The Rich Roll Podcast - Roll On: Defusing Emotional Landmines

Episode Date: November 26, 2020

Post-election thoughts. Managing stress and disagreement. Connecting to gratitude. Weekly wins. And, of course, listener questions. Welcome to another edition of Roll On. Commanding co-host duties as always is my hype man Adam Skolnick, an activist and veteran journalist perhaps best known as David Goggins’ Can’t Hurt Me co-author. Adam has written about adventure sports, environmental issues and civil rights for outlets such as The New York Times, Outside, ESPN, BBC, and Men’s Health. He is the author of One Breath and is currently hard at work on a novel. Some of the many topics explored in today’s conversation include: • The importance of actively creating a gratitude practice; • plant-based holiday ideas; • how to deal with family stress and disagreement; • Alex Hutchinson’s essay ‘COVID-19 is like running a marathon with no finish line’; • the new documentary, ‘Feels Good Man’ and how a meme turned into an alt-right mascot; • the terrifying capabilities of artificial intelligence; • Alenka Artnik’s 114m world record free-dive in Egypt. In addition, we answer the following listener questions: How do you have real conversations in the era of smartphones and social media? How do you raise plant-based children? How do you balance work, parenthood, and marriage while still making time for personal passions? Thank you to Adrian from London, Daniel from Australia, and Carlos from Germany for your questions. If you want your query discussed, drop it on our Facebook Page, or better yet leave a voicemail at [phone]. The visually inclined can watch our exchange on YouTube. And as always, the podcast streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Peace + Plants, Rich

The Rich Roll Podcast. 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 just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. at recovery.com, who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and

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I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. 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 just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately,

not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com, who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself,

I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life and recovery is wonderful. And recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com. All right, it's time to take roll call. And we are back. We are ready to take roll call, Adam. Let's do it, man. How are you feeling? I feel good. I feel good. I's, I love a short holiday week.

That's what we're looking at right now. Yeah, yeah. So this is yet another edition of Roll On where me and my hype man bestie, Adam Skolnick, break down matters pertinent, matters current. We take listener questions. We talk about what's top of mind. And before we launch into it, if you're interested in having your question

discussed on the podcast, you can leave us a voicemail at 424-235-4626. As always, we launch this thing off with a little fitness check-in. Yes. How are you doing as the father of a newborn? I'm doing well. And April, my wife has been rocking it

back into form too. So it's like, it's become like the thing that we do for fun. I mean, really it's the pandemic. So the thing that we do to blow off steam is to exercise. Right. And it's been good. You know, I sprained my ankle two weeks ago, so I'm just coming back out of that,

but I was able to run after a week and just a little bit by a little bit. But I've started working with Nicolam Ramirez, the French, he lives in Sweden, but the French swim runner who won Catalina with his partner. Catalina Otillo. Yeah, he's the head of Team Envol, which is like this dominant team in swim run.

And he kind of has these things where you can join in remotely and do his workouts and he prescribes workouts for you. That's cool. So I did my first one this morning. It was like a zone one to three, included this skipping and running, kind of minute skipping, a minute running at zone three.

For like technique? To get my technique down. Interesting. In the sand or where did you do that? I did it, no, I just did it in the, like the problem is where I live. In your wetsuit? You're either going a little uphill or a little downhill.

No, I did it in my really sexy running shorts. The shorter, the better. That's cool. I'm so glad that you have a coach. I know. Can I credit this to our conversation about me telling you that you needed a little guidance? 100%.

Yeah, a little guidance. That's awesome. I've got like the best guy now in my ear, so. That's very cool. You're gonna be a ringer come November when Otillo returns to Catalina. Yes, but you know, the problem is is that- You have one year.

I'm not really used, well, November, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm not used to like well, November, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm not used to like using my Garmin for anything other than like a dive watch and like, you know, recording really basic stuff. So this morning I hit run thinking I have to remember all the different, you know, minute this

and the 10 minutes, five minutes, but the workout was already programmed into it. And then I still fucked it up. Like I didn't know how to work it and like screwed up. Like when I hit the lap button and all that. That's cool. So it syncs with TrainingPeaks. He uploads the workouts to TrainingPeaks

and then it just automatically feeds to your watch and prompts you. That's right. That's cool. It's very cool. I dig it, man. I've got the Garmin for people who care, the Garmin Descent,

which is because it's got a free diving and scuba diving application. I'm rocking the Garmin, I think it's the 310. No, the four, is it called the 4Runner? Is it? What is it called? I don't know. I should know. Mine's ancient.

My point is that it's a super old one. Exactly, well, you don't need coaching. You're like, you're fully baked. No, no, no. I'm a little duckling. I need a tremendous amount of coaching, especially when it comes to swim run. And I fully intend on competing in that Otillo Catalina.

The full distance? We'll see, yeah, maybe. My goal is like in a year to do a full distance one. Yeah, you should. But I would like to also do the 15 mile, 15K one first, full distance one. Yeah, you should. But I would like to also do the 15 mile, 15K one first, something like that. Yeah, you should. It's exciting to see this sport grow.

My buddy, Garrett Weber-Gale, who was a very early guest on the podcast way back in the day, Olympic gold medalist back in the Phelps era is now getting in the swim run. He did one recently in Austin. He was all fired up. Back in the Phelps era is now getting in the swim run. He did one recently in Austin. He was all fired up. Back in the Phelps era? Yeah.

That just ended. Well, yeah, we're old. Early Phelps. We're old. If you're young, that was a bygone era. Wait, he was in the last Olympics. He was, yeah, but this, I think he competed in the Olympics, I think, was it London?

Yeah. I can't remember. 16. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think so. Oh, so your boy, can't remember. 16. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think so. Oh, so your boy, that was what? That was 12, right? No, Garrett was swimming in 12.

12, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Pretty sure. Hopefully I'm not wrong about that. That's crazy. That's crazy how long Phelps has been the dominant. I know, I know. When you speak of the era,

you have to talk about which part of the era, I guess. But on a personal level, I'm back slowly working my way into doing some, some running and some cycling. As I've spoken about at length in the past, I've been dealing with some back issues and that's sidelined me. And then I went into the gym

and started developing my strength, which was very productive and I enjoyed and continue to, or will continue to engage with. But I started working with this body worker guy called Lawrence Van Lingen, who's been a godsend. He's the South African miracle worker and he's been working on my back. Yeah, he's down in Laguna.

Okay, so you had to make the haul. But he, well, I was introduced to him through Chris Health, who works with him as well as Emily, his wife. And in just a couple sessions, he's really made some great strains. Fantastic. And has been a guiding force. So I feel like it's not that it is completely resolved, but I feel like I have a path. And he gave me some certain gentle exercises to work on.

And I'm intending on seeing him pretty consistently. So no weights for now? That feels good. No, I've kind of backed off that a little bit and getting back into some endurance stuff and just trying to lay a base. And if I look at next November as an interesting race to get involved with,

that gives me something to put my sights on. I saw you were in the pool as well, right? A little bit. Yeah, there's a pool actually near where we're recording that it's a big complex and you can book lanes online and it sells out pretty quickly. So you gotta do it kind of in advance. So I actually booked all these times throughout the week. And then of course my schedule didn't align with that. And so it was like $4 for an hour. So a lot of that money went by the wayside. But I figure best to try and bank those in.

So I've been hitting that pool a little bit. I mean, I'm far from being conditioned right now, but it feels good to start getting back into contact with it. So that feels good. I like seeing those Instagram stories where you just flop your, you know, your, your pull away and your paddles.

I know. People love that. That's my thing. It's a cool thing. Yeah. Keep doing it. Like what are those things? It's comforting.

What are those paddle things? You know, what's interesting is that I'm, I'm listening to Bonnie Choi's book, Why We Swim Right Now. Yes. Who was introduced to me through you. And she's coming on the podcast next week. Very exciting.

It's a great book. And she has this beautiful way of putting an anthropological lens onto like the human relationship with swimming. And Kim Chambers plays a big part in the book. She does. And she explores all aspects of, you know, our relationship to the water through cold and hot

and long distance and open water, et cetera. The shipwrecked guy in Ireland. Yeah, exactly. The guy in Iceland. Yeah, he swam to shore and became this national hero. But one of the things that I found really fascinating is that Benjamin Franklin is credited with inventing the hand paddles

for swimming. That's right. Right. So when I dropped those paddles down on the deck, you know, as I do on Instagram from time to time, plenty of people are like, what are those things? Like people who don't swim, don't know what they are. They're like paddles. And now I know that they are the invention of Benjamin Franklin. Noted nudist. Yeah. Be careful. I know. He's been canceled. He was a bather too. You're gonna get in trouble for aping Ben Franklin because he's been, what is it? No, he's not canceled.

Is he been? That's just in. I can't keep track of everybody that's been canceled. But I liked that. I liked her, not to get too deep into it because you're gonna have a whole episode with her, but what was cool as someone who I've known her for years, although only in person a couple of times,

but have kept in touch, seeing her family story and how that was related to swimming was really cool. How her parents met in a pool. Her dad was a lifeguard in Hong Kong. In Hong Kong. Yeah. So that was really cool to see.

Interesting. Yeah. I met her in Tahiti and we dove together years ago on like a press thing when we both were still doing those press trips. Don't do those anymore. A free diving dive? No, it was just a scuba dive.

And at the time I was pretty new to scuba diving and I was like an air pig just sucking my bottle. And this was like in 2005 or four or something like that. And 2005, I think. And she's like, she's been a great swimmer for her whole life so she's effortlessly staying down there for like an hour and I come up like at like 38 minutes thinking, I've just like, I gotta quit this sport because I'm so bad at it.

It's like not worth it. You're talking about somebody who had like swimming vernacular woven into her wedding vows. Of course. This is how much a part of her life this is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, but then, you know, obviously I got good at it, but it takes a while sometimes for some of us

with scuba diving, you can suck down the air really quick, especially if you're too stressed underwater or your body position is wrong. There's lots of things to it. And so, but I remember at that time, I coming up from the dive thinking that was great. I wish I could have stayed down twice as long. Yeah.

Yeah. It's all about relaxation, Adam. It is, man. It is. But anyway, that was my, that was when I met her and excited about her book. It's got top 100 books for Time Magazine. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

Very cool. Very cool. Like that's no small thing. Yeah. You know, so I'm looking forward to talking to her. Meanwhile, on the subject of books, thank you to everybody who has ordered Voicing Change. It's been a pleasure to sign so many of them.

What's been interesting about doing it ourselves, being in charge of fulfillment as a self-published book is you're really closely connected to the audience. And when we made it available, we thought, well, we'll offer it to people who just wanna buy it. But if people wanna sign copy, we'll add that as like a bonus little extra thinking that maybe, I don't know, 10% of people would want to sign copy.

But it turns out like 90% or 85% or something like that want to sign copy, which is amazing, but also means that I have to spend hours and hours and hours signing these things every week, which is great. And I'm happy to do it. That's a good thing. Listen, this is what we call a quality problem. A quality problem. I'm happy to do it. So thank you to everybody who's ordered the book. It's been really cool to see people sharing it

on social media and just really gratified by that whole thing. Yeah. Meanwhile, we are moving forward on the new studio. I shared a couple of behind the scenes pictures of the build out. It's coming along. I think we're gonna be up and running in there probably conservatively in three or four weeks.

Oh, nice. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah, so- Three or four weeks. Well, we're just waiting on the cert of occupancy so we can start really moving in all the furniture. And that's a bureaucratic regulatory thing

that we're working with the developer on, but we're pretty close to getting that. Once we get that, then we can go in, we can hang the lighting rack and get everything configured. It won't be completely done, but I think we'll be able to get up on our feet and start recording episodes in there pretty soon.

Which is super exciting. It's really cool. I can't wait to like just be a squatter that just shows up and just writes and like you're like, wait, wait. We got a bunch of furniture courtesy of Fully, who's been a great podcast sponsor over the years. They make this wonderful line

of ergonomic movement oriented furniture. So we got a bunch of standing desks and some stools and et cetera. So I think we have like five or six desks in there. We're gonna be able to move the whole team over there so we can all work together. But we have a specific desk that we're temporarily calling the DK desk.

Oh, the DK, okay. For when he pops in. But I think that can be a battle between you and DK to come in and work whenever you like. When we need to. And what's exciting about it is that it's going to be able to provide efficiencies in the workflow. So eventually I think we're going to work out systems where perhaps we can create additional content. Maybe we can move from six episodes to eight episodes a month, we'll see how that goes. And potentially start working on some new stuff, right?

Yes. Which is a longer conversation. Let's not even talk about that yet. No, let's just tease it now. But you know. Tease it now. You know I think about that every day. I know. Yeah. That is in the plan.

And to have like an HQ is really gonna be something special. I'm stoked for you because it's such a great progression for what you've built. And I'm stoked for the listeners. To be a part of the show, you fully appreciate. I mean, to have hung out with you and swam or grabbed a bite in Malibu, you see how people engage with you and what you bring,

but to actually be a part of the show and to see how much it means to people, it's very inspiring. So to be able to then take this next step and create even bigger platform foundation for something bigger, I think it's gonna be very powerful. It's exciting. Yeah. And it's great to have you as a value add

to the equation as man. And in reflecting back on it, it seems crazy because when it started, it was really just a harebrained like, hey, let's just try a podcast. There was no plan or goal or aspiration that, yeah, that it would become what it has become, let alone, you know, any kind of vocation or anything like that, or something that could lead to, you know, a 2000 square foot warehouse space where we can really operate at the highest level of production quality. So, you know, I think the lesson in that is that, you know, you follow your curiosity and you double down on it and you show up for it consistently.

And when you do that and you're coming from a pure place, I really think that that is fertile ground for, you know, unpredictable magic to occur. That's really well said. think something about just having the detail-oriented eye of also someone who wrote a book, but also was an athlete your whole life and then studied the law, like detail in the law is very important. Like just having a detailed, focused nature enabled you to get to a place of excellence where you were really caring about each episode versus just kind of mailing it in and like seeing what happens. You mean being a control freak? versus just kind of mailing it in and like seeing what happens? You mean being a control freak?

I don't see you that way. But like having that kind of that mental training that's built into the way you are. I think so. I think, you know, from a very early stage in the whole thing, like I cared about the small stuff, maybe more than I should have, and certainly probably more than many others who

kind of were operating in the space. And I think by paying attention to those details, we were able to kind of set ourselves aside from others who were kind of doing something similar. And I think it's just a reflection of caring deeply about the show. But as it grows and matures, it's been a challenge for me to let go of some of those aspects. Like at the very beginning, I was editing the show myself in GarageBand. I did every, there was no aspect of the show that wasn't me because I was the only one doing it. And the good part about that is that I learned every facet of it. it. And the good part about that is that I learned every facet of it. The bad part is that as we try to scale up, I have to let go of those things and empower other people to do them. And my instinct, it runs counter to my instinct, which is to get, you know, involved in all of this

stuff. And ultimately, you know, what I've learned is that it all operates a lot better when I let go of a lot of that stuff and focus on the one thing that is the most important thing, which is trying to have the best conversations. But that's a process for me. Right. And it means that when you are letting other people do stuff, like they're gonna do things

that might not be the way that you would do them. And that's perfectly fine too. Well, you got so many talented people involved too. Yeah, like there's Blake right over there, smiling. While we're on the subject of the podcast, I'll just ask you one more question. I know that listeners might be curious how you choose your guests.

How does that process work for you? There is no system to that whatsoever. It's really a gut thing. It's intuition, it's a feel. I have like a, you know, an open note, like, you know, the little note app on your phone or on your desktop. And when I come across an article or, you know, read something about somebody interesting,

like I'll make a note and think maybe that person's, you know, compelling, maybe I wanna talk to that person. And then at some point I'll dig a little bit deeper and decide. So at any given moment, there's a lot of burners operating. Like I have feelers out to lots of people. Sometimes it takes a very long time to get somebody on the show.

And then the order in which you release the episodes is very important to kind of keep it differentiated and dynamic by not having too much of one subject matter in a row. But it's really a feel thing. And I've made mistakes over the years, and I've talked about this before, but I've made mistakes where a lot of people are saying,

oh, you gotta have this person, they're great, you know, they're awesome, you do it, you know. And I'm like, yeah, maybe, I don't know. I'm not really feeling it, but because everybody seems to think this person's amazing, I'll do it. Right. And then the episode ends up being a little bit flat and that's not to cast any aspersion on the guest. It's because if I'm not personally, you know, emotionally heavily invested in this person's life, then I'm not the best host for that conversation. Interesting.

So I've really learned to just trust my gut and to follow what inspires me. And the only rule is I'm curious about this person. And I've had to balance that as the show grows against the number of pitches that I'm now on. I mean, it used to be in the beginning, it's like I'm cajoling and begging to get anybody to come on the show, right? And I felt so grateful that anybody would donate their time to come on. Now I get 10 to 20 pitch emails from publicists every day with this person who wrote this book and that person who wrote that book. And it's really difficult to kind of navigate all of that. And so it's not about

getting people to come on the show. It's about getting the right people to come on. I pitched you Bonnie. You did, right? And that didn't take immediate... That's a perfect example. I think I pitched you a few times. I was like, okay, she wrote a book about swimming. That's cool. But like, is this... I don't know. I had to like sit with it for a while. And then I saw, oh, her book made the time list. Like, that's interesting. And then I dug a little bit deeper and I was like, oh, this is actually hitting the bullseye of everything that I care about. And she's written this amazing book

about, you know, perhaps the one thing that I care about more than anything that I've ever experienced in my life, which is my relationship to swimming. So how could I not have her on? But it didn't immediately connect, like it took time. So yeah, that's a good example. It's perfect time. Sometimes the later is the perfect timing. Timing is everything.

Yeah, and I just, another example would be Laird Hamilton who just came by last week. That episode is going up, I don't know, sometime soon. Can't wait for that. And that's somebody who I've wanted to have on the show for a very long time. His wife, Gabby, was one of the very first guests on the show.

But I think it's perfect that he came on now and not two or three years ago because I'm a different person than I was then. And I think I'm better suited to have the kind of conversation that I wanted to have with them now versus then. So these things all have their own timing. And I've also learned to trust that timing,

like getting out of the business of trying to force a guest or a certain episode to happen and just being in the allowing like, oh, it's not right right now. It'll come around if it's supposed to. But that's not easy to be allowing. So I don't press too hard. Like I put feelers out, like I'm always fishing and I'm in various stages of email communication around scheduling, but I don't get in there and try to compel anybody to come on because another thing I've learned is that I only want to have conversations with

people who actually want wanna be here. Right. And when you cajole somebody to be here, when maybe they're like, what am I doing? Like, who's this guy? Like, why am I doing this? That's not gonna make for a great experience for the listener.

Right. But it's not easy to do the, at first with the allowing, then you get used to it. But like at first for me, especially you're saying control tendencies to allow, I've had that problem with reporting stories where I really want a source, I really want a source. Now I'm much more relaxed about it.

Well, you're also dealing with a deadline. Right, I'm dealing with a deadline. I'm dealing with, you know, also just doing the story justice, which requires for me talking to multiple people so I can get different angles. And sometimes those requests don't get answered right away, but nothing helps your allowing, like having a new baby in the house. You're like, you know what? Who gives a

fuck? I've got to change a diaper. Yeah. Puts things into perspective, right? And all I can tell you is that it's good life advice in general. Like you need to push for what you want, but there's a point at which that starts to venture into terrain that's gonna produce the opposite of the result that you seek. No doubt. And there is an art to the surrender or the letting go and the allowing to provide the space that some of these things require in order to manifest in a certain way. And that's something that I've kind of feel like I've honed over the years. Ask Bonnie about the fallow period. I will, yeah.

I don't know what that means, but yeah, I'll make a note. Yeah, make a note. Cool, all right, well, before we dig into the subjects of the day that we're gonna talk about today, I think it's worth spending a few minutes or a minute or two just reflecting on the last episode that we did together, which is perhaps the most politically,

overtly political podcast that we've ever done. Yeah. And I stand by it and I'm proud of that conversation that we had. And I feel strongly about the opinions that I expressed. And that episode was met with a predominantly positive reaction, but it was not without its detractors either. And we were on the receiving end of a lot of feedback, tons of emails, like I said, mostly well-received, but there was more than a few who vigorously disagreed with my politics, your politics.

And I just want to tell all of you, if you're listening, if you were one of those people and you've decided to still tune in, that I appreciate that. Like I acknowledge the disagreement and the fact that we may not or don't see completely eye to eye, but that's what these conversations are about. And I credit those people who took the time to write messages, some of which were quite lengthy and well thought out. I think that that's to be lauded. Like if you feel differently and you take the time to sit down and explain why you disagree, how can I not do anything but welcome that?

So I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah, and thank you. I 100% agree. I stand behind everything I said. But I will say, you know, sometimes I think some people are put off by a tone that I might express my opinion in

when I feel strongly about something. And all I can say is what I feel most strongly about is unifying and coming together in a way and building a better country and a better world. So that's all, that's all it's coming from just that place only. It's not ever an elitist place. It's not ever looking down on anybody. Sometimes we joke about like getting news from YouTube or whatever, because it does seem ridiculous to me since I make my living as a reporter and I know how that stuff is made.

And I know it's made by caring people who are really competent. So that probably is where that comes from, but I'm trying to, it's fun. I'm trying to have fun at the same time. Yeah, I get it. Yeah. And I think for the most part, people understand that.

Yeah. But the unifying thing is important. So I applaud you if you disagree with me and you're still tuning in and listening to this. And I hope that you continue to plod this journey with both of us. Come aboard. We might piss you off every once in a while.

I hope not too much. No, just every once in a while. And like I said, and I said this last time, like I don't court controversy. I'm not trying to be, you know, a firebrand in any regard. I really do wanna create a place where anybody feels comfortable here. But the fact that your podcast,

which is really about making yourself better, making the world better, like being more open, has become a source of controversy kind of speaks to the moment that we're in, in which case we've all felt the need to express ourselves in ways that we haven't before. Well, we're all, all of us, no matter how grounded we are, we're all a little bit more easily triggered

than we have been in the past. And we're walking this tight rope, this high wire act where we're dealing with some really big problems and there's some pretty large disagreements about how to solve those problems. And there's microphones everywhere. There are. And so like it all gets magnified.

It's like, it's all true. There's some really tough stuff we're dealing with, but also there's just so much media about it. The revolution will be podcasting. The revolution. Bird, next book idea. I know. All right, let's pivot to the big story. Big story. The big story, you know, it's Thanksgiving week.

It is. This is dropping on Thanksgiving day, my friend. So we thought that it would be a good time to talk about gratitude, the practice of gratitude. When is it not a good time to talk about gratitude? Exactly, like we're pivoting to gratitude listeners. about gratitude, the practice of gratitude. When is it not a good time to talk about gratitude? Exactly, like we're pivoting to gratitude listeners. This will not be a political roll on. This is not a political roll on yet,

but even Thanksgiving has been politicized as we know, right, like it's being called into question. You were gonna talk about something even at your own house is being called into question. Yes were gonna talk about something even at your own house is being called into question. Yes. I have daughters, in particular, one daughter who feels very strongly that we should not be celebrating this holiday in the traditional manner in which it has been celebrated in the past for reasons that she feels strongly about. Like she's a very young, politically minded, progressive, you know, sort of activist in her own right. And she basically said, I don't wanna do this this year. I don't think that it's right.

And I'm trying to honor her and listen to her. And it's been a little bit of a dance because we still wanna be able to have a family dinner and express gratitude and give thanks for the many blessings of our lives. At first, she balked at that because she thought anything resembling what would be considered a traditional Thanksgiving celebration is tantamount to basically rubber stamping the kind of checkered tradition that birthed this holiday to begin with.

So we're dealing with a little bit of that at home right now, which has created a lot of interesting conversations with the kids, which has been great. That's awesome. Which is kind of really what it should be about anyway. Right. Right. Is she writing the show under an anonymous name

by any chance? Is she writing the show under an anonymous name by any chance? She sends me like change.org petitions to sign like for a day. It's the pandemic, man. They should be at school having fun. Right, but I mean, for me, it's like, I love the idea of focusing on the gratitude aspect of it, because there's something there, even if the myth is not whole, and there is a history behind this that we have been taught only in piecemeal, like the broad strokes that we've latched onto, because they're nice, but not the full story, because it's not so nice.

because they're nice, but not the full story because it's not so nice. To me, it's like, at this point, we're not the pilgrims. We're not in the new world. We're 200 something years later and it's okay to have dinner and have a traditional meal and talk about gratitude. That's what I think. That's my personal opinion on it.

And I think we should welcome all those kinds of, and this is a good part of it. She's grateful for things too. And it's a great, to be able to have that conversation at home, I know she'll look back on it and be grateful for that. Yeah, we'll see. TBD.

Well, why don't you tell us, you're talking about the practice of gratitude. What do you mean by that? Yeah, well, I've talked about this quite a bit in the past as well in the podcast. I mean, for me, gratitude doesn't come naturally, like left to my own devices. I'm a pretty crotchety, cranky, self-interested,

selfish, self-seeking, irascible, difficult to be around human being. You are not difficult to be. Just ask Julie, yeah. I came home. Julie's done wonderful work. We were talking about fitness a few minutes ago and I went out for a ride, was it Sunday,

Saturday or Sunday? It was like a three hour ride and I just was limping on the way home. And it's very difficult for me to not measure like where I'm at physically against, you know, where I have been in the past. Right. The truth is like, I haven't been on the bike.

So how can I expect to feel great and powerful and strong? And I was really kind of struggling at the end and just not, you know, and so, and Julie was pulling out of the driveway as I was coming home. She's like, how's the ride? And I was like, I feel terrible. You know, like, she's like, all right, I gotta go, bye.

You know, she just knows, like she doesn't even engage with me when I'm like that. She's like, okay, bye, honey. Okay, bye. You know, that's a more accurate, you know, window into, you know, my default like operating system. So my point being that I have self-awareness around this and I know that I have to do a fair amount of work

to connect with gratitude. And when I'm able to do that, my life is better. The people around me are happier. I have a sunnier disposition, but it is a practice. It is not like I don't wake up in the morning and think I'm so grateful. Like I literally have to make a gratitude list either at night or first thing in the morning. I have to really sit with that and remember like, here's where I'm at. Like, look at

where I was before, look at where I could be, look at what's happening with all these other people. There's so much for me to feel grateful about. And it's important for me to do that in order to feel that, because that's what makes me feel whole. And it makes me a better servant and a better parent and a better partner and a better friend. better servant and a better parent and a better partner and a better friend. But without that, like I said, I will just, no matter how many times I remind myself, if I don't do it diligently, like you can't sail on yesterday's wind, like Chad Wright says, like I have to do it every single day or I lose sight of it. And so I think Thanksgiving is, you know, it's sort of like, shouldn't every day, you know, the trope always comes up every year, shouldn't every day be Thanksgiving? And it should,

right? Right. This is a day where we kind of canonize it and we give it a lot of attention, but gratitude being the foundation of Thanksgiving is something that we can practice on a daily basis. Yeah. And it brings the light in, right? Like when things aren't going well, to like bring it back to basics and to remember what you are grateful for can reset your body and mind. It can like bring the pulse down and the stress down

and you can get some light, even if it's just for a few minutes. It's all gonna be fine. Yeah, and hopefully that's all true. But like even just for those few minutes, just to all gonna be fine. Yeah, and hopefully that's all true. But like, even just for those few minutes, just to remember what you're grateful for. I mean, to be grateful for something simple, like a meal is like a harvest, something, but not banal, but like a harvest,

like something that you should expect to reap. That's to me, what's cool about gratitude is not just the big things, but like all the things. So I texted you that we should do a little practice right now. Right. One big thing, one small thing, one obvious thing, one fucking hard thing that made us who we are,

our own little gratitude practice. So what's your big thing? The big thing. I mean, there's plenty of big things that come to mind. The most important is your health, right? I'm grateful to be healthy. And that's something we tend to take for granted. I'm grateful for my family, for my sobriety, for my career.

Like these big kind of top of mind things fall into that category of the big thing. Yeah. But they can be things like, I have food on the table. Like it does, it's hard to talk about this because it does sound so trite and like lame. Right, well, I even said that. But that's why it's important to like

really sit with that for a minute. What is the one big thing today? Today? Today, the one big thing. The one big thing is health. Okay. Yeah. That I feel healthy in my body.

That's awesome. For me, the one big thing is Zuma, the baby. The beach or the baby? The baby. Zuma Beach is nice too. You should remind, if somebody's new to this, your newborn's name is Zuma. That's right.

He is 12 weeks old. And he's really fully waking up now and like engaging and reading and looking at the pictures and like going on walks where he's checking things out much more. And we have this nice cheat at home now where we don't always just read him the kids' books. Sometimes if we wanna read our,

we just read the book that we're reading. I read him a murder mystery a couple of weeks ago. Oh, wow. Hoping it doesn't sink in too deep. But he's just hearing the words, I think. I don't speak baby, so I think it's working. I think it's important to not speak baby to just be a human being, you know,

and kind of grant them that dignity that you're recognizing them as a sovereign human being. Yes. And I'm thankful the other big thing besides just Zuma is that he's now up to seven hours and 20 minutes in a row of sleep. So we're getting there. That's huge. If I went to bed at seven o'clock-

That would be a small thing for other people, but that's a big thing. It's a big thing for us at this moment. At this moment. What about the small thing? The thing that immediately comes to mind for me is having a good night's sleep last night. Fantastic.

Which is small, but it's kind of big too. It's a small thing, but when I wake up and I've had eight hours and I feel good, like that's a small thing that's actually huge. And I'm grateful that my back pain is reducing. There you go. You? For me, it's just being able to exercise

during the pandemic, having that outlet, like having that connection to something and moving the body during this period of time. I think it's really been helpful and useful. And it's a small thing you can do every day. And sometimes it really is small for me. It's not like I'm like this, I'm no Ultraman, you know, like I'm not doing it.

That's gonna be the title of this podcast, roll on yet. Believe me, it is a small thing when I exercise, but I am doing, I do do it consistently and doing and really enjoying it. So that's it. Small things can be the big things. And then the big things can also be the obvious things, which is the next category.

So these things all bleed together to me. What's the obvious thing? I mean, the obvious thing is, beyond like my kids also being healthy and them all being at home right now and being able to enjoy them, doing the podcast. That's an obvious thing. Yeah. But I'm super grateful that I get to come in here and do this and have these conversations with you and other people and that I get to make a living doing something that I enjoy. Like, it's crazy.

How many people get excited when they wake up in the morning to go do the thing that actually puts food on the table? Like I don't take that for granted at all. I mean, actually I should say I do take it for granted unless I engage in this process and remember and connect with what a gift it is. Yeah, the gratitude to be able to do this for a living and have the, like it provides so much freedom, doesn't it?

Like you don't have to pour yourself into something that's like mind numbing, but that doesn't mean there aren't details. It's still work. There's still shit you don't wanna do. Every job has shit you don't wanna do. But yeah. I gotta call Adam and go over the outline this morning

before the podcast. He's so talkative. he's so chatty. You know, it's funny, I put the obvious thing in there as a place for us to put the family stuff so we didn't get in trouble by not putting them in the big thing. But I'm glad we did them as the big thing. And then the obvious thing.

I would say for me this year, for sure, last two years has been Can't Hurt Me and the people rallying to that book, you know, it literally has completely changed my credit score. So I appreciate that. My life too, but like my credit score has really benefited from it.

That's incredible. Yeah, yeah. And so, and just the fact that it's helped so many people and just to be a part of that. So thankful to David and Jennifer and Can't Hurt Me. That's cool. That's my big thing, obviously. And then- One fucking hard thing to be grateful for.

Yeah. This is my favorite category. I think it's the most important category because it compels you to reflect on things that were perhaps difficult or that you're enduring right now and trying to find where the lesson is in that. And I think those are the things that can really shift

your perspective in your life. So in my case, there are obvious fucking hard things to be grateful for like my alcoholism. I remember when I came into recovery and people would identify as a grateful alcoholic. And I was like, what is that? Like, why would you say that? That's insane.

Now I totally get that. I completely understand that. I'm on that page. Like this experience that I had of being, you know, in the throes of a malady that really took me to a dark place and then coming out of it makes me so grateful for those experiences that I've had

because it catalyzed the path that I'm on now. And I wouldn't be on this path without having endured the hardship and the pain and the difficulties and everything that that entailed back then. And I have a tremendous amount of gratitude for having weathered that. Similarly, for having weathered the financial, you know, sort of devastation that myself and my wife and our family endured not that long ago, like in the, you know, back in 2012, 2013, even back in, even before that,

starting around 2008, many years of really like living hand to mouth and trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life and how I was going to put food on the table. And I look back on that now and I really feel like it was like, you know, what was, what was required in order for me to be able to kind of carry the frequency that I carry now. And I'm just, I'm extremely grateful for that experience as difficult and as painful as that was. Yeah.

Mine isn't too dissimilar, not the alcoholism, but went through a divorce in 2012. We weren't married very long and it kind of ended very quickly and badly. And that kind of precipitated this crazy cycle where just everything went to shit for like months and months. And I remember like turning around, I don't wanna get too much detail.

We talked about it when I was a guest on the podcast. So if you wanna hear about it, that's probably the best place. What episode number was that? It was a long time ago. It was early. It was like we were in that Westlake office you had. Right.

But there was that cycle. And I know some, I have a neighbor who says, like he's going through a cycle like that, where you get hurt. You passed due on rent, your, you know, wife is gone. You're like, like those kinds of crazy cycles. And you just, at the time you, at first it was so painful to just continue to get kicked in the face. But, you know, and I even had a friend say, you know, in 10 years that'll just be a blip.

And at the time I didn't believe it. I thought like, you don't know, you know, how it feels, but it is a blip, you know, it was a blip. It was, it does feel that way. And not only that, just going through that period of time put me on a path to where I'm sitting here today because of that divorce, I moved to Kauai to cover a story. And the photographer who came and worked me on that, Leah Barrett, brought, you know, came up with this idea

to go cover a free diving competition, which led me, you know, to being there and covering it for the New York Times when the first American free diver died. And the competition, the first American, the first free diver ever to die at a competition happened. He happened to be the best American free diver, Nicholas Mavoli, and subject of One Breath. So that just triggered everything. Like without the divorce, none of that happens. Other things happen, which is fine. But like without that feeling, that pain

and going through all of that, you just never know what's on the other side of that. And so you have to get to, of course, you have to get to the other side. It's not as easy to get to the other side, depending on whatever someone's pain might be or circumstances might be. Some people don't get to the other side because they give into it or give up or, or, or it's so like, whatever they're going through is so bad that it prevents them from doing that. It's not always an internal fortitude that gets you to the other side.

I wasn't threatened, my life wasn't threatened, but there was plenty of times where I felt like things were going quite, I remember getting caught out in, while I was in Kauai, getting caught in overhead surf, couldn't get in and just kept, and there was nobody around. I mean, I had moments like that in that period. Like, this is it. Yeah, like you're like, whoa,

this is really the universe saying something. We're putting you in the wash cycle. Getting slammed around. But now I'm grateful for them. It's interesting how rear view vision is always 20-20. Yeah. The more that time passes. And our ability to prospectively cast that glance forward

is nothing but blindness, right? Like we can't see the path ahead of us. No. And when you're in that pain point, when somebody comes to you and says, you know, Adam, this isn't happening to you, it's happening for you. You're like, fuck off, right? That is like not what you wanna hear, no matter how true it may or may not be. But I can tell you, as somebody who's now in their mid

fifties, like when I look back on the most difficult, the most enduring moments that I've had to weather over the course of my life, without a doubt, they invariably were experiences that led to a better outcome in the future that I could not have predicted or foreseen in that moment. And the only kind of comfort that I can give somebody who is struggling, who finds themselves treading water or powerless in a situation in which chaos reigns and they can't see their way out of it is just to stay in it and break it down into the most finite of moments. To be present with what you're experiencing, try to do the next best right thing that you can do and to maintain your composure and equanimity. Like if you can navigate it from the perspective of a Jedi where externalities don't penetrate your core

and you can figure out how to remain true to yourself, that's all you can do. Yeah, that's a big deal. That's a big thing too. Which is really difficult to do. Especially when chaos descends, which is what I used to talk about when it was happening, was chaos descends and it does.

And there's nothing you can do about it. Sometimes chaos descends. DFO. It's your time. Don't freak out. It's your time. And so we're laughing about it because we've been through it.

But like when you're going through it, it is so painful. So when we talk about these kinds of things, you know, they are from experience to some degree. But, you know, if it wasn't for that period, I wouldn't be sitting across from Rich Roll right now. And I wouldn't be sitting across from Adam Skolnick. We wouldn't be talking about vegan Thanksgiving ideas. Exactly.

Getting to talk about how are we gonna have a plant-based Thanksgiving? Yes, let's pivot. Yeah. So every year I end up talking about this. I think Thanksgiving presents an amazing opportunity to kind of apply your plant-based skills, to be an environmentally conscious person,

trying to live a little bit more sustainably and compassionately with our animal friends. And it's difficult, especially when family members are involved or large gatherings, like how do you do it plant-based or try to introduce a plant-based bent to what is traditionally a foul. And I say that- With a W. Yeah, foul like poultry foul bent to the whole thing. But there are some easy ways to do it. I think when you set aside the turkey, let's face it,

turkey actually isn't that good. It's pretty dry and tasteless overall. So I don't get the big fascination with the whole thing. It probably tasted better when it was a wild turkey that they hit with an arrow. It seems more ceremonious than anything at this point. But from a pure like taste perspective, I challenge you to come up with an argument about why turkey tastes great and why you need to have it. So let's set that aside right now. Why you need to have it. Really? So let's set that aside right now. Why you need to have it?

No, why, come to me with an argument, like why turkey tastes so good and you just like, you crave it or whatever. It's the gravy. I think it's the ceremony around it. Yeah, it's the gravy, it's the seasoning, it's the stuffing. It's all the other stuff.

And all the other stuff is plant-based. So get rid of the turkey. It can be, yeah. You can have the potatoes and the sweet potatoes and the stuffing and the cranberry and all of that without any of the other stuff. You don't have to kill a bird. But if you're looking for guidance,

I got a couple things that you can pursue. The first would be to check out our Plant Power Meal Planner for like a self-serving plug here, but thousands of recipes that you can customize and plenty of stuff in there that is highly appropriate for Thanksgiving. So check that out. That's at meals.richroll.com.

Also, Julie and I several years ago, and it must've been, I don't know, six or seven years ago, did a series of videos that I think are still on my YouTube channel. I'll find links to all of them where we walked people through a variety of recipes around Thanksgiving, plant-based recipes.

So check the show notes for that. The Washington Post just came out with an article, vegetarian and vegan Thanksgiving recipes to anchor the menu. I mean, it's amazing when the Washington Post is writing articles about how to have a vegan Thanksgiving. No kidding. This is where we're at culturally, which is amazing.

It's really advanced, it's incredible. And our cookbook, The Plant Power Way, we've got tons of recipes in there that are also very Thanksgiving adjacent. Yep. Julie had an interesting idea the other day, like in kind of delicately, you know, trying to traverse this upcoming holiday with our daughters and their sensibility, she found this cookbook called The

Sioux Chef, Sioux spelled like Sioux, Native American, S-I-O-U-X. It's not a vegan cookbook, but most of the recipes in there can be easily veganized. But basically, it's traditional Native American cuisine, which is really the kind of baseline genesis of the whole Thanksgiving rigmarole to begin with, right? Yeah. I can't remember the author of this book, and I was going to bring it because she had it on the kitchen table and I forgot to bring it. But I was paging through it this morning and it's pretty cool. There's like a lot of amazing stuff in there

and it's really predominantly plant-based. So maybe check that out and make that like a little family adventure. Do you have any say in the menu? Do I have any say in the menu? Yeah, you personally. I have a say. It's. Do I have any say in the menu? Yeah, you personally. I have a say. It's questionable how much that say is weighed.

You say it after you eat it. Julie's in charge. Julie's in charge. No, but I'm good. You know, like she's amazing. Like when she cooks, like everybody's happy. Stay out of the way. Yeah, like I can only mess that up.

I think the larger question for the listener is, I mean, this would be a different conversation if we weren't in the middle of COVID because people aren't traveling. So most people aren't doing large extended family gatherings like we normally would be doing over this holiday. But that's not to say that that's not happening

in certain circumstances. And I think if you're going to be attending a dinner and hopefully doing it in a safe and socially distanced way, I don't know how that works, but you can bring a plant-based dish. Like you can't, you may not be able to commandeer the entire menu, but you could introduce a recipe that maybe ordinarily would be meat or dairy based, but do it in a plant-based way and use that as an opportunity to say, hey, look, this is great.

It tastes amazing and it doesn't have to have those other things in it. And perhaps that will prompt a discussion around this topic. Beautiful. Beautiful. I wanted to add one thing on piggybacking on the sous chef idea, and that is Seeding Sovereignty, which is Sovereign Nations, Native American advocacy, rights advocacy group that was kind of came together around the pipeline fight in North Dakota, Dakota Access Pipeline, Standing Rock. They are doing a fundraiser, virtual four miler. So for runners who want to get into it and we'll, we'll put the link. You can get to it through their Instagram. And it's being led by some really great indigenous runners. One is Jordan Marie Daniel, who is recently profiled in Sports Illustrated.

She's been an activist and advocate for years and years. She's local here in L.A. And so let me see. I wanted to bring that up. And she's going to be leading it. The other one is a woman who actually Bobby Jean Three Legs is her name. And she was one of the people that started the standing rock movement when she ran to DC to go advocate on behalf of her people.

I don't even know that. Yeah. So that's, she's, she's been called the voice of a generation. And so she's going to be one of the people running. So, you know, we're talking about some real amazing young activists and athletes that are part of this. And if you wanna be a part of it, you just have to sign up. I think it's like 20 bucks and you can sign up. Yeah, it's like the virtual Ahmaud Arbery run. I think that happened.

Similar, you just do it in your own space, your own pace over the course of three days. I think it's open from anywhere from the 25th to the 28th or something like that. And you can just, you sign up and you do it. We'll put the link in the show notes. Do you know the link offhand though? You know, I go- Seeding Sovereignty.

Yeah, Seeding Sovereignty, I think is it's, yes, it is. I'll put the link up. It's kind of this longer link. I'm on Seeding Sovereignty's website right now and it's there. So, seedingsovereignty.org. We'll link it up. The food is one thing,

but when we're talking about Thanksgiving and this holiday, the real bigger issue is strategies for managing tricky family relationships through the holidays and how to deal with the stress and perhaps a disagreement here or there around the holiday dinner table. Yeah, yes, that's happened. It's been known to happen.

I suspect it might be happening a little bit more frequently and vigorously than in past years, just because of where the culture is right now. Yes. And again, in typical times, this might be a little bit more heightened than normal, but with COVID, are people traveling or are they not traveling?

I mean- I can't tell. I mean, they're traveling, bro. People are traveling. I think Arizona's airport, there were some photos that went online that were like really crazy and another person photographed stuff in Vegas that seemed nuts. For our family, COVID, actually the disagreement

about whether to get together was happening because of COVID before the decision. It wasn't really even a disagreement. It was more just like the comfort level. Right, it's before you even get, it used to be like, at least we all agree that we're getting together, right? of COVID before the decision. It wasn't really even a disagreement. It was more just like the comfort level. Before you even get, it used to be like, at least we all agree that we're getting together. Yeah. Right?

Now it's like, should we, should, you need to come. No, we're not, yeah, there's disagreements about the safety about getting together. About the responsibility of even having it. So the strife occurs before the, you know, gathering even transpires. Right. Which adds a whole other layer of complexity, it wasn't really like strife,

but at some point, you know, like my sister and my mom were going back and forth and very polite, but kind of pointed language, like, you know, I think you need to do what's best for you. I wasn't judging you, you know, like really sweet stuff. And I'm just sending Zuma pictures to- Well, I'm sure everybody wants to see the baby. Yeah, that's part of it.

So it ends up, I'm going down to the desert where my parents live with April and Zuma and we're just gonna be the five of us having dinner. We all got tested ahead of time. I got tested this weekend. Obviously, the way I look at it with COVID is anytime you leave the house, you are taking a risk. That's just the way it is. It's airborne, that's life.

But we're very careful. I come here the way it is. It's airborne. That's life. But we're very careful. You know, I come here, I come to the farmer's market. I go exercise. That's basically it. We do everything else we're doing, like Instacart. We're not really going a lot of places. And it's been that way for a long time. But, you know, even that,

like my sister's family lives up in the Bay Area. So to come all the way down and then, you know, make that trek and having the kids having to use the restroom and any sort of interaction that freaked my sister out. So it was, you know, at first it was gonna be nine of us. Now it's five. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, for the purposes of this discussion, let's establish a hypothetical scenario in which an extended family has figured out the parameters under which they can gather and they are indeed gathering. So they're all together in one domicile somewhere preparing the holiday meal. Okay. And the inevitable sideways comment comes out

or the button that the parent installed gets pushed by that parent and the recipient gets triggered in a certain way. And what ensues is that predictable cycle that's been repeated for years, if not decades, that invariably ends up in the same place it always does, which is people not happy and whatever. right? So how do we reconfigure this or at least create a scenario in which a healthier, better outcome could perhaps transpire? There are certain obvious things that you can do.

You can avoid talking about politics. You can turn off the news. You can make your encounters more activity-based rather than conversational. Right. But I think this is really difficult and I don't have the bulletproof easy answer to all of these things.

But I think it's important first and foremost that if you find yourself preparing to enter into one of these encounters, that you do everything in your power to be as emotionally and spiritually fit as you possibly can. And to understand that the only thing you can control is your response to whatever is occurring. And when you maintain that focus on yourself rather than trying to control what other people are going to say or not say or behave, you you are meditating, that you have some kind of brief mindfulness practice so that if you find yourself off kilter, you can bring yourself back to your baseline, that you can be resilient in the face of disagreements or treacherous emotional water.

So self-care, I think, is absolutely critical and needs to be heightened rather than de-escalated in a situation like this. And I think if you're traveling, you're out of your environment and it becomes more difficult to carve out that time where it feels indulgent, like I don't have time

because I'm in somebody else's house or whatever. Then the conversation in my mind turns to healthy boundaries. Like you've got to create healthy boundaries around your own self-care routines, but also just around yourself in general and how you interact with other people. And that's to say that here's where it gets tricky

because if you find yourself in a heated situation, if you are in a circumstance in which you have a point of view that's different from somebody else, you don't want to be the person who avoids being honest or expressing your truth because you're afraid of losing the relationship or escalating a certain situation. But if you do kind of refrain, I think in the short run, that might be an effective strategy for like avoiding a scenario. In the long run though, it's not a good strategy because it will lead to resentment. And that resentment will brew and create a perhaps more perilous fracture that's difficult to heal. So there's short-term and long-term. But doesn't it depend on the kind of the, there's like, it's not that black and white.

There's like scores for the different variables, right? Like if it's a big thing, probably don't talk about the dinner table. You can have a little talk upstairs. If it's a small thing, I would include even politics in that, even though that feels really big right now. Like that's still, to me, can be considered a superficial disagreement between family members at the table. So which is the one, you know, to me, like, I'm like, I'm thinking in my mind, refrain, refrain, refrain.

Well, it's, I think it's, it's, in my mind, it's like, what's most important? What's most important? What's most important? And if a sideways comment gets slung out, it's up to you whether you bite on that or respond or not. You don't have to respond. You don't have to engage.

And that's part of the healthy boundaries, right? Like if you erect a healthy boundary around yourself or you make some rules for yourself, like I'm not going to engage with this, you can just let it go. And even if you feel your body contracting and you feel like the heat going up into your head, that doesn't mean that you have to do anything with that.

So that's not accommodation. If you've set up the boundaries and it falls outside the boundaries, then you're doing it on your own terms, therefore it's not accommodation. If you've set up the boundaries and it falls outside the boundaries, then you're doing it on your own terms, therefore it's not accommodation. Well, I think it's, again, it goes back to, like if it's about a political matter, like is this really important?

Like do we, you know, understanding, like you're not gonna change this person's mind, they're not gonna change your mind. Like do you have the acuity and the level of emotional maturity to not get triggered by that? Like it's a discipline, right? And if you can just be a full Jedi

and non-reactive in those scenarios, then that puts you in a position of power, right? Like if the button that your parent installed in you gets pushed and that parent knows that when they push that button, you're gonna react in a certain way. And then you don't react that way, that becomes confusing

and throws the whole program off the rails, right? And then you're in a position to be in a place where now you're not just mindlessly repeating a pattern that is on autopilot and has been your entire life. I love it. So set healthy boundaries, create the environment, it's conducive to the best outcome, meditate, get yourself together prior to going in.

And then really letting, it's like playing tennis when the ball is going and you know it's outside your boundaries, let it go. But if it's something right in your wheelhouse, it's super important to you, then it's okay to stand up for yourself in a way that's healthy, that's not degrading the other person and speak your mind. But I think it's important the manner in which you do that, right? If you do it in a confrontational way, then this is not going to go well. But if you

lead with curiosity and somebody says something you disagree with, and I've talked about this before, your response is, tell me more about that. And you just ask questions. You're able to converse about that subject, but you're depleting it of its electrical charge, which is really the problem, right? It's not the issue itself. It's all the emotions around it that then compel you to like say the thing that you know that you shouldn't and you can't help yourself and you do it anyway. I've always noticed that also as just,

I'm sure you've had the same way in an uncomfortable social situations. Just ask questions. You never have to say anything what you really believe. Let other people do all the talking. Yeah, just keep asking questions. Yeah. But you don't wanna be passive aggressive

with those questions either. No, no, not loaded questions. If you treat it like really with curiosity, that's a good way of doing it. Like a journalist. Like a journalist. Like if I'm speaking, if I'm on a story, like on the border wall story,

and I was hanging out at a bar with border patrol agents, I'm not, I wasn't rude to them. I wasn't like trying to debate them. I'm listening to them. Right. But how come I can do that, but not with a good friend or someone like that? Or a parent.

Or a parent, right. I mean, that's because you're living in the past. Like you're living in a past that doesn't exist anymore. So a really helpful technique that I've employed in this situation is to, you know, it's related to your border patrol example. Pretend that the person you're speaking to has like a television set around their head and that you're watching them on TV. Like it's not, like then it's like, oh, they're just saying that thing. Like you're not getting all emotionally worked up

when you see somebody on television. Maybe you do. You've never watched TV with me. I throw things. But like, oh, this is a program, right? This is a program. This person is running a program. And I don't wanna run my program

because I have a program too. Right. And that allows you to put a little bit of objective distance between what that person is saying and how you react or respond to it. And I think ultimately, remember, it's not about them and you can't control them. All you can do is control yourself.

So just keep returning the focus onto your own behavior and response. Love it. And I think Rumi said it best, did he not? He did, I love what you have here. Yeah, he said, yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.

Exactly. So maybe think about that a little bit. Yes. All right, what's next? Teachable moment. COVID is a never ending endurance race. Yes. So you found this story.

This is a great article by podcast alum, Alex Hutchinson, who is an amazing journalist. He's also an incredible runner. Is that right? He wrote an amazing book called Endure. He was on the podcast several years ago. Can't remember what episode number that is, but I'll link it up in the show notes. He's one of my favorite writers. He's a columnist at the Globe and Mail, which is where this is from. Yeah, he lives in Canada. And just really, he has a very thoughtful,

analytical, scientific lens on the intersection of sport, particularly endurance sports and larger issues. And I kind of put them in the same category as like a David Epstein in the books that he's written. They share kind of a similar sensibility in that regard. But anyway, he wrote this article called COVID-19 is like running a marathon with no finish line. What does sports science say about how we can win? And I thought it was really insightful in the way that he compares how we approach and weather difficulty in our daily lives and how this kind of plays out in running. And he does it in the context of the idea of finish lines. Like no matter how long the race is that you're running, whether it's a marathon or an ultra marathon, there is a finish line. And just knowing A, that there is a finish line and where that finish line is, helps us stay engaged with the

process of arriving at that finish line. But us stay engaged with the process of arriving at that finish line. But here we are with COVID, in the early days, we kind of thought there would be this finish line. We didn't know exactly where it was. And in recent months, we're all now living in this liminal space where like, is there a finish line? Where is it? We don't know. It could be a year. Some are saying this, some are saying that. And that's creating emotional challenges with how we engage with the world because we don't know where that ending point is. And these promises that like maybe the vaccine is coming is almost works against you is what he's arguing, right? Well, because it keeps getting moved, right? Right. Or like now you think you have a finish line,

but when that does move inevitably or possibly, then you really get deflated. Right, right. And that's like the Navy SEAL example, right? Like where they try to fuck with you by trying to convince you that you've completed this task only to then extend it. Right, like in Can't Hurt Me,

David talks about during Hell Week with specifically a particularly sadistic instructor was leading them back from Chao back to the pain. And he just, they thought they had a two mile run back. And all of a sudden the instructor takes them on this circuitous route and people in his boat crew were just like gutted. And we're like, what the fuck?

And all the other boat crews too. But he kind of got his boat crew together and was like, no, we're staying on this guy the whole time. Because to David, that's what he's built for. That's what he talks about. There is no finish line. You're training for life. You're not training for the race.

He's built for it. And every race that he does, as soon. There is no finish line. You're training for life. You're not training for the race. He's built for it because he's- And every race that he does, as soon as he crosses the finish line, he goes and does more. Perfect example. He just did it this past weekend. The JFK 50 miler in Maryland.

He did the 50 miler in 830 mile splits and then- 825. 825 and then went back to pace his buddy for another 11 or 12 miles. It's a practice like he, I don't think he would ever just finish and like celebrate. Like he compels himself to then go do something hard right away.

He did 25 pushups after finishing Moab. It's also similar to this thing. I had Joe DeSena on the podcast recently. It hasn't aired yet. He's the founder of Spartan Race. Okay. And he's got this farm in Vermont. And prior to Spartan Race, he created this other race on his property.

Yeah. And the whole idea was to create the most difficult thing ever. And the hardest part of it was that he wouldn't tell people when the race was starting or what the race was or how long it was or when it would end. And it was that mental game of not knowing like, how long am I gonna be like lifting logs and trudging through frozen ponds

or whatever it is that he had them doing. Right. Not knowing when it was gonna end was the thing that just broke most people. And what Alex Hutchinson is talking about in this article is that very thing, like how the unknowing, the mystery around how this whole COVID thing is gonna get resolved creates a paralysis in people

because we can't see the finish line. He cites a term from a German physiologist, teleo anticipation, like future anticipation of an ending. And he like, I think he goes through some science, sports science on it where he looks at, I guess the studies that have proven the first and last mile are always the fastest by far of any marathon or any race over 10K or something.

No matter how long the race is. Any race over 10,000 meters. The last, you know, whatever, 500 meters or half kilometer is always the fastest with the exception of perhaps the first kilometer. Right, that's right. And it was because of just that. You know you're gonna end, so you give it all out.

And there was another study that, you know, when people were on the treadmill for however long, and then when they got off the treadmill and they were told, oh no, you gotta get back on there for 10 more minutes, that's when their performance really sunk. It wasn't that they couldn't have just stayed on for 10 minutes if they'd known it was 10 minutes longer,

they probably would have been their fastest 10 minutes. But because they were told that was it, it was over. And the whole thing is couched in this, you know, virtual ultra, which is really interesting. Right, it's Mike Wardian, who's an amazing ultra runner and this, this backyard ultra race where virtually across the world, these ultra runners would run this, I think it was like a four mile loop. Yeah, four miles every hour, right? Yeah. Or every, was it every, Yeah, every hour. And it's a last man standing thing, like whoever's still going.

And like at one point, Mike just can't go anymore and he gets a second wind. I can't remember the exact. His wife wouldn't let him quit. Yeah, exactly. He goes, I don't feel like doing this anymore. She goes, that's not a good reason. Right, and why does he feel that?

Like he's certainly physically capable of going longer, but it's the not knowing, like, cause he's competing, he doesn't know how long these other people are gonna keep going. Well, part of it also though, like in the story, Alex points out that like, after they got to a hundred miles,

like the first 24 hours, cause 24 hours you're at a hundred. After you got to a hundred miles, yeah, because it was like, I guess it must've been five, whatever it was. Once they got there, like the next hour, half the field just failed. Yeah, they all dropped out.

They had their own finish line in mind. They hit that benchmark. I just wanna do it for 24 hours. Because that's how they got that far by focusing on the 100 mark, right? But once that was eclipsed, then what are they looking at? And you can't stay motivated, right? It's very interesting.

So the point is to embrace the no finish line mentality. Right, so he says in this piece about teleo anticipation, using endurance sports as their medium, researchers in the subfield have probed what happens when you hide the finish line, surreptitiously move it, or take it away entirely. For those of us tempted by promising vaccine updates to start fantasizing about an end of the pandemic, these researchers have some advice. Don't. Don't. Right? So what do you do with that, right? And the conclusion that he draws that I think is so instructive and informative is that we need to stop asking, like, can I make it to

the finish? And instead ask ourselves, can I keep going? And when you're in that place of, can I keep going, which is really a mindfulness practice of rooting you in the present moment, you're more likely to be able to, you know, tap into the reservoirs of motivation required to, you know, continue to move forward. And that's also a good strategy for the chaos cycles when that descends, you know, can I keep going? It's a good strategy for anything, like whether you're an endurance runner or just somebody, you know,

who's trying to make it through the pandemic without going insane. Because you can keep going. That's really what it comes down to. And that's the point. You're a human being, you're built to keep going. And's really what it comes down to. And that's the point. You're a human being, you're built to keep going. And then in the example that he gives about Mike Wardian, like after he outlasted everybody else,

then he wanted to keep going and they wouldn't let him. Right, he ends up winning. He ends up going 60 plus hours and then the guy didn't show up for the last, the latest hour and that was over and he was like, bummer. Right. So it's illustrative once again, of the distinction between our mental capacity

and our physical capacity and how the mind is truly the limiter, not the body. Yeah, beautiful. All right, we will link up that article in the show notes. It's in the Globe and Mail, right? Yeah, it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And with that, let's take a quick break.

Let's do it. And we'll be back with a little show and tell and listener questions. All right, we're back. I feel good, man. How do you feel. I feel good, man. How do you feel? It feels good, man. Interesting you should say that

because that's what we're gonna talk about right now. Yeah. For show and tell, I don't think we had a documentary recommendation last time we got together, did we? It's been a while since the Rich Roll Film Club has invaded my life. I think we need to get back to our roots,

which is that truly this is a documentary-focused podcast. Yeah. Our documentary this week that we're gonna talk about, what an amazing film. It's called Feels Good, Man. This movie, I feel like in many ways is a close cousin or kind of important tangential viewing to movies like The Social Dilemma or The Great Hack. It's a deep dive into artistic iconography and how powerful that can be

and how symbols can become the underpinning of political movements, I guess is one way of putting it. This movie, it premiered at Sundance, but I don't feel like it's gotten its due in the kind of streaming universe that it should, because I thought it was extraordinary. Yeah, it came out this year. Explain what it is. 2020, yeah. So to me, it's one of the best documentaries

I've seen in years. Like the Social Network, Social Dilemma was good, but like that kind of follows in line with the kind of the Netflix documentaries that are coming out, which are compelling, great information, but it's not like amazing filmmaking. This is an amazing film. Like it really is.

It's made by a true artist and a filmmaker. Yeah. That tells a very important story, but does it in a uniquely creative way. Yeah, and it tells a story of Matt Fury, a great cartoonist who created Pepe the Frog. And this book, he had a book, what was it called?

A boy's club or- Boy's life, boy's club. Yeah, something like that. In a comic book series. Comic book series, which included Pepe the Frog and a dog and like four characters. And they were just basically burners. They were like Lebowski's.

They'd party, they'd get drunk, they'd smoke weed. And then they'd wake up and like, you know, fuck around. Right, he's like 20 something post-collegiate, nihilistic, like party dudes that kind of just all live together in a shitty apartment. Right. Do whatever. And it was a very popular series, a very funny series,

like fellow cartoonists kind of chime in and talk about it. But it ends up, Pepe the Frog ends up cut to the 2015, even before that, but becomes an alt-right mascot, especially in 2016. And ends up, Pepe the Frog ends up on the hate watch list or something for the Anti-Defamation League. And all, there's nothing that, obviously that was never the artist's intention.

It was just like a fun comic right and he ends up being like this this really powerful potent figure thanks to 4chan and the power of memes where it really is first where it took yeah took root and so this this movie follows matt fury and into the into this dark world of 4chan it also is an explainer of 4chan, an explainer of kind of the alt-rights rise up in support of Donald Trump, explainer of a lot of the chaos that we have now. This is an explainer for that.

So it's this story about a really nerdy, cool artist and his friends in San Francisco that becomes this kind of lens which to see the last several years. I found it utterly fascinating for so many reasons. First of all, you've got Matt Fury, who's just this sensitive, sweet artist, right? Who likes to draw and play with his daughter.

And he just seems like a cool dude, right? Loves frogs. He's been drawing frogs since he was a kid. He's been drawing frogs his whole life. And my kind of entry point to this is, I remember specifically when the frog emoji started showing up in certain Twitter account bios, right? Like clearly it was a symbol that meant something more

than this is a cute frog. And I started to learn about kind of who Pepe the Frog was and some origins, but it's always been completely confounding and confusing to me. Like Pepe the Frog is a symbol of a certain political sensibility. Like how did that happen?

And this movie unpacks the whole thing and it's far more interesting than you could possibly imagine. Yeah, and it's twisted and dark and really fucked up and then has a really great ending where there's a twist to it. But yeah, I mean, to me, it was a reminder of how out of it I was in 2016,

because I didn't know about Pepe the Frog. I was busy swimming in the ocean like five days a week. You weren't on 4chan? I was not on 4chan. So like you said, Matt creates this character. He's been drawing frogs his whole life. And the, the kind of inflection point was in the MySpace era, he would take JPEGs or screen grabs of some of his pages from his comic books and post them on his page. Right. And the one that really tipped it over was a picture of Pepe, you know,

this character he created, Pepe, who was like peeing in a urinal with his pants down around his ankles. Cause like, who does that, right? Cause he had like a buddy, he's like, he remembered being like 10 and like walking on his buddy who had his pants, like that's what he does. All the way down at his ankles.

Cause it feels good. A urinal, like who would do that? And his roommate's like, what are you doing? And he's like, feels good, man. And there's a weird expression on his face that's very Mona Lisa-esque, like you're not quite clear. It's kind of a smirk, a knowing smirk, but you're not quite crystal clear

on where this character is coming from. And ultimately that finds its way onto 4chan when 4chan exploded, which is a very unlimited, anonymous space for people to express their opinions. And it's kind of retrograde in that regardgrade, retrobate in that regard, right? Because everybody's anonymous there, people say things they wouldn't ordinarily say. Yeah. And it was kind of owned by, oh, sorry.

Yeah, go ahead. It was kind of like dominated by really sad kind of people who are at loose ends, who- Lonely, disenfranchised young males for the most part. In cells, in specific. Well, that came later. That came later, but it kind of grew into that. But this is kind of a breeding ground for what would become like the incel movement.

Right. And at some point along the way, this community adopts Pepe the Frog and makes it their own. Like they just exchange memes. Like at first 4chan becomes big because like artists are exchanging memes in funny ways. And it becomes, it's all about being ironic

and I don't care about anything. Right. And you know, like this nihilistic art kind of space. And then it gets. But then it tips into this other world where it becomes a symbol for the alt-right movement. And when Trump enters, it takes on an additional meaning. And then it explodes outside of 4chan into the greater political landscape. And we travel with Matt as he tries to figure out how to navigate this

whole thing where this innocent character that he created suddenly is completely out of his control and stands for something that he never intended it to stand for. And what do you do about that? And, you know, and kind of how he grapples with that as this, you know, meme and this character continue to evolve over time. And so it's really, you know, it's kind of a polemic about artistic iconography. It's a portrait of this young artist and what happened to him. And it's a case study in the power of imagery and how that kind of fuels culture,

political culture and culture at large. You know what, also a couple of things, when basically what happened, how it ended up in the Trump campaign and a vehicle for alt-right was people were exchanging memes and then Instagrammers were starting to raid 4chan to get the cool memes and be the first to put them on. And so then the 4chan to get the cool memes and be the first to put them on. And so then the 4chan, like the real kind of hardcore,

I hate everybody 4channers, including myself, saw that and were like, get these normies out of here. And so they started putting like swastikas on him or making Pepe like Hitler mustache. Originally just to be a chilling effect on the normies from stealing their hero and spreading it in the greater internet space. But then someone put Trump's hair on Pepe

and that kind of changes everything. And we don't get too into that, but like that does change everything. And to me, what that did, a couple of things I thought of watching this. One is it's sad, man. It's sad that we live in this winner versus loser society where people feel that disenfranchised from the world

and don't have an outlet that's constructive and ends up being destructive. 4chan ends up being linked to the Isla Vista mass shooter. The rise of the alt-right and coming out of the woodwork, a lot of that to me is based in disillusion and darkness within oneself and within society feeling disenfranchised. I'm not making excuses for bad behavior.

I'm not trying to make excuses for a shooter. But my point is is that we have lots of people living in school. You'll watch this and you'll see people living in their basement, living in filth and feeling like they're completely disengaged because of the way they've been treated or because of the course of their life.

And sort of taking pride in that. And taking pride in that. But at the same time, it speaks to the conditions that we've created in our society. Right. Because we don't have like a mental health network in a way, we don't have like a real community a lot of times where there's a place

to catch people who are falling and help them feel empowered. And so what ends up happening in this, in real life, I say in this movie, what ends up, what really happened was all of a sudden these basement hacks got anointed with purpose. And the purpose became fueling this whole Trump theme.

And so it's very interesting to me- With the goal really of just fomenting chaos. Just fomenting chaos and pissing off liberals and pissing off normies. And which is really, we've been triggered by this this entire time. And some bad people got involved and made it, you know, obviously made it very potent

in the way they've advertised here and there. And one of them is interviewed in this. But it's just so interesting, like the power of purpose. You know, I know that's a weird place to go with it, but like all of a sudden these people that had no purpose, the purpose was 4chan now have purpose and all that kind of- Became very energized around that and unified.

Yeah, and that purpose is powerful. So that to me, that just speaks to the power of purpose in a way. And that's what conspiracy theories give people, gives people purpose. That's what like, that's what Q gives people. And a lot of people are lonely and just feeling disillusioned. There's a gamifying aspect to it too.

Like when you have all of these people living in filth in basements, and I'm not making that up, like that's portrayed in the movie. Yeah. And suddenly they can organize around this character and create real world ramifications for that and do it together and be in constant communication

with each other, it does become like a video game. It does. And then the conspiracies and these, then it leaks into the mainstream and now it's not just people in basements. Now it's like your uncle that you're gonna have to see at Thanksgiving, you know what I mean? Or your aunt, you know, like literally.

Right. And so like, I think you sent me this Yuval Noah Harari. Yuval Noah Harari, who's also been on the podcast. He wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times when the world seems like one big conspiracy. And he basically, you know, deconstructs that very thing. Yeah, it's just the fact that what, I think here's a quote,

"'The skeleton key of all global cabal theories, it unlocks the world's mystery and offers people entree into an exclusive circle, the group of people who understand. It makes me smarter and wiser than the average person. And even elevates me above the intellectual elite and the ruling class, professors, journalists, politicians. I see what they overlook.

And in the case of Pepe the Frog specifically, you had this massive 4chan community and they really were the only ones who understood what Pepe the Frog meant. And that was the appeal because when these memes would leak into broader culture and get misinterpreted, they were the ones who were in the know and could kind of regale in the irony of all of that.

Yeah, so it's a movie about art. It's about purpose. It's about, it's a critique, social critique of our society. It's, there's a lawsuit with Alex Jones. It's really good. Right, right, right. So yeah, I mean, that, you know,

begins from a place of not wanting to rock the boat. Like when Pepe starts becoming another thing, he could have put his foot down and filed a intellectual property claim. He could have come out for a fortune. And he was like, I'm an artist, I don't wanna do that. And then it got super out of control. The Anti-Defamation League not only puts Pepe the Frog

on its hate symbol list, they put his name, it's the fact that his name is there too. His name is linked to it, yeah. And he wants his name off of that. And that becomes a battle that he gets involved in pursuing and ultimately ends up- He's not good at pursuing. Ends up, yeah.

I mean, he's not like, he's not suited for that kind of thing, right? No, that's not what he's here for, no. But he does suck it up enough to go after Alex Jones, which is a crazy story in its own right. He does. And how that plays out. The one person that he,

well, he ends up getting a law firm involved to try to at least get Alex Jones from being able to sell a poster of Pepe the Frog on it. I mean, it's a really amazing documentary. And the director is quite a cartoon artist himself. Oh, that's great. I believe he did all the animation sequences in it, which are very well done. So check that out. I think it's on Netflix. Is it on Netflix or was it on Amazon? No, I rented it on iTunes. It was on Amazon. It's not yet on Netflix. I think that's why maybe it's having a discoverability issue. If it was on Netflix,

everybody would be watching this movie. I think I got it on Amazon, but check it out. I put it in like in the, you know, in a place like Capturing the Freedmen's or R. Crumb, like some really seminal, like indie period documentaries that were like- Yeah, R. Crumb is a great example, I think. The other aspect of it that I think is interesting

and worth a few minutes discussing is the extent to which what happened on 4chan was fueled by the anonymity aspect of that community, right? The fact that everybody is anonymous there, they can say all these things and they're detached from the real world ramifications of that or having to take personal responsibility for what spills out into the real world, like what happened in Isla Vista, because they're shrouded in anonymity. And I think right now we're grappling

with how to police or regulate the social media space when it comes to verification. There is a strong argument that, for example, everybody on Twitter should be verified or on facebook like you need to be able to establish that you are actually the person that you claim to be the counter argument to this which i talked about with jack dorsey when he was on the podcast is that anonymity is important for dissident voices that feel threatened by speaking out publicly, that they require some level of anonymity in order to be whistleblowers, and that that has to get valued

against the verification argument. But I think when you tabulate all of this, like what is the larger threat? Is it making sure that we're protecting that dissident voice, which I think is incredibly important? Or is it more important to enact measures that prevent bot farms from creating millions of fake accounts out there that are spreading disinformation? I don't propose to have the solution to this, but these are the conversations that we need to have in order to figure out how to move forward here. Yeah. Because anonymity create gives you the hubris to be able to say whatever you want. And then those, the language creates the environment to that ends up fomenting actual action. Right. And, and, and anonymity allows

you to be whoever you want to be and convince people that you're somebody that you're not. It's a very good question. You know, I remember when we talked about it earlier today, I was thinking even journalism has, I think, an anonymity problem. For a long time, it was, I mean, I think for most of the 20th century, anonymous sources were kind of not appreciated in big papers. And I think, if I remember correctly, with the Watergate reporting with Woodward and Bernstein, it's been a long time since I saw the film or read the book, but all the president's men. I just watched it like a month ago.

Yeah, but I seem to remember like the fact that Deep Throat was anonymous source was pissing Benjamin Bradley off. And like, he didn't wanna run the story on an anonymous source. Well, the whole movie is basically Woodward and Bernstein trying to browbeat Bradley into letting them publish their story and him constantly saying, you don't have enough. Get better source. Yeah. And so now though, you can read almost any story about like, it could be sports, it could be movies, it could be a political story and anonymous sources are so prevalent.

And I think that's problematic too, to stories. And I think that leads to distrust of even these news sources, because if it's just an anonymous source, anyone could make it up because look at 4chan, people are making stuff up. So it's like, it's bled into this massive where you can't discern it.

So then when you actually have a name on it, do we really believe that too? Right. So it's, we're in this place where it's really hard. And there's an Atlantic journalist, Adam Schwerer, something, he's in the movie. And he talks about the whole point of some of this is just to flood the zone with shit.

Oh, I remember that guy. Yeah, yeah, just flood the zone with shit. So, I remember that guy. Yeah, just flood the zone with shit so you can't tell what's real and what's not. And that's kind of where we're at. So how do you solve that? I think actually verifying more people is a good way of doing it. Yeah, because this problem is not gonna go away.

It's only going to grow and become exacerbated. And a good reason to believe in that position is the advent of deep fake technology, which leads us into the next article that I wanted to talk about, which is this beautiful New York Times piece called, Do These AI-Created Fake People Look Real to You? And what's amazing about this piece is the kind of dynamic visual aesthetic or quality that the New York Times created where

you scroll through this article and you see the faces like changing races and their features are changing and it's astounding. Like these people look exactly like real people and they're just all computer generated. They're all made up. And then it gets into how you can tell like these tiny little details, but that's going to get worked out. Like it's not going to be possible for us to determine who's a real person and who isn't. No. And what happens when that tips into video and audio, they can almost do it perfectly now with audio. Right. Then it becomes impossible to decipher what's real and what's not. And I think that that tips me in the favor of verification. Like, you know, when you look at these photographs,

these aren't even real people, but they look exactly like real people. We're entering into this crazy uncanny valley where, you know, fact and fiction are impossible to determine. And then what's gonna happen is it's to become even more fractured where some people are like, I'm only going to be on X platform because they verify everybody. Well, other people will be happy to be on the unverified platform. Right.

Well, we're seeing that now with Twitter and Parler. Parler is the, right? Yes. It's crazy. But there's also other problems. Like we were talking about this, like one of the podcasts, like it's a top rated Apple podcast that tries to, like the description on Apple is that we are a,

we don't align with any party, like independent thinkers only, you know, thinking political podcasts. It's a far right podcast. Like there's gotta be better moderation across all, that's a social dilemma thing, and verification across all these platforms because it's irresponsible otherwise.

Because those types of podcasts, I'm not gonna say who it is, but those types of podcasts and those types of entry points, like Milneu, like the- Stefano Milneu from Rabbit Hole. From Rabbit Hole. Those are the entry points

to this like crazy anti-information space. Right. And it's dangerous, so. Well, agreeing on the problem is one thing, but finding a valid solution is another thing because who gets to be, you know, how do you police that? It's a good question.

Who's in charge? And once you start making value judgments, then you're in a world of shit because you can't, you just, it's impossible. And then they keep saying in this movie in Feels Good Man, the genie's already out of the bottle. It might already be. It might. Yeah. We've unleashed the Kraken. Stop saying that. You don't know what a Kraken is. Stop saying that. All right. Moving on.

Win of the week. You got a win of the week, right? I do, yeah. I don't really have one. I filed a report yesterday. It should be out soon. I don't know exactly now when. It'll be out either this week or next week, hopefully.

For the New York Times Sports, it is Alenka Artnik, a Slovenian freediver, dove to 114 meters, breaking a world record in a freedive in Egypt in the Red Sea. That happened on November 7th. I was late to this story, but it's the first time I've covered freediving, actually, in quite a while.

Right. But it was fun to be able to get back in there and tell a Lenka story. And she was third, she's 39 now. She was 30 when she found free diving, just at a pool in Slovenia in the capital. She was partying a lot, drinking a lot, kind of self-sabotaging, not, didn't have purpose.

And just by crashing this workout in a pool where people were just like, literally just doing dynamic apnea, which is doing laps in a pool where people were just like, literally just doing dynamic apnea, which is doing laps in a pool, not in beautiful blue water, not in Egypt's Red Sea, just doing that, she joined them and was immediately hooked. And like the next day went out and bought her first pair of plastic bi-fins, the long fins.

And, you know, over the next few years, she did it a few times and did depth, got to 28 meters in her first class and then got to 49 meters by 2015. And then when her father died, her mom, mother had died in 2009. She sold the family house with her sister and moved to Egypt to train full time. And to see what you can do, you know, it just speaks to her incredible athleticism, focus, deep relaxation in the water. 114 meters. I mean, that's, you know, that is, you know, 370 or something like 350 feet. That's crazy. Yeah. You know, that's like, you're swimming the length of a 70 story building

by the time you get back up to the top. It's a three minute, 41 second dive. And, you know, I get into the detail of it and how women's freediving has really blossomed in the last couple of years with Alenka and Alessia Cecchini, who's an Italian with the first to break the great Natalia Molchanova's record. Hanako Hirosa, who's from Japan.

These three women have really electrified the sport. And it's really exciting to be able to write about another great water woman, a powerful person and a very exciting record. Her backstory sounds similar to Nick Mavoli. It does sound similar. It is similar. The difference is Nick was always a stud athlete.

Like he was a great athlete growing up. Alenka, and I didn't have enough words to get fully into this, but Alenka really never had that. She was never a great BMX cyclist. She was never a sporty person. She kind of was like drifting. And there was part of her inside,

she said that she knew she could do something great, but she just didn't know what. She just didn't have, and she wasn't really attracted to the get married, have a house type of thing, have babies. That wasn't where she was at at that point in her 20s. She didn't want that. But she didn't know where to put herself.

So she was spending a lot of time out at night. And then when she found this, it really clicked. And that's what people are saying, like that she moves as if she's dissolved in the water, like her power feels effortless. And that's the kind of relaxation you need to be able to go super deep and come up and not burn all your oxygen.

It's such a weird specific skillset that is so much about holding back. Yes. When you think of athleticism, you think of exertion. Right. And this is the opposite of that. Well, right. I mean, I talk about it in the story

is like one of the biggest components of a deep dive is the free fall. And so she kicks, really, if you go out and you're on a dive line and you're doing one of these courses, what they teach you is you kick for the first 10 meters hard and then you kick 33 feet, then you kick the next 33 feet a little softer

because you're already becoming somewhat negatively buoyant. But the first 30 feet, you're positively buoyant. So if you stop kicking, you'll get pushed back up to the surface, especially if you're in a wetsuit. And then beyond 20 meters, you can really just stop kicking and you'll sink. But when you're going to 100 plus meters,

you can't do that at 20 meters, it'll just take too long. So she kicks all the way down to 70 meters. From 40 to 70, it's every little while, it's not much, but she, and she has a monofin, so she's kind of doing this dolphin kick. And at 70, she just goes super relaxed, doesn't move, tries not to think at all, and then just lets herself get carried down like a tractor beam. Wow.

Yeah, and for people that are listening who are unfamiliar with freediving, we're talking about swimming straight down. You're not swimming laterally, you're swimming straight down along a cord, like a line that marks your distance. That's right. It's unbelievable.

What was the world record prior? 113, she shared it with Alessia. So they shared a record. So what happened was Natalia- And is that a world record across the board or for women? For women. So the record is held by Alexei Molchanov for men at 130 meters.

And Alexei was the son of Alexei Molchanov for men at 130 meters. Okay. And Alexei was the son of Natalia Molchanova, who is the best women's freediver ever. She had 41 world records, world champion over 20 times. She disappeared on a dive in 2015. It shows you how there is a thin margin for error here. And so she died in 2015. And then when she died, it was like this void in the sport. No one thought, no one had ever broken a hundred meters besides Natalia. And this is all in one breath,

by the way, if you're curious, if this is really interesting to you, this is all in there, at least up to Natalia's dominance. Then Natalia disappears and no one thinks, like all of a sudden the men's draw is really exciting. Alexi versus Will Trubridge, who's gonna be the best. But on the women's side, there's like no one to step in. And then Alessia, who's only 29 now or 27 now, comes into vertical blue in 2017, 17, no, 2018. And she and Hanako take turns breaking Natalia's record. And then all of a sudden, that was 2017.

In 2018, Alenka shows up out of nowhere and ties Alessi's record at 105. And so now the three of them just progressively have gotten all the way to 114. I mean, that's like a level that even Natalia never approached. And who knows if she ever would have got there. That shows you the level that these women are at.

It's really impressive. That's incredible. Did I tell you about my experience trying to learn freediving in Malta? No. We didn't talk about this? I don't think so. So I was in Malta,

it was a year and a half ago or something like that. I don't think we talked about this. It was a year and a half ago or something like that. I don't think we talked about this. And there's a well-known, former world champion free diver that lives out there. Whose name escapes me right now. And I'm so embarrassed that I can't remember his name at the moment.

But he was friends of one of the friends that we have on the island, our friend, Kurt Arrigo. And Kurt's like, hey, you should go meet this guy. So we go out to Gozo, the other island, like next to Malta, where he's got this whole setup out there and he trains like up and coming competitive free divers. Really?

And I spent the better part of a whole day working with this guy, doing all kinds of breath techniques. And he was teaching me like how to do, you know, the inhale and the exhale. Like most of it was spent at his house, like learning that aspect of it. And then we went out to this, you know, kind of deep hole where he takes people out and got, you know, the whole setup on and the fins and the whole thing. Right. How'd you do? And I did terrible. I was terrible at it. Could you not equal right? How'd you do? And I did terrible.

I was terrible at it. Could you not equalize? Was that the problem? Yeah, I can't equalize. Like literally I'm only down like 15 meters or whatever and just feels like my head's gonna explode. So that's it, yeah. I could not figure out how to equalize.

And I was like, I couldn't crack that nut. Yeah, and that happens. So the breath holding is fine. Like I'm pretty good with that. He didn't have you go head up and try to equalize that way? Yeah, he did. He was giving me all that stuff,

but I couldn't figure it out. Because head down equalization, you can't use the same techniques you would like scuba diving. It's a slightly different technique. It's called, it's Frenzel instead of Vala Slava, I think is the original kind. And so it's just, it's basically,

you're not using your diaphragm, you're using just your sinuses, you know, your soft palate. But so a lot of people, some people just can't equalize beyond 10 meters head down. It's just normal. My first class, I had the same problem. It was, I mean, I literally felt like scanners and your head, like my head was gonna crack wide open.

But don't feel bad. It took me like 20 professional free divers to finally be able to get to a hundred feet. That's good though, a hundred feet, man. Yeah, but you could do it. It's just a matter of cracking that one equalization thing. And that just is a muscle you build up. I believe everyone can equalize to that level.

It's just a matter of doing it. All right, let's do some listener questions. Before we launch into the first question, I do wanna mention that a question that we fielded in our last roll-on had to do with eating disorders among males. And we had a discussion about that. with eating disorders among males. And we had a discussion about that.

That prompted some interesting emails and feedback that I was on the receiving end of. Lots of people saying that they were happy that we were talking about this and maybe talk to this person or that person, or get somebody on the podcast who has experience with this because it is kind of an important emerging conversation to have.

And then boom, just the other day, there's a new article on Runner's World in which Jesse Thomas shares his experience as a young college track and field athlete with bulimia. And I know Jesse's been on the podcast, his wife has as well, and his wife, Lauren Fleshman, talked about eating disorders among young athletes. But this is the first time that Jesse has spoken publicly about this battle that he's had over the years. And I think that

that just speaks to the fact that this is, you know, an important subject. And I think what's weird is that as stigmatized as this is amongst women and particularly women athletes, it's oddly almost more stigmatized for men, which is strange because men don't, there's a weird like vulnerability to it, I guess, that the idea that a man would have a eating thing. And I think it's really powerful and courageous that Jesse stepped up and, you know,

shared his experience with all of this. I agree. And there's something, must be something to the fact that the pressure on men isn't the same as the pressure on women societally, but obviously when in sport it is. Right. You know, training to make weight,

training to get faster, training to like look better, whatever it is. So we'll link that article up in the show notes as well. It's called Reds, Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport, Reds for Runners. And it opens with Jesse's story. All right, let's do a question. All right, let's go.

This is the international edition. So we're starting in London, starting in London. Hi, Rich and Adam. This is Adrian Grove edition, so we're starting in London. Hi, Rich and Adam. This is Adrian Grove from London, England. Firstly, thank you for your amazing podcasts. I was introduced to them through the wonderful Chris Evans, and they really are a ray of sunshine during these challenging times. My question to you both is about real conversation and communication. As an actor for 25 years, I've noticed that during breaks in rehearsal or on set,

whereas everyone would sit around, drink coffee, eat and talk, now there's silence as people sit by themselves checking the latest social media feed or how many likes they have. And on social events, too too conversation is stilted as the the ping of notifications draws people away and you're left wondering why I'm here so my question to you both is how do I stop getting frustrated with my friends and colleagues um how do I stop feeling like an out of touch dinosaur at 52? And how do we as a society promote real conversations? Thank you so much. Once again, absolutely, you can play this on air. And I look forward to the next roll on and the next podcast. to the next roll on and the next podcast?

That's a great question. Thank you for that. Yeah. I think the best way to open up my response to that is to hearken it back to that Rumi quote, right? Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I'm wise, so I'm changing myself. Yeah.

We can be upset that the world is the way that it is, but it is the way that it is. And frustration over that will only result in your own personal suffering over the whole thing. You're not going to get to change other people's behaviors. All you can do is change your own. So to the extent that you're dismayed by the fact that everybody's face planted in their phones, the only thing that you can do is be the instigator of that change and how it relates

to your own personal relationships, right? So be the one who goes up to your friend and says, "'Hey, let's go for a walk,' or, "'Why don't we go on a hike?' Or, "'Let's go on a bike ride, or let me meet you for a socially distanced coffee or whatever it is, like just to make those adjustments yourself

and take responsibility so that your own life is infused with the personal interactions that you're seeking and perhaps missing right now, but to let go of how other people are behaving and being upset about that, right? Yeah. Because that will just foment your frustration. The second thing that I would say is that you

want to be like Eric Clapton and not like the guy who's still hanging on to the heavy metal hairband that he was in in the 80s. Let me explain. What I mean by that is to the extent that you're 52 and feeling like a dinosaur, embrace the fact that you're 52, right? Yeah. When we see Eric Clapton show up later in his career, he's well-appointed, wearing an Armani suit,

looking very nice, still rocking it out, but comfortable with the fact that he's growing older and not trying to hang on to some, you know, 20-something version of who you are with the receding hairline, but still, you know, trying to look the part, right? There's something more dignified about embracing the truth of where you're at rather than trying to pretend like you're, you know, going to be a TikTok star. You know what I mean? Just, you're saying bring a newspaper to the set and when everyone's on the phone, like ripple it, fold it up. Yeah. That actually would be cool. Right. That would be kind of funny. A little protest with the riffling of the paper.

Yeah, I mean, I think the point that I'm making is like, you don't put the pressure on yourself that you have to keep pace with every new trend or iteration of technology that's happening. You wanna be current so that you can maintain your relationships and have some sense of what's going on. Like you don't wanna be completely checked out.

But at 52, you don't have to be on top of all that stuff. Right? No, but you're also not a dinosaur just because you're not addicted to your phone. As a 54 year old, I take personal offense at that. But I mean, I think that like, it's cool to have standards that you think people should interact in a more healthy, kind of less tech connected way.

I think that's okay. Sure. And to feel that way and to model that behavior is cool. Like in a way it's like, it's cooler to model the behavior. Right. You don't actually have to engage and try to change anybody, but to model it, especially on a set or something like that,

I think that could actually work very well for you. Yeah, be the one who sets the tone for everybody else. And to your point about eroding attention spans, like I don't know that that's really true. We like to throw that around. Nobody has any attention span for anything anymore, but this podcast is a counterpoint to that idea. And perhaps the eroded attention span

is more myth propagated by media outlets than truth itself. I do think people look at their phones to fill space though. Like, you know what I mean? Like when nothing else is going on for like comfort, like a binky, like, you know. That doesn't mean that they're not capable of having a long conversation with somebody in an interesting way.

Right. So just because someone's looking at their phone doesn't mean you can't say, excuse me, and start a conversation. Right. They're waiting for you to model that behavior. They're waiting for you, Adrian. And all of your wise 52 years, Eric Clapton style.

Yeah, thanks for that question, man. All right. I just IMDB'd you, by the way. Oh, you did? I did. Is he in a bunch of movies? Yeah, he's in some stuff. Oh, cool.

All right, let's go to Australia. Hi, Adam and Rich. This is Daniel calling from the Mornington Peninsula, which is a little over an hour outside of Melbourne, Australia. First of all, shout out to the evil YouTube algorithm, because without it, I never would have discovered your work, Rich, and it's been pretty life-changing and transformative for me. Anyway, my question is, my wife and I have been long-time vegetarians and we're currently slowly transitioning to a fully plant-based diet. And we have two young children, a daughter who's a little under three years old and a son who's about four months old.

And we're grappling with how and whether to raise them as fully plant-based, particularly struggling with the societal pressures and peer pressure that they're likely to sort of face growing up, based on the decision that we're sort of face growing up based on the decision that, you know, we're sort of forcing it on them. And I know that I think your whole family, which is vegan, and yeah, just after some advice around your thoughts around that, how you deal with it, what's the best path you think for us moving forward. But anyway, keep up the great work from the other side of the world, guys. Peace out. Thank you for your question, Daniel. I mean, I think the best course of action for you

is what feels right for you. You know, it's not for me to tell you how you should parent your children. I think you need to follow your own intuition and instincts about that. But I think that, first of all, say, you can certainly raise children to be healthy on a plant-based diet.

And the idea that you can't has been thoroughly debunked. So you should feel confident that if that feels right to you, that you are well-supported in that regard. And that doesn't mean that society has necessarily caught up with that idea. And I understand and appreciate the social pressures that get packed into that and perhaps the judgment that you might have to weather. But I would advise you against future tripping, like this idea, well, if I do this, then in the future at some point,

they will be judged by their classmates or their peers. Like that's not the reality that you're living in right now. What you're doing right now is just trying to feed them the healthiest food so that they can be healthy. The other notion that I'd like to challenge you on is this idea that you're forcing it on them. I mean, you're feeding your children food.

Are you forcing an ideology on them? Is that any different from you're forcing them to live in the house that they live in or to have any other ideas that you feel strongly about? And that's part of what parenting is. I don't think the word forcing is the right word. It's more like this is the environment in which we've decided to raise our children.

Did you growing, raising the kids, did you have moments where they strayed or they were out of the house and had something or like that? All the time. Yeah. All the time. And there's nothing wrong with that, right? Yeah, I mean, our approach with our kids is we raise them plant-based,

but when they became old enough where they could make decisions for themselves, we never policed those decisions. Like our idea was we're going to have super healthy food in the house. We're going to cook really delicious meals for the kids. And when they go over to their friend's house, I'm not going to tell them you can't eat this or that. We just try to educate them as best as we possibly can about what's in their best interest. And then the choices they make are up to them. And if they go to a friend's house and eat cake or pizza or whatever and come back and we say,

what did you eat? And they tell us, I'm not going to judge them either and make them feel bad about that. But we'll have a conversation like, oh, how'd you feel after you ate that? Like, do you feel a little bit of a stomach ache or, oh, I liked it or whatever. I think the kind of forcing aspect of this comes into play when you make them feel bad about themselves because they've made a certain choice as a young person.

So we don't do that. And I think that has worked out pretty well for us, but each one of our kids has had their own journey with all of this. And they've got to make their own decisions for themselves. So your job as a parent is to provide the guideposts to that and educate them to the best of your ability, but also not get caught up in the small things. It's not about whether they ate some candy or whatever it was at their friend's house. It's about what their habits look like

10, 15, 20 years down the line. Like, do they have a healthy relationship with food? Do they understand the foods that nourish them versus the foods that lead them towards chronic illness? Those are the important factors. And I feel like that's what your responsibility is as a parent. So no future tripping, no guilt tripping,

but take a broad view and a long-term view. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think there's a little fear that I'm inferring in this question from maybe how they're sort of friends and community might be perceiving this. Melbourne, so it's like an hour outside of city. So maybe in Australia, it's not as,

there's plenty of plant-based food in Australia, obviously, but it's not necessarily here in like Southern California to the same level of acceptance. So maybe some of that's there, I don't know. But like, who's the great, who's the runner in Louisiana? Joshua Delgiani. He's like, you know, he lives in the runner in Louisiana? Joshua Delgiani. He's like, he lives in the country in Louisiana or whatever. And he's like, any grocery store in the world,

you can do it. So he knows. Well, I think also when you know as a new parent, when you have children that are months old or just a couple of years old, like it's a very fragile situation. And you're so tuned into like wanting to make the right decision for them

and you feel that responsibility, right? And the last thing you wanna do is feed them food that's gonna harm them or deprive them of food that's gonna harm them. So I'm empathetic to what Daniel is considering right now. It's like, oh, if I don't feed them animals, everyone's telling me I should. These other people are saying it's healthy,

but do I really know? Like, you don't wanna make a mistake, right? So I get that. I can promise you that you can raise children healthy on a plant-based diet. There's lots of resources out there that if you email me directly, I'm happy to share with you.

But I think you should feel confident in that regard. But if you're questioning that, I think that's normal as well. And you've really gotta just trust your gut. Literally. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, thanks Daniel. All right, let's go to Germany.

Hello Rich, hello Adam. This is Carlos Franco. I am a 42-year-old Colombian, but I'm living in Germany for almost 16 years now. Rich, I want to thank you. You have been such an inspiration ever since I read Timing Ultra in 2017. I've been kind of stalking you since then,

so thank you very much for putting amazing content out there. My question is for you guys, Rich and Adam. How do you guys keep being excellent fathers and husbands, spend quality time with your family, and still thrive on your passion and career? Sometimes I feel that I can't balance both things, which are crucial for me as a father of three. So guys, appreciate for any thoughts on that. Take care. Bye. It's a pretty common dilemma. Yeah.

I think, Carlos, first of all, thank you for your question. This is something that a lot of people can relate to. Yes. You know, I have a lot of strong opinions about this idea of balance and this rubric that we're supposed to adhere to where on a daily basis, everything is perfectly ordered where we're apportioning our attention and our energy in equal parts to everything that is important to us.

And I think when we measure ourselves against that standard, we're always gonna feel that we're falling short and we're not gonna be able to live up to that expectation. And as somebody who is prone to the extremes and used to browbeat myself for being unable to come anywhere near that type of approximation. I used to feel bad about it. I had like shame and guilt around that and embarrassment.

Like, why can't I just be normal? And I, at some point, reached a breaking point with all of this and just let it all go and realized that I need to be who I am. And that is somebody who gravitates towards periods of extreme focus on singular pursuits, whether that's training for a race or competing in a race or writing a book or and drop my, you know, plop myself into some other world that can literally, you know, monopolize my focus for a set period of time. In the long run, it makes me a better father, a better partner, a better professional, a better human being, because I'm just designed for that, right? And if I deprive myself of those types of experiences,

then I feel like I'm somebody who's got one foot in the door and one foot out the door all the time, and I'm never fully present with what I'm doing. This is something that came up with Laird Hamilton when I had him on the podcast the other day, and that episode's going up soon. But he needs to go on his thing, go to these places and surf these waves. And by being in a partnership where Gabby not only permits him to do that, but encourages that, like that's their deal, he's able to be the father that he's capable of being, right?

Like it makes him a better father. And I believe that. And I think that that's important. So when I think about balance, I don't think about it in the micro, I think about it in the macro, right? This pendulum that swings between extremes that vary wherein a daily kind of drop in, it'll look like things are very much out of balance, but in the macro, you realize that all of these things ultimately apportion out the way that they're meant to. So I don't know the specifics of Carlos's life, but it sounds like this might be somewhat relatable to him. And it's been a great comfort to me to

just accept myself for who I am and to make sure that my needs are met in the way that I'm designed. And when I do that, luckily I'm in a partnership with Julie where she understands that and I do the same for her. Like we have independence within our marriage and our relationship where we give each other wide birth to have those explorations. And then we can come together and be better parents as a result and be more present with the other aspects of our life

that are of course of critical importance. But when you're in town and you're around, does that translate into like, the Barack Obama book is out now and he's been talking about how like the one thing was having dinner every night at 6.30. I mean, do you have like kind of those stop gaps in place to make sure that you have time to engage?

Because it could be- Yeah, I mean, you have to create certain boundaries, back to healthy boundaries, right? Boundaries around how you spend your time so that you're mindful of making sure that you don't let unnecessary trivialities trickle into what should be carved out as quality time with your kids, for example,

or eating dinner. Like we're all quarantined at home. We eat dinner together. We're sick of each other. That's different. So it's a little bit different right now, but I'm feeling like I need to go. Not because I don't love my family and my kids, but I'm feeling that itch. I need to engage in an adventure just to be me. You know what I mean? And Julie gets that. She's like, plan something engage in an adventure just to be me, you know what I mean? And Julie gets that, she's like, plan something, figure it out, whatever. She's not like, you can't leave,

you gotta stay here and be here, it's not about that. I'm in a little different place in my family right now. I'm still trying to figure that out. I don't think I'm allowed to leave just yet. Yeah, no, and you shouldn't. So this is where you're all in on like raising an infant, right? And you gotta be 110% present for that, which means other aspects of your life

that would or should require some attention and focus aren't getting the oxygen that perhaps they deserve right now. And it's about making peace with that. Like right now, I'm in this situation with the baby. I'm not gonna be able to do all the work things that ordinarily I would be doing. So by definition, this is out of balance,

but I think it's in perfect balance because that pendulum will swing back when it's appropriate. And it's about releasing whatever anxiety or self-judgment that you have around that. And to be quite honest, I'm already back at work and I'm able to do the work that I need.

The only thing different is I wouldn't go out in the field and do like a big mega reporting trip right now, but like that's not even happening. Right. So it's kind of, I'm- Nobody's doing that right now. Some people are.

Some people are. Yeah. But I'm here with you, Rich. But that will come. I'm here Nobody's doing that right now. Some people are. Some people are. Yeah. But, you know, I'm here with you, Rich. But that will come. I'm here with you. You get to do this instead, right? Sorry about that. No, I like it.

All right, let's wrap it up. I think we're done for today. We're done, man. Yeah. We keep thinking that this is gonna come in at like an hour. When you sent me your note, I did not think- The persistence of that delusion.

We cut the outline in half. We cut out a lot of stuff. We're gonna talk about- That was a lot. Yeah. All right. Well, I feel good. Feels good, man.

Feels good, man. Feels good, man. Yeah. All right. I'm gonna go pee with my pants down. All right. You could follow. Now, maybe you don't wanna follow Adam on social media.

No, that's not on there. Adam Skolnick, I'm at Rich Roll. Leave us a message, a voicemail if you want your question answered or considered, 424-235-4626. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify. Check the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com for links to everything we talked about today.

What else? That's it. Let's thank everybody who helped put on today's show. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes, and interstitial music. Blake Curtis for videoing today's show and editing it. Jessica Miranda for graphics. No portraits.

We got no pictures from today. I know, and I put on a nice shirt and everything. That's all right. Georgia Whaley for copywriting. DK for advertiser relationships and theme music by Tyler Trapper and everything. That's all right. Georgia Whaley for copywriting, DK for advertiser, Relationships and Theme Music by Tyler Trapper and Hari. Appreciate you, man. Thank you for doing this with me.

Feels good, man. Feels good, man. See you back here shortly. Peace. Peace. Happy Thanksgiving, y'all. Thank you.