drinking and they are, they're not gonna like me or I'm not gonna be able to participate. And what I've discovered over time is that like people are self-absorbed, like they don't give a shit, right? Like no one cared.

And if somebody did care, then I knew like that person wasn't really my friend to begin with. At the same time, you can also seek out new friends who share your values with whom you feel comfortable being who you really are, because you can't be a healthy, actualized individual if you feel muted,

whether that sort of self editing is emanating from within or from without. So what are you running from? What are you running towards? What are you hiding from your friends? And is that fear real or is that fear imagined? I think the other thing that I'm getting, the sense I'm getting is that,

that there's a loneliness to all of this. You know, I tweeted one time, you can't break paradigms and expect to be embraced by the mainstream. The idea being like, if you're gonna do something that's kind of outside of, you know, what your social environment approves of, or that is in alignment with what your peers are doing,

that can be a difficult, lonely place. But it's also an opportunity for you to invest in your own values and to work on healthy boundaries around what's okay and what's not okay for yourself. And if you can do that, you will experience a boost in self-esteem. So I think a lot of this does emanate from some esteem issues.

So maybe look at that as well. But if you can say, this is who I am and I'm gonna stand on my own two feet and be that individual, it doesn't mean that you have a megaphone and you're trying to convince other people to share your values, but just to be comfortable in your own skin

is a very self-affirming, self-actualized, self-esteem building endeavor for yourself. He does call it the most fulfilling time of his life. So maybe there's an aspect of it that is also very expansive. So it's like a contraction and an expansion at the same time. Like he's feeling connected in ways

that he hadn't before maybe in the old life. But in a way that makes him feel alienated from those friends. Like my sense is just that he's changed and his friends are in a different place and he's trying to figure out how to connect with those people and is not able to do that right now. Right.

That's very good advice, sir. And so he was asking if you experienced it, the only experience you can relate to that right now. That's very good advice, sir. And so you're, he was asking if you experienced it, the only experience you can relate to. I didn't really experience it with changing my diet so much, but I did experience it when I quit drinking. Yeah, for sure. And a lot, and what you realize is so much of it is in your head.

Do you think it helped that being an athlete in college and just knowing people in that space, like having a fitness and a nutrition regimen is normal. Right, so it's like, it wasn't like. No, but I mean, certainly I had to deal with a lot of like, what you're not eating this and why are you eating that? And, you know, I don't know, I guess I had done enough because I had been sober for a long time.

I had some tools for how to deal with all of that. So it wasn't as challenging or difficult, but being newly sober was very confusing and alienating and all of this stuff that he's sharing, I can relate to from that period of my life. Nice one. Well, thanks, Kumaran. Congrats on all the progress in your own life.

Absolutely. And congrats on the name. All right, let's see. So we got Casey from Austin. Yeah. Hey, Rich and Adam. This is Casey. I'm in Austin, Texas. So I have friends that are always really intrigued by the plant-based diet I eat and they always want to know more, but they never commit. And I'm wondering, you know, what do you say to your friends that are interested in going plant-based? I'm really interested to hear your answer. And then a kind of a follow-up on that is meat eating tends to have like this masculine

tendency, like people feel masculine and it's kind of like one of those things that you attach to whenever you're like a, like a man, right? That's what I find with my friends, at least. I'm wondering, how do we make eating plant-based more masculine? I don't know if that makes sense, but it's just something that I've been trying, that I've been sharing with my head. Not that I don't feel that way, but more just to make my friends see it as like less of a weakness, if that makes sense. So anyways, thanks for taking my call. Adam, great job on the 4x4x48. Actually hearing you, that you were going to do it,

kind of inspired me to do it and had a great experience as well. Have a good one, guys. Awesome. Yeah. Congrats, Casey, on the 4x4x48. That's cool. Congrats, Casey. This is a great question. It's a pretty common one. Congrats, Casey on the four by four by 48, that's cool. Congrats, Casey.

This is a great question, it's a pretty common one. I mean, the first thing I would say, Casey, is just get out of the business of being attached to whether your friends do or do not adopt a plant-based diet. Like it's just, it's a recipe for frustration. So I try to, you know, kind of in a, if you look at it through the lens of like codependency, like I just try to be not invested in what my friends

or other people do or don't do. And you can still be an advocate for the things that you believe in without getting caught up in the results of that activity. So I would just say that upfront. Second to that, the best way to kind of carry the message is to fan the flames of positive change and be the example that you want these guys to see. So if you wanna dispel the myth

that eating a plant-based diet is somehow feminine, is feminine, if you wanna be a masculine example, then be that person and stand in the light and live your life accordingly. And I think that's more resonant and more impactful than anything that's gonna come out of your mouth. If your friends are, it sounds like some of them are interested,

they kind of dance around this, just have them watch the Game Changers documentary. I mean, that documentary does a pretty good job of diving into that very issue. Agreed. And most dudes find it to be pretty impactful if they don't just, you know, unless they, you know, there's a sort of bro tendency to just switch off,

you know, and be like, I can't hear this. But if they are somewhat receptive, that would be the first resource that I would direct those guys to. Again, just detach from your expectations. If they don't commit, it's not your business. So the idea is that it's about attraction rather than promotion, which is kind of a sobriety thing.

You wanna be the lighthouse. I know I keep talking about this. I keep hammering on this point, but stand in the light and be a tractor beam. Attract those like-minded people into your life rather than trying to compel other people to see the world the way that you see it. And I think you also have to respect the fact

that this masculine meat eater stereotype is just so crazy embedded in society. It's very difficult to untangle a knot that was wound decades ago in that person's life. Like our whole lives, we were told or hammered home the idea that eating meat is what it means to be a man. And you can't snap your fingers

and have somebody suddenly not believe that anymore when they've been told that a bazillion times or just society reinforces that constantly everywhere that you turn. So I get the dilemma and I think on a personal level, it's one of the reasons that I've been over indexing on the gym and on strength work lately.

Like I do, like I have this idea, like I'm not really racing right now. So why don't I get jacked? You know, why don't I get big and strong? I turned 55 in October and I can be a vehicle for dispelling that very myth. And that's kind of what I've been focused on lately. That's one of your goals, right?

Yeah, I'm gonna play volleyball in the next Top Gun movie, that's the goal. Are you gonna be the Tom Skerritt of the next Top Gun movie? I might be that old by that time, I don't know. Anyway, yeah, like be the example that you would like to see, I guess is the point that I'm trying to make.

And understand that change is difficult and in the best case, best case is it's gradual and nonlinear. So if you have your friend, the good news is it seems like you have friends that are kind of interested in what you're doing. So that's cool. Like I said, fan the flames of positive change

and put out the welcome mat, you know, and make them feel excited and energized by what this adventure might look like and couch it in the context of, you know, including new things into your diet, rather than like what you're not eating, like focus on like, hey, this amazing recipe, you've never tasted anything so good and try to like blow their minds.

You have to make it appealing. If you wanna appeal to the masculine mind, you gotta make this something that is compelling for that person to change their mind. And that's not an easy task. So in the meantime, live your life well. That's really the most powerful way to advocate. I think it's great.

The only thing I would add is, yeah, I could totally understand where you're coming from. I'm sure in Texas, not to stereotype Texas or anything, but I'm sure that's even doubly so, like the call to the meat and like with that. But also it's Austin. I mean, like Austin's pretty vegan friendly place. It's vegan in a hippie way,

but it's also the home of Rip Esselstyn, the king himself, the founder of the whole, like he's the first plant-based athlete that I'd ever heard of. Like he's the grandpappy. And so you have an opportunity, you could throw a party. There's ways of doing it where you could like, just like cater your own event,

where people are like trying it for the first time. But I think what you're saying is perfect. Just be the lighthouse, be who you are. I also think it's idea of like the masculine stuff that that's not for you to worry about. Like, you know, like it's interesting. The next question kind of plays in this. We have friends and then we're going into talking about masculinity, which is something I never talk about really. I never even think about, but it is interesting. The concepts of masculinity and what that means to young guys, I think it's okay to separate from that

and not even deal with that. It's like not on your radar. The problem there and why this is so core to the whole thing is that it's what makes it, it's the difference between habit change. Like I'm gonna break this habit or I'm gonna adopt a new habit and identity change. Like identity, like this speaks to the core of who I am.

Like I'm a man and a man behaves in this manner. I do X, Y and Z. And now you're telling me I can't do this thing. That's a threat to how I see myself. And so you've got to rewire that whole programming. So it's much more difficult than just saying, hey, maybe don't eat that thing cause it's not good for you.

Right. Well, I think Game Changers is the perfect place to go. And if you think about it, if you're an NBA fan, Chris Paul low key went plant-based, didn't make a big deal about it. And his whole career, like he became injury free and dominated all of last year and was one of the best players in the league again

last year and this year again. So it works. Yeah, and that's why the athletes are so important in this conversation because for a lot of people, particularly dudes, that's what they pay attention to. They just wanna see those results. And so you need those guys out there crushing it. And there's lots of them.

Lots of them. And the funny thing about Chris Paul was he didn't wanna talk about it, not because he was ashamed of it, because he didn't want other people to do it. Right. He was keeping his competitive edge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. We've got one more question. One more.

Hey, fellas. My name is Cindy from New Hampshire. You can play this on the show. I think you two make a great team and you're great models of male vulnerability and connection. And I think a lot of listeners would benefit from hearing you two riff on masculinity and particularly how you navigated your own boyhood and early manhood. And I know Rich has shared a lot of that in his book and on his show, but the two of you could inspire guys to dig into like masculinity expectations, feeling man enough, the idea

of suffer till worthy, and just the whole process of unhooking from all that throughout your life. Because even before COVID, many boys, young men, older men, they've been struggling emotionally and are not comfortable seeking the help they need before they crack. So I think men are desperate to know they're not alone. And I think you guys could inspire some serious healing. Thanks so much. Bye-bye. Cindy, just going to the heart of the whole thing. That men need help.

Men need a lot of help. It's a masculinity twofer. It's a masculinity crisis, folks. Back-to-back masculinity questions. Is the problem too much masculinity? Well, I mean, this doesn't even have anything to do necessarily with toxic masculinity being at the far end of that spectrum.

No, no, no, we're not talking about that. Yeah, we're not talking about that. But what we are talking about is, again, it goes back to identity. And it seemed that Cindy was interested in kind of hearing a little bit about how I, you, we navigate our own boyhood and early manhood.

I mean, I'm somebody who never thought of myself as particularly masculine, but I did spend most of my boyhood and early adult life trying to find my own way into masculinity by adhering to social norms like swimming, academia, law. And the more that I tried to do that or double down on that, it didn't work because it was at, it was turning a blind eye to a little self exploration

to figuring out my own identity rather than trying to make myself fit into some paradigm. You know, I was a quiet kid, introverted, outside of the norm. I went to a very masculine, hyper male high school, and I could never really identify with what a lot of the other boys cared about, like football. And I think at that time, looking back in retrospect, that led me to really question my own inherent manhood or relationship to masculinity. And I think that in turn led to insecurity and feelings of less than that something was wrong with me.

And that in turn led me to withdraw even more and feel ashamed. And then of course enter alcohol, right? Which almost killed me. So this is how serious these things can become. And it was only when I was so broken that I had no other choice but to embrace vulnerability. No other choice than to surrender to the truth of myself that I was able to summon

the courage to not only ask for help, but to receive help, which I think is harder than even, you know, for a lot of people, much harder than just asking for it. And in turn, be able to heal and accept myself and mend my insecurities and then access and grow into a more authentic incarnation of myself. But I think for most men, this process is essentially anathema.

It's counterintuitive path that is just off the table rather than remain stuck in pain. I think many people are, what am I trying to say? I think there are a lot of people who would rather remain stuck in pain than appear weak because showing your truth is a very terrifying prospect. I think particularly for a lot of men.

And so, you know, over the years, I've worked hard to dispel this myth that vulnerability is weakness, that showing emotion is weakness. And that by leading with vulnerability and emotion, it's like this disarming force that allows and permits others to kind of meet me in that space. And I think it's also correct that most men, young boys, adolescents suffer in silence.

Their emotions are on lockdown. They're afraid of being open and honest with anybody. And over time, if not unlocked, like this is gonna fester, it's gonna metastasize and the result is never good. And that's when we get into toxic masculinity and violence. So it's about normalizing the process of asking and receiving help. It's about normalizing vulnerability and understanding

that vulnerability and being kind of more on the surface with your emotions is not mutually exclusive from masculinity. You can love football, you can love MMA and cars and guns or whatever we associate with conventional norms that surround our definition of what is and what isn't masculine and be open, honest, vulnerable, caring, all of those things.

And inquisitive and all, yeah, yeah. I think that, you demonstrate that, I think that's part of the appeal to David Goggins, major part of it and Joe Rogan as well, kind of like this masculine version of being open and inquisitive and vulnerable about life basically. And I think the podcast host that exemplifies it perhaps better than anybody is Dak Shepherd because he's very much like a dude's dude. I think the podcast host that exemplifies it

perhaps better than anybody is Dax Shepard because he's very much like a dude's dude. He likes to race cars and like, you know, he wears like cutoff shirts and he's a blue collar guy from Michigan and like choose tobacco. And like, you know, like he's a dude's dude, but he's also somebody who wears his emotions on his sleeve and he's very vulnerable and he tells his friends he loves them and he does all this stuff

that is sort of counter to what you think like a dude's dude would do. And I think it's part of why his message is so powerful and impactful and why I think he's such a good podcast host. But it's that like combination, like I'm not a dude's dude in the way that Dax is, but I still would characterize myself as having a certain kind of masculinity

that through a lot of internal work is not under threat because I tell you, Adam, I love you. You know what I mean? Thank you, I love you too. Yes, we'll make out afterwards. I agree. I mean, my story, I'm gonna drop a little bomb here, but we don't have to belabor it too much.

But I grew up, I was sexually abused at seven years old. I didn't know that. Yeah. And then grew up and went through puberty late and was really small for my age most of my life, even though I was interested in sports and was pretty good, I had to question myself along the way. And I kind of like stuffed down the abuse for a long time.

I didn't tell anybody. And then I didn't really come up and address it until, what was it, like 99, 2000, I think right around there. So I would be 28 around then is when I first started to deal with it. And at first it was hard. Guru Singh helped me through it at the beginning. And I went through a process of therapy through him,

but not through traditional means like going to a psychotherapist. I went to a yoga teacher who happens to be like a great therapist also, but he's not traditional. And at the same time, kind of like what's helped me isn't been attaching to, I've never felt like I needed to be some macho dude. That's never been my thing.

Cause I never was, cause I was always kind of smaller and felt smaller even when I grew. And so I just never felt the need to do it. I never wanted to be in that mode and was never attracted to it. But at the same time, like, you know, I'll bro out just like anybody else. So I understand that like having a group of guy friends

can be empowering to young guys and having some people you're close to can be. And so that was never a problem for me either. So I've kind of is writing this line of having this secret and bro-ing out and never really addressing it. And then in my later, like what's helped me most of all has been kind of discovering things like yoga, which is kind of a more feminine practice

and Taoism, which is a book. I read the Tao Te Ching from cover to cover. Basically I read a verse, maybe multiple days in a row. Then I'll start again at the beginning and I'll switch translations. And that is again, kind of looking at the universe in a, not in duality, but in oneness. And so I don't think of, I think my advice would be,

or things I like to tell people is, let's not try to look at things in duality. Let's look at things as unity, that we're a part of everything all the time. And I'm not one of those people that's like against gender constructs in any way, shape or form. I just think it's beyond gender.

It's a conversation beyond gender. It's a connection beyond the individual. It's an expansion that we are everything all the time. And when you think of it that way, the de-concentration of the small thing and get bigger, I feel like sometimes I feel like the luckiest man in the world. Yeah, that's, I mean, wow.

Thank you for sharing that story. I didn't know that about you. Yeah, thanks. That's pretty heavy. We can talk more about that. We can unpack that. Yeah, well, we will definitely unpack a little bit more of that.

I think that I agree with you on all of that, but I also think that that's some of what you're talking about is a bit esoteric, like in the context of like a young male who's struggling with his relationship to masculinity and his peer group, the only way to motivate that young individual to engage with his interior emotional life

in a healthy way, if he's one of these people that seems shut down in that regard is to model healthy behavior in that guy's environment. So putting a strong male in proximity to that person who is an example of, you know, how to kind of do this in a healthy way, I think is really the lever that moves the needle.

So whether it's somebody in the community or a relative or a coach or a teacher or somebody on YouTube or a podcast host or something like that, that that young person can connect with and start to think a little bit differently about how he's relating to himself and his direct environment,

I think is a really powerful thing. Yeah, I mean, I think- That would be the advice that I would give. Having mentors is key. And then also holding yourself accountable and working on yourself. And if you say you're gonna do something, go do it. Like these kinds of things can make you feel,

it's probably just about growing up in general, but as a young man, it can make you feel more of a man. If you know you can rely on yourself to do what you say you're gonna do, you can feel more empowered as a man. But the trick is you can do that and still be repressing all of your emotions. That's true. You know what I mean?

So it's about having a healthy relationship with those emotions. Like what is the outlet for that? So that later on in life, it doesn't manifest in a toxic manner. What would you say a good outlet would be, finding therapy or doing? Well, I mean, it depends on the individual,

but that's why I think just having healthy males that model healthy behavior in the orbit of that young person will be the most powerful because it'll demonstrate to that person like, hey, it's okay for me to like talk about my feelings or it's safe. I'm not gonna get chastised or ridiculed because I have this weird emotion and I'm afraid to share it with anybody.

Good points. You model healthy behavior, Rich Roll. Not all the time. I lose my shit every once in a while. You do? Trust me, yeah. All right, well, we've been going for like two and a half hours. We're gonna wrap this thing up. Thank you for sticking around if people are listening still.

Right, thanks for listening to us. The whole journey today. And if you didn't listen to the last bit, just forget I mentioned it. Yeah, do you feel like you just had a catharsis? Yeah, I feel like you're my Oprah. I don't know about that. That makes me nervous. You did disclose something pretty heavy there though.

I did, but it's okay. I once wrote a novel where it was part of it. And so I was prepared to disclose it then, but of course nobody bought it. So I could have taken it back. Well, you did it in a way that felt very comfortable to you. So clearly you've done enough work around it that it's not like causing you distress.

No, thank you. So appreciate it for you, man. Thanks. Cool, well, until next time, we'll be back in two weeks. Follow Adam at Adam Skolnick. I'm of course at Rich Roll. If you want your question considered for the show, leave us a message at 424-235-4626.

Check out the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com. We'll have links up to everything we talked about today. Again, hit that subscribe button on YouTube, Apple, Spotify. We recently created a clips channel on YouTube. We've got to start uploading more clips there. We're behind, but we got big plans for that channel. You can find it by searching Rich Roll Podcast clips

on YouTube or we'll link it up in the show notes as well. Smash that button. Smash it. I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiolo for production, audio engineering, show notes, interstitial music, all the good stuff. Blake Curtis for videoing today's show. Jessica Miranda for graphics.

David Greenberg for taking portraits. Georgia Whaley for copywriting. DK for advertiser relationships and theme music dating back to episode one. My boys, Tyler, Trapper and Harry. Tyler and Trapper are in the studio recording their first album fucking finally. That's amazing.

Yeah. Oh wow. That's pretty exciting. That is exciting. Yeah, it's really cool. Appreciate you guys. Yeah. Oh, wow. That's pretty exciting. That is exciting. Yeah, it's really cool. Appreciate you guys. Love you, see you back here in a couple of days with another awesome episode.

And Adam and I will be back of course in two weeks. So until then, peace, plants. Namaste. Thank you.